The Memory Keeper

by Jennifer Camiccia

  I wrinkle my nose. I don’t share her confidence. “Maybe he’ll stop worrying if you let him make you a doctor’s appointment.”

  Gram waves her hand in dismissal. “I hate doctors. They give you medicine you don’t need, and they’ll say you’re sick when you’re not.”

  “But you’re not going to talk about today, right?”

  “I won’t say anything,” she says. “You know I am fine, yes?”

  I don’t know any such thing. Lately, when she gets tired, her voice changes. She sounds like the lady in a movie we had to watch for history class. Is there a disease that gives you an accent?

  She kisses my cheek and gives me a quick hug. I look past her to the old trunk pushed against the window. A memory whirls and opens. Click.

  Soon after she moved in, on February 17, a Tuesday, Gram showed me this trunk. “Inside this treasure chest is a very special book about a girl who moved from far away. One day, when I am gone, it will be yours.”

  I used to think she’d only give me the book if she moved. And since I never wanted her to leave, I put it out of my mind. But now I wonder if the book might tell me more about Gram. I don’t really know anything about when she was young. It’s hard to imagine her ever being my age.

  Is the book still in the chest? Is Gram the girl in the book? The questions prod at me, and for a moment, I forget how scared I’d been at the mall.

  “I will take a nap and be as good as new, yes?” Gram’s smile doesn’t reassure me like it usually does. She’s speaking with that strange accent again.

  Until today I thought Gram’s forgetfulness would get better, that she was just tired or needed more help with Clay. She’d forget for a few seconds, or sometimes minutes, and then be fine again. This time she hadn’t remembered for more than an hour.

  I close the door softly behind me, and I hear Mom’s and Dad’s hushed voices filter down the hall. Avoiding the creaky floorboards, I tiptoe closer to the kitchen.

  “I know,” Dad says. “I made an appointment for next week. It might be nothing, but something isn’t quite right.”

  “And have you noticed how she suddenly sounds like a supervillain in Rocky and Bullwinkle?” Mom’s voice gets louder as she turns the faucet on.

  “Dementia can present itself in all sorts of ways.”

  “So you think it’s Alzheimer’s?” Mom asks in the hushed voice she usually uses to talk about Maisie. I inch closer, holding my breath as I listen.

  “No. She’s probably just tired. She’s getting older and refuses to slow down. Maybe she needs more rest, but I don’t think we should rule anything out.” Dad sounds sad, but I’m not fooled by it. If he was so sad, then he wouldn’t have had a brochure for a place called Pleasant Oaks Retirement Home on his desk.

  When I found the brochure yesterday, I crumpled it up, like if Dad couldn’t see it, he might forget.

  My mind races. I can’t blindly trust my parents to make the right decision. They’ve shown me what they do when life gets too hard to handle. Dad runs to work, and Mom shuts herself away in her art studio. Everyone and everything else is ignored.

  I can’t let Gram go into a home. I can’t imagine my life without her in it.

  I sneak away to my room to look up Alzheimer’s. Each paragraph of information is stored safely away. Some I understand, others I don’t. Click. I won’t forget. I can’t.

  3. Temporal Lobe

  People with HSAM have brains that are different from most everyone else’s. There’s a part in their brain called the temporal lobe that’s bigger. Which makes sense, since the temporal lobe is where we store memories. They say they can find the cure for Alzheimer’s by studying people who have HSAM. They hope to reverse engineer the process of how these kinds of memories work so they can prevent memory disorders and maybe even cure them.

  * * *

  Today at the mall my brain showed a glimpse of what it can do, of what it’s been hinting at for a while. I used to think I might have an eidetic memory or a photographic memory, but I’ve ruled that out after this afternoon. After scouring the Internet, I’m pretty sure I have what’s known as a highly superior autobiographical memory.

  There’s a doctor who studies people with HSAM. He says people with this kind of memory can recall almost every day of their lives in amazing detail, as well as public events that hold personal meaning to them. They can “see” a vivid picture of each day in their heads.

  I test myself by looking at old class pictures from three years ago. Now that I’ve stopped trying to ignore it, my memory clicks on quickly. Where I saw the map earlier, a 3-D calendar pops up in the air in front of me. I can “see” pictures on each of the dates—little clues about what happened that day.

  Click. I pick a calendar square, pulling it out and opening it up. It unravels, with each detail playing out in front of me. I’m back in the classroom, with the faint smell of Mr. Guerro’s cologne mixing with the musty aroma of our class’s pet guinea pig, Marbles. I remember what each of my friends was wearing that day, down to their shoes and backpacks.

  I immediately know why this particular day stands out. It was right after Clay was born, when Mom went from sad to never getting out of bed.

  I felt alone at home. I didn’t want to be alone at school, too.

  So I tried extra hard to fit in and be liked. I smiled more, laughed at jokes even if they weren’t funny. And, of course, I copied how the most popular girl in class dressed. On this day my green sweater exactly matched one Piper wore the previous year.

  Piper almost never wore something twice. But that day she did.

  “Look, Piper!” Megan said with a smile that was a little too wide. “You and Lulu are wearing the same thing.”

  “I bought it last weekend,” I said.

  “So did I,” Piper said with a forced laugh, her glare fixed and present. She slung her arm across my shoulder and posed with her head next to mine. “Who wore it best?”

  “No. You bought it last year,” I reminded her. “You wore it six months ago, right before spring break. It was April fifteenth and it was a Friday, the day we went on a field trip to see the play of Fiddler on the Roof.”

  Piper’s mouth fell open. She pulled away so fast, I thought she might topple over. “What are you, some kind of stalker? Do you, like, take pictures of everything I wear and write it in your stalker diary?”

  Megan snorted. “Good one, Piper. Lulu’s stalker diary.”

  Several girls giggled and whispered behind their hands. My face burned hotter than the asphalt outside. Olivia saved me. She put both hands on her hips and rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Lulu’s hopeless with clothes. We all know that. It’s a compliment that she wanted to copy you, Piper. And we all know you’ve worn that sweater before. It’s too cute for any of us to forget, duh.”

  Piper flipped her hair and sniffed. “I don’t know if you want to hang out with a stalker, Olivia. What will everyone think? They might think you’re a stalker too.”

  Megan and the others nodded and turned their backs on me. Olivia linked her arm though mine and walked toward the playground, but she kept looking back at Piper and her gang.

  I knew then that I had to keep my memory a secret. I’d be a weirdo, a stalker, a complete outsider if anyone found out. So I shut down my memory as much as I could, and what I couldn’t shut down I kept to myself. I didn’t even tell Olivia. I know she’d never make fun of me, but being popular is important to her. She cares what other girls, especially Piper, think of her. Would she still be friends with me if she had to choose between us? Maybe. But I didn’t want to take that chance.

  So I told no one until Gram.

  But now there’s no more holding my memory back. I can feel it, like something charged with electricity sparking in my brain. What if people find out? What if no one will ever talk to me again? What if Olivia decides I’m too weird to hang around with?

  Max looked at me like I was a freak when I remembered where the van was. Although, to be fair,
that’s how he usually looks at me. I can only imagine how much he’d tease me if he knew the whole truth. It would be worse than when he teased me for a whole month after I wore the wrong riding boots. Or the time I put Remy’s halter on wrong. Or when I forgot to tighten my saddle and nearly fell off. Max’s laugh is the reason I double-check my saddle to this day.

  If Max found out about my memory, he would make my life a nightmare. I could never go back to the stables, and I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t ride. Encouraging me to ride was another gift of Gram’s. And when she saw how much I loved it, she talked Dad into buying Remy for me.

  I study every story on the Internet about people who have HSAM. Their stories make me feel a little less alone, and it’s amazing to hear how similar my memory is to theirs. Most didn’t even know their memories were different until they were about my age, so at least I’m normal in this area of my life. One woman said her memory grew each year, until she could remember every second of a day in the blink of an eye.

  It feels strange to read about scientists studying the brains of people with HSAM. What are the odds I have the kind of memory that could help someone who is losing theirs? What if my memory actually holds the key to helping Gram?

  I imagine myself strapped to a table with wires connecting my brain to Gram’s. I would give Gram all of my memory—every bit—if it kept her from forgetting me. I never want to see her look right through me like she did last Wednesday. Not ever again.

  It happened right when it was time to drive me to my riding lesson. Gram had just locked the front door. The keys slipped from her hands and fell on the porch, so I scooped them up and handed them back.

  “Why am I here?” Gram asked, looking from the keys in her hand to me. She stared at me blankly, frowning like she didn’t trust me. Like I was a bug crawling across the floor. A bug she didn’t recognize.

  A pulse drummed against my forehead. “To take me to riding,” I answered.

  I was used to how Mom looked past me, as if she were seeing another little girl from another time and place. Or how Dad kept his eyes glued to his phone, pausing to glance at Clay or me with an absentminded smile. They love me, but they don’t see me. A piece of their heart is locked away—maybe forever. But with Gram, Clay and I have her whole heart. Every part of us is important to her.

  Except now Gram’s brows stayed furrowed. Her cheeks turned pink, and then a bright red stained her neck and chest. “I know you?”

  “It’s Lulu,” I said, not sure if I was reminding her or myself. Who was I if I didn’t have Gram on my side? Her voice was with me always. Telling me how special I was, how brave, how beautiful. An empty space under my ribs opened up. It tugged on my heart like it was trying to pull it out of place and swallow it whole.

  “Lulu,” she repeated in a whisper. “Lulu. Yes.”

  The moment she snapped back, her eyes locked on me like lasers. And the empty space under my ribs closed right back up.

  It was nothing. I repeated that over and over every day since.

  She was tired and I’d only imagined it.

  But then she burned Clay’s sandwich and forgot where we parked at the mall. And a dozen other small things piled one on top of another. Little nothings that became one big something.

  4. Hippo Brain

  There’s a small part of the brain called the hippocampus, which makes me imagine a hippopotamus stomping around in the middle of my skull. That would explain why memories are so random. Why you remember some and not others.

  Only, the hippocampus doesn’t look a thing like a hippo. It’s shaped like a seahorse, and it helps us remember things like where our home is. Something that might seem easy.

  One of the first symptoms of Alzheimer’s is forgetting where things are. Maybe at first it’s where you park. Pretty soon it’s something more, maybe even people. There’s no cure for it yet. Once you get it, you start losing your memory in bits and pieces until eventually you don’t remember anyone or anything.

  * * *

  I plop down at the kitchen table and grab a homemade blueberry muffin. Gram bakes the best muffins. “I have a plan,” I say, and I take a humongous bite that slowly melts in my mouth.

  Gram cuts up a pear for Clay, each slice as precise and efficient as she is. Her hair is curled, her makeup perfect, everything just so. Maybe I’m worrying too much. Maybe yesterday was just a bad day.

  “I’m sure you do.” A faint smile softens the stern lines of her face.

  When Gram first moved in with us, I was a little afraid of her. Everything about her seemed rigid and strict. But she’d won me over within days—she never forgot to pick me up, she always did what she said, and she didn’t just say she loved me. She showed it.

  Gram knew my teachers’ names and Olivia’s favorite snack. She read to Clay and me, told us stories about Dad when he was young. And she listened to me. Nothing I said bored her or made her impatient.

  While Mom locked herself away in her studio, Gram took me to riding lessons and doted on Clay. She saved our whole family—couldn’t Mom and Dad see that? Why would they want to move her to a retirement home?

  I try to stay calm. “You need to tell me everything you remember,” I tell her. “I’ll record it. That way if you forget something, I can give the memory back to you.”

  I pull out a notebook and pen. There’s something soothing about writing things down, where everything has a place, orderly and neat. It unclutters my brain, at least for a little while. Ever since yesterday, a smell or a picture might catapult me back in time to a specific moment. If I’m going to learn to control it, maybe writing things down can be the first step.

  Gram wipes her hands as she considers my proposition. “Everything? That’s a lot of memories, yes? Are you sure you want to waste the rest of your summer listening to my old stories?”

  “I want to,” I assure her, forcing a smile. “It’ll be fun.”

  “Are you feeling okay?” She tilts her head as she studies my face. Her eyes scan me like she has X-ray vision. Sometimes I’m half convinced she does.

  My leg jiggles underneath the table. “I’m fine.”

  “Is this about yesterday? I told you not to worry about me. Everyone gets a little forgetful every once in a while.” She reaches out and fixes my bangs so they don’t cover my eyes.

  I, on the other hand, like when they cover my eyes. A thick curtain of hair to hide what I’m really thinking. “I just think it would be cool to know more about your past. You know everything about me.”

  Gram smiles, her eyes twinkling with humor. “Yes, this is true. I know that the boy yesterday makes you very angry. Why?”

  I sigh. I should have seen this coming. Every time Gram sees Max at the stables, she smiles like she knows something I don’t. “Just because you think Max is cute doesn’t mean I do. He’s annoying and a know-it-all.”

  “But also very sweet. It says something about him that he was so patient with an old lady.”

  I shrug. “I guess he was sort of nice to you—”

  “He was more than nice, Lulu. He was a gentleman.” She smiles again like she expects me to declare my love for Max Rodriguez.

  Yeah, so not going to happen.

  “Can we not talk about Max for a second, and go back to your stories? I want to know about your childhood. Who was your best friend? When did you first start riding horses? Things like that.”

  “I am happy you want to know me, my sweet girl. But I think you are also a little afraid for me, yes?”

  I look away from her all-knowing gaze. “Maybe a little.”

  “I’ve been putting some thought into going to the doctor,” Gram says. “Perhaps if I make an appointment myself, with a friend of mine? That way everyone can rest assured that I am perfectly fine.”

  “Who is it?”

  She fiddles with her scarf and glances out the window. “No one you know. We go way back. After we have a quick talk, he will see I am well and will e-mail your father.”

/>   “He won’t want to examine you?” Things are sounding fishier by the minute.

  “That isn’t necessary. Like I said earlier, I’m fine. Just a little tired, yes?”

  I know there’s more wrong than a little tiredness, and something feels off about this doctor’s visit. But Gram’s always been honest with me. “I guess if you’re sure he knows what he’s doing.”

  “He does, and he knows me well. Not like a strange doctor who thinks they know everything about you from one test.”

  I wiggle my pencil. “Fine. But I do really want to know more about you, Gram, and not just because I’m worried. Like, what’s your earliest memory?”

  Instead of answering, Gram goes to the small radio she keeps by the sink. “I think it’s time for a dance party. What do you think, Clay?”

  “Dance!” Clay pounds his tray with both fists.

  Gram turns the radio on, and a Beatles song fills the room. She starts to shimmy to the beat. “Come on, Lulu. Show me those moves!”

  I roll my eyes and giggle when she does a weird dance where it looks like she’s swimming. Gram has been dancing every day with us since she moved here. Sometimes we even get Mom and Dad to join us if we play the right eighties song.

  Gram grabs my hands and twirls me until I laugh breathlessly. I forget to be self-conscious once my feet start moving to the music. Clay demands to get down so he can be a part of it too, and soon we’re all dancing in a circle. Gram takes turns spinning us and shows Clay how to do the twist.

  The first song ends and another that has an even catchier beat starts. Three songs later, Gram leans against the counter with a chuckle. “Okay, sweet boy, that’s enough dancing for now. We need to get you upstairs for a nap.”

  Clay shakes his head and runs around the kitchen in increasingly smaller circles.

  I hold my stomach and laugh. “He’s never going to sleep now.”