Some were the jokes that Asher had told her recently, but there were scores more and she couldn’t recall ever hearing them before. Reciting them to herself and making up new ones kept her entertained during part of the thirty minutes she spent flat on her back inside a metal can that took pictures of slices of her brain that were beamed to a darkened room to be examined by sober-faced physicians.
When she exhausted her supply of jokes, she started conjuring images of her absent memories, Casper-like creatures, naughty ghost children playing hide-and-seek with the doctors. She imagined them scampering about, wispy and impish, clamping translucent hands over giggling mouths, shushing one another into silence and invisibility as they insinuated themselves into the shadow of an eye socket or the curve of a frontal lobe.
It seemed like a lot of fuss over nothing, as far as Meg was concerned. If everyone would just calm down and quit paying them so much undeserved attention, she felt sure the memories would emerge in their own good time, tiring of the game once they realized no one was looking for them. That was what naughty children always did, wasn’t it?
Though Meg couldn’t remember having given birth to Trina, she somehow knew the ways of children.
She knew a lot of things.
For example, she knew that she hated broccoli and was allergic to strawberries before having taken a bite of either. Also, upon watching the opening credits, she found she already knew the entire plot of a multiseason PBS series set in England in the 1920s, a farfetched but nonetheless riveting melodrama with heroes and villains both upstairs and down.
She could describe the plot and characters in detail, but not the circumstances of having watched it. Asher said it was one of her favorites and that they never missed an episode.
Though he always kept his words and demeanor light and encouraging, she knew he was upset that she didn’t remember that, or anything else about him. Had the tables been turned, she imagined she’d feel the same. Maybe that was why, even though he was so kind and patient, she still felt uncomfortable around him. He was obviously a very nice and good man, a man who clearly adored his wife, but Meg wasn’t sure she wanted to be adored.
She very much liked her younger sister, Avery, the mermaid storyteller. She was easy to be around.
And then there was Joanie. She had no memories of her either, but after spending five minutes with her, Meg could easily have pegged her as the big sister. Either that or the mother. Joanie was very motherly, concerned for the well-being of everyone and willing to take on their problems as her own, but also . . . well, a little bossy. Not in an overbearing way, but she was clearly the leader, the sister who took charge and to whom others came for advice. Even Asher deferred to her.
When Joanie came to visit the day after Meg first woke, she brought a denim tote bag filled with photo albums. She perched on the edge of Meg’s bed, her right leg resting at an angle on the bed and the left bracing the floor, and started flipping through the pages of the album, pointing at faces and scenes, demanding answers.
Did Meg remember this person? That place? That day?
No, none of them.
But there was one picture of a pretty woman dressed in a polka dot dress with a wide belt that emphasized her trim waist that got her attention. She stopped turning the pages, stared at the woman with the porcelain smooth skin and slate-colored eyes.
Meg sensed Joanie’s eyes boring into her, felt her posture stiffen and her neck lengthen, like a cat stalking an interesting insect with its eyes.
“Do you recognize her?”
“No.” She closed the album and pushed it away. “But I don’t think I like her.”
“Yeah, well . . .” Joanie smiled bitterly. “You’re not the only one.”
Meg thought about asking why Joanie, or any of them, should harbor such strong feelings toward the woman in the picture—their mother, Minerva—but decided she was happier not knowing.
And that was the strangest thing of all. Though she was in a hospital, with the skin on her face and body mottled with formerly blue bruises turning yellow, and minus her memories, most of the time Meg experienced a kind of happiness that bordered on elation. The most simple, ordinary objects and observations sparked her to wonder and delight.
She took joy in the brilliant colors of the flowers Avery picked for her and placed in a Mason jar on her nightstand and the velvet softness of the petals when she stroked them with her fingertips. She was delighted by the way the sunlight glinted against the jar’s clear curved glass and the water inside, creating diamond bright pinpoints of light that skipped about the walls and ceiling if she moved the jar from side to side. She laughed because the skipping lights reminded her of water sprites from one of Avery’s stories.
Apart from the occasional discomforting awareness that came from not remembering the people who remembered her, Meg delighted in everything. She noticed everything. She experienced life in a manner that adults usually don’t—that is to say, fully. She couldn’t recall being unhappy before her awakening, but somehow knew that she had been.
And though this lightness of mind and spirit was entirely new to her, Meg wanted to hold on to it. She wanted to very much.
Chapter 10
In April, Seattle plays hard to get.
Just about the time it’s been so gray for so long that people start thinking about sticking a FOR SALE sign in the lawn and moving to Tahoe, the sun breaks through just long enough to give you a taste of what might maybe perhaps be in store for you if you stick around a little longer. On those rare, fleeting, surprisingly sunny days in April, anybody who can possibly find an excuse to go outside does.
With orders backed up three deep in Joanie’s sewing room, fertilizing the roses was far from an urgent matter. Even had it been otherwise, she could certainly have borrowed some bonemeal from Allison, or driven down to the hardware store in the Pike/Pine neighborhood to buy it and been back home in fifteen minutes. But when she looked out the window and saw that it was a beautiful day and that—at last—Hal Seeger was nowhere to be seen, she decided to make the trek on foot.
Before she left, she was tempted to call Allison and tell her that her plan had worked and that Hal had finally given up and gone home.
Just the night before, she’d gone over to offer her opinion on carpet samples for Allison’s master bedroom redecoration. They sipped glasses of Pinot Noir while they considered the plusses and minuses of pile versus shag and caught up.
“So Meg still can’t remember anything?” Allison asked as she topped up her glass. “Doesn’t that seem weird to you?”
“Yes, but the doctor says it’s early days and that we shouldn’t be too worried. There’s still some swelling in the brain. I’m just grateful she’s alive and getting better.”
“What about that movie guy? Hal whoever-he-was. Did he finally shove off?”
“Nope,” Joanie said. “Still hanging around like a stray dog looking for a handout.”
“Still? It’s been days! Joanie, you should call the cops and have him charged with harassment or trespassing or something. Or go to court and get a restraining order. He’s got some kind of weird obsession with you. He’s obviously crazy. Probably dangerous.”
Joanie was tempted to ask Allison why she felt that any man who was obsessed with Joanie must be, by definition, not only crazy but dangerous. Instead she said, “Don’t be so dramatic. If I ignore him, he’ll go away eventually.”
And finally, he had, she thought, putting on her sunglasses and slipping some money into the back pocket of her jeans. Now, if they could get Meg home and better, everything would be fine and back to normal.
Joanie took a circuitous route to the store, skirting the edge of Volunteer Park where people who had called in sick at work that morning had spread out a patchwork of blankets on the brilliant green grass and were lying on top of them with eyes closed, exposing as much pasty, winter-white skin as was possible in public, basking in the sun like harbor seals on a rocky shore. A lot of the
people who weren’t sunbathing were walking or playing with their dogs.
Recently, Walt had made a joke about her getting a dog to replace him after he went away to college. “After all, you’re going to need somebody to talk to when I’m gone.” Maybe he wasn’t joking after all. Maybe he had a point.
On the return trip, Joanie took a different route through residential streets, enjoying the creative and varied ways that her neighbors turned Capitol Hill’s postage-stamp-sized yards into a personal urban oasis. No two were alike. Some were Japanese influenced, with tiny concrete pagodas, bonsai trees, and an occasional koi pond. Others, like Joanie’s own, leaned more toward the English style with picketed garden gates, bare branched rosebushes not yet in bloom, and close-cropped patches of lavender that would shoot up suddenly in summer, blossoming into fragrant purple mounds. There were Zen-influenced rock gardens with white, black, and gray pea gravel raked into tranquil patterns and teak benches for seating and contemplation. There were Pacific Northwest gardens with rhododendrons, fir trees and pine trees, and native plants bedded in bark dust. There were typical suburban American gardens, too, with orderly rectangular swatches of bright green grass bordered by straight-edged flower beds planted with crocuses, daffodils, and tulips just beginning to bloom to be followed by pansies, geraniums, and mums as spring gave way to summer and then summer to fall. There were high-, low-, and no-moisture gardens and even a few urban farmscapes with raised beds devoted entirely to the cultivation of vegetables and fruits.
In every third or fourth yard, Joanie saw someone was weeding, trimming, mulching, or mowing. And very nearly to a person, whether she knew them or not, the gardener in question looked at her with a smile of delight and surprise that bordered on shock and called out, “Isn’t it a beautiful day?” to which she would respond, “Beautiful!”
And it was.
Until she turned the corner onto her own block and saw Hal Seeger sitting on her porch holding a flat of somewhat wilted yellow flowers on his knees. This was getting ridiculous. Maybe she really ought to take Allison’s advice and call the police.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice weary rather than angry.
“You mean aside from employing my charm and devastatingly good looks to win you over and convince you to cooperate with my documentary?”
She nodded, silently giving him points for honesty. Well, about most things.
She wouldn’t have described him as devastatingly handsome; his jaw was a little too heavy for her taste and his eyebrows were kind of bushy. But his smile was nice, teeth straight and very white, in spite of the often-present cigar, which gave off an aroma like leaves burning on an autumn evening that she didn’t find as unpleasant as she had expected. In fact, it was kind of a nice smell, earthy.
He was a nice-looking man. No denying it. But devastatingly handsome? No.
“Yeah, aside from that.”
He set the flowers down on the porch and stood up.
“Waiting for you. The old man across the street . . . What’s his name? Mr. Teasdale?” Hal lifted his arm over his head and waved at Mr. Teasdale, who was out with his walker, getting the mail, and waved back. “He’s a nice guy. Thinks the world of you and Walt.”
What? Now he was stalking the neighbors too? Joanie raised her arm over her head and smiled at Mr. Teasdale, pausing to be pleased at seeing him out of the house before turning her attention back to the problem standing in front of her, Hal Seeger. Hal wasn’t short on nerve, was he? Well, Mr. Teasdale was one thing, but he’d better steer clear of Allison. If he set one foot on her property she’d probably call in a SWAT team.
“Anyway, you’ve been pretty busy, going back and forth to the hospital, taking care of your sister, of everybody really. I just thought it might be nice if somebody took care of you a little bit. Or at least did something nice for you. You like flowers, right?” he said, glancing down at the flat filled of scraggly, slightly limp coreopsis.
“True. But I usually prefer them alive.”
Hal frowned.
“They’re dead?”
“Almost. Not quite.” She squatted down, plucked one of the plastic rectangular containers, each with six little plant pots, from the flat and held it up. “See this?” she asked, pointing to a clump of sinuous threads. “They’re root bound—too big for these teeny containers. They need to be transplanted into better soil with plenty of space for the roots to spread out and take hold.”
“Right,” he said, nodding as if he was following her completely even though she could tell he wasn’t. “Well, looks like I brought them to the right place.”
“Not really. Coreopsis isn’t a great choice for Seattle, not unless your garden has a lot of direct sunlight. Mine doesn’t. Plus, it’s early in the season for them.”
“Oh.” Hal pushed his fists into his pockets, as if he was trying to break through the seams. “Sorry.”
She got to her feet. “It was a nice thought.”
“I know you’ve been going through a hard time,” he said, shifting his shoulders in a kind of don’t-mention-it gesture. “But Meg’s doing better now, right? Except for the memory thing. And the doctor thinks a full recovery is just a matter of time? Till the swelling in her brain goes down?”
Joanie narrowed her eyes.
“Who told you that?” He clamped his mouth shut. “Avery! When I see her I’m going to—” She stomped the ground with her foot. “She should know better. And so should you! What is it about the word no that you don’t understand, huh? Why won’t you leave us alone?”
Hal spread out his palms, as if to show her that he had nothing to hide. “Because I think you’ve got a fascinating story that deserves to be told. That needs to be told. A documentary about what you and your sisters went through, how you survived it then and are dealing with it today, could help a lot of people—”
“Oh, I’m sure it could. You especially.” She pushed past him and mounted the steps, shoving the flat of flowers aside with her foot. “Save the speech for somebody else. I’ve already been to the puppet show before, remember? I know how this works. If you think I’m going to let you exploit my sisters so you can put a bigger pool in your mansion—”
“I make documentaries, Joanie, not blockbusters. I do what I do because I love it and I’m good at it. Not because I think it’ll make me rich. Just so you know, I live in a two-bedroom condo in West LA. No pool. No yacht. No private jet. I don’t even have a 401(k).”
“Me neither,” she replied. “What I do have is this house and my family. That’s all I have. And I’ve had to work very, very hard to hold it together and find a little peace for all of us. So when I tell you that there is nothing in the world that would make me put that at risk, you should believe me.”
She turned her body to face him squarely.
“I’m sure you are good at what you do, Hal. But you’re going to have to do it somewhere else, with someone else.” She bent down, picked up the flat of flowers, and held them out to him. “Go home. Please.”
Hal gave her a long, appraising look, so long that it started to make her feel uncomfortable. Finally, to Joanie’s surprise, he simply said, “Okay,” and walked away. Just before getting into his car he looked at her and said, “Try not to overdo it, Joanie. I meant what I said before. Somebody really ought to be looking after you.”
* * *
“Seriously? He said that?” Allison asked, handing Joanie a glass of iced tea when she walked over to see her friend a little later that day. “He said, ‘Somebody really ought to be looking after you’?”
Joanie nodded, took a sip of tea, closed her eyes, and tilted her face toward the sun. Allison poured a glass for herself and plopped down into the patio chair opposite.
“So now what are you going to do?”
“Do? Worry about Meg getting better and coming home, about Asher and Trina not starving to death before she does, about Avery finding a job, Walt getting through the year carrying three AP courses, and abou
t how I’m going to catch up on my order backlog. You know, just go back to my normal thrilling and deeply fulfilling life.”
Joanie opened her eyes. Allison was staring at her.
“You wish he’d stayed, don’t you? He was starting to grow on you.”
“He was not!” Joanie exclaimed, aghast. “Are you crazy? He was a complete pain. And totally nuts. Practically a stalker. If I never see him again, it’ll be too soon. But I just . . . well, I hope I didn’t hurt his feelings.”
“What did you do with the flowers?”
“What?”
“The flowers he brought you—the coreopsis. What did you do with them?”
Joanie furrowed her brow, wondering why she cared.
“I planted them. What? I couldn’t just let them die.”
“I thought you said they would anyway.”
“Well, they will. Probably. They’re meant for a sunnier, warmer climate. I doubt they’ll survive a week, let alone take root. But what could I do? They’re living things, right?”
Allison shook her head slowly from left to right. The cloud passed, flooding Allison’s patio with sunlight once again. As if on cue, both women closed their eyes once again and turned their faces skyward, drinking in the sun’s warmth while it was yet to be found.
“You are a mess, Joanie Promise.”
“I know,” she sighed.
Chapter 11
Hal stopped by the Capitol Hill Public House, original home of Elysian Brewing, a microbrewery he had come to appreciate during his pointless quest to Seattle.
It was happy hour. Given how much this trip had cost him and how little had come out of it, even happy hour stretched his budget, but a guy had to eat. And drink. Especially today.
He’d spent six months on this project and even more on Joanie Promise. That wasn’t counting the times he’d spent unsuccessfully pitching the idea over the years. Finally, after the relative financial success of Spells the End, he decided to go ahead on his own, trusting that the money would come on board once the project was rolling. It almost worked. A producer he’d met at Sundance had shown some serious interest. But now . . .
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