The Things We Keep

by Sally Hepworth

  She frowns. “Who?”

  My confidence, if I ever had any, deserts me. “Um, well … he has dark hair, brown eyes…”

  I trail off, give her a minute. But she just continues to look blank.

  “You know what?” I say. “Why don’t you just go back to sl—”

  “Rosie!” Bert’s voice rings into the silence suddenly. I stifle a gasp. “I need to use the gents’. Come and give an old man a push out of bed.”

  My gaze bounces to the door, which is open. I dart for it, pushing it shut just as Rosie comes up the corridor to help Bert. I say a silent prayer that Anna doesn’t choose this moment to freak out. It works; she remains quiet.

  A few moments later, when I hear Rosie make her way back to the nurses’ room, I notice Anna watching me. “Who is Luke?” she asks.

  I creep to her side uncertainly. “Luke is the young guy,” I whisper. “He has dark hair, brown eyes—”

  “Is he cute?”

  I chuckle. “He is cute.”

  “Okay. Then let’s go.”

  I wheel her to the door. There’s no sound from the residents but I can hear Clem’s TV program in the parlor and the low drone of infomercials from the nurses’ room. This is our chance.

  I hurry across the hall and I open Luke’s door. Inside I flick on the bathroom light, casting a gentle glow into the room. The nerves, all of a sudden, are back. For me. Not for Anna. She looks around with the curiosity of a child, getting her bearings. I wheel her inside.

  I know the moment she sees him, because she stills, and releases her breath softly. Luke blinks awake. He sees me first, then Anna. Maybe it’s because I want to see it, but I swear, a bulb lights up within him. He lurches upright.

  I push Anna over to Luke and help her move onto the bed beside Luke. Then I back away. She plants a hand on each side of his face and he closes his eyes. They start to nod in unison—a strange, beautiful liturgical dance—then stop with their foreheads resting together. The empty space between their bodies, I notice, resembles a heart.

  After a moment, Anna looks over at me. Her mouth moves ever so slightly, and a breath of noise comes, like a whisper that didn’t work out. But I hear what she’s trying to tell me all the same. Thank you.

  * * *

  The next morning, I stand in the kitchen, yawning. In theory, I’m washing the breakfast dishes, but in practice, I’m just staring out the window, where Angus is doubled over in a garden bed. The ground is going to freeze soon, and he’s working hard at putting the plants to bed. Even from the back, there’s something sexy about him. I try to ignore it, but it’s like trying to ignore the sunset during an evening stroll on the beach. Not happening.

  Perhaps feeling my stare, he turns. Quickly I focus on the blackened char on the base of the saucepan I am washing. I haven’t spoken to Angus since Clem saw us kissing. I’ve barely looked at Angus since then. I have, however, thought about Angus since then. When I look back at the window he is standing up, walking toward the house. A moment later, he’s in the kitchen.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Hey,” I say. Clem is in the parlor, and I silently pray she won’t choose this moment to come tumbling in.

  “I just wanted to show you this.” Pinched between Angus’s thumb and forefinger is a tiny green sprig. I gasp. “Cilantro?”

  “Just about enough to feed a baby Smurf. But yes.”

  “Wow.” I remove my gloves and lean over to smell it. “Mmmm. I’ve never had any success growing cilantro.”

  “You’ve never tried with me before,” Angus says.

  I blush, wondering if Angus is thinking the same thing as I am: That there’s something else I’ve never tried with him. Why on earth am I thinking that?

  “Well, thanks for showing me,” I say.

  “Actually, I was wondering if I could tempt you to have a rest from cooking one night?” he says. “Maybe let me cook for you?”

  “Oh.” I laugh. “Thanks, but it is my job. And I don’t think Eric would be very happy if—”

  “Not for the residents,” Angus says, chuckling. “For you.”

  I feel the heat rise in my cheeks. I want to say yes. But …

  “You’d rather not,” he says.

  “It’s not that. It’s just—”

  “Clem.” He nods. “I get it. It’s okay.”

  “I’m sorry, Angus.”

  “It’s fine.” He hands me the cilantro and smiles. “For you.”

  “Thank you.”

  I turn back to the sink, shove my hands into the rubber gloves. I know I’m doing the right thing, but sometimes the right thing feels so wrong. I’m still pondering this a few minutes later when I hear footsteps behind me.

  “Eve! There you are.”

  I turn. Eric is standing in the doorway to the kitchen. My heart sinks.

  “Do you realize it’s nearly ten o’clock?” he asks. His face is ruddy and his hair a little unkempt.

  I glance at the clock. He’s right. By ten o’clock, according to my manual, the breakfast dishes are supposed to be done and the residents’ rooms should be made up. I doubt, in all the months I’ve been here that I’ve met that timeline, but I was late this morning, and my corn fritters took three tries to get them right, so today I’m definitely behind the eight ball.

  “Shoot!” With my forearm, I push the hair out of my face and start on the last pot. “Sorry, Eric. I’m almost done here.” There’s a tray of orange and poppy-seed muffins cooling on the kitchen table and I gesture at them. “Have a muffin, Eric. Fresh from the oven!”

  I force a smile, but for the first time, Eric doesn’t return it.

  “Eve, I’m concerned that you’re getting your priorities out of whack. Your role is a cook-housekeeper. And the housekeeping side of things, to be honest, is not up to scratch.”

  This hits a nerve. “In fairness, Eric, I’m filling in doing the housekeeping. And it’s actually a lot more work than I expected.” I put the pot in the drying rack and turn around. “I thought you’d have found someone by now. I can’t imagine it is a difficult role to fill, and it’s already been months—”

  “Actually there’s been a change of plan in relation to that position,” he says. “I’ve just heard from above that the budget has been cut, and the cleaning is going to be a permanent part of your role now.”

  I blink.

  “I know it’s not ideal,” he says, “but that’s our reality. We’re cutting costs.”

  Eric isn’t quite meeting my eye. I get a funny feeling.

  “Why are we cutting costs?” I ask. “I’d have thought that with the amount that the residents pay, there would be a good profit to be made here. I mean, the food budget is already tiny—”

  “The decision has come from above,” he says. His tone is sharp and final. “If you’re not up for it, I’ll find someone else.”

  “I … I didn’t say I wasn’t up for it.”

  But that’s exactly what I want to say. I want to tell Eric to stick his cleaning job. I want to literally throw in the (dish) towel. But without this job I have no address in Clem’s school district, and the last thing she needs, especially now, when she is having trouble, is to be moved to another school.

  “So,” he says expectantly. “What do you say?”

  “It’s fine, Eric. I’ll do the cleaning permanently,” I say through my teeth.

  “Glad to hear it.” Eric finally picks up a muffin and takes a bite. “It’s very good,” he says on his way out the door. As he walks away I notice his smile, the one he was curiously missing a few moments ago, is back.

  * * *

  My visits to Anna become a nightly occurrence. The routine is pretty simple: Every night after dinner, I go into her room and take her for a little walk. Rosie is busy at that time of night, and Trish and Carole have left for the day, so it’s surprisingly easy. Once Anna is in Luke’s room, I clean up the kitchen or watch a little TV with Clem, and ten or fifteen minutes later, I wheel her back again.
>
  It’s not an ideal scenario. I worry that Clem will come looking for me, or that Luke or Anna will become agitated, or that Rosie could go into Anna’s room and find her missing. But it’s only a few minutes, I tell myself. And a few minutes can mean the difference between life and death.

  The first few nights go smoothly, and during the daytime, Anna has seemed more cheerful. Luke has been more engaged, too. But each night I have to start from scratch, introducing myself to Anna, asking her if she’d like to see Luke.

  “I wondered if you’d … like to see Luke,” I say when I arrive in her room tonight. “Luke is the young guy. Dark hair, brown eyes—”

  “Cute?” she says.

  I grin. “Very cute.”

  I’ve come to enjoy the repetition of our nightly exchange. Night after night, Anna reacts to the same situation exactly the same way. There’s something wonderful about it. What else is wonderful is that she’s never resistant to visiting Luke. As soon as I mention him and give a few details, her whole demeanor lifts. How, I wonder, if she doesn’t remember him? With no logical explanation, I’m forced to conclude that some part of her remembers. The heart, perhaps.

  My least favorite part is getting her to leave Luke’s room again.

  “We’re busy,” Anna says one night, when I try to retrieve her. “Go away.”

  “I need to take you back to your room, Anna. You can come back tomorrow.”

  “No,” she says a little more aggressively. “You come back tomorrow!”

  I feel desperately unprepared for this. On the heels of panic, I remember Rosie’s words. “We can make each moment frightening for her with the truth. Or we can lie to her and make each moment happy.”

  “Don’t you want to get a good night’s rest before your trip?” I ask.

  Anna looks at me. “My motorcycle trip?”

  I nod. “You leave early tomorrow.”

  Anna looks momentarily annoyed, then sighs. “She’s right,” she says to Luke. “I shouldn’t ride on just a few hours’ sleep. I guess I’ll see you when I get back.”

  And she leaves with me.

  The fourth time I go into Anna’s room, she’s agitated. The lighting in her room is low, and she keeps looking over her shoulder. I introduce myself as loudly as I can without waking the other residents, then stand in her line of sight. She ignores me, glancing over her shoulder again. It takes me a moment to realize it is her shadow she’s worried about.

  “Don’t worry about her,” I say, jabbing my thumb at the shadow. “She’s not coming.”

  Anna looks at me and sags, clearly relieved. “Phew,” she says.

  Our visits become the highlight of my day. Perhaps it’s because of the quiet or because it’s just the two of us, but conversation is easy. Sometimes we chat for a while before I take her to Luke’s room. I tell her about Clem and about Richard. About what a terrible cleaner I am. Sometimes Anna just listens; sometimes she talks. Anna’s memory isn’t there, and some of her judgments are a little off … but more and more, I’m hit by a feeling that Anna and I are becoming friends.

  The next night, when I go to Anna’s room, it’s as if she’s been waiting for me. She’s in her wheelchair by the door, looking expectant. “I’m ready,” she says before I say anything.

  I approach slowly. There’s a clarity to her that I haven’t seen before. Rosie told me this could happen—that sometimes, for a short time, people come back. She never did tell me for how long.

  I kneel in front of her. “Do you know where we’re going, Anna?”

  Tears shimmer in her eyes. “To see him.”

  “That’s right. We’re going to see Luke. Is that what you want?”

  She nods. I half expect her to wheel herself to Luke’s room; that’s how present she seems. Instead, she takes my hands. “Thank you,” she says.

  I try to respond but my words get stuck in my throat, underneath a deadweight of emotion.

  “I won’t remember this, will I?” she says.

  I shake my head and she nods, lets out a long, wobbly breath. I see so much courage in that breath. I see the person Anna was. No. The person Anna is.

  “Oh well,” she says. “Live for the moment, right? It should be easy when that’s all you’ve got.”

  “Anna,” I say, finding my tongue. “For the record? You might not remember this. But I promise you that I’ll never forget it.”

  30

  By the time I haul myself out of bed the next morning, Clem’s already dressed and sitting on the couch. It’s her first day back at school. She’s chosen an interesting outfit: stripy leggings, tutu skirt, a green long-sleeved T-shirt with DIVA written across the chest. And her sparkly sneakers. I pause when I see them. They’re hot pink with flashing lights that trigger when she jumps and they were a gift from her father for her seventh birthday.

  “You okay, hon?” I ask, dropping a slice of raisin bread into the toaster.

  Clem nods, still staring.

  “You looking forward to seeing Legs today?” I ask.

  “Yeah.”

  “And you’re going to say sorry to Miranda?”

  Clem sighs. “Yes.”

  “Good girl. It’s never okay to hit someone, is it?”

  She shakes her head. At the sight of her solemn little face, the noose in my stomach that I associate with mother’s guilt pulls tight.

  “I’ll be waiting outside when class is out, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “And what will you say if someone says something about Daddy?”

  “He was my daddy, so I know better than you,” she recites, just like we practiced.

  “That’s right,” I say. Clem keeps staring at her shoes. “And Clem?”

  I brace, waiting for her to tell me that her name is Sophie-Anne or Laila or Alice. But this time she lets it slide.

  “Yeah, Mom?”

  “When you say sorry to Miranda, be sure you keep one hand in your pocket, so you can keep your fingers crossed.”

  Clem looks up, blinks. And finally, she gives me a big, beautiful smile. At the sight of it, the noose around my stomach releases. A little.

  * * *

  Of all my tasks at Rosalind House, I hate ironing the most. Firstly, I have to do it in a little cupboard of a room, with a fold-down board and an iron that fills the entire space with so much condensation that my hair frizzes. Secondly, it takes an exorbitant amount of time to do one shirt, even very badly. Thirdly, because I have a knack of zoning out to pass the time, I tend to have a fairly high incidence of, well, incidents.

  This afternoon, I stand in the doorway to Bert’s room. He stares at the iron-shaped mark on his shirt and frowns. “It’s not good enough, Eve. It’s really not good enough.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I’ll buy you another shirt.”

  “I don’t want another shirt. I want this shirt. With no mark.”

  “It’s just … I’m not a great ironer, is all.”

  “You young folk, you’re so slapdash! You don’t take the time to do things properly.” He tuts and shakes his head. “Now, Myrna … she could iron. Never once made a mark on my shirt. Not once!”

  “I’m sorry,” I repeat, because there’s not a lot else to say. I can’t ask Myrna for an ironing lesson. I look out the window for Angus, and instead, I see Trish wheeling Gwen across the lawn in the whipping wind. That woman is crazy for fresh air, walking her in this weather. I look back at Bert. “Maybe I should ask Gwen for some tips?”

  Bert shrugs, all indifferent, but a pair of rosy circles appear on his cheeks. “I suppose you could.”

  “She’s very sweet, I’m sure she’d be happy to help.” I eye Bert closely. “Don’t you think she’s sweet, Bert?”

  He keeps his head down. “Wouldn’t know.”

  “She thinks you’re sweet.”

  His eyes bulge. “Excuse me?”

  “Gwen,” I say. “I think she likes you.”

  Bert clears his throat, and it turns into a coughing fit. I pa
t him firmly while using the opportunity to tuck the ruined shirt into the back of my pants, out of sight.

  “So?” I make my voice a little singsongy. “What do you say? You and Gwen?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he says. The rosy spots have disappeared from his cheeks and he’s all business again. “And stop trying to distract me! Next shirt you ruin, I’m telling Eric. No excuses.”

  “Right,” I say. “Okay.”

  With that, I trundle out of the room. But when I glance back from the doorway, Bert has swiveled his chair and is looking out the window. At Gwen.

  * * *

  At 3:30 P.M., when Clem bounds out of the school gates with a smile on her face, I think I might weep in relief. I’ve always thought Legs was a sweet kid, but when I see her little hand wrapped around Clem’s, I have an overwhelming desire to sweep her into my arms and kiss her.

  On the way home, Clem is a lot cheerier than on previous days. She tells me how she went right up to Miranda and said sorry, and how afterwards Miss Weber said it was a very brave thing to do. Then she tells me that Miss Weber said she could sit next to Legs all day. I decide I’d quite like to kiss Miss Weber, too.

  That night, after Eric, Carole, and Trish have left, I go right to Anna’s room. It’s earlier than usual, but since it was Clem’s first day back at school, I want to get her home so we can spend some time together before she goes to bed. Now, if I can just give Anna and Luke a little glimpse of each other before I go, I’ll have all my ducks in a row.

  There are a few residents still milling around, and Rosie is in the kitchen making a coffee. It’s not ideal, but it will have to do.

  “Hi, Anna,” I say, closing her door behind me. She’s by the window, gazing out at the night. “It’s Eve.”

  She looks over her shoulder, frowns. “Hello.”

  “I’m a bit early,” I whisper after I explain that we’re going to see Luke. “My daughter is having a tough time at school, so I want to get her home so we can hang out a bit.”

  Anna doesn’t usually respond beyond the odd yes or no when I talk about my life, but I get the feeling she likes to listen. More and more, I’ve been confiding in her—complaining about the cleaning, telling her my little worries. She doesn’t remember what I’ve told her on previous visits, but she often manages to keep up pretty well with the conversation we’re having.