Her Last Memory

by C. A. Wittman

  “Oh. God.” Cuppa exclaimed with horror, talking through her hand, plastered tightly over her mouth.

  “The investigators told Enzo she either committed suicide or was the victim of foul play.”

  “Why do they say that?” Steve asked.

  “I don't know. Something about the way she fell.”

  “Awful,” Cuppa exclaimed. “Just awful.”

  Serene and Carrie sat amongst a pile of cut-up construction paper, twin expressions of shock playing out on their features.

  “Oh. Mom,” Barbara said, “Enzo wanted me to give you this.” She handed Serene a blank letter-size envelope. It was sealed. Serene frowned and tore it open, pulling a single sheet of paper out. Her eyes scanned the letter, and then she refolded the paper and shoved it back into the envelope.

  “What did it say?” Carrie asked.

  Serene's hand shook. “It was personal.”

  “Personal?” Steve said.

  Serene met his eyes.

  “Yes.”

  63

  Barbara - June 2020

  * * *

  They piled out of the car, face masks in place. Barbara helped Erica and Cuppa gather up their homemade signs as Jesse bounced on his toes, excited to join the march.

  No justice, no peace! They could hear the protestors chanting. He and Sara both wore rainbow gossamer butterfly wings and Barbara handed her brother the rainbow flag to carry.

  Ramani’s husband John had a friend, Allen, who was out of town and offered up his driveway for them to park. Moments later, Ramani and John pulled up behind them and Ramani sprang out of the car before John could even cut the engine.

  “Alright, are we ready?” She yelled.

  Jesse ran up to her, his eyes crinkling with a smile, and she gave him a fist bump. John hoisted a backpack over his shoulders and handed Ramani the sign they made with the words We Will Not Be Silent.

  “Where is Serene?” Ramani asked.

  “She wasn’t up for it,” Erica said. Sara’s hand slipped into Erica’s as they walked toward Santa Monica Boulevard.

  Barbara felt her stomach twist with the excitement of it all. An older man riding a bike passed them, the speaker in his basket blaring out the melancholy voice of Neil Young.

  “The world is turning. I hope it don’t turn away.”

  So much had happened in the last several months that sometimes Barbara felt like her head was going to explode. The pandemic had raced through their lives like an out of control wildfire, scorching everything in its path. There had been the closure of their schools and the decimation of Erica and Cuppa's business. They'd had to refund a lot of clients, postpone some of the weddings and postpone again. Erica had rented a studio in Venice but spent a lot of time at their mother's in Crenshaw. There had been the very public documentation of fatal violence committed against George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, igniting a deep societal rage and grief that had led to protests all over the country and world. The upheaval of the world as Barbara knew it igniting something inside her as well, a feeling of wanting to take action. She'd become involved in a youth-led climate change activist group and suddenly found herself neck-deep in reading ecology books and organizing campaigns, as well as trying to be a good friend to Gina. Her friend had fallen into a deep dark hole of depression ever since her mother's body was discovered.

  The most unexpected change for Barbara was the romance that had sprouted up between her parents, an unforeseen outcome of her mother's odd condition. Sometimes Barbara caught her father staring at her mother with such passion and affection that it made her blush for him. Their renewed relationship had not gone over well in the family. It was taking time for them to get used to, especially Sara, who'd become sullen and contrary. The only thing that could keep her somewhat mollified was Cuppa’s attention, supplemented with regular calls from Erica. And lately, Sara had actually taken a shine to Grandma Maggie and Aunt Carrie. Across the street, Sara spent time doing crossword puzzles and baking with her grandmother, or making collages with Aunt Carrie. Sara had gotten into the habit of passing on Grandma Maggie's anecdotes. “Grandma Maggie says the secret to a good pie crust is Crisco,” to which Cuppa would grimace but hold her tongue. Or, “Grandma Maggie said if you want to get a stain out, soak it in warm water with OxyClean.”

  Serene and John had become close friends, often talking on Zoom about books and writing. To Barbara's surprise, her mother was reading a lot and working on some old novel she'd started years ago, apparently. Serene had also rekindled her friendship with Kanani, who she talked about incessantly. Barbara now ran Dora's Closet with Cuppa's help, along with everything else she was involved with. Serene had zero interest in her online business. Sometimes Barbara felt as if her family and the rest of society had been thrown into a great big washing machine. Everything that was once familiar, scrambled up and spit out into surprising and, more often than not, disconcerting arrangements.

  Barbara raised her Black Lives Matter sign up high as Ramani overtook her and they merged with the rest of the protestors on Santa Monica Boulevard. An electric excitement sizzled all around them and Barbara’s family joined their voices to the thousands of others’ call and response chant.

  Show me what democracy looks like

  This is what democracy looks like

  * * *

  Show me what America looks like

  This is what America looks like

  * * *

  Show me what solidarity looks like

  This is what solidarity looks like

  Barbara’s eyes roamed over her siblings, Jesse’s neck muscles strained like hard little cords as he yelled out the chant. Sara, quiet and pensive, clung to Erica. Erica and Cuppa waved their signs, chanting loud, John just behind them, holding up a fist now and then, but Ramani had torn away from their little group and, in her hyper excitement, had removed her mask, screaming back the response, one hand holding her sign, the other a fist jabbing at the air. Barbara dodged around people to get to her grandmother, pointing at herself and the mask she was wearing. Ramani looked at Barbara blankly as the chant changed back to No justice, no peace, and then she was pushing forward again, moving like a force of nature, disappearing into the crowd. Barbara squinted at the sunlight in her eyes, but she’d lost Ramani. She waited until the rest of her family caught up before continuing onward, Neil Young’s song lingering in her mind.

  “The world is turning. I hope it don’t turn away.”

  64

  Serene - July 2020

  * * *

  “Mom!” Barbara called. Serene set her book down on the couch and went to what used to be her bedroom but was now officially the office again. Barbara sat at the desk staring at the desktop screen and an image of an old black and white movie set on pause. She pressed play. Entranced the two watched the digitized home movie.

  The people in the movie were Grandma Barbra, Grandpa Frank, Ramani, as a young girl and Ramani’s baby sisters, Clair and Dottie. They'd set up a camera to film them having a BBQ in the backyard. There was the same willow, jacaranda, and lemon trees. Serene swallowed at a lump forming in her throat as she watched Grandpa Frank poke at some hotdogs with a metal tong, and then turn to give the camera a sleep-eyed smile. Clair and Dottie were playing in a kiddie pool and Ramani was blowing bubbles. Grandma Barbra caught hold of Ramani's hand and walked her over to the camera, telling her to wave.

  "What do you want to tell your future children, Brenda?"

  Ramani burst into giggles, flashing her gap-toothed smile. "My future children." She Slumped her shoulders forward as her mother smiled behind her. "I wish you peace on earth," Ramani sang out.

  "You hear that, Brenda's children," Grandma Barbra said. "We wish you peace on earth."

  Ramani exploded into more giggles and ran off just as Grandpa Frank said,

  "And we hope you don't have to worry about the atom bomb, you people in the future, or the Russians." He chuckled.

  "Frank, please," Grandma Bar
bra said, looking over her shoulder at her husband. The movie was getting a little fuzzy. Grandpa Frank picked up a glass of what looked like whisky and held it up. "Here's to the greatest country on earth. God Bless America and God Bless you, whoever you are." He took a long swallow as the picture broke up into a lot of splotchy lights fizzling out.

  * * *

  The old movie had knocked them both breathless. But it was Ramani who made Serene's heart stand still, Ramani as a child, Ramani with the same gap tooth smile. Ramani was Ramani. There had never been another woman. Serene leaned against the wall, stunned at this revelation. Why had her mother lied to her, pretended there had been another woman, a different… It didn't make sense.

  "Amazing, isn't it?" Barbara said of the home movie.

  "Yeah," Serene whispered.

  Barbara sighed, then stood. "I'm hot. I think I'll go take advantage of Grandma and Grandpa's pool. She threw Serene a look. “You okay, Mom?"

  "Yes. Just thinking."

  Serene watched Barbara leave and then played the movie again, pausing it on Ramani giggling.

  Your mom likes to be the hero. She could hear John's voice in her head. She likes to be the one who saves the day.

  And she couldn't. Wasn't able to save Serene at Shangri-La. So she made up a different story. In this story, Serene had a different mom. In this story, Ramani could be the hero, the friend who did the right thing. There was so much to unravel with her life, so many secrets. The counseling was helping, but she knew there was a long way to go. She'd cried for a week after Erica moved out, surprised at her grief over a relationship she could only recall through someone else's memories. Dora's life was like a movie she'd finally had access to watch. She and Erica talked now and then, but mostly Erica called to speak with the children.

  And Dora––what became of her? Dora's memories had arrived like an avalanche of information, so much to process. But what had become of Dora? Why had she only come out that one time to make those orders for summer samples? Serene had asked Claudia Lipstein.

  "She also left you that journal," her therapist reminded her.

  Serene couldn't bring herself to look at the journal again since she'd found it. But she'd put it away for safekeeping. Inside of the journal she stuck Enzo's note.

  * * *

  You knew Julie's secret. I think she couldn't bear it. God help my wife.

  * * *

  Which meant that Julie or Mara had confided in Enzo at some point. How long had he known? And when did Mara discover that Dora knew? It was one of those memories Serene had no access to. She and Steve were still trying to decide on the right thing to do regarding Darpan. One option was to leave it alone. Hadn't the Morenos’ been through enough pain? But Darpan was innocent of murder. At the very least, she owed it to Darpan to see him.

  * * *

  Serene watched the movie again. Gosh, Barbara looked like her great grandmother. It was uncanny. The heat finally getting to her, she left the office, almost colliding with Steve. He caught her up in his arms.

  "You'll never guess what's going on across the street," he said.

  "What?" She stood on tiptoe to peer over his shoulder out the window. Jesse and Grandpa Ron were erecting a sign next to the flag on their lawn. Jesse wore a one-piece bathing suit and a Dodgers cap Ron had given him..

  "Come on." Steve took her hand.

  They crossed the street just as Ron straightened up and wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. Jesse was blocking the sign, but when Sara called out the door that it was time for ice cream, he ran off.

  In big black letters the sign read, Black Lives Matter.

  "Hot enough for you?" Grandpa Ron said.

  Serene stared at the sign and then at Ron. A blush spread across his face, and he looked away.

  "Come on in," he said. "Maggie made a mixed berry pie, and there's ice cream."

  “I will. I forgot something. I’ll be right back.” She watched Steve, her father-in-law and son go into the house. After they shut the door, she walked back to her place, to the bedroom that she now shared with Steve and picked up her phone from the dresser, calling John.

  “Hello,” he answered in his perfunctory manner.

  “Hey, how is Ramani?”

  “Today’s a better day.” She could hear him reaching for the optimism, but could sense the tinge of sadness underneath.

  “Is she up for talking?”

  “Let me see.” Serene could hear their muffled voices and then John was back.

  “Yes. Call her phone. She’ll pick up.”

  There was no ring, only the raspy breathy sound of Ramani trying to breathe and speak at the same time, the mere word hello.

  “You don’t have to talk,” Serene said. She put her phone on speaker and was silent for a moment, listening to Ramani’s labored breathing. “I just finished watching an old home movie your parents made when you were a girl.”

  A whistle of breath came through the speaker.

  “And it made me realize how you’ve always cared about justice and society. The thing is…” Serene closed her eyes and took a moment to steady her voice. “The thing is, I know.” Know came out a whisper and Serene cleared her throat. “I know that you are Dora. And Dora was brave. Maybe that’s why I sometimes like to be Dora, even if I can’t remember.”

  Ramani coughed and Serene could hear a sniffle.

  “Serene,” Ramani rasped.

  “Yeah?”

  “Let Jesse’s beauty shine, and keep Sara strong. And Barbara.” Ramani took a breath. “Barbara is Barbara. Lovely girl.”

  “I love you, Mom.” Serene couldn’t remember if she had ever told Ramani she loved her, or the last time she called her Mom.

  “That’s something…” Ramani paused, taking a few more deep breaths, “we could all use more of.”

  The phone went dead, Ramani’s usual style of goodbye. Serene’s gaze wandered to the window and the yard, images of Brenda Dora Wilson giggling and blowing bubbles, wishing her future children peace on earth, playing over and over in her thoughts. A breeze picked up and blew a cloud of purple flowers off the Jacaranda. Serene pocketed her phone and headed out the door to join her family.

  Epilogue

  Enzo Moreno stood when the two detectives stepped into the conference room at the Baker and Barnes law firm. Enzo's attorney, Larry Swartz, gestured to the table where the detectives could set down their audio recorder and notebooks for the interview. Larry had one end of the room and Enzo the other. Even with a mask, Enzo recognized Greiner and it gave him a small jolt. She was quite possibly in her mid-sixties now. He hadn’t expected her to still be with the department. After all these years she hadn’t changed too much. She had kept her hair dyed the same brown color. Her figure was a little thicker and, aside from a few extra lines on her forehead, she looked remarkably the same, the detective’s dark eyes sharp as ever. Three horizontal creases ran across her gray skirt and she smoothed down the material before taking a seat, the skin around her eyes crinkling with a smile.

  “Enzo Moreno, it’s been a little while,” she said.

  “Detective Greiner,” Enzo replied with a curt nod of his head. He knew how disarming she could be and wasn’t fooled this time by her easy-going nature.

  “Lieutenant,” her partner corrected him, his body language all business. There was no smile hidden behind his mask.

  “This is Detective Wolfe,” Greiner introduced the officer.

  When the two were situated, Greiner opened her notebook and officially let them know that she and Wolfe would be recording the interview.

  “I’d like to go back to the night of July fifteenth at roughly 10:30 PM when you found Taylor Davis on your sofa,” she began.

  Enzo nodded. He’d turned over Mara’s diary to his attorney. The diary contained his late wife’s written confession in the form of a journal entry, one year after she’d accidentally murdered her friend. Only two years ago, she’d extended that confession to him, the guilt finally getti
ng to her. The guilt having turned her into a nighttime alcoholic over the past several years. Enzo wasn’t sure what made him decide to come clean about Mara. Maybe it was the fact that Dora was still under suspicion of Mara’s death. A few of Dora’s hairs were found at the Topanga house. And the way Mara had fallen, he was told, judging by the impact to her cranium, Mara had either dived off the precipice or somehow been yanked off. The yanking was what confounded forensics. How would that have played out? But Enzo knew it must have been suicide or an accident.

  Something snapped in him when Steve Bates mentioned that an old friend of his, Dylan, the kid Steve used to skateboard with, had lost everything in the lightning fires in northern California. The decimation of people’s homes and businesses and lives, lost in the raging fires, propelled Enzo to take a hard look at himself and what he had in his possession, what could possibly be lost. Would he, like Mara, forever regret not coming forward?

  What a year 2020 was turning out to be, Enzo thought mournfully as Larry laid Mara’s old teen diary on the conference table for the detectives. Like the fires, the pandemic had raged through communities and the economy, leaving a wake of devastation.

  His wife’s death had cast a pall over all the other struggles his family was going through with the pandemic, the shuttered schools, the closing of his restaurants and his having to eventually let go of much of his staff when the aid from the government ran out. He had reopened only one of the restaurants, the other two not having viable space for outdoor dining. Enzo’s parents were in Italy, having returned a few years after Taylor’s murder and settling in the Lombardy region, specifically Milan, where the virus had been swift and especially vicious earlier in the year. All over the world people’s lives were upended in one form or another.