The Memory Garden (3 page)

Nan shakes her head, rousing herself to place the tea lights in a circle of flat rocks in the backyard, fifteen of them, just the beginning of the spiral of life. When Nan tells the girls it is time, they appear near sleep, their eyes half-closed, their cheeks bright, but they quickly rally, in the way of the young.

It is a starry night, surprisingly cool for July. Bay lights the candles while Nan and Thalia sing. The three of them sit watching the flames in silence until Nan decides to go back to the house. “You girls stay out here as long as you like. Just don’t leave the yard.” Raised on terrible, true tales of kidnapped children, the girls agree.

Nan would like nothing better than to crawl into her narrow bed, but instead she pulls the chair, with its uneven cushion of tossed clothes, to the window overlooking the front of the house.

It was a nice birthday, wasn’t it? She thinks it was. Bay seems happy, yet Nan cannot shake the feeling that creeps over her, of trouble coming. She peers into the dark until her eyes burn, determined to stay focused, though she knows better than to think all danger can be seen.

***

Bay and Thalia have been best friends since kindergarten, when they were paired up as line buddies, standing shoulder to shoulder every time the class went anywhere: to lunch, recess, the library, field trips to the cheese factory and the post office. Over the years, they’ve both changed; Bay is taller than Thalia now, and Thalia can draw anything, a talent Bay does not possess. One thing that has remained constant through all the years is Thalia’s ability to keep the conversation going. Hours may pass, sometimes entire days, especially when she is so busy during the school year, but Thalia always resumes their conversation as though they had only been briefly interrupted.

“So, where were we,” Thalia says. “Oh, that’s right, vampire or werewolf? You know they make it look like one is the obvious choice, but when you really think about it, a vampire is always a vampire, and a werewolf is only horrible when there’s a full moon. So…”

Much later, after measuring the benefits of a real boy against a fantastic one, the tea lights burned low, they agree they are tired. Thalia says they should blow out the candles before they go inside. “We don’t blow them out,” Bay says. “That would be like blowing out the years of my life.” Thalia opens her mouth to say something but instead drapes her arm over Bay’s shoulder as they walk up the grassy slope.

After Thalia falls asleep, Bay lies in the dark, thinking about the day. She doesn’t know anyone who celebrates birthdays the way they do. Even in the middle of winter, they set tea lights in snow for her Nana’s birthday, making an impressive spiral of fire that Bay likes to watch from the warm kitchen. She rolls to her side, rearranges her pillow. It would be nice to fall asleep the way Thalia does, in midsentence, but Bay has never been an easy sleeper. It was a nice birthday, a really nice party, but she can’t shake the feeling of dissatisfaction that settles over her.

Bay’s whole life she’s felt like there’s a deep secret she hasn’t been told. Years ago, she tried to talk to her Nana about it, but she acted so distressed, spooning heaping teaspoons of cinnamon into her yogurt as though she were having some kind of a fit, saying over and over again, “Whatever could you mean? I never hid that you’re adopted,” Bay hasn’t brought it up since.

She rolls to her back and stares up at the ceiling.
Maybe
that’s all it is
, she thinks. Maybe the feeling she gets, that there is some great secret to her life, is just because she has never met her birth mother. “Are you thinking about me tonight?” Bay whispers into the dark, then clenches her lips. She is fifteen now. She needs to get over this terrible habit she has of talking to herself. If there is some secret to her life, other than being adopted, well, “it’s time to know.”

“Time,” Thalia mumbles. “Time for what?”

“Nothing. You’re dreaming,” Bay says, wincing at the words.

It’s the sort of thing her Nana says when Bay wakes up in the middle of the night. Thinking of Nan’s short figure in the dark, her shadow face framed by the silver glow of hair hanging down, makes Bay sad. It’s not that she wants anyone else for a mother; she just wants to know where she came from.

But no, that’s not really it either. Bay is suddenly wide awake and filled with the need to look out her window. She moves carefully, she doesn’t want to wake Thalia, but the squeaky floorboards are impossible to avoid. Thalia mumbles in her sleep and rolls to her side. Bay stands very still, like when they were kids and used to play statue at school, one of the few games she was good at.

When Thalia’s breathing returns to the deep rhythm of slumber, Bay leans close to the open window, inhaling the fresh scent of summer, looking at her small circle of candles below. Thinking of her Nana’s impressive spiral of light each December, Bay presses her fingers against the windowsill to lean closer.

It isn’t that I want to know where I come from
, she thinks,
but that I want to know where I’m going
.

That’s her wish. She makes it over her candles, even though she’s never made a birthday wish before.

“We don’t do that sort of thing,” her Nana said, years ago, when Bay came home from school, asking about it.

Well, who knows
, Bay thinks, sending her wish into each flickering flame.
Maybe
I
do. Maybe I make wishes on birthdays, and maybe next year I’ll blow out my candles, and maybe I’ll be here, and maybe I won’t.

“What are you doing?” Thalia mumbles. “It’s the middle of the night.”

Bay opens her mouth to tell Thalia she’s dreaming again but instead runs lightly across the floor to kneel on the bed and whisper into the dark, talking about everything she’s just realized, until she is interrupted by Thalia’s soft snoring.
Maybe
I’ll move away
, Bay thinks.
Not
like
a
runaway; I’ll find a job at a camp somewhere.
Her Nana has mentioned how she had a job like that when she was eighteen. Of course Bay is only fifteen and summer is almost over, but who knows—there must be camps during the school year, and fifteen isn’t that young. Bay suspects she has been babied all her life; it is time she asserts herself. She can’t believe how excited she feels.
Maybe
I’m someone who can stay up all night,
she thinks.
Maybe
I’m a night person
. And that’s the last thing she remembers thinking when she wakes up early the next day and wonders if maybe she is a morning person, after all.

On the night of Bay’s fifteenth birthday, Nan falls asleep in the chair in front of the window—a disturbed, achy sleep from which she wakes at dawn, shivering in the damp air, to the sound of morning birds, with a headache.
I have
let
this
drag
on
far
too
long
, she thinks as she crawls into bed. Bay is fifteen now. Fifteen! It is time Nan tell her everything. Well, not everything, of course, only the pertinent information. Hopefully, it isn’t too late. Yes, today is the day, Nan decides, which does nothing to soothe her headache. She finally falls asleep, but it is a fitful slumber from which she is thoroughly awoken when Nicholas jumps on her chest and mews.

Though it is July, Nan cannot shake the ache from her bones, or the terrible feeling that accompanies it; as if she’d spent the night walking too far, or doing calisthenics, as though she were no longer a person with a body, but a spirit trapped in one. She tries all morning to cast off the disturbed state, even as Bay and Thalia pick lavender flowers from their stalks for the homemade soap.

When the sound of the honking horn signals Mrs. Desarti’s arrival, Nan wipes her hands on her apron as she follows the girls outside. She briefly considers not letting Bay go to the river, but that would only cause a big upset. Besides, Nan needs time to prepare herself, and there is the matter of the soap to attend to as well. Bay leans out the window, waving wildly as Mrs. Desarti taps the horn in quick salute.

Once she is sure they are gone and not returning for some forgotten item, Nan takes the bowl of carefully harvested lavender outside, sprinkling it around the house, tossing the leftover into the forest. She picks up the spent tea lights, clutching all fifteen discs against her stomach, hurrying inside to fill them with water. She looks about the sunny kitchen at the remnants of the lavender shucking, bits of purple everywhere like confetti. She decides not to sweep up. It looks so pretty on the floor, the counter and table.

Reminding herself to stay focused, Nan goes upstairs to her bedroom, to the small closet there, shoving coats and dresses aside as she pushes to the back, too hot and close.
Like
a
casket
, she thinks, immediately scolding herself for her morbidity. She removes the pile of old sweaters and quilts from the box they hide, which she opens, immediately flooded by the scent of lavender.

Nan pulls out a large block of soap wrapped in brown paper, closes the lid, piles the sweaters and quilts, careful to cover the box entirely, nearly tripping over Nicholas as she backs out. She apologizes to the cat, who responds by commencing with a tongue bath.

When Nan returns to the kitchen, she is as exhausted as the time she really did make soap all those years ago, which, for some reason, Bay latched on to as one of her favorite traditions. Though today is the day for telling Bay almost everything, it certainly doesn’t have to include this transgression. The whole soapmaking business is minor and does not require a confession. Nan searches through the cleaning supplies in the basket under the sink (a place Bay never explores) for the blue bottle, which she spritzes about the room, then checks the stove-top clock (Nan has no tolerance at all for large clocks hanging on walls, with their constant reminder of time passing) and sees that it is late enough for a glass of wine, though truth be told, it always is.

She is shuffling toward the kitchen table when the phone rings, startling her with its loud trill; she yelps, clutching glass and bottle while she considers not answering, but the unsettled feeling she’s had of trouble coming decides her. She sets the wine and glass down and hurries to the small, crowded computer table where the phone sits.

“Hello?”

“Nan? Nan Singer? This is Sheriff Henry.”

“What is it? What’s happened?”

“I wonder if this is a good time to—”

“Is Bay all right? Tell me.”

“Oh, this isn’t that kind of call.”

“Well, what kind of call is it?”

“A warning? I was just going to stop by but—”

Nan finds that she has pulled the receiver off her ear and is staring at it as though it just stung her. She can’t think. She has to think.

“Mz. Singer?”

“No,” Nan says. She clicks the phone off and listens to the dead silence until the dial tone finally buzzes, sounding dreadfully loud.

When the phone rings again, Nan doesn’t answer, of course. She pours a glass of merlot from the previously uncorked bottle, surprised and irritated to discover only enough left for a single glass. Could Bay be drinking? On top of everything, is there also this?

Nan gulps the wine the way she used to gulp the cherry cough medicine her mother foisted on her when she was a kid, though actually the wine is quite good.
Time’s up
, she thinks. Hasn’t she been tired for so long? Tired of all these secrets? Just plain tired? She sets the empty glass on the table and closes her eyes, waking at the sound of the screen door slamming shut. Before Nan can even open her mouth, Bay says, with an unmistakable quiver in her voice, “It smells great in here! Why do I always miss the soapmaking?”

Tell her,
Nan thinks.
Just get it over with. Tell her what you did and tell her what you are and what she is and be done with it.
“Oh, it’s just a big mess. You’re here for the best part.”

“Well, next time”—Bay’s voice sounds as tremulous as water—“I want to be here for the actual soapmaking.”

“Did you have a good time at the river, dear?”

“Oh, yes,” Bay says, though Nan smells the lie. “Something funny happened though.”

“Funny?”

“Not funny. Weird. Nothing. But Mrs. Desarti made me promise to tell you. She’s going to call later.”

Nan keeps her voice level. “What happened?”

“Nothing bad.”

Is it the unusual darkness of Bay’s damp hair that makes her countenance so ghostly?

“Don’t be mad, okay?”

“Why would I be angry? Is Thalia all right?”

Bay nods.

“Mrs. Desarti?”

“She’s going to call you.”

Nan starts to speak, but Bay, flitting about the kitchen like a moth at a light, continues. “It’s just stupid. One minute I was underwater, and the next it felt like someone was pulling me by the ankles. Duckweed, that’s what Mrs. Desarti said it was. Anyway, the next thing I know, this guy from school is pulling me, really hard. He even had to go up for air a few times before he got me out. Nana, are you all right?”

“Who? Who did this?”

Bay sighs. “His name is Wade. He’s in my class.”

It does not escape Nan’s attention how Bay blushes as though the boy’s name alone is enough to make her bloom in a way Nan finds most alarming. “Well, that certainly was very nice of him, but I’m sure you would have been fine.”

“I was not fine, Nana! I was drowning, and he…he…”

“You were never in danger.”

Bay, leaning against the counter, shrugs in that maddening way she has, with just one shoulder, staring at the floor as though she had something to be ashamed of.

“Bay, did something else happen? Is there more?”

“Everyone was there. Everyone from school. Everyone!”

Nan sighs. She picks up the wine bottle and turns it over her glass, hoping to discover an unharvested drop; she waits, apparently longer than she should, for suddenly Bay stamps her foot. It is a small stamp, not like the great foot stomping of her grade school years; its return almost makes Nan smile.

“You don’t understand, Nana. I’m not going back there. I can never see those people again!”

Nan sets the bottle gently on the table. She concentrates on the brightly painted chicken salt and pepper shakers. They were on the table the night of her eighteenth birthday, when she had to pretend everything was normal, though nothing was, and they were on this very table when she had that trouble after Bay’s arrival; they are here now, years later. Who would have guessed that the constant watcher at every worst event, the icon of her life, would be these silly chickens?
Tell
her
, Nan thinks. She takes a deep breath and inhales the near scent of wine, the perfume of lavender, the mineral odor of water.

“Well, to begin with,” Nan says, “you were never in danger.”

Bay lifts her head to glare with wide eyes, her jaw slack. Nan has seen this look before, this teenage look, and she does not enjoy it.

“You don’t understand,” Bay says. “I’m going to bed.”

“Bed?” Nan squints at the stove-top clock, too small to read from where she sits, though clearly it’s not even dark out. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m tired, okay? We were up late, and I’m tired, and I almost died, even if you don’t care, and…” Bay breaks off midsentence, turning so swiftly to run up the stairs that Nan is sprayed with a few drops of river water.

Nan sighs at the sound of the bedroom door slamming shut. Of course Bay doesn’t understand. She doesn’t know she was born with a caul, and she doesn’t know that because of this fortune, she has no need to fear drowning. She doesn’t know because Nan never told her, though even if Bay were not in possession of her particular talent, Nan thinks it unlikely there was any real danger. Why, Bay herself said everyone was there, which of course is an exaggeration, but how many people does it take to pull a girl out of the tangle of duckweed?

Unless…Nan is momentarily frozen, paused in the middle of a thought she does not want to complete, holding a breath she does not want to let go. Unless…unless it wasn’t duckweed after all.

“How horrible are you?” Nan hisses. “Leave her out of it.”

She immediately realizes her mistake. The plea serves her ghosts more than herself. After all, what is the point of revenge but to hurt her most completely, and what could do that more than by hurting Bay? Nan shakes her head but doesn’t speak further. What does she know about such matters? She’s just an old woman with secrets, and one is this: Nan is almost powerless. Maybe once she could have been something, before she became a woman afraid of making the wrong choice. Whatever powers Nan had have been quite depleted, her strength reduced to whimsy: a shoe garden, a walnut-leaf wreath, a basic understanding of herbs and cycles, garden magic, a sensitive nose. Possibly (Nan can’t be sure) enough store of untapped potential to keep the sheriff away long enough to get her affairs in order.

Nan walks slowly up the stairs, trying to still the thumping in her head. Can everything be happening at once? Apparently, yes. And as so often happens when Nan considers time’s diminishing supply, her thoughts turn to Eve. She remembers Eve’s fingers reaching out to seek purchase where there was none, the gentle snowfall, large white flakes drifting onto the cracked sidewalks. Nan places her hands over her heart. “You need to get a hold of yourself,” she whispers in the dim, warm space, and her mind makes a leap, the way it’s been doing lately, to Bay standing in the kitchen, blushing when she said the boy’s name; her rescuer, her prince.

Nan snorts as she shuffles into her bedroom, which smells quite strongly of lavender. She opens the top dresser drawer, pushing aside cotton underwear and socks, until her fingers brush the narrow box, which she lifts with a flutter of blue silk scarf she doesn’t remember owning. She considers the box for a moment with its cover of floral script and watercolor posies, then wraps the scarf around her neck. It’s a comfort as she walks to Bay’s room.

***

When Bay was a little kid, her Nana used to take her to the river. Not as often as Bay would have liked; she would have gone every day once she discovered the wild world there—the dangerous bloodroot, buttercups (which Bay never tired of holding under her Nana’s chin to see if she liked butter) and all that green: the grass, the leafy trees, the weeping willows with their long branches draped like hair. Her Nana called them “the three old women.” Even now Bay thinks of them that way, as old women standing at the banks of the river, watching over her.

That’s what she used to think, at least.

Bay lies on her bed beneath the slanted ceiling, remembering floating on her back, looking up at the green sky. Of course it’s not really green, but she always thinks of it that way when she’s there, staring up through the overhanging branches, her ears half in the water, muffling all noise except the sound of her own breath. Bay closes her eyes, trying to pretend she is floating, and she almost is, when the knock brings her back to her room with the low ceiling, the lumpy mattress, the clammy feel of the suit she still wears beneath her clothes.

“Not now,” Bay says, but she doesn’t say it loudly, because actually, she’s not sure. Lately she feels torn like this, like she wants her Nana to come and she wants her to go and Bay can’t decide which she wants more.

It doesn’t matter. Nan shuffles into the room for some reason wearing a scarf draped around her neck even though it’s the middle of summer.

“I’m taking a nap,” Bay says.

“There’s something I haven’t told you.”

Bay pushes onto her elbows to sit up.

“You have an inheritance.”

She knew it! Didn’t she know it? Didn’t she know there was some wonderful secret to her life?

“Not money, dear.” Nan laughs. “Something more precious.”

Who said anything about money? Bay reaches out to take the long, thin box. What can it be? What can it mean? She holds it gently, as though it were not made of cardboard, but glass, reading the swirled pink letters: “Rosewater Handkerchiefs.” This better not be one of her Nana’s jokes.

“Before you open it, I should explain. Remember how I said you were left on the porch in a box draped with lace?”

“To keep the mosquitoes off me.”

“It wasn’t lace.”

Bay used to like the story, the way her Nana told it, of finding her on the porch “like something delivered by the moon.” When Bay was young, she imagined the moon sinking through the night sky to bring her home, though now she knows it’s just a stupid story. She glances up at her Nana, her gray hair like a hornet’s nest around her face.