The Memory Thief

by Rachel Keener

  “Go,” Hannah whispered. “Get out of here.”

  Bethie shook her head. “I came to visit you.”

  “Go.”

  Bethie sighed, pushed the air out hard between her pursed lips. She remembered what Dr. Vaughn had told her. To focus on the simple, happy times of their past together. She decided to try again. “Guess what I remembered the other day? All those times we snuck over to our neighbor’s house when we were little. Just so we could watch that tiny TV they had in the garage. Remember how we’d fight about whether to watch the motorcycle show, with that cop always driving fast and dangerous, or that cartoon with the little orange people? What was that called? I can’t remember for the life of me. Mother never found out about that. She still brags about us never owning a TV. She has no idea how many shows we watched, all because the Franklins never locked their garage.”

  Hannah didn’t move. She hardly breathed. Bethie watched her silently for a minute and couldn’t decide whether Hannah had heard her or not. She shrugged. “I don’t think I’m doing this right, Hannah. I’m supposed to visit with you, chat about old times together. But what I really want is for you to look at me. I’d love to see your face. Don’t you want to see me?”

  Hannah turned toward her, her eyes wide and scared. She shook her head slowly. “I’m not supposed to,” she whispered.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They don’t let me,” she said, and pointed to the camera on the wall. “I’m only allowed to see her now,” she said, as she pointed to the empty chair. “Everything else is supposed to be what’s real. Just these white walls. Just this empty room. I’m not supposed to see visions anymore, except the ones they want. So I’m sorry, Bethie, but you gotta go now. I don’t want to get in trouble.”

  “But I’m—”

  “Shhhh,” Hannah whispered, as she covered her ears with her hands. She closed her eyes tightly. “When I open my eyes, you will disappear.”

  She opened her eyes, saw Bethie, and quickly shut them. Opened her eyes. Then shut them tightly. Again. And again.

  “What are you doing?” Bethie asked.

  “Making you disappear. I’ve learned how, finally. Things might appear whenever they want, but I’ve learned if I focus enough, if I close my eyes and try hard enough, I can do it. I can see what’s real.”

  She opened her eyes, saw Bethie.

  “I’m still here. I’m not a vision.” Bethie noticed the tremble in Hannah’s lips, the fear that spread across her face. “Let’s just talk. Like we used to.”

  “If you’re not a vision, there’s only one more thing you could be…” Hannah ran and stood behind the empty chair in the corner. She angled the chair until a chip in the white paint that exposed a little circle of blue faced Bethie.

  “What are you doing?” Bethie asked. “Legion brought me here. Didn’t they tell you? Legion?” Bethie called out. “Tell Hannah I’m real. That you brought me here.” She waited for an answer, but the intercom stayed silent. “Legion?” she called out once more, and then shook her head. “Damn it, Hannah, just touch me. You’ll see I’m real.”

  “The real Bethie never cussed,” Hannah said triumphantly. “Except with her eyes.”

  Bethie laughed bitterly and held her hand out. “Just put your hand in mine, like the way we used to walk to the bus together when we were babies.”

  “That won’t prove anything. Haints aren’t afraid of flesh and blood.”

  “What can I do?”

  “See that blue?” Hannah said, as she pointed to the small circle on the empty chair. “If you’re really Bethie, alive and in the flesh, you can touch it without fear.”

  Bethie looked at the empty chair. She didn’t understand the test. She didn’t know the story about the chipped blue paint on the old plantation. But she walked to the chair and laid her palm over the blue. “I am not a vision. I am not a haint. I’m your sister.”

  Hannah nodded slowly, as she stared at Bethie’s hand covering the blue. Quick tears sprang from her eyes. “Bethie,” she cried.

  Bethie walked to Hannah and hugged her carefully. It wasn’t the way she had dreamed it. The joyous crashing of arms around one another, the laughing into each other’s tangled hair. Hannah stood very still, while Bethie wrapped her arms around her and gently held her. Like a mother holding a sick child.

  “I’ve missed you,” Bethie whispered, when she gained control over her voice.

  “I’m sorry. It’s been so long. But I still should have known you. I don’t know why—”

  “Shhh,” Bethie said. “It’s all right.”

  Hannah pulled away quickly. “Talk to me.” She didn’t say it friendly. Like from one sister to another. And she didn’t say it rudely. Like any other lonely Yank might. She said it hungrily. Like a baby needing milk. Or else it will cry. Or else it will scream.

  Bethie started with simple, sweet memories. Like how they played with the porcelain dolls together in the Mission Room. Hannah sat, hugging her knees to her chest, bottling up every word that spilled out of Bethie’s mouth. Sometimes she repeated them softly, and marveled at how good it felt. To feel something brand-new inside her mouth. Someone else’s words. Real ones.

  Hannah memorized the shape of Bethie’s mouth as her words fell out. She memorized the rise and fall of her tone. Bethie’s punchy syllables, a clue to days long past, when every sound she spoke was a struggle, a giant effort to release. Hannah loved it, just as she always had, when the strict rhythm of Bethie’s words melted into something smoother, more musical, as she laughed.

  Bethie was telling a story about the time they made apple butter in the fall. Bethie had turned up the stove’s heat when Mother wasn’t looking. She was tired of waiting and anxious to taste something sweet. But she scorched the whole batch. Bethie laughed softly, and Hannah smiled as she listened.

  “We ate it burnt,” Bethie said. “Remember? We pretended we liked it, so Mother wouldn’t feel bad.”

  Hannah nodded.

  “Ten minutes left for visitation,” Legion called out from the intercom.

  Bethie had to look away from Hannah’s face. From the knowledge they both had in that moment. That it might be years before they saw each other again.

  Hannah covered her face with her hands and moaned. “I wish I was a slanteye.”

  Bethie laughed loudly. “What a thing to say right now.”

  “I mean it,” Hannah said firmly. “If I was a slanteye, I would of escaped it.”

  “Escaped what?”

  “Being Leah.”

  “You aren’t Leah.”

  “You don’t have her in you, like I do. All growing up I heard what people said. She’s in me, Bethie. And I’m ruined now. Just like Mother said Leah was. Once she was in that hospital, Mother said there was no return for her.”

  “You’re not ruined.”

  “Look at me! Look at this place!” Hannah cried out. “I am Leah. I am ruined.”

  “No,” Bethie said, her eyes screaming cusswords like they used to on the bus. “You’re not ruined. You’re empty. There’s a real difference between the two.”

  Hannah shook her head and looked toward the wall.

  “You think I don’t know?” Bethie whispered darkly. “Oh, sister, did you miss my childhood so completely? Were you that lost in your perfect days, your smart, pretty, glory days? From my first memory of speaking, I felt the ruin inside my mouth. From that first taste of the vinegar Mother poured over my tongue—remember? From that first taste, how do you think I felt about myself? Ruined. I couldn’t even say my own name. I couldn’t even tell the bus driver my name. And all the things that girls, girls like you, took for granted, I had no hope for. Things like giving a class book report. Making a phone call to a friend. Meeting a boy, and shyly whispering Hello. All of that was ruined for me. So I quit. I forced my tongue to be still. I forced my mouth to be empty. And I felt like you do now. I felt ruined.” Bethie stepped toward Hannah, searched her face, until their eyes met.


  “Sorry,” Hannah whispered.

  “Shhh,” Bethie said, as she laid a finger gently over Hannah’s mouth. “I’m about to tell you something very important. Everyone thinks I outgrew it. What did Mother call my years of signing? The ‘Rest Period.’ Everyone thinks that Rest Period gave my mind and mouth time to catch up to one another. Time to grow and develop without stress.” Bethie shook her head. “You’re all wrong.”

  “Then what?” Hannah asked.

  “Do you remember the waterfall, way off the trail? I used to walk there at night. Nobody was around. Nobody could see me. I would sit by that waterfall and hear the roar of free water tumbling easy and powerful off the mountain. One night, I opened my mouth to speak, for the first time in years. The waterfall was too loud, so I couldn’t hear my words. But I felt them. Big and clumsy and full inside my mouth. The Rest Period hadn’t done a thing to help me. I kept going back. And since I couldn’t hear myself, I paid attention to the way my lips and tongue worked together. To the way some words rolled out like silk. While others seemed to cling to the backs of my teeth. And I kept going back, every night.”

  “What happened?”

  “I was never one for learning scripture like you. You could remember whole passages to my short Jesus wept verse. But words from Job returned to me by that waterfall. He stretched out the north over empty space… He hung this whole earth on the face of Nothing.”

  Bethie reached for Hannah’s hands and grabbed them. “Don’t miss it, sister. Emptiness is the miracle canvas. The whole earth, everything we see, every word I speak, all hung on Nothing.”

  “Miracles?” Hannah laughed bitterly and shook her head. “Not for me. Not after the choices I’ve made. And certainly not in this place. I believe in the miracles of old, Bethie, just like we were raised to. But I’m no patriarch. I’m no prophet. And even if I were—if I were Jonah and this place was my great fish—all my prayers would never get me out.”

  “Jonah,” Bethie said, and smiled. “Just like my old Hannah. You still focus only on the achievers, on the ones that score points and make As. Like patriarchs and prophets. You’ve overlooked some of the best miracles. Jonah’s story isn’t just about a prophet getting out of a fish. It’s about a doomed city. What about their miracle?”

  Hannah shook her head.

  “They were handed steadfast love in place of disaster. Remember? Should I not pity those people… who do not know their right hand from their left? ” Bethie grabbed Hannah’s hand. “Nineveh wasn’t full of deserving prophets. It was full of people like you. Hannah, you don’t know your right hand from your left.”

  Hannah shook her head gently, her eyes lowered to the ground.

  Bethie watched her, and her mind raced with all the ways she had failed to help her sister. “There’s a true bridge,” Bethie whispered. “And like something only you would dream, sister, redemption began with a newborn baby.”

  Static pierced the room and the intercom buzzed. “Visitation time is up. The door will open shortly. Please refrain from further conversation. This topic clearly violates the agreed boundaries.”

  “I was not ruined,” Bethie whispered in Hannah’s ear. “I was empty, I didn’t know my left hand from my right. But I believed in the bridge. I became a miracle canvas.”

  “Silence, please. Bethlehem, you have signed a contract guaranteeing your cooperation.”

  The door opened. The nurse stood on the other side and waited for Bethie to join her. Bethie saw the look on Hannah’s face, the sweet, sad look as she struggled to hope on the miracles that Bethie declared. And though she promised herself she would not, though she promised Mother she would never, she could not stop herself. In that moment, when she knew she would leave Hannah in that white cage, when she knew Legion would never allow her to visit Hannah again, Bethie knew she had to do more than just back up Hannah. She had to bring her the waterfall. She had to bring her the miracle on the mountain.

  “Visiting time is over,” the nurse said. “Please exit the room.”

  Bethie threw her arms around her sister. The crashing, desperate embrace of her dreams.

  “Your miracle is happening right now, on our mountain,” she gushed as tears, held back so long, suddenly poured down her face. “Look at me, Hannah. Even as we speak, your miracle is—”

  The nurse put her arms around Bethie’s shoulders and pulled her back. As the white door slammed and Hannah’s face disappeared, Bethie sank to the floor and screamed, “She’s your miracle!”

  The doctors came running down the hall. Dr. Vaughn helped Bethie to her feet.

  “Hannah will need sedation,” one of the doctors said to the nurse. He looked at Bethie. “You have no idea what you’ve done,” he said angrily. “All the work, everything we’ve done to make her feel safe, to encourage her mind to focus on reality. And then you come along with your waterfalls and your promise of miracles.” He shook his head with disgust. “There are no miracles for a woman like Hannah. There’s only reality, with all its pain and sadness. And it’s one she must deal with, whether you like it or not.”

  Dr. Vaughn led Bethie back to the chair where she had waited earlier. Then she walked to the nurses’ counter and asked for a cup of water. The doctor that yelled at Bethie came and stood by her. “Susan, this was all your idea,” he said to her. “They’ve had to give her two injections to calm her down. Ten bucks says she won’t speak a word to us tomorrow. You wanted it too much. You’ve lost all sense of professional boundaries.”

  Another doctor joined them. “Let’s calm down. It’s not entirely Susan’s fault. Having to call Hannah ‘Mother’ over the intercom as she talked to that empty chair. Having to sit across from her for so long without any sign of progress. Of course you want her well more than any of us. But it’s compromising your decisions. Your desire is becoming risky to the patient, Susan.” He jerked his head in Bethie’s direction. “And she was a very bad choice.”

  Dr. Vaughn returned to Bethie, carrying the cup of water.

  “I’m sorry,” Bethie said. “I had to tell her the truth.”

  Dr. Vaughn sighed. “It wasn’t all terrible. She saw you as real, Bethie. You were able to convince her of that.” She shrugged her shoulders, shook her head. “If there’s a setback…” Her voice trailed off. She looked away, down the long hall that held Hannah at its end. “Tell me about this miracle.”

  ANGEL

  I

  I found it. After years of searching, after years of fighting the call of Momma’s gun, I finally found sweet peace.

  It wasn’t what I thought it would be. There were no singing stars. No bacca or moonlit mountain. There was no light at all. Only darkness, heavy and thick, like the smoke from an old trailer fire, the kind filled with too many dead things to ever rise.

  Darkness wrapped around me like a first fall breeze. A beautiful coolness swept over my body. Broke the heat that had burned for so long inside me. I looked around and saw Nothing. Every star had fallen. Every light had turned off. The whole world had burned down, and all that was left was a giant pile of ash.

  Darkness filled my ears. At first, I heard the shhhh shhhh noise from my dreams. The ones where I remember the ocean and the sound of waves rushing up to me. The ones where I’m so little and Janie’s still with me and we’re running down the beach while Momma and Daddy decide whether to kiss or yell.

  Darkness grew, and soon I was hearing more than the shhhh of Carolina. I was hearing Janie, too. The way she would laugh as we ran down the beach. The way she’d stand, just nine or ten years old, and yell cusswords into the waves. She’d giggle about how loud she screamed them. She’d giggle about how she shocked the tourists. I’d stand, baby that I was, in awe. At the way she narrowed her eyes when she yelled them. At the way even her laughter sounded tough.

  But I wasn’t a baby anymore. And in my perfect darkness, Janie suddenly didn’t sound so tough. She didn’t sound like the gook family taught her anything special. No grit or skill to help her
survive all that she must.

  Laugh again, Janie, I thought. And she did. And then she cussed for me, too. I wanted to cry when I heard her. I knew then only a baby would have mistaken that sound for toughness. Only a baby would have thought Janie was strong. The truth was, Janie knew better than to care. Janie knew better than to hope. She was just a baby, too, but she’d already given up.

  Shut your trap, Janie, I thought. It was a favorite expression of Daddy’s.

  “Angel?” she called.

  “Yes.”

  “Hot damn! What are you doin’ here?”

  “Same as before. Runnin’ as fast as I can. Tryin’ to git away.”

  “We’re supposed to go in the water this time, Angel,” she said.

  “No.”

  I had never been in the ocean. Sure, I’d stuck my toes in. I’d run up to my knees and then run back as the waves tried to catch me. But I was too young to go out farther when we lived in Carolina. And Momma and Daddy didn’t swim.

  “I can’t swim, Janie. You know that.”

  “Got to. Listen. Hear that?”

  She was right. The darkness had a new sound. I listened close and heard the sound of weeping. The gasps and the sobs and the begging, “Oh. Please. No.” I heard the sound of prayer. Like at Grandma’s grave. Like from my baby mouth, inside Black Snake trailer. And when I heard Please and Please and Amen and Amen, I knew this much. Trouble was close.

  “Awright then,” I whispered.

  We stepped in the water. And instead of pushing me out of it, like the waves had always done before, I felt the water grab me. Lift me. Pull me hard and quick, until I was caught inside its grasp. It was colder than I remembered. Soon, darkness turned to something else entirely. I was freezing. Shaking with cold. Desperately wanting out of that icy water.

  “Damn them Swarms,” Janie said. “They’re all the same. They think they can tell people like us what to do. Even here, in our last darkness.”

  I listened again. Someone cried, “Stay.” Someone begged, “Please.” I felt a rope. It slid around my wrists. It wrapped around my legs. It pulled tight against my skin.