I Love You, Jilly Sanders

by Cindy Lou Daniels

  Jilly shook her head. “I—we didn’t—neither one of us mentioned that. I’ve been calling you Otto.”

  “Yes, well, that seems appropriate. We don’t know each other very well, yet, do we?” He smiled in a tentative manner.

  “No.” Jilly half-smiled at him in confusion. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “You frightened the sh—ahh—the bejeezus out of me!”

  Jilly gave a nervous laugh, and Otto smiled wryly at her. “Would you like some breakfast?”

  She would, but she couldn’t imagine the conversation was at a standstill. Wasn’t he going to say anything else? She watched in disbelief as he went to the refrigerator and pulled out two eggs.

  “Scrambled or fried?” he asked.

  “Scrambled,” she answered automatically. “Otto?”

  “Yep.” He cracked the eggs into the frying pan on the stove.

  “You really didn’t—you don’t remember me?”

  The eggs sizzled and he swirled the spatula through them. He didn’t turn around to face her. “I seem to have a—a mis-remembering problem.”

  “Mis . . .?”

  He straightened his shoulders and turned around to look at her. “I have day memories.”

  Jilly stared at him. He appeared older somehow, but not feeble, as though sadness could change a person’s looks. “What are day memories?”

  “I’ve been to the doctor.” He turned around and stirred the eggs. “Put some bread in the toaster, would you?”

  Jilly found the bread, put two slices into the toaster and pushed the lever down. “What did the doctor say?”

  “Well. . . I’m not certain of everything he said, but he did write me a note. I keep it by my bedside, so when I wake up it’s the first thing I see.” He grabbed a plate out of the cupboard, scooped the eggs onto it, added a few pieces of the bacon from the platter on the table and passed the plate to her.

  “The note has the date I visited the doctor, and it basically says there’s something wrong with my memory. They observed me for a while, and they determined I was able to retain memories for a period of not more than twenty-four hours.”

  The toast popped up. Jilly buttered each slice. “Do you—Are you—You don’t remember anything?”

  “I remember the past quite clearly,” Otto said. “Unfortunately for me, that’s the one thing I prefer to forget.”

  Jilly couldn’t say anything to this.

  “The problem, according to the note, started awhile ago; I can remember everything quite well right up until about 1995. What year is it now?”

  “Nineteen ninety-seven,” Jilly said, her voice faint. Two years! He had no memory of the past two years, and yet he walked around, talked to people, did all the things human beings do, and then went to sleep and forgot all about it! No wonder he seemed content to take each moment as it came. He didn’t bother asking questions because he knew he couldn’t remember the answers anyway!

  “Do you want me to go?”

  “It seems crazy, doesn’t it?”

  They both spoke simultaneously.

  “No,” they both said.

  Jilly sat back down and forked some scrambled eggs and put them into her mouth. She swallowed and said, “You don’t seem crazy to me. Honest.” She took another bite. “Do you know if the doctors think you’ll get better?”

  Otto moved to the sink to draw dishwater. “The note says my memory might return to normal someday. What I have is called transient global amnesia.”

  Jilly took a bite of toast. “Is it scary?”

  Otto paused, his hands hovering over the sink before he plunged them into the sudsy water. “Sometimes it is scary. I don’t know if I spent yesterday with the President of the United States, or spent it all alone. But I’ve learned to let things ride. It’s the only way to survive with a disorder like this. Otherwise, I’d be driving myself crazy.”

  Jilly wanted him to look at her, but he didn’t. She saw his shoulders, the gray cloth that covered them soft and shabby, and suddenly she understood he was embarrassed. She stood up and went to stand beside him, one hand reaching out to touch the edge of his upper arm. “Well, yesterday you spent with me.” She tilted her head to smile at him, and she hoped he would see she was trying to reassure him, not make fun of him.

  He smiled back, a thin smile that changed his lips into a sad slash in his face. “See?” he said, after a moment. “I must have known what I was doing when I invited you to stay yesterday. You’re already helping.” He reached into the dishwater and scooped up a spoon; he washed it vigorously, before he turned to her with a small nod. “And now,” he said, “today, I re-invite you.”

  “I’d like to stay, if you really mean it,” she told him, feeling shy all over again.

  “You’ll discover I don’t say anything I don’t mean.” He grinned at her. “It’s easier that way,” he joked. “Since I don’t remember everything I say, lying is a useless activity. It’s hard enough to keep up with the truth.”

  “Am I going to have to tell you who I am every day?” Jilly asked, the thought sending her stomach into a slow tumble.

  “Nah, we can add a reminder to the bottom of the doctor’s note, okay?” He shook his head. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that yesterday.” He stared out the kitchen window, his hands submerged in the sudsy water. “Or maybe I did. And then forgot to do it!”

  Otto glanced down at her. “So what do you say, Jilly Sanders? Would you like to stay for a while? Perhaps we can help each other out. I’m willing to try if you are.”

  Before she could stop herself, Jilly stuck out her hand. Otto wiped his hand dry on his pant leg before he placed his strong hand into hers and they shook.

  “It’s a deal!” Jilly said, ignoring the panic-butterflies that fluttered awake inside her belly.

  Chapter V.

  Whenever she thought about Otto’s problem the next few days, Jilly felt her chest close in on her and her breathing faltered. Was it memory that made a person a human being? Otto’s day memory didn’t influence her feelings toward him, but she discovered his problem mattered deeply to himself. It was like he no longer had a true sense of his own being, like he didn’t really know who he was now that he could no longer hold onto his life by memories of the passing days. Worse, there was something in his past so dreadful he refused to talk about those days he could remember, something brutal all tied up with Jane Sandra, so that Jilly couldn’t even question him about the woman she thought was her mother.

  She did remind him every morning of who she was, but true to his word, he must have written something down on the note he kept beside his bed because she never again startled him by her presence in the morning. She got to know him more each day, and he got to discover who she was all over again every day.

  It didn’t take her long to realize she could have told him a different story about who she was each and every day and Otto wouldn’t realize the difference. She could have made up anything at all, could have been anybody she cared to imagine herself to be, but there was something honorable inside of her she hadn’t even known she possessed that wouldn’t let her invent a new self—she had to tell him the same basic half-truth she’d told him from the beginning. Otherwise, she knew she’d be damaging herself in some essential way—and causing him more pain than he deserved.

  So she told him things again and again, and knew her hope to have Otto fall in love with her as his granddaughter was pretty much washed up; if he couldn’t remember her from day to day, there was no way she could earn his love based on who she was once he got to know her.

  But that didn’t mean she couldn’t love him.

  So she did.

  “Today’s Tuesday,” she announced one morning, when the two of them were out in the barn putting the finishing touches of paint on the old tractor. “It’s June 17, 1997, and I’ve been here almost two weeks now. I’m going to tell you each day what day it is, and that might help you get better.”

  “Mmmm,” Ot
to hummed. “I’m going into town later. Do you want to go, or do you want to stay here?”

  “I’ll stay here. I want to finish the windows upstairs. They look better don’t they?” She’d caught Otto trying to peer out of the kitchen window one morning, the coating of grime against the glass making him squint, so she’d offered to wash it. The job had escalated as she moved from window to window in the old house, taking down the sun-bleached curtains that were so old some of them came away in shreds. Otto had told her not to worry about the drapes. He said he liked to see the sunshine and looking outside was a might sight prettier than looking at those dingy curtains.

  “For a scrappy thing,” Ottos said, “you sure are a worker. Those windows look better than they did when I was a young man.” He grinned at her. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t take a break and come to town with me.”

  Jilly put her paintbrush into the can of thinner. “I’ll stay here.” She paused. “Unless you need some help in town.”

  “Nope. I can manage fine.” He didn’t offer any further explanation, and Jilly didn’t want to pry.

  “The tractor looks good, too, doesn’t it?” she asked.

  “She’s a grand old beast,” Otto said affectionately. “We’ll let the paint dry and—if you remind me—I’ll give you a lesson on driving her tomorrow.”

  “Really?” Jilly bit her bottom lip and smiled. “I never drove anything before. I was supposed to get my driver’s permit, but—” She broke off. She had been about to tell him she’d left Lester and Lynette’s the day of her sixteenth birthday, but she didn’t want to explain about her foster parents.

  “You don’t need a driver’s permit,” Otto said coldly. “And you don’t have to be frightened. Especially of this old tractor. She’s solid as a house, and she can’t go all that fast.”

  Jilly nodded, certain she had upset him but not knowing why. “I’ll clean up in here if you want to get going.” She bent down to pick up the paint can that held the paint thinner and the brushes. “You sure you’re up to walking into town?”

  “Course I am!” Otto danced a jig in front of her, his boots kicking up small chunks of dirt. “I’m spry as a fifty-eight-year-old chicken.”

  “Chickens don’t walk to town.”

  “That’s only ‘cause they don’t want to, but I do, so if I want to get to town, I better strut along.”

  He walked out of the barn, jerking his head forward and backward in a chicken-like motion. Jilly giggled at the sight, and Otto turned around and smiled at her. “I’ll be back,” he told her, and to Jilly the words sounded like a promise.

  She set to work cleaning the paint brushes and other tools, taking care to put everything back where Otto had stored them. She suspected things had been the same way in the old barn for as long as Otto had owned the place, and she didn’t want to interfere with the things he could remember.

  A while later she went into the house, fixed herself a peanut butter sandwich, which she ate standing up at the kitchen sink, and then she got out the spray bottle of ammonia water and some old newspaper and went upstairs to wash windows. She’d already completed washing the first floor windows and most of the second floor, so she finished the last few and then pulled open the door that led to the attic stairs.

  That’s what made Otto’s old house appear so big; it had a full-sized attic, complete with windows, so it was almost like a third story. She hadn’t been up there before and was surprised to find one big room. There were stacks of boxes scattered around, some old furniture, and even a cedar chest with tarnished gold straps and hinges and hasps.

  The sight of the chest brought back a million story-memories of treasures and secrets and long-lost past lives, and she itched to open it immediately. Guilt at her own nosiness made her wash the windows first. There were two on the left side and two on the right, but the front and back of the house were plain board, so it didn’t take her long. As she scrubbed haphazardly, her gaze was repeatedly drawn to the other things scattered about the attic: a set of croquet mallets and balls, boxes of old clothing, three spider-webbed fishing poles and a crusty tackle box, five or six cracker tins stacked up like building blocks, and a crushed velvet settee, its velvet worn away on the seat cushion.

  There were other things, too, but she was most curious about the cedar chest. She wadded up the sheets of newspaper she’d been using in place of paper towels, tossed them into a pile, and set the spray bottle of ammonia down near the stairs. Feeling slightly ridiculous at the pounding of her heart, she kneeled in front of the chest.

  There were no locks on the hasps; she only had to pull up the top section and lift. The lid yawned open. Baby clothes, their colors yellowed, were stacked neatly in half of the chest. The other side held a teddy bear, its brown mat-like covering barely touched; a delicate-looking child’s tea set, decorated with winged fairies, stored in a clear plastic box still sealed shut; and a brand new baby doll wrapped up in a doll-sized quilt.

  Jilly felt sweat appear on her temples. Had these new baby things been meant for her? Had Jane Sandra tucked these things away? Had she been saving these things for her own child? She sat back on the floor and gingerly lifted out the clothes and other things, hoping for, at the very least, a diary buried near the bottom, but there was nothing except the tiny jumpers and soft blankets meant for a newborn. Her hands trembled as she knocked on the bottom of the chest, but there were no secret compartments, no loose papers, nothing that would help her identify the owner of the items. With a sigh of disappointment, she placed the clothes back inside the trunk, reordering them so they were exactly as they were when she found them. She picked up the teddy, gave it a brief squeeze, touched the doll’s face, before she put the bear and doll and tea set back and carefully shut the lid.

  She moved on, searching for something else that might connect herself to Jane Sandra, and she found a box of books with a childish hand-scrawled signature inside each cover: This book belongs to Jane Sandra Beckinhide.

  She probably read these books, Jilly thought, when she was younger than me.

  Maybe, since Otto didn’t own a television set, she’d come back up and get one of the books to read. Half-heartedly, she set about exploring the other boxes in the attic. Most of them held only old clothes or curtains, although she did find a huge, rose-covered hat all alone in one box. On the whole, though, the things stored away were those kinds of things people tucked away because they were reluctant to throw away something that might be useful later. The cracker tins, Premium Saltines, were empty.

  She sneezed, and then looked down. She was covered in streaks of dust, and a cobweb stretched across her forearm. She would come back later, she decided, but right now she was going to go downstairs and outside to let the sunshine and the breeze blow away the scent of the musty attic. She bent to gather up the used newspapers, dropping several as she stood up. When she bent down to scoop those up, three more balls rolled out of her arms.

  “Dang it!” She puffed air up toward her bangs and looked around until she noticed an old Quaker Oatmeal canister tucked near the stairwell. That would do for a garbage can, she thought. She dropped all the newspaper balls into a neat pile at her feet and reached out to grab the oatmeal can.

  Something rattled inside.

  Jilly’s stomach clenched with excitement and she shook the can. A reassuring thunk-thunk-thunk emerged. There was something in there, all right.

  She picked the lid off and peered inside. Papers curled around the inside, blocking off whatever it was that had made the noise. She turned the can over and shook it gently. A thin gold wedding band and a diamond engagement ring clattered onto the floor.

  Jilly stared at them in disbelief.

  She hadn’t really expected to find treasure, but these rings were near enough. She scooped them up; they felt cold in the palm of her hand. She sat down abruptly. Were these Mrs. Beckinhide’s rings? What were they doing in an oatmeal can?

  She eased the papers, crackling with age, out of the
canister and unfolded them. The first ones were birth certificates: one for Otto Reginald Beckinhide, born April 23, 1939; one for Mirabelle Violet Crandling, born December 5, 1949; and one for Jane Sandra Beckinhide, born February 17, 1965.

  She existed, Jilly thought, her finger smoothing out the creases in the folded paper.

  She opened up another and saw a marriage certificate: Otto Reginald

  Beckinhide married Mirabelle Violet Crandling on September 12, 1964.

  Where was Mirabelle now? Where had she and Jane Sandra disappeared to?

  There was nothing downstairs in the main part of the house that revealed they had once lived here. It was as though every trace of them had been extinguished, everything except what was here in the attic . . . and what was in this can.

  Jilly picked it up again and peered inside. Something was folded up and wedged into the bottom. She reached in and slid her nail under the edge, loosening the paper until it came free in her hand. She pulled out a small envelope neatly folded in two, and she opened it with trembling fingers. There was a faint but discernible address in the upper left hand corner and Otto’s name and address centered.

  For a second Jilly hesitated. She felt like an intruder, and she knew she had no right to read the contents of the envelope. There was something so pitiful, so tragic about all of these things hidden away in a discarded oatmeal canister she felt as though her heart were cracking into jagged pieces. This wasn’t like finding treasure at all. This was like finding someone’s deepest secrets buried in the dark and deliberately exposing their pain to the burning light of day.

  But the desire to know more, to maybe find out more about her mother, outweighed her reluctance. If there was something in there she shouldn’t see, she’d never, ever, mention it to Otto.

  Chapter VI.

  Jilly pulled out a sheet of fragile stationary, faded pink in color, and flipped open the half-fold.

  Dear Dad:

  I know you don’t believe me, but I’m so sorry for everything. If I could give up my own life and have it make a difference I would, but it’s too late for that now. I know this won’t make you feel any better, but please know that I will never be able to forgive myself.