by Hillary Avis
“Sorry!” She shushed Pogo. “He really is a nice dog.”
Taylor paused where the fence met the tree, one leg hooked over a branch and his eyebrows raised skeptically. “Did you read those books?” he asked. “The ones from the basement?”
She nodded slowly. She’d forgotten that Taylor had helped her locate the sinister stories box, and she felt slightly ashamed that she hadn’t been able to protect those books from him—or him from the books. As they might say in a real library, they weren’t stories for younger readers. “I did. Did you?”
“Only one. It was about snakes.” He shuddered. “I didn’t finish it.”
“I take it you’re not a fan of snakes?”
He jutted out his jaw defensively. “Why do you think I hang out in trees? No snakes up here. Unlike school,” he added darkly.
“They have snakes at school?” Allison asked in a teasing voice.
“One. In a tank. But she’s big.” He pulled himself up onto the branch.
“Hey,” Allison called as his head disappeared in the leaves. “The woman who lived here before me, Myra Mitchell—did you know her well? What was she like?”
“I dunno. She did boring grown-up stuff.”
“What do you mean?”
He stuck his head out and squinted at her. “Like, she took out the trash. She went to work. She swept the porch.”
Allison nodded. “Did you talk to her?”
“Nah. My grandma said not to bother her. She said the next-door house is for private people who don’t want company.”
Private people who don’t want company? Were those idle words based on his grandma’s experience having guardians as next-door neighbors, or did she know about the library? It made sense that she might, living adjacent to it for who-knows-how-many years. Even Taylor, who couldn’t be more than eleven, had an inkling that something was going on with those books. Now multiply that by a few decades of glimpses through the window...
“Did you ever see what Myra did inside the house? Through the window? I know you wouldn’t look on purpose,” she added apologetically. “I just thought you might have seen something accidentally.”
“She looked at books and cried, mostly.” Taylor rolled his eyes, but his expression was sympathetic. “I told you, boring.”
Allison swallowed, nodding. She’d hoped that maybe he’d seen something like Myra cutting pages out of books—hundreds of books. But it sounded like Myra just grieved for Al, looking through all the old memories she had of him. She’d said something about getting lost in the books herself when she warned Allison not to get too caught up in the past.
Anyway, the timing would have been tight. Even if Myra had moved into the library a week or two before Paul lost his memory, she wouldn’t have had time to go through all the books and find his memories. The memories weren’t easy to find, scattered across hundreds or thousands of books—and they’d all been removed in one night.
That was the “cognitive event” the doctors always referenced—not a stroke or a lightning strike or sudden-onset dementia. Whoever cut the memories out had to find them, mark them, and then spend hours just cutting. There was no way a new guardian could manage it in just a few weeks—Allison couldn’t with what she knew now, that’s for sure.
It had to be the guardian before Myra who removed the pages. That guardian was an expert, at the end of her stint. That guardian had three years to mark Paul’s memories before excising them all in one night. The page thief had to be the woman with the salt-and-pepper hair that Allison had seen in Myra’s first guardian memory. She must have cut out the pages right before she turned over the library to Myra.
“Well?” Taylor asked, his eyes narrowing. Allison realized he’d asked her a question, but she’d been so caught up in thinking about the library that she hadn’t heard him.
“Sorry, what?”
“Never mind,” he muttered, his lip curling with disgust. He disappeared back into the tree, and his disembodied voice floated out. “You seemed less boring. But I guess not.”
Allison paused. She wanted to protest that she wasn’t boring, but then again, neither was Myra. The idea that anyone thought Myra was unfriendly or private was just...well, a sign of how seriously Myra took her role as guardian of the books. Allison needed to take a page—she groaned internally as her unintended pun—from her and stop worrying about other people’s opinions of her. Let Taylor think she was boring. Let his grandmother think she was private or unfriendly.
“Have a good day at school,” she called up into the tree. She plucked Pogo from the grass and went back in the house to finish her breakfast. After she’d eaten and dressed, she marked Paul’s memory of Emily’s birth in Sweetest Days with a scrap of paper so it’d be easy to find when she brought him by the house later. She left the book by the door on her way out.
Her stomach fluttered during the walk over to Golden Gardens. Not the gentle excitement of butterflies—more like the snap and bounce of rubber bands. She had no idea how Paul might react to seeing his own memory—would he believe it? Would he think it was some kind of trick? Would showing him the book on the porch make the library revoke her guardian privileges? Would it count as revealing the library or not?
Before she stepped through the front doors, she paused and took a deep breath to settle her stomach. Pogo stopped his eager pulling on the leash and looked up at her questioningly, as though he was asking why the wait?
She gave him a reassuring pat. “Don’t worry, we’re going in. I just need to relax.” The dog didn’t know what it was like to carry all this history and hope with him all the time. He just wanted to visit with people and take a walk. Allison swept away the clutter of her emotions and tried to adopt Pogo’s attitude. Stay in the moment. Meet Paul where he is.
Inside, she gave Myra a breezy wave and went straight to Paul. “Hi, I’m Allison,” she said, and stuck out her hand. “This is Pogo, my foster dog.”
Paul shook her hand, looking back and forth between her and the dog. A smile spread across his face. “Well, good morning. You know, I used to have a little Yorkie. I loved walking him down by the river.”
“Oh?” Allison asked. Paul nodded, and she continued, steeling herself for rejection. “Pogo and I were just going to take a walk down there. Would you like to join us?”
Doubt clouded Paul’s eyes and his smile slipped away. “I don’t think they’ll let me. They want me to stay here.”
“But if they will, would you like to?” Allison asked.
He looked up at her and for a moment when their eyes met, Allison felt a jolt of connection. She sucked in her breath, and for some reason, she blushed.
He winked at her. “I’d like that very much.”
“I’ll ask.” She handed him Pogo’s leash and, feeling a bit like a twelve-year-old asking her parents if she can call her crush on the telephone rather than a woman celebrating her silver wedding anniversary, marched across the room to Myra. “Is it OK if I take Paul out now? I’ll have him back before lunch.”
Myra gave a quick nod and patted her on the arm. “Good luck, baby girl. I have my fingers crossed tight for you.”
Allison returned to where Paul was deep in conversation with Pogo. He had the dog up in his lap and was scratching him behind the ears, much to Pogo’s evident delight.
“We’ve got a green light,” she said, pleased to see Paul’s face brighten. He nudged Pogo off his lap and stood, brushing a few stray dog hairs from his jeans before he held out his arm.
“Shall we?”
Allison looked up at her husband and nodded. “I think we shall.”
She took his arm and they strolled together out the door and down the street, Pogo trailing behind them on the leash that Paul still held. It was like they’d stepped into a time machine and were transported back ten or fifteen years, back to when Tiny lived with them.
For a moment, Allison let herself believe that Emily was still in middle school and she and Paul were taking a break a
fter the breakfast crowd at the bakery thinned, grabbing a few quiet moments together as they often did when most of the baking was done for the day and they had a lull in customers.
Paul smiled glowingly at her and then beamed down at Pogo. “This feels like old times,” he said.
Her breath caught. He must be feeling the same things that she was—the connection, the history. Even if he didn’t have specific memories, he might still be able to feel all the years they’d spent together, like muscle memory. After all, the heart was a muscle, too.
“Happy anniversary, sweetheart,” she said impulsively. She was disappointed to see Paul’s expression shift, the joy slip away into confusion. She rushed to cover up her mistake. “I meant Pogo! This is his adoption anniversary.”
Paul withdrew his arm from hers and stopped walking. “You said he was your foster dog.”
Allison silently cursed herself for being seduced by the fantasy of their old life and scrambled for another lie to explain her lie. “Right. Oregon Tails Dog Rescue adopted him from Animal Control a year ago. He’s been waiting for a family since then. So this is his adoption anniversary, but he’ll also have another one, when he finds his forever home,” she finished lamely. Then, in the hope that it’d distract him from her messy untruth, she said, “It’s such a nice day. Let’s keep walking.”
Paul looked skeptical, but he took her hand when she held it out, matching his pace to hers. When they were within twenty yards of the memory library she asked, “Do you mind if we stop at my house for a minute? I forgot something and we’re passing right by.”
“Sure.” His voice was clipped—he still didn’t trust her, but at least he agreed to it.
She gave him a reassuring smile as she opened the front gate. “You can wait on the porch with Pogo. It’ll only take a second.”
She reached inside the door and grabbed the book from the table in the foyer, then pulled him down beside her on the bench with the book clutched on her knees.
“Before we go, I want to show you something. I think it belongs to you.” She opened the book to the marked page and slid it over to his lap, taking the leash from him so he could hold the book with both hands. She pointed to the chapter heading with his name. “Start reading here, after your name.”
His brow furrowed and he shot her a bewildered look, but then he bent his head and began reading aloud. “He couldn’t believe his ears. The sound of her voice was like music in the cold hospital room.”
His voice trailed off, but his eyes still moved across the page as he read the words. Allison watched as tears welled in his eyes and his mouth dropped open a little. A fat tear splatted onto the page, and Allison saw he was getting close to the bottom. Fearing he’d soon feel the searing pain of the cut pages, she snatched the book out of his hands, snapping it closed.
“Why did you do that?” he asked thickly, still half in a daze, as he reached out toward the book. “I want to read more.”
She shook her head, her throat tight. “You can’t. That’s all there is.”
“I have a daughter,” he said, shaking his head slowly, the tears still sliding off his chin. “I remember now. She was so small. It’s stupid, but I expected her to smell like a tortilla—because she looked like a burrito, wrapped up in the hospital blanket. But she didn’t. She smelled like ocean.” He looked at Allison, his eyes pleading. “Do you know her name? I can’t remember.”
She nodded. She knew why he didn’t remember—they hadn’t picked a name before the baby was born. It was in that moment, when Paul had looked over at her in the hospital bed, that they’d decided to name her after his grandmother. That part of the memory was cut out of the book, stolen by the page thief. “Emily. Her name is Emily.”
“Emily.” He spoke the name reverently, and Allison swallowed hard. She didn’t know whether it would stick—whether remembering the scrap of her birth would help him connect to the grown-up Emily—but she hoped it would. “Can I read it again?”
She found the page for him and handed him the book, watching as he scanned each line, savoring it, experiencing the well of emotion all over again. She pulled it away before he reached the end of the page.
He propped his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands. “How?” he asked hoarsely. “How does it work?”
“I don’t know,” Allison said, standing up quickly. She shouldn’t have let him read it again—it was a mistake to let him think about why and how the memory was in the book instead of just remembering. “That’s not important. The important thing is that you remember Emily. Hang on tight to that and don’t let it go.” She handed him the leash, slipped back inside to drop the book on the table, and then rejoined him on the porch.
“I think Pogo wants to finish the walk we started.”
Paul nodded, still clearly lost in thought. She touched him on the shoulder, bringing him back to reality. “Everything OK in there?”
“Fine. Fine.” He stood to offer his arm to her again. “Let’s go.”
They spent an hour walking up and down the downtown streets and along the river, the dog dancing circles around them when he spotted a squirrel or a water bird. They talked about the businesses they passed and exchanged childhood stories about buying penny candy at the old People’s Market that was now the auto parts store. Paul remembered the town and his life with perfect clarity up until twenty-five years ago, give or take. Allison knew all of his stories already, but it was nice to hear them again and get lost in his history.
When lunchtime neared and Pogo started lagging behind them, his tongue lolling out of his mouth, she regretfully said, “We ought to get back.”
They walked the last few blocks back to Golden Gardens in silence. Just before they entered the glass front door, Paul grabbed her arm and pulled her to the side, out of view of Myra and the other residents.
“Do you know Emily?” he asked, studying her face intently. She nodded, and he bit his lower lip, his forehead lined with worry. “Can you tell her I love her? I’d like to see her if she can come visit.”
She nodded again, unable to form any words in response. Paul let go of her arm, the creases in his forehead smoothing, and went back inside.
Chapter 25
Allison blinked back the tears pricking her eyes—she’d known her heart would break one way or another, but it still hurt—and picked up Pogo.
“Well. That went better than I thought it would,” she said to him, giving him a little jiggle. Pogo leaned his head against her and yawned, worn out from the walk. “I’ll take you home, then.”
She carried the dog back home and waited until he fell asleep on the sofa before she left for the grocery store, list in hand and a couple of reusable grocery bags looped over her wrist. On the walk across the bridge to the Dynomart, she dialed Emily.
The call clicked straight to voicemail. “I can’t answer right now. Leave a message.”
“Sweetheart, this is Mom. Is there any chance you make it down here this weekend? I don’t know how to say this but—Dad remembered you today. He wants to see you.” Allison hung up the phone, her heart soaring at being able to deliver such good news, and she was gratified a few minutes later when her phone buzzed with a text from Emily.
“I’ll make time on Saturday.”
“Perfect,” Allison messaged back. “I love you.”
She tucked her phone away as she reached the end of the bridge and strode across the grocery store’s parking lot, picking her way through a few parked cars and abandoned shopping carts toward the Dynomart’s signature garish awnings. It was hardly a choice place to shop, basically a glorified convenience store, but it was the only grocery left in town. When the sawmill closed, so did many of the businesses that supported the mill workers and their families. Allison usually preferred to drive a few miles to Elkhorn to the natural foods store there—they made a lot of their dry goods from scratch and had a real butcher shop—but now that she was minus one car, the Dynomart it was.
The au
tomatic doors slid open when she reached the entrance mat, and she winced as she was hit with the smell of fried food. The Dynomart’s main feature was the Qwik-Bite counter, where they deep-fried everything from pickles to Oreo cookies for the hungry gamblers from the casino next door—especially after midnight, when nothing else was open.
Right now, in the middle of a Wednesday, there weren’t many people shopping, so Allison grabbed a basket and quickly scoured the shelves for the things on her list, then went to stand in the sole checkout line. It was backed up several shoppers deep. Allison scanned the rest of the store and confirmed—there were more people standing in line than in the rest of the Dynomart put together. She quickly realized why. The woman at the front of the line was kicking up a fuss about her purchases.
“I have a coupon for those!” she insisted, waving a slip of paper in the checker’s face. The checker, a pimply teenage boy with an uneven haircut and a lip ring, pushed back his hair and sighed.
“We don’t take coupons here,” he said.
“You have to!” The woman leaned across the counter, holding the coupon closer to the checker’s face. “See? It’s a manufacturer’s coupon.”
“We’re not required to take any coupons. That’s why we don’t.” The checker’s voice was monotone, as though he’d delivered the line many times before.
“This is outrageous!” the woman said shrilly. Allison heard her slap her hand down on the checkout counter. “I want to speak to the manager!”
“Fine.” The checker grabbed a walkie-talkie from under the counter and spoke into it. “Greg, to the front. Greg, to the front.” He stowed it back under the counter and turned to the woman. “Ma’am, please stand aside so I can serve other customers.”
“Well, I don’t see why! You haven’t finished serving me, and I was here first!”
“Greg will take care of you when he gets up here. Please stand aside.”