The Hidden Memory of Objects

by Danielle Mages Amato

  A new voice rang out from the back of the theater. “What’s going on, Gary?”

  Mrs. Herndon had arrived at last. She walked down the aisle of the theater, Eric right behind her. He sent me a double thumbs-up.

  As Mrs. Herndon climbed the stairs to join us on the stage, Senator Herndon snapped the derringer case shut. “Nothing at all.” He looked at Dr. Brightman. “I think our business here is done.” He reached out a hand to Dr. Brightman, who gave him the papers in a daze. Then Herndon tucked the case under his arm and started to leave.

  Mrs. Herndon turned to me. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “It’s my brother,” I said. “No one meant to hurt him, but Emma and Senator Herndon—they were involved. And they’ve been trying to cover it up.”

  Color rushed to Mrs. Herndon’s face. “That’s impossible. What a disgusting thing to say.”

  “You have to believe me,” I said. “Emma needs your help. My brother needs your help.”

  “This is ridiculous.” The senator offered Mrs. Herndon his hand. “Let’s go.”

  “Mrs. Herndon, please,” I said. “You can think whatever you want about me. But do me one favor. Look in that box.”

  Doubt and anger warred in her face as she looked back and forth between me and her husband.

  “I’ll tell you everything, Gen,” Herndon said. “But not here.”

  I remembered what Emma had said—that he always managed to get his way in the end.

  Mrs. Herndon took her husband’s hand.

  I couldn’t believe it. It was over.

  Dr. Brightman lifted his head. “You carry an insulin kit in your car now, Gary?” He struggled to stand, and I helped him to his feet. “I’ve never heard you mention being diabetic. Is it a recent development?”

  I froze. That was something Dr. Brightman had seen in our vision, from the night Tyler died. What was he doing?

  Mrs. Herndon stopped. “How does he know that?”

  And then I realized: Dr. Brightman was trying to plant a little seed of doubt in Mrs. Herndon’s mind. Make her wonder whether Dr. Brightman might know something she didn’t.

  “They’re medical records, not top-secret documents,” the senator said. “Let’s go.”

  Mrs. Herndon hesitated. The senator held the box out to Matty, signaling to him to take it away. But Nathan was faster. He body-checked Matty, grabbed the box, and handed it to Mrs. Herndon.

  She flipped the clasp and opened it. “Is this . . .” She picked up the gun and turned it over in her hand. “This can’t be . . .”

  “I believe that is indeed the genuine artifact,” Dr. Brightman said.

  “But how did you . . .” Mrs. Herndon trailed off as awareness dawned in her eyes. She looked up at her husband. “How long have you had this? And you never told me? Me?”

  The senator didn’t respond.

  “Gary, tell me you didn’t have anything to do with the death of that boy.”

  Senator Herndon was silent, his jaw clenching.

  Mrs. Herndon closed the box and tucked it under her arm. She gave the senator one last look, then turned to leave.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “I’m going to find Emma. And if she’s done something wrong, I’m going to encourage her to confess.”

  “Don’t be foolish, Genevieve. You’re making a terrible mistake.”

  Ignoring him, she walked back up the theater aisle.

  “Technically,” the senator said, “it was Matty who hurt that boy.”

  Mrs. Herndon stopped. Matty’s mouth flew open, and he shuffled back a few steps. He grunted out an incoherent word.

  “I think he wanted to protect me,” Senator Herndon went on. “Maybe he thought it was what I wanted. But Emma didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “How can you . . . ,” Matty sputtered. “I only did what you asked!”

  “I guess that’s a question for a judge to decide,” he said. “At least, if Genevieve decides to go to the police. What do you think, Genevieve? Do you want to ruin this young man’s life?”

  Something in Matty’s face snapped, and he lunged for the box in Mrs. Herndon’s arms. He pulled out the derringer, letting the box and all the metal instruments inside fall to the floor with a crash. Once he had the gun in his hand, he didn’t seem to know what to do with it. He spun wildly from side to side, and Nathan leaped onto the stage and pushed me behind him.

  “Eric, get down!” I called. “The gun is loaded!”

  Eric threw himself to the floor between two rows of theater seats, but Genevieve didn’t make any move to protect herself.

  “Matty, I don’t think you want to hurt anyone,” she said. “Hand me the gun, and this will all be over.”

  Matty’s whole body shook, and his voice took on a hysterical edge. “It won’t be over. He’s right. I was the one who gave Tyler the drugs. But they weren’t supposed to kill him.”

  Mrs. Herndon stepped toward Matty. All of a sudden, Matty’s whole demeanor changed. His body went still, and his face turned deadly calm.

  “I thought you said we were family,” he said, his gaze moving to the senator.

  Terror coursed through me, making my limbs shake and my knees weak. I wanted to hold on to Nathan for support, but my gloves lay on the stage floor, several feet away.

  “How about this?” Matty said. “I walk out of here with this gun, and you make all of this disappear. You tell the cops it was your fault, and you make sure my name doesn’t even get mentioned. Otherwise . . .” He pointed the gun straight at Mrs. Herndon.

  “Gary, what have you done?” Mrs. Herndon said.

  “You mentioned family, Matty?” Senator Herndon said, walking slowly and deliberately toward him. “Did I ever tell you about my family? We’re directly descended from William Henry Herndon. He was Abraham Lincoln’s law partner. One of his first biographers. And a founding member of the Republican party. We’re part of the very fabric of this country’s history.”

  Matty looked confused. His gun hand wobbled, but he didn’t lower it. Senator Herndon walked down the steps and off the stage, his eyes fixed on Matty as he descended.

  “I don’t necessarily agree with the way my father acquired that pistol, but I think he was right about one thing. Our family has built a legacy that stretches back generations, and we deserve to hold on to it. All of it. It’s our inheritance. Our birthright. And I’m not about to let anyone take it away from us.”

  He was almost on top of Matty now.

  “You’re just a footnote, Matty,” he said. “Is this really how you want to go down in history?”

  Matty wavered, lowering the gun slightly.

  Then a scream exploded through the tense silence in the room.

  “Daddy!”

  Emma Herndon stood at the back of the theater, Detective Johnson beside her. In a heartbeat, Johnson pulled her own gun and aimed it, with true badass intensity, directly at Matty.

  “Drop the weapon,” she said.

  Bewildered and glassy-eyed, Matty swung the derringer from Senator Herndon toward Detective Johnson—and by extension, toward Emma, who froze, her eyes hollow with fear.

  The senator lunged at Matty, grabbing his arm and forcing the barrel of the gun away from Emma. Mrs. Herndon let loose a shrill scream, and I pushed Nathan to one side, trying to move us both behind the podium, hoping it could act as some kind of shield.

  A single shot rang out.

  In the theater, the sound was deafening.

  My ears filled with a loud buzzing noise. I felt as though I had been plunged into a bubble, separated from everything around me by an invisible pane of glass. I could see what was happening, but it all felt distant and far away, like a scene viewed through the wrong end of a telescope. The room was filled with movement. Matty was lying on the ground. Senator Herndon stood over him. Mrs. Herndon fled up the aisle toward Emma, while Detective Johnson ran in the opposite direction. Ignoring the steps, Eric was frantically climbing the fro
nt of the stage, struggling to hoist himself up from the ground. Dr. Brightman had frozen in horror, and right beside me, Nathan’s mouth was open in a scream.

  I tried to reach out a hand to comfort Nathan, tried to speak up and ask what was wrong. But my mouth didn’t seem to be working. I became aware of a pain in my shoulder, and I forced my hand up to touch it. My fingers found ragged skin surrounding a small round hole, with something hard inside. I looked down at the wound in surprise.

  I’d been shot.

  As this realization dawned, the stage lights blazed on, blinding me. The seats in the theater seemed to disappear, along with the people around me, and all I could see were the lights.

  I squinted and blinked my eyes. At the edges of my vision, hazy figures shimmered. Lincoln, his smile sad. Booth, eerily calm, the gun in his hand. Then others: Clara Harris with her fiancé, Mary Lincoln, Senator and Mrs. Herndon, Matty, and dozens more I didn’t recognize. Slowly, one of the figures walked toward me, emerging from the glare.

  It was Tyler.

  He had a wry smile on his face, and he was shaking his head. “Wake up, Brown. You don’t want to sleep through all the fun.”

  The lights went out with a bang, and suddenly I was in a tiny bedroom, lit only by a bedside lamp. Tyler sat on the bed beside the figure of a sleeping girl, curled up on her side. “She’s totally out, Nathan. I’ve never seen her drink so much.”

  I realized with a little jolt that the girl on the bed was me. There was only one night, only one party, when I’d actually gotten drunk: the party where I’d kissed Bobby, maybe six months ago. This must be that night.

  Nathan emerged from the shadows. His hair was a little shorter, and his eyeglasses were different from the ones I’d always seen, but his fashion sense was exactly the same: he wore a funky argyle sweater and a bow tie. “You need some help getting her home?”

  “Yeah, thanks, man,” Tyler said. “Sorry about this.”

  “Whatever. It happens.”

  “Hey, Brown.” Tyler shook me gently. “Wake up.”

  Drunk Me mumbled something and covered her face with both hands.

  “Okay,” Tyler said, “this train is leaving the station.” He hauled me up to a seated position, and together he and Nathan helped me to my feet.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming.” I blinked fuzzily up at Nathan. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Nathan.”

  “I’m not.” I bent over laughing. Drunk Me found herself hilarious.

  “Yeah,” Nathan said with a smile, “I figured that out.” He hooked one of my arms around his shoulders.

  Tyler and Nathan helped me down a flight of stairs and out the front door of a house I only vaguely remembered. Outside, they loaded me in the backseat of Nathan’s car. Before he closed the door, Nathan leaned down to talk to me. “Everything good back here?”

  “Yeah, it’s great. Come on in.”

  “I’m going to ride up front. But thanks anyway.”

  “I like you.” I patted his cheek. “Can I paint you sometime?”

  Nathan laughed. “Sure, whenever you want.”

  I studied him closely. “I’m gonna need some brighter paints.” I slumped back against the seat and closed my eyes.

  Nathan was still grinning when he climbed into the driver’s seat beside Tyler, who was watching some video footage he’d shot on his phone.

  “Your sister’s a kick,” Nathan said. “What does she think of the videos?”

  Tyler shut off the screen and shoved his phone into his back pocket. “She doesn’t know about them.”

  “What? Why not?”

  Tyler pulled three of the round bullets from his pocket and rolled them in his hands. “Art is her thing. She’d think I was trespassing on her turf.”

  “Aha.” Nathan nodded wisely. “You’re afraid they suck. And she’ll be able to tell.”

  Tyler scoffed. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Oh, no. I’ve got your number. You, my friend, suck at sucking.”

  Tyler waggled his eyebrows. “The ladies seem to disagree.”

  “I mean it. You hate when you’re not good at stuff. This video thing is important to you, but you’re not good at it yet. And you’re not willing to have anyone in your life look at you differently.”

  Tyler threw his hands in the air. “Kick me in the balls, why don’t you?”

  Nathan laughed and started the car. “Prove me wrong, then. Show your sister the videos.”

  “Nah,” Tyler said, grinning. “She’ll think they suck.” He looked over at me, crashed out in the backseat. “I only wish she wasn’t so scared all the time.”

  That statement staggered me. And then it enraged me. He didn’t want me to be scared? If there was anything I could see now, it was how scared Tyler had been, and how scared he had made me. All his rules, all his advice—I’d spent years trying to shove myself into an invisible box that he’d created. And it hadn’t been for my own good. It had been a reflection of how he’d treated himself. Everyone had loved Red Brown, and he had never been willing to take the chance that they might not love this new person—the person he’d wanted to be. Or at least, they might not love him quite as much.

  From the backseat, Drunk Me lurched forward and wrapped both arms around Tyler’s neck, and both guys jumped, startled. “Aw, I’m not scared! I know you’ll always be here to look out for me.”

  Tyler half gagged, half laughed. “You’re choking me, Brown,” he forced out. “You’ve got to let go.”

  “Nooooo! I won’t let go! I’m lever netting go!” I shook my head and tried again. “I am never letting go.”

  As Tyler tried to untangle my arms from his throat, the vision started growing dim. I reached out toward him, desperate to hold on to him for one more second. But my fingers closed around empty air. He was already gone.

  When my vision cleared, I found myself back on the stage of Ford’s Theatre, amid a swarm of sound and movement. I lay on the ground, with Detective Johnson putting pressure on the wound in my shoulder. “Hang on. The ambulance is on its way.”

  Eric sat beside me, holding my hand with both of his. “You’re going to be fine. You’re going to be fine,” he chanted.

  People poured into the theater, but I couldn’t make sense of all their faces. Men in tuxedos. Uniformed police. Maybe my mother, but I might have just imagined her.

  I looked out over the theater, my gaze lingering on the elaborate paneled balconies, the golden curtains that hung in the presidential box.

  I wondered if this was it—the very spot where Booth had landed when he’d jumped from the box after the assassination. Had he knelt right here with his broken leg and Lincoln’s blood on his hands? And had he felt regret? Was there any part of him that wished he could turn back time and undo what he had done?

  I realized there was a part of me, a tiny, hidden part, that had believed I could undo what had happened to my brother. That if I could figure out what happened to him, if I could put all the pieces together, a magic door would somehow open, and Tyler would swagger through it, whole and mine once more.

  But it wasn’t true. The brother I thought I knew—I’d destroyed him myself, trying to recover him. And the brother who had loved me was never coming back.

  Whatever I did, whatever people thought of him, whether his death ever made sense to anyone but me, none of that would change the permanent, unalterable fact at the heart of all of this: he was gone. Forever.

  And in that moment, he died all over again—for the last time.

  I closed my eyes, held tight to Eric’s hand, and cried.

  EPILOGUE

  A WARM INCANDESCENT GLOW SPILLED FROM THE windows of Atlas Fine Art out onto the sidewalk where I stood, fanning my face with a postcard in the sticky July heat. A streetcar rattled up H Street Northeast, temporarily drowning out the sounds of the gallery opening inside.

  Eric paced the sidewalk beside me. “Come on. How long does it take to walk here from Twelfth Street? It’s been at
least ten minutes since he texted you.”

  I patted his shoulder. “Impatient, are we?”

  “You’ve been working on this piece for months!” He pointed to the building behind us. “And now there are like seventy-five strangers in that gallery who’ve seen the finished product before me.”

  “Even when Nathan does get here, we still have to wait for my parents.”

  Eric groaned. He plucked the postcard from my hand and used it to fan himself instead.

  An older couple passed us to enter the gallery. When she saw me, the woman did a double take. She leaned over to whisper to her husband as they went into the building.

  Eric watched them go. “Did you see the news in the Post today?”

  “Why, yes,” I replied. “I never miss my morning Post.” Eric nodded and didn’t say any more. I let out an exasperated sigh. “Dude. I did not see the Post. What did it say?”

  Nathan came up behind us, wrapping an arm around each of our shoulders. “Herndon officially resigned his senate seat.”

  A smile started in my chest and spread through my entire body as I turned to hug him. Since the day I’d been shot, I could touch things again without fear, and I indulged myself in the feel of his jacket under my fingers. My shoulder protested as I reached up to pull him close, but I was rewarded with the warm smell of tea and sunshine.

  “It’s about time too,” Eric said. “They’ve been pressuring him for months, ever since he was arraigned.”

  A blast of sound escaped into the night as the gallery door opened and the owner emerged, a distinguished-looking black man with close-cropped hair and a beard shot through with gray. He glanced around until he spotted us, then adjusted his glasses. “Megan, I’ve got some people I’d like to introduce you to. Come find me when you get a chance?”

  “I’ve got someone I’d like you to meet. This is Nathan Lee—he’s one of the creators of the videos I showed you. Nathan, this is Mr. Parish.”

  Nathan’s face went blank with shock, and he barely recovered to shake the man’s hand.

  “Excellent,” Mr. Parish said. “Let’s find a time to talk. I’d like to explore the possibility of building an exhibition around your videos. Local work, young work, politically engaged work. It’s very interesting to me.”