The Memory Keeper: A heartwarming, feel-good romance

by Jenny Hale

  “I haven’t ever put myself in a situation where I could meet… someone else. I haven’t gone on dates; my friends would want to set me up—no one compared to Alison.” His fingers tapped nervously on the table and then stilled. “I travel a lot. I walk by hundreds of people every day, and their faces have no meaning to me. And then you just walked right out of my past and into my world. With a flower in your hair.” He smiled at the memory. “I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”

  “Wow,” she said in almost a whisper.

  “I remember feeling guilty that you’d stolen my attention—like I was being unfaithful to Alison’s memory—so I pushed on toward the baggage claim. But our bags got tangled. And then I felt a wave of fear that my life was moving forward without my wife, and I wasn’t ready. I’d gotten comfortable in my gray, empty world. I forced myself to let you go. When Georgia saw you, I wondered if I was getting a nudge to step out of my normal. When I woke up in the hotel room, kissing you, I wrestled with what to do, because I felt something for you that I couldn’t deny.”

  Hannah could hardly breathe. “My goodness.”

  “When you asked me outright if I was married—it was the first time in two years that I’d considered what my answer to that question was. And I froze. Well, actually, I ran.” He offered a weak smile. “I’m so sorry. I just don’t know how to navigate the way I feel about you yet.”

  Hannah reached across the table and took his hand. “It doesn’t have to be either-or,” she said. “Alison is from a totally different part of your life. You’re allowed to keep going and explore new friendships and relationships without her. You have to. It’s why you’re still here.”

  “I just feel like, after what you’ve experienced with Miles, you deserve to have someone who can give you their all, and I want to offer you that, but I don’t know if I can yet. It’s all so new.”

  “Let’s just be who we are at this moment. We’re friends. There’s no rush to be anything more than that.” She’d never felt more certain about that fact than she did at this moment. Neither of them was in any position to develop into something more than what they were right now. But they might just be the greatest of friends.

  The world on her shoulders, Hannah walked back to Gran’s house with shopping bags dangling from her fingers. After coffee, Liam had offered to drive her, but Hannah had wanted time alone to think. She’d stopped into a few of the boutiques and bought some clothes to get her through the rest of the week, the whole time lost in thought about everything. When she arrived at Gran’s, she wasn’t closer to having answers to any of it. She let herself in and walked into the kitchen.

  “Hey there,” her mother said when Hannah plopped down on a bar stool at the island. “How was Gran when you left?” Her mom’s back was turned to Hannah while she pushed a wooden spoon around a large bowl cradled in her arms. She set down the bowl next to a greased cookie sheet and faced her.

  “Good, I guess. She was sleeping.”

  Hannah peered into the bowl, excited to see a batter full of chocolate chips. Hannah had missed her mother’s baking. However, even the cookies couldn’t make Hannah feel better about what she was about to say.

  “I’ll help you get Gran to sign the forms for the lawyer,” Hannah said, the reality of it causing a weight to settle on her chest. Everything inside her screamed that this was wrong, but the rational side of her didn’t see any other possibility.

  “You saw the shop, I take it?” Maura began rolling balls of dough and placing them onto the cookie sheet.

  “Yeah. It’s in rough shape.” She rubbed the pinch that had formed in her shoulder, trying not to think about the disappointment Gran would experience when Hannah told her of their decision.

  “Yes,” Maura agreed.

  “Those cookies ready yet?” her father teased as he came into the room. He patted the tops of Hannah’s arms, before going around the island and giving Maura a kiss on the cheek.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Maura responded playfully. “You aren’t getting any. You’re on a special diet—doctor’s orders.”

  “I’ll bribe you for them,” Chuck said, nibbling Maura’s neck, making her squeal.

  “Must you two?” Hannah said with a laugh. But she was only giving them a hard time. They’d been together for forty-two years, and she’d never seen them argue. “I’m beat,” she told them. “I think I’m going to go into Gran’s room and take a nap or something.”

  “That sounds good, darling,” Maura said. “I’ll come get you when the cookies are ready.”

  Hannah headed down to Gran’s room. When she got inside she crawled onto Gran’s bed, promising herself it would be okay, that Gran would definitely be back home soon and she’d settle into life without The Memory Keeper. But her promise felt empty. Mentally exhausted and needing the peace that only Gran could bring, she moved the satin ribbon bookmark sewn into the binding of the journal and began to read.

  April 7, 1943

  My hands are so rough from the long hours at the factory. I help insert metal tubing into the guns, and even though I come straight home and wash with Palmolive soap, and then add a dab of Mama’s lotion, they’re still like sandpaper. I want to look nice when Charles returns home, but I’m going to be old and ragged. I’ve been tying my hair up at work, and it’s dry and always lumped in the shape of the bandana I wear. I haven’t done my pin curls in so long that I fear I’ve forgotten how. Ever since the war, I’ve had to do this awful job. It’s not a place for someone like me. I’m not beneath it, but I want to create, take photographs, and drink a Green River at the soda fountain with a stack of books beside me. Will I ever get out?

  With even more questions as to how her dainty, artistic, wild soul of a grandmother got out of working in a factory, Hannah read on.

  May 12, 1943

  Mama let me use some of the money we’d saved from working to visit my beautician, and I feel like a princess with my hair styled. The back is down and rolled beautifully and the sides are pinned up. Every strand is perfectly placed. I know I only have the one day off and I’ll have to tie it back tomorrow at work, but today I put on a dress and took a walk through Louisville. I probably shouldn’t have, but I went to Beaty’s Drugstore and bought that Green River drink at the soda fountain. It was so fizzy that I got the hiccups. I met a very nice man there, too. He was reading a book on history when he caught me trying to see the cover. He introduced himself as Warren Townshend…

  Hannah perked up. There he was—Pop-pop. Her heart filled with joy at the opportunity to read this moment as it had happened. She remembered her mother’s photos of boxing what seemed like hundreds of history books when Pop-pop had passed. He’d loved to read Hannah bedtime stories about George Washington and Davy Crockett when she was young. Hannah ran her hand over Gran’s words and kept reading, now dying to hear the whole story of how Gran and Pop-pop met.

  He said he’s twenty-one. He attends the University of Louisville. I told him about Charles and asked Warren why he wasn’t in the war right now. He explained that he’d registered on his birthday, but he hadn’t gotten drafted so far. Despite the possibility of getting called to fight in the war, he attended the university to study business. He asked if I’d be coming to the soda fountain again, and I told him I might.

  Hannah placed the journal on her chest and closed her eyes, conjuring up a memory of her grandfather. When she was about six, Pop-pop had twirled her around and said, “You are an angel!” He took her hands, his giant fingers swallowing hers. “You know, I’ve only seen one other angel before you.”

  She’d been astounded that he’d actually seen a real angel. “You’ve seen one?” she asked innocently.

  “Yes.” Pop-pop gave her another spin. “I found her at a soda fountain.”

  “There are fountains made of soda?” Hannah had asked, making him laugh. “Did you ever see the angel after that?”

  Pop-pop sent a fond glance over to Gran. “I see her every day.”

  He and Gra
n had found something amazing together, and Hannah could only wish she’d be that lucky one day.

  Hannah was mindlessly clicking through TV channels in the living room when she got an alert that she had a video call from Liam. A video call? That was odd. She opened it and Liam’s face slid onto her screen.

  “Hi,” he said. “Sorry to bother you, but it’s just us boys here this afternoon and Noah asked if he could call.”

  “Noah wants to talk to me?” she asked.

  Noah’s face appeared on the screen, pushing Liam out of view. “Yeah,” he said. “Can you tell me about the tire swing?”

  “Oh, sure,” she said, turning off the TV and folding her legs underneath her, getting comfortable. “It’s on Mr. Abernathy’s farm,” she said. “Your daddy knows him—Emmitt Abernathy.”

  “Daddy?” Noah said. “Hannah wants to know if you know Nathy.”

  The picture wriggled and suddenly Liam’s face was on the screen.

  “Hi,” he said with a grin.

  “Hey,” she returned. “How about instead of telling Noah about the swing, we show him? I’ll call Emmitt and if he says it’s okay, we could visit him tomorrow.”

  “That would be fun,” Liam said. “We could go around ten o’clock.”

  “That works,” she replied.

  Noah cheered happily in the background.

  “Excellent. Well, Noah, we should let this lady get on with her day.”

  “Okay. Bye, Noah!” she called.

  A tiny voice from beside Liam filtered in. “Bye, Hannah.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” she said.

  “Okay!” Noah replied with a giggle.

  Hannah ended the call and considered how lucky Liam was to have little Noah. He was such a light. Perhaps a day out with the two of them would lift her spirits.

  Sixteen

  After she’d gotten off the call with Liam and Noah, Hannah emailed Amanda to tell her not to worry about the missing photos for the rest of the day, that she’d see if she could find a backup file somewhere. It was more a way to give Amanda and the team a reprieve, and to save them from alerting the executives that Hannah wasn’t there at the most crucial time in production. But Hannah knew she didn’t have the files, and trying to convey the mood, message, and concept of the feature into imagery using old, unused stock photography would be nearly impossible.

  She’d been so strung out over everything that she’d fallen asleep. When she awoke, her mother was in the kitchen, having an evening nibble of one of her chocolate chip cookies. Hannah came in and snagged one.

  “You doing okay?” her mother asked, as she arranged a few of the cookies on a platter and set it in the center of the island.

  “Not really,” Hannah replied, picking at her cookie. She started filling her mother in about work and what Liam had admitted to her over coffee.

  “Life can get absolutely manic sometimes,” her mother said, shaking her head. “Hopefully, one day you’ll be able to look back on this period in your life and understand what it was all for.”

  “Maybe…” she said, when her phone went off in her pocket. She hardly dared check it for fear it was Amanda, but regardless, she probably should answer. Hannah put down the cookie and took out her phone. “Hang on a sec,” she said, confused. “It’s Georgia, the girl I rode home with.” She answered the call to Georgia’s sobs.

  “I need your help. Can you come get me?” she cried. “I didn’t want to call, but I don’t have anywhere to go,” Georgia said, her breath heaving.

  “Oh my gosh. Yes. Where are you?”

  “I’m at the corner of Fourth and Church.” She sniffled.

  “I’m not far. Stay right there. I’ll come pick you up.”

  “What’s wrong?” her mother asked when Hannah hung up the phone.

  “Georgia is all upset. She asked if I’d come get her in town.” She stood up and went over to the coat closet, pulling out her coat and threading her arm into the sleeve. “May I have the keys to Dad’s truck?” she asked.

  “Of course,” her mother said, digging the keys out of her purse and handing them to Hannah.

  “Thanks. I’ll be right back.”

  Hannah jumped in her dad’s truck, which stayed at Gran’s for when they visited from Florida and needed to run errands for her, and drove to get Georgia, the engine protesting from not being warmed up properly in the winter weather.

  When she got there, Georgia and Jerry were on the corner in the freezing cold. Georgia climbed into the passenger seat, lumping her bags in with her and setting Jerry in her lap. “I’m so sorry to bother you,” she said with red eyes as she fumbled to latch her seatbelt, her hands shaking, “but I’ve tried everything, and I didn’t know where else to go. I’ve been sleeping in the woods since Liam dropped me off, and it’s too cold to keep doing that.”

  “Oh my gosh, what happened?” Hannah asked.

  “I had a lead for finding my parents from the agency where I was adopted. They gave me two photos: one of my parents and the other a baby photo that I’m assuming is a sibling. The back says, ‘Franklin, Tennessee.’” She turned the photo over to reveal the name of their location in scratchy pencil. “So I thought this was the town where they lived. My father dropped the photos off to them one day about thirty years ago, and told them to give them to me if I ever came looking, despite the contact veto he’d signed. He confided in the agency that he was having second thoughts about signing.”

  “What’s a contact veto?”

  “It’s a document that prohibits the release of information about my parents unless I agree not to contact them. I came to Franklin to do some research and see if I could find out who they are. I was just going to introduce myself, and if they didn’t want anything to do with me, I’d leave. I came thinking I’d find them right away in such a small town. I hired an investigator here who was going to help me, but when I met with him, he said he needed more than unnamed photos with no other identification. He’s going to guess the age of the child and see if he can find birth records, but it’s a long shot. I’ve shown them to everyone, and I have no leads. I really thought I’d find them, but I guess I was wrong.”

  “Why didn’t you call me sooner?” Hannah asked.

  “I didn’t want to bother you with everything else you’ve got going on, but when the investigator told me he had no leads, I just crumbled. I spent my last bit of savings on the trip here, and I have no job, no money—nothing. I wanted to find my family, and now I just feel lost.”

  “Stay with me at my gran’s. There’s plenty of room,” Hannah offered, rounding the corner, and making her way toward Gran’s house.

  “You sure it’s okay?” Georgia asked.

  “Of course it’s okay,” Hannah replied. She actually liked the idea of having Georgia around. Perhaps she could help her new friend in some way.

  “I think he likes that, Dad,” Hannah said, while Chuck rolled the old tennis ball he’d found in the shed across the floor.

  He let out a loud guffaw when Jerry sprinted after it, his little paws tip-tapping while he growled and tried to bite it, his tail wagging a mile a minute.

  “Watch this,” her father said with another chuckle. He walked over, took the ball off the floor, and sat down with it.

  Jerry ran over and planted himself in front of him, staring up at the ball, his tail wagging back and forth over the carpet. Chuck rolled the ball gently across the floor and Jerry tore off after it, barking and sending Chuck into fits of laughter.

  “I needed this,” her dad said.

  “We’ll have to get him some toys,” Maura suggested with her hands on her hips, the dish towel she’d been using to clean up dangling from her fist. “He’s too cute.” She shook her head fondly at the dog. “Georgia, come on to the table. You need some good ol’ southern cookin’ after the night you’ve had.”

  “Mama never misses an opportunity to cook,” Hannah told her friend.

  When she’d explained Georgia’s situati
on to her parents, Hannah’s mother had immediately taken Georgia and Jerry under her wing, changing the sheets in Hannah’s old room, and making a big dinner for everyone. She’d even scraped together some leftovers for Jerry, despite Georgia’s promise she had enough food for him. Jerry had been more than excited about his meal, nearly throwing himself into the food bowl.

  “I hate staying here and not doing something to pay y’all back,” Georgia said, taking a seat at the table. “I’ll work for free if you have anything you’d like me to do.”

  “You are as sweet as you can be,” Maura said, setting a plate of chicken casserole in front of Georgia. “Tea or lemonade?”

  “Tea, please.” Georgia turned to Hannah who had taken a seat beside her. “I’m not kidding. It would make me feel better to help in some way.”

  “Y’all could clean up Gran’s shop, Hannah,” Maura said. She handed Georgia a tall glass of iced tea with a lemon wedge on top. “We’ll have to leave it clean and painted when we move out. I know it’s not very glamorous, but it would be a great help to us. We could probably even pay you, Georgia. We’ve still got the extra help factored into the budget.”

  Hannah knew that they really had no budget; it was her mother trying to help Georgia. Something she loved to do—helping others. It was what she did best.

  Georgia said, “I’d be happy to help. Anything. Just tell me.”

  “I’ll put you on the books then.” Maura offered her a big smile.

  Georgia folded her hands, looking delighted. “It’ll feel so good to be needed. Thank you.”