At the Risk of Forgetting

by A. M. Wilson

  Seeing it, feeling it, knowing he made no move out of anger to hurt me, I still nearly jumped out of my skin. “No. I never went to Maine,” I rasped through a dry throat.

  Law’s eyes turned distrustful. I didn’t blame him. But out of all the pain I’d caused, that lie was not mine. I never pretended I’d moved to Maine, never asked anyone to spread that rumor. It appeared his father had his own agenda and did whatever he could to make sure Law moved on from me.

  I couldn’t blame him, either. If it put a damper on the pain his son felt every day, I should be somewhat grateful.

  Should be, but wasn’t.

  “You’ve been here the entire time, haven’t you?” he stated flatly. Even the question didn’t lilt at the end, his voice dead and resigned.

  I didn’t want to answer, but I didn’t want to lie to him anymore. “Yes.”

  The silence spread between us. A breeze blew briskly against my cheek, but I hardly registered the chill. Our eyes were locked on one another in a stare I thought would go on forever.

  Until I broke it.

  “I know this means nothing to you now, but if I could somehow show you how sorry I am, I would. I did the best I could with what I had, and this is how my life turned out. I think it’s great you’ve been visiting Ritchie all this time. I know it’d have meant a lot to him, too. Look,” I ran my fingers through my hair, frustrated because he seemed to be ignoring me again. “You need time and I do too. I should get going. But if you come back in a few weeks and would like to get coffee and catch up, I’d be open to that.”

  “Where are you off to?”

  His selective hearing was really starting to mess with my don’t get riled up attitude. In the spirit of being civil, I answered him vaguely. “I have plans.”

  “It’s her birthday,” he stated, as if he knew her and hadn’t only heard about her three days ago.

  I breathed through my nose. “Yes.”

  A look of contemplation crossed his face. “You know it’s–ˮ

  “I know.” I cut him off and smiled sadly. “I never forgot. I’m reminded every year.”

  Law only nodded before turning back to Ritchie’s grave.

  That seemed like an obvious cue to go, so I started for the parking lot. This time, he didn’t stop me.

  “Happy birthday, Law,” I said, hurting that for the first time since his sixteenth birthday, I spoke those words within his hearing range.

  “Thanks,” he muttered somberly, and I wondered if he was feeling the same.

  As I drove away, I remembered I didn’t give him a way to contact me. That knowledge hurt. More than it should after all this time. Even more evidence that it was best he didn’t come looking for me. We didn’t need to reconnect. What would that solve? He’s probably changed a lot over the years, and I had a daughter...

  It was safer to leave the past behind us and continue with our separate futures.

  “Happy birthday to you...” Kiersten and I sang to Evelyn. Our trio celebrated in our traditional fashion, the three of us in my modest ranch-style home, the favorite meal of the birthday girl having been devoured, and a few candles stuck into a cheesecake sampler.

  This year, Evelyn acted more embarrassed than usual and covered her face while groaning, “Mom!”

  Kiersten and I harmonized the last few notes, then kissed the birthday girl on each cheek.

  “Blow out the candles, baby.”

  She rolled her eyes, but the smile on her face couldn’t hide her happiness. As she’d done every year since she turned four, Evelyn closed her eyes to make a wish and blew out her fourteen candles.

  Each year I’ve wondered what she wished for, and each year she’d look at me with a slight smile and refuse to share. Some kids pretend. The wish-making falls into the category of the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, and they blow out the candles to appease their parents when all they want to do is dig into the sweet yummy goodness in front of them.

  Not my Evelyn. She might not believe in those made-up characters anymore, but she still believed in the power of wishes and prayers.

  She opened her eyes and exclaimed, “Let’s eat cake!”

  But my own smile slipped at what I saw.

  Those eyes. That smile. Memories came flooding through the gates I’d locked and closed over a decade ago. Law’s sudden return was messing with my head.

  “You okay?” Kiersten leant in and asked quietly while Evelyn grabbed the plates and scooped out her slice of triple chocolate cheesecake.

  “Hmm? Oh. I’m fine,” I chuckled. “Memories, you know? I just can’t believe how old she’s getting.”

  She cocked her head but didn’t say a thing. Her perceptiveness could be useful, but right now, I was praying she didn’t question my odd behavior.

  After dishing our plates, we moved to the sofa and Evelyn clicked on the TV. “What should we watch?”

  I dug into my own slice of turtle cheesecake. “You pick, birthday girl.”

  Evelyn leaned forward to set down her plate and search. By doing so, I could clearly see Kiersten on the other side of her studying me.

  What? I mouthed, furrowing my brow.

  What’s up with you? She mouthed back, jabbing her fork in my direction. I cut my eyes to Evelyn to find her still flipping through movies.

  Nothing. As I shoveled another forkful of cake into my mouth, I turned back to the TV. I smiled. Evelyn was at that tricky age between kid and adult. Her tastes had changed drastically over the past couple months, and she was trying so hard to fit in with her mom and aunt. She was currently browsing movies a little bit (a lot) above her comprehension and maturity.

  I opened my mouth to respond, but was cut off when something hard pelted the side of my temple. My back straightened, and I snapped my gaze back to Kiersten. I skimmed the couch cushion with my hand, all while glaring, and came up with the weapon. A chocolate chip.

  Are you kidding me?

  We are talking later.

  No, we are not, I mouthed back.

  Kiersten looked about ready to respond, but a knock on the door had all our heads swiveling that way.

  “Who could that be?” Evelyn asked, and my heart fell. She knew her only family was sitting in that room with her. In fourteen years, we hadn’t had any visitors and door-to-door sales were rare around here. It hurt, as a parent, that my baby couldn’t expect anyone else to shower her in affection on her special day.

  “Find a show, baby. I’ll get it.”

  I shot one last glare at Kiersten, but her attention was focused out the window to the front yard.

  I reached the door and my heart leapt into my throat. I’d lived a long time waiting, hoping, and being disappointed that nobody came looking for me. Pretending I was fine and that I’d put that life behind me. This was just another reminder of all those stupid daydreams that never came true. But as I clasped the door handle, I stupidly couldn’t help myself from hoping.

  And being disappointed.

  There was nobody there, and the air rushed from my lungs. Beside the door was a bouquet of helium balloons tied to a weight wrapped in metallic purple paper. Next to the weight was a rectangle box wrapped to match—a gift. On top laid a card.

  I checked behind me to make sure the girls hadn’t followed me to the door then bent down to retrieve the card. Unaddressed and unsealed. I scanned the street before me, but there was nobody there. No one walking down the sidewalk, no cars parked along the side of the road.

  The hairs still stood up on my neck. Only one person could have brought this, and that raised the question of how did he know where I lived?

  This was becoming too much.

  What was I supposed to do here? The curious part of me wanted to rip it all open and find out what’s inside. But the cautious mother in me said no way in hell was a stranger going to give my daughter a birthday gift without me knowing what it was first. Because let’s be honest; Law was a stranger. I might have known him all those years ago, but he’s the same person he used
to be.

  Yet, another part of me was screaming, “This is Law!”

  Law. The boy who held my hand at my dad’s funeral and then begged his parents to let me sleep over so I didn’t have to feel alone.

  The boy who let me cry on his shoulder when I got sad and didn’t tease me for being a baby, even if I was being one.

  The boy who stole my first kiss without my permission, because he knew, even if I was stubborn and wouldn’t admit it, that I wanted him to.

  The boy who proudly made me a necklace for my fifteenth birthday, because he knew I’d appreciate something he made much more than something he’d bought with his parent’s money.

  The boy who’d taken on driving my brother to chemo as soon as he’d got his license, because I had to work after school to make money for my family.

  And the boy who’d looked for me after I’d disappeared. Who, to this day, couldn’t hide the pain and rage of having to do so and coming up empty handed. Who, I was fairly certain, hated every ounce of me and yet, still dropped a gift for my baby on my doorstep.

  Law was a lot of things, most of them I didn’t know anymore. Too much time had passed. But he’s not cruel or malicious. He’d never leave something at my house that would endanger my daughter. To the bottom of my soul, I believed that.

  With that thought, I scanned the inside of the card, confirming my suspicions when I found his signature, ignored the way my heart picked up at his familiar handwriting, and gathered the rest of the items from the porch and carried them inside. The door shut with a soft thud behind me. Two sets of curious, yet guilty, eyes followed me from the foyer down the hall to the living room while helium balloons bounced off my head.

  “Hey, snoops.” I leveled them both with a glare of motherly disapproval. “You’ve got another gift, Ev.”

  “Who’s it from?” Suspicion laced her tone, but a gleam of excitement lit her eyes.

  I both hated and loved Law for putting it there.

  No, not love. That word was too heavy for anything I could allow myself to feel for that man. Appreciate was a better description for what I felt.

  I let myself smile, even though I wanted to frown, and told her, “An old friend.” Kiersten’s glare burned into the back of my head.

  Evelyn cocked her head and reached out her hands. “I thought you didn’t have any friends.”

  I handed her the gift box and card and deposited the balloons beside the couch. “I have your Aunt Kiersten. She’s my friend.”

  “I meant other friends.”

  She was not wrong, and I wanted to curse Law for putting me in that position. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this friend. He came through town, and we ran into each other.”

  “So why would he get me a gift?” She started to read the card, so I used that time to think of a response that made sense. Unfortunately, there were none. And I hated lying to my girl.

  “Honestly, I don’t know. We used to be really close friends.”

  “I can see that,” Evelyn said, her voice sounding funny.

  “What did you say?”

  Evelyn lifted her head from the card and reached her hand out to me. There, between her index and thumb, was a 4x6 photograph, and my heart plummeted. It must have stuck to the inside of the card, and I didn’t see it when I opened it outside.

  As if time had slowed, I leaned forward and took the picture from my daughter. I closed my eyes. I tried to steel myself, but I knew deep down that seeing a picture from the past was going to rip open old wounds and make them fresh. There wasn’t a way to hide it, though. The two closest people to me were watching my every move. It killed that the one lie I had ever told either of them was not telling them about my past, and it was now staring me in the face and I had to smile through it. I had to react fondly, because if I didn’t, the walls I’d spent fourteen years building around me would come crashing down, and I’d be ruined.

  So, I opened my eyes.

  And I smiled, even though it felt watery.

  A sob crawled out of my throat, and I quickly forced it into a laugh. I didn’t even have to look at the picture closely to remember that day. I could easily recall where we were, the clothes we wore, and who was around us. Law and I had our arms wrapped loosely around each other in the backyard of his childhood home. My head was thrown back, laughing hysterically, because his fingertips were tickling my ribs. While I laughed, he looked over at me with a jovial grin, his gray/green eyes twinkling.

  I had picked out that yellow sundress with the white cardigan sweater specifically for his sixteenth birthday. He wore a nice pair of gray dress pants with a black button down shirt tucked in and open at the collar. The two of us looked good together. Really good. Back then I would have thought he was too good for me. Now that I can see it through years of maturity, I’d say we looked happy. That’s what really mattered.

  The sound of paper tearing pulled me back to the present. I dropped the photograph to the coffee table and looked at Evelyn just in time to see her pulling a small book out of a white rectangular box.

  “What is it baby?” I rubbed at the base of my neck near my collarbone—a nervous habit.

  She opened to the first page, scanned it, then flipped through the other pages quickly. “It’s a journal. Cool!” she shouted and clutched it to her chest.

  “That’s a thoughtful gift.” I smiled softly.

  “My old notebook is almost filled anyway. You guys go ahead with the movie. I’m going to go write!” And she darted down the hall.

  The moment her bedroom door clicked shut, Kiersten rounded the coffee table and blocked me in. “You’re going to grab a glass of wine, sit your ass down, and tell me what the hell is going on,” she hissed, clearly annoyed but trying to keep her voice down.

  “Make it the bourbon and you’re on.”

  Her face contorted into a grimace. “Seriously?”

  I jammed the palms of my hands into my eye sockets. “I’m not going to get plastered. I just need something a little stronger, and I don’t want to dirty a glass.”

  Her mumbling could be heard all the way to the kitchen. If she thought she was annoyed, she had another thing coming.

  The thunk of the bottle against the table prompted me to raise my head.

  “Now talk. And don’t leave out anything, including that hot hunk of a man who left that gift for Evelyn.”

  I was just swallowing a hefty pull of bourbon at her comment and instead, choked at her words. Tears pricked my eyes. The warm liquid burned and sent me into a coughing fit. “What?” I managed to gasp.

  “Don’t play stupid. You know who I’m talking about!”

  “Not that. I mean, you saw him?”

  Kiersten smirked. “I saw the back of him. It was so fine I can only imagine what the front looks like. What I don’t understand is why aren’t you seeing this guy? Very few men can fill out a pair of jeans like that.... Wait. Are you already dating him? Is that why you’ve been acting so weird?”

  I paused in wiping the remaining tears from my eyes. “No. If you’d just shut your pie-hole, I could tell you the story.”

  After a huff, an eye roll, and her stomping to find a seat on the couch, she snagged the bottle of bourbon from the coffee table, took a long pull, waved said bottle in the air, and replied, “By all means.” If I wasn’t already freaking out about the things I needed to share, I would have laughed at her irritated response. Instead, I gave her some side-eye and proceeded to share with her.

  “You know about,” I paused and glanced down the hall. I lowered my voice. “You know I got pregnant with Evelyn at sixteen and left my hometown. There’s a little more to it than that.”

  “Did you get knocked up by the mayor or something?” she hissed, guessing incorrectly.

  Close. But...

  “No. Jesus, shut up and let me talk.”

  Kiersten held up her hands. “Sorry. Okay, I’m done.” She silenced herself by stealing a drink from the bottle. When she lowered it from her li
ps, I snatched it back and took my own tug.

  “I’m cutting to the chase, since I’m predicting you can’t handle sitting here for the long haul.” Her look said get on with it. So, I did. “I haven’t seen that man in nearly a decade and a half. Prior to that, he was the love of my life. But when it came down to choosing between the life I was living and my unborn baby, I chose Evelyn.”

  “Why did you have to leave? Teens get pregnant all the time. That doesn’t mean they have to leave town.”

  “I couldn’t have stayed with her. My dad died a few years back, my mother was barely alive, practically choosing to straddle the line between life and death. She lost her legs in the accident that took my father, but it was losing him that took her will to live. Ritchie was losing his battle with Leukemia. I was working fulltime after school and on weekends, which I had to do once I left anyway, but once mom died, the disability payments would be gone. Our house was in poor shape. I wouldn’t have been able to fix it, let alone sell it for much, and then where would I have gone? If I had wanted to stay in Logansville, I would have had to terminate the pregnancy.”

  “If all that were true, how did you afford to move and make it on your own as an underage, single mother-to-be? I’m not following.”

  I suddenly felt cold all over. I tucked my hands beneath my arms for warmth and pulled my legs up beneath me. Looking out the window, I tried to grab onto an ounce of heat before it all fled. “In exchange for my silence, I was offered the money to raise Evelyn if I left town.”

  Kiersten gasped. “You were blackmailed? By the father?”

  I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. Blackmail or a new beginning? I couldn’t turn it down in my predicament, and it ended up being the best thing that could have happened to me.”

  She took my hand from where I’d tucked it beneath my arm and pulled it between both of hers. Her face filled with concern. “Sweetie, I know you love your daughter more than anything, but blackmail is criminal. How have you been holding onto that this entire time and never said a thing?”