The Memory Thief (32 page)

We've been back in Boulder for almost fifteen hours before I work up the temerity to face J. C. At last I call Jill Sutherland, Aspen's mom, and ask her if she wouldn't mind taking Gabe for a little while, so I can get some stuff done. I don't specify further, and Jill doesn't ask. Luckily she's free, and Gabe is over the moon, which he thinks Aspen hung. So I drop Gabe off at their house, and he runs inside, heading straight for Aspen's Wii.

“I'll bring him back at one, after lunch,” Jill says. “That'll give you about three hours. Does that work?”

“Perfect,” I tell her, and I mean it. I give her a hug—she always smells so good, like apples—and yell goodbye to Gabe. Then I get back in my car and drive down Arapahoe Road toward J. C.'s little house.

On the front porch, I hesitate for a moment, the drawings clutched in one hand. I take a deep breath. And then I knock.

“Coming,” I hear J. C. yell. “Hang on.” The door swings open, and then he's standing there in front of me, shirtless, wearing the drawstring pants he slept in at my house. His hair's a mess, his cheeks and chin are covered in dark stubble, and he's wearing his glasses, which I've hardly ever seen him do. They're round and silver-rimmed. He gapes at me like he's not sure I'm real.

“Hi,” I say, when it's clear he's not going to say anything.

He's got his hand on the door frame, his arm blocking my passage, and he doesn't let it drop. “What are you doing here?” he says, in a tone that borders on hostile.

I knew he was mad, but I didn't expect a reception quite this chilly. “I came home,” I say. “Like I said I would.”

“You said a lot of things.” The expression of surprise has faded from his features now, replaced with a blend of suspicion and defensiveness.

“Can I come in?”

“If you want.” He folds his arms over his chest and stands aside to let me pass. His house isn't a wreck, but it's not as neat as usual, either. His Vans are underneath the coffee table, his blue fleece is draped over the arm of the couch, and his guitar is lying across the cushions. There's a half-finished TV dinner on the coffee table, which surprises me more than anything else. In all the time I've known J. C., I've never seen him eat a frozen dinner.

He follows my gaze and gives me a tight, humorless grin. “Sorry it's not up to my usual standards. I haven't been in the mood to clean.”

“What mood have you been in, then?”

“Reflective,” he says. “Realistic.” He sits down in the middle of the couch and grabs the guitar, pulling it into his lap. As I contemplate whether to take a seat on the floor, squeeze in next to him on the couch, or not sit down at all, he starts strumming some chords. “So,” he says. “What can I do for you? Did you come back to drag me over the coals some more?”

This is not what I expected him to say, and I don't have a good rejoinder. In the silence that follows, he starts humming, then singing—not loudly, just sort of as background music. The words sound familiar—something about how the days are gone when the ladies said please—but I am not paying that much attention.

“I live here,” I say. “And I came over to talk to you.”

“About what? Kissed any new guys lately? Care to share?”

“Don't be like this, J. C.”

“Like what?” he says, looking up from his guitar.

“Like you hate me,” I say, biting my lip.

“I don't hate you, sweetheart,” he says, and the way it comes out of his mouth, it sounds more like an epithet than an endearment. “I've just opened my eyes a little bit, that's all. I've got a clearer view of the way things are.”

“And how are they?” I try to keep my voice level, but it's hard, because I'm shaking. Whatever's going on here, it isn't good.

“We should never have … done what we did. It was a mistake,” he says. “You were a mess, and I took advantage of that. I don't know what was in my head, thinking we could be together. Let's just chalk it up to survivor lust and leave it at that, what do you say?”

Now it's my turn to gape at him. This is so close to what I planned to tell him before I left that I can't think how to respond. While I stand there, eyes wide, he fills the silence with another verse of the damn song—this one about brown-eyed women and red grenadine. I still can't place it, although I'm sure I've heard it before.

“It wasn't like that,” I say.

“Sure it was. And that's okay. You can go home. No strings.”

“What if I don't want to go home?” I say. My stomach is churning, and my hands are like ice. Of all the ways I imagined our reunion scene would play out, this version wasn't even in the running.

“Then I don't know what to tell you.” He strums some more. “It wasn't meant to be, Maddie. We had our chance six years ago. Now, it is what it is. No point trying to build a fire from ashes, right?”

“Don't I get a say in this?” I ask him. “What about what I want?”

For the first time I see anger glint in his eyes. “Haven't you said enough?” he says. “You got something to add?”

“Actually, I do.” I hold the drawings out to him. “I need to show you something.”

“What are those?”

“They're pictures.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Pictures of what?”

“They're pictures of the same thing. Drawn by two different people.”

“You gonna fill me in, or do I need to drag it out of you?”

“You could stop that for a moment and look. It wouldn't kill you.” I gesture at the guitar, at his fingers on the strings.

“Nope,” he says, impassive. “I've been working on this song all week.”

I am tempted to snatch the guitar out of his hands and smash it to bits on the coffee table. “Fine. Gabriel drew one of the pictures. The other, Nicholas drew. They were in totally separate places, but they drew the same thing, at about the same time. And if you would just look at them, I think you'd see how incredible this whole thing is. First, that Gabriel could draw something like this at all. Second, the drawings look just like the ones Aidan used to do. And third, there's stuff written on them that I think you'd be pretty interested in, if you'd just take a look.”

“Jesus Christ, Maddie. Not this ridiculous
Tales from the Crypt
bullshit again.” He strums the guitar so loudly, I jump. “I'm thrilled your new boyfriend drew you a pretty picture, and that he and Gabe have so much in common. Take ‘em home and frame ‘em, why don't you, instead of showing them to me?”

I haven't lost my temper in so long, but I am close to it now. “Damnit, J. C.!” I say, and my voice is sharp. “Nicholas is not my boyfriend. We kissed. Once. Which I wish I had never told you about, based on your psychotic reaction. And now he's gone back to North Carolina, where he came from. I don't expect I'll ever see him again, for your information. Nor do I need to. I came home to see
you,
among other things, which I am now beginning to sorely regret.”

Silence follows my outburst. Then J. C. says, “He's gone?”

“Yes,” I say. “Is that what your problem is? Are you
jealous
?”

“Of course not,” he says after a pause. “I told you, you and I were a mistake. Why would I be jealous?”

Why, indeed. “Then what is wrong with you?”

“Nothing is wrong with me, Maddie. I'm fine, just like always.”

“Yeah,” I say, waving my hand at the messy room, the TV dinner, his less than stellar ensemble, his unshaved face. “You're doing great.”

“What can I say? We can't all go gallivanting off to the Big Apple to have a fling every time our lives fall apart. Some of us need to stick around town and deal with it.”

“That's not fair,” I say, so loudly it cuts across the strumming. Rage bubbles up in my throat.

“All's fair, apparently.”

“Cut it
out,
J. C.!” I am now so infuriated that I stamp my foot, like a toddler having a tantrum.

“I thought I had.”

“You're obviously angry at me,” I say, and my voice is as level as his. “Why don't you say what you're really thinking? Why do you have to be so damn calm all the time?”

“I did say what I'm really thinking, Maddie. You just don't want to listen.”

I glare at him so hard it feels like my eyes are throwing sparks, but he is unimpressed. Instead, he launches into the next verse of the song, taking his time with each syllable.

There's no talking to him when he's like this, and moreover, I don't want to. “You're being a jerk, and I'm leaving,” I tell him, tossing the drawings on the coffee table.

“Take those,” he says. “I don't want them.”

“Why don't I leave them here, in case you change your mind?”

“Suit yourself,” he says, and when I turn to walk out the door, he doesn't get up. Like Orpheus, I refuse to turn around; I'm afraid that if I do, I will start begging him to believe me, to look at me the way he used to. So I gather my dignity around me like a cloak, trying to make it as impregnable as the air of detachment and resolution that surrounds him, and I turn and walk away. I can feel his eyes on me now, and I hope he'll come after me or call my name, but he doesn't. Instead he just sits there on the couch, playing his damn guitar. And that is where my resemblance to Orpheus ends. I keep walking and I don't look back.

It's not until I slam the front door behind me that I remember: The night Aidan kissed Kate, when J. C. followed me outside and we were standing on the sidewalk, we heard a guy singing this song. It's “Brown-Eyed Women,” by the Grateful Dead. I even remember being surprised that I recalled the lyrics, since it had been such a long time since I'd heard them.

I'm sure J. C. remembers this, too, and I'm equally sure that he's chosen this song on purpose. It occurs to me that maybe he's trying to tell me that we've come full circle, back to where we started. That we've gone as far as we can, only to find our way back to the beginning.

Through the door I can still hear him singing. I force myself to stand there and listen.

Finally the song ends and there is only silence. There's nothing left to do then but get into my car, crying so hard I can barely see, and drive home to face the mess I've made.

Once I get to my house, the only thing I want to do is curl up in bed and pull the covers over my head. I don't do this, though, for several reasons. First of all, it would be childish, not to mention unproductive. And second of all, if I crawled under the quilt, only to discover that the sheets and pillowcases still held J. C.'s scent, there's no telling what would happen to my already fragile emotional state. So instead I sit on the edge of the mattress, watching the numbers flip over on the alarm clock and wondering what I will do if I have to face losing both Aidan and J. C. in such a short period of time. Anger wells up in me—not just for the way J. C. acted today, but because I remember what he said to me the first night we were together—
I'm right here, Madeleine. I'm not going anywhere. I promise.
Even though I know it's ridiculous to hold him to something he said in the middle of sex, I realize now that I counted on him to keep his word. I needed to believe that he would always be there for me, no matter what. Now he's reneged, and I feel not just furious, but abandoned and betrayed.

I sit with that feeling for a minute, there on the edge of the bed. And slowly it dawns on me that I took J. C. for granted. The more I think about it, the more I realize how unfair it was for me to call him that night after Nicholas left. I should have called Jos, Lucy, my mother, anyone else, if I needed to speak to someone so badly. It doesn't matter that he was the only person I wanted to talk to, the only one whose voice I wanted to hear. I think about the time we stood in my kitchen, when he told me that he wanted me, sure, but he never meant for it to happen like this. I remember the way his dark eyes filled with tears, and how hard he fought to hold them back so I wouldn't see. The feeling of selfishness that filled me then sweeps through my body with renewed intensity. It settles in my stomach, a gut-wrenching guilt. I was so overwhelmed by the things Nicholas said, the way he touched me, the way he looked at me, that I never wondered how hearing about what happened would affect J. C. I wonder if he thinks that I only turned to him after Aidan died because I was lonely, that anyone would do and he just happened to be there. After all, how could I expect him to believe what transpired, with Nicholas's appearance and Gabe's dreams? I hardly believe it myself, and I have the proof. Of course, now so does he—not that he's willing to consider it.

When I think back on all of my memories of J. C.—and there are so many; in almost all but the most private memories of me and Aidan together, he is there, climbing, joking, telling stories, helping Gabe build a fort for his Star Wars guys from scrap wood off one of his jobs, teaching me to bake bread from scratch at high altitude—I only recall one other time that he sounded so aloof, so cold. The day he kissed me in the kitchen of the old house, and he and Aidan got into that fight, his tone had the same taunting edge, that same indifference that sidestepped into cruelty. I haven't heard him sound that way before or since, and never when he was talking to me.
Selfish,
I think again, and lower my head into my hands. It's a good thing that Gabe is over at Aspen's, because I don't want him to see me like this. Tears streak down my face, slip between my fingers.

Of course, the moment that I entertain this thought, I hear a car pull up in the driveway. I figure it's Jill, bringing Gabe back early, and I rocket to my feet, heading to the bathroom to splash water on my face. A quick glance in the mirror shows me that there's no way to hide the fact that I've been crying. My eyes are red-rimmed, and I look as desolate as I feel. Still, I give it my best shot; I pat my face dry, pull a brush through my hair, and head toward the door just as someone knocks.

“Just a second,” I call, tugging my clothes into place. I open the door wide—and then I just stand there, stunned by a sudden sense of déjà vu. On my porch is J. C., and he doesn't look a whole lot better than I do.

“Um,” he says.

I step outside and close the door behind me. Then I take a good look at him. He's changed clothes, into shorts and a forest-green T-shirt with Arete Films printed on it in white, above the peak of a mountain. He's tamed his hair and put in his contacts, but he hasn't shaved. And just like last time, he looks exhausted.

He's got the drawings in one of his hands, dangling down by his side. Maybe he has come to give them back? But that doesn't make sense. Why would he drive all the way over here just for that? I force air into my lungs, down my throat so I can speak. “What?” I say.

He shifts from one foot to the other. “I need to talk to you.”

“Oh no you don't,” I say. “You've said plenty. Really.” The rage I felt before is simmering below the surface, just waiting for a target. “If you came here to tell me how not-meant-for-each-other we are, don't bother. I got your point, loud and clear.”

“That's not why I'm here,” he says. “At least, not entirely.”

“Why, then?” I do my best to keep my voice from trembling and giving me away. I'm trying to sound icy, like he did this morning—which I'm normally good at; it's my default mode when angered or wronged—but somehow I can't summon the necessary grit.

J. C. takes a step back anyway, and he flinches like I've hit him where it hurts. “Where's Gabe?” he asks.

“At Aspen's. He'll be back pretty soon, so whatever you've got to say, go ahead and get it over with.” I struggle to imbue my tone with some bravado, and have what feels at least like moderate success.

He rubs the flat of his free hand over his shirt. “Just let me talk to you, Maddie.” When I don't say anything he steps closer again, so we're almost touching. “Please,” he says, and I can hear the pain in his voice. I've never heard J. C. beg before, but that's what he's doing, all right.

“I don't know if I want to hear anything you've got to say,” I tell him, lifting my chin. “Where is there to go, conversationally, after telling someone that they were a mistake?”

“Okay, I deserve that. I owe you an apology.” He's still an inch away from me, and the door is at my back, so I can't retreat. “I'm sorry,” he says, his eyes locked on mine. “I shouldn't have spoken to you like that. It was inexcusable, no matter how I felt. I was wrong and I'm sorry.”

“Okay,” I say. “You apologized. So now you can go.”

“No, I can't.” There's an odd finality to his tone.

Gabe will be back soon, and I have no desire to be embroiled in this discussion when he arrives. “What do you
want,
J. C.? Just spit it out already.”

Wordlessly, he holds the drawings up so I can see them. He shakes them a little, then harder, so I'm afraid the paper will rip. “What the fuck are these? Is this just you messing with my head?”

“No,” I say. “It happened like I said. Nicholas drew one, and Gabe drew the other.”

“I'm listening.”

“It was the next morning. After we talked, you know? I went outside to get the mail, and Nicholas was sitting on the stoop. He handed me the drawing, and he told me he'd had another dream about Aidan, that he sat and talked with him, in our backyard in Boulder. In the dream, Aidan said to tell you that the universe wasn't so fucked-up after all. That you deserved to be happy, and to take care of me.” I decide to leave out the rest of it, about Aidan's threat to “haunt his sorry ass.” “He said Aidan drew this.” I gesture at the picture of me and Gabe and J. C., set against a detailed mountain scene. J. C. is still holding the drawing up, and I watch as the plateau, the crags, the sun all shift to form the features of Aidan's face. “Where is it?” I ask. “Do you know?”

“McKinley, en route to the South Summit,” J. C. says in a wooden voice. “That's how it looked, the morning he died. Just like that. You look close here”—he points—“you can even see the fracture line.”

“Oh,” I say, and I can feel the blood draining from my face.

“And this”—he points at something I hadn't noticed—“what is this supposed to be?”

I lean in closer, and see something that, at first glance, I'd mistaken for part of the mountain's upper slope. “It looks like an
X.
Or a cross, maybe. Why, what do you think it is?”

“I don't really want to say.”

“Oh, for God's sake, J. C. Just tell me.”

“Fine. That spot, right there … it's where we thought A. J. should've ended up, after we took a good look at the fall line. The team dug there for hours. We didn't find anything, but I still thought … well, anyhow.” He shifts his weight. “It's where I would've started looking, when we went back next year. It's the first place.”

“Oh,” I say again, and even though it's August, a chill sweeps through me. “You think that's where his body is?”

He shrugs. “How should I know? It would make sense though.”

I am still trying to process this gruesome, miraculous bit of information when J. C. plows onward. “What does this mean?” He taps the line of text, written in Aidan's handwriting.

“It's just … something he used to say to me. Something private.”

For a second I think he's going to ask me to explain, but he thinks better of it. “And this?” he says, switching the pictures around so I can see the one Gabe drew, with its bright Crayola colors.

“Nicholas left, like I told you, and I went back inside, to check on Gabe. He'd been sleeping when I went out. When I came back he was awake, and he said he had something for me. And then he handed me that picture.”

“You expect me to believe that Gabe drew this?” He shakes the picture again. From the look on his face, he'd prefer to be shaking me instead.

“I don't expect you to do anything. But it's the truth.” I clear my throat. “I told you he had that dream, before Aidan … before you called me that night. And then I guess he had two more … and he drew this. Or someone did, anyhow.”

He underscores the lines of poetry. “What about these?”

“Hold on a second,” I say, and I pull the door open.

“Where are you going?”

“I'll be right back. Just wait.”

“Out here?” He sounds exasperated.

“Just hold on.” I go inside, into my room, and locate the drawing Aidan did all those years ago at Wildacres. It's pressed between two books on my bedside table. Then I smooth it carefully and carry it outside for J. C. to look at.

He frowns when I hand it to him. “I could've done without erotic imagery of you and A. J.”

“Forget about that for a minute,” I say. “Look at what he wrote.”

His eyebrows drawing down in displeasure, J. C. complies. I see the shock come over his face when he reads the lines of poetry at the bottom of the page. “Oh,” he says. “Oh, hell.”

“My thoughts exactly. And I'll tell you something else. Nicholas wrote down his name and his phone number for me before he left, and his handwriting looks nothing like Aidan's. Not only that, but the piece of paper he wrote it on looks just like the other one he gave me, with the picture. They've both got that red margin, those wide lines, like they were torn from the same pad.”

“He gave you his phone number?” J. C. says, looking more displeased than ever.

I sigh. “Yes, he did. Are you going to have a conniption about that, too? We had a really weird experience. It would've been even weirder for him to disappear into the ether, like none of it ever happened.”

J. C. opens his mouth, shuts it again, and finally decides to let the subject drop. “When did A. J. do this?” he says, tapping the drawing of the tree.

“The night we met. I guess it was his way of asking me … well, you know.” I blush. “But anyway, he wrote those lines on there. And then when I told Aidan I'd marry him, he said them out loud to me. They're from a poem by Andrew Marvell. I don't know if you know it.”

“‘Were there but world enough, and time,'” J. C. says. “Sure. A. J. and I read it in English class our senior year. You would've thought the teacher had passed out
Playboy
or something. He liked that poem. I remember.”

“Gabe can't even read, J. C., not beyond super-basic stuff like
See Spot Run.
How he wrote this … much less how he drew the same thing Nicholas did, with the details, and the picture of the mountain … I have no idea. He said his daddy did it, and it looks just like Aidan's handwriting. Either way, it made a believer out of me. And it made me decide to come home.”

“I don't believe in any of this shit.” He bites out each word. “I was raised Catholic, just like A. J., sure. But I never … I don't understand.”

“Maybe you don't have to,” I say. “Maybe you just have to accept.”

He puts the three drawings together, flattens out the wrinkles. “Can I ask you something, Maddie?”

“Go ahead.”

“When you say he kissed you like A. J. did … did you mean that?”

“Yes,” I say after a pause. “Just like him. Like he was saying goodbye.”

“You weren't just bullshitting me?”

“I wouldn't do that. Not about something like this. And I don't just kiss strange guys out of the blue, J. C. I would never …” My voice trails off.

“I don't know what to make of all this,” he says. “But I'm willing to be open-minded.”

“That's a start.”

“Which brings me to the other thing I have to say.”

“I'm all ears.” I lean back against the door.

“Can I please come in, Maddie? I'd prefer not to have this discussion on your front porch. It won't take long.”

I swing the door inward and gesture for him to enter. “Thanks,” he says as he steps over the threshold, careful not to touch me. He walks into the kitchen and sinks into one of the chairs, pulling the other one out for me with his foot.