The Memory of Water

by Karen White

  “I’ll do that,” I said, feeling the old pull of hurt and jealousy—two things I hadn’t experienced my entire time spent in Arizona, but that had been pounding me in equal measure ever since I had returned to my grandfather’s house.

  I waited outside for another twenty minutes or so, my face tilted upward to soak in the sun and warm me. Despite the heat of late summer, being inside with the boat had sent a chill inside my bones, the place where all my fears are kept, and they ached with coldness. I stood in the ninety-five-degree heat and rubbed at my gooseflesh-covered arms until Quinn and Trey appeared.

  We said our goodbyes, and after Trey left, Quinn turned to me and surprised me by taking my hands in his. “Your hands are cold.” He placed them together in his warm ones. “You did really great in there.”

  “Better than I expected, anyway.”

  “No,” he said, his blue eyes serious. “Better than anybody who’s been through what you have would handle it.” He brought my hands up to his mouth and blew on them. “Your hands really are freezing.”

  I looked into his eyes, seeing for the first time that they were the color of the ocean at sunset, and I felt a fissure of ice melting inside of me. I stepped back, uncomfortable. “Cold hands, warm heart. That’s what my mother used to say to me.”

  He let go of my hands. “Is that true?”

  Quinn fell in step beside me as I headed toward the docks. “I don’t know. I guess it’s better than the alternative, though.”

  “You mean warm hands, cold heart?”

  I stopped to face him. “No. I meant burning hot and cold at the same time. That was my mother’s relationship with life, and we can all see where that left her. Diana, too.”

  “Is that why you try to make yourself so neutral? To make yourself a polar opposite of your mother and your sister? I don’t think I’ve seen that much beige in a woman’s wardrobe in my entire life.”

  I started walking again, quickening my pace.

  He managed to stay at my side with long strides. “Because I think that you were once just as passionate as they were. Just because you couldn’t paint as well as they could didn’t mean that you didn’t see things just as vibrantly as they did. You felt things just as deeply. You simply expressed it differently. In your sailing. Your sailing was your way of showing the world your passion. And showing your mother that you were as qualified to be her daughter as Diana was.”

  Be careful what you wish for. I heard my mother’s voice as clearly as if she’d just whispered those words to me. “No,” I said, embarrassed to find myself on the verge of tears. “I’m nothing like Diana. My mother always told me so.”

  He stopped me with a pull on my arm, jerking me around to face him. “But I’ve seen you. The real Marnie. The way you used to be.” He was looking very closely at me, as if searching for my ghost.

  “Where?” I asked, not really sure why, but maybe I’d want to go see her. To find if I resembled her at all anymore.

  He straightened and dropped his hand, and I tried to decipher the look on his face.

  “Just an old picture,” he said, shrugging, then turning away to begin walking back to the jon boat.

  We were almost home and I was staring at a great blue heron pensively watching the still waters of the marsh when the answer came to me. Quinn’s expression had reminded me of the look on Gil’s face whenever he saw his mother. Maybe it was simply the father-son resemblance, or maybe they both knew what it was like to want something that had never really existed.

  Gil

  I saw Mama leave in the car not too long after my dad and aunt Marnie left to go into town. Joanna always helps Grandpa into bed at this time, and I think Mama knew this, too, because as soon as the blinds were pulled down in his bedroom, I saw Mama quietly close the back door and walk quickly down to the car. I’m not sure where she got the keys, but if I knew that my dad kept them in the cookie jar in the kitchen, then I figured she knew it, too.

  The only thing different about this time was that she had two framed pictures with her. They matched each other, so I thought they were a pair of something, but she had their backs facing me, so I wasn’t sure. I watched as she placed them facedown in the trunk of the car and slammed the lid shut before looking around to make sure nobody saw.

  I didn’t know where she went, and I didn’t think anybody else did either or she wouldn’t have been sneaking away. All I knew was that I didn’t want to be anywhere near her when she got back. It didn’t matter if she’d just gone to see her doctor or if she’d been visiting her old friend at the nursing home, ’cause when she got back, she’d be as mad and angry as a mama heron would be if you got too close to her nest.

  But she wasn’t the only one who could be sneaky. As soon as I saw her leave, I pulled the key from under the hall rug, where she put it, and I got into her studio. I’ve already seen all those paintings facing the wall and all the ones that aren’t, and it was like a mystery that I needed to figure out. I’ve always loved mysteries. I think it’s because I’ve grown up in this house, where answers hide in all the corners but nobody ever thinks to ask the questions.

  Except for me. I’ve asked my mama and daddy and grandpa all sorts of questions. Like why I never met my aunt Marnie. Or what happened to Grandma. Or why I hear children crying on stormy nights. I stopped asking after a while. As my dad would say about his orchids, why bother to water a flower after it’s dead? So I decided to find the answers myself, and that was how I found out about my mama’s studio key.

  There are things in her locked studio that I’ve seen before in other parts of the house. She’s like one of those scavenger birds I learned about in school, who steals things from other nests to make her own. I found the photo album that I now keep under my bed—the one that has pictures of her and Aunt Marnie when they were little—and two silver candlesticks that have my parents’ wedding anniversary date written on them. I know that’s the date, because there’s a picture of them in their wedding clothes under the couch bed in the studio that’s all wrinkled and spotted like it got rained on. But the date that’s printed on the back is the same date that’s on the candlesticks, so I thought that was what it was.

  I also found a little jewelry box that was old and white and had a little ballerina that popped up and spun around when you opened the lid. Inside, wrapped around the ballerina like a hula hoop, was my daddy’s wedding ring. I knew it was his, because he used to keep it on his dresser, even though he was divorced, and one day it wasn’t there anymore. He asked me if I took it, which is how I knew Mama had it. I didn’t tell him. I think I knew even back then that it’s not always words that give you answers.

  In the jewelry box I also found a tarnished silver chain with half a heart hanging from it. The jagged edge of it was shaped like a lightning bolt and written on it was the word “ever” and underneath it “ters.” I couldn’t figure out what it meant and I looked in the rest of the jewelry box to see if I could find the other half, but it wasn’t in there. The bad thing about being where you’re not supposed to be is that you can’t ask any questions. So I put the necklace back, deciding that it probably wasn’t important enough to know.

  On the day that I saw Mama leave with those two pictures, I crept out of my room before Joanna could think to look for me. I slid the key out from under the hallway rug and slipped inside the studio.

  I liked the smell in there: the smell of paint and thinner and smoke. I don’t think Daddy knew Mama smoked, and she even tried to hide her cigarettes from me, but I knew. Anyway, the smell reminded me of my mother, especially when it’s all of her that I got to have. I had learned the hard way what getting close to her could do to me.

  I walked around the room, noticing the outlines of a mural circling the wall close to the ceiling that looked like it was going to be people’s faces and dates. I was a little surprised when I came to the farthest corner and saw my name but with no picture and no dates yet. I wondered if this would be like the family tree my teacher h
ad assigned for the class last year, but I couldn’t tell from what was up there. I’d have to come back soon to check it out. Another mystery, I thought, and smiled to myself.

  On the back wall, next to some of the paintings that face the wall, was a big locked cabinet that I heard Mama call an “arm-wore.” All I knew was that it was always locked and I’d never been able to find the key. Except for that one time. I had already looked at the cabinet and was moving on to the next thing when my brain caught up with what I’d seen: the key sticking out of the lock.

  Slowly, I walked over and turned the old-fashioned key, and the wood door just sort of swung open by itself. The hinges squeaked, and I looked over my shoulder, suddenly feeling like somebody was watching me.

  It was messy inside, with books, papers, clothes, paint supplies, and bags of cookies, all sort of thrown in together, and I thought then that I knew why my mama never yelled at me to clean up my room. I’d always wanted her to so that I’d know she cared and she noticed and that she was like other moms. But seeing inside the messy cabinet, I sort of understood why maybe she hadn’t.

  I poked around for a bit, not really seeing anything interesting until I got to the bottom of the first side. Shoved behind an old blanket was one of those plastic bins that I had in my room to keep all my LEGOs sorted. It was big and see-through, and written in her handwriting were the words Precious Things.

  I slid the box out, careful not to mess up anything that I couldn’t put back; then I unsnapped the lid and lifted it off. The first thing I noticed was that it smelled like Grandpa, and that surprised me until I saw at the bottom of the box the small wooden blocks that looked just like the ones that hung in Grandpa’s closet. But then I saw what the rest of the stuff in the box was, and I had to sit down because all of a sudden I wanted to cry.

  Everything was like a whole sea of pale blue and green, tiny hats and pants and sweaters all folded neatly with tissue paper as if someone had taken a lot of trouble to store them. Really small socks, a silver rattle, and a china box filled with baby teeth were stuck in one corner of the box, the clothing protecting the breakable stuff. A large brown envelope was stuck down the side, and I pulled it out to put flat on my lap. I saw my name written in a big black marker, and I opened the unsealed flap and pulled out all the papers inside.

  There were some important-looking papers that I figured were my birth certificate and the record of my baptism. But in the back of the stack were pictures—pictures I had drawn for my mother in art class at school. She hadn’t said anything when I’d given them to her, and she’d never put them on the refrigerator. I had long ago figured out that she didn’t like my artwork and had probably thrown it away after I gave it to her. By second grade, I’d started throwing it away before I’d left the school building to save her the trouble.

  So why was she saving all this stuff if she didn’t like it? It was another mystery, and one I’d probably never solve, mostly because I’d discovered that my mother liked to live with unanswered questions. I figured that out as soon as I met my aunt Marnie.

  I carefully put everything back in the box, exactly as I had found it, and stuck the box back behind the blanket, backing away a bit to study it to make sure it still looked the same. I was about to close the “arm-wore” when I saw the corner of a piece of paper sticking out from underneath a pile of old smocks on the bottom right shelf. The weird color green of the big writing at the top was what made me notice it, so I reached down and pulled the piece of paper out, and I felt my eyes widen when I recognized it. It was the piece of paper Mama had found in Grandpa’s study right before she’d had her last episode, and I almost felt a little sick holding it and wondering how a single piece of paper could be so important.

  I read it, not understanding any of it except for my great-grandpa’s name and address. I was squinting at the small typing at the bottom of the paper when I heard the front door slam downstairs.

  I quickly closed the doors and turned the key in the lock, realizing too late that I still held that piece of paper. My hand was already on the key when I made the decision to keep the letter. Maybe if she never saw it again, she would forget why it was so important, and nobody would have to worry about her seeing it again and having another episode.

  Aunt Marnie and my daddy were talking downstairs, and I knew I had to hurry. I looked around the room one last time to make sure I’d put everything back in its place; then I slipped out of the room, remembering to put the key under the carpet before I went down the attic stairs. I ran to my room and stuck the paper under my bed in my own special box, making sure to smooth the bedclothes. Then I went downstairs, my heart beating loud enough that I thought everyone could hear it, and I wondered if that piece of paper was really a mystery, or just the answer to an unasked question.

  CHAPTER 14

  The more I become decomposed, the more sick and fragile I am, the more I become an artist.

  —VINCENT VAN GOGH

  Diana

  In the years after our accident, Marnie and I were like waves hitting the shore—sometimes in tandem and sometimes in direct opposition, but always two parts of the whole. One cannot have sand without battering waves, and no waves would exist without the sandy bottom of the ocean to sculpt them. We were like this, my sister and I. We both longed to be sky or cloud, something apart from the other, but a twist of fate had made us our mother’s daughters, and all the forces of nature couldn’t change that.

  Marnie was like a puppy in that first year. She would seek me out, waiting to be petted, her eyes full of remorse, grief, and guilt. I indulged her at first, thinking her ignorance was a good thing. But as we got older, her refusal to see the truth and mine to reveal it made her grief laughable and I made her suffer for it. I didn’t realize at the time that we would both still be suffering for it all these years later.

  I heard the timid knock on the door to my studio and made Marnie wait for a minute while I stretched out my neck muscles, cramped from painting so close to the ceiling, and concentrated on the drugs flowing in my veins to put me in neutral before I called out for her to enter.

  I wanted to laugh out loud when I saw her—her hair so tightly held back and her clothes at least a size larger than they should be. What most people don’t realize about Marnie is that she’s sexy as hell. Whereas I’m built like our mother—skinny with no butt and no boobs—Marnie is small but with long, lean limbs and with a real woman’s hips and bust. I think Trey Bonner was the first person to make Marnie realize it, and I had watched in horror as Marnie came into her own during those years, her self-confidence and assurance rising just as quickly as mine deflated without our mother’s presence to ensure my rightful place in the pecking order in my sibling relationship. I think that was why I decided that Trey had to be mine, if for no other reason than to reassure myself that I had not become invisible.

  Marnie stood patiently in the doorway, her eyes studiously avoiding the paintings stacked against the walls. “Joanna said you’d already eaten breakfast, so I didn’t bring anything. Unless you’d like coffee or something?”

  “Can’t. Not with my medication. Well, I guess I could have the decaffeinated stuff, but what’s the point?”

  She smiled, her gaze wandering to the mural near the ceiling. Her smile abruptly fell when she realized what she was looking at. “What are you doing here, Diana?”

  “I told you. I’m making a history of the Maitland family.”

  She shook her head. “This isn’t a history. It’s…morbid. Has anybody else seen it?”

  “Nope. You’re the lucky one.”

  She continued to stare closely at the painted faces of the Josiah and Rebecca Maitland that lived in my head. They were the faces of my childhood nightmares, and by relegating them to the wall, I had somehow paroled them from my prison. I was rather proud of them, and Marnie’s comments annoyed me.

  Marnie read out loud the inscription I had painted in calligraphy beneath the portraits. “‘In June 1803, Rebecca Mai
tland doused her bedclothes with lamp oil, then set herself on fire. Before she succumbed to the flames, she ran down the upstairs hallway of the house to where her children slept, alighting rugs and draperies and efficiently dousing the lives of all but one of her ten children.’”

  She was quiet for a few moments as she studied the blond Rebecca, the green eyes so startlingly familiar in their color and intensity, the yellow-white strands of hair blowing behind her as if she stared into the wind.

  “She looks like Mama,” Marnie said quietly.

  I shrugged, not willing to get into it with Marnie. “I used the small oil miniature in Grandpa’s room. I could always see a family resemblance between Rebecca and Mama.”

  “I don’t think Gil should see this.”

  I felt a spark of anger. “He’s my son, Marnie. Why do you think I keep my studio locked? Don’t you think that I have his best interests at heart?”

  She regarded me with her soft hazel eyes. “No. Not really.” Her gaze flickered down to my legs, to the large white bandage that covered the wound I would not allow to heal.

  I waved my hand impatiently in front of her. “I didn’t bring you here to discuss my mothering skills.” I pointed at a sheet-draped chair by the window. “Go sit over there and take off your shirt.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t be such a prude, Marnie. We both know better than that. And you can keep your bra on if you think you have to. I just want to get your shoulders.”

  She hesitated. “What are you going to write about me? On the mural.”

  I shrugged, not sure of the answer myself. “I don’t know if I’ll put this on the mural. I’m going to paint you on canvas, and then we’ll see where it goes from there.”

  She sat on the edge of the chair and began slowly to unbutton her blouse, each movement unsure, as if she were pulling wires to defuse a bomb.