The Memory Key

by Liana Liu

  She’s nothing like my mother. No—that’s not true. Like Aunt Austin, Mom was smart and ambitious. But when she wasn’t working, Mom relaxed. She didn’t bother much with housekeeping or other kinds of domesticity, although she did keep a little vegetable garden in the backyard, which thrived despite bouts of negligence. My aunt, on the other hand, is a perfectionist both at work and at home.

  My mother said when they were kids, her sister would get so mad when she teased her, even though Austin was older so it should have been the other way around. They fought a lot when they were little, but as adults they got along much better. My mother really admired her sister; she said so all the time. Although she did agree with Dad and me when we said Aunt Austin could be a little . . . overwhelming.

  But after Mom died, my aunt helped us a lot. She cooked hearty, healthy meals to store in our freezer. She took me shopping and bought me my first bra. When I was learning how to drive, she went with me to practice, even though it was clear she was terrified by my driving: she’d get out of the car pale and disheveled, but because I appreciated all she was doing for us, especially since she was so busy with her work, I never joked about it. Not in front of her, anyway.

  When we arrive at my aunt’s apartment building thirty minutes before we’re expected, I laugh at my father for rushing, but he merely suggests we go for a walk in the park, around Grand Lake.

  It’s a beautiful day. A tousling breeze moves through the trees. People are lounging on the pebbly sand, children hop around in the shallow water. Dad pats my shoulder. “Remember when we came here for a picnic?”

  “I remember.” The memory approaches. But for the first time I try pushing it away: I grit my teeth and straighten my shoulders and clench my fists—and am so pleased to discover that I can stop it.

  I’m so pleased that I imagine it back: Mom kneeling on our gingham blanket, sorting through the basket of food, while Dad and I untangle the tail of my new kite, a violet-colored butterfly, the delicate paper crinkling against our fingers.

  When we finally have it fixed up, my father instructs me: Which way is the wind blowing? Yes, that’s right. Now face that way. Hold it up, nose up. No, nose of the kite up. Don’t throw it. Just let go.

  There’s not enough wind, says Mom, but at that exact moment a gust of air flies the butterfly up and up. She laughs gleefully, glad to be proven wrong.

  “You had a kite,” says my dad. “It was a red bird?”

  “A purple butterfly with yellow dots. You gave it to me for my birthday.”

  “What an impressive memory you have.”

  “An impressive memory key,” I say, voice irony-flat.

  “That was a good time.” My father sighs. He is gazing up at the sky. He loved her so much, I know. Since she died, he’s dated occasionally, but those casual relationships always drifted away because he was mostly indifferent to the woman, or that’s how it seemed to me. He loved her so much. I should tell him what I remember. I should tell him about those strangers in the kitchen.

  “Dad?” I say.

  “Yes, Lora?”

  “Isn’t it time to go?” I say. Is all I say. Maybe because I don’t want to ruin the mood. After all, she is gone. She is gone, she is gone, she is dead. And it’s a beautiful day. And I don’t want to ruin the mood.

  “It sure is,” he says. Then he glances at me. “Something wrong?”

  “I’m just scared we’ll get in trouble if we’re late,” I say.

  “Me too, Lora. Me, too.”

  At my aunt’s building, we say hello to the uniformed man behind the front desk. He asks for our names. Then he asks for identification. Then he spends a minute glancing between the photo on my father’s license and my father’s face. Then he calls upstairs to tell my aunt we’re here. Finally, he directs us to the elevators. It used to be that the doorman would just wave us past.

  “They’ve increased security,” I say.

  “It’s good. Public figures like Austin need protection. There are a lot of crackpots out there, and a lot of anger these days,” says Dad.

  We walk down the hallway, feet squishing in the thick rug. When we come to the right door, my father tells me I can ring the bell, smiling as if this is a treat he has saved especially for me. As if I’m seven, not seventeen. I dutifully press the button. Bells chime.

  “Right on time,” says Aunt Austin as she swings open the door. She is wearing a black shift dress that is as no-nonsense as her workday suits. “Come in, come in. Are you hungry?”

  In the dining room, the table is set and covered with food, far too much food for just three people. There’s a rice noodle salad and cold chicken and sweet-sauced mushrooms and a meat and vegetable braise. These dishes resemble the foods my mother used to make, but Aunt Austin’s versions are more complicated, with more ingredients and garnishes. Mom never had the patience to spend hours in the kitchen. To her, food was fuel. Dad always did more of the cooking.

  Once we’re seated, my aunt lifts her glass of sparkling water. “A toast,” she says. “Congratulations to our darling Lora. I know your successes in high school will only be exceeded by your success at university, and in life.”

  “Thanks.” I’m embarrassed by her mention of my “successes,” when I was only a good student, nothing exceptional. But this is how my aunt always talks.

  “Now please, eat!” she says, so we do. The food is delicious, of course. Everything Aunt Austin does she does well. I tell her how good it all tastes.

  “I do love to cook. I only wish I had more time to do it,” she says.

  My father proposes an intricate theory about the economic bill, and I smirk. Like a kid cramming for a test, he had spent most of the morning with the Middleton Tribune. When I tried talking to him during breakfast, his answer was a grunt and the crackle of newsprint; when I frowned at him, annoyed by his nonresponse, he was protected by his shield of paper. All I could see was the fluff of his hair and the headlines: CITIZEN ARMY BOMB PLOT SUSPECT QUESTIONED; UNEMPLOYMENT RATE REACHES NEW HIGH; 600 ARRESTED AT ANTIWAR MARCH.

  As the two of them discuss the economy, I think about the increased security downstairs, and consider the possibility that those two strangers were politically motivated, and their target was my aunt. When their conversation shifts to the bitterness between the two parties—as conversations about current events inevitably become about the bitterness between the two parties—I interject: “Is it really that bad? Does everyone get so personally involved?”

  “Lora, you’ve pinpointed the problem exactly, it’s that everyone gets so personally involved. But it shouldn’t be personal. It should be about what’s best for our country,” says my aunt.

  “Do you have enemies?” I ask.

  “I certainly have enemies.” She sounds almost proud.

  “That doesn’t scare you?”

  “Sometimes. But I know it’s because I’m doing important work. I’ve had to make sacrifices, some really difficult sacrifices, and I can’t let my fear endanger all I’m trying to accomplish.” A look of misery flits so quickly across her face that I wonder if I imagined it, especially since misery is an emotion that seems incompatible with my aunt’s disciplined personality.

  “You are doing important work.” Dad nods. “The main problem is, that’s what the other side thinks too. So what do you do then?”

  “You do what must be done,” she says.

  We are in the car, on our way back to Middleton, when my father repeats what my aunt said. “You do what must be done,” he intones, mimicking the solemnity of her voice, his eyes wide and earnest. Then he chuckles. “Austin’s great, but she’s such a politician. She can’t ever turn it off.”

  I laugh. It’s true. And it’s true it’s difficult to have a personal conversation with someone who speaks primarily in platitudes, so I ask my dad the questions I hadn’t asked my aunt: “What did she mean when she talked about the sacrifices she made? What sacrifices?”

  “Gosh, I’ve no idea,” he says.
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br />   “You think it’s because she never got married and had kids?”

  “But she has been married.”

  “What?” I fall forward in surprise, till my seat belt snaps me back.

  “She’s been married,” he says again, louder this time.

  “I heard you. I just don’t believe you.”

  “It’s true.”

  “Then how come I didn’t know about it?”

  “It was a long time ago. Before you were born.”

  I scowl at him. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  “I never think about it, so it never occurred to me. It really was such a long time ago,” my father says apologetically. Then he tells me what he can remember (Dad jokes: “My memory key is the same kind the dinosaurs used”).

  After law school, Aunt Austin got a job as a speechwriter for the governor. While working there, she met a young man named Jonnie. They had much in common: similar values and beliefs, similar lifestyles, and many of the same friends. They fell in love. Got married. But as time passed, Jonnie became disillusioned with the political system while my aunt rose through its ranks. They began fighting and eventually decided to separate.

  “You think she regrets it?” I ask.

  “Your aunt is a mystery to me.” Dad pulls into our driveway and shuts off the engine. We sit in silence for a moment. Then he clears his throat.

  “Lora, how about we go to a movie tonight? It’s been so long since we’ve been to the movies, and soon you’ll be gone, leaving your poor old father all alone,” he says. His tone is jolly, but it makes me feel no less bad.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I wish I could, but I have plans with a friend.”

  “Which friend?”

  “Besides, I’m not leaving you all alone. Campus is so close and you’re there all the time. We’ll see each other every day,” I say. When I told my father I wanted to live in the dorms and not at home, he accepted it as though he expected it. However, that didn’t keep me from worrying I was abandoning him. That same worry pinches me now.

  Dad shrugs. “Yes, but who is this friend you have plans with tonight?”

  “You don’t know him.” I open my car door and get out.

  “Him? So it’s a date?” He opens his car door and gets out.

  “It’s not. I don’t know. Maybe. Kind of.”

  “Yes, indeed, it’s a date,” he says, chuckling. “Do we need to have the talk?”

  “No! Please, no!” I cover my ears and rush up to the house. When I was thirteen, my father attempted to have the talk with me. I hadn’t realized what was happening—I was only half listening because I thought he was philosophizing about humanity or something—until he mumbled the words “safe sex.” Then I looked up and saw his face was red, and my face started turning that same red. I interrupted to say they taught us this in school so he could stop right there. Nonetheless, he continued.

  I’ve managed to forget most of that conversation, and I’d prefer it to stay forgotten, so I brace myself against the memory like I did before, at the park. And it works like it did before—the memory remains distant.

  My father is not so compliant.

  “When two people are in love,” he says as he unlocks the front door.

  “No! Stop it! Stop it!” I shout as I run inside, laughing, and he chases after me, talking. It’s moments like these I realize that despite it all, we did okay.

  Dad and I, we’re okay.

  8.

  WHEN I GET TO THE COFFEE SHOP FOR MY MAYBE-KIND-OF DATE, I’m all wriggly nerves in my carefully selected, now regretted outfit—why did I ever think this green shirt was flattering? Plus I’m late, but when I apologize for being late, Raul only smiles and says, “You’re not late, I’m early.”

  Although this is a blatant untruth, it makes me feel a little less wriggly.

  We small-talk over our days: I tell him about visiting Aunt Austin, he tells me about the peanut-butter-banana-pickle-jelly sandwich he made and ate for lunch. “Driving back from Grand Gardens, I felt so sick,” he says.

  “Peanut-butter-banana-pickle-jelly? Of course you felt sick. You deserved it.” I giggle, but he doesn’t. I worry I’ve offended him so I quickly change the subject: “Grand Gardens—is that your retirement home? Is it near Grand Village?”

  When he nods I tell him that’s where my aunt lives. I ask after Ms. Pearl.

  “She’s good. Did you know she has two gentlemen friends?”

  “Really? That’s amazing!”

  “Yeah. Neither seems to mind that she has another fellow. In fact, the two of them are also friends. Though it might be because both of their memories are shot.”

  “They don’t have keys either? Aren’t they worried about Vergets disease? Is no one worried about Vergets?” I speak much too loudly; I feel people glancing in our direction. But it had to be said. It’s what my mother would have said.

  “Well, Earl used to have a key, but had to get it removed because his body rejected it. He’d had it for decades, then one day he was struck by this incredible pain, the worst pain in his life, he told me. They had to cut the key out of his brain. Now he has this gnarly scar on the back of his head.”

  The back of my own head twitches. I ignore it. “That’s awful.”

  “Yeah. Now he can’t remember much of anything because he’d been so reliant on his key. It’s really sad,” says Raul.

  “I can’t believe how many people at your retirement home don’t have keys.”

  “Well, that’s probably why they’re there.”

  “Oh. Right,” I say.

  “There’s even one resident who had his key purposefully removed, even though there was nothing wrong with it.”

  “That’s weird. Why’d he do that?”

  “He said he didn’t want to remember. His family—wife and kids—was killed when that extremist group, the Citizen Army, hijacked the plane they were on. He never got over it. I mean, how could anyone get over that?”

  And I say nothing more, partly because the waiter comes with our food, partly because there is nothing more to say.

  Raul pays the bill—he insists. He smiles his nice smile and tells me that I can get it next time. I agree, feeling a flattered flutter at his talk of next time. We walk outside to where my bicycle is chained to a lamppost. As I unlock my bike, Raul tells me about his activist group that makes soup for the homeless. He invites me to come to their next meeting.

  “Sounds fun,” I say.

  “Great.” He stands close to me. He leans closer.

  “Thanks again,” I say.

  “You’re welcome again.” His head tilts forward and his fingers take hold of my shoulder. Then he leans even closer.

  And before I realize what I’m doing, I’ve stepped away and said good-bye and jumped on my bike, and now I’m pedaling farther and farther away, feeling guilty and embarrassed. And relieved.

  It’s not that I don’t like Raul.

  It’s not that I would mind if he kissed me.

  So what’s my problem?

  I don’t know. My problem is that I don’t know.

  The night air is cool on my hot face. When I’m stopped by a red light, I look up at the unusual billboard on the side of a building, unusual because it’s a photograph with no print, no indication of what’s being advertised; there’s just an attractive man and woman standing arm in attractive arm. I squint through the darkness and see that on the next corner, there’s another billboard featuring that same couple.

  When the light turns green, I ride over to where the attractive man is sliding a diamond ring on the attractive woman’s finger. Still no print. At the next corner, the attractive couple cradles an attractive baby. At the next corner, the couple, older now, but still attractive, stand next to an attractive teenager in a graduation gown. At the next corner, the couple, much older now, but only slightly less attractive, sit with their arms around each other on an attractive porch. Still no print.

  But at the next corner, the billb
oard contains only print. In big letters it announces: THIS TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE WAS BROUGHT TO YOU BY KEEP CORP.

  Has Keep Corp launched a new marketing campaign, or have I just never paid much attention to their ads before?

  I grip my handlebars tight, then tighter, and pedal home as fast as I can.

  When I come into the house, Dad is still up. He asks about my night and I make up cheerful answers to his questions until I can find an excuse to escape to my bedroom. My chest is heaving, my head is throbbing, but most of all, worst of all, I’m sad. Just all-of-a-sudden and hopelessly sad.

  Lora, it’s okay.

  I’m blinking tears as Mama comes to sit next to me on my bed, where I’m curled up after a terrible day at school. She strokes my hair, her hand soft and slow against my head. She tells me it’s all right, that I’ll be all right, her voice as soft and slow as her hand. I take deep breaths until I’m calmer. I take deep breaths until I’m calm.

  Then I pick up the phone.

  “What are you doing tomorrow?” I ask Wendy when she answers.

  “I came by earlier, and your dad said you were out. Where were you?”

  “Sorry, I was with Raul. What are you doing tomorrow?”

  “You were with Raul? Tell me everything!”

  “There’s nothing to tell,” I say quickly. I shouldn’t have mentioned him. Now she’ll only want to talk about him. “I don’t like him like that. He just wants me to join his soup kitchen, anyway.”

  “What? Never mind. He loves you. I know he—”

  “What are you doing tomorrow? I want to find Carlos Cruz.”

  “Who’s that? Is he cute?” she asks.

  I sigh. I tell her he’s that writer for the Middleton Tribune, the one who quoted my mother in several articles.

  “Tim and I are supposed to go to the lake, but there’s a chance he’ll get called into work again. If that happens I’ll be able to help you—if you want,” she says.