by Liana Liu
She shakes her head. We gaze at the penciled faces. Then I sigh, then she sighs, then I sigh again. “Are you okay? You look kind of pale,” she says.
“I’m just tired,” I say. And my head is aching.
Wendy perks up. “I forgot to tell you! I gave Raul your phone number.” She beams. She is so pleased with herself.
“Why’d you do that?”
“He asked for it.”
“He didn’t.”
“He did, I swear.” Wendy solemnly places hand over heart. “He said something about how you two were talking about the library and something and he meant to ask you something, and so something. Then he asked me for your number. You know what that means, right?”
“Yeah, it means nothing.” My head is really aching.
“Lora, he’s cute and nice. Don’t be grumpy.”
“I’m not being grumpy,” I say. Although she’s right: I’m being grumpy. Although she’s right: Raul is cute and nice. But I thought Wendy was the one he was interested in. Wendy is the one guys are always interested in.
“Just give him a chance,” she says.
“Can we focus on what’s important? How are we going to figure out who these people are?” I tap the spiral binding of her sketchbook.
“Let’s photocopy the pictures and post them around town. Maybe someone will recognize them,” says Wendy.
“If someone recognizes them, he’ll probably tell them, not us, then they’ll come looking for us.” I slouch down in her bed, resting my cheek on the pillow. My head is really aching, aching, aching.
“Then we can ask them what they were doing with your mom.”
“But . . . What if they were involved in the accident?” I say, and I say it tentatively, as if this isn’t what I’d been thinking all along, though of course it’s what I’d been thinking all along. But to say it aloud makes the possibility feel real, terrifyingly real, in a way it hadn’t before.
Wendy is quiet for a moment. Then she says, “Should we tell your dad?”
“I tried. He won’t talk about it.”
“Should we go to the police?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I’m worried they won’t take us seriously.”
“Then we’ll wait. We’ll wait until we have more information.” She nods with conviction, as though it is certain fact that we will soon have more information.
I nod too, and hope she’s right.
6.
IN THE MORNING, I CALL KEEP CORP TO CANCEL MY APPOINTMENT with their medical technician. I tell the receptionist I have the flu and I’ll reschedule when I’m better. “The summer flu, that’s rough,” he says. “Drink lots of fluids, okay?”
I hang up the phone feeling victorious.
Then I go meet Wendy. We bike over to the library. Wendy grumbles something about my obsession with research. I grumble something about her obsession with disproportionately large biceps. I remind her we have no other leads, not really.
“Not yet,” she corrects me.
“Not yet,” I correct myself.
We go in and say hello to Cynthia the librarian. She shows us a photograph of her dog, Gouda, wearing a yellow ruffled bikini and a matching pair of yellow sunglasses. After expressing our admiration, we walk to the back of the library. Today it’s crowded, all computers occupied. I look for Raul, but he’s not there. I’m not sure whether I’m disappointed or relieved.
“What do you really think of that dog bikini?” I ask Wendy.
“I think it’s really cute,” she says. “I’d wear it. Not in yellow, though. I look awful in yellow. Blue would be better. The matching sunglasses are nonnegotiable.”
“Obviously,” I say.
We lean against the wall, waiting for our turn. Cynthia once told me that since the recession started, the number of daily visitors to the library has doubled, especially in the summer because there’s air-conditioning and places to sit and things to do, and it’s all free. I tell Wendy this.
“I see the appeal. My parents have this new rule where we’re not allowed to turn the air on unless two or more people are home and they all agree it’s needed,” she says.
“At my house, whenever we turn on the air conditioner a fuse blows. So my dad bought me a new fan. It’s got a remote control.”
“A remote control? How fan-cy,” she says. We giggle. Someone shushes us and Wendy shushes back. I poke her and say she’d better not get me in trouble at my place of work. Then we giggle some more.
Finally, two kids get up from their computers and we take their places. We agree that Wendy will read the search results published after the accident, and I’ll read the results published before. I’m grateful. I can’t handle any more obituaries.
So my lot of articles are all about Keep Corp. Apparently, my mother was frequently called upon to answer questions about keys, as well as the company’s other products. Although the memory key is their signature item—Keep Corp is the first and still the only manufacturer of keys—they remain the industry leader by continually finding new ways of using medical technology to solve problems of human biology. Some inventions flopped, like the organ defragmenter. Some have found moderate success, like the heart-reg. None approach the superstar status of the memory key.
The more I read, the more I’m impressed by Mom’s eloquence. It’s no wonder the journalists contacted her: she was able to take complicated topics and describe them simply. With each article, her voice grows clearer in my mind.
Now do you understand? she asks.
My mother is sitting so close to me that I’m breathing the lavender-soap scent of her while she helps me with my science homework, explaining force and friction, her hands moving gracefully to demonstrate.
Yes, I think I get it, I tell her.
Then I’m back in the library, reading an article about the data backup function of the newest memory keys. The writer interviewed a number of people with concerns about privacy. Local activist Jon Harmon seemed especially riled up. He’s quoted as saying, “First we let Keep Corp into our brains, now we let them take what’s in our brains and store it on a computer. That information doesn’t only have personal value. It’s worth billions to market research companies and the consumer data industry. If we’re not careful, we’ll commodify our souls in exchange for the convenience of a memory key. There needs to be more regulation of the industry.”
What he says makes sense, but I’m appalled to find myself agreeing—it feels like blasphemy. So it’s a relief to read my mother’s reply: “Keep Corp would never share or sell client data. It’s not even technically possible. Memory data is encrypted using the unique brain chemistry of each individual. Thus, all memories—whether stored on your key or on our secure servers—can only be read by the memory maker.”
Not even technically possible. I nod, reassured by her words. However, the next sentence is also troubling, but for an entirely different reason.
“The remote backup function is for your protection,” said my mother. “In case, and this is the worst-case scenario, you should somehow damage your key to the point where your memories are affected.”
It’s as if she is lecturing me about my own damaged key.
I have to force myself to continue reading. The article ends with one last comment from my mom: “At Keep Corp our number one priority is to protect people from the horror of Vergets disease.”
She was very convincing. Even the journalist, impartial as he was supposed to be, seemed convinced. After all, he gave her the last word. I scroll up to the byline. Carlos Cruz. The name is familiar. I click back through the other articles I’ve read. Several of them, the ones from the Middleton Tribune, were also written by Mr. Cruz. I make a note of this in my notebook. Then I elbow Wendy. “Find anything interesting?”
“Not especially,” she says. “Mostly articles about the accident, a couple obituaries—you already read that stuff, right? Here’s an interview with your aunt that mentions your mother, but only briefly.”
�
��What does it say?” I nudge my chair over.
It’s a profile of Aunt Austin, discussing her role in Congress. The piece is largely positive, praising her for working with politicians on both sides of the party line. There are only a few tricky moments, such as when the journalist writes that she has been criticized for her strong ties to certain companies, Keep Corp in particular.
In response my aunt said: “My sister, Jeanette Mint, was a scientist at Keep Corp. While she was alive, I always supported the work she did, and so I continue to honor her legacy now that she is gone.”
“Keep Corp again,” I say. “It seems like everything’s about Keep Corp.”
“Well, we should talk to Tim then,” says Wendy.
“Why Tim?”
“Because he works there.”
It turns out that for the past year, Tim has been an intern in the heart-reg department at Keep Corp, and I had no idea. “It’s not that surprising,” says Wendy. “Keep Corp headquarters is nearby. Most of the university’s med-tech students intern there. I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal about it.”
“You’re right. I don’t know either,” I say.
Wendy taps her fingers on the sticky orange tabletop. We’re sitting in a booth at our favorite downtown diner, taking our lunch break. The waiter brings our sandwiches, grilled cheese and tomato for us both. It’s what we always order here.
I take my first bite. The oozy salty cheese is sweetened by the tomato and the bread is crunchy perfect. The sandwich is, as it always is, so greasily good. Except . . . I blink and the taste changes. The cheese congeals, the tomato is flavorless, the bread soggy. I’m angry because we’d planned on seeing that new movie together, then Wendy went to see it last night with her latest boyfriend. I’m angry but she doesn’t notice. I’m angry and she’s chattering about the poems her boyfriend wrote for her, how he’s such a talented writer, how sweet he is, how kind, and, most importantly, how cute. My jaw hurts. I’m chewing so hard.
It’s only a memory.
I know it’s only a memory, yet it feels so true, so real. So right-now.
I take a sip of cold water. The ice cubes jangle against the plastic cup.
“But seriously,” says Wendy. “We should talk to Tim. He could help us.”
“Why?” My voice is mean. Even though the movie came out years ago, even though she eventually realized I was upset and apologized, even though I forgave her. “Tim doesn’t work in the division my mom worked in. It’s a huge corporation, you know. And he’s just an intern.”
“It can’t hurt,” she says.
“No.” I don’t want Tim involved. I’m regretting that even Wendy is involved.
But then I remind myself of how helpful she’s already been, sketching those portraits, helping me read through old articles. It’s ridiculous that I’m angry because two years ago she went to a movie without me. I stifle my resentment, I try. I ask what they’re doing today at the day camp where she works.
“We’re building stuff out of wooden sticks. It’s the worst. There’s so much poking, I’m always terrified some kid’s going to lose an eye.”
I force a smile. It’s not that I’m still mad at her. It’s just that I still feel mad. Unfortunately, one state of being seems indistinguishable from the other.
After lunch, Wendy goes to work, and I go back to the library. This time I search for information on malfunctioning memory keys, specifically cases where the H-Filter is damaged. The only article I find is about a fifty-four-year-old man who was knocked unconscious when he fell from a ladder. A minute later, he awoke in a rage. He tried to attack his wife. She got away only because his leg was injured from his fall. The man was taken to the hospital and had to be physically restrained for his own safety.
Later they found that the H-Filter in his key had been destroyed when he hit his head, resulting in an inundation of memory. Apparently, he and his wife had a tumultuous marriage and the moment he revived, he remembered it all: the arguments, the betrayals, the disappointments.
A spokesperson for Keep Corp—not my mother—called it a one-in-a-million situation, a freak tragedy that occurred only because the patient had such a turbulent marriage and because he sustained extreme and unusual damage to his memory key. The article concluded with the information that once the man’s key was replaced, he returned to normal, and although his wife did not press charges against him, they have since separated.
My head is aching again.
I decide I’ve had enough for today. I pack up my pen and notebook and hurry out of the library. I unlock my bike and begin pedaling home. Fast. Very fast. As if my memory is something I can escape. I try staring down at the black road. I try staring up at the cloud-streaked sky. But no matter where I look, my mind stays wound around that man’s awful story. I think about how angry I was at Wendy when we were at the diner. I think about how confused and upset I got around Tim.
Then I think of her. My mother. The tilt of her head, the tones of her voice, the touch of her hands—all things I never thought I’d see or hear or feel again. And what happiness it is to see and hear and feel these things again.
Until the memory ends. Until the grief comes.
It’s an old acquaintance, this grief; a pit of misery I thought I’d climbed out from. But now I’m back again, slipped deep into the blackness. What will it make me do? Will I hurt someone? Will I hurt myself?
As soon as I get home, I pour myself a glass of water and swallow down two pain pills. Then I go upstairs to my room. I pick up the phone to call Keep Corp so that I can make a new appointment.
I pick up the phone. But I don’t dial.
Because despite the anger and confusion and hurt, despite the sadness, despite the fact my head feels like it’s about to burst, I’m not ready to give this up, these memories of my mother, this little I’ve regained after five years with nothing. I’m not ready to give her up.
Besides, there is the mystery of those two strangers at our house the night before she died. And what if beneath the clouding grief, it’s there? The memory that will at last explain what happened, and how it could have happened, and why her. And why me.
I spent years obsessing over these questions, even though I knew there were no answers. No good ones.
But maybe I was wrong.
I put the phone back down.
7.
DURING DINNER, MY FATHER ASKS HOW IT WENT AT KEEP CORP this morning. My mouth is filled with potato, so I point at my lips and make a show of chewing. The show lasts even after I swallow, it lasts until I say: “Fine. It went fine.”
“See? That wasn’t so difficult, was it?”
“Easier than you’d imagine.” I clamp a smile onto my face.
“What are you doing tomorrow? Austin invited us for lunch.”
I had planned to do more research at the library, or possibly track down the journalist who wrote all those articles about Keep Corp, but I can’t make up an excuse quickly enough, and I already feel bad for lying about my med-tech appointment, so I tell him I’m not busy.
Dad nods. He seems distracted, but it’s hard to tell. His absentmindedness, a family joke when my mother was alive, intensified after she died. It usually annoys me, but at this moment I’m glad he’s too preoccupied to be suspicious.
Though I do wonder if he’s thinking about the questions I asked him yesterday.
After we finish eating, after we wash the dishes and put the leftovers away, my father goes into his office and shuts the door. I sit on the sofa with a book from the library. But now I’m the distracted one, thinking about my father, worrying about my father. I read the first page of my book three times. The fourth time, I’m interrupted by my ringing cell phone. I check the caller ID, but the number is unknown. I answer cautiously.
“Lora? It’s Raul. I hope you don’t mind, Wendy gave me your number. Maybe she told you, I don’t know. Anyway, this is Raul.” He talks fast, his sentences jumbled. His obvious nervousness almost makes me no
t nervous. Almost.
“How are you?” I ask.
“Good, and you?” he asks.
“Good,” I say.
“Good,” he says.
There is a pause, a pause awkward as only a telephone pause can be, but then Raul asks if I want to hang out tomorrow, and I say yes, and we make plans to meet in the evening. After hanging up, I try reading again. I stare at the first page for a long time. Finally, I give up and put the book away.
The last time I went out with a guy and it wasn’t a low-stakes double date with one of Wendy’s boyfriends’ friends, it was with this kid from school, Gregory Lange. We went to the movies. As we waited for the show to start, he alternated between describing the plots of his favorite video games and asking questions about Wendy. What music did she like? What was her favorite food? How serious were things with her boyfriend?
I shrugged in answer. By then I’d realized this was more of an informational interview than a date. I felt humiliated, of course. Yet I was also kind of glad—when I agreed to the movie I hadn’t known Greg was so totally dull. Therefore, it was an unpleasant surprise when halfway through the film he launched his face onto mine.
I blink and I’m there in the theater: his worming tongue, his sour breath, his lips greasy from popcorn. For a second, I’m too startled to do anything. Then I spit out his tongue and slouch toward the opposite end of my seat. I stare at the screen without seeing what I’m seeing.
I blink again and I’m back in the den. My head is throbbing and there’s a bitter taste in my mouth. I run to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I tell myself Raul is not Greg; Raul is nothing at all like Tim—no, that’s not what I meant.
I frown at my mirror reflection, and she frowns at me. What I meant was Raul is nothing at all like Gregory Lange. I rinse the toothpaste from my mouth. My head is really throbbing.
After breakfast the next day, my father hurries me into the car and we drive out to Grand Village, where my aunt lives in an ultramodern condominium building. We leave an hour before we’re supposed to arrive, even though Grand Village is only half an hour away. Even though it’s Saturday, so there won’t be any traffic. Dad is slightly intimidated by Aunt Austin, and I might find that funny if I weren’t slightly intimidated by her as well.
