The Memory Keeper: A heartwarming, feel-good romance

by Jenny Hale

  “Do it again!” he said, kicking his legs. “But this time, higher!”

  Hannah got hold of the tire and pulled it almost to eye level, letting it go. Noah squealed with delight as he flew through the air over the lush grass of the yard.

  “That tickled my tummy!” he called down to her. “Go higher!”

  “I think if you want to go any higher, your dad’s gonna have to do it.”

  The tire swing twirled as it sailed past them. “Will you please push me, Dad,” Noah asked, but she could hear in the little boy’s voice how differently he approached his father compared to herself. He was more reserved, unsure. And so was Liam.

  Hannah stepped aside to allow Liam to move into position. He reached out and caught the tire, pulling it up above his head and then letting go. Noah and the tire catapulted downward and then back up toward the trees, the little boy alternating between screams of excitement and fits of laughter.

  “Wow! Who knew your dad could push tire swings like that!” Hannah said, grinning at Liam.

  Liam’s shoulders relaxed and he caught the swing again, sending Noah through the air once more and making his son hoot with the thrill of it.

  “Don’t stop!” Noah cried. “Keep going, Daddy!”

  Noah’s encouragement seemed to affect Liam, and he broke out into an enormous, doting smile at his son, pushing him again and watching him fly. Hannah felt a buzz of pleasure, seeing the exchange. It was the first time she’d ever witnessed real closeness between them, and she couldn’t get enough of it.

  “Hello-o!” a voice called from the cottage. Emmitt was in his denim overalls, waving a weathered hand at them from his back porch.

  “Hi, Emmitt!” Hannah called over to him.

  “Are y’all blocks of ice yet?” he asked. “It’s still chilly in the shade, ain’t it?”

  “It’s a tad chilly, but we’re having a blast,” Hannah replied.

  “Glad to hear it! I’ve got cocoa ready if y’all want to warm up.”

  “Oh!” Noah said, dragging his feet on the ground to slow himself down. “Can we have the peppermint balls?” he asked Hannah.

  “We can go see! Want to take a break and get some cocoa?”

  Liam leaned over and held the tire swing steady so Noah could get off. Noah reached out for Liam’s hand. Hannah could tell by the surprise in Liam’s face that Noah reaching for him wasn’t something he was used to. Liam regarded his son curiously as the two of them walked hand in hand up the hill.

  “Daddy, you didn’t get to swing,” Noah said, looking up at his father.

  “That’s okay,” Liam told him.

  “Maybe after we have our cocoa,” Noah offered, breaking free from Liam’s hand, and running up the steps to meet Emmitt.

  “Good Lawd in heaven,” Emmitt said when Hannah and Liam ascended the steps. “You’re all grown up. How in the world did that happen?” he teased Hannah. “Last time I saw you, you were a lanky teenager headed out into the wild blue yonder.”

  Hannah smiled and gave him a hug. “It’s been too long,” she said.

  “Who’s this you brought with ya?” Emmitt asked.

  Hannah introduced Liam and Noah.

  Emmitt bent down to be at eye level with Noah, stroking his gray beard. “I hear somebody wants some hot cocoa. But ya gotta pass the test. You know what that test is?”

  Noah shook his head, his eyes wide.

  “You gotta take off your gloves there ’n’ show me your hands.”

  Noah did as he was told, holding up his little hands, his fingers spread wide.

  “Yep. Definitely hot cocoa time. Your hands look colder than a frosted frog.”

  “A frosted frog?” Noah asked, scrunching his nose with a giggle.

  “Yep. Never seen one myself—it could be that the ones around here are so smart, they don’t get frosted. What do you think?” Emmitt led Noah across the uneven hardwood floor into the kitchen, and sat him down at an old Formica table. He pointed to a bowl in the center that was full of his famous peppermint ball candies. “Would you like one of those?” he asked, pointing to them.

  “May I?” Noah asked.

  “Of course.” Emmitt pushed the bowl toward Noah.

  The little boy got up on his knees and popped one in his mouth.

  “Have as many as you want,” he said.

  Just then, the kettle on the stove whistled. Emmitt pulled four mugs from the old wooden cabinets and filled them with the hot water, spooning in a chocolate powder mixture from a mason jar.

  “It’s so nice to have you all visit,” Emmitt said. “It’s been a while since I’ve had youngsters come over.” He dropped a couple of marshmallows on the top of each mug and handed them out, before taking a seat. “How’s your daddy doin’?” he asked Hannah, before blowing on the steam rising from his mug.

  “He’s doing well,” she said. “Just taking it easy, you know?”

  Emmitt gave her a knowing grin.

  Hannah shrugged off her winter coat and took a sip of her hot cocoa, the warm, sweet liquid soaking down to her bones.

  “And how about you, sir?” Emmitt said to Noah, who’d handed Hannah his coat and hat. “How was the ol’ tire swing?”

  “It was fun!” Noah said, pushing his marshmallows around with his straw. “My favorite was when Daddy pushed me.”

  “Daddies are good at that kind of stuff. They always get to do the fun things.”

  “Like what?” Noah asked.

  Emmitt scratched his wiry beard. “Well, when my boy was young, I took him fishin’ or we built things together. Sometimes we played sports, even though he got way better than I ever was at hittin’ a baseball.”

  Noah looked over at Liam, clearly attempting to process this information. “Daddy, can we play baseball sometime?”

  Liam seemed surprised by his son’s question and interested at the same time. “Of course we can,” he said, but his answer seemed slightly hesitant. What was holding him back?

  “Could Hannah come too?” Noah asked, that uncertain look he got whenever he spoke to Liam coming through.

  “If she wants to,” Liam replied.

  Hannah leaned on her elbow, her eyes on the adorable boy. “I’d love to play baseball with you two,” she said.

  Emmitt sat back and folded his arms, content. “You know,” he said, “in all the years I’ve been around, I couldn’t train somebody anymore at my old job if my life depended on it—I’ve forgotten it all—but I can list all the great hits my son did during his little league baseball games, all the way through to his senior year on the high school team. I remember each one of ’em like they were yesterday.”

  Emmitt had never missed a moment with friends and family, and Hannah could only hope that one day, she could have those kinds of memories to keep her warm on the cold days.

  “Any luck?” Hannah asked Georgia when she picked her up from the investigator’s office later that day.

  “Maybe. It’s a long shot, but he suggested I visit the local public records office to have a chat with the people in there. Think I could stop by there first for a bit, and then we can go over to your gran’s shop?”

  “Of course.” She made the turn headed for the office. “I’ll just wait at the house until we go to the shop. Anything you need me to do with Jerry?”

  “You could let him out. That would be awesome. Then just put him in his crate if you need to have him out of your hair.”

  “Sounds good. Text me when you need me to come get you.”

  Hannah drove Georgia to the office and let her out.

  “Fingers crossed,” Georgia said as she got out of the car.

  “I’ll have everything crossed for you,” Hannah told her.

  “You’re an angel. Thank you for doing this,” Georgia said.

  “No problem at all.”

  When Hannah got home, she found her mother and father on Gran’s sofa in the living room with Jerry in her mom’s lap.

  “Where’s Georgia?” Maura
asked, stroking the dog.

  “I dropped her off at the records office. She’s looking for a lead to find her birth parents.”

  “Oh, I hope she finds something. She’s such a sweet girl.” Her mother smiled. “How was Gran this morning?”

  “Okay,” Hannah said. She sat between her parents, disturbing Jerry who crawled off her mother’s lap and found Hannah’s. Hannah scratched his head.

  Hannah’s phone interrupted the conversation, pinging with an email. She handed Jerry to her father and pulled it out of her pocket to check the message. “It’s Amanda at work. I should probably get this,” she told her parents, peering down at the sender. “She’s been looking for some images she needs. Maybe she found them.”

  “All right, honey,” her mother said.

  Hannah went to Gran’s room to go through the entire email. It read,

  I know you said not to worry, but IT’s wondering if you and the photographer emailed the images at all. They might be able to see if they can sift through download files to find them. But it would be a big project, so they want to get confirmation that you may have emailed the images first. A.

  Hannah racked her brain to remember if they’d shared any emails at all, but sadly, she didn’t think they had. She responded, “I was with the team on the photo shoots and I took the company camera that was used back to the office, so no, I don’t think I downloaded any images. Good thinking, though.”

  She clicked off her phone and flopped down on Gran’s bed. What was she going to do about these photos? She checked the calendar on her phone, her heart thumping. There were only about two weeks remaining to finish the project and get it to production.

  She sat in Gran’s room and thought for a second. The writers were already in edits, certainly. Could she get any photos around town to replace them? She considered Ardy Wright’s farm, but it was too small and had neighborhood homes surrounding it…

  Hannah fired off a quick email to Amanda to ask to read the articles once they were ready to go, so she could see the angles the writers were taking. Then she sent another email to the photographer, warning him that they may have to go in another direction. The worries and problems kept going around in her head, consuming her.

  Then, all of a sudden, something clicked. She realized that she was closed up in Gran’s room, fretting about work, when she had other things she could be thinking about. Hannah set down her phone and grabbed Gran’s journal, opening it up to the next entry to get work off her mind for a while.

  June 10, 1943

  Still no word from Charles. I went back to the soda fountain yesterday to see if Warren was there. He was so lovely to speak to, and I know he understands the way this war can worry someone so. My parents won’t speak of the war in any way, and just the mention of it sends Mama into a fit of tears, so I don’t bring it up. I’d really love to talk to someone about it before I explode. I noticed the Buxton Floral Co. has advertised a small bouquet for grieving families who have lost loved ones. I offered to help the floral company deliver those arrangements in the evenings after my shift at work. It makes me feel like I’m helping to spread a little joy in this awful time.

  Hannah brightened. Perhaps Gran could close the shop and volunteer a few hours a week at another florist’s somewhere else. The only problem was, there wasn’t another floral company within walking distance so someone would have to drive her… With a deep breath, she read on.

  June 12, 1943

  I had a long talk with Minnie Buxton who runs the floral company this evening, when I went in to pick up my deliveries. She was worried about her ability to offer the low price on the grievance bouquets after the summer months, as the cost of flowers will go up when the weather turns colder. She’s making so many and charging so little that she fears she wouldn’t be able to continue. But I had an idea. I explained how adding more baby’s breath and switching out the daisies for carnations could retain the shape and color of the bouquet. She let me make an arrangement to show her, and she was so excited by my creation. We danced around the shop in relief. That was the first time I’ve felt real joy in so long.

  It was just like Gran to have a suggestion for how to save a little money on the arrangements by thinking outside the box. She read the last two sentences again, her own memories of dancing with Gran in The Memory Keeper to songs from the old record player surfacing. Hannah turned the page and scanned the next entry.

  June 18, 1943

  I haven’t been sleeping very well lately. I keep thinking about the grievance flowers I’ve been delivering—there are so, so many… My evenings stretch all the way to nightfall, delivering to family after family, and knowing that all of them have lost someone important to them. I am met with tears over and over, and it’s terribly taxing. But I love working in the flower shop so much that I’ve been asking around to see if I can find a place in a nearby town where I could open my own business. The idea seems too daunting at times, and it’s probably never going to happen, but I feel something niggling in my gut, telling me that my frustrations about the life I’m leading right now are the whispers that I’m not where I’m supposed to be yet.

  Hannah read that last line again, the hairs on her arms standing up. She’d never considered that before. Gran had gone on to open that flower shop she’d thought about, and all her talk about being on the right path was starting to hit home.

  Hannah’s phone sounded with a text. Georgia was asking to be picked up at the records office. She closed the journal and headed out of the room, taking the journal with her. She couldn’t wait to hear how Gran had gotten from Kentucky to Tennessee, where she’d open her own floral shop. It all gave Hannah hope that there might actually be another path waiting for her in life. And if so, could she find it?

  She got into her dad’s truck and drove across town to the public records office, where she reached across the seat to unlatch the door for Georgia.

  “Find out anything new?” she asked.

  “Nope. Nothin’,” Georgia said. “I feel like they’re so close and yet so far.”

  “I’m sorry,” Hannah said. “Give it time. Someone has to know them. Maybe I can show Gran your photos when I go to see her again.”

  “Yeah,” Georgia agreed, but the disappointment on her face was clear.

  They drove to The Memory Keeper. It was time to get the shop ready to close. As Hannah made her way there, she knew that, just like Georgia’s nameless photos, there was no easy answer for The Memory Keeper or Gran.

  Nineteen

  “What’s that going around the ceiling?” Georgia asked, pointing up to the lone rail that lined one wall of The Memory Keeper.

  “I’m not sure,” Hannah replied. “As a kid, I never really noticed it. I’ll have to ask Gran.”

  “Hm.” Georgia gazed up at it.

  Hannah went over to the counter and dropped a new box of file folders and the journal onto it, taking a sip of her to-go coffee they’d gotten on the way and assessing the mess.

  “I suppose we should start to get rid of what we don’t need and pack up the rest,” she said, overwhelmed by the task at hand. “We’ll get the shop looking as good as it can be while it’s still open, but keep the inventory minimal. Then when we finally close, we’ll have less to get rid of.”

  “Sounds good,” Georgia said. “Where do you want me to start?”

  “Let’s sort all these papers. I’ll label the files and put them over against the wall, then hand you a document and tell you which file to put it in. Once we get all this organized, we can start cleaning and painting.”

  “Yes,” Georgia said. But then she stopped, running her fingers over the journal. “Whose is this?”

  “My gran’s. She gave it to me to read for my birthday.”

  “Have you started it yet?”

  “Yes. It’s really interesting. Her boyfriend is missing in the Second World War, and she’s working at this factory she hates and delivering flowers in the evening.”

  “Wow. Sounds
like she’s had an interesting life.”

  “Should we read an entry before we get started?” Hannah asked, dying for any chance to procrastinate and dig back into Gran’s life.

  “Absolutely!” Georgia hopped up on the counter, scooting the papers out of the way, and sipped her coffee.

  Hannah picked up the journal and opened it. She began to read.

  June 23, 1943

  It was incredibly hot yesterday. But I didn’t have to worry. Mama got together with her friends in the neighborhood last week, and they all sewed us new clothes. Mama used the pillowcases we have to make us all shorts for the summer as a surprise. She even reused the lace and sewed it to the collar of one of my shirts, creating a matching outfit that is just tops. It felt so light and airy that I asked if I could take a walk down to the soda fountain yesterday, and I saw Warren! I hadn’t planned to stay so long with having to go to work the next morning, but I told him all about Charles, and it was so nice to have someone who understands and listens. I confessed to him how much I hate working at the metal factory and how it really does get my spirits down, even though I’m so thankful to have employment. Warren asked me if I’d come back tomorrow. He said he’d buy me a Coke.

  “Who’s Warren?” Georgia asked.

  “My Pop-pop.”

  “Oh,” Georgia cooed. “The plot thickens! Read some more. Pretty please?”

  “We have to get some work done!” Hannah laughed, but she wanted to read more just as badly as Georgia did. “But you twisted my arm,” she teased. She grabbed her coffee and turned the page.

  June 27, 1943

  I really enjoy my talks with Warren. I’ve visited with him at the soda fountain every day for the last four days. I teased him that he was going to use all his student funds buying me sodas, but he dismissed it completely and bought me one anyway. Today, he read me some of his history book and we discussed the differences between the two world wars. It was fascinating. He’s a very serious man. He talks about things I’ve never thought of before, but sometimes I can make him laugh. I do find that as exciting as when I made the bouquet for Minnie.