Keep Me in Your Heart

by Lurlene McDaniel

  Trisha squirmed. Julia’s sadness was breaking her heart.

  Julia dabbed at her eyes with a napkin, then leaned forward, businesslike. “One of the reasons I wanted to see you is that before we dismantle Christina’s room, I thought there might be some things in it you’d want. You know, to remember her by.”

  Trisha blanched. “Oh, I don’t—”

  “Please, come see. Make sure. She would want you to have anything she owned.”

  Reluctantly Trisha followed Julia upstairs and down the hallway toward Christina’s room. She steeled herself as Julia opened the door for her. “Take your time,” Julia said. “Take anything you want. I mean anything. I’ll wait for you in the kitchen.”

  Julia was gone before Trisha could say a word. Trembling, she walked inside the room. It was like stepping through a time warp. The room was exactly as it had been the last time Trisha had seen it. Posters of a popular boy band graced the sunny yellow walls. The bed was made with the soft white coverlet that Trisha and Christina had bought when they were in the tenth grade. The bulletin board was crammed with photos, dried flowers, ticket stubs, the program from the time they’d gone to Chicago to see a Broadway-style play. Christina’s dresser was lined with bottles of hair gels and hair sprays, pots of lip gloss, eye shadows, and hair baubles. Stuffed animals sat along the edges of a bookcase where Christina had last posed them. Half-burned candles and sticks of incense sat on a windowsill.

  Trisha half expected Christina to burst into the room with a bowl full of popcorn and a couple of colas, their favorite after-school snack. She waited, but Christina didn’t come, would never come again. Finally, Trisha began to walk around the room and touch Christina’s things. In some ways, it was like touching her. Trisha expected it to freak her out, but it didn’t. She found it comforting, almost soothing. Christina was still among her things. Her favorite fragrances laced the stale air like whispers, saying, “I’m here. Right here.”

  Trisha picked up a perfume bottle, spritzed it, and closed her eyes and breathed in her friend’s essence. The scent of the lemon-lime concoction reminded Trisha of summer and lazy days at the pool—days that would never come again. She studied the images on the bulletin board, pictures from the past, of Christina and Tucker, Trisha and Christina, Trisha and Cody … Together they presented a story of a life half-lived, of a promise made but unkept. Life was gone for one of them. The others lingered on like half-finished portraits. Trisha, Cody, Tucker—they were the same but different now. So very, very different.

  Trisha crossed to Christina’s closet and opened the doors. The hangers were stuffed to capacity with Christina’s clothes. Trisha fingered the tops, skirts, a row of pressed jeans, and even the cheerleader uniform. She recalled the day—it was at the end of their sophomore year—that Christina made the team.

  “You won’t hate me because now I’m one of them, will you?” Christina had asked.

  At the time, Trisha had felt pangs of jealousy, of being left out of the tight little world that belonged to pretty, popular girls with perfect smiles and winning personalities. “No more than you hate me for being on the yearbook staff,” she’d replied.

  “You’ll be the editor by the time you’re a senior,” Christina had said.

  “No way.”

  “Way!” Christina had countered.

  And of course, Christina’s prediction had come true.

  The uniform hung in the closet, discarded and useless. Their senior year, Christina had quit the squad right after football season ended. “More time with the books,” she’d told Trisha.

  More time with Tucker, Trisha had suspected. He’d never liked the way the guys ogled his girlfriend when she was on the squad.

  Trisha was unaware of time passing, but realized it must’ve when she heard the grandfather clock downstairs chime one o’clock. Knowing it was time to go, she glanced around quickly to fulfill the mission Julia had sent her on. She picked up the bottle of perfume, a flowered top she’d often borrowed when she’d wanted to feel “summery,” a bracelet that sparkled with green and yellow crystals, and a romance novel they’d read together and loved when they were juniors.

  Julia met her when she came down. “Is that all you want?”

  “These are the things that remind me of her the most,” Trisha said, still uncomfortable about taking anything at all.

  “Then take them with our blessings. Here, I’ve got a bag for you.” Julia held out a plastic grocery sack, and Trisha slipped her possessions inside.

  “I should go. I told Mom I’d be back by lunch.”

  “Certainly. Of course.” Julia didn’t move. “May I ask a favor?”

  “Anything.”

  “Would you let me hold you for just a minute?” Tears shimmered on Julia’s lashes.

  “Hold me? Well, gee, sure.”

  As Julia wrapped her arms around Trisha, Trisha felt the woman’s body shudder. “It feels so good to hold a child in my arms again. Not that she let me cuddle her once she was a teenager. She was too big, too old … you know. But how I wanted to! When she was a child, she’d sit in my lap and I’d read to her, and sometimes the sunlight would bounce off her pretty golden curls. She used all those gels to straighten her pretty hair. She hated how curly it was.”

  Trisha shut her eyes, saw the images Julia painted, and felt her throat close tight.

  “I miss her so much. So much.”

  “Me too,” Trisha managed to say.

  Julia pulled away, her face wet. “Thank you. Your parents are so lucky to have you. Kiss your mother for me.”

  “Will you write?”

  “A Christmas card, I promise.”

  Trisha stepped onto the porch; Julia followed. The rain had stopped.

  Julia said, “I put fresh flowers on her grave yesterday. I know they’ll only die, but it made me feel better to visit her. She loved pretty flowers.”

  Trisha got into her car and drove away, left with the image of Julia forlorn but waving from the front porch, a memory she would never erase.

  “Hello Mrs. Kimble. Remember me?”

  The nurse looked up from behind the desk and broke into a smile. “Why, Trisha Thompson! How good to see you, girl.” She came from around the desk and took Trisha’s hands in hers. “My, my, you look so good. So much better than the last time I saw you. Your face is all healed and your crutches are gone.” Her gaze swept Trisha head to toe. “Any lasting effects?”

  None that show, Trisha almost said. “No. I’m recovered from the accident.”

  “So what brings you here to the nursing home? Anything I can do for you?”

  “Actually, I was hoping I could do something for you.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “I’ve been thinking about Christina’s old volunteering job. I was wondering if it was filled. If maybe I could have it.”

  Seventeen

  Mrs. Kimble looked surprised. “Well, goodness, girl, I’ll never refuse good, free help. But what about school? Shouldn’t you be doing fun things?”

  “Don’t you know about the senior blahs? All I want is to get out of there.” More and more Trisha had turned the yearbook project over to Frank. She simply didn’t have the interest for it anymore. School felt like a prison, her classes like solitary confinement.

  “You sure you want to work here?”

  “Real sure. I know it gave Christina a lot of satisfaction. So, is a job available?”

  “Of course it’s available. There’s a volunteer schedule posted on the bulletin board. All you have to do is sign up and sign in when you arrive. If you can’t come, call us so that we can shift things around.”

  “Sounds simple. When can I start?”

  “Tuesday. That’s when the new schedule is out.”

  Trisha nodded, anxious but satisfied. “I—I probably won’t be as good at the job as … my friend, but I’ll try very hard not to let you down.”

  Mrs. Kimble tipped her head, her brown eyes thoughtful. “It takes a long
time to fill up a hole in your heart, Trisha. If this will help, then go for it. If you change your mind, you just come tell me. I’ll understand.”

  “Thanks, but I won’t change my mind. Christina always liked you,” Trisha added.

  “And I always admired and liked her. What happened was a real pity. Lordy, yes, a real pity.”

  Trisha’s parents weren’t too pleased with her decision, but to their credit, they didn’t give her any arguments. Cody was very understanding. “If it’s what you want to do, then you should do it,” he said when she told him following school on Monday.

  “I’ll still be coming to see you, so don’t think you can slack off and stop being my boyfriend,” she told him.

  “You still want me for a boyfriend?”

  “Naturally. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “It just seems like a girl as pretty as you could have any guy she wanted. Instead you pick a lame-brain like me.”

  “Don’t you ever call yourself names, you hear?” She shook her finger under his nose. “You’re not a ‘lame-brain.’ You’re my boyfriend, and I won’t have anybody running you down. Not even you.”

  “It’s just so hard sometimes, Trisha. I think I’m getting better, then without warning, my mind goes completely blank. I can’t think of a simple word or how to solve a math problem. My homeschool teacher is really understanding, but I know that I’m different now than I was before the accident. I’ll never catch up.”

  His pessimism cut through her heart. The accident had wrecked so many things. “All you can do is try,” she said.

  “I am trying. That’s what’s so bad. No matter how hard I try, sometimes it doesn’t make a difference. I want to graduate with our class. I want to think about the future, but it’s just too hard for me to make any plans.”

  “Stuck in neutral,” she said. “That’s what I call it. We can’t go back. We can’t go forward. We’re just plain stuck.”

  “Maybe I should have stayed in the coma. It would have been easier on everybody.”

  “Don’t say that. It was horrible for everyone—for you of course, as well as for your family. I wanted to talk to you, but I couldn’t. At least now we can be together.”

  “When I woke up in the hospital, I felt like I was floating out of a fog and landing on a bed like a feather. I didn’t know who I was. My mom looked familiar, but I couldn’t remember who she was. Can you imagine not recognizing your own mother?”

  “But that didn’t last long.”

  “Yes … but I want everything the way it was before. It’s been more than two months since the accident, and I still can’t return to school.”

  “You will, but believe me, it’s pretty boring at school. Personally, I can’t wait until the year’s over.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know, Cody,” she answered honestly. “That’s still the big question in my mind too.”

  “You should move on. You don’t need me in your life complicating things.”

  Trisha took his hand in hers, studied his fingers, remembered the way he used to touch her before the accident. “Don’t you see? We’ve been through something together that no one else can ever understand the way we do. Who’s going to be patient with me when I’m in a crowd and a sudden memory hits and I start crying? I have no history with anyone but you. I can’t think about dating another guy, hoping he’ll be understanding without me having to explain every time I fall apart.”

  “But that’s just the point, Trisha. I don’t remember. And it’s making me crazy.”

  “You don’t remember now,” she said. “But you will. I know you will.”

  “Come to Florida with us,” Abby begged Trisha as spring break approached. “We’ll have fun and get tans and play volleyball on the beach and pester Frank and all his friends.”

  “Not interested,” Trisha said. “Cody’s here. Besides, I’m making progress with Mr. Tappin.” When Abby looked blank, Trisha added, “He’s an old man with Alzheimer’s who lives at the home. Sort of a special project of mine. He won’t eat unless somebody feeds him and even then, he won’t eat for just anybody. But if I feed him, he eats.”

  Abby made a face. “Gee, the excitement must be overwhelming for you.”

  “Don’t be mean. He was a special project of Christina’s too. He has no one, you know. He’s all alone.”

  “Does the old guy yell? My neighbor’s mother got Alzheimer’s and she swore worse than any HBO comedian.”

  “He doesn’t speak at all. He doesn’t even leave his room unless we put him in a wheelchair and take him outside. He’s totally withdrawn.”

  “Ugh! What a life. It’s nice of you to care about him, though. Sorry if I came off as insensitive.”

  “I used to feel the same way whenever I went to the home to help Christina. Now I don’t think anything about it at all. And I feel better doing something that’s helping somebody else.”

  Abby looked pensive. “So is that what you’re going to do? Fill in the blanks that Christina left behind?”

  Trisha bristled. “That’s not fair. I’m doing a good thing here. And I’m doing it because I want to.”

  “Hey, hey … I don’t mean to offend you. Sure, you’re doing a nice thing. I’m only asking you why you’re doing it.”

  “Because I want to. Because I don’t want to go through my whole life and feel like I never made some kind of difference in the world.”

  “You’re not that old,” Abby pointed out. “You’ve got plenty of time to impact the world.”

  “You think so? I once thought so too, but now I don’t. We all thought Christina had plenty of time. But we were wrong, weren’t we? In truth, how much time do any of us really have?”

  After her friends left town for spring break, Trisha busied herself with working at the nursing home, visiting Cody, and helping her mother with several spring-cleaning projects around the house. She missed her friends, and felt restless and unfocused no matter how active she strived to be. She even filled out a job application at Home Depot, but her parents had a fit and forbade her to turn it in.

  In the middle of the week, while her mother took Charlie to the dentist, Trisha was puttering around the house when the doorbell rang. She found Tucker on her porch. “Can I come in?” he asked.

  Seeing him dressed in a suit, she almost asked, “Who died?” because she hadn’t seen him in a suit since Christina’s funeral. She decided the question was in bad taste. “You want a soda?” She led him to the kitchen, burning with curiosity as to why he’d come. She’d known he wasn’t going away for spring break, but she hadn’t expected to see him until classes resumed.

  “No thanks,” he said, sitting at the table and removing his sunglasses. His eyes were red-rimmed. When he spoke again, he said, “It’s over.”

  “What’s over?”

  “The coroner’s inquest. I went before a judge yesterday and then again today to tell my story, then he ruled on the accident.”

  Trisha went hot and cold all over. For some reason, she thought she’d have known about the hearing in advance, but now it was all over. The news was upsetting. “And … ?”

  “The accident’s been ruled an accident, not vehicular homicide.” He sagged in the chair. “I wasn’t blamed.”

  She turned his words over in her mind, not sure how to respond or even how to feel about the verdict.

  “There were a lot of factors about that night that contributed,” Tucker said. “The ice, the other car, the flap at the game. But speed wasn’t one of them. I wasn’t speeding, so the judge ruled that I wasn’t at fault.”

  She had an instantaneous image of his hand on the gearshift and of Cody saying “Slow down.” “Okay,” she said, her voice feeling stuck in the back of her throat. “I guess that settles it then.”

  “I came here first to tell you because I thought you should hear it from me.”

  “What about Christina’s parents?”

  “They were notified about the hearing, but they didn’
t show. I talked to them just before they moved, though. I wanted them to know how sorry I was about … everything. Her father said he was sorry about how he treated me at the funeral home. I told him I understood. He said that nothing would bring Christina back, that making me suffer wouldn’t change anything.”

  Trisha tried to digest all that Tucker had said. She’d known the Eckloes for years, and now they were gone. Christina was gone. Cody was deeply wounded. Tucker had been judged blameless at the hearing. Nobody was to blame. It had been happenstance, fate, a fluke, bad timing. All was forgiven.

  “Are you going to be all right?” Tucker asked. “You look really pale.”

  “Was your lawyer with you at the hearing?”

  “Yes. He was representing me.”

  “But you told your story to the judge?”

  “Yes.”

  “And now it’s over?”

  Tucker hunched forward, rested his forearms against his knees, and stared down at the floor. “It’ll never be over, will it? The only girl I ever loved is dead, and I was driving the car when she died. That’s the bottom line, isn’t it?”

  She didn’t agree but knew it was the truth. “I know your parents are glad you’re not being blamed,” she said.

  “Yes, they’ve supported me all the way.” He stood. “Will you tell Cody?” he asked.

  She said she would and watched him make his way toward the front door. She braced her arms on the countertop and listened while his car pulled out of the driveway and drove away. She stood staring out the window over the sink where a vine in an old clay pot was trying to send out new shoots of green. The ordeal was over. Tucker was blameless in the eyes of the law. Christina had died in an accident. And yet, ever since the night of the crash, a memory she couldn’t grab hold of kept haunting her. And now, even if she did remember, what possible good would it do?

  Eighteen

  Cody’s family and doctors allowed him to return to school following spring break. As Trisha walked proudly at his side, kids greeted him in the halls like a long-lost voyager.

  “I feel like a freak,” he admitted when they were standing at his locker before the first bell sounded.