The Memory Thief

by Rachel Keener

  “He chose us,” she whispered to Daniel. “Don’t you see? I didn’t look for this. This family, this baby, chose me.”

  Hannah arranged a meeting at a local café. And over coffee that grew cold, she sold herself. She gushed about their home as though she’d never felt it owned her. She talked about their ten acres as though she had never wanted to escape into the mountain behind it. As though she’d never prayed to be lost and never found. She only spoke of the best details, like the tire swing out back, just waiting for a child. Or how they’d paved the drive, making it the perfect half-mile tricycle trail. She told them about Daniel’s good salary. About how she would quit work tomorrow to prepare for the child. And then, without blushing, she told them how much she would inherit one day from her parents. Private schools would be no problem. They could pay for the baby’s college tomorrow if they needed to. They could go to Disney once a month if they wanted.

  Through it all, Daniel sat silent, only nodding occasionally as Hannah talked. But then the girl’s father spoke. About how relieved he felt, and how it could only be God’s will that he found them. About how God was going to use them to heal his family. Hannah watched as Daniel leaned forward in his chair.

  “How did you hear about us again?” Daniel asked.

  “Mutual friends,” the man said.

  “Their names?”

  The man hesitated, Hannah saw the worry in his eyes. The suspicion in Daniel’s.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Hannah said quickly. “We’re here together because we all want what’s best for the baby. Names don’t matter.”

  She grabbed Daniel’s hand and squeezed, privately begging him to hush. In the car ride home she turned to him. “I know why you’re worried,” she said. “I know you’re thinking about before, about how I was after I went to the doctor. But don’t you see this is different? Daniel, there’s already a baby! We just have to take it.”

  “It’s just strange. We don’t know these people and they want to give us a baby.”

  “Stop it. Stop acting like this wasn’t meant to be.”

  Daniel shook his head. “It wouldn’t hurt to make some calls. I know people that could get answers. Secretly, of course.”

  “This is a miracle. This is the miracle I’ve waited on. Don’t you ruin it. I’d never forgive you.”

  At home Daniel paced the empty room next to theirs, the one that they had stepped into the day they bought the house and proudly called Our Nursery. Hannah grabbed the phone and a J.C. Penney catalog. She ordered a boutique sleigh crib in vintage cherry.

  The next day the girl’s father called and asked to visit their home. Hannah wanted him to come right away, but he said he had to work and would call back in a couple of weeks to schedule the visit. To pass the time, Hannah spent her days shopping. She forced herself, difficult as it was, to pass over the sweet things like blankets and tiny socks. She decided to be disciplined. She would buy only the most necessary things. A rocker. Baby monitors. A little gift basket of lotions and creams.

  Daniel smiled tightly when he walked in and saw the sleigh crib against the wall and the rocker in the corner.

  “We have to show them the baby is already ours,” Hannah explained. “Will you paint the room?”

  Two weeks passed, and the family didn’t call back to schedule their visit. Hannah focused on paint colors instead of the days that were passing by.

  “Which green did you want?” Daniel asked.

  Hannah stared down at three rows of paint chips, arranged neatly across the kitchen counter. She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t like green.”

  “Look at this one. It’s called Lichen. It’s not too bold. I was thinking it would work for a boy or girl’s room. The mother hasn’t found out what she’s having.”

  “Don’t call her that,” Hannah whispered. “I’m the mother.”

  She lingered outside that day, not wanting to go in and wait for the phone to ring. She pretended to weed roses that the landscaper had tended the day before. She was on her knees in the dirt when she glanced up at the house. An enormous piece of mountain history. And from where she knelt, the house looming over her, the window to Our Nursery just above her, she felt it. The house was laughing at her.

  She hurried to the garden patch. Took a quick breath and grabbed the electric fence. Hot pain shot through her body. At first it hurt badly. But then it changed, just as it always did. She discovered it as a girl on the single-strand fence Mother had put around their garden to keep the deer out. The pain went away and left behind a sweet numbness. This time Hannah held it longer than ever before. She cried out with pain, but when she stood up she felt in control, and blissfully numb. She yelled at the house, “Shut up!” and then walked inside and sat by the phone, watching it the rest of the day.

  She never told Daniel the phone call came. That the father cried and said his daughter wanted to keep her baby. And they were going to let her. They were going to help her.

  “How wonderful,” Hannah lied.

  Another week passed, and Daniel was worried. “Listen,” he said. “If this doesn’t work out, it doesn’t mean never. You know that, right? There are lots of places we can adopt. It will take some time, longer than this would have, but I know an attorney over the mountain that could speed the process up. Just, you know, in case we don’t get this baby.”

  Hannah laughed. “I can’t believe I forgot to tell you. He called. His daughter was feeling ill. Started vomiting every morning. They want to wait to visit until she’s feeling better.”

  “Good,” Daniel said, as he hugged her. “Come to work with me today. I sure could use your help. I’m so behind on filings.”

  Hannah smiled, but she shook her head and mumbled an excuse about a vase she wanted to make. The truth was, she couldn’t wait for him to leave. She couldn’t wait to watch his car disappear into the mountain. To know that finally, she could begin her morning, her beautiful new morning routine. The one for just the two of them. Her and Baby.

  Perhaps it was the sight of that empty crib, just across the hall from her own bed. Or maybe it was the sound of silence, the sound of empty, from the baby monitors that Hannah listened to throughout the day. But every morning, as soon as Daniel left, Baby took over that house. Just as surely as she had once taken over Hannah’s body.

  She announced her arrival like any baby would, with an awful morning the day after the final phone call. Hannah ran to the toilet. Weeping as she vomited. In spite of everything the doctor had said, she went to the pharmacy to buy pregnancy tests. She spent her afternoon peeing on sticks, waiting for lines that would never appear.

  It didn’t matter that the tests said no. Her sick mornings persisted. Soon, she began to depend on them. She ran her hands over her large painful breasts. And she need only close her eyes to smell honey filling the house.

  In one last, brief flash of fear and sanity, she ran from the house and bought paint. Haint Blue paint. Daniel was so happy when he saw the room. “So it’s a boy, then.”

  The blue didn’t work, and Hannah spent long days in Our Empty Nursery, rocking and feeling blissfully nauseous. Dozing sometimes, and dreaming in pinks and blues. “Shhhhh,” she would wake and whisper to the clay baby she had laid in the crib. Sometimes she’d reach to turn up the baby monitor’s volume and listen closer. That was when she heard her, just like all those nights on the mountain. The ones that sent her running through the woods, searching blindly. Hannah listened again. And heard her panicked cry, loud and clear.

  Hannah rose from the rocker. She ran from the room. Finally, she accepted the truth she’d avoided all along.

  Abandoned babies always cry out for their mothers. They never stop.

  X

  “We have to find my baby, Mother. I heard her, she’s in trouble.”

  Mother took a deep breath, and remembered one of her rules. A good mother never shows how scared she really is. A good mother is calm in the face of her child’s panic.

  “Shhh, be
still. Shhhhhh.”

  “She needs me. I heard her!”

  “Shhhh, daughter, settle yourself. You are overwrought.”

  “It was a miracle!”

  “Easy now. Your mind is playing tricks. Let Tabby bring you tea.”

  “It was a miracle. You of all people should believe me!”

  “Shhh. Come, sit. Let’s not talk now. We’ll talk when you’re calm.”

  “Was Jacob calm after he saw the ladder? Was Lazarus calm when he walked out of death? What about Jonah? When he went into the great fish, was he calm, Mother?”

  “That is different. Come, sit and drink your tea.”

  “Why is it different? Your life’s work was teaching me to believe in the miracles of old. I believed, I still do. So why won’t you believe now? If ladders can rise to heaven, if the dead can rise, then why couldn’t I have heard my daughter over a baby monitor? Am I not allowed a miracle, too?”

  “What did you hear?”

  “She’s trapped in the snake tree.”

  Mother turned and saw Daniel walking down the length of the front porch.

  “Hush that talk. Here comes your husband!”

  “But I heard her!”

  Mother grabbed Hannah’s hands, and made one last desperate attempt at fixing things. “Go to the library and gather yourself before your husband sees you. I’ll take you to her. Go now, before Daniel sees you like this. Hide yourself until you’re composed.”

  Mother stepped into the hall. As she waited for Daniel, she tried to calm the panic that swelled inside her. Over the wild look in Hannah’s eyes. Over the despair in her voice. She had seen it before. She remembered it well. It was Leah’s look. The same expression, the same panic, right before Leah did what she… No, Mother thought. I won’t let it happen. Surely there was still something to do. Something that could fix it all. She heard Daniel’s footsteps in the hall. I can do it, she thought. I can still save my Hannah.

  “Mrs.Reynolds?”

  “Hello, Daniel, always good to see you. Hannah is resting in the library. She was terribly tired. She must be overworking herself for the artisan’s fair. I’d suggest a weekend away for the two of you sometime soon.”

  “I didn’t come here to see Hannah.”

  “Oh?”

  “I came for you.”

  “Well, it’s always good to visit with you, Daniel.”

  “I want some answers.”

  “Oh?”

  “About a night, just a few weeks ago. Our phone rang, it was a man with a baby… but Mrs. Reynolds, you already know all about that, don’t you?”

  XI

  “Shhhh, Hannah,” Mother whispered from the doorway of the library. Her eyes were tired, and she leaned her body against the door for the support it could give her. But her voice was confident and calm, as she promised, “I can give you peace, daughter.”

  It was night now, and Hannah lay across the couch, her face buried into a corner pillow. Her shoulders rose and fell with the rhythm of her sobs. The tea that Tabby brought her hours before sat cold and untouched on the table beside her.

  “Daniel’s gone,” Mother said. “He agreed to let you rest here tonight. You can return to him tomorrow, after you’ve seen her.”

  Hannah turned her face toward Mother. “What?”

  “I can prove to you that she is all right. I’ll show you that she is no ladder to heaven. She is no Lazarus. She’s just an ordinary girl, the kind that doesn’t need a miracle.”

  Early the next morning they drove to James Island. Mother promised Hannah that she would see her daughter. “But we mustn’t let her see us,” she warned. “It would violate the agreement I made years ago on the day she was born. She is happy without us. They have raised her well. Rest your eyes upon her and find peace. But do not disturb her. You must not bring her your grief.”

  Mother held a slip of paper in her hand with an address scribbled across it. They turned down a side street, just ten minutes from the marsh. Mother pointed to a house, a perfect cream-colored house with a red door and palm trees circling the drive. They parked just across the street from the house. Mother handed Hannah a pair of binoculars.

  Hannah looked through them and smiled. There she was, sitting on the front porch of a fine house. Hannah felt glad, even as she choked back sobs. For so many years she had imagined that moment. And finally, there was Baby, a straight shot through the fuzzy binocular lens.

  “Oh, she’s pretty,” Hannah whispered. Baby had light brown hair. Golden skin that glowed beneath her sundress. Hannah was happy to see that dress. Happy to see her round knees at the edge of the chair, her legs tucked under her so casually. She looked closer and thought maybe she even saw tan lines. A white mark around her collar. Maybe she had gone swimming before.

  “What’s she doing?” Mother asked.

  “She’s painting her nails.”

  Hannah watched her for nearly twenty minutes. Long enough for three coats of polish. She whispered any detail she saw. Searched for any little scrap of information. So that she could know what was real. So that she would never forget. She whispered things like “She likes iced tea. No lemon.” And “She’s right-handed.” Long after the girl went inside, Hannah sat, still looking through the binoculars. Just in case she came back.

  Mother’s hand gently pushed the binoculars down. “It’s time to go now.”

  “Wait,” Hannah said. “I didn’t see her face that good. She was looking down. Maybe she’ll come back out.”

  “She seemed happy, though, didn’t she?” Mother asked.

  Hannah nodded. “She looked so safe… and bored… and young.” Hannah wiped the tears that suddenly poured from her eyes. “Mother, she satisfies me.”

  Mother reached for Hannah’s hand. “Good.”

  The girl came back out and Hannah quickly raised the binoculars. Watched her walk down the porch and get in the passenger side of a little gray Volkswagen. She rode right past Hannah. Never once looked over.

  “Look at me, Baby,” Hannah begged. They had only shared eight months together, and Hannah couldn’t help but feel greedy. She would have done anything to share one more moment. Even if it was a glance as Baby drove past her, on her way to something better.

  “Where are you going?” Mother cried, as Hannah opened her car door and started walking away quickly. “Hannah!” she yelled.

  Hannah stopped and turned around. “I want to peek inside the house. I want to see the woman that raised her. I won’t let them know…”

  It was a slow walk up to that house. Not because they were parked far away, but because of all the things Hannah thought of. About Mother, and how once she had taken that same walk. Up to the house of a stranger, so that she could give Baby away.

  A woman opened the door. Her bangs fell below her eyebrows, and she was constantly pushing them out of her eyes. But her smile was soft and gentle, and she was at least fifteen years older than Hannah. Hannah imagined how that must have pleased Mother. How much more deserving that woman must have seemed.

  “Somethin’ I can help you with, honey?”

  Hannah nodded and looked past her into the house. They had money. Not as much as Father, but still enough to line the floors with rich hardwoods. To have fresh flowers on the dining table. A piano in the corner. On its edge was a framed family portrait. A man and woman, their arms hugged around the girl from the front porch. The girl’s smile was so real and sweet.

  “You sellin’ somethin’? I don’t really need anything,” she said, as she started to shut the door.

  “My mother brought you a baby, years ago,” Hannah said.

  The woman’s mouth fell open. She started to shake her head and Hannah hurried to finish. “I don’t want to meet her. I just wanted to tell you thank you, because she looks so happy. You did a fine job. Do you think… would it be too much… since she’s already left… do you think I could see her room? Just a quick peek?”

  “This ain’t part of the deal,” the woman whispered.r />
  Hannah shook her head. “I’m not going to speak to her or anything like that. I just want to see the place she grew up.”

  “A thousand dollars,” the woman said. “That’s what the deal was. You all could park your car and stalk us all day. But you weren’t supposed to come knockin’. Do you know that my husband would kill me if he knew I’d made a deal with crazy people? That I agreed to pretend our daughter was theirs? I did it for college money, but he wouldn’t care. He’s due home any minute now, so you gotta go.”

  “Wait,” Hannah whispered as the woman closed the door in her face. “You mean it isn’t her?”

  Hannah sat in the car the whole way home thinking about the two of them. How both of them were such liars. Hannah’s lies about deep water and T-shirts. Mother’s about Baby and where she had gone.

  When Mother finally parked the car that night, Hannah did her best to please her.

  “Thank you, Mother. You’ve made it all better now.” They walked inside together, Mother’s arm gently wrapped around Hannah’s waist. But the lie sat heavy on Hannah’s tongue, and she shivered when she stopped in front of the Great Room window. She studied her reflection in the glass, blinked her eyes, and saw Aunt Leah with her slim curves. Leah with her very own golden halo of hair. She took a step closer, until she heard Leah, too. Pounding out a new war cry within her. She nodded her head.

  I want… I want… I want…

  ANGEL

  I

  “Thought you was dead,” a man whispered above me. “You ain’t, are you? Can you move?”

  My eyes, trained to find anything that glitters, saw the silver canteen that flashed on his belt. I wanted to reach for it. But my arms wouldn’t lift when I told them to. He followed my gaze, unscrewed the top of the canteen and held it to my lips.

  “I was trackin’ bear. Saw you against this tree and thought you was dead. It ain’t that unusual. Tourists come down to hike, can’t find their way out. Start walkin’ crazy circles and such, either starve or freeze. From the looks of it, you were gettin’ close yourself. I bet you’d of been gone in a day or so. How’d you end up out here? We’re a good day’s walk from town.”