Her Last Memory

by C. A. Wittman

  Erica stepped forward and placed their hand under their mother's elbow to guide her, offering the bath again. Dora yanked her arm away, lips partially open. No words came out. Just a wild stare, reminding Barbara of the time a bird flew into their home and she'd tried to shoo it out. The bird had flown into a window, knocking itself back and landing on the sofa. Its beak had opened as it hyperventilated with shock, watching Barbara. That was their mother, a trapped bird, not the mama bird coming back to her nest of waiting babies like the image on the card they'd given her.

  Erica tried to rescue the situation, directing the younger ones to their room and telling Barbara to call their dad. It took another few minutes of coaxing to get Dora to move from her frozen stance in the living room. As Barbara climbed the steps to the apartment, she shared with Cuppa, she heard the strange high voice that was now Dora's.

  "That's not my room. The office is my room."

  "Okay," Erica soothed. "That's fine. I can bring you a cup of tea."

  "Nooo,” she crooned, breaking down into rasping sobs.

  "Bloody hell," Cuppa said. Barbara continued the rest of the way up the steps and to her phone in her room.

  * * *

  Their father waited outside in his black Mercedes Benz land cruiser. When Barbara called, he'd just gotten out of the ocean after a few hours of surfing. “This is Steve,” he'd answered in his perfunctory business voice. Their dad was always on. He worked as an entertainment attorney as part of a robust team at one of the most prestigious firms in Hollywood, Stratford & Phillips. He generally worked around the clock, squeezing in family time where he could. Surfing was a rare treat for him. Typically, her father liked the sort of exercise where he could keep his phone nearby. Twice a month, he had a massage therapist come to his home, and now that Tera lived with him, the therapist worked on her, too. Through the open door of their bedroom, Barbara had seen the therapist kneading her dad's legs while he texted, talked on the phone or read over legal briefs.

  Tera wasn't in the car, Barbara noticed. He must have rushed her home and turned back for them. Hair still wet, it hung messy and damp, in need of a cut. Her father went for that clean-cut conservative look, nothing like the boy he once was in the pictures she'd studied of him as a teenager. T-shirts and baggy jeans, hair that swallowed up half his face, washed denim, Vans skate shoes. Hoodies.

  He smiled as they approached the car, a hint of an apology tucked into his turned-up mouth. Jesse and Sara scrambled into the back and threw their traveling bags onto the floor. Jesse had changed into a high low boho blouse with cropped sleeves, the wide ruffles swallowing up his thin arms at the elbows. Zebra striped leggings showed off his long slim legs, the finishing touch a pair of dark red cowboy boots. Jesse sighed, climbing into his booster seat that he was still required to sit in as their dad glanced at him, not quite able to feign the flitting look of confusion he always got when he looked at his son. Barbara opened the front passenger door and slid into her seat. Erica came out and stood in the doorway, raising their hand in a farewell. Barbara's dad returned the gesture and Barbara suddenly felt a rush of love for her mother's wife. Erica was so strong, centered and calm, but Barbara knew this was killing them. She hadn't missed the way her mother looked at Erica now. The same way Barbara's friend Josie's mom looked at her old rich husband.

  "You guys, okay?" Their dad asked, watching the back-up camera as he reversed out of the driveway.

  "Something's really, really wrong with Mom," Jesse said, and he took a deep audible breath.

  Steve glanced at his son in the rearview mirror. "What happened?"

  "There's a lot she doesn't remember, Dad," Barbara said, her chest feeling heavy as the image of her mother standing in the living room with that terrified look in her eye flashed through her mind.

  "Yeah, like she doesn't even know who we are," Sara piped up, "she doesn't even know what an iPad is."

  "Jesus," their dad said under his breath. His jaw jutted forward and then back. His thinking face.

  "I don't think she wants us anymore." Jesse's voice was low, but they all heard him.

  "Of course your mother wants you," Steve said, his eyes flicking up to his rearview mirror. "She loves all of you more than you could ever know. Your mom's had a shock and her memories have been compromised, but they'll come back. We need to be patient, take things slow." He smiled tightly. But Barbara could see the uncertainty in her dad's profile, his brows stabbing together. He doesn't know, she thought. No one knows. It's not just amnesia like Erica said.

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

  She could hear her mom's words in that strange high voice of hers, snaking through her mind like fingers of smoke, a warning.

  Traffic was building in the opposite direction from where they were going. It was only five in the evening, yet dark enough for headlights.

  "Tera's ordering up some pizza," their father said, trying to inject a bit of lightness into the somber mood that had enveloped all of them.

  "I don't want any pizza," Jesse grumbled. "Is Laird going to be there?"

  "You know he will be." Their father's tone turned taut with familiar tension that came with Jesse's rejection of his girlfriend and her four-year-old son. Barbara turned around in her seat to assess Jesse. He was making a fish face, sucking in his cheeks so his lips jutted out.

  "What?" He said, catching Barbara watching him.

  "You need to stop being so mean to them, Jess. Tera and Laird are really nice. Tera goes out of her way to be kind to you."

  Jesse rolled his eyes. "Laird is annoying. He asks way too many questions. He's always getting into my things, asking me dumb stuff, like why do I wear dresses if I'm a boy."

  "Most boys don't wear dresses," Steve said. "Laird's just trying to understand, it's nothing personal."

  "Whatever," Jesse hissed.

  Barbara shot their father a look. He didn't need to put it that way. The comment colored Jesse's choice of style in a negative light. Their father pretended to understand the different forms of expressing gender identity, but Barbara knew he didn't. His disappointment showed through in the frown he got whenever his eyes landed on Jesse. Or the way he made a big deal out of Laird. Tera's son was a gender traditional boy, in all the ways Barbara's father and her grandparents could relate to. Laird loved machines, big trucks and skateboards. Laird liked climbing up on anything that he might topple off of and sprain an ankle or break an arm. In essence, Laird was the son their father had always wanted and never had until now, making Jesse jealous. Barbara watched the gate slide open to their circular driveway with two garages and a carefully landscaped front yard. The back yard to her father's house was not much bigger than the front. The majority of the lot was taken up by the modern coastal home, a source of mild financial strain for him. “Steve bit off more than he could chew,” Dora had once said of the place. It was two stories of austere white stucco squares and windows, a hulking opulent structure with an eye toward the ocean. All of the rooms were tall, open and spacious. The kitchen boasted gleaming, modern white porcelain countertops and blue stonewashed floors that expanded into the dining room and living room. A floating staircase led up to the five bedrooms, all carpeted in off white Berber. Each bedroom had its own bathroom. The house had every convenience, even a little black and white tiled bathing nook for the dog near the laundry room.

  Tera had a rottweiler, a powerful, muscular specimen with gleaming black fur, named Sheena. Sheena ate organic raw meat with bits of veggies added to it, ordered from an online pet store. Laird and Sheena were the same age, and the dog kept a protective eye on her young charge, which made Jesse a bit skittish around her. But while Sheena kept an eye on Laird, Barbara kept an eye on Sheena. Barbara had to make sure that Jesse felt safe because, most of the time, their father was oblivious when it came to his new little family and the family he already had, and some of the awkward dynamics that went on.

  Barbara never really quite got used to this glamorous house they lived
in for three days every other week. It was too big and modern, everything hard, cold and sleek. It didn't matter that her bedroom had floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall windows, offering a view of the white sand beach and expanse of ocean only a walk away. It didn't matter that she had her own luxury bathroom and 32-inch flat screen sitting on the shelf before her bed with subscriptions to everything under the sun. Or that Tera cooked fantastic organic vegan meals sprinkled with raw food dishes. There was something about the place that felt sterile and a bit boring to Barbara, never mind that, other than walking to the beach, there was nothing much to do in her dad's neighborhood off West Channel Road in Santa Monica. It wasn't the fun part of the town, more the I'm-going-to-keep-to-myself-because-I'm-too-wealthy-to-mingle part of town. Every other weekend for three days was about as much as Barbara could take of the place. Besides, it wasn't like they were spending loads of time with their dad when they came to his house. He was usually busy working on one case or another. They spent their time with Tera, who Barbara did like, even if she found her to be a little bland. Still, she was kind.

  * * *

  As they traipsed into the house, the smell of pizza lingered in the air. Sheena dozed on her lambskin bed in the corner of the living room and Laird came running at them, olives stuck on each of his fingers as he held his hands up.

  "The pizza's ready," he yelled and threw himself at their father, who lifted his small frame and threw him up in the air.

  "How's my little man?" He set Laird down and ruffled his hair just as Tera came out, grinning. She held a glass of white wine and was wearing light grey pima pants and a white cotton spaghetti strap top that showed off her long, smooth, taut midriff and the spray of freckles that fanned out across her chest. Her reddish-chestnut hair hung thick and a little damp to her shoulders. She had milky skin and light brown eyes that conveyed an open, friendly spirit. She was pretty in that girl next door sort of way.

  "Hi you guys." Her eyes wandered over the three of them. She lost the grin, composing her features into a more serious expression appropriate to the circumstance that brought them all there on a Wednesday instead of a Friday, during the wrong week. "Pizza's here," she said. "Jesse, I got you one with cheese, sweetie."

  Jesse rolled his eyes.

  "Hey," their father said. "What do you say?"

  Jesse's eyes widened mockingly. "Thank you," he drawled. "Can I go put my stuff away now?"

  Their father gave a slight nod and he scampered off up the stairs.

  Steve encircled his arms around Tera's waist, pulling her toward him for a quick kiss. "Smells delicious. I'm starving."

  "Hungry, Dad," Sara corrected. "You're not starving," she scolded.

  "That's right," he said and flashed her a that's-my-girl grin.

  "Why don't you girls go put your things up and then come on into the kitchen," Tera said.

  Laird stood watching them, eating the olives off his fingers.

  "Don't take a long time," he added.

  Barbara smiled and chucked him under the chin. "We won't."

  "Hey," he said and stuck out his lip in a pretend pout.

  "Did you see her?" Barbara could hear Tera asking in a low voice as they climbed the stairs. Sara moved past as Barbara paused to listen.

  "No. Erica asked me not to come in, said she wasn't ready to see me."

  "It's just so sad," Tera mumbled.

  "Yeah," Steve replied distractedly. "Which one is the cheese?"

  Barbara climbed the rest of the stairs and went left toward the two bedrooms that faced the ocean. She was next door to her dad and Tera. She pressed the light panel and waited until the little green dots were half lit up, creating a rosy glow in the room, and then placed her bag in the walk-in closet. The shades had automatically closed over the windows with the coming of night. Barbara noticed the room had been recently cleaned. Tera's housekeeper Belinda, a young woman in her mid-twenties, was an undergrad at UCLA. The bed, perfectly made, looked like a display at a mattress store with the pillows evenly lined up. The furniture gleamed and the scent of orange cleaner hung in the air. Barbara went into the bathroom to wash her hands and stared at her reflection, her green eyes, pale skin and loose wavy hair so different from Dora's dark looks. When she was little, their mother used to get mistaken for the babysitter. By the time Sara and Jesse came along, the questions about Dora's relationship to her children had mostly stopped. However, the assumptions were still there, unsaid in the polite smiles of older white women. What Barbara thought was funny, though, was the fact that when white women had brown children, everyone knew they were the mothers.

  Dora's terrified eyes, large and luminous, flashed again through Barbara's mind, and the thought came like a slap. She's not a woman anymore. She's a girl. Somehow the woman part of Dora had disappeared, and the girl who once existed had traveled to the future. Is that what happened? And if so, how? Barbara turned the faucet back on and splashed her face with cold water to take down the heat spreading across her cheeks.

  "Shit," Barbara whispered. Her eyes blurred from the warm watery tears suddenly clouding her vision. She splashed her face again, grabbed the white waffle linen hand towel and dried herself, pressing the cloth up against her eyes to stem the tears.

  14

  Serene - July 1996

  * * *

  She came at her, the flesh of her exposed legs jiggling—tight jean shorts. The waist riding up high to meet the loose black and white striped t-shirt with the deep V-neck. Her breasts half leaped out of the constraint of her pushup bra. But it was the pink lipsticked mouth that Serene focused on, and the dull brown eyes sunken with grief.

  "Serene!" She yelled. Taylor's mom marched toward her. She'd left her car parked with the tail end jutting too far out into the traffic, causing drivers to swerve around and honk out their annoyance.

  "Don't you turn away from me," she shrieked.

  And she didn't.

  Serene stayed put as the woman drew closer, her hollow eyes like deep dark caves. Serene had seen that look before. She knew that kind of sadness. A sadness that stays with you forever, no matter how many miles you run, or how much raw food you consume, or hours you spend fucking a moronic blond twenty-five-year-old man. Nothing, nothing can take away the grief from losing a child.

  They stood almost toe-to-toe as Abby Davis' chest heaved out her emotions. She opened her mouth and the sharp gasp of pain struck Serene in her sinuses, a sensation like she'd inhaled saltwater up her nose.

  "What happened?" Abby managed to whisper a pulse visible in her throat.

  Serene stood very still. There was safety in stillness, invisibility. Don't move.

  Something guttural came out of Abby. Her hand, the knuckles red and raw, drew into a fist that she pushed up against her pink mouth, the eyes wide and frayed with looming insanity.

  Disappear. Disappear. Disappear. You have to disappear.

  "Did he do it?" Abby rasped. Her hollow eyes bore into Serene's, extinguished of the light that once illuminated them. "Did he do this to my baby, Serene? Did he do this for you?"

  Somehow Serene's legs began to move, walking her away from this wild ravaged being assaulting her in the street.

  "Serene!"

  The scream tore through her.

  "Tell me! Oh god, someone tell me what happened."

  15

  Serene - May 1996

  * * *

  Serene was showing Steve and Dylan how to do a front side flip when the car pulled up with Taylor in the passenger seat, her arm resting out the window, elbow crooked.

  "Hey losers," she yelled cheerfully as the driver––a girl Serene knew to be named Julie––pulled up ahead on the street to park.

  "Fuck," Dylan said under his breath. "I thought you dumped that bitch."

  Steve's expression went rigid as he silently performed walk-the-dog. He twisted his body back and forth, long hair hanging over his face. Moments later, Taylor and Julie sauntered up to them. Serene was as surprised as Dylan to see Tayl
or. For the past two weeks, Steve had complained about Taylor, how snobby she was, what a little bitch she could be to people, especially other girls, how she talked and talked and yet had nothing to say. Mostly he ended these complaints with, “I have to break up with her.” But here she was, laughing and looking like a sex bomb in a tight mini skirt, tank top and cork bottom heels. She'd feathered her helmet hairstyle and it gave her a softer look. Farah Fawcett came to mind for Serene. Steve hopped off his board and nudged it aside as Taylor came in to kiss him, leaving a smear of glossy pink on his cheek from her shiny, plump lips.

  "So what's up?" She said, her eyes skirting over to Serene and back to Steve.

  "Not much," Steve mumbled. "Why, what are you two up to?"

  Julie raised a single slim brow but said nothing.

  "I came to pick you up, babe. We're going to the beach."

  "Yeah?" Steve's tone was noncommittal.

  "Want to grab your surfboard?" She offered, glancing at Serene again.

  "There's no waves," Dylan spoke up.

  "So?" She grinned at Dylan. Julie raked her French manicured nails through her bangs, rolling her eyes, her jaw working rhythmically on a small wad of green gum that found its way to the forefront of her straight white teeth every five seconds.