by Hillary Avis
She let Pogo out in the back yard so he could stretch his legs and began brainstorming a mental list of possible titles where such a memory would be stored. “Ex-husbands?” she mused aloud. No, if she wanted to read Lilian’s memory, she had to think of things from her perspective. What did the visit mean to her?
Roommates’ Relatives.
Old Flames.
Ex-Friends’ Ex-Husbands.
Unwelcome Guests.
She paused, grinning at her own imagination. Now, where would that kind of book be shelved? She quickly scanned the books in the dining room. Most seemed related to eating, work, or money. And the book wouldn’t be in the kitchen, where all the books were about food and cooking. That left the living room, the bathroom, the bedroom, or the guest bedroom.
She gasped. Of course...the guest bedroom would have books about guests. She took the stairs two at a time, but stopped abruptly on the landing, glancing back and forth between the two bedroom doors. Which one was the guest room? They were both the same size.
She shrugged and picked the front bedroom, since it was the room she hadn’t slept in. It was just as charming as the back bedroom, although the air was a little bit musty. Allison lifted the sash on one of the windows and a soft spring breeze wafted through the gingham curtains, swirling the dust motes in the air. She caught the scent of lilac blossoms and it made her think of a hundred other spring mornings in Remembrance.
Hm. Maybe I could use scent to remind Paul of our life together, Allison mused. It’s worth a shot. She tucked the idea away for another day and began scanning the titles of books that were scattered around the bedroom. The books on the chalk-painted bedside table were all about dreams. Inside the dresser drawers were titles like School Clothes Shopping, Fashion Shows, and Items Scored On Sale. On the small mirrored vanity, Allison found books about doing makeup and sleepovers with best friends, and even one titled Beauty Pageants, Won. She sighed—where were all the bad memories stored?
She sank down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. It seemed so easy, finding something in a small house like this—but when you weren’t quite sure what you were looking for and you weren’t quite sure where to find it, it wasn’t such a simple task.
The library seemed purposely difficult to use, even if the books were organized in some kind of intuitive way. After all, the books about food were in the kitchen. That meant that even memories you didn’t want to think about were here somewhere.
“Where do you put things you don’t want to think about?” Allison mused aloud, chewing on her lip. “Well, personally, I just shove them under the...”
She broke off, mid-sentence, and flipped to her stomach. She scooched to the edge of the mattress and, lifting the matelassé coverlet, peered under the bed. The space underneath the bedframe was absolutely crammed with books. She pulled a few of them out and read the titles. “Sharing a Bedroom with Siblings. Late-Night Arguments. Tidying Up.” That one was thick. Allison dropped it with a thud and looked back under the bed. Three books down, three hundred to go.
She slid off the bed and used both arms to scoop more books out from underneath it, scanning the titles and stacking them in piles around her as she went and trying not to breathe in the dust. Finally, after fifteen minutes of sneezing and stacking, she found a contender.
“Conversations Heard While Eavesdropping, Volume One,” she read from the cover. She flicked it open and was relieved to see that it was organized by location. Volume One seemed to cover public spaces, including all the businesses in town. She quickly found Golden Gardens listed in the table of contents and opened to the right chapter.
It was a long chapter, spanning nearly a hundred pages, so she carried the book downstairs and made herself a peanut butter sandwich while she skimmed for any of Lilian or Harman’s memories, doing her best not to read past the first sentence so she wouldn’t be sucked in and experience all the sense memories that the book contained. She didn’t want an unpleasant smell or feeling to ruin her lunch.
She was just poking the last corner of her sandwich into her mouth when her eyes finally landed on a name she recognized. Paul Rye. She swallowed. It wasn’t what she was looking for, but she couldn’t resist.
“Paul Rye’s voice came from behind her. ‘I had a dog like that once,’ he said. She watched as Allison’s throat bobbed before she spoke. ‘Did you, now?’” Allison’s eyes swam and then the activity room at Golden Gardens came into focus. Through Lilian’s eyes, she saw herself staring at Paul, blinking too quickly. Lilian’s thoughts bubbled to the surface: That poor woman.
Paul nodded. “He liked to walk with me by the river. He didn’t fetch, though—he wasn’t that kind of dog. His name was—”
Allison shut the book before she had to watch herself reply. It was painful to see the strain on her own face. It was painful to see herself sitting next to Paul, like they were a regular married couple. It was painful to feel Lilian’s overwhelming sympathy for her, too. Allison was so pitiful that even a woman who was living alone in an assisted living facility, losing her memory piece by piece, felt bad for her.
Well. This exercise wasn’t a total loss. At least she found the right book and the right chapter to overhear conversations at Golden Gardens. She skimmed ahead, reading a line or two from each entry, until she spied Gertrude’s name. Allison took a deep breath, braced herself, and dove in.
“Gertrude scowled at her from across the room and puffed out her breath in annoyance, sending her steel-gray bangs flying. She pretended not to notice, busying herself with...”
Allison looked down and found her lap full of lavender yarn, two knitting needles balanced in her left hand with a long scarf trailing from them. She couldn’t remember how long she’d been working on it, but it must have been a while, given the length.
“It’s good to see you, Lilian,” Harman said to her, from where he sat on the end of Gertrude’s bed. He took off his white cowboy hat and placed it on the bedspread next to him, then pulled a comb out of his shirt pocket and quickly flicked it through his hair. He was a lot thinner on top than he used to be, but he still looked handsome with his hair combed back. She was glad he hadn’t changed his style with the times like so many people did.
“It’d be better if we didn’t see you, though,” Gertrude grumbled at her. “Give us some privacy.”
Allison raised her eyebrows, her jaw tightening. “It’s my room, too, you know. If you wanted privacy, you should have coughed up the extra for a single.”
“Now, ladies,” Harman said, grinning as he tucked the comb back in his pocket. “No need to fight. There’s plenty of me to go around.”
“You know I don’t like sharing,” Gertrude snapped. “I never have.”
“Just pretend I’m not here,” Allison said, wishing she could shove some of the lavender wool in her ears. She focused on the stitches in front of her. She should have picked a pattern other than plain old garter stitch for the scarf. A more complex design would be distracting enough that she wouldn’t have to listen to their lovey-dovey chitchat. She knew Harman liked to torture her, but at some point, it wasn’t fun anymore.
Unfortunately, they took her advice. Harman scooted closer to Gertrude on the bed and reached out to smooth her hair behind her ear. Gertrude blushed underneath her liver spots, shooting a look over toward the other side of the room that Allison pretended not to see. Blushing was not a good look over a certain age, in her opinion. Blushing was for girls, not grown women.
Harman leaned in to give Gertrude a kiss, and Allison took the opportunity to grab a tissue from the nightstand and blow her nose noisily. Harman pulled back from the embrace, much to Allison’s satisfaction, and clasped Gertrude’s two hands in his instead.
“Sweetheart,” he began, and Gertrude leaned forward eagerly. “I was wondering...”
Allison rolled her eyes. Here it comes.
“Yes?” Gertrude prompted.
Harman shifted on the bed. “Well, the mortgage is due, and Sam Jo
nes still hasn’t paid me for the hay he baled off our place. Do you think you could write a check to cover the note? Just to get the bank off our backs until Sam coughs up what he owes.”
Gertrude passed a hand over her eyes, her fingers shaking slightly. “Our place? That little old farm?”
He nodded eagerly. “That’s the one.”
“The bank is going to take it away from us?” Gertrude’s chin wobbled and her eyes welled with tears.
“I’m afraid so, unless you can write me a check.” Harman pulled Gertrude’s checkbook from the mail sorter on top of her bureau and held it out to her with a pen. “We don’t want to lose the house, do we?”
Allison couldn’t stand it anymore. “You know very well it hasn’t been her house since she divorced you, Harman Winter. Don’t you give him a cent, Gertrude.”
Instead of being grateful to be spared the humiliation of Harman’s long con, Gertrude glared at her. “You’re just jealous, because he asked me and not you!”
Allison snorted. “Oh, he’s asked me plenty. He just knows he’s not going to get a cent out of me. That’s why he’s still milking you like a cow.”
Gertrude’s mouth dropped open, and she snatched the checkbook out of Harman’s hand. She scribbled her signature on the check without even looking at it and ripped it out and handed it to him. “Don’t cash it. It won’t clear until I get my social security check.”
“I know. Second Wednesday.” Harman winked as he took the check and tucked it in his shirt pocket. He picked up his hat from the bed as Gertrude settled back into the pillows. Then he pulled the quilt up around her shoulders and blew her a kiss. “You rest, now. I’ll come see you again real soon.”
“As soon as he needs another payday,” Allison muttered to her knitting. Harman held a finger to his lips and shot her a mischievous grin, his blue eyes snapping underneath his white hat.
On his way out, he leaned over her bed, so close she could smell his spicy-sweet cologne. “You’re looking beautiful as ever,” he said under his breath. “You always were too good for me.”
A shiver of delight ran down her spine. She darted a look over at Gertrude to see if she’d noticed Harman’s compliment, but she was already sawing logs. Harman left without a backward glance. Of course he did—he got what he wanted, attention and a little cash. Why stay?
Allison sighed. When will I ever tire of that man?
The memory faded to nothing, and Allison looked up from the book, stunned by what she’d seen. Apparently, even at eighty, Harman Winter was still paying his bills by pitting women against each other. She shook her head, thankful that Paul had captured her heart before she fell for some lazy conman with pretty blue eyes. She still could feel the pull that Lilian felt toward Harman, the inevitable magnetic draw.
Lilian might not have given Harman any money over the years, but she had certainly given him her heart.
Chapter 12
That night, Allison slept uneasily in the back bedroom, despite the sleeping pills she took before bed. Her dreams swirled around Harman Winter and a long line of women handing him money, each of them tallying grudges against the other women who were doing the same. She dreamed that Gertrude was alive again, and still angry at Allison for not finding her murderer. She dreamed that Paul came to visit her here at the library and delivered a tall stack of unopened mail. The dream was so vivid that when she woke, groggy, she swore she could hear him knocking at the front door.
She shook her head, trying to clear the dream away, but then Pogo’s ears pricked up. He leaped from the end of the bed and sprinted into the hallway, barking his little head off. The sound came again—knock, knock, knock. She hadn’t dreamed it.
She scrambled on her robe that was draped over a chair and checked the clock. Four a.m., Paul’s usual time to wake up when he was still baking. He might even be awake now at Golden Gardens, his body remembering the schedule that his mind didn’t.
The knocking came again, this time softer but more insistent. Pogo’s barking moved further away. Allison crept out of the bedroom to join Pogo on the landing. Who in the world would come calling at this time of night? It had to be an emergency...or a mistake...or a criminal. She shivered and peered down the stairs toward the front door.
Knock, knock.
She nearly jumped out of her skin. The sound wasn’t coming from downstairs. Pogo raced into the front bedroom and skidded to a stop in the middle of the room. He squared his stance toward the closet and growled at the crack under the door.
“Who’s there, boy?” Allison inched closer, her ears buzzing as she strained to hear any noises emanating from the closet. What—or who—could be inside?
Pogo yapped and braced his feet against the door, doing his best to reach the knob. Allison glanced around for something she could use as a provisional weapon and settled on the bedside lamp. She picked it up in one hand and with the other, gingerly turned the knob, ready to slam the lamp into any living thing inside.
Knockety-knock knock. Knock. The sound came again from the dark depths of the closet. Holding her breath, she reached inside and flicked on the light, bracing herself not to scream. But when the closet was fully illuminated, nobody was there. Relieved, she let out her breath in a rush and set the lamp back onto the nightstand. It’s empty.
Well, not empty. In addition to the usual shelves and hanging rods, the walk-in closet held an oak barrister’s bookcase, the kind with glass doors. As Allison watched, the bookcase began to shake, bumping up against the back wall of the closet. Knock, knock, knock.
Something inside the bookcase was moving. A rat? Allison stepped into the closet to take a closer look. Pogo paced nervously as he watched, unsure whether Allison needed his mighty protective bark or not. But when she cupped her hand against the glass to screen out the glare from the bare closet bulb, she saw it wasn’t a rat or any animal. A book on the top shelf was pulsing and vibrating, almost as if it were alive. She lifted the glass door so she could read the title.
Delight in the Night.
Allison felt herself turn a deep shade of crimson and couldn’t help wondering whether Lilian would think forty-eight was too old to blush. Thankfully, the book stopped moving so Allison didn’t have to think too hard about why it was moving. But she only had a few seconds of reprieve before another title began wiggling on another shelf. Love Under the Stars.
Well, the weather was warming up, Allison giggled to herself. She scanned the rest of the books and realized why they were locked away in a closet. They were all rated “R” or above—at least, as far as she could tell without cracking open the covers.
“Do you think they’re going to do this every night?” she asked Pogo, grinning. He yawned, uninterested in the bedroom habits of the people in Remembrance. “They probably are. Good thing I picked the back bedroom, or these would keep me awake.”
She closed the glass door, her gaze lingering on a slim pink volume labeled First Real Kisses. Of course it was a small book—everyone had just one. It’d be easy to find her first kiss with Paul. Her fingers itched to open the case and take out the book, but she stopped herself.
She already had that memory. It was etched into her brain like the day it happened. The light streaming through the front windows, the flour swirling up through the sunbeams during the quiet moments before the bakery doors opened. She was only twenty, home from college for summer break, and her boss was the handsomest man she’d ever seen up close. She couldn’t help watching him when he rolled out the dough, the way his biceps bulged slightly around the edges of his T-shirt sleeves before his capable hands began to form the day’s croissants, deftly rolling and pinching the dough into shape.
He caught her staring at him and grinned. She bit back her own smile and studiously directed her attention back to the napkin dispensers she was supposed to be filling.
“Want to learn?” Paul had asked her, gesturing to the dough. She didn’t care about how to make croissants, not really. The bakery job was just for t
he summer so she could make a little spending money for the next semester. But she’d agreed so she could stand closer to him and pretended not to notice when his fingers brushed against hers as he corrected her work, even though every touch was like an electric shock.
But he must have noticed, too. When they were finished, the croissants proofing on the rack, he reached out and brushed her cheek.
“You have flour on your face,” he said awkwardly. “Listen, I know it’s strange, but—”
She shook her head, cutting him off. “Just kiss me and get it over with, already.”
And he did. That was the beginning of the end—or the end of the beginning—of their love story. Allison didn’t need a book to help her remember how it felt. She didn’t need proof that it had happened, even though she and Paul were the only ones who’d witnessed it and he didn’t remember it anymore. It was strange to think that she was the sole keeper of the memory, other than this library. She slid down to the floor of the closet and leaned against the wall.
“As long as I’m alive, our marriage exists,” she told Pogo. Pogo whined and put his chin down on his paws, settling into the carpet. “I just have to find a way for Paul to see it.”
She stared at the bookcase, drowsily watching as more books came to life in the wee hours of the morning, bumping on their shelves behind the glass doors. Who knew so many things happened at night in this sleepy little town—secret rendezvous and rowdy parties. Stolen kisses, stolen hearts. Stolen lives.
Allison’s blood chilled. Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? The library might not hold Gertrude’s memories of the night she died, but they still held the murderer’s memories—whether that was Lilian or someone else. Somewhere in this library, the memory of Gertrude’s death was stored on the pages of a book. And like First Real Kisses, the book had to be a slim volume. There were only so many murders in Remembrance. If she could just find the book, she could see who killed Gertrude—and why—right there in plain black ink.