If Memory Serves

by Vanessa Davis Griggs

“Polly was there when you and I were on the phone,” Richard said to Lena. “It was just when I would have been trying to figure out how to find the hospital. I would have had to call one of my golfing buddies—”

  “And that’s when I volunteered to bring him myself. I know how difficult it can be for folks from out of town to find certain places and the like. Since I was coming here anyway, it didn’t make sense for us to drive separate vehicles. Plus, this way was easier on him.”

  “Well, we thank you for that,” Lena said. “Memory’s going to stay here with Grandmother tonight while I go home and rest up. Then I’ll come back and relieve her in the morning.”

  “I’m going to peep in on her. If she’s awake, I’ll speak for a few minutes just to let her know I was here,” Polly said. “I imagine you all must be exhausted and anxious to get home. I won’t be long.”

  “Take your time,” Memory said as she watched Polly sashay inside.

  After she was in Sarah’s room, Lena turned to Memory. “Well, now, she seems nice enough.”

  “Yes, she does,” Richard said, nodding his head in agreement.

  Memory stared at the door without making a comment one way or the other. “Uh-huh,” she finally said as she continued to stare at the closed door. “Yeah. Right.”

  Chapter 21

  Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with Him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings.

  Isaiah 3:10

  Driving her own car, Sapphire followed Charity home. After they were inside and sitting on the couch in the den, Charity reached in her purse and pulled out the stenographer’s notebook. She stared at it. Holding her head up, she looked at Sapphire.

  “Will you read it first, and if you believe, as Dr. Holden did, that I’ll be all right when I read it, then I will.” Charity held the notebook out to Sapphire.

  “Sure,” Sapphire said as she reached over and took it out of Charity’s hand. Sapphire opened it up and instantly saw all the doodling and scribbles.

  “You have to go more toward the back to find where actual words are written,” Charity said. “At least, that’s what Dr. Holden told me.”

  Sapphire turned a lot of pages before reaching a page that had readable writing. After she read it, she held her breath for a few seconds, then exhaled slowly as she looked over at Charity. “I’m not going to lie to you. There may be a few troubling things here; I can’t know for certain. But I do agree with Dr. Holden. I don’t believe it will hurt the progress you’ve made. And there’s no denying you have made tremendous progress.”

  “I guess you’re right if you call Hope and Faith leaving me as separate personalities progress. I just know I don’t ever want to revert back to where I was before. It’s been nice living life without having to wonder what might have taken place during missing clumps of time. That’s all gone now. Or at least it seems that way.”

  Sapphire moved a little closer to Charity. She handed her the opened notebook. “I’m here, and however you deal with this when you read it, I promise I’ll be right here for as long as you need me to help you work through this.”

  Charity glanced at Sapphire. “Well, here goes nothing.”

  She began to read. As she turned the pages, tears began to flow down her face. Sapphire looked for some tissue. She got up in search of the bathroom. When she returned, she handed Charity a box of pink tissues. Charity pulled out a few and began gently dabbing her tears as she looked at Sapphire.

  “It was my fault,” Charity said, almost whispering it. “It was all my fault.”

  “What was?” Sapphire asked. What am I missing? She’d read what was there.

  Motherphelia was outside working in her flower garden. Outside of family, flowers and working in her garden was her only other passion. She’d come into the house when Charity ran outside to get her. Motherphelia had thrown down her hoe and came rushing in. She’d heard the urgency in Charity’s voice. Yelling at Mr. Lucious, she told him to leave. Demanded he leave. Everyone called the elderly man Mr. Lucious, including Motherphelia. Mother begged Motherphelia not to do it . . . to give him just one more chance. Where would he go? He had no place else; he had no one but us. Still, Motherphelia did it. She told him he had to go, and he would—one way or another. “No more chances. Three strikes and you’re out!” she said. “The nerve of you! I want you out of this house now!”

  Mr. Lucious stumbled as he made his way to the door. Then he stopped. Turning around, he raised his shirt and pulled out a gun tucked in the band of his pants. He threatened everybody, talking all out of his head. But Motherphelia meant business. She didn’t back down. Coming closer, she told him to leave before he’d really be sorry. “And don’t you ever step foot back inside this house again! I mean it, Lucious,” she said.

  After that day, he never did.

  Motherphelia loved him, that much I’m sure. Who could resist his smile and infectious laugh? But nothing could rival with her love for Charity. And that day, she proved there was nothing she wouldn’t do when it came to her greatest love—Charity.

  “Charity, is there something you’re remembering that’s not written there?” Sapphire swiftly kneeled down on the floor in front of Charity and grabbed both of her hands in hers. “Charity, talk to me. Do you recall what happened that day?”

  Charity slowly began to nod. “The gun. I’d forgotten about the gun. Mr. Lucious pulled it out and started waving it around, pointing it at everyone. He was so drunk. He shouldn’t have been drinking. Mother told him as much. Motherphelia claimed that demon juice made a perfectly good man smack crazy. He wasn’t supposed to drink at all—that was the agreement. He didn’t mean to. I guess he just couldn’t help himself.”

  “Charity, who was Mr. Lucious?”

  “Mother and Motherphelia called him Mr. Lucious, with the exception of that day Motherphelia lost it and merely called him Lucious. That’s what they taught me to call him. Oh God!” Charity began to cry out as she bent forward and gently rocked. “Please help me. I can’t do this. I can’t handle this. Faith can. I thought I could, but I can’t.”

  “Charity, stay with me now. We’re getting there. I want you to take a deep breath and tell me what you remember that’s not written here.” She continued holding on to one of Charity’s hands as she raised the notebook up with her other one. “What’s not in here?”

  Charity pulled her hand out of Sapphire’s and fell back against the couch as she continued to cry. “Mr. Lucious had visited before in the past. But he showed up at our door one day, and against Motherphelia’s objection, Mother allowed him to move into a makeshift bedroom. He’d lived there for months now, but on this day, he got real drunk. ‘Drunker than a skunk,’ Motherphelia said. The agreement was, he could stay as long as he didn’t drink. He was normally quiet and reserved, but alcohol seemed to unleash demons in him.”

  Charity sat up straight. “I would overhear my mother remind him of that when she smelled liquor on his breath. Whispering it at times . . . taking him off to a private area to talk, she’d tell him he had to stop before he got caught. Mother tried her best to keep it hidden from Motherphelia. She made him drink lots of coffee and use mouthwash to mask the smell. Still, I’d see him, several times, sneak swallows from a bottle he kept under the couch that remained full no matter how much he drained it. The way that bottle kept mysteriously refilling itself made me believe it was a magic bottle or something.”

  Charity slowly closed her eyes, then opened them. “But Mr. Lucious was so nice to me, even when he drank. He would tickle me or do something to make me laugh. Every day, without fail, he played this one record he absolutely loved. ‘The Dock of the Bay,’ by Otis Redding. And every day, he would give me either a silver- or half-dollar. When my mother discovered he was secretly giving me money, she told me those coins might be worth a lot later, so I should give them to her for safekeeping.”

  “Charity, why was he giving you money every day?”

  Charity looked at her and started shaking h
er head as the tears rolled down her face. She bowed her head, and the tears began to fall into her lap, plummeting on her folded hands like drops of rain hitting dirt-dry ground before finally being soaked up.

  “Charity . . . Did Mr. Lucious sexually molest you?” She waited a few seconds. “Charity, talk to me. Did Mr. Lucious molest you? Look at me. Charity, look at me.”

  Charity forced herself to look at Sapphire.

  Sapphire spoke deliberately and forcefully. “Did Mr. Lucious sexually molest you?”

  “No. He did not,” Charity said as she began to make successive heaving sounds.

  “Then I don’t understand. What happened that affected you the way it did? What happened that caused you to need separate personalities? What created Faith and Hope?”

  Charity began to cry out loud. “Don’t you get it, Sapphire? I loved Mr. Lucious. I . . . loved him! Mr. Lucious was Motherphelia’s husband—my father’s father. Mr. Lucious was my grandfather, and I adored him! Motherphelia never would have come in the house right then had I not gone outside and gotten her. My mother told me to go to my room and play. But instead, I ran as fast as I could and got her. I made her come inside. Had I not, then maybe, just maybe, nobody would have gotten hurt and things would be different today.” She looked at Sapphire as she tilted her head. “You see? It was my fault. All of it. A chain of horrible events happened because of things I did. Me.”

  Sapphire sat on the couch and put her arm around Charity to stop her now-incessant shaking. “You’re doing fine, Charity. It’s okay. I’m here.” Sapphire looked toward Heaven. “God, please help her,” she whispered. “Please, Jesus. We need You.”

  Sapphire was painfully aware that this was surely only the beginning of even more revelations to come.

  Chapter 22

  For thus saith the Lord, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.

  Isaiah 52:3

  “Charity, take your time and tell me everything you remember. It’s going to be okay. You’re doing fine,” Sapphire said.

  Charity stood and started pacing around the room. “From all I can recall, I’d never met my grandfather before that year when I was seven. That’s when he started coming to the house. I gathered he’d left my grandmother a few years into their marriage. But after this tall, white-haired man showed up, my world as I’d known it flipped. Up was down, and down was up. Motherphelia wasn’t her usual jovial self. In the beginning, the two of them argued violently, so naturally I didn’t care for him much. Before he came, I’d never even heard Motherphelia raise her voice, let alone lose her temper. She was mild-mannered . . . queenly. After he moved in, there was Motherphelia singing, dancing, smiling, and cooking for him like they’d never exchanged a cross word between them.”

  Charity looked at the palm of her hand as though it was her first time ever seeing it. She went and sat back down. “When he wasn’t drinking, he was all you’d imagine a grandfather to be. He’d let me climb up in his lap, and he would make up some silly song while bouncing me on his knee. He loved to tickle me, although Motherphelia didn’t like him doing that. In fact, if she saw him starting up, she’d shut him down. There were times when he would drink, and you could smell it on his breath. If Motherphelia felt he’d taken only a few swigs, and I was anywhere in the vicinity, she would make me go to my room. I was sent to my room a lot following his arrival. When she’d give the okay for me to come back out, he’d either be gone or locked away in his room.”

  Sapphire sat quietly, patiently allowing Charity to tell her story at her own pace. Occasionally, she’d nod or smile, but she kept her eyes completely fixed on Charity.

  “Then there was that fateful day—the day he got so drunk, he continued to drink right there in the den without even bothering to hide it. He patted his leg, his signal for me to come and sit in his lap. Trying not to be disrespectful or rude, I shook my head. He got up and started to chase after me. When he caught me, he commenced with his normal tickling ritual. I don’t know if he did it on purpose or if it was because he was drunk, but he put his hand in the wrong place a few times. My mother came over and began talking nice to him. Smacking his lips, he looked at her the way he looked at smothered pork chops. He turned on ‘The Dock of the Bay,’ grinned, then tried dancing with her.”

  Charity rubbed her forehead a few times. “My mother was trying to keep things hushed. Telling him he needed to ‘Go sleep it off’ before Motherphelia came in and caught him. At one point, he pushed her up against the wall and started trying to kiss her as he groped her. Remaining calm, my mother told him he didn’t really want to do that. That he would be put out of the house for sure if he didn’t stop all his drunkard nonsense. But he kept on.” Hands in a prayerlike position, Charity pressed them up against her lips.

  “I then heard the trembling . . . the fear in her voice. That’s when I ran outside to get Motherphelia despite my mother’s demand that I go to my room now. Motherphelia would make him stop. She was working in her flower garden, flowery garden gloves on, a garden hoe in hand. I told Motherphelia that Mr. Lucious was hurting my mother. As soon as she heard, she threw down that hoe and made her way to the house, peeling off her gloves as she hurried inside. I now fully understand how she must have felt walking inside and finding her husband all over my mother. He was so drunk, it looked like he’d fallen asleep standing there against her. My mother was struggling to push him off of her, but he was too large. Motherphelia, who was nearly as big, yanked him by his shirt and flung him off, causing him to stumble and fall. He laughed. That’s when she told him he had to leave. She didn’t put up with his mess when they were together years ago, and no matter how much she still loved him, she wasn’t about to put up with it now. And she did love him; you could see it in her eyes. Sober, he was charming and irresistible. Mother pleaded with Motherphelia not to put him out on the streets again. He wasn’t well. He was too old to be out there fending alone. Phelia, regardless, he’s still family,’ Mother said.”

  Charity stood. She took her hands and pulled her hair back taut, then let it go. “My mother assured my grandmother that he would quit drinking. Now that he was seeing the consequences of his actions, he would surely straighten up this time. ‘Just give him one more chance,’ Mother begged. Motherphelia said it wasn’t so much his drinking she couldn’t stomach, but who he became when he drank. She called it a stronghold and told my grandfather he’d have to find Jesus to be delivered. He laughed and said if Jesus was lost, how was He possibly going to be able to help him even if he did find Him?

  “Well, that infuriated Motherphelia. She yelled for him to get out. He told her he needed to get a few of his things . . . that he’d come back later for the rest. Walking to his room, he came back in minutes, empty handed. He walked to the front door, then turned around. That’s when he pulled out the gun and started waving it and pointing it in a drunken stupor. Motherphelia looked at me and softly told me to go to my room. For some reason, I just stood there like she hadn’t said a word to me. Motherphelia and Mr. Lucious continued. He grabbed me, and that was it.” Charity began to sob out loud.

  “He placed the side of the gun against my face. I should have gone to my room like Motherphelia told me, but I hadn’t. I just had to see what was going on. I wanted to tell him good-bye. He’d given me half-dollars and silver dollars. He’d played endlessly with me during those six months he’d been there. Truthfully, I didn’t want him to leave. I didn’t. My daddy was gone, and he’d made me feel like I was a little princess or someone equally as special.” Charity grabbed more tissues and gently dabbed at her tears.

  “What happened next, Charity?” Sapphire stood and touched Charity’s hand. No more just her therapist, she was now a caring friend.

  “He staggered as he held his arm around my neck, warning us not to do anything stupid. He said he didn’t have anywhere else to go, and he had no plans to leave anytime soon. My mother started crying, but Motherphelia kept her cool. She continued talking
to him while calmly telling him to let me go. She reached out for me. He started to push me forward, then quickly snatched me back. I don’t know why, but that’s when I decided to fight him—a seven-year-old attempting to fight a grown man. I wanted him to let me go. Motherphelia yelled for me to stop and to just be still, but I was determined to get away. I bit his hand. He yelled out as he released his grip. I ran in the direction of Motherphelia. He cursed, and the next thing I knew Motherphelia was shoving me hard to the floor just as I heard a firecrackerlike noise. Motherphelia fell.” Charity let out a pained cry. “I thought she’d slipped when she shoved me. But, she was so still . . . lying there . . . her hand pressed against her stomach. She wasn’t moving.”

  Sapphire hugged her. “You’re doing great, Charity. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

  Charity gently pushed her away. “No, it’s not! It’s not okay! There was blood . . . soaking through her top. Don’t you see, Sapphire? Motherphelia got shot because of me!” Charity wiped her nose. “Me! I flipped when I saw the blood. Mother screamed out her name. Motherphelia tried to move. She started mumbling that everything was going to be all right. My grandfather must have sobered up enough to realize what had just happened, because he dropped the gun and rushed over to her. ‘Phil,’ he said, short for Ophelia. ‘I’m sorry.’ Then he panicked. It appeared he was debating whether or not he should try and pick her up. ‘Get away from her,’ I yelled. ‘Leave her alone!’ Motherphelia tried to take control of the situation, but she was so weak.” Charity paused and stared into space.

  “I saw him glance over at the gun,” Charity said, continuing. “I wasn’t sure what he was planning to do next. He must have seen me look at it. Something suddenly rose up in me. We raced for it. I got there first. I was only trying to protect Motherphelia. There was a struggle as he tried to wrestle it away from me. I really was no match for him, even in his drunken state. The gun fired. My mother screamed. He fell to the floor.”