Her Last Memory

by C. A. Wittman

  "I am your friend."

  Julie poked a hard finger into Taylor's chest. "You're a whore, you know that? My mom says––" Julie's voice cracked.

  "Julie, please," Taylor begged.

  "Did you sleep with my dad, Taylor?"

  Taylor hugged herself and the two silently stared at each other.

  Someone was crying—a child. For a moment, Serene lost all orientation as to where she was, a strange grey descending over everything. The crying sounded so close. Where was it coming from?

  "Shh. Shh," a girl soothed. Serene closed her eyes, trying to shake the crying from her ears. A loud smacking sound sent her eyes flying back open. Taylor was stumbling back, her body swaying.

  Julie.

  Serene could make out her figure, the back of her, blond hair swallowed up by the darkness as she got into her car and drove away.

  There was something wrong with Taylor; her body was still doing that weird swaying thing.

  Serene stood trembling to her feet, stepping out from behind the bush. "Taylor."

  Taylor turned her head, eyes locking with Serene's. Then she was lurching across the street to Steve's house.

  “Go to sleep,” someone said—the same girl who'd been shushing the crying child. Go to sleep, Serene.

  One by one they closed their eyes––Serene, Dora, Sahana––until only Little Girl was left, groping in the dark.

  “Dora?” She called out, careful to keep her voice low should Master hear her. “Dora?”

  55

  Dora - January 2020

  * * *

  Dora opened her eyes to the sound of the crows leaving their roost, their harsh scolding cries prompting her to sit up and peer out the window. The grey morning sky was aflutter with the birds’ dark wings as the flock rose all at once to start the day. Erica’s hand reached up to cup her breast.

  “Come back to me,” they murmured. Serene slid down into the softness of the covers and her wife’s embrace, meeting Erica’s mouth with her own for a lingering kiss.

  “When is your flight?” Dora whispered, stroking the back of Erica’s head, letting her hand glide down their muscular back to the softness of their hips.

  “Not for several hours.” Erica prodded Dora to her back. They made love slowly, Dora delighting in the feel of Erica, the silkiness of their sex. The way Erica took their time until Dora was erupting into orgasm, another closely following, Erica joining her.

  “You’ll have to save some of that for when I return.” Erica breathed into her ear when they’d finished before kissing Dora delicately on the tip of her nose and slipping out of the bed to shower.

  Dora stretched and smiled and within minutes was asleep.

  When she woke again, it was to the feel of Erica’s hand caressing her shoulder.

  “I’ve got to go, honey. I’ll see you in a few days. Don’t forget about Jesse’s performance after school.”

  Dora yawned and then pulled at Erica’s hand.

  “Oh, no, no, no,” they laughed. “I’m running late as it is and the Lyft’ll be here any minute. But I’ll be thinking about you.”

  “When you return, we’ll be sure to pick up where we left off,” Dora said lazily, and then, “What time is it?”

  Erica laughed. “Don’t worry, it’s only seven. You’ve still got ten minutes before you have to wake up the troops.”

  Dora sat up and then swung her legs out of bed. “Let me get my robe. I’ll walk you to the door.”

  By the time the two made it to the living room, the notification for the arrival of Erica’s car pinged on her phone.

  They grabbed their one bag and turned to wave at Dora once they got to the car. “I’ll call when I get to Charles de Gaulle.”

  Dora blew her wife a kiss and then closed the door. It was only when she walked back to the bedroom that she remembered the meeting she planned with Mara.

  A twist of nerves.

  The faint memory.

  What would Mara say?

  * * *

  A dense fog curtained the ocean, obscuring the water. More wisps of fog traveled like ghostly fragments over the coastal highway. Once Dora got to the PCH, the fog grew so thick that visibility was compromised. She had to turn on her low beams and slow to twenty miles per hour as her eyes strained to see a road revealed to her only several feet at a time. A mountain of white loomed up ahead and Dora thought about pulling over even as other cars whizzed past. At Topanga she made a right turn, climbing up the canyon road. Here the fog grew worse and Dora pulled over several times to let a string of cars pass. She was not a fan of driving through the canyon on a good day. The plunging cliffs and rocky walls of earth towering over the windy road always felt intimidating rather than gorgeous, as Mara liked to describe the drive. Dora could too easily imagine a boulder dislodging and falling on her car or one of Topanga's residents in their fast sports cars, barreling around corners and spinning out of control into her own larger SUV, sending her plunging off one of the "stunning" cliffs.

  * * *

  The odd memory which surfaced recently––a memory that felt almost dreamlike, Julie walking away, engulfed by the night, taillights of a car––played over and over in Dora's head. Every time Dora tried to pin down the vague scraps of mental imagery, it faded like a mirage. Something told her it had to do with Taylor. Had Mara been there that night? If so, when?

  Yesterday Dora had called Mara, telling her she wanted to talk about Taylor. Mara suggested they meet at her Airbnb rental in Topanga. "We'll have a little more privacy. Sophie has big ears," she said of her youngest who was five and still home with the Morenos’ nanny.

  The problem with the night of Taylor's death was that Dora hadn't experienced any of it first hand and now she was dealing with fragments of Serene's memories. She and Sahana had helped as best they could with the police interviews, the suspicion, the tension, going to court. It had all been too much for Serene and she'd slept through most of it, leaving the bulk of the work for Dora to deal with, as usual. Sahana had kept a cool head, but Dora flubbed up a later interview, trying to fill in that gap of time the detectives kept poking at. Serene saw Taylor and Darpan talking and kissing, but afterward Dora could only remember Little Girl's incessant crying, trying to sooth her, and then the feeling of wrongness and Serene needing help. She had told Serene to go to sleep. It must have been Sahana who walked them back to Enzo's. She did share that memory with Serene––finding herself in Enzo's kitchen and not knowing how she got there. So when the detectives picked apart her story, Dora made up the part about going to the backyard to sit in the hammock and think about what she saw before going to Enzo's.

  Dora popped a piece of gum in her mouth, wondering how to bring up this new fuzzy recollection of Mara, especially since the memory belonged to Serene. Then again, she could be remembering a different night all together. And why was she suddenly having Serene's memories? God, she hoped Serene wasn't going to take over again. Dora had taken charge for years. Months went by sometimes when she didn't think of any of the others inside her.

  Serene.

  Dora thought of that part of herself with irritation. If melancholy were an embodied person, that would be Serene. She wallowed in grief, it seemed, and didn't know how to embrace life, marrying Steve––christ. He didn't even know what he had, playing the big-shot attorney to a bunch of entitled celebrities. There were bigger, better things to be a part of in the world.

  While Dora liked fashion, she also was aware that society was changing and marginalized groups were fighting back for their rights. That was where she wanted to put her energy. If there had been a Me Too movement in the ‘90s, maybe Taylor might have come forward or sought help for the sexual abuse she suffered from her father, instead of acting out in self-destructive ways. Perhaps if men hadn't been allowed to exploit women and children for so long, Little Girl could have been spared. But it was too late now. Dora would always need to care for Little Girl, whether she was in charge or not, because when Serene cou
ldn't handle, she slept. Slept the sleep of the dead. Dora hoped that this time Serene would sleep forever. She'd made a great life with Erica, and the only good thing to come out of the relationship with Steve was the children. Dora loved the children more than life itself. Serene couldn't handle them. She'd done okay with Barbara, but when the others came along, it was too overwhelming.

  Dora drove through the little village of Topanga and made a right on the road just past the library. Up she climbed until she got to a long, steep driveway, the gradient at a forty-degree angle. The assent was so sharp she had to gun her way up. The sprawling vacation rental, supported by wooden stilts, was perched over a northerly cliff that boasted sweeping views of the canyon. It was a gorgeous view of rolling green hills and bigleaf maple, white scrub oak and white alder trees, though currently all swallowed up by the fog. Dora parked, noticing the absence of cars.

  Mara wasn't here yet?

  Maybe Mara went to the store. Dora got out of the car and then immediately ducked back in for her sweater. She walked around the lot to the hip-length gate and opened it, following the rough wooden steps down to the deck and the front door. Dora peered through the window at the kitchen, neat, clean and absent of Mara. She went inside and helped herself to a cup of water, then searched her purse for her phone to text Mara that she was here.

  “Shit,” she cursed under her breath. She'd forgotten her phone at the house and she could picture right where she left it, on the bathroom counter. The feel of movement under her feet, the creak of the floorboards and the sound of a footstep had Dora whipping around.

  Mara stood with one hand over her chest and a rag in the other. "Jesus, Dora, you just scared the living daylights out of me," she exclaimed.

  "Likewise," Dora grinned. "Where's your car?"

  "Oh. It wouldn't start this morning. I think it's the battery, although I don't know why it would be dead, we just had it serviced a few months ago and Juan said everything was good. Anyway, I caught a Lyft up here."

  The two eyed each other and Mara tossed the rag to a corner of the floor before washing her hands.

  "How about a cup of coffee? And then we can talk. I have that new cappuccino maker I bought for the house. I can make us a cappuccino."

  "Coffee's fine. I already had a cappuccino." Dora could feel her heart speeding up, a heat flushing through her body at the anticipation of what she was about to bring up. "It looks nice in here," she said instead to hide her fluster.

  "Thanks." Mara pulled out a bag of Peet's, pouring beans into a grinder. "We've sunk a lot of money into this place. But I think it'll all be worth it.” She filled an electric kettle with water and ground the beans, placing the grounds in a French press. "Come on, I'll show you around. You haven't seen the new bedroom yet, have you?”

  “When it was under construction.”

  “It's been a while.” Mara flashed her a smile, in her element. She loved interior design, her decorating style very Scandi, Dora thought to herself as they traipsed through the various rooms. There was a lot of wood, sturdy furniture, natural woven materials, linen and strategically placed plants, most of the hanging variety. She'd hung Dora's painting of a young girl in a forested setting with a faint smile on her lips, a small paring knife in her hand and a basket of herbs hanging on the opposite arm. There was a darkness to the girl that Dora never liked. She reminded her too much of Little Girl, but Mara had fallen in love with the painting and Dora was only too glad to let her have the creation.

  "I just love that piece," Mara said, following Dora's gaze. Something radiated from Mara's eyes that Dora couldn't place. Sadness?

  The sound of boiling water dissipated as the kettle clicked off, and they made their way back to the kitchen where Mara made their coffees.

  "So," she handed Dora her cup. "You said you remember something from that night when Taylor was killed."

  Suddenly Dora felt too hot, too closed in, unable to breathe.

  "Do you mind if we go outside? I'm––God, I feel like I can't breathe properly." Dora set her coffee down. She didn't want it after all.

  "Yeah. Of course." Mara's face flushed red and she grabbed a sweater hanging over one of the kitchen chairs, slipping it on. They stepped out, Mara leading the way. She was so tall, taller than Enzo. Mara had done some modeling in her youth and made good money from it, allowing her to buy her first house at only the age of twenty.

  They walked a little further up the driveway toward the property line's peak and the grand vista, their feet crunching on the gravel.

  "We just need to enclose this area," Mara said of the open drop off. "Carlos was supposed to have done it two weeks ago." She rolled her eyes. "Such a pain in the ass. Contractors never do what they say they're going to do." Mara still had that valley girl way of talking. Ago, she pronounced, a go.

  She took a sip of her coffee, gazing at Dora. "What's up? You don't seem yourself."

  "Were you there that night?" Dora hadn't meant to blurt it out like that. She'd wanted to take it a little more slowly, feel Mara out, let her be in control of the conversation. Dora didn't want to spook her friend. She definitely didn't want to give Mara the idea that she was under suspicion. But her silence––the way her facial muscles seemed to freeze up, how she gripped her coffee cup, pupils constricting into tiny dots––told Dora yes.

  Tall.

  Mara walking away.

  Headlights.

  "You were there."

  A smile flitted across Mara's face––maybe it was nerves––followed by a deep blush. "No," she said, her denial so soft, a whisper, really.

  "I saw you." Dora's mind scrambled to assemble elusive images, out of order.

  Serene.

  The realization took her breath away.

  Serene had come out recently.

  She had been the one to sleep this time.

  Dora could see the memory now as if looking through a long thin tunnel, Serene talking to Darpan at San Quentin.

  "She told Darpan," Dora said, the memory growing sharper.

  Mara's face turned white. "Who's she?"

  "Me."

  Mara shook her head. "You're not making any sense."

  "I told him."

  "Told him what?" Mara's voice rose up shrill, and she took a step toward Dora, despair washing over her features.

  "I told him I saw you."

  "What? I was never there. Are you crazy?" Color flooded back into Mara's cheeks as anger took over her fear. "How dare you implicate me? I have a family. I have kids." Tears pricked her eyes.

  Taylor slept with Mara's dad.

  "Your dad," Dora said.

  Mara opened her mouth, but the only thing that came out was a sharp gasp. Mara was estranged from her dad. Had nothing to do with him. Didn't like to talk about him. Her parents were divorced, had divorced after Taylor's death.

  "Go. You need to go now," Mara yelled.

  "Mara." Dora suddenly realized how poorly she was handling the situation, relaying the news as it came to her, and it occurred to Dora how deranged she must sound. She tried to save the situation that had rapidly spun out of control. "The memory is so murky,” she tried to explain. “I wanted to talk, give you a chance to explain."

  "That's giving me a chance? Going to Darpan and telling him you saw me that night?" Mara poked a hard finger into Dora's chest as she spoke.

  "I––there's something I need to tell you about me."

  "Get the fuck out of here, Dora. I don't care at this point. You can talk to my attorney. That's who you can talk to."

  "Mara. Wait." Dora reached out a hand to place on her arm, trying to calm her friend.

  56

  Serene - Summer 2012

  * * *

  It was getting dark. Serene rocked Jesse in the rocking chair she’d used for all the children. His round cherub face tilted upward, pale lids seemingly glued down in sleep, red lips partially open, his left cheek moist with breast milk. He had finally fallen asleep not long after Sara’s tantrum had tap
ered off into whimpering exhaustion.

  About once a day now, Sara had an ear-splitting, body-contorting, rage-filled temper tantrum that Serene could do little about. At times she was able to head them off, but as Jesse got older and more mobile, it became impossible to even try and reason with her two-year-old daughter, helping her find her words to express her frustration, reassuring Sara that indeed she was going to get her toast, her doll, the shoes she wanted to wear, all the while trying to keep an eye on Jesse crawling away. Look away for ten seconds and her son was sure to find some gross piece of old moldy food, a stray thumbtack or dead roach to put in his mouth.

  Having two children a year apart was a recipe for no sleep, resulting in unremitting brain fog. In addition to that, she’d been spoiled by Barbara’s even temperament. From the time her eldest was an infant, she’d been the perfect child, sleeping through the night, taking her naps, playing contentedly on her own, happy to follow the rules that Serene and Steve set out. She’d been so good that it had made Serene feel a little bit smug about herself as a mother. Then came Sara six years later. Fussy, independent Sara. And Jesse, a surprise, happy, but constantly on the go. And although Barbara was only eight years old, Serene leaned on her young daughter quite a bit for help, and Barbara, ever patient, ever helpful, played games with Sara to get her to eat her food, or held Jesse on her hip while Serene quickly dressed a howling Sara so they could get out the door.

  Serene tipped her head back, continuing with the rocking. Sara, spent from her tantrum, slept at her feet. Steve would be home soon. They’d have dinner together as a family and then he’d be on his phone or the computer, working until ten, when he’d take a break for just the two of them. Except lately Serene was too tired to wait until ten, and Steve didn’t seem to mind working through the night undisturbed.

  The doorbell brought Serene out of her reverie and sent Sara’s limbs jerking at the intrusion of sound. Serene stood, carefully cradling Jesse, and looked through the window. It was Mara. She was holding a box. Recently, Serene and Steve had connected with Enzo after he reached out for legal advice about a customer who seemed to have some vendetta against Enzo’s restaurants and was posting regular bad reviews on Yelp. The two meeting to talk brought Mara and Serene together in a tepid friendship that was borne more out of their past than anything else.