Memories in the Drift

by Payne, Melissa

  “I have to go,” I say, and hurry away.

  I pull open the lobby doors, chanting the plan in my head: Mom lives in Whittier and Ruth knows but didn’t tell you. Talk to Dad.

  Dad’s office is just inside one of the lobbies and past a community board littered with flyers for game night and babysitting needs amid new building policies and parking issues. The door is closed. I knock, and when no one answers, I push it open to his small and cluttered office.

  “Hello?” I call, but the room can’t hide anyone, especially not Dad. I sink into a chair by his desk. My phone buzzes. Mom lives in Whittier, and Ruth knows but didn’t tell you. I stare at the screen, grip the phone. Mom’s back? My fist hits the desk, sending a few loose papers fluttering to the floor. As usual, his office is a mess. Dad has a penchant for saving every scrap of paper he lays his hands on and then piling those pieces of paper around his office in short stacks that cover nearly every surface, floor included. He says it’s his very own system of filing that works just fine for him. And it does. Once, when I came home from college, I asked him to locate data on light bulb purchases for the past year, just to prove his system inept. He found it in minutes. That’s not to say there wasn’t a certain amount of cursing that accompanied his searching, but he found it nonetheless. I laugh to myself, remembering the way he lifted the spreadsheet in the air, a triumphant smile on his lips.

  The memory fades and my laughter ends abruptly when I see a picture lying on top of a pile of papers. It’s of Dad when he was much younger—thick head of hair, wearing a dark-blue suit, and dancing with Mom. She’s beautiful, her delicate hands clasped in his giant paws, her hair floating down her back in shiny brown waves. In the photo, I see only her face—head against Dad’s chest, eyes closed, mouth in a soft smile. They look happy. I let the picture fall to the desk. Of course they were happy. She was sober and they were still in love.

  But why was he looking at this? My chest tightens. Does he miss her? Is he lonely? I fall back against the chair. He must be lonely. He cares for me and works his butt off to keep the heat on in this place. My thoughts turn selfishly to my own failed love life. Impossible to resurrect now, but that was probably going to be the case regardless. Tate was my everything and he broke my heart, not once but twice. I’m not sure I would have ever recovered enough to trust anyone else with my heart, and now it’s too late.

  A buzzing. Mom lives in Whittier, and Ruth knows but didn’t tell you. The skin tightens round my mouth. What could have brought her back here? I glance at the picture once more, rub the back of my neck. Dad must know she’s back. Why else would he have this picture out? But has he told me? I slide closed the reminder. Have I made it too difficult for him to be honest with me? I pull at the ends of my hair, overcome by a mixture of feelings that twist into a painful knot.

  Dad never made excuses for Mom, never pretended that she was anything but a woman with an addiction. But he also never spoke ill of her, never blamed her for leaving us. I wanted him to, though; maybe even a part of me needed him to blame her. Instead, he shouldered what she’d left behind—a broken daughter, a failed marriage, and his own smashed heart—and moved on in his typical good-natured, optimistic Vance Hines way. In the picture, he holds her like she’s a delicate flower that might wilt. My heart aches. I don’t think he’s ever stopped loving her, and I think he’s always held out hope that she’d come back. I flick the picture farther away. Did he invite her back? The thought gives me a pang. What if she breaks his heart again? My hands curl into fists. I remember the look on his face when she showed up at graduation: mouth open in a silent shout, hands held out empty in front of him like they were useless.

  She will hurt him again; I just know it because I don’t think she can help herself. She’ll never change. In my notebook I write, Mom lives in Whittier and Dad knows—hesitate, then add—tell Mom to leave before she hurts us all over again.

  I’m walking out when a guy around my height walks into the office, head down, phone resting between his ear and shoulder and flipping through a stack of mail in his hands.

  “Again, I’m sorry, but it’s n . . . n-ot my job to remove . . . dead flies, Mrs. Johnson.”

  A warmth radiates from my chest, transforms into a heated jolt that shoots through my body. It can’t be. But I would know the familiar cadence of his words anywhere. Tate.

  “Yes, yes, I know that Vance always—holy shit!” The phone falls from his hands, and his eyes meet mine, and I can’t feel my skin or the floor under my feet, and I don’t think I’m breathing.

  “Tate?” I whisper, even though I have no doubt from the way he talks, the slant of his eyes in the corners, the shape of his mouth, and his midnight-black hair—

  “Oh, Claire, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you w . . . w . . . w . . .” He pauses as though what he’s trying to say is stuck to the inside of his mouth like peanut butter. “That you’re here,” he says finally, and it’s all so familiar that it warms me instantly.

  From the floor comes the squawking of Mrs. Johnson. Without breaking eye contact, Tate picks up the phone, replaces it to his ear. “I’ll be up t . . . t-omorrow morning to take care of the flies. Okay? Yes . . . you’re welcome. See you in the morning.” He presses end and stands awkwardly between the door and the desk, seeming unsure of what to do next.

  I’m staring at him and I can’t seem to stop, but I also have no idea what to say, and I’m not even sure where I am or how much time has passed since I told him goodbye with my clothes clutched in a ball against my bare chest. Except he’s different, touched by the passing of time in a way I cannot feel, but I can see. I have to place a hand on the desk behind me to steady myself. The Tate I remember was a lankier version of the man in front of me now, but his eyes are very familiar, green like the deep glacier waters that embrace the coast. Suddenly, I am catapulted back to the graduation ceremony my mother ruined, when Tate surprised me by showing up. I hadn’t heard a word from him since he’d left Whittier when we were eighteen. But that night I was at a bar with friends after the ceremony, trying to laugh away the spectacle my mother had made, drinking a beer that tasted like sawdust and pasting an armored smile on my face to hide the desolation I felt inside. He’d come up behind me and whispered in my ear.

  Hi, Claire.

  I’d whipped around, and seeing him chinked my armor, made the tears spill down my cheeks until I was sobbing. Without a word, he’d grasped my hand and led me outside, taking me to a diner around the corner, where we drank cheap coffee, ate late-night eggs and hash browns, and talked about everything and nothing at all. I had to see you graduate, Claire. I’m so p . . . p-roud of you. The years since he’d left had melted and I’d stopped thinking about what had happened with my mom and let myself relax, and before I knew it, I was waking up in his hotel bed.

  A sinking feeling reminds me of who I am and pulls me back to reality. I can’t see Tate right now. And then a horrible thought wiggles its way to the surface. Did Dad call him? I try to move past him, but the office is too small, and he gently grasps my arm to stop me.

  “It’s okay, Claire. I know about your . . . memory, okay? You don’t have to hide it from me.” His voice is warm and smooth.

  I shake my head. What bothers me isn’t my memory but something else entirely, and I should tell him because he deserves to know—he’s always deserved to know—but I don’t know how, and my throat is closing, making it impossible to speak anyway.

  “Are you okay, Claire?” He touches my arm, and it loosens something in me.

  It all spills out, pent up inside me for longer than I can remember. “I was pregnant.”

  Saying it to him is sweet relief mixed with a deep sadness. He might never forgive me for keeping it from him. “It, oh, um . . .” I pull at my fingers. “She, no, Mirabelle.” Her name feels foreign in my mouth, but I inhale and keep going. “I was pregnant and the baby was yours. Her name was Mirabelle.” Tate isn’t reacting and I look down, unable to imagine what he must be feeling
inside. Dad’s face looms in the air between us. He’d never believed my story about the grad student and read the journal I’d kept when I was younger, hoping to find what he was looking for. The night he confronted me, he’d held the journal in his hands, and I can still feel the anger from his intrusion. You need to tell Tate. He’s a good man, Claire. I’d snatched it from his hands and slammed the door in his face, refusing to speak to him for nearly an entire week. But I never listened, never called Tate, and Dad had respected my wishes, even if he didn’t agree with me.

  “I lost her before she got the chance to live.” Only a few words, but they fill the room, and my heart aches with yearning, my arms empty. I never got the chance to hold her. “I’m so sorry, Tate.” Still not looking at him, I reach for my pen, quickly write down that I’ve seen him and told him, because I can’t forget this. The ridges of the pen dig into the pads of my fingers when I write.

  He clears his throat and I look up, notice that his cheeks aren’t pale with shock, his eyes aren’t darkened with anger; in fact, he looks like I’ve just given him the weather report. I roll my shoulders. He already knows. Of course he does. My grip on the notebook loosens, and it falls to the floor. Tate picks it up and puts it into my hands, which are shaking.

  “Claire, listen, I—”

  “Dad told you, didn’t he?” I can’t think straight, am losing information while I stand here. “When?” I’m an idiot. Of course Dad told him. “Before or after I lost her?”

  I move around him, but in the small space, my shoulder brushes against him, and I nearly crumple to the floor, longing to touch him, hug him, anything but this desperate sadness that makes me feel frozen and alone.

  “You t . . . t-old me, Claire.” His voice is warm, soft, and dripping with what I know is pity. I hate it.

  I turn to face him, eyes narrowed, because this I remember. “No, you’re wrong. I never told you. You’re married, Tate. I wasn’t going to ruin that for you. And I didn’t need you anymore. I could do it on my own, I . . .” Shame slithers across my skin.

  “You t . . . t-old me afterward.”

  “Oh.” My spine rounds forward. I told him. Afterward. And I can’t remember that. My vision blurs, but it doesn’t stop my hand from flying across the page of my notebook. I need to remember this; I need to remember everything. My hand aches.

  “Claire.” His voice is sad, plaintive, and he tries to touch my forearm like he wants me to stop writing, but I shake him off, at once hating and clinging to the notebook in my hands because it’s the only thing I can depend on, my buffer against the unknown.

  “I should have told you before, but now it doesn’t matter because she’s gone and I’m”—I speak through my teeth—“now I’m me and it’s better this way.”

  I step into the hallway and hurry to the elevator, and when the doors close, I let my knees give way and sink to the floor, still writing, wiping tears off my face to keep the paper dry.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The elevator door opens, and I step into the hallway just as my phone buzzes. Shower then Lunch with Sefina. I look around, unsure—this isn’t my floor; I see the number twelve by the elevator. Dad’s floor. I’m shaky and breathing too fast and trying to read my notes over and over. I told Tate about the baby, and he’s in Whittier. Mom lives in Whittier and everyone knows. A growing confusion winds through my body, wraps around me, and all I want is to be comforted by the booming timbre of Dad’s voice, to see his bearded face, to talk to him.

  His apartment door is unlocked, so I walk inside. “Hello?” The air tastes of burned toast. I smile. It’s a smell that has probably become ingrained in every porous surface in his apartment. Dad and burned toast: his one culinary skill.

  I walk into the living room. With the blinds closed and lights off, the apartment is dark and uninviting, with a mustiness that tickles the inside of my nose. I turn on the light by Dad’s recliner, thankful for the yellow fingertips of illumination stretching into the room. When I was nine years old, I fell off my bike and landed on rocks that jabbed into the soft parts of my knee and scraped my skin bloody. Dad was there and he picked me up and held me until I stopped crying. He always makes me feel safe, even when everything around us is falling apart.

  His heavy flannel, the one with green and blue stripes and a padded inside, lies across the arm of his chair. I pick it up, bring it to my nose, and inhale layers of oak and pine, grease and sweat. Dad’s scent. I slide my arms through and pull it closed, sit down in his chair.

  A photo album lies on the table beside his chair, one I don’t recall ever seeing before. The first picture is of me as a baby, asleep across my mom’s chest. She stares down at me, a tender look that pushes her lips out, like she’s about to kiss my head. Every page is a photo of me, and most are labeled in her handwriting. First crawl, first walk, first tooth, and up through my birthdays. One of my parents hiking with me as an infant strapped to my mother’s back, Dad standing beside her with his arm around us both. The next one by a campfire: I’m four or five, and Mom holds me on her lap, kissing my cheek. Then come the older ones. Me standing next to my science-fair project in fifth grade: the volcano that never erupted. Another with Tate in a too-big tuxedo and me in a too-long pink organza formal dress. Mom’s handwriting underneath: Claire and Tate Prom. My hand hovers over the picture. Is this Mom’s photo album? Did Dad send her pictures during that time? I pull at the ends of my hair, thinking about Dad reaching out to her, keeping her involved, when he had every right to cut her loose. I close the album, hold it tight. He loved her.

  And Mom. Keeping all these photos. For a moment I soften, think of how her addiction has ruined her life. Then my hands curl into fists. She looked so happy in the photos. Our family looked so happy. Why did she have to ruin everything?

  I lay my head back, feeling the exhaustion of a day I can’t remember in the stiffness of my bones, the dryness of my eyes, and I snuggle deeper into his shirt, feel my eyelids grow heavy, and with a sweet relief, I let them close.

  I’m outside BTI, breathing hard, my leg muscles twitching because I sprinted down twelve flights of stairs. I want to run as far and as fast as I can. I want to forget Mom, and mostly I want to forget her words. He’s the one who didn’t want you, you know. She’s lying; I know this but my teenage heart clamps on to it, holds it close, and already I can feel it spreading like a disease.

  I run until my lungs burn, my legs ache, and my face is dry and sticky. I lean forward, hands on my knees, wait for my breathing to slow down.

  I look up. Behind a chain-link fence looms the Buckner Building, staring at me like a giant spider out of dozens of busted-out windows. My sweat dries, leaves my shirt wet and cold in the fall temperature. I shiver and zip up my jacket, slide my hands into the pockets, stand up as tall as I can, and stare back.

  Black patches stain the concrete, spreading like a rash. Even from the road I can hear the echoey plink of water that drips inside. The building has sat here alone and wide open to the elements for so long now it seems to have become part of the land.

  Grass grows out from doorways, and moss clings to rocks and dirt instead of floors. My skin prickles. Kids say it’s haunted, but I think it’s just sad and lonely. I think of Mom, the way her eyes close when she takes a drink, like she needs me to disappear. But Dad—I swipe at a tear—Dad always wanted me. I kick the ground and walk over to the fence, thread my fingers through the holes and try to see inside the closest window, but the dim evening turns the insides black.

  I can’t go home. I can’t face him. Can’t look him in the eye, because Mom’s words put something dark and ugly in me. He didn’t want you, you know. All these years of her drinking, and the only thing that’s kept me from wanting to put my fist through a window is Dad. So the thought that once he didn’t want me wiggles around my heart like a worm, makes me question everything.

  Down by my knees, I notice that the metal wiring looks warped, but when I look closer, I see that someone’s cut the fence, made
a little door. I push on the metal, and it gives just enough for me to crawl inside. So I do. The grass is almost to my waist and mixed with weeds. My foot kicks an empty and rusted beer can; it makes a popping sound that bounces off the concrete building, seems to dance around me. It’s getting darker, the light more blue than yellow.

  I walk up to one of the windows, peer inside. I’ve never been this close, never wanted to before now, but today I feel like this is exactly where I belong. Inside is a lake that reflects the purple sky behind me. It looks like the forest has moved in, and at first I can’t see where the building ends and nature starts. It rains inside, water dripping from everywhere, and my nose fills with the earthy smell of plants and dirt and something else. Mold, I guess. When my eyes finally adjust, I see that what I thought were vines are wires, and tree limbs are pipes dangling from the floor above.

  Below the window is a dryish spot, just big enough for me to stand. I grip the windowsill, trying to avoid the piles of dead flies stuck in the crevices, and heft myself up, bringing a leg to rest on the sill. The flies crackle under my knee. I shudder and scramble over the sill, landing on the balls of my feet inside the building, where the water laps against a fake shoreline of rocks and dirt. I breathe out and look around.

  I’ve crossed a border into a hidden world, like Max and the Wild Things. I’m breathing fast, but I don’t feel scared—I feel free. Free from my mother’s words that glom on to my insides, thick and suffocating. I sink to the floor, press my back into the softness of the moss-covered wall. Night falls and soon I’m sitting in the cold; water drips around me, and darkness makes it impossible to see anything, so I rest my forehead on my knees. The dark makes it hard to tell the passing of time, so I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting there listening to water drop and animal feet skitter across concrete.