The Heart of Memory

by Alison Strobel

  “There’s something else,” Marisa said. Savannah could hear the delicate note in her voice that told her how uncomfortable she was bringing this up. “I never told you about this because … well, I figured there was a reasonable explanation and I didn’t want to make any assumptions. But now …” She sighed. “Months ago, when I’d given Shaun your receipts from the tour, I ended up finding a few more that had fallen out of the pile in my car. I brought them back in and he was already gone, but the other receipts and a reimbursement form were sitting on his desk. I figured I’d make it easy on him and list them on the form myself, and when I did I saw items on the form that weren’t from the tour. I had never seen the charges before, they didn’t ring any bells.”

  Savannah remembered doing the same thing, and how she’d held on to the information to use as a weapon should she need it. She’d forgotten about it. But she wasn’t about to admit she already knew and hadn’t done anything about it. “Thanks for telling me, Marisa. I’ll ask Shaun about that.” She made an excuse for leaving and hung up as quickly as she could.

  Messing around with receipts … She couldn’t think of any reasons for doing such a thing that didn’t involve some sort of financial scheming. But that made her consider something else. What if closing A&A wasn’t entirely her fault? The thought gave her a brief shot of relief, until it sank in that Shaun was then guilty of something that was likely to be unethical, possibly even illegal.

  Oh, Shaun. What have you done?

  SHAUN’S WORLD CRUMBLED A LITTLE more when he came home from the office two days later. Jessie’s car was in the driveway, and that wasn’t a good thing in the middle of the week. He didn’t have to see the bank statement to know why she was there.

  He hated himself. He’d been hating himself for a while, but just not dwelling on it. He’d redirected the brunt of his loathing to Savannah, though she didn’t know it — mostly the hating was done in his head. But the inevitable had finally happened, and now his daughter was caught in the net. What kind of father was he? What kind of husband, what kind of business manager?

  The walls were closing in. It made it hard to breathe.

  He snuck in quietly, hoping to establish a defense before facing Jessie. He prepared his speech, then walked the house in search of her. The sooner he got this over with, the better.

  She was crying in her room. He knocked gently on the door, then opened it. “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”

  His sympathy brought on a fresh round of tears. She buried her head in his chest, which surprised him—he’d expected her anger. After a few minutes the sobs died down and she said, “Adam broke up with me.”

  It wasn’t what he’d been expecting. “Wh-what? Why, what happened?” He began plotting Adam’s demise.

  “Because of A&A shutting down. He said he couldn’t imagine marrying into the family that screwed his over so bad.”

  She began to cry again. Shaun flagellated himself in his head. “Jessie, I’m so sorry. We wouldn’t have done it if we didn’t have to; I hope you know that. We just couldn’t keep it afloat.”

  “I know, Dad, I know. I’m not blaming you.” She sniffed and disengaged herself from his embrace to flop onto the bed. “It’s not your fault Mom went off the deep end. If she’d just get her act together, this wouldn’t have happened.”

  “She can’t help it either, Jess. I don’t think we can fully understand what she’s going through. This whole cellular memories phenomenon —”

  “I don’t buy it.” She shook her head emphatically. “I asked one of our professors about it. He said it’s pretty much all a crock. People just hear things being talked about in the OR while they’re anesthetized, it gets into their subconscious, that sort of thing. She’s just using it as an excuse. Don’t let her dupe you, Dad.”

  Shaun sat beside Jessie, scrambling for a response. He hadn’t expected her to lay all the blame on Savannah. It was tempting to let her take the fall. Let Jessie hate her from afar — at least I won’t lose my daughter, too. But as he watched her mop her tears, he knew she needed a mother, and to drive a wedge even further between them would eventually hurt Jessie as well. He didn’t want to be the one that caused that if he could help it. “Look, sweetheart … I know you’re upset, and you have every right to be. But your mother doesn’t deserve all the blame. Other issues were at play here.”

  “Like what?”

  He hadn’t thought that far. “Well, confidentiality restricts me from saying anything,” he said quickly. “But I just wanted you to know that. It’s not entirely her fault.”

  “But if she hadn’t gone crazy, it could have stayed open, right? Even if there were other issues — that’s the main one.”

  He sighed. “She hasn’t gone crazy, Jess. But yes, I guess you’re right, it could have stayed open.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, and on top of this, guess what I got in the mail today? A letter from the registrar, saying my tuition isn’t paid. So now I get to deal with that mix-up. Like I have the time.”

  Shaun closed his eyes. He’d been right. “Actually—I had a feeling that might happen.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because your tuition isn’t paid.”

  Incredulity seized her expression. “You knew? You knew this might happen and you didn’t tell me?”

  “I was hoping to get it all sorted out before it came to this. I didn’t want you to lose sleep over something that might not even happen.”

  Her features were pinched with bitterness. “Unbelievable. The ministry and your personal finances are shot. How can you keep defending her?”

  “Because it’s not all her fault.”

  “How do you figure?” She threw down the soggy tissue. “It doesn’t matter, I’m a pariah at school now anyway. I probably would have dropped out after finals were over.”

  “No, Jessie, you can’t —”

  “I can’t stay, Dad, not if we can’t pay for me to be there. I don’t qualify for any of the scholarships, and financial aid doesn’t just kick in like that. We’d have to fill out paperwork and applications and all that stuff. And they’re not going to let me back if I don’t have it all in place before the semester starts. Fat chance of that right now. So what choice do I have?” She shook her head, then speared him with an angry stare. “Dad, I think we need to cut and run.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You need to leave Mom—before she completely ruins you and drags us both down.”

  Shaun was astounded. “Jessica Faith, how can you say that? She’s my wife, I made a promise. I can’t just leave her.”

  “You’re not leaving her, Dad! She left you already. Is she coming back for Thanksgiving? She’s not, right? She’s already run away; and even if she hadn’t, she’s not who she was. You didn’t make a promise to her, not to this Savannah.”

  Shaun stood, needing to distance himself before she actually talked him into it, and headed for the door. “This is ridiculous. I’m not going to have this conversation. For the last time, I’m not leaving her. If she leaves me, then so be it; but I won’t have the failure of our marriage be on me.”

  “So what, you’re just walking away from me?”

  “I’m walking away from this conversation. You’re entitled to your own thoughts and emotions, but I don’t have to be party to them.”

  “See? She’s pulling us apart even when she’s not here. It used to always be you and me, Dad. And now I don’t have you either.”

  He groaned. “Jessie—”

  “Forget it.” She grabbed her keys from the dresser and stormed past him and down the stairs. He heard the door slam a moment later.

  Anger and frustration and self-loathing drove his fist into the wall beside her door. The drywall caved beneath his knuckles. He let out a howl that did little to relieve the pressure inside. He hated himself. He hated Savannah, too, and, if he was honest, God.

  But mostly he just hated himself.

  JESSIE POWER-WALKED, HEAD DOWN, FROM he
r car to the dorm. The rational side of her brain didn’t really believe everyone was staring and talking behind her back the way the rest of her suspected, but it didn’t make her feel any better. Someone, somewhere was likely talking about her, or at least her family, and everyone who saw her likely knew who she was — and what had happened. For once she hated being at such a small school. The grapevine was lightning fast, and she had nowhere to hide.

  She should have been in her child psych lecture right now. The second midterm was in two days. Next week she had a presentation due for her 21st Century issues class. She’d actually been looking forward to both of them. She’d always enjoyed tests and speeches and projects — she loved school, loved learning, loved showing off what she’d learned. Never in a million years would she ever have dreamed she would drop out of college. But she couldn’t stay now. Even if her Dad did come up with the money, she didn’t want to keep running into Adam, or deal with people talking about her family.

  I’ll come back, she thought as she taped together a box from the back of her closet. No, scrap that— I’ll go somewhere else. I can’t come back here. At least not until everyone she knew had graduated. And she didn’t want to wait that long. Maybe she’d try one of their extension campuses — she thought there might be one in Denver. She could move out, go find a job and an apartment up in the city somewhere. Because I’m not living at home. Even if Mom is in Georgia.

  A knock on the door made her hands twitch and drop the sweater she was folding. “Who’s there?”

  “Angie.”

  “What!?” Jessie flung open the door. “Oh my gosh, what are you doing here?”

  They threw their arms around each other. “My afternoon class got canceled and I knew you were having a hard time. Thought I’d drive down.”

  “What if I’d been in class?”

  Angie let her loaded backpack fall to the floor. “I’d have had plenty to keep me busy.”

  Jessie shut the door and cleared a space off her bed. “Excuse the mess. I’m packing.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  “Yup.”

  “This is all because of Adam?”

  “No—you haven’t heard the latest.” Jessie told her about the letter she’d received, and about her conversation with Shaun the day before. “I swear I’m in the Twilight Zone. My life is completely upside down. And it’s so … claustrophobic here. Everyone knows about A&A, everyone knows about Adam and me, and give it long enough and everyone will know that I was getting kicked out for not paying tuition. I can’t wait to get out of here.”

  “You can’t let them drive you away like that, Jess. They should be ashamed of themselves, gossiping like that. How un-Christianly of them.”

  “Tell me about it—but I’m not about to subject myself to that kind of torture just so they can learn a lesson. Besides, I can’t stay. My tuition isn’t paid up.”

  “Oh, right.” Angie took a box from the stack and began to tape it together. “So wait a minute. Tell me again what your mom thinks she has?”

  “The cellular memory thing, you mean?”

  “Yeah.”

  Jessie let out a scoff. “Yeah, get this: she thinks she’s, like, becoming her donor or something like that.”

  “What?”

  “Supposedly there’s this thing that happens to some people when they get a transplant. They start taking on the characteristics of their donor. So she thinks all this weird stuff that’s been happening to her, all these changes in her personality and everything, are because of her heart donor.” She wiggled her fingers and rolled her eyes. “Like she’s in some episode of Star Trek or something.”

  “You don’t think it’s possible?”

  “Possible? I don’t know — maybe. Anything is possible, right? But I went onto this transplant forum that she joined so I could look around and see what other people said about this sort of thing.” She left out the fact that she’d originally joined to snoop on her mother, which had backfired since Savannah turned out to be more of a lurker than a poster. What few things she’d written hadn’t provided Jessie with the insights she’d hoped for. “And no one else mentions it. I mean, this is an international forum, you’d think there’d be some big discussions if it were common — or even credible. But there’s nothing there. So personally, I think she’s using it as an excuse. She’s drained their savings, she’s run away from her family, she’s destroyed the ministry — I think she’s just looking for something she can blame it on.”

  “But doing all those things wouldn’t be like your mom, right? Something has to be driving her to do this stuff.”

  Jessie’s hands went to her hips. “Seriously? You’re defending her?”

  “I’m just saying there has to be some reason, because the Savannah Trover I know wouldn’t have done all those things.”

  “Yeah, see, that’s the thing.” Jessie dropped a stack of books into a box. “Everyone thinks they know what Savannah Trover is like. They think she’s some spiritual powerhouse, all goodness and light. I’ve told you a million times how rotten our relationship is, how critical she is, how selfish—and she still managed to pull the wool over your eyes. I feel like I’m the only person on the planet who sees her for what she is. Even after all the crap she’s pulled and the ways she’s screwed up our family, Dad’s still defending her and insisting it’s not all her fault. Whatever.” She swiped at the tears that had formed in her eyes and pulled another handful of books from the shelves. “As far as why she’s doing this stuff— I don’t know. But I’m not surprised.”

  Angie gave her a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry, Jess. I don’t know what to say.”

  Jessie rubbed her eyes with the end of her sleeve. “That’s alright. Just … don’t cross over to the dark side and start trying to convince me she’s not at fault here. I don’t have anyone I can lean on any-more—not my dad, not Adam …” The mention of Adam crumbled her already fragile emotional state. “I still can’t believe he broke up with me. I thought he loved me.”

  Angie’s arm went around her shoulder as she began to cry. “I’m so sorry, Jess. I really am.”

  “And oh my gosh—how glad am I that we never slept together!”

  Angie chuckled. “No kidding.”

  Jessie accepted the tissue Angie pulled from the box on her desk and mopped her tears. “Thanks. I appreciate it. I’m glad you came down — though I’m sorry I’m such a mess.”

  “That’s why I came, duh.”

  Jessie sniffed and chuckled through her tears. “True. Well, just a couple more days and I’ll be out of here. And who knows, maybe I’ll join you up in Denver someday soon.”

  “You’re gonna transfer?”

  “I don’t know.” Jessie shrugged. “But I’m not living at home for long. That’s for sure.”

  SAVANNAH’S CELL RANG AS SHE was taking another bite of the strawberry cheesecake she’d made for that night’s dessert. Seeing Shaun’s name made her groan aloud. Definitely not someone she wanted to talk to right now. She tried to hit a button to send it to voicemail, but her finger slipped and hit the talk button instead.

  “Oh crap,” she muttered, picking it up. “Hello?”

  “Savannah, we need to talk.”

  “Look, Shaun, I’m just getting ready for bed, how about—”

  “Adam broke up with Jessie because we’re closing A&A.”

  “What? That little fink! That’s ridiculous!”

  “Well, I agree, but he did it anyway. Jessie is in a really bad place, and I think you need to talk to her.”

  “Me?” She laughed “Shaun, I’m sure I’m the last person she wants to hear from.”

  “She needs to know you’re on her side.”

  “If she needs to know that, then why hasn’t she called? I find it hard to believe she actually wants to talk to me. She never does.”

  “That’s because she’s learned she’s not as important to you as other things are.”

  “That’s also ridiculous.”

/>   “Is it? Ever since you started A&A she’s been a second priority at best. She knows it and she’s tired of it. She … she actually asked me to leave you.”

  “Leave me—like, divorce me? You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “The way she sees it, you’ve left us already—emotionally before, and physically now.”

  Savannah couldn’t believe it was really that bad. Yes, she and Jessie had trouble connecting, but certainly she knew Savannah loved her. “Well, I hope you set her straight.”

  “I tried, yes. But honestly, Savannah, I don’t know what to think anymore. You’re avoiding us, you haven’t said a thing about coming home any time soon, even though Thanksgiving is in a week—”

  “Wait a minute. Are you actually siding with her?”

  “I’m just saying I don’t see how we can keep up our marriage through this trial when you’re running away and you aren’t even you anymore.”

  The air disappeared from her lungs. She slumped against the wall, thoughts spinning, until she grabbed onto one that gave her a rebuttal. “Well, since we’re just laying it all out there—explain what you were doing with the reimbursement forms from the last tour.”

  His response came a beat too late. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You listed receipts on my form that weren’t from our trip.”

  “No, I didn’t. Maybe that’s a cellular memory, too. Was Charlie an accountant?”

  “That’s bunk, Shaun, and you know it. Marisa witnessed it, too.”

  “Obviously she was mistaken — and why was she snooping around in my office? That alone would make me question whatever it was she told you. Obviously she was bitter about something and trying to make trouble for me.”

  “Shaun Michael Trover, you are a bald-faced liar.”

  “Enough of this. I need to go find Jessie and try to help her deal with the fact that her almost-fiance dumped her—something her mother should be doing.” The line went dead before Savannah could cry foul.

  She was too shocked for tears. Her daughter wanted her out of her life. Her husband was lying, obviously, about something. Both of them were blaming her for the collapse of their worlds.