The Memento (30 page)

We all knew bits and pieces, of course. It was a story people told from time to time. And people tell parts of stories just as people collect rocks from here and there on the beach, and take them away. But Ma was in possession of the entire thread. In that moment, though, Harry only knew that the drunken mother of the girl the housekeeper named Loretta cared for was out of her mind in a cemetery, telling stories only adults should hear. But the child the housekeeper cared for and the strange girl with glasses from the big house and the boy with the high voice from Lupin Cove, they began to understand how the pieces really fit together.

More screaming came again from up in the ironwood trees, the sound of a harness jingling and clop clop clop as Hector’s father, Clyde, came by in his wagon loaded with hay, pulled by a team of four draught horses. One of the horses whinnied. The spell was broken.

“Goddamn peacocks. Stupid man bringing all them animals who don’t belong over here,” Clyde said, as he tipped his hat and took a drag off his cigarette and watched three peacocks fly down from the high branches, strutting around among the tombstones, their tail feathers fanning out and shimmering against the grey stones as they screamed. Ma turned and looked at the horses.

“Marilyn,” he said, nodding at her. He opened his mouth like he was going to speak but then closed it. Clyde sat on his wagon with the reins in his hands.

“You was there, Clyde. You know what day it is.”

A look of a pain moved through him, but he ran a hand through his hair and whatever had taken hold of him was gone. It was no surprise to me. Everybody knew what Clyde Loomer was like. He didn’t bother even looking at Ma as he called to the horses to giddy up. “You know them horses don’t like a woman who cries, Marilyn,” Clyde said, and then he continued down the road, showing us the same interest he managed for his son.

Ma wept quietly now, eaten up by a pain I would not know until I was older, when I would understand how that kind of ache never goes away. The clop and the jingle faded off and it was just tearful Ma as she called over her shoulder. “Come, Fancy.”

I went.

“Do you see him?”

I wanted to believe and I wanted the dead to find me so I could take Ma’s pain away. Grampie’s tombstone was behind John Lee’s.
Let the dead bury the dead, Marilyn
, Grampie had said to her, not long before he died.
Let them pass
.

I took my mother’s face in my hands then, my dirty hands, and I stroked her forehead, my tears spilling down. “I can’t help you, Ma. He’s gone now. He’s gone away in his little boat across the sky.” And I whistled for her because I did not have a voice for singing.

Her crying then was something unearthly and I took my hands away from her, my fingers slick with her tears. She bowed her head down and I saw the white roots of her dyed raven-black hair. Art was crying too. I could hear him, calling my name. My heart started pounding and I heard a movement from west down the dirt road, a pebble tossed, and a bird called, the cardinal … then stillness. Jenny was admiring the peacocks and Art and Harry were paralyzed with indecision. I saw a flash of white. There was a sound at the edge of the cemetery. I took a step that way. The peacocks were quiet now, eating the flower arrangement left on a grave.

The red bird appeared in the sky, and I took off right through the graveyard, grass soft on my bare feet, weaving through the
grave markers, hopping over a few, then over the fence and north through the trail in the woods, in the direction of Petal’s End, where Loretta was, where her calm was.

“Fancy! Fancy!” I heard them all calling my name. There was crashing behind me and I kept going until Art called out. I stopped. He was bleeding, scratched from the brambles and shrubs grown in close over the trail. He put his hand on my cheek, where my scar was throbbing, and I pulled away.

Jenny come up behind us, her white dress flying out. She was short and had no trouble ducking the branches. “Heavenly hosts,” she whispered as she stopped beside Art. We walked together, single file, me staying in the front. It was cool and dark in the woods.

Art cleared his throat. “You don’t think she’ll follow us in here?”

“No, Ma don’t like the woods. She don’t like shadows.”

“Harry will take her home. He feels foolish for letting it go on for this long. I can tell. First getting us drunk on his fine wine and now letting us go to the graveyard,” Art said.

“I knew the peacocks had to be somewhere. My mother said they died off but I knew she was wrong. They’ve been living in the forest up here by the cemetery. My grandfather would be happy. Granny will not be. She banished them a long time ago.”

We didn’t respond.

“It’s different, when a child dies, of course. Pomeline says Mother is the way she is because of all the babies she lost. All those babies who died before they were even born. The miscarriages. I guess your mother was the same way, Fancy. We’re the same, aren’t we?” Jenny pressed. “John Lee drowned.” She spoke it as though it was a fact she was reading in a history book or a newspaper.

“Yes, he did too drown,” I said, dodging the branches ahead of me.

“My mother doesn’t even go to my father’s grave. And she won’t let us in the Annex. Your mother takes you right to the
graveside. Why does she think you can speak with the dead, Fancy? I know about your grandfather.”

“Because she’s a drunk, Jenny, that’s why.” Jenny didn’t know about being the twelfth. She didn’t need to know about that, about believing. The Parkers didn’t know any of the true Mosher stories, only their own. But now we both knew who had been on the beach the day my brother died. My mother was in a cave having sex with Hector’s father and Jenny’s grandmother was helpless on the rocks with Charlie, watching John Lee drown.

“Did either of you hear a noise on the road back there?” I asked.

“You mean Clyde?” Art’s voice was worn out.

“No, not Hector’s loser dad.”

“Your mother and the peacocks were the only things anyone could hear.” Jenny giggled.

“I saw something.”

Art said, “There was a lot of commotion, Fancy.”

It was pointless to talk about it any more. We were getting close to the wall around Petal’s End. The trail was sloping down, which meant we only had about another mile to go. We kept going on the trail until we come out into the clearing where the hunting lodge was. Or the ruins, I guess you’d call it. Way back, one of the Parkers built the lodge, for when they’d go out hunting across the mountain. There was a rotting picnic table still, for family picnics, not that they’d had any of those in years.

“This is where it happened to my grandfather,” Jenny said. “Stupid man to have a bear for a pet. My grandmother talks about him like he was a saint but he wasn’t. He betrayed her. My mother told me. She said Granny deserved it because she was nasty. It is true, that we deserve our punishments. My grandfather would talk mean to Granny, telling her to mind her own business. In front of us. He thought children were like animals and you could say what you liked around them. That’s not true—he thought animals were smarter. Grandfather only married Granny because his father told him to.
That’s what he said to her. Just like he told my father to marry my mother. ‘It’s not about love, Marigold. Marriage is never about love.’ He told her that. I was just a child but I heard. In the library at Petal’s End. Daddy never had enough affection, you see. That’s why he was the way he was.” Jenny just kept talking and talking, like she was trying to get out five words for every step, as though her words could come out and fit together and it would all finally make sense and growing up wouldn’t seem like such a horror show.

I asked Jenny just what she’d been doing with Hector, what she was thinking having him teach her to drive.

“Oh, I followed him back there one day. I got into the back of the pickup truck. It was fun rattling along on the country roads, just like being in a song.” She kept walking, her hands clasped together. “He finally saw me in his rear-view mirror. That’s the problem with Hector. He doesn’t pay attention to details.
I
pay attention to details. He thought he’d seen a ghost and he almost did kill me from how he slammed on the brakes. He has a tattoo of a butterfly. Did you ever notice that? Anyway, I crawled over the other side and ran out of the truck and he came after me, but he didn’t catch me before I saw what he and Buddy are growing back there on my grandmother’s property. It’s pretty, quite tall, and looks like ferns. He offered me a mint. Then he tried to tell me he was growing parsley and sage, rosemary and thyme. He was a moron to think I don’t know that song. Or herbs. Hector was a bigger fool to think I don’t read and watch the television news when I’m in the city. It’s the only thing my mother will let me do. And he made me promise not to tell.”

I couldn’t help but laugh then, because Jenny wasn’t someone you could make to do anything.

“Hector said he’d do whatever I wanted if I didn’t tell. It was for medicinal purposes, that’s what he said. I told him if he taught me how to drive then maybe I wouldn’t say anything. And if he stayed away from Margaret. And now I know how to drive even
though it’s hard because I am short, you see. And Margaret doesn’t go back to the carriage house any more.”

Art just kept shaking his head and I was laughing. Jenny seemed pleased and held her hands up like she was doing a benediction.

“Fancy,” Art said, “I’m sorry your mother’s the way she is.”

Jenny answered, like she was nine hundred years old, “We can only endure them. Now we know. I’m sorry. My grandmother couldn’t do anything. She was helpless. We should never be helpless.”

W
HEN WE
came out of the woods there was no one outside the big house. Dr. Baker’s car was parked out front and Estelle’s white car was parked behind it. We assumed they were inside, and we were thirsty but decided to get a drink at the Water House. We weren’t ready to see no one yet. Jenny and Art were hovering around me like two weird bats, him on one side, with his squeaking voice, and Jenny on the other.

Art and I sat outside the door of the Water House and Jenny brought out glasses of water. It was the first time I recall her ever doing such a thing. It was late in the afternoon now but we were tired enough for bed, and there was still choir practice yet.

The three of us sat looking at the expanse of Evermore. It was a whole world in behind those stone walls, safe and comforting. The gardens were clipped and perfect. The flower beds were dazzling. The statues, the benches, the stepping stone paths, the foliage, all immaculate. It was a contrast to the shabby graveyard, the
forest we ran through, the scruffy dirt road. The screaming peacocks were already a grotesque memory, for when things are strange enough the mind stores them as a story. And in this story the three of us were sitting in the wicker chairs under the awning of the Water House.

There was a tinkle from the tall flowering bushes, where Sakura had also hung glass wind bells. The breeze was strong and lifted our hair in a velvet-soft touch, then it dropped away just as the peace was splintered by a deep angry voice. In a certain sort of summer air a harsh whisper travels intact. Art leaned back and shut his eyes, letting out an exasperated sigh. Jenny stood up and walked down the path toward the sound. We followed her to the Wishing Pool, where I hadn’t been since Grampie’s teacup had broken.

“Well, I’ll have to take care of it. After the garden party, of course.” Dr. Baker cleared his throat. “I don’t see how you could have let this happen. This is a disaster. You aren’t a child. You have to take responsibility for something other than your piano playing, for God’s sake, Pomeline.”

“Well, you’re the doctor,” Pomeline pleaded.

“Yes, I am, and that’s why I gave you those pills and told you exactly … 
exactly
what to do with them. All you had to do was take them at the same time. Surely you could have managed that. You Parker women are all the same with your frivolous priorities, only thinking of yourselves. Did you get the days mixed up?”

Pomeline was crying and trying to talk at the same time. “I don’t know. It’s been hard with Jenny here, bickering with Margaret, with Mother calling all the time and fighting with Granny. And Granny hardly makes sense. It’s been difficult to keep track of anything. And my exams are coming, but all that seems to matter is the garden party and Mother wanting to sort out the will. Mother says there is a letter from Daddy that confirms he was going to leave her more, but she can’t find it. Granny says it must
be a forgery, that Daddy would never let anything go outside the family. She says the entire estate will go to her and pass along to Jenny. It’s like I don’t even exist to them.”

Through the branches we saw Dr. Baker hug her. “You’ve been under a great deal of stress. Your mother has ruined Jenny, spoiled her rotten. And if only Estelle and Marigold would work things out in a more reasonable way. They’re putting me in the middle of it. I’m a friend to them all. I know you’re worried about your grandmother but she is a very elderly lady, my dear. You’re only eighteen.” His voice caught when he said her age. “I’ll take care of everything.”

It went quiet, other than Pomeline’s sobs. Then we heard heels click on the stone path behind us. We ducked into the brush and Estelle didn’t see us as she rushed past and flew through the opening in the cedar hedge to where Dr. Baker and Pomeline were standing beside the Wishing Pool. Her finger was on her temple like that deep headache was back.

Estelle’s jaw was clenched. “I thought I might find Jenny out here with those servants. We’re going to have to search the woods. I knew that if I entrusted her care to you, Pomeline, something would go wrong. You want to play your piano and look at pretty things and sing your days away. And you, David, only encourage her. What the hell are you two doing out here?”

“Estelle,” Dr. Baker said, “Jenny will be fine. She’s more robust than you think she is.”

“Don’t ‘Estelle’ me. You said it would all work out. You say it year after year. And do you see how things are working out?” She turned to Pomeline. “What is it
you
have to cry about? You have your whole life ahead of you, with endless opportunity, and yet you cry like a baby, and David, you comfort her like she’s your wife. It turns my stomach. You know
nothing
of being a parent. You act like a teenager with no responsibilities. It’s time to grow up. You know nothing, the both of you.”