The Things We Keep

by Sally Hepworth

  “I haven’t been the best mother lately,” I tell her.

  She looks at me. I hesitate.

  “Okay,” I say, “I have a confession. I kissed the gardener.”

  I watch Anna for a reaction, but her expression remains neutral.

  “Actually, he kissed me,” I correct. “But my daughter saw us. She asked me to promise never to kiss anyone ever again.”

  Anna takes a minute. “Did you promise?”

  I smile. She is following. “I did.”

  There’s a couple of seconds’ silence, but I can tell by the way Anna’s forehead is pinched that she is still with me. So I wait.

  “Is he cute, this gardener?” she asks, after a few moments.

  “Gorgeous,” I say miserably.

  “Then you’ll have to break that promise.”

  I chuckle, but Anna remains deadpan. It makes me laugh more.

  “Life is too short not to kiss,” Anna says.

  “Maybe you’re right,” I say, wiping my eyes. I go around the back of her wheelchair and take the handles, still grinning. Then I check that the hallway is clear and hurry her across to Luke’s room. Once they’re settled, I head to the parlor to check on Clem.

  “Are we leaving?” she says, looking up from the TV.

  “Not yet. Just have a couple more things to do.”

  “Mo-om!”

  “Sorry, hon. I won’t be long, I promise.”

  She sighs, looks back at the TV. I glance at my watch. It’s been only five minutes. That will have to do for tonight.

  “Where are you going?” she asks as I leave the room.

  “To take out the trash. I’ll be right back!”

  I pass Rosie in the corridor. When she has disappeared into Bert’s room, I slip into Luke’s. Anna is on Luke’s bed, where I left her. It’s usually like this. They just talk, kiss, touch. Apart from my first night at Rosalind House, when I found them in bed together, the relationship seems fairly innocent.

  When Anna hears me, her head snaps around. “Don’t you knock?” she says, frowning.

  “Sorry,” I whisper, closing the door behind me. “But it’s—”

  Anna holds up a palm. “We’d like some privacy, please.”

  Anna’s voice is loud, but I fight the urge to shush her, certain it would only irritate her more. “We need to go, Anna. You have a motorcycle race tomorrow—”

  “Cancel it,” she snaps. Then she turns back to Luke.

  “But you’ve already paid your entrance fee. And—”

  “I. Don’t. Care.”

  I feel a flicker of panic. “Okay,” I say. “No race, then. But can you keep your voice down because … Jack is asleep.”

  The other day I’d said “the residents” were asleep, and she’d become upset, asking “What residents?” When I mentioned Jack, though, she’d quieted.

  Not today.

  “Fuck Jack.” As she says it, Anna gives me a look of pure hatred. I stand there, wondering what to do.

  “Mom. Mom! Where are you?”

  I hurry into the hallway, closing the door behind me.

  “There you are!” Clem says. “You said you were taking out the trash!”

  “Sorry, hon, I had a couple other things to do first.”

  “What things?” Rosie says, coming down the hall with a mug in her hands. She joins Clem and me in a three-point circle in the corridor. “I can finish them for you. You two go home.”

  Clem beams.

  “Oh no!” I say. “It’s cleaning stuff. I couldn’t ask you to do that, Rosie. Clem, I’ll just be another few minutes.”

  “Believe it or not, I can unpack the dishwasher and take out the trash,” Rosie says. “I can even wipe down a counter. Go on. I insist.”

  “But—”

  “She insists, Mom.” Clem is holding my purse, and her own bag is perched on her shoulders. Her hand slips into mine. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  “Okay,” I say, but my voice is as thin as the strip of light I can see coming out from under Luke’s door. “Okay. We’ll go.”

  Rosie smiles and I take my purse from Clem, put it over my shoulder. I thank Rosie and wish her good night. And then there is nothing left to do but leave.

  31

  Anna

  Eleven months ago …

  I was right about Mustache Man. When he said we were going to ‘sort this whole thing out’ he did mean Me and Young Guy. As for the ‘sort’ part—that must have meant he was going to call Jack and the sister. Now all of us gather in a small room and they shout over our heads as if we aren’t even here at all.

  “They were in bed together,” Jack cries.

  “Yes, Trish found them this morning,” Mustache Man says. His eyes dart around like flies in a jar. “But Anna didn’t seem distressed.”

  “Am I supposed to be grateful?” Jack says. “How could you let this happen?”

  “What do you suggest?” the sister cries. “That we tie them up like dogs?”

  “For God’s sake,” Jack says. “Did I say that? Surely there’s a middle ground between tying them up and letting them roam wild.”

  “We don’t tie anyone up at Rosalind House,” Mustache Man says, wiping his brow for the fiftieth time. “And no one is roaming wild.” He looks at me. “The last thing we want is to take away your freedoms, Anna, or yours, Luke. We want you to be happy.” He looks at Jack. “And safe.”

  I roll my eyes. Mustache Man should be a diplomat.

  “So why don’t we discuss that and see if we can find a solution that is comfortable for everyone?” he says.

  I tell Mustache Man that Young Guy and I are comfortable with the current arrangement, and Jack groans. “I don’t doubt that Luke’s comfortable with it,” he says, and then the sister starts going crazy again.

  I put my hands over my ears, but it doesn’t stop the noise. It feels like a radio is on in my head, loud, on a talk-back channel in a language I don’t understand. If they’d speak one at a time, and slowly, I might be able to keep up, even join in. Like this, I’ve got no chance. So when Mustache Man asks if Young Guy and I would like “a little break,” I don’t see any point in protesting.

  “I’m scared,” I say to Young Guy when we’re in the big front room, sitting side by side on the … giant long chair. My head is resting against him.

  “What … w-why?” he asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  With him, I don’t waste brain energy on trying to say the right things or make sense of my feelings. I simply say what’s on my mind. Sometimes it feels scary, being so stripped bare with someone. Sometimes it feels good.

  “I do know that I’m happy now,” I say. “So if we keep doing this, we’ll be okay.”

  He pulls me tighter and I hear what he is no longer able to tell me: Yes. We will.

  * * *

  There’s a new guy at Rosalind House. Old, obviously. Mostly bald. Wearing a bow tie with a short-sleeved shirt. He’s tall and skinny at the head and shoulders and wider around the middle and legs. Mr. Pin, I dub him, because he reminds me of a bowling pin. He obviously isn’t happy to be here, but I think we can all sympathize with that.

  He noses his pushy-wheeler into the big front room, muttering as he goes. The woman who follows him bears a striking resemblance, only with more hair and fewer liver spots. Probably his daughter or granddaughter. Maybe even a young wife. Once, I was pretty good at telling people’s ages at a glance. These days, well … Take this woman, for example. She could be thirty-five or sixty-five. Together, they head for the floral armchair by the bookcase.

  “Can’t sit there,” Baldy says, before Mr. Pin even gets close. He taps his head in the direction of the chair without so much as lifting his eyes from his book. “That,” he says, “is Myrna’s chair.”

  “Excuse me?” Mr. Pin says.

  Baldy repeats himself.

  “Well, as Myrna isn’t currently sitting in it, I’m sure she won’t mind.” Mr. Pin rotates with his walker, ready to pl
ant his bony butt right on Myrna. The room silently goes on full-alert.

  “Are you blind?” Baldy splutters. “She’s right there.”

  Mr. Pin looks at the empty seat and then at Baldy. Finally, he looks at his young look-alike. “Louisa,” he says, “do something.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Louisa says to Baldy in an over-the-top polite voice. “You must be mistaken. There’s no one sitting here.”

  “There is,” Baldy says. His voice is typically grumpy, but there’s a waver to it. “Myrna’s sitting there. And she’d appreciate not being sat on.”

  In a place like this where nothing ever happens, this sort of confrontation is as good as a Fourth of July fireworks display. People appear from all over the place, coming to check out the action. Even I feel a little thrilled. But also worried. Like something bad is about to happen.

  “It’s the only seat available,” Mr. Pin says. He starts to remove his outer-shirt thingy, and the color leaches out of Baldy’s face. “So unless you can—”

  Before I know it, I’m out of my chair and standing beside Baldy. I may not love the guy, and I definitely think he’s bonkers, but Mr. Pin is new, and I can’t help feel a certain loyalty.

  “Roast night tonight, Myrna,” I hear myself say. I stare at the empty chair, trying to bring up an image of an old lady in my mind’s eye. “Your favorite.”

  The entire room is silent. Mr. Pin freezes with one arm out of his outer-shirt thingy.

  Baldy stares at me, then gives me a slight nod. Mr. Pin looks at us for a moment, then starts to lower himself into the chair.

  “P-Pet therapy t-today, Myrna,” Young Guy says suddenly. “You can hold a h-h-hamster!”

  All the heads in the room spin toward Young Guy. Baldy finally starts to crack a smile. Mr. Pin stands and squints at the chair, confused.

  “It’s all right, love,” Baldy says to Myrna. “No kitchen mice at pet therapy.” He shakes his head and laughs. “When we were first married, I came home one day to find her standing on the kitchen bench after seeing a mouse. She was white as a sheet. Been there for hours, she said. They didn’t have cell phones in those days, of course.”

  “That happened to Clara once, didn’t it, love?” Southern Lady’s husband says. “She said it was the size of a cat! I came racing home from work, and it was no bigger than my thumb.”

  Southern Lady—Clara—crosses the room and, elbowing Mr. Pin out of the way, she perches on the arm of Myrna’s chair. “It was the size of a cat, Myrna,” she whispers, elbowing Myrna’s nonexistent shoulder. “These men have no idea what we put up with.”

  We form a little circle around Myrna’s chair, and I can’t keep the grin off my face. Baldy, I notice, is also grinning, and so is Young Guy. He offers me a wink.

  Mr. Pin and the young woman shuffle away from the chair. Away from me, probably. Away from the lot of us.

  * * *

  The “solution,” apparently, is to have Young Guy and me followed. Since our meeting with Mustache Man, every time I so much as look at Young Guy, he is whisked away. At mealtimes, Skinny goes into passive-aggressive overdrive. “There’s a lovely view of the garden from this seat, Anna,” she’ll say if I sit next to Luke. “Why don’t you pop over here?” I politely decline, of course, and generally she won’t force it, but it’s a small win. We have no time alone together. At night, the nurses roam the halls, which limits our meetings. When it’s the nice nurse—Blondie—she looks the other way for a few minutes before moving us along. Anyone else, and we’re practically mown down before we crack open the door.

  I had it out with Jack, of course. I don’t remember the details, but I do remember shouting until he threatened to request a sedative. Jack worked in a court as one of the arguing people, but up until recently, I could argue him under the table. Not anymore. He was fast—really fast—ready with a reply before I’d even thought of the question. He also knew how to work the emotions. He didn’t just yell at me—no, that would have made it too easy to hate him—he cried, the son of a bitch. Real streaming tears. Told me this was killing him. “Funny that,” I’d told him, “because this memory-disease is killing me. And for the first time in forever, I wish it would hurry up and get it over with.”

  32

  Anna

  Ten months ago …

  You know what’s sadder than the fact that I haven’t laid a finger on Young Guy in forever? Soon I won’t know him. Yeah, that’d be true even if it wasn’t for Project Watch Us All the Time, but in light of Project Watch Us All the Time, well … not even a super-strength pink pill can make me feel better about that.

  But time ticks on, slower than before. Every now and again, I think about that window in the upstairs room. About how I could go up there and end it, just like that. Then I see him in the big front room or out on the lawn, and I decide: Not today. I won’t do it today.

  * * *

  I’m flat on my sleeping-bench, where I’ve been all day. What I’d give for a drink of water! I threw up this morning and I can still taste sick in my mouth. I’m hungry, too, but every time I try to think what I’d like to eat, I think I might be sick all over again. So I just stay where I am, on my sleeping bench.

  When Skinny walks in, I give her the barest glance, then look back at the wall. She’ll just be reminding me about fresh air again. Fuck fresh air.

  “Coming?” she says. “It’s about to start.”

  “What is?”

  “The wedding.” Skinny’s voice is over-the-top patient, making clear the fact that she has told me this before, perhaps very recently. “Bert’s granddaughter’s wedding. In the garden.”

  She looks at me, frowns. “Where are your clothes, Anna?”

  “Where are yours?” I say, although it’s silly because her clothes, quite obviously, are on her body. Mine are not. I’m sitting here in a top-thing and a pair of sleeping-pants. “Anyway, I was just about to get dressed,” I say.

  That part is true, at least. I was about to get dressed, a little while ago. But when I couldn’t find my clothes, I lost interest and started looking at the wall. “Someone has hidden my clothes,” I tell her, awash with new frustration. “Or stolen them. It was you, wasn’t it?”

  Bitch.

  “Your clothes are right here, Anna, in your closet. Why don’t I help you?”

  She opens a door and, like magic, there they are! It pisses me off. I really hate it when Skinny is right.

  She pulls out a long shirt with no sleeves. “How about this? This would be nice for the wedding.”

  I look at the thing she’s handed me. “Is it warm out?”

  She hands me another thing, this one with long sleeves and open at the front. “You’ll be fine with this cardigan on top.”

  To her credit, Skinny is surprisingly efficient at getting me dressed. She even brushes my hair and pins it back and then smiles and tells me I look very pretty. It annoys me, her showing this nice side after hiding my clothes like that. But it’s also really handy not having to get dressed by myself, so I guess we’re Even Steven.

  Outside my door, in the long thin room, I see him. Skinny must see him, too, because she takes my elbow and starts dragging me toward the back door. As I pass him, the backs of our hands touch for an instant and I close my eyes. When I open them again, he’s gone.

  It looks like a fairy threw up outside. White flower-leaves are sprinkled over everything: the grass, the chairs, the green arched thingy out front. The chairs are divided in the center by a pink floor-rug that is also sprinkled with—you said it—white flower-leaves. From somewhere or other music plays. I recognize the song, I think.

  I’m starting to wonder what all this is about when someone explains there is a wedding about to take place. Baldy’s granddaughter’s. All the people who live here are seated at the side of the garden; so are the staff. Latina Cook-Lady sits on one side of me. Her belly is big and round now, and she rests her hand on it. In her other hand is a sandwich that smells like pickle and cheese. It’s
making me hungry.

  Everyone oohs and ahhs, but I’m underwhelmed. For my wedding to Aiden, I wore a short black thingy and red pointy shoes, but this, I guess, is most women’s dream. Baldy walks the bride down the aisle on his pushy-wheeler, for which he earns a standing clap. I admit, judging from all the flower-leaves, I’d written the bride off as a superficial Barbie-princess-wedding kind of girl, but when I see her, edging down the aisle next to her elderly grandfather, she earns back a modicum of my respect.

  It’s not until the couple are exchanging their vows that I realize Young Guy is beside me. His head hangs forward, blocking the sun from my face. And I definitely still know him. For now.

  “Well, well,” I say, wondering why someone hadn’t whisked him away. “Skinny must have got laid.”

  We both glance at her, at the end of the bench, dabbing her eyes. Her mind was clearly elsewhere.

  His hand clasps mine.

  We stay like that through the ceremony, as the music—Pachelbel’s Canon, according to the folded paper-thingamajig—plays around us. And before I know it, I’m picturing our wedding. What it could have been like. What it should have been like, if it wasn’t for the stupid brain-disease. Then again, if it wasn’t for the stupid brain-disease, we would never have met.

  When the wedding guests move on to the party, Latina Cook-Lady brings out the bread with fillings and bubbly water and we eat and drink outside. Even Skinny and the other lady—Fat?—eat out here with us. No one talks—it’s as if we’ve been put under a spell. Maybe it’s witnessing someone at the beginning of their lives that has made us reflective of our own lives, at the end.

  * * *

  That night, when I extend my arm under the thin-blanket, he’s there. How, I have no idea. After the brief hand-holding at lunch, Fat and Skinny didn’t leave us alone. Every time he looked at me, one of them was in my face, suggesting Scrabble (whatever that is). But tonight Blondie is on duty. She must have allowed him to take liberties.