The images were the flip side of his papers. He’d look at them, say, a week later, and hopefully remember what had happened. Initially, studying them brought back almost nothing. And on rare occasions an image would produce a vague recollection, though he couldn’t seem to build on it for any concrete meaning. But over the past weeks Pierre had discovered something amazing: sound was the hook into his memory. By taking pictures where he could connect what he’d heard to the event, Pierre had begun to reconstruct his life.
Image 1. The long stretch on Crescent Road—a bunch of noisy crows.
Image 2. A dirt path along the lake—two dogs had snarled at each other.
Image 3. The Wilsons’ chicken coop—mean kids had laughed at him.
Image 4. That steep hill on Wickham Avenue—a truck had screeched to a stop.
He slid down the wall, propped his rear end on the heels of his sneakers, and got to work. Of the four sounds from the previous day’s pictures, Pierre thought the crows might be important. It was a deduction of pure instinct; crows seemed like happy birds and at the moment, Pierre ached for something, anything, happy. He finger-dragged the image into the latitude-longitude app. Once identifying the coordinates, he searched them in Google Earth. Tweezing his fingers apart on the screen, he zoomed in and began examining the image to figure out why the crows were connected to the straightaway on Crescent Road and, more importantly, why he’d snapped the photo in the first place. What had happened?
For a few minutes he moved the picture right and left, up and down. He saw the road and trees and a fence, and even a house in the distance. The clouds in the sky looked to be mare’s tails, which his dad said meant rain the next day. Not one memory broke through. He looked around the gym and saw that he was now completely alone. This was hard work, and Pierre’s head began to pound. A terrible sense of doom came over him, a hopelessness that things would never get better. Which made him think of his mom, who asked him endlessly what had happened the day of his accident. And his dad, who never, ever mentioned it. And that made them both, in different ways, sad. And because he still couldn’t remember a thing about that day, Pierre knew he was the cause of everyone’s unhappiness.
Then, a memory.
They were in the car on their way back home from getting ice-cream cones. Pierre’s mom was crying, which was normal these days. His dad drove with both hands on the steering wheel, something he didn’t often do. But he’d just thrown his barely eaten cone out the window because he was angry with Pierre’s mom, which was why he was two-fisting it. Pierre sat in the backseat watching their heads bob from the pitted road as his parents argued about stuff he didn’t want to hear. He stuck the last of his cone into his mouth, wiped his hands on his khaki pants, and slipped his fingers into his ears. Then his mom grabbed his dad’s arm and the truck swerved badly to the right, causing them to pull to the side of the road. His dad turned off the engine. Pierre needed to pee and hoped the fight wouldn’t last too long.
They got stuck on small things that bugged his dad. Like why was the house so filthy and why wasn’t there any milk in the refrigerator and the fact that he couldn’t find a clean pair of underwear. And how he worked like a mule to provide for them and how he had the equivalent of a two-by-four’s worth of dust in his lungs to prove it. And that he was at his limit.
And then her usual defense. Like she’d washed a few dishes that very morning and she’d planned on shopping later in the day and why didn’t he just do his own laundry for once in his life. And that she worked hard raising their son. And that his lungs were fine. And how she was doing her best and that he asked too much of her. And that she felt so sad.
His dad was quiet for a few seconds and Pierre thought they might be finished.
But, then.
Like how her breath was bad and her teeth were dirty and how she wasn’t even wearing a bra and that she stank to the heavens and she wasn’t functioning and that he was only human and mon Dieu when was she planning on getting herself together.
And then.
Tomorrow. And his dad said really and his mom said yes and his dad said you’ve said that before and his mom said this time I mean it and his dad said I’ll believe it when I see it and his mom said it’s true and his dad said qu’en est-il des fucking pilules and his mom said I threw the fucking pills out this morning.
His dad looked back at him and motioned for him to climb into the front seat. Pierre scrambled onto his lap and his dad said, Here is your son. Say it to him. Her lips trembled. She wiped her eyes and used the tears to rub dried ice-cream drips from her chin. She cleared her throat. No more pills. She crossed her heart and swore it on the grave of her mother, whom they’d had dinner with the week before. No. More. Pills.
The sky suddenly filled with millions of shrieking crows, as if her promise had the effect of a bird bomb. Pierre’s heart exploded with the love he felt for her and his need for her to return to the way she used to be. How she’d check his homework, though it wasn’t necessary. And fix every meal, she was such a good cook. And let him read passages of books to her, even though her thing was celebrity magazines. And tell him what clothes matched, because he was slightly color-blind. And his dad stroked his mom’s cheek, the way he used to show her affection. And she smiled at him through tears, but the good kind. And Pierre believed, deeply, deeply, deeply, that she had, in fact, flushed the pilules down the toilet. And they hugged each other and cried and cried and cried. And then Pierre remembered that after they’d finished crying, and after the crows had flown away, he’d wondered if it was now safe to be happy.
Glancing up at the clock on the wall, Pierre saw he had only five minutes before his mom would arrive to pick him up. He quickly pulled paper and a pencil from his back pocket and made his notes about the memory from the day before.
Crows—Mom No Pills
44.02 – 77.13
6-11-19
He stood up and tucked it into his breast pocket, close to his body. The paper, the memory, felt safe. Maybe it was real. He smiled. Then a boy ran up and skidded to a stop.
“Hey, Roy. We’re going to Ben’s house to play video games. Wanna come? His mom’s ordering pizza.”
“Thanks, but my mom’s picking me up. We’ve got some stuff to do.”
Pierre knew this was a mercy invite. The kid threw him a barely disguised relieved smile and flew off to Ben and pizza and videos. And Ben’s mom. Pierre had no idea who these people were.
Out in the parking lot, his mom’s car approached at the same time as the Ringleader’s mother’s. They waved to each other. Pierre walked over to the open window on his mom’s side of the car, crossed his arms, and shook his head.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Why did you say hi to her?”
“What do you mean? Mrs. Cabot?”
“Why did you wave at her?”
“She’s a friend. The waving kind.”
“Her daughter is mean.”
“Which one?”
“The one in my class!” he shouted with exasperation.
“Her name is—” she began.
“No! I don’t remember her name and don’t tell me.”
“Stop it, Pierre,” she said with a sigh.
He jumped into the car and saw immediately that his mom was on her pills. She raked her fingers through her hair, and he noticed the filth under her nails. Her hands, slack, slipped around the steering wheel as she pressed on the gas too hard. They jolted forward several feet, then rolled to a stop. Pierre struggled for a sound, anything to hold on to, but the whole world had gone silent. He grabbed his mom’s chin, pulled it in his direction, and smiled at her. “Ben asked me to go to his house for pizza,” he said, forcing a laugh.
“You knew him? Remembered? Why didn’t you go?” she asked, digging around in her purse for tissues. She blew her nose and wiped her forehead, then jammed the tissue under her thigh. The floor of the car was littered with balled-up tissues. He’d need to clear them out before his
dad got home. To make sure he remembered, Pierre grabbed one, still moist with her snot, and stuck it in his breast pocket next to the memory paper.
“We talked about later in the week,” Pierre lied.
“Good, honey. Sounds like you’re making progress.”
He nodded once. “Yeah.”
“I’ll call Ben’s mom tomorrow,” she promised.
She slipped the car into gear, then pressed on the brake and accelerator simultaneously. The engine drilled. Pierre nudged her leg and pointed to the pedals. Stifling a giggle, she reshuffled her feet while Pierre slunk down and buckled his seat belt.
Once home, she busied herself with the fairy tale of attending to this and that. Pierre’s Ben lie floated like a cherry garnish on top; he knew it had soothed her. And as she paced the labyrinth of the house, he watched her more closely than any twelve-year-old should, trailing her with what he thought was appropriate distance. Finally, they landed in the kitchen and Pierre fixed them both a sandwich. She picked at the tuna between slices of white bread and, ignoring the napkin Pierre had laid across her lap, licked her fingers like a movie star.
During the dead times, when her eyes shuttered and her chin drooped to her chest, he snuck in a paragraph or two of Franny and Zooey. The head librarian said the book was for adults, like she’d warned about most of the books he wanted to read. But Luc’s gram thought he could handle it, and everybody, including his mom and sometimes even his dad, went along with what Mrs. Sibley said. He’d finished the entire chapter by the time his mom excused herself to the bathroom off the long hall. Be right back. She always said that. Pierre held his breath as he heard the toilet flush after she peed. The faucet splashed. He imagined the rattle of the bottle. He imagined her pulling out a pill and swallowing it. He knew it was real when she didn’t return to the kitchen.
Pierre retreated to his bedroom, feeling oddly flat. He stapled his memory to the inside of the closet door like a dutiful soldier. The still-wet tissue ball bulged at his breast pocket. When he lobbed it against the wall, it skittered under his bed and Pierre knew if he didn’t retrieve it right away, he wouldn’t remember. Then his dad would see all the tissues in the car and know that his mom had lied yesterday in the car and was still on her pilules. His head throbbed from all the many ways he needed to protect her. The pain burrowed between his eyes, then shot up and over and down the back of his neck. He held on to the side of his bed with one hand, the other smothering his mouth. What had the doctor said about pain this bad? Something about a bleed. But Pierre knew the real reason for such pain: his mom and her pills. The ache drove him to his knees, and he lay his torso across the bed, his fingers pulling hard on his hair. Stop. Stop. Stop. Dumb doctor.
He woke to find himself curled in bed with a book he’d never opened before leaning against his chest. The tissue, now dry, was clamped in his fist. Though fatigue still traced every bend of his body, the pain was gone, along with any memory of selecting this book from the top bunk or crawling under the bed to rescue the tissue. Or even pulling a blanket over his body.
A sharp crack in the distance brought Pierre to a sitting position. Not a minute later, he heard Mrs. Kimbrough drive up on her motorbike, whose putt-putt engine he always recognized. Pierre’s mood brightened, pleased with the prospect of seeing his teacher on a day other than his lesson. When he rounded the corner, she was already sitting at the kitchen table.
“Where’s your mom?” she asked, looking worried.
He stared at the floor, trying to recover the last couple of hours.
“Is she asleep?” she prompted.
“Yeah, I think so. But so was I. We take a lot of naps.”
“But you heard the shots?”
“Something woke me up. Was it a rifle?”
“Uh-huh. At least I think so,” Mrs. Kimbrough said, nodding. “I came over to see if your mom knew anything about it.”
She looked around their messy kitchen and began to fill the sink with soapy water and pile in the dishes that littered the kitchen counters. Pierre felt embarrassed.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I can’t help it,” she said, smiling. “Clean surfaces and sudsy sinks make me happy.”
While she scraped and washed three days’ worth of dried crud off the plates, Pierre wiped them dry. Standing next to her, he grabbed shy glances of his teacher. He assumed she’d been to Portland for orchestra rehearsal that day, because she was dressed differently from her usual jeans and T-shirts. Her grey hair was wrapped in a bun at her neck with a pink scrunchie. He spied the curve of her breasts under her form-fitting white blouse. Poking out of slim black pants with cuffs were brown leather shoes that for some reason had cats drawn on top. Pearls popped off her ears. As usual, she smelled of violets, which used to bug him. Now he counted on her scent because it was one of the few things he always, always remembered, and that was a comfort. He decided Mrs. Kimbrough wasn’t exactly pretty—not like the Ringleader—but someone you’d definitely notice in a crowd.
“When do you think your mom might get up?” she asked after she’d finished stacking the dishes into the upper cabinets.
“Maybe kids are playing with BB guns,” Pierre suggested, trying to keep his mom out of the conversation.
“Nope, I know the difference. Definitely a rifle.”
Just then, another shot rang out.
“This is crazy! I mean, once in a while is fine. People do what they do. But I’ve been hearing it on and off for the last hour. And much too close to our houses.”
Pierre’s body stiffened. The shot, the sound. He felt a memory surfacing. “I might know something about it,” he said quietly.
“How?”
“My papers?” he offered tentatively.
“Show me.”
Pierre ran to his room with Mrs. Kimbrough at his heels. He swung the closet doors open and swept his hands over the feathery papers as if touching might speed his search. Then he slowed down and flipped through each paper individually until he found it. He pried the staple out with his fingernails and flattened the paper between his palms. Mrs. Kimbrough had been standing at the door watching him, and Pierre motioned for her to sit on the bed.
“See?” he said, sitting next to her and pointing to the coding. “This is from about a week ago.”
Falcon call
44.25 – 70.50
5-29-19
Rifle shot
She shook her head. “This makes absolutely no sense. You’re going to have to explain it, Pierre.”
His parents saw him take the pictures. But lots of kids did that for social media, which was normal enough. When he wrote down the notes, though, his mom acted like she didn’t notice, and his dad tried to get him to stop. But Pierre knew all that was fake. His dad didn’t care in the least and his mom was really scared. Mrs. Kimbrough was a different kind of adult. She wasn’t nervous like his mom or snarky like his dad. She was patient and never asked too many questions. But suddenly everything felt at risk because she wanted a full explanation. Pierre reviewed his method to be certain he could trust her.
The key to memory was through sound.
He’d learned about sound by playing the violin.
Mrs. Kimbrough taught him the violin.
Cause and effect.
Yes, his method to recover memory had a direct link to Mrs. Kimbrough.
She was safe.
“Okay. The paper says I heard a falcon call. Later, a rifle shot. I know that because I wrote it at the bottom. And this is the date it happened. That’s how I connect things—an event to sounds. Also, I take a picture. These numbers are the coordinates where it happened. We can search the location on the app.”
“How did you figure this out? I mean, where’d you get the idea?” she asked.
“It’s my idea. But it’s just logic.”
“Ah, no. This is much more than logic. It’s brilliant.”
“Not really. It’s science, cause and effect. Anybody could do it,”
Pierre insisted, shrugging his shoulders.
“I’m not so sure about that. But show me how you find the place.”
He took his phone off the nightstand, opened up the lat/long app and entered the location coordinates. Google Earth then displayed where the falcon call and rifle shot had taken place. He handed the phone to Mrs. Kimbrough and she spent some time maneuvering the map.
“Whoa. Wait,” she said. “That’s the north end of my property. I can tell by this big clearing. See?”
Pierre leaned over and looked at the image. He was disappointed that, at the moment, it meant nothing to him.
“We had some dead oaks ready to fall, so Jim got Luc to help him and they chainsawed the trees,” she continued.
She tweezed the screen closer. “Right. Here’s what Jim chopped—this stack here. It looks huge in this picture, but it’s much smaller now because we’ve been using it for firewood.”
“I think Google Earth updates about once a year, so this picture is probably old,” Pierre explained.
“Yeah, that makes sense. We cut the trees down well over a year ago. But according to your paper, someone was using a rifle on my property. And you were there.”
“Maybe … I don’t know. Probably. I don’t remember!” he said, feeling trapped.
“Well, you had to be there because you took the picture. That’s logical, right?” Mrs. Kimbrough gently suggested.
“I guess,” he said with a sigh.
She laughed and rubbed his hair. “Don’t worry, you didn’t do anything wrong. But it might be worth it for me to go up there and take a look.”
“I’m coming with you. You need me for directions.” He displayed the phone proudly.
“True enough. I could only guess where that clearing is. Plus, we need you to remember what happened,” she said, poking at him. “Remember?”
“Lots of times I can’t, even using the method,” he warned her. “But I might,” he added quickly, not wanting to disappoint his teacher.
Oslo, Maine Page 6