Remember (13 page)

Neil made a noncommittal noise.

“There’s no reason for someone to wipe my memory,” I
pointed out. “Even if I had a different mom, why would that have to be a secret? If she died in an accident, that’s tragic and sad, but it’s not the kind of thing you don’t tell a kid. Maybe it was so traumatic that I blocked it out myself and my dad just went along with it.” My voice had an edge. Maybe I’d freaked out. Had I coped so badly that my dad thought I was better off not remembering her at all?

“I’m sorry,” Neil said.

His words surprised me. “Why are you sorry? I asked you to figure out who she was. It’s not your fault what the answer looks like.” I tried to make my voice light to lessen the tension. “Besides, you’re not a huge fan of Neurotech. This news pretty much confirms every rotten thing you suspected.”

“I’d be lying if I said I had a lot of love for your dad’s company, but I swear to God, I didn’t want you to get hurt in this whole process.”

We sat silently in the parking lot side by side.

“What do I do now?” I finally asked.

“I don’t know, but I believe you’ll figure it out.”

I laughed. “Your faith might be misplaced.”

Neil squeezed my hand. “There’s a lot of stuff I don’t know. But believing in you is something I’m sure of.”

I wasn’t sure he was right, but it made me feel better to know he believed it.

chapter twenty-two

I
’d only gotten high once, and I wasn’t even sure it should count since I hadn’t done the actual smoking. Even if I ran for political office someday, I was pretty sure it couldn’t be used against me. It had happened the summer after sophomore year and was a contact high from hanging out in the kitchen at a party. The people around me had been smoking up a storm, and suddenly two thoughts came instantly to my mind:

1) I was stoned

2) I could no longer feel my own lips.

I didn’t like the sensation of being high. Instead of feeling either invincible or giggly, I felt paranoid. It occurred to me that at some point someone was going to pop up and declare that my entire life was just a prank others were playing on me. When the effect wore off, I swore I’d never do it again.

Now I had the same out-of-body, disconnected feeling all over again, only this time no weed was being consumed.

“Pass the kale,” my dad said.

Mom handed it to him and went on talking about her dissatisfaction with our yard service. They’d apparently done a hatchet job on the Japanese maple in the back. She’d tried to stop them, but the guys didn’t speak English very well.

I pushed my chicken around on the plate and counted the number of times I chewed to avoid screaming and running in circles around the table. The food felt like thick tasteless paste in my mouth. I found it almost impossible to swallow. I’d tried to skip the family dinner, saying that I had to study, but my mom hadn’t gone for it.

Of course, she wasn’t really my mom anyway, so what did it matter?

My brain started to shut down. I kept counting the number of times I chewed as a way to focus. I glanced down and saw that my hand was gripping my fork with white-knuckled intensity. It took me several seconds to get my hand to listen to the command in my head to loosen the hold. I wanted to stand up and hurl the silverware at my parents, scream that I knew they were liars, but I didn’t. I just sat there quietly while the music provided a surreal backdrop.

Mom had made a rule about no TV at dinnertime, so now she would play some kind of classical music on the Bose sound system while we ate. I didn’t think either of my parents knew
much about classical music, or even liked it, but they wanted to be the kind of people who ate to Mozart. There were a lot of things in our lives that were just about how it looked. Our whole family was a lie. A facade.

I wanted to ask them what was going on, but I didn’t have any idea how to even start the conversation. I’d opened my mouth a thousand times since I’d heard the news from Neil, but then I’d end up walking away. I knew I’d only have one chance to speak to them about it for the first time. It seemed important that when I did bring it up, I did it right. Now I just needed to figure out what “right” looked like.

I also couldn’t bring it up when I didn’t even know how I felt about it. I swung between feeling crushed and wanting to cry and feeling the sharp sting of betrayal. One minute I was choking on rage and the next I wanted them to pat me on the back and tell me everything was going to be fine. I wasn’t sure what going crazy felt like, but I was pretty sure this was close.

The whole situation didn’t seem possible. My parents sat across the table from me eating dinner like nothing was different. My dad had a piece of kale stuck in his teeth and was wearing one of his science T-shirts that said
COME TO THE NERD SIDE—WE HAVE PI
. Mom was still blathering on about the yard service. She was more than happy to give people an opportunity, but was it asking too much that they either knew what they were doing or could at least understand directions in English? My parents didn’t seem like the type of people who
would be capable of pulling off some type of elaborate ruse to wipe out my past. It was like discovering that your sixth-grade teacher, who liked to make crafts with Popsicle sticks and wore Birkenstocks, was in fact an ex–CIA agent who used to be responsible for taking out foreign operatives.

It was unreal. My life had turned into an episode of
The Twilight Zone
. I half expected my dad to stand up, peel off his face to reveal a lizardlike alien, and admit he was from outer space. My dad was nothing if not logical. If anything he was rational to a fault. Wiping out my memory didn’t make sense. There was no reason not to tell me the truth. If I’d had a different mom, why not tell me about her? What else were they hiding?

“Earth to Harper.”

I jumped in the chair when I heard my name.

“Someone’s a million miles away,” Mom said. “Your dad asked you if you wanted to go grab some ice cream after dinner.”

“I’ve got homework,” I said aloud. Inside my head I was screaming,
How can you talk about ice cream when everything in my life is a lie?

“
You sure you can’t knock off for a night?” Mom smiled. “Not even for mint chocolate chip?”

Dad tossed his crumpled napkin at my mom. “Are you crazy? We should be encouraging that kind of focus on studying; we’ll be paying for college next year.” He winked at me. “Keep up that dedication and you could major in science. Take over the company someday.”

I pressed my mouth into a smile and hoped he couldn’t tell I felt like throwing up. Was this conversation actually happening? We were talking about ice cream instead of this huge lie?

“I want you to make that appointment at the clinic.”

My heart froze. “I don’t need to go. I’m feeling fine.”

“And we want to make sure you stay fine,” my mom said, waving her fork in my direction with a smile.

“Okay, sure.” I wasn’t sure how I was going to get out of it, but I’d worry about that later. There was no way I would go back. I wasn’t sure, but there might be a way the doctors could tell that I remembered everything. Right now the only advantage I had was that they didn’t know that I knew. Until I had a plan, I intended to keep it that way. “Can I be excused? I really do have a bunch of homework.”

“Go get ’em, tiger. We’ll bring some ice cream back for you,” dad said.

I slipped out of the dining room. Could a guy who called me tiger really hide another mother from me? If I went to an appointment, would they find a way to block my new memories all over again? I was almost at the stairs when I had a thought. I flipped the light on in our den. One wall had floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Unlike my dad’s office, which was stuffed with action figures, this room had been completely done by my mom. It looked like a page out of a Restoration Hardware catalog.

I could hear my dad joking with my mom while she did the dishes. My fingers ran over the shelves. They smelled like
the lemon polish the maids used every week. Finally I saw the book and pulled it off the shelf. A hardcover version of
To Kill a Mockingbird
. I tucked it under my shirt like I was starring in a spy movie and smuggled it into my room.

I shut the door behind me and leaned against it. I wasn’t cut out for all this sneaking around. My heart was slamming into my ribs at what felt like a thousand beats per second. I hadn’t picked a major yet for college, but it was safe to say that anything spy-related was going to be out.

I crawled into bed with the book. I’d always known I was named after Harper Lee. I’d thought it was a bit weird that my mom would name me after an author when she didn’t even like to read that much. Who names their kid after an author unless they truly love that writer? Was this additional proof that she wasn’t my mom, and that the mysterious Robyn was? Or was it that my mom was actually my mom, but my dad had been married to Robyn and was having an affair with my mom? Then after Robyn died he’d married my mom and never let me know about his earlier life?

I’d read the novel at least a half dozen times. I flipped through the pages. Maybe I thought the answers to what was going on would somehow jump out at me like pages in a pop-up book. Nothing. I rubbed the pages. Maybe, like a genie, the answers would appear. Nothing.

Wait.

I rubbed the inside page again. It felt thick. Thicker than
the other pages. The paper felt different too. I ran my thumbnail against the edge. There were two pages glued together. I sat straight up and clicked on the bedside lamp for better light. I tried to peel the pages apart, but they were stuck firmly together.

I dashed into my bathroom and cranked the hot water in the tub all the way on. I tapped my foot on the tile floor, waiting for some steam to build up. I held the book open over the steam and counted to one hundred. The pages were soft and damp, but the glue showed no signs of giving up. I wanted to throw the book against the wall, but I knew that wasn’t going to accomplish anything.

I ran back into my room and held the page up in front of my light. I could just make out something. I pulled the shade off the lamp so there was nothing to diffuse the light from the bulb.

Dear Harper—

Always follow in your heart what you know to be true.

Love, Mom

There was a date below. The date of my first birthday. I traced the words with my finger. I’d seen my mom’s handwriting thousands of times. On notes for school, grocery lists, Christmas cards, checks, permission slips, and recipe cards. The handwriting in the book wasn’t hers. There was no denying it anymore. My mom wasn’t my mom. Now the only thing I had to figure out was why everyone was lying to me.

chapter twenty-three

I
drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. If I was ever in the market for a new best friend, being timely was going to be on the list of necessary traits. I waited in the stable parking lot for Win. I’d checked the schedule in the barn, so I knew she had a lesson. Talking to her at school wasn’t going to work. I needed a place where we could be alone. It was drizzling, and the clouds felt like they were pressing down from the dirty, silver-colored sky. I checked the clock in my car for the thousandth time. Her lesson started in two minutes. Win’s SUV swung into the parking lot with a spray of gravel, and she jumped out, juggling her huge Coach bag, her riding helmet, and a giant Starbucks latte. She was like a high-fashion Sherpa.

“Hey,” I called out as I scrambled from my mom’s car.

Win paused and then looked at the stable. I could tell she
was shocked to see me. “I can’t talk; I’m late for a lesson.” She motioned to the barn.

“I know. I’ve been here for almost thirty minutes.” I motioned to her coffee mug. “I bought you a coffee, but I think the one I got you is cold.”

She tossed her hair. “Not my fault. I didn’t know we were meeting.”

So much for my caffeine olive branch breaking down the barrier.

“I needed to talk to you,” I said. “I thought I could catch you before your lesson, but I can wait and talk to you when you’re done.”

“I have to go home right after.” She juggled the items in her hands. “Don’t make that face—I really do. My grandmother is in town from England. Required family time with Nan. Forced fun, that kind of thing.”

“Any chance you could be a bit late?”

She hefted her bag up on her shoulder. “This is so vital it can’t wait?”

“Kinda.” I swallowed. “It’s important, Win.”

She stared out at the road for a beat. “Okay.”

Win went into Laura’s office and declared that there was a prom committee crisis so she was going to have to cancel her lesson with no notice. She made the crisis sound on par with a possible nuclear reactor meltdown, with the survival of all humanity, or at the very least our prom, on the line. I wasn’t convinced
Laura bought the lie. She looked back and forth between the two of us. She must have had a sense that whatever we needed to talk was more than just wanting to chat about boys. Laura took riding seriously. Anyone who blew off lessons disrespected her time and didn’t give the horses their best. I wasn’t sure what annoyed her more, us letting her down or the horses.

“All right. This time I’ll give you a pass. There’s no one in the lounge if you need a place to talk.” Laura froze Win in place with her stare. “I expect you’ll put in some extra practice this week, and next week I want to see the outcome of that extra work. Is that clear?” Laura waited for Win to nod before looking away.

Once excused, we fled upstairs to the lounge. Win dumped her bag and helmet on the table. “I lied about prom and now I have to do extra practice this week when I don’t have time for it. That’s earning me bad karma right now. Somewhere the universe is planning to kick me in the ass, so this better be good.”

“I hate that we’re fighting,” I said. That didn’t even begin to cover how bad I felt about it. My stomach was boiling over with acid.

“The fact we had a fight isn’t my fault,” she said. “Don’t put this on me.”

“I didn’t; that’s not what I meant.”

Win wouldn’t meet my eyes. It made me think the whole thing was bothering her more than her tough-girl act was letting on. This had been the longest we’d ever been mad at each other. We’d never lasted more than a couple hours before.

“I found something out last night, about what’s been going on with me, and I needed to talk to someone.”

Win rolled her eyes. “That’s what this is about? A quick apology so you can launch into the next thing happening in your life? For this I bailed on my lesson?”

“What I need to talk about with you is important.”

“And my life isn’t?”

I took a deep breath. “I know I haven’t been spending as much time with you, or paying attention to everything going on for you, but what’s going on for me right now is huge.” I was frustrated she couldn’t see my point.

“I call bullshit on your theory. Because your stuff is more important, then what’s happening to me shouldn’t matter? How about the fact that there are kids starving to death in Africa? That’s more important than your stuff. There are wars going on; that’s more important too. If I have a headache, it doesn’t hurt any less because someone else has cancer. I still have a headache. What’s happening with me is a big deal to me. The fact that it’s a big deal should matter to you, and it hasn’t.”

I sat down in the chair. Now I was getting a headache. “I need help, Win. I don’t know what to do. I know I haven’t been a great friend, and I deserve every bit of anger you feel. I should be asking about Kyle, and I will, but right now I need you. I know it’s not good enough, but I’m honestly doing the best I can.”

She sighed and sat down on the leather sofa. “Go ahead.”

I spilled everything. The found photograph, Neil finding
Robyn’s identity, and the pages pasted together in the book. When I stopped talking, Win was quiet.

“That is seriously fecked,” she said at last.

“Indeed.”

Win took a long, deep breath like she was trying to organize her thoughts. “I might have been wrong. Your stuff is more messed up than the African kids. Okay, so you’re sure this Robyn woman is your real mom?”

“Not a hundred percent—I’m open to another suggestion—but unless someone’s got a great idea, I think I have to face up to the idea that she’s my real mom. Otherwise the timeline makes no sense.”

“Why the hell wouldn’t your dad tell you? Not telling someone that they had a different mom is just . . .” Her voice trailed off as she searched for the right word. “Bonkers.”

“I have no idea. I spent all of last night trying to figure it out. My best guess is that after she died, he wanted me to move on without being sad.”

“What are you going to do?”

I shrugged. “My big plan was to talk to you.”

Win raised an eyebrow. “You’re supposed to be the smart one in this duo. I’m the good-looking one with the snappy comebacks.”

“I was thinking we could branch out. High school’s almost over. Time to try new things. I was going to give you a chance to be the ideas person.”

Win rolled her eyes. “I suppose the good news is that there’s really a limited number of options to consider. You can either confront your parents directly—”

I opened my mouth to protest, but she waved me off.

“Let me finish before you start tearing down my ideas. You can confront your parents directly. Or you can tell someone else, some adult who might be able to do something.”

“Who? Mr. Ross?” Mr. Ross was Saint Francis’s guidance counselor. He was a nice enough guy, but overly perky. He smiled too much. He was like a character on a little kids’ TV show, the kind who talks too loud and asks obvious questions.

“I said someone who could do something, not someone who looks like he survived a lobotomy.” Win was not a huge fan of Mr. Ross. He’d once told her to “stand proud” because “brown is beautiful.” It was his attempt to be all urban and racially sensitive. If looks could have killed, she would have taken his testicles out through his nose with a mere glance. No one needed to tell Win brown was beautiful. If you didn’t think it was, then that was your problem, as far as she was concerned. “You could go talk to the police,” she said.

I shook my head. I knew how that would go. “They would nod and smile at me, then drive me home to my parents. Or have me locked up in a mental ward. What if I talked to your parents?”

“Mine?” Win shook her head. “Don’t get me wrong, my dad is great if you need someone to explain what a touchback does
versus a wide receiver, and in a pinch he can cover stuff like fixing a flat tire, but this is way out of his league. My mom . . .” Win sniffed dismissively. “She’s not the type to be a big fan of causing a fuss. No way she’s getting involved between you and your parents. That reeks of an emotionally messy situation, and she doesn’t even do those in our own family.”

I wanted to kick myself. I should have known her parents would be a bad plan. My brain rolled through the list of adults I knew. I liked Laura, but technically my dad paid her to be my trainer. I couldn’t be sure she was impartial. I imagined myself knocking on the door of Mrs. Custler, who lived across the street. She was in her sixties and divorced. She used to say all the time that marrying well had been her full-time job, but she could afford to retire now. She always brought her margarita machine to the neighborhood Fourth of July party. She was the only one I could think of who wouldn’t automatically assume I was making up stuff about my parents, but I couldn’t imagine what she would do to help me. “I don’t know.”

“You still have another choice.” Win counted the options off on her fingers. “Ask your parents, get another adult to help, or ignore the whole thing until graduation.”

“Ignore it?” My voice was full of disbelief.

“We’ve got less than two months until graduation,” Win pointed out.

“And then what?”

“Then you’ve got more options. Maybe when you’re at
UDub you’ll figure something out. Maybe you’ll find out more information, or if you do confront your parents, at least you aren’t stuck at home, or, who knows, maybe there’s some caped crusader there who can tell you what to do. The point is, you’re eighteen, you’ll be out of high school, and that changes everything.”

“I’m not sure I can wait that long.” I picked at my thumbnail. “My dad’s scheduled me to go to meet with his doctor.”

“Can he do some kind of test to figure out what you remember?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to risk it. What if the doctor does something and I don’t remember all of this?” Win and I stared at each other across the small table.

“Have you talked to Josh?”

I sighed. “No.”

“Are you afraid he’s going to choose your dad over you?”

“No,” I said quickly. She’d put her finger right on the issue. It wasn’t that I didn’t think Josh liked me, but I was pretty sure he liked my dad better.

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate your faith in me, but let’s be honest, out of our merry band of friends, who is the one with a fancy scholarship to Stanford?”

“Josh.”

“Who’s almost certain to be our class valedictorian?”

“Josh,” I answered again.

“So, given that the guy does math equations for fun, I think
we can agree he’s the smart one in the crowd. He’ll know what to do. You guys have your issues, but he’s been your friend a long time.” She dug her cell phone out of her bag. “Call him.”

I pulled on a loose thread on the edge of my shirt.

Win ducked her head so that she caught my eyes. “Serious. No fecking about—what’s going on with you two?”

“Josh is great.” My voice sounded flat in my own ears.

“You trying to convince me or yourself?” She tossed her hair back. “Nothing against your skinny smart boy, but I’ve found my own man candy.”

I laughed. “Man candy?”

“Have you seen Kyle without his shirt? The boy is ripped. He makes David Beckham look washed up.”

“You do have it bad for him.”

Win flopped back on the leather sofa. “You have no idea. I see him in the hall and my stomach does a full Olympic gymnastics routine. When he reaches for me, it feels like every nerve in my skin reaches back out to touch him. Everything he says I want to soak up and have him tell me more.” She glanced over to me. “I’m pretty new at this love stuff, but I’m fairly sure that’s how you’re supposed to feel. When you think of Josh, is that what you feel?”

“I like Josh,” I said.

Win chucked one of the throw pillows at my head. “Do you hear yourself? I really like when the cafeteria has those oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I like the color gray. I like when
a good song comes on the radio when I get in the car. I think when you’re talking about the guy in your life, it should be more than ‘like.’”

I started to cry. “I don’t know what happened.”

Win pulled me over to the sofa so I was next to her and patted my back while I cried.

“There’s no reason for my feelings to change. He hasn’t done a thing,” I sobbed. “I used to love how he would take care of things, but now it feels like he’s my second dad. It’s like he’s smothering me. I know you think we should stay together and that what I’m doing is wrong. I feel like the worst person in the world.”

“Now, don’t go getting all overly dramatic. That’s my job,” Win said. “It’s not like you’re clubbing seals, or bulldozing virgin forests, or chopping up people in your basement. You’ve got a long way to go if you want to be the worst person in the world.” She held up a finger. “Not that I’m suggesting you try. And I guess I did want you and Josh to stay together. I liked you guys as a couple, but your relationship isn’t supposed to be about me. If your feelings have changed, you have to tell Josh.”

“I don’t want to hurt him, and I don’t want to lose him altogether.”

Win shrugged. “Not sure there’s a way around it.” She tossed me her phone. “Call him. Have him meet you here. Talk to him about what’s going on. With everything. Your memory and him.”