The Forgetting (15 page)

“It was really nice to meet you, Georgie,” she said, sticking her hand out. “Call me when you have a better idea of your schedule.”

“I will,” I promised, shaking her hand. “Bye.”

I hit the second-floor button. I'd get off there and go back up to ten. But just before the elevator doors closed, Sally thrust her hand in. “I need coffee something awful,” she said. “The sludge they have here is undrinkable.”

The doors closed. I slumped against the wall a little. Sally hit one. “Oh—did you hit the second floor by mistake?” she asked, pointing at the lit-up second-floor button.

“I must have. Oops.”

We rode the elevator down in silence. My cheeks flamed as I tried to think of how to get back up to the tenth floor. When the doors opened on the first floor, I had no choice but to follow Sally out. “Can I buy you a latte?” she asked as we walked to the front entrance.

“Oh—no, thanks. I have to get home.”

“Okay. Great to meet you, Georgie,” she said as she held the door open for me. I ducked through it and walked toward the T stop. Thankfully, Sally was going to a coffee place in the opposite direction.

I stood for a moment, watching her disappear into the crowds of Downtown Crossing. Before I could hesitate or think it through, I dashed back in through the grimy glass door.

“Can I help you?” the receptionist asked as I breezed past her.

“Oh. I was just upstairs,” I said, waving my Visitor badge. “I was meeting with Sally Klein? And I forgot something.”

She narrowed her eyes at me but then her phone rang. “Go ahead,” she said in the same breath as she answered her phone.

A bunch of people piled into the elevator behind me. I shrank into the corner, hoping I was invisible. I crumpled my Visitor tag in my hand and shoved it into my coat pocket. If someone stopped me, I didn't want them to think I didn't belong.

If the fourth floor was a wasteland where office drones go to die, the tenth floor was the Mount Doom that lorded above them all. I got off behind a couple of women and followed them through a door that could only be accessed with an ID card. That door led to a long hallway with a dozen rooms, each with the same electronic swipe pad protecting the contents within.

Dammit
.

I kept following the two women, all the way down the hall. As we passed the locked doors, I noticed a sign on each of them. Closed Files, 1990–2000. Closed Files, 2000–2010. And so on. At last we came to a desk at the end of the hall with a lonely computer sitting on it.

One of the women bent over the computer and typed something on the keyboard. I turned and swept my gaze down the long hall. Which room had Annabel's file? Was she even here? She'd aged out of the system not that long ago; maybe she hadn't even been filed yet. And what the hell was I supposed to do with that computer? Why hadn't I paid more attention to all those stupid spy shows Colt made me watch?

A printer next to the computer spit out a sheet of paper and the woman straightened. “It's in Room C,” she told the other lady. They brushed past me.

Okay, one thing I
had
picked up from those shows was that sometimes it was best to hide in plain sight. I took a deep breath and arranged my features into my best damsel-in-distress expression. “Excuse me?”

The ladies turned. “Yes?”

I bit my lip. “Um, I just started an internship this week and my boss sent me up here for a file and I have no idea how to find it. Can you—” I gestured to the computer.

The woman with the paper handed it to her coworker. “You go ahead. I'll help her.”

“Oh, thank you so much!” I gushed as she stepped over to the computer. She gave me a tight smile and leaned over the keyboard. “By the way, I love your sweater. Did you knit it yourself?”

The woman straightened again, this time her smile stretching wide. “I did! Thank you so much.”

“It must've taken forever, with all those little baby bunnies,” I said, widening my eyes with what I hoped was an expression of admiration. “I wish I could knit.”

“Oh, it's easier than people think. You should take a class. That's what I did.”

“What a great idea!” I sidled next to her and put my hand on the computer. “So, you use this to find a file?”

“Yes.” She tapped a couple of things and a search screen popped up. “You just type in the name you're looking for, and it will give you the file's location.”

“Cool.” I gave her a worried face. “But the thing is, these doors are all locked and I don't have my ID yet. So how do I—”

“Oh, you poor dear. Your boss really threw you to the wolves, didn't he?” She gave me a sympathetic pat on the arm. “I'll wait while you type in the name and we can find the file together.”

My insides clenched. Crap. I had no idea what Annabel's real name was; I couldn't just type it in. “Um…okay.” I leaned way over the keyboard, trying to position my shoulders so they blocked the screen from my helper's view. I typed in “Lee” on the off chance that was her real last name.

It took ten seconds for the search results to come back with about five thousand Lees. I pressed my lips together, trying to control the shaking of my fingers. I was so freaking close…

The door to Room C opened and the other woman emerged. “Got it. Let's go.”

“Just a minute. I'm helping this young lady,” said my hideously sweatered friend.

“We're going to be late for the meeting.”

She turned to me. “Did you find it yet?”

“Oh—no, but…” I glanced at the locked room closest to us. Closed Files, 2010–2020. “It would be in that room, though. If you could—”

“Sure, dear.” The woman swiped her card in front of the keypad and the door clicked open.

“What'll you do in 2020, when you're out of space?” I asked.

“Purge the files from the 1990–2000 room,” she told me. “We only keep them for twenty years. Good luck on your first week.”

“Thanks so much for your help.”

When she got to the door to the elevator bank, she turned back to me. “Oh, don't forget to leave a printout of which file you took in the box on the back of the door. That way we have a record of which files are checked out and who took them.”

“Oh—right. Thanks.” I waited until the two women were on the elevator. Once I was safely alone again, I ducked into the room she'd opened for me and shut the door.

File cabinets lined all the walls and filled the center of the room. How would I find Annabel? I walked around the room until I found the cabinet that contained the
L
s. It was the only place to start. I pulled open the drawer and thumbed through to Lee. There was an entire row of them. I walked my fingers over the tabs, moving quickly past the boy names. But the girl names…it could be any of those. I tapped my foot on the ground as I went through the entire drawer. I pulled out a few possibilities—Lee, Michelle and Lee, Olivia and Lee, Samantha—but the dates didn't match up.

I rested my forehead on the cold metal edge of the drawer. She wasn't in here. I could feel it. Or rather, I
couldn't
feel it, couldn't hear the Catch telling me I was on the right track. I put the files back, slammed that drawer shut, and opened the next one.

This one had several Lees at the front and then started to branch into Leed, Leefer, Leek, and Leeland.

Leeland. My body went hot and cold. The Catch stirred to life. My fingers stopped at the first Leeland file.

Leeland, Anna Isabel.

My hand shook. I touched the name on the file and felt those letters burn into my fingers. It had to be her. There was no way that it wasn't her. I pulled the file out of the drawer and held it against my heart. The Catch was so loud in my ears that I could swear it was playing through a surround-sound system hidden in the corners of the room.

“Anna Isabel Leeland,” I whispered. I touched the edges of the folder, almost afraid to open it. What would I find?

The door to the file room slammed open. “Was that you searching ‘Lee' on the computer?” asked a short guy with glasses as he stomped into the room. There were multiple stains on his brown tie. “Because you need to clear the search history when you're done. For confidentiality reasons.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. I clutched Annabel's file to my chest and closed the drawer I'd gotten it from. “I'm new.”

“That's not an excuse,” he said, sliding a file drawer out with such violence I thought it was going to come off its tracks. “Your boss should train you better.”

“Okay, I'll tell him that,” I said and ducked out of the room.

“Hey, you forgot to leave a printout in the box!” he called after me. I ran to the elevator, pressing the down button over and over. The elevator dinged and I stepped on just as the guy came striding down the hall. I jabbed the button to close the doors and they slid shut just in time.

I breathed out and sagged against the wall. Before the elevator could stop on another floor between here and the ground, I shoved the file up under my sweater and buttoned my coat over it. The elevator carried me directly down to one.

But when I stepped off it, the first thing I spotted was Sally Klein chatting up the receptionist, who looked especially annoyed at being interrupted from her constantly ringing phone. I stepped back into the elevator and hit the button to keep the door open. I couldn't ride the elevator up and down until she left. I peeked out again. She was still there, now showing the receptionist something on her phone.
Crap
.

Another elevator on the opposite side of the bank opened and half a dozen people spilled out. I bolted into their crowd and hid myself between two gray-haired ladies and a middle-aged guy. Thankfully, Sally didn't look up as we moved out the door and onto the street.

I didn't stop until I was safely down the stairs into the T station. Only when I was on the train did I let myself relax. My fingers itched to pull the file out from under my sweater, but I couldn't begin to think how wrong that would look to everyone else on the crowded train. So I just counted the stops back to Brookline, repeating her name over and over.
Anna
Isabel
Leeland. Anna Isabel Leeland.
She had a name, a real name. She wasn't just a figment of my imagination. She existed, as sure as the manila folder digging into my skin.

“Anna Isabel Leeland,” I whispered, and the name wrapped itself around my heart.

When I got home, I ran straight up to my room. Grandma's voice floated up behind me. “Georgie, Mr. Blount will be here in a few minutes!”

“Be right there,” I called down and closed myself behind my bedroom door. I flung my coat on the floor and, at long last, slid the file out from under my clothes. I sat on the floor with my back against the door and flipped it open.

The first thing my eyes fell on was a picture stapled to the inside of the folder. It showed a girl of about seven with long blond hair, her brown eyes wide and staring at the camera. No smile adorned her mouth. In fact, her lips were pressed together in an expression far too wise for a seven-year-old. I traced my finger over her features, around those wide eyes, down her slanted cheekbone, and over her hair, as if I could comfort the teenager she would become.

I shuffled through the rest of the file, looking for a more recent picture, but there wasn't one. I went back to the first page and began to read.
Leeland, Anna Isabel. Born July 20, 1995. Mother: Eliza Marie Leeland, incarcerated for life without the possibility of parole. Father: Karl Michael Leeland, deceased.

Downstairs, the front door opened and I heard Grandma's voice greeting Mr. Blount. With great reluctance, I closed the file and carefully slid it between my mattress and box spring. Sitting through my lessons would be torture.

I wasn't wrong. “Georgie, that's the third one you missed,” Blowhard said, tapping his pen on my paper. “Where's your head today?”

Upstairs
with
the
file
of
the
girl
whose
heart
I
got
. I gave him a weak smile. “Sorry.” I tried to concentrate, but after I missed two more calculus problems, Blowhard gave up and switched to English lit.

Colt came home from school, and Blowhard was still grilling me about
Crime
and
Punishment
. I excused myself to the bathroom and texted Nate
. Help! My tutor is holding me hostage!

He texted me back a sad face
. Tomorrow?

Hope so. Will text you later.

Blowhard finally left at four, but not before Mom emerged from her office and sat down with us to powwow about my progress.

“She needs to focus more,” Blowhard said. I folded my arms and glared at him. I was sitting
right
there
. He could at least address me.

Mom nodded, either unaware or choosing to ignore my mounting annoyance. “Well, she has been spending a lot of time on that article for the school paper.”

Blowhard raised an eyebrow. “What article?”

Oh, crap. I sat up, my boots scuffing the floor. Mom glanced at me, then back at Blowhard. “The article on human trafficking.”

“Georgie never told me she was writing an article.”

They both looked at me. I squeezed my arms even tighter across myself. “Sorry,” I said, rolling my eyes, “I didn't realize I had to clear it with Blow—Mr. Blount.”

He blinked. “Well, honestly, it does seem to be getting in the way of our lessons.”

“But it's for school. Both my social studies and English teachers are giving me credit,” I lied.

Mom and Blowhard stared at me for a moment longer. “Well,” Blowhard finally said, “if she's getting credit for it at school, then I suppose it's all right. But she still needs to focus more on her studies with me.”

“Absolutely,” Mom said. “I'll make sure she does.”

“And I will too,” I said. “After all, Georgie can't be trusted to study on her own. She can't take responsibility for herself. She needs to be treated like a child even though she's almost eighteen.”

“Georgie!” Mom shot an embarrassed look at Blowhard. “I'm sorry.”

“It's okay.” He stood up and put a hand on my shoulder. “It must be hard to be away from your friends at school and your regular routine. Just remember…”—he squeezed my shoulder—“being treated like an adult is something you have to earn. And you won't earn it by acting like a child.”

I fought the urge to shove his hand off my shoulder and gave him a sugary-sweet smile. He picked up his briefcase and headed to the front door. I started to get up, but Mom put her hands on my knees and held me down. “That was incredibly rude, Georgie.”

“Yeah, well, it's incredibly rude to talk about me as if I'm not sitting right next to you.” I met her eyes blaze for blaze. Her shoulders slumped a little.

“What's gotten into you lately?” she asked.

“Gee, I don't know. Maybe a
new
heart
,” I snapped.

“Oh, baby.” She squeezed my knees. “You're still the same person. I know what happened to you was traumatic, but you can't use it as an excuse to behave badly.”

I clenched my jaw for a long moment before I realized she was right. No matter how confused or angry I was about what was happening to me, it wasn't her fault. “I'm sorry,” I said. “I just…don't feel like the same person. I feel different.”

“Different how?” She leaned closer to me. “Should we go see Dr. Harrison?”

“No, no, it's not that—”

“Then what?” Her eyes softened. “Do you want to talk to someone? Like a therapist?”

“Oh my God.
No
.” The thought of sitting on a shrink's couch, trying to explain that I was getting some dead girl's memories while losing my own, seemed worse than torture. “I just need space. Space to figure out who I am with this new heart.”

“Georgie, you're still the same.” I narrowed my eyes at her. She was saying it for the second time, almost as if she needed to convince herself of it more than me. “You still have the same dreams and hopes, don't you? You're still dying to go to Juilliard, aren't you?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then you're still the same.”

Again that word, “same.”
I'm not the same
, I wanted scream, but I knew I couldn't tell her the real reason why. I patted her hands that were still on my knees. “I know. It's just been a hard adjustment. And I need everyone to lay off. Okay?”

She sighed, her shoulders drooping. “Okay. Fine.” The doorbell rang. “Oh, that's Joel. Can I trust you to treat him with a little more respect than you showed Mr. Blount?”

“Yes,” I hissed and went upstairs to grab my oboe. Normally, I would be bouncing with excitement for my lesson, but all I wanted at that moment was to be locked away in my bedroom with Annabel's file. We ran through the Poulenc a dozen times but he still wasn't satisfied at the end of the lesson. “I want that one trouble spot perfect by Friday,” Joel said as we packed our oboes away. “You won't get into Juilliard with it sounding like that.”

“I know.” I wished everyone would ease up on the Juilliard talk. As I walked Joel out, I wondered if my parents would be as excited to learn that I got a job helping prevent teen suicide as they would be if I got into Juilliard. Probably not. I'd been talking about Juilliard for so many years that there were so many hopes, so much expectation.

As soon as Joel was out the door, I booked it up the stairs to get my hands on Annabel's file. I'd barely gotten to the top when Mom called me back down for dinner. All I could think about while we ate was that folder burning a hole in my mattress. As soon as the dishes were in the dishwasher, I made a beeline out of the kitchen, but Colt blocked my escape.

“Game of Hearts?” he asked, juggling a deck of cards.

“I have to practice.”

“You just had a lesson,” Colt said. He slung his arm around my shoulders. “Just for an hour. You can practice after.”

I cast a longing look up to my room, but when I caught Mom's gaze on me again, I let Colt propel me into a chair. If I spent this hour with the family, she'd probably stay off my back for the rest of the night.

“You all better watch out,” I said, snatching the cards away from Colt. “I'm feeling pretty feisty tonight.” I shuffled the deck and began to deal.

“Hey, remember that Christmas we all spent in New Mexico?” Colt asked. “When it snowed?”

“Oh, that was the worst blizzard I've ever seen,” Grandma said. “We were snowed in for days.”

“And we had that Hearts tournament where Georgie crushed us,” Colt said.

“Not to mention that epic game of Risk that lasted for three days,” Dad said. “
I
won that.”

“I just remember eating so much chili because all we had were canned beans,” Mom said.

“And we sent Grandpa to the grocery store and he got stalled at the end of the driveway.” Grandma's eyes misted at the memory. “By the time he got back to the house, he looked like the abominable snowman.”

“That was one of the best Christmases ever,” Colt said.

“That was the last Christmas before your grandfather passed,” Grandma said, her voice soft.

I dealt out the last card, letting their voices, their memories, wash over me. They didn't seem to notice that I was silent through their reminiscing, offering nothing of my own memories. Because I had none to offer. Any memory I had from that Christmas was gone.

I fought the rising panic inside me. When would it stop? What had I gotten for the memory of my last Christmas with my grandfather? Buying strawberries in winter. It wasn't fair. I tossed the cards out to everyone. “Should we start?”

Without even trying, I shot the moon during the first round, which sent Colt into sore-loser mode. “Fine,” I said, pushing back from the table. “I don't need to play.”

“Aw, come on,” Colt whined. “Sit down.”

“No, I really do have a lot of homework.”

Dad sighed, but before he could say anything, I ducked out of the kitchen and climbed upstairs. Inside my room, I leaned against the door and breathed in and out, in and out. I had to believe Annabel was leading me somewhere—and that even if I didn't know where that was, it would be worth it. That once we got there, she would go away. That once she went away, I would be Georgie again.

I pulled the file from its hiding place and sat on my bed. Finally, I would get some answers. I spread my schoolbooks around me, in case I was interrupted. Under the cover of my calculus textbook, I opened the file.

Mother, incarcerated. Father, deceased.
I turned the page to find a sheet titled “Case History,” and a long paragraph typed beneath it. I bent over the page and read.

On
March
4, 2002, DCF was called to…
The address was blacked out.
Case
was
a
seven-year-old female. Mother was taken into custody for the double homicide of her husband—Case's father—and his girlfriend. Mother confessed to crime at the scene, having called the police herself. Case witnessed the crime but was unable to provide any kind of comprehensive report. Case taken into DCF custody for immediate placement with a foster family.

I wanted to cry but everything inside was frozen. I flipped back to the picture of seven-year-old Anna with her wide, staring eyes. She wasn't staring at the camera. She was staring into a future without a mother and a father, a future where she would have to take care of herself. I went back to the page with the case history and read it again. This time I did cry, large teardrops splattering on the yellowed paper. What kind of a mother abandoned her daughter like that? She hadn't killed two people that night. She'd killed three. She'd killed her daughter too.

With shaking fingers, I turned the page. The next few pages contained the names and addresses of the foster families Anna had been placed with. The first family had moved out of state and couldn't take Anna with them. The second family had wound up having twins of their own and couldn't handle the extra burden. The third family had sent her back within only six months. I peered at the dates; Anna had been a teenager by then and was probably too unruly for them. She'd been with the last family for two years before she was emancipated. There was an address. It was in Mattapan.

I splayed my hand across the address, covering it and uncovering it. I wasn't sure I wanted to go there. But I knew that if I went, I couldn't face it alone. I reached for my phone.
I found out more stuff about Annabel
, I texted Nate.
Tell you tomorrow when I see you.

OK
, he sent back.
Have a good night.

I smiled and held the phone to my chest. I lay back on my pillows, wishing that Nate was here next to me, his knee touching mine as we went through the file together. I wished I could tell him everything.

A knock thudded on my door. I shoved Annabel's file under my pillow in the instant before Mom opened the door. “Sweetie? Ella's here.”

“What? Why?” I scrambled off my bed and nearly collided with Ella as she sidled into the room.

“
That's
the greeting I get?” she said, tossing her hat onto my desk.

“I'm just surprised to see you, that's all.” I gave her a hug that she half returned.

“Not too late, girls. Okay?” Mom shut the door as she left.

Ella surveyed my room as if she didn't already know every inch of it. “So you really do have a ton of homework, huh?” she said, nodding to the pile of textbooks on my bed.

“You think I was lying to you?”

“Well, I don't know, Georgie!” Ella threw her arms into the air. “I mean, you're never around anymore. You never call—”

“I texted you the other night,” I protested, shifting my weight between my feet. Anytime Ella and I fought, she always gave herself the upper hand.

“Yeah, after I texted you and called you. And you said you'd call me the next day and never did.” She folded her arms and blew a hard breath out. “What is going on with you, Georgie?”