Her Last Memory

by C. A. Wittman

  In the last several years, their father became more open to Dora's efforts at extending the olive branch. His relationship with a youngish woman, Tera, who had a four-year-old son, Laird, had somewhat mellowed him.

  And then there was Ramani. Their grandmother stopped by from time to time with her husband, John. Dora had a way of laughing off the bizarre comments Ramani sometimes made. She knew how to bustle Ramani out of the house when her visits became too burdensome, too tiresome and irritating for the rest of the family. Or how to handle her grandparents from her dad's side, staunch conservative republicans.

  * * *

  But this woman who Erica brought home from The Source Mental Health Facility, this woman who refused to see them for a month, who emerged timid and shy from their Audi SUV and into their house, this woman, was not Dora. For weeks, Jesse cried in his sleep for their mother and had taken to wetting his bed. The younger ones asked Erica over and over why they couldn't see their mom. Barbara knew it was something more severe than amnesia. Something that sent Erica and Cuppa into rooms where they shut the door and had frantic whispered conversations. This woman who came home to them was someone different altogether. When she spoke, it was Dora's voice, but like all the pizazz had been sucked out of her speech. And her accent was different. Barbara couldn't quite place it, but it sounded high and young. When Dora told Jesse, "I want to remember you," her accent had changed again, the words stilted, as if she were reading off a script. Cuppa's attempt at providing some normalcy with tea fell flat. It was Cuppa's usual go-to, hence the nickname.

  Would you like a cuppa tea? Let's all have a nice cuppa tea, shall we? I could do with a cuppa tea.

  “You always want a cup of tea,” Sara chimed in one time, and that's where it started.

  Cuppa's real name was Bridget. But they'd all been calling her Cuppa so long that when someone outside of their little family unit did call her Bridget, Barbara often found herself thinking, who?

  After tea, Jesse and Sara each took one of Dora's hands and walked her through the house, pointing out the string of paper fairies taped to their bedroom wall that Dora made just months ago. She'd also helped Jesse and Sara make the paper butterflies hanging by bits of colorful string from the ceiling. They took her to the bedroom she shared with Erica and then to the upstairs apartment. It used to be one massive bedroom, but was now split into two smaller ones, Barbara occupying one and Cuppa the other. Back downstairs, Sara opened the door to the tiny room with its own bathroom and courtyard and said, "Ta da! Your office!"

  Dora's eyes widened, and she walked over to the massive curved monitor on her desk and picked up the iPad next to it, turning it over. "What's this?" She asked.

  "An iPad, silly," Sara said as if Dora were a young child. She had never spoken to their mother like that, like a child. It was something Dora exuded now, a naivete, an uncertainty, an awkward girlishness.

  "What's it for?" Dora asked softly, unsure. There it was again, Barbara noticed, a faint lisp to her words.

  "It's, you know, an iPad," Sara stared up at their mother, her face cracking with incomprehension at the question. Just then, Cuppa appeared and bustled them out of the room and Erica asked in a bright, fake cheerful voice who might want to go to The Platform and get ice cream.

  "She forgot about iPads, too?" Barbara could hear Jesse say as they made their way to the living room. It was just Barbara and Dora left, Dora still holding the iPad. She set it down. Her large dark eyes moved to rest on Barbara like a deer in the headlights. It made Barbara want to walk away, close the door, start again. In an alternate universe, their mother does come back, and she's still Dora, not this stranger masquerading as Dora.

  "Who is…" Dora swallowed, her throat muscles visibly rippling. "Like, who is your dad?"

  "My dad?" Barbara placed her palm on her chest.

  Dora tucked her hair behind her ears for the tenth time. She did that a lot, Barbara noticed.

  "I… Erica never told me."

  "His name is Steve."

  "Steve?"

  "Steve Bates."

  Dora's gasp at this bit of news was sudden and sharp. "Steve, who lives across the street?"

  "No. Mom."

  Dora flinched at Barbara's natural use of the word mom and Barbara took a step back.

  "He moved from there years ago. He used to live here with us. He has a house now in Santa Monica with his girlfriend Tera."

  Dora's eyes grew wider and more luminous. "I didn't know," she whispered.

  The admission to having no knowledge of someone so central and important in their lives made Barbara feel winded, like she'd just run at top speed down the block.

  "What else don't you know?"

  A tiny shrug. Dora's hand floated up toward her hair again, and then midway, she brought it back down to rest on the desk.

  "The last time I was here, I was your age."

  Barbara had to strain her ears to hear.

  The confession was terrifying.

  10

  Serene - April 1996

  * * *

  "Hey."

  Serene turned around and came face to face with the boy who lived across the street. She'd noticed him right off. He was tall and gangly with dark hair that was continuously falling in his face, prompting him to flip it back every so often. He went around mostly on a skateboard. A few times, she had seen him come and go on a cruiser with a mini tanker under his left arm. Sometimes he was accompanied by a friend or two, also on bikes with short boards. Her second day at the new house, she had watched him from the living room window, practicing tricks on his skateboard. He was trying to learn an ollie. He had the popping down, but when he attempted the jump, his feet were too flat, and he wasn't really sliding his front foot far enough up the board to pull off the trick. A few times, Serene had seen him talking and laughing with a young blond girl outside his house, the comfortableness they exhibited in each other's company indicating that they were probably siblings. She'd been too shy to even wave when he looked her way, and mostly he'd just glanced in her direction. She wasn't sure if he noticed her anyway. But now, here he stood in front of her, smiling shyly, his eyes the green you see in nature after a good rain.

  "I live across the street from you," he said when she failed to respond.

  Serene nodded. "Yeah, I know. I've seen you around."

  He tossed his hair from his face and smiled again, a bit unsure this time. He had his skateboard under his arm, a Quicksilver board. He set it on the ground and placed his right foot down as if he were about to push off.

  "I saw you trying to do one ollie the other day," Serene said before he could take off.

  He paused, his grin flickering. "You skate?"

  "Yeah, brah." Serene lapsed into the Hawaiian pigeon she used when she hung around a bunch of guys, which was most of the time. She had a whole crew she went around with back home. There was Pono Boy, Haku, Kahale and Ikaia. Her best girl was Kanani, though, she was every much a tita as Serene. There were others, of course––island life was small-town life and everyone knew everyone, but those kids were her main hoaloha.

  "You have kind of an accent. You're from Hawaii, right?"

  "Maui." Serene lifted her chin slightly, wondering how he knew where she was from.

  Kids streamed out around them from the high school as he assessed her. "So you know how to do an ollie?"

  Serene shrugged.

  "Do you?"

  "I can."

  "Show me." He gave her a cocky grin and nudged his skateboard toward her with his foot. She stopped it with her own and hopped on, did a quick pop and then a jump that cleared three feet, her puff of hair pulled back in the ponytail she always wore flying up as well. The trick stopped several boys and a few girls in their tracks.

  "Whoa! That was awesome."

  She gave him a crooked grin and nudged the skateboard back to him.

  He held up his hands. "No, no. What else can you do?"

  She gave another small shrug. "Lots of
stuff."

  "You ever go to Rucker's park?" One of the boys in the small crowd gathered around them asked.

  "No. I don't have a skateboard anymore, anyway," Serene said with another small shrug and slipped her hands in her shorts pockets for something to do. Having everyone's eyes on her was beginning to make her feel uncomfortable. She had never been someone who liked to be the center of attention.

  "I've got an extra board," the boy from the crowd said. "That was hella unreal, that ollie you pulled off."

  "Oh, this is Dylan, by the way," the boy from across the street said.

  Serene shoved her hands deeper, as deep as they could go, into the shallow pockets of her jean shorts. "Sup," she said to Dylan, her eyes cast at the ground.

  "And I'm Steve," her neighbor added. She looked back up at the two boys.

  "Serene," she mumbled. The three began walking in a northerly direction that would lead them back to Jackson Avenue, which was only a mile and a half away. Serene walked to and from school every day. She noticed that Steve and his sister were driven to school in the mornings by their mother and that he often skated home with the other boy, Dylan.

  "Where are you from?" Dylan asked and then stumbled forward. A girl with white-blond hair styled in a shag cut and features that warranted second glances had pushed him. She sidled up next to Steve, falling into step with them.

  "What's up, loser?" She said to Dylan and then grabbed Steve's hand possessively, pulling him closer to her while giving Serene a side glance.

  "This is Serene," Steve said. "She lives across the street from me."

  "And she can do a wicked ollie," Dylan piped up, grinning.

  "Ah, the girl from across the street," the blond said, and flashed Serene a smile of white teeth, her incisors slightly pointy.

  "Taylor," Dylan said of the blond with an eye roll. "Later." He sent his board crashing to the sidewalk and pushed off, weaving along the sidewalk as he whizzed away.

  "Did Steve tell you he's been stalking you?" Taylor said and then threw back her head and laughed as if it was the funniest thing in the world. Serene felt her face grow warm and Steve dropped Taylor's hand.

  "Don't be a dick."

  "Chill. You've been curious about her. He's been curious about you," Taylor turned to Serene. "Apparently, he and your grandma were like this." She intertwined her first two fingers, holding them up, and smacked her lips. "Besties." She laughed again. Her laugh had a high, slightly shrill sound. A fake laugh, a mocking laugh, cloaked as friendly teasing.

  "You don't even know if Barbara was her grandma." Steve shook his head.

  "Oh. You're right." Taylor tapped at her teeth as if giving his words some thought and then widened her blue eyes at Serene. "So was Barbara your grandma?"

  Serene nodded, assessing Taylor. A haole bitch like her wouldn't have survived the day at Maui High.

  "Well, whatta you know, she is Barbara's granddaughter." Taylor grabbed Steve's hand again and interlaced her fingers through his. "Now that you two have met, you can actually, like, talk to her instead of just watching her." She held up her other hand in the form of binoculars, which she pretended to look through, then winked at Serene. "I'm just kidding. Steve's cool. He's not a perv or anything, he's just been insanely curious."

  Serene had no reply to Taylor's admission on the part of Steve. Dylan's speedy departure was more understandable by the second, and Serene wished she had her own skateboard to fly away on.

  "So that guy at your house, the one who never wears shoes," Taylor's eyes fell to Serene's own feet in her habitual cheap black flip flops, "who is he, like in relation to you?"

  "No one." The words seemed to come from Serene's mouth of their own accord.

  "No one?" Taylor's hand covered her mouth and her blue eyes danced with humor. "Oh, I sense a sore spot," she said through her hand. A car slowed next to them, the passenger window sliding down.

  "Taylor," the driver called out. She had a similar shag style like Taylor's, the look most women wore these days. “The Rachel,” Serene remembered reading once on the cover of US magazine while standing in line at Foodland to buy groceries. Rachel was a character from that TV show, Friends. She hadn't seen it yet. She rarely watched TV, mostly because her family hadn't owned one.

  "Get in." The girl in the car said.

  "Where you going?" Taylor asked.

  "Fox Hills Mall." The driver glanced at Steve, then Serene, and frowned slightly.

  Taylor turned to Steve. "Want to come?"

  He shook his head, no.

  She opened the door and slid in, blowing him a kiss. "I'll stop by later."

  The car sped away and Steve and Serene started walking again.

  "Your girlfriend?" Serene looked up at him. His anger sharpened his features, chiseling his facial muscles into protruding angles. His green eyes looked like a frost-covered Caribbean sea.

  "Unfortunately, yeah."

  11

  Dora - February 2020

  * * *

  Dora had that feeling again, the squeezing feeling that she'd come to recognize as a panic attack taking shape. Her therapist had taught her how to head them off. She just needed to take some deep breaths, acknowledge what it was, and take a walk. Walking worked the best to calm frayed nerves. She and Barbara had left the tiny room that used to be her bedroom when she was Serene and went back to the living room. Too many things were happening at once. There were too many new gadgets. And there were too many new people and others who used to exist but suddenly didn't. This new reality was hers, whether she wanted it or not. A forty-year-old gay mom. Half her life had evaporated before she'd ever really had a chance to get started with it, lived by someone else.

  "Are you okay?" Barbara asked.

  Dora felt overly warm. Her throat muscles were rapidly constricting like a blood pressure cuff.

  "I just need to get some air." She managed to say.

  Barbara's perfectly defined brows drew in and she opened the front door. Dora practically ran out. Back down the cement steps and onto the sidewalk, she began to speed walk toward town, filling her lungs with a deep breath of air.

  You're not dying, it's only panic, she repeated over and over to herself. Her throat began to relax and, with the next deep breath, she let out a jaw-snapping yawn, allowing her to take the full real breath of air she'd been trying to get ever since she left the house. A few people were out walking their dogs, but the streets were mainly quiet. Dora's breathing grew calmer. She slowed her pace, thinking about the time, all the time that had gone by, like she'd accidentally climbed into a time machine. That's what it was like, like one of those sci-fi novels Steve liked to read. He'd told her that her grandmother liked science fiction, too, but Serene was never able to get into sci-fi or horror stories. Mostly, a lot of sci-fi was just too out there for her to grasp. And horror was either cheesy or so scary that it gave her nightmares. But that's what things felt like now: a sci-fi story. The smartphones alone were something to marvel over. A nurse at the hospital placed Dora's phone in her hand shortly after she'd arrived.

  "You'll probably want this," the nurse had said with an understanding wink.

  Dora had turned over the sleek black rectangular object in a sky blue case, running her fingers over the dark screen. She'd wondered what it was exactly and why she would want it. Before Serene woke up as Dora, she hadn't even had a chance to own a cell phone. In fact, when her family lived on Maui, they were so far out in the jungle that there were no phone lines on the land. They'd had voicemail instead and would check their messages on pay phones or at a postal center in Paia called Global Services.

  Dora had eventually set the phone placed in her hands by the nurse on her bedside table, picking it up a few times when it came to life with calls or texts she had no idea how to answer. When she was finally shown how the phone worked, she'd marveled at everything that could be done on it. It seemed most of what had been invented in the past twenty-four years could be accessed through her phone. Yet she
couldn't seem to care about it like other people. She did not find herself reaching for it or keeping it nearby. During her stay at The Source, Dora had a hard time connecting with others because they were all on their phones—almost all the time. Even in the middle of conversations, people would strangely tap out and become immersed with their phone, looking up now and then to flash Dora a faraway smile or apologize. There was always something needing to be done on the phone. And if people weren't staring down at a phone screen, then there were small white earbuds crammed in their ears. How many times had Dora turned to ask someone something or make an off-hand comment to find the person wouldn't be able to hear her? They were busy listening to whatever was blasting at them through their earbuds.

  Erica had shown her Facebook and something called a page. On Dora's page, she had 4,800 friends.

  "I have 4,800 friends?" She'd asked Erica, staring up at her, confused. "That's, like, choke people. How could I have kept up with all of them?"

  Erica explained it to her, how social media worked, but Dora still didn't quite get why she would want to friend so many people. What was the point?

  "You've got your online business and your blog and podcast…" Erica's words faded away as she saw the look of incomprehension sweep over Dora's face. "You don't know what that is," she’d said, and Dora had shaken her head, no.

  Facebook Dora seemingly liked to have her picture taken all the time. Facebook Dora was always laughing and smiling and asking friends’ advice about her clothes and hair. This Dora person posted reams of photos of trips she took, food she ate and makeup she bought. She wasn't shy about letting everyone know what her political views and affiliations were. Dora liked to share, share, share. There were videos of her talking about all manner of things. Dora couldn't watch them for longer than ten seconds without feeling slightly dizzy, as if she were coming apart at the seams. She could not watch this loud-mouthed woman with her shiny face, sleek hair and big laugh, talking at her from the screen, this stranger with her face.