by Liana Liu
I lock the door.
Then I look at the photograph crumpled in my fist. As I smooth it flat, I remember Wendy speculating that Carlos Cruz was in love with my mother. She says, A tragically doomed love. I wonder if they—I blink.
Standing at the window, I’m confused to see my mom emerge from a car driven by an unfamiliar man, but when she comes into the house she assures me it was only her coworker, a kind friend. She nods at me with her lips twined, her cheeks pink.
Lying in my bed, I’m startled awake by thunder, and startled more when I realize that thunder is actually my dad shouting. I suppose he must be shouting at my mother, but why would he be shouting at her? I try to listen to what he’s saying, but all I can hear is You . . . You . . . You . . .
Standing at the door, I grip the doorknob as Carlos Cruz speaks of my mother’s habits and her heart. He smiles tenderly and it’s a true expression on his handsome face, perhaps the only true expression I’ve seen on his handsome face.
I blink. I grit my teeth.
Then I go get my bag from the hallway and cram the photograph back into the inside pocket. The zipper sticks. As I tug it free, a torn sheet of paper flutters to the floor. It’s the list of Jon Harmon phone numbers, the one Wendy printed out.
An idea occurs to me.
I return to the kitchen and open the small drawer that holds our odds and ends. Extra keys. A flashlight. Broken pencils. Batteries used and unused. My skin is poked and jabbed as I sift through the mixture. Finally, my fingers brush smoothness. That’s it. I pull out the little leather book.
After my mother died, my father packed up the contents of her closets, along with whatever was left in her study after those solemn men claimed her papers for Keep Corp, and moved all of it up to the attic. But her address book, stored in the communal drawer, stayed.
I flip through the yellowed pages, staring at my mother’s print, small and meticulous and so familiar. It hurts to see her handwriting. But I rub my eyes clear and turn to the H section. Han, Harvey, Hockey, but no Harmon. I frown. My mother was fastidious about proper classification—she was a scientist, after all—but perhaps a former member of the family merits an exemption.
I turn to the J section. And there I find him.
19.
EVERY FEW MINUTES I TURN TO GLANCE AT THE CLOCK ON THE wall behind me, until Cynthia the librarian comes by and asks if there’s something wrong with my neck, have I strained a muscle? I tell her I’m sorry, I tell her I’m fine. “How’s Gouda?” I ask, hoping to distract her from my distraction with dog talk. This strategy always works.
“You can take your lunch break now,” she says, and returns to the reference area. Apparently, the dog talk strategy does not always work. Maybe I’d feel guilty if I weren’t so anxious about meeting Jon Harmon in just four hours and twelve minutes.
I go outside to eat my lunch. When I’m done, I pull the bottle of pain pills from my pocket and take two tablets—it’s a minor headache, nothing worth thinking about, probably just jitters. Then I get out my phone and check my voice mail.
There’s a message from my father asking where I’ve been; he says he feels as if he hasn’t seen me in days. This is more or less accurate. I call him back because I know he’s teaching a class at this exact moment, so the line will go to his voice mail. When it does, I tell him I won’t be home till late. I tell him not to wait up.
There’s also a message from Wendy, the third message in the past twenty-four hours. I didn’t listen to the earlier ones, and I don’t listen to this one. Maybe I’m being unreasonable. Wendy would say I’m being unreasonable because she always says I’m being unreasonable. She would say I’m overreacting because she always says I’m overreacting. She would say, Lora, this isn’t you, this is your memory key.
What Wendy doesn’t understand is that my memory key is me.
When my shift finally ends, I go to the back room to gather my things together. Cynthia is in her office. “I know it’s tough out there,” she says and I think she’s talking to me before I realize she’s actually on the phone.
After a pause: “Kira, it’s not a good idea,” she says.
After a longer pause: “That’s ridiculous. I’m not censoring you!” she says.
I don’t mean to listen, I don’t want to listen, but here I am, listening. For I can’t help being curious: at the library, censorship is enemy number one. It makes no sense that Kira is accusing her librarian mother of censorship.
“I only want what’s best for you.” Cynthia says this so quietly I have to strain to hear her. Then I realize that I’m straining to hear her, so I grab my backpack and tiptoe out of the room, catching the door and easing it shut behind me.
It takes twelve minutes to get to the coffee shop, and another minute to lock up my bike, and another minute to unknot my knotty nerves. The place is small. Inside there are fewer than a dozen tables. I search for a tall, thin man with dark hair and glasses. My gaze climbs around the room. Is he late? Has he changed his mind and decided not to come?
A stout man in a blue polo shirt comes toward me. “Lora?” he says.
I stare at him. He couldn’t possibly be Jon Harmon.
“I’m Jon Harmon,” he says, chuckling. “You know you have your mother’s frown?”
I would never have recognized him. Whereas he once was strikingly skinny, he is now strikingly round. Whereas he once had a thick tangle of dark hair, he is now completely bald. He’s not even wearing glasses. It’s hard to believe he is the man in those wedding photographs. “You look different from the pictures I’ve seen,” I say.
“I bet.” He pats his belly.
“I mean, I didn’t mean. I’m sorry if . . .”
“Don’t worry. If I saw those old photos, I bet I wouldn’t recognize myself.” He chuckles again, and this time I do too.
We find a tiny table in the corner. The coffee shop—with its exposed brick walls and flickering candlelight—seems slightly romantic, which makes me uncomfortable about being here with a stranger, even if he is my former, future uncle. For a moment, I wish Wendy were here, so we could exchange glances over the absurdity of it all. The moment passes.
“Last time I saw you, you had just started walking,” says Jon Harmon.
“I thought you and Austin divorced before I was born,” I say, and instantly regret it, for it seems rude to remind him about his divorce first thing.
But he doesn’t appear offended. He nods. “Your mom and I were still friendly. We’d run into each other once in a while, reminisce about the old days.”
The waitress comes over and greets Jon Harmon with an exclamation and a kiss on each cheek. He introduces us, and I try not to get impatient while they swap neighborhood gossip and banter about the weather. She asks what we’d like. I order an iced tea, he orders a coffee and a plate of cookies. Then she goes, and as soon as she goes I say to Jon Harmon, “You must be wondering why I called.”
He needs no further prompting; he bursts effortlessly into story: “Yes, I’m glad you called. Let me start by giving you some background—I don’t know how much you know about me and your aunt. Now that was a marriage doomed from the start. Not that Austi isn’t great, because she is. She was my first love. We worked together in the governor’s office, and the two of us would have the most exciting debates all day long. Can you imagine?” he asks.
I tell him I can, though I can’t. Neither can I believe he calls her “Austi.” No wonder it didn’t work out.
“But after a while, I began losing faith in the political machine. Eventually I decided I wanted to work outside the system. Austi thought I was throwing my career away, all the things we worked so hard for. I thought she was being naïve. Still, I hoped we might get back together, but then she filed the papers. Austi had her path.”
“She still does,” I say, sad for him. And for my aunt.
“She’s done well for herself, and she’ll go even further. She has what it takes.”
I nod. My father says the same things abo
ut Aunt Austin.
“About your mother,” he says, and I lean forward in my chair. But then the waitress interrupts us with my iced tea, Jon’s coffee, and a tiny plate of tiny cookies.
“Can I get you anything else?” she asks.
Jon asks for a glass of water. Then he nudges the plate of cookies toward me, so I take one. He takes one too, and hums approval as he eats it. “These are my favorite,” he says. “Coconut.”
“Yum,” I say, my cookie still in my hand. “Mr. Harmon, about my mother—”
“Mr. Harmon! Please call me Jon. Unless you want to call me Uncle Jon. You can call me Uncle Jon, if you’d like.”
“Jon,” I say firmly. “What were you saying about my mom?”
He chews. He swallows. He coughs his throat clear. It occurs to me I might not be the only one who’s nervous. Finally, he speaks. “I know you have questions about your mother. I also have questions.”
“What questions?” I ask.
“About what happened. About how she died,” he says.
I sit still. My heart is jerking around inside my chest, but I sit very still. I’m excited to have found someone else with questions about my mother’s death; I’m excited that that someone is willing to talk to me about his questions; yet my excitement feels a little like fear. My voice trembles as I ask him to explain.
Flourishes and digressions aside, Jon Harmon’s story is this: a few days before the car accident, my mom came to see him. This was unusual. Although they’d bump into each other here and there, and phone occasionally if there was a specific reason (such as when she put him in touch with Carlos Cruz, handsomely creepy journalist), they never spent much time together. After all, Jon was Austin’s ex-husband, and Jeanette’s loyalties were clearly and completely with her sister.
So he was surprised to see her, but welcomed her into his house. He made coffee, they exchanged personal updates, and then she told him the reason for her visit. My mother had come across a set of unusual structural definitions in a line of memory keys in development at Keep Corp. She didn’t get specific about the science, but told him she was worried there was something inappropriate going on. She asked him for advice.
“Why’d she go to you?” I say.
“My old firm worked to expose corporate corruption and compensate the victims. We won more than a few lawsuits over the years,” says Jon. “So I told her I’d help her. I’d even come out of retirement if she needed.”
“You’re retired?” I ask. He seems young to be retired.
“More or less.” His round face is pink, but I don’t know if he’s blushing or it’s the candlelight. “The work was hard: long hours, sad stories. And these companies would go to any length to stop us. The tires of my car were slashed, the windows of my house broken, and . . .”
“And what?”
Jon stares at the lemon in his glass of water. “I was assaulted one night, coming home from the office. They broke both my arms. It could have been a lot worse; they were only delivering a message, they didn’t want to kill me. But I started having panic attacks. Insomnia. My partner said I’d better quit before I had a total breakdown. The timing was right: we wanted to start a family. So now I’m a stay-at-home dad. We have two kids, a boy and a girl, seven and four. Best decision I ever made, though I still get the occasional nightmare. Still keep my phone number unlisted.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say, wishing I had something better to say.
“It was awful. But it’s over.”
“And you’ve remarried?”
“Technically, no. Gay marriage isn’t legal in our state.”
I stare at him, and he stares right back. I forcibly loosen my tongue in my mouth. “Yeah, it’s really unfair,” I say, and I mean it, though I can’t help thinking about Aunt Austin and what this means for her. But I remain focused on what’s important. “What else did you say to my mother?” I ask.
“I told her to collect all the information she could without drawing attention, so we could evaluate whether to go public, or to the authorities, or directly to the corporation.”
“Then what happened?”
“I didn’t hear from her again. A few days later I found out about the accident.”
I am suddenly furious.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone about this?”
“I tried. After the funeral, I called your father. But he was so distraught, I don’t think he understood. I considered talking to your aunt, but we hadn’t been on speaking terms in years. I thought about going to the police, but I had no evidence, barely any information at all.”
“So you did nothing,” I say.
“I hate to make excuses, but I was a mess. My panic attacks started up again. I knew how companies like Keep Corp worked, I knew they’d be brutal and relentless. I had no leverage against them.”
“Except that they murdered my mother.”
“It could have really been just an accident,” he says unconvincingly.
We sit there in silence. We sit there in silence for a long time.
“I wanted to forget. I told myself I was better off forgetting. But of course I couldn’t,” Jon says eventually.
“I know the feeling.” I almost laugh.
I take out the photograph and ask if he recognizes the people in it. He moves it closer to the flickering candle. “That’s your dad, right? I don’t know the others. Who are they?”
“I was hoping you’d tell me.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know.” He hands the picture back. “Lora, I want to be very clear about something. I told you about my conversation with your mother because you deserve to know. But under no circumstances should you go after Keep Corp yourself, do you understand? There’s nothing we can do for Jeanette now.”
I look at him. He gazes back sternly. But that doesn’t make his expression any less sad. Maybe it’s his anguish that makes me tell him, or maybe it’s the challenge in his words. Maybe it’s because Jon Harmon was the one my mother confided in years ago, or maybe it’s simply because I need a ride to Grand Gardens.
“I think she’s alive,” I say.
Then I tell him about the two strangers and their blue jackets, blue jackets that are the uniform at a certain retirement home. I tell him that at this certain retirement home I saw—from afar—a woman who looked exactly, exactly, like my mother. It’s possible I exaggerate, but I’ll say almost anything to smooth the skeptical arch of his eyebrows.
“Have you talked to your dad about this?” he asks.
“Not yet.” I stare at the tiny plate of tiny cookies, now a tiny plate of crumbs. “I don’t want to get his hopes up if it turns out to be nothing.”
“You have to tell your dad,” says Jon.
“But what if I’m wrong? I can’t do that to him,” I say, and my distress burns my face and shakes my voice, for my distress is true even if my words are not, and Jon seems to recognize that.
He sighs so heavily the table trembles. “I still think you have to tell him. But you’re right that we’ve got to find out if she’s there,” he says.
“So you’ll help me?”
He sighs again. “I’ll help you.”
We decide we’ll go tomorrow. Jon argues we should wait until we’re better prepared, but I insist. Because tomorrow I have the day off, and the next day I have to work, and the day after that Jon is busy, and the day after that I have to work. And I cannot, cannot, wait another week. He seems to understand. “Well, I’ll try my usual contacts, but this may be too short notice,” says Jon.
“I have a friend who works at Grand Gardens,” I say.
He brightens. “All we need is a list of patients. If Jeanette is there she’ll be under a false name, but perhaps we can find it by checking out everyone else.”
“Residents,” I say. “They call them residents.”
“Right. We’ll need a list of residents, then. Can your friend get that for us?”
“I don’t know. I’ll ask him,” I say.
; We leave the coffee shop and solemnly shake hands—though I think Jon Harmon might have liked a nice uncle-niece sort of hug—and agree to talk in the morning.
I bike home in a daze, past buildings and cars and people and houses, without noticing any of it. And even though I’m ready-for-bed tired, I don’t rush. Because the night air is so fresh on my skin and the road so smooth underneath my wheels. Because I am trying not to hope, but of course I am hoping.
When I come into the house, I am carefully quiet and do not turn on any lights. Yet as I climb up the stairs, my father calls out from his room. “Lora! How was your day? What’d you do? Where’d you go? Who’d you see?”
I pretend I don’t hear him and go into my own room. A few minutes later, there is a shuffle of feet in the hallway. I flop down on my bed. There is a soft knock. I shut my eyes. The door inches open. I slow my breathing. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale.
The ringing telephone wakes me.
It’s after ten o’clock and my father is gone. While faking sleep, I had fallen asleep. I’m still dressed in my clothes, my face unwashed, my teeth unbrushed. Disoriented, I reach for the ringing phone.
“Why haven’t you called me back?” says Wendy.
I sit up, struggling to clear my bleary head. “I’ve been busy.”
“Don’t give me that crap,” she says.
“What?” I’m taken aback by the wrath in her voice.
“I know things are weird for you right now, but you’ve been totally unreasonable lately. Abandoning us at the nursing home? Freaking out on our way to Carlos Cruz’s? You’re being a really bad friend.”
“I’m sorry,” I mumble, ashamed.
“It’s your memory key. You’ve got to get it fixed.”
Instantly, my guilt dissolves. Instantly, I’m wide-awake. “No, you’re just upset that for the first time, I’m seeing you for what you really are. Bitch.”
Wendy is quiet for a moment. “You don’t mean that. Take it back.”
But I will take nothing back. I have all the evidence I need to support my statement; the memories are organized neatly, color-coded and cross-referenced, in my filing-cabinet brain.
