The Memory Thief

by Rachel Keener

  “Follow me.”

  She led me to the library. Sat down and pointed to a chair for me. She pulled fabric from a basket on the floor.

  “Can you learn?”

  “What?”

  “If I showed you the stitches, would you pick it up quickly or struggle? It’s best to answer this now before we waste each other’s time.”

  “I taught my own self to read. Years after the teachers gave up.”

  “It’s a simple stitch. I’ll be doing all the actual quilting.” Her fingers lined up the edges of two squares of fabric. She pressed patterned sides together while I knelt before her, watching as she sewed a straight row of stitches a pencil’s width from the edge. “This is piecing,” she said. “A perfect place for a beginning quilter to start.”

  And that’s how our mornings together in the library began. After breakfast, and after I delivered trays down Bedroom Hall and dusted the small sitting room, she would find me.

  Fresh fabric always waited for me in the basket. I wasn’t quilting. Or making long hems of lace, the way her old fingers did. But I was still creating. Taking scraps that were nothing alone and putting them together to make something new. To make something warm.

  “You know many people on this mountain?” I dared to ask one day.

  “Can you work and talk?”

  “Long as I don’t look up.”

  “Very well. I know a few business owners that I purchase supplies from.”

  “I’m lookin’ for a family named Ray. They live on this mountain, or around it somewhere.”

  “I don’t know them.”

  “Where should I start?”

  “You should pray.”

  I looked up. My sewing fell to my lap.

  “Please attend your stitching,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Have you never?” she asked, minutes later.

  I thought of Daddy. “I’ve prayed a few times. Didn’t help none.”

  “Then recite the line carved above your door until your desire to find something God has not brought subsides.”

  “ ‘Havin’ food and raiment let us be therewith content.’ ”

  She nodded. “Angel, everybody comes here wanting. The guests want peace. The workers want refuge.”

  My stitches were crooked. I ripped them out and started over.

  “I call this a mountain sanctuary, and that is my goal. But I know the truth. This place, it’s the House of Wanting. Everybody’s aching like you. Everybody’s searching like you. My hope is that with time those words above your door will become real. They will bring you peace, even through your wanting. They will remind you that a full belly and warm skin are tender mercies from God. Who are we to ask for other happiness?”

  That day, my question opened something between us. From then on, she didn’t comment on stitching patterns anymore or the scratchy feel of new fabric. Instead she asked about my life at Red Castle. If I had noticed the pattern of frost on the alley windows in the morning. If I enjoyed the apple strudel that Shari had baked. If I knew those apples were raised in the back orchard. If I had studied the book of Appalachian birds in the Great Room.

  “This summer you might see a great horned owl,” she said. “Magnificent. Most live their whole lives and don’t see them. This mountaintop is their hunting ground.”

  She spoke of new seasons like there was no doubt I would be there. And though my mind fought her, answered her, I’ll be long gone, lady, I couldn’t deny how her words warmed me. Couldn’t deny how sweet it was to have plans made for me. To be expected, to be wanted, in the coming months. She promised to teach me how to garden. So that I could earn my keep in the summer, because quilting was winter work. And in the fall she would teach me how to can and freeze the harvest.

  Sometimes she spoke of her childhood up north. Of her grandmother’s bread recipes that Shari now served on the chestnut table.

  “Why’d you leave?” I asked. “Didn’t think folks up there ever wanted to come down here.”

  “I’m a runaway, too,” she said, and laughed softly. “I passed through these mountains on my way home, and found myself reconsidering what home meant for me, for my family. Is it where your house is built? Or is it where your family is safe?”

  “I’ve only been to Tennessee. And then the other Carolina when I was…”

  “But look at you now, child,” she interrupted softly. “You’re here now.” I looked up from my stitching. “Come, we should focus on this new bolt of fabric for the quilt backing,” she said. “I’ll show you how to baste the layers together so they don’t slip as I quilt them together. If we work with diligence, we can have a good start by lunch.”

  It always happened like that. She would speak warmly about future plans for me. About summer work and spring plantings. But if I hinted of my past, she interrupted me, refocused me on our work together. Sometimes by whispering the carving above my door.

  It’s not that I wanted to tell her my story. The one saved just for you. She was a stranger, and I didn’t want to empty my pockets for her. But there were other things I found myself wanting to tell. Things that teachers at school knew about me. Things that the Swarms themselves saw. Sometimes as we sewed and she talked of plans for me, I’d find myself wanting to interrupt her. Tell her something easy. Like, I was raised real poor. Or maybe, Daddy was a hard man to live with. I tried it once.

  “Sorry,” she said, before hurrying to answer a call she said came from the kitchen. I shrugged my shoulders and sat alone, making small, straight stitches.

  That night, with the help of cheap whiskey, I whispered it in my room. I knew the truth, what her Sorry really meant. That she didn’t want to be my sounding board. That she was too busy with the demands of her popular resort. Her Sorry was the same as covering her ears and singing la la la to block out unwanted noise.

  I drank more whiskey and tried again. That time, I heard what I wanted. Sorry. Because maybe the things I’d lived through were more than sad or scary. Maybe they were wrong. Something even a stranger should want to apologize for. Sure, I was trailer trash. But once, I was a little girl. Your baby born in Carolina and wrapped in a green blanket.

  I fell asleep and dreamed of you.

  I was running through the bacca. It was midsummer and the leaves were high and strong. You were chasing me, laughing. I hid behind tall plants and watched you pass by. Watched you worry over where I was. I didn’t cry out for you, or wave my hands through the bacca. Life was sweet enough, just knowing that you were looking.

  IV

  The next morning, I traded Tabby all my breaks for the next two days for one conversation with her mailman. I flagged him down in the road before he reached the mailbox.

  “You deliver to this whole mountain?”

  “Where’s Tabby?” he asked.

  “She’s sick. I’m lookin’ for the Ray family.”

  “But I got Tabby’s things. Who’s gonna pay me?”

  “If you help me, there’ll be big money for both of us. More money than you’ll ever earn deliverin’ mail and whiskey.”

  “Slow down,” he said. “What’s this all about?”

  “I’m lookin’ for my family.”

  “And what am I supposed to do about that?”

  “My mother’s last name is Ray, and she might be a Holy Roller. She’s got money, and if you find her, you’ll be rewarded. Look, all you gotta do is keep your eyes open. You walk up to homes all over this mountain. You see names and addresses that nobody else does.”

  “Yeah.” He nodded.

  “Find her and we’ll both be rich.”

  Four days later he told Tabby he had a lead. A family was looking for a baby they had given up for adoption, eighteen years ago. He had delivered a package to them from a company called Finding People.

  “All he knows so far,” Tabby said, “is that their house is huge. And they got a cross on the door. And they’re lookin’ for a baby that would be your age. Now the name wasn’t Ray, b
ut what if your mother got married? It just might be your folks, honey.”

  I spent that night laying things from my pockets across my bed. Like a time line. Like a story told in pictures.

  “It was a boy,” Tabby told me two days later. “They’re lookin’ for a boy.”

  I wrote Sick next to my name on the chart in the alley. Went to my room and fell across my bed. Stared at the carving above my door until I could trace the letters perfectly, my eyes closed.

  “Pray,” the old woman had said.

  Maybe she was right. Daddy was trouble, so my baby lips prayed over him. Black Snake trailer was trouble, so I prayed as I burned it down. I was trouble, too. I found my whiskey bottle beneath my mattress. Took a sip though it was only noon, closed my eyes and tried. Bless me.

  Someone knocked on the door.

  “Yeah?”

  “Why aren’t you working? You have obligations,” the old woman called.

  “I’m sick.”

  “Very well. You’ll be needed tomorrow, though. We begin Christmas.”

  At first, Christmas at Red Castle didn’t seem like a holiday as much as it was a production. Bedroom Hall was booked solid by people seeking holiday peace. We cleaned more, carried more trays, and had to help in the kitchen frequently. Families took short walks through the soft mountain snow and returned to order trays of Christmas cookies and warm cider. And then one day after supper, the Christmas tree went up.

  It was a real tree, cut from the mountain. Nearly twelve feet tall and six feet wide. It stood in the corner of the Great Room, just before the entrance to the dining hall. There were no lights for it, only handmade ornaments. Many of them quilted lace, and I recognized the patterns of the old woman’s skilled fingers. Some of them were childlike, initials and dates scribbled on the back.

  Guests were busy hanging the ornaments, while I stood against the wall and watched. The old woman appeared by my side. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll go clean the sittin’ room now.”

  She shook her head and handed me an ornament made from the scraps of fabric we had just worked with. “Hang this.”

  I’d never had a Christmas tree. But I knew how beautiful they could be because of Swarm house. The Swarm tree was always covered in large rainbow lights and tinsel. When I was little, I thought they put it in the front window for people like me who didn’t have a tree, but needed to see one.

  Momma taught me the truth.

  “Look at them, showin’ off that tree. Bet they spent a hundred dollars on decorations. Bet that’s a real crystal star on top. That’s why they put it up front and open them curtains. They want everybody to know just how good they got it.”

  The old woman watched me as I found the loop at the top of the ornament and opened it. I saw how the branches were pulled slightly through the loops of others and did the same to mine. But it was too heavy and the branch too small. It bent forward and drooped in front of another ornament.

  “Oh,” I said, as my face flushed. I started to remove it.

  “No, it’s perfect,” the old woman answered.

  I hurried to the sitting room, but I worked slowly that night. I forgot to straighten the cushions and didn’t bother to count the chess pieces. I kept returning to the Great Room entrance, just to look one more time. I held my broom and swept and swept the one space on the floor that let me see the tree, until curfew was announced. Then I walked to Bedroom Hall, my hand on my skirt, pressing against the place where my last pocket was. I hurried into my room and pulled out that final memory. My happy one.

  It was a small bar of soap. Broken, but the crumbs were held inside the wrapper. The words Holiday Inn stamped across it. It smelled like crushed flowers. But when I held it to my nose I only thought of the good Christmas.

  It was during one of the winters that Momma had a secret boyfriend. Whenever Daddy took off for the night, Bobby drove up in his yellow pickup. Momma would send us outside to stand guard.

  “You hear your Daddy’s car comin’ down the road, you run quick and tell me. He’ll kill us all if he finds Bobby here.”

  Christmas came and Momma wanted to celebrate for the first time ever. We didn’t have a tree, but she hung a string of lights off the edge of Black Snake trailer. They blinked on and off through the night. She took us shopping. Bought us each a candy cane and a little bell necklace to wear around our necks. Gave up her whiskey money to buy Bobby a bottle of cologne.

  “He’s takin’ us away,” she whispered, as she hid the cologne beneath our couch. “He’s got money, and he’s gonna take us all away.”

  On Christmas Eve, Daddy was out. Bobby pulled up and we all piled into his yellow pickup.

  “Merry Christmas,” he laughed. Momma jumped on his lap and they started kissing and sighing like the big kids that sat at the back of the bus. He drove us to Gatlinburg.

  That year there was a rich girl in my third-grade class. She had written an essay about her trip to Disney. She spoke of spinning rides and ice cream, castles and princesses. As Bobby drove us into Gatlinburg, I looked at everything around me. My eyes never missing anything that blinked or shimmered. I wrote my own report and imagined reading it to my class.

  My Best Vacation Ever

  by Angel

  My best vacation ever was to a place called Gatlinburg. It took a long time to get there. At least an hour, but probably more. I saw a store with a sign that said Feed the Black Bears, two dollars. I saw chairs that hung from a wire and could lift and carry you up to the mountain top. I saw a place called the Mountain Fudge Factory. The sign said they sold 15 types of fudge. In the window, a man was making taffy. He pulled on a rope of blue candy as long as my arm. We went to a hotel next. It had a pool inside. You could swim in the winter or in the rain and never get cold. There was a machine in the hallway too. If you pressed a button, ice would shoot out. And another machine next to it. It was full of candy. Gatlinburg is the very funnest town in the whole wide world. When I grow up, I want to live in that hotel.

  Bobby booked two rooms. One for him and Momma, one for me and Janie. Then he piled a bunch of quarters on the bed.

  “Git your supper from the machine. Just leave us alone.”

  The room had two beds in it. We could jump back and forth between them without ever touching the floor. There was a TV, too. With dozens of channels, all of them clear even though it wasn’t storming. We watched Little House on the Prairie for the first time. Giggled at the way those girls yelled Ma and Pa, instead of saying Momma and Daddy. Janie held a sheet around her head.

  “How you like my bonnet, Laura?”

  We went swimming next. We didn’t own swimsuits, so we jumped in wearing our long sleep T-shirts and panties. Janie was a teenager. But she splashed in the water same as me, her black bra showing beneath her wet shirt. When we were hungry, we dried off and returned to our room. Divided the quarters evenly between us.

  Janie bought a Mountain Dew, a bag of Fritos, and a Snickers bar. I bought a grape coke, a bag of Cheetos, and M&M’s. And later that night after swimming again, we split a pack of orange crackers with peanut butter in the middle. It was the best Christmas dinner ever.

  Once we finally turned out the lights and decided to sleep, each of us in our own bed for the first time ever, I saw Christmas lights flashing outside.

  “Merry Christmas, Janie,” I whispered.

  She laughed. “Wish every day was.”

  In the morning, we woke up to Momma pounding on the door. Janie rolled out of bed and let her in.

  “Your daddy’s waitin’ on us outside.”

  “Where’s Bobby?”

  “Didn’t like him as much as I thought. Now git up, Daddy’s waitin’.”

  I saw the way she held her body tight. Like the bones that jutted from her skin hurt her. I saw the swell of her cheek, the skin stretched and purple beneath her eye.

  We climbed into Daddy’s car.

  “Janie,” Momma said to Daddy with a roll of her eyes. She told him a story about Jan
ie running off with a boy from the back of the bus. About chasing Janie and finding her in the hotel with a bad boy.

  “He knocked me around a bit. But I knew how to run him off,” she said, pulling the gun out of her bag.

  “Next time,” Daddy said, shrugging his shoulders, “just let her go.”

  Janie closed her eyes tightly and slid a bar of soap into my hand.

  “Smell it,” she whispered. “Smells like Christmas.”

  V

  I stood inside my Red Castle room, smelling Janie’s Christmas soap. Someone knocked.

  “Yeah?”

  “We have work to finish,” the old woman called.

  It wasn’t unusual. Lately she often had extra tasks for me once the other workers were in bed. Sometimes I waited long into the night to sip my whiskey, fearful that she would come for me. If I stayed up late working with her, she gave me extra rest during the day out of the sight of other workers. She hid me in the library and let me rest on the couch.

  We had finished making quilts and began a new pattern for aprons. It was my job to attach the pocket. That night I picked up the apron I had started earlier and began a row of new stitches.

  “I thought we could make ornaments tonight. There are some bare places on the tree.”

  She showed me a snowflake pattern, and I watched as she attached tiny pearls to soft velvet.

  “Cut this pattern. I’ll do the sewing.”

  From my quick glances up, I noticed fresh snow was falling and sticking to the window.

  “We had so much snow when I was growing up,” she said. “That’s why I like this pattern. It might start falling in October and last till May.”

  “I was born near the ocean. It don’t snow there. And in Tennessee, if it snowed it usually just skimmed the ground. There were a couple of real good ones, though. Once snow came all the way up to the front door of our trailer. That meant it was real high, too, ’cause our trailer wasn’t planted to the ground like a real home.”

  “Finish your pattern.”