The Memory Child (7 page)

Wrapped inside the baby blanket were journals. My journals. The ones Mags gave to me to write down everything that I couldn’t say. I would sit in my bedroom for hours writing in these books. I bet I filled more than a dozen of them in the first year we lived with Mags. I didn’t keep them all. In fact, I thought I had gotten rid of all the journals when I went to college, only to find out that Mags had rescued some of the earlier ones from the garbage. She knew one day I’d want to read them, to remember, and mayb
e to heal.

If it weren’t for Charlie, I wouldn’t be doing this. These weren’t memories I wanted to lose myself in. I was okay with keeping them padlocked i
n my mind.

But I hated to see her so sad. She belonged with Marcus. His strengths built up her weakness and vice versa. She was happier with him, and I didn’t like to see her
so torn.

I placed the journals on the ground and refolded the blanket before placing it back in the box. Later tonight I’d go through my memories and reawaken the o
ld demons.

CHAPTER SEVEN

W
hat a nice surprise to finally meet Charlie.” Nina poured me a cup of tea as we had our nightly chat be
fore bed.

I played with the pills on the table, rolling them in circles before placing them one by one on my tongue and s
wallowing.

“Did you two have a nice talk?
” I asked.

I’d overheard the low murmur of their voices as I rocked Grace to sleep earlier. I couldn’t make out their entire conversation, but I got the gist of it. And I didn’t like wha
t I heard.

“She’s worried about you.” Nina looked at me out of the corner o
f her eye.

“I know. But she doesn’t nee
d to be.”

“Of course she does.” Nina raised her teacup. “She’s your sister. It’s her right to be
worried.”

“You do realize she’s my younger sister, right? I’m the one who’s supposed to be taking care of her. She looks like a mess.” Even after her shower, Charlie had looked like she needed to sleep for at least a week. “Can you do some extra baking while she’s here? She’s lost a lot of weight since I last
saw her.”

Nina scribbled something down in her notebook. That blasted notebook. One day, I was going to lay my hands on it and read what she wrote down every day
about me.

“I noticed the pile of notebooks on your desk earlier.” Nina laid down her pen and glanced behind her to where my
desk was.

My lips pursed. I didn’t want to talk about them. Not right now. Maybe after I’d read them. I was only ten years old when I wrote in the first journal, and who knows what I wrote then. The last thing I needed was for Nina to psychoan
alyze me.

“I want to go into work for a few hours tomorrow. I know it’s not on the schedule, but will you be around to watc
h Grace?”

The frown on Nina’s face sai
d it all.

“It’s just for a few hours, I
promise.”

“Don’t you think you should spend time with your sister? That’s why she’s here, af
ter all.”

I winced. She w
as right.

“I know, but…” I really couldn’t think of a vali
d excuse.

“Did something happen between you and Charlie? Is that why you’d rather go into work than spend time w
ith her?”

I shrugged my
shoulders.

“That’s not an answer
, Diane.”

I hated when Nina admonished me like that. It wasn’t just how she looked at me, with disappointment in her eyes. But it was her tone and the little sigh she gave before she asked me the
question.

I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to react with Charlie now, after everything that happened yesterday. Nor was I sure that she really wanted to spend time with me and Grace. Other than her holding Grace when she first arrived, she’d shown no real interest in my daughter, and I wasn’t sure how to handle that. I knew it was in large part due to her own personal fears and her engagement with Marcus, b
ut still.

“I feel like I need to show Charlie that I haven’t changed, that I’m still the big sister I’ve alw
ays been.”

Nina sipped at her tea and watched me from over the rim o
f the cup.

“So you think you’re showing her t
his, how?”

“I’m not.” I shook my head. “But I see it in her eyes, the way she watches me when she thinks I’m not
looking.”

“What is she looking for?” Nina reached for her pen and had it poised over the
notebook.

“To see if I’ve gone crazy. Like our mother did. I know she is, and I don’t know how to convince her I
’m fine.”

Nina stood up, walked over to my desk, and grabbed the journal from the top of the pile. I stiffened at her actions. What was s
he doing?

“Do you think you’ve gone crazy?” She sat back down and placed the journal b
etween us.

I fidgeted in my seat, unable to stay still. My arms were going numb so I flexed them, dropping them to my side and raising them over and over while wiggling my fingers. Nina just sat there and w
atched me.

“No, I don’t think so.” I scratched the top of my itchy eyelid and then rubbed my ear. All of a sudden I was itchy
all over.

“You don’t know or you don’t think so?” Nina picked up her
pen again.

“Stop writing about me in your notebook!” I
blurted.

Nina’s hand stilled. She set down the pen, closed the book, and folded her hands o
n her lap.

“What makes you think I was writing about you? Perhaps I was making a grocery list for all the baked goods I now have
to make.”

Embarrassed, I bowed my head and glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. I felt like I’d just gotten my hand slapped, like a small child reaching for a cookie after being told no. Except I wasn’t a child and I didn’t need to feel
that way.

“Diane, I couldn’t help but notice the journals on your desk.” Nina picked up the book but didn’t
open it.

Part of me was perturbed that she would go through my things, but another part of me expected it and was a bit relieved she’d done so. Maybe I could discuss this with her, talk about some of the symptoms my mother experienced, and find a way to discount Charlie
’s fears.

“My mother went…crazy after she gave birth to our baby brother. Back then”—I shrugged and stared down at the table, unwilling to see the reaction on Nina’s face—“there really was no way to get her any help or even realize she need
ed help.”

“How old w
ere you?”

“Not very old; it was before my tenth birthday.” I shook my head. “Young enough to not really understand what was going on. Charlie and I had just come home from school. Normally, our mom would be there to walk us home, but after Christopher was born, she had a neighbor meet us at school instead. Charlie was the one who found them. I’ll never forget her screams.” I shuddered at the memory
. “Never.”

“What happened?” Her voice was tender; I ignored the fact that her hand inched its way back to her
notebook.

“Go ahead and write…I know you want to.” I leaned forward and pushed it to
ward her.

I couldn’t believe I was going to share what happened with her. Brian knew, and I was sure he’d mentioned something to Nina before he left for London, but other than Charlie, Aunt Mags, and the counselor I saw during those early years, I hadn’t told anyone else. No one else needed to know. Walter knew I’d lost my mother at an early age and that she’d died with my younger brother, but tha
t was it.

I felt safe with Nina. I trusted her with my life. With Grac
e’s life.

I licked my lips and cleared
my throat.

“She was in her rocking chair and Christopher was in her lap. His head was cushioned on her arm but his lips and face were all blue. On the side table was a glass of water and an empty pill bottle and a note. They said…” I winced at the pain as I struggled to swallow. “They said she suffocated him while she nursed him and then overdosed when she realized what she’d done.” I tilted my head up to stare at the ceiling and blinked past the swell of tears in my eyes. I was not going to cry.
I wasn’t.

“Who’s
they
, Diane?” N
ina asked.

“The police. I can still hear Charlie’s screams, you know. I wish…God, I wish I had gone to check on the baby first. It’s what we did every day after school. We couldn’t wait to see him. But they’d handed out little trees at school and I wanted to put mine in a cup of water so it wouldn’t dry.” I shook my head at the memory. “It’s funny the things you remember, those details that really don’t matter in the scheme of
things.”

“They do
matter.”

“We were only kids. We had no idea what happened. Our neighbor must have heard Charlie’s screams, because she was the one to call the police. I remember one of the officers talking to his partner and calling my brother a victim. I was standing right beside him, beside Christopher; I refused to leave him. I kept my eyes on him, to see if his lips would move, to see if he would come back to life. I prayed while we waited, prayed that God would save him…and I waited. But God never answered. I told the officer his name was Christopher and that was the last thing I said fo
r months.”

Nina laid down her pen and crossed
her legs.

“You didn’
t speak?”

I shook
my head.

“Neither one of us did. Counselor said we were in shock and told our Aunt Mags to love us and once we felt safe, we’d talk. And we did. Eventually. It took Charlie si
x months.

“This is how we spoke.” I picked up the journal and held it tight to my chest. “Between the two of us, I’m sure we went through fifty or more journals. Charlie was around six years old, and she couldn’t print very well, so she’d draw lots of pictures. But I would spend hours writing. I’d lock myself away in our room with Mags and pour out all my thoughts, my questions, my dreams, in these books.” I pressed the book harder into my chest and the edges dug into m
y breasts.

“What was on t
he note?”

The note. I shook my head. I didn’t want to talk about the note. I’d tried to hide it beneath the mattress of Christopher’s crib before anyone else saw it, but the neighbor caught me and snatched it from my fingers. She’d given it to the police officers, who’d then shown the note to my father. It was the look on his face, the despair, the confusion, and even a hint of hatred when he looked at both Charlie and me, that scared me the most. I think that was why it didn’t surprise me when he’d dropped us off at Aunt Mags’s and never
returned.

He blamed us for what happened, and he
was right.

It was
our fault.

“You don’t remember, or you don’t want to talk a
bout it?”

“It’s not really that important,” I hedged. I really didn’t want to talk
about it.

“So, why bring out the journals? Did Charlie want to see them or are you looking for something in particular?” Thankfully, she got the hint. That was one thing I loved about Nina. She knew when not to push. Although I had no doubt she’d try to get me to talk about it another way. Just like now, she kept going back to the
journals.

“Charlie brought them.” I motioned to the box I’d set to the side. “She asked if I would recognize the signs of postpartum psychosis, and I told her
I would.”

“
But…”

“But I’m not so sure. I thought maybe the answers would be here, in my childish scribblings. Maybe I’d be able to recognize what happened to force my mom to kill our brother and then
herself.”

“Are you
worried?”

Was I worried? Good question. Worried for Charlie, maybe. I wanted to reassure her that she wouldn’t be alone, that I would be there for her. But that wasn’t the whole tru
th either.

“Do you think you have postpartum psychosis, Diane? Are you trying to find symptoms you might share with your
mother?”

Share. What a word. How did you share symptoms with someone who was dead? With someone who lived a different life from the one you led? Could I share these symptoms? I had one child. She had three. We were both basically single parents. But that’s as far as the similarit
ies went.

“No.” There was a difference between my mothe
r and me.

I would never harm Grace. Ever. No matter what. I would never place blame on her tiny little shoulders for something I couldn’t handle. She was innocent, and I would do everything in my power to keep her
that way.

“Then what are you looking for?” Nina gathered up our empty cups and placed them on
the tray.

“Reassurance, maybe? That I would know what to look for, just
in case.”

Nina stood up and grabbed hold of the tray’
s handles.

“I won’t ever let anything happen to you, Diane. I made you a promise that first day I came here. You are my priority. That includes your well-being, not only physically but mentally too. There’s nothing I won’t do for you.” There was a determination to her stance. Her shoulders were pushed back and her knuckles whitened as she held
the tray.

Relief washed over me at her words. I didn’t realize how tense I was until I let out a deep breath. I wasn’t sure what brought on such fierce devotion from Nina, but whatever it was, the journal dropped from my hands as I pushed myself out of my chair, grabbed the tray, and set it down before putting my arms around her. I held on as if she were my lifeline, and to be honest, I though
t she was.

“We’ll get through this,” Nina murmured as she patted my back. “I promise you we’ll get throu
gh this.”

I didn’t answer her. I wasn’t sure what she was referring to, unless she knew something I didn’t, but at that moment it didn
’t matter.

Nina was more to me than just a nurse or a nanny. She was like a mother to me and I never wanted to let g
o of that.

Never.