The Memory Thief (25 page)

It was a full bed, the size that me and Janie used to share. Only this one was high off the floor, with what looked like two mattresses stacked together. There was a wooden headboard,
carved with a lacy pattern, at the top. And four posts rising toward the ceiling from each of its corners. Lace, thick and
stained the color of tea, fell from somewhere beneath the mattress all the way to the floor. It hid the wires and springs
and bolts that held the bed together. An ivory quilt, simple but thick, covered the top, with two pillows tucked beneath.
And propped against the headboard, a small square cushion made of matching tea-stained lace.

“Is this satisfactory?”

I thought she had left. I thought she had finished her list of rules and closed the door behind her. But she was standing
in the hall, the door halfway closed, her hand still on the knob.

She had watched me step toward the bed. Watched me peer under it to see the metal bolts and make certain it didn’t float.
She had watched me run my hand down the smooth quilt, pick it up between my fingers to test its heaviness. She watched me
stare at the lace throw pillow. Raise my hands to my mouth in awe, as I wondered whether to cuss, pray, or salute.

I nodded.

“Your uniform is in the closet. Change before dinner.” I listened for the door to close. Sat down at the edge of the bed,
my back stiff, my feet braced firmly against the floor like I was ready to run.

The first night in Black Snake trailer, me and Janie slept on the floor. I woke all through the night, worried the rats would
come back. Worried the dead snake would return. But after so many nights curled up on the floor of Daddy’s car, it was sweet
luxury to stretch my legs. By the end of the summer, we slept on a mattress that Mrs. Swarm threw out. Daddy dragged it to
our room, and we jumped on it like little girls would. When summer ended and the nights grew cool, we could feel the chill
sneaking up through that thin metal floor and into our mattress.

Janie dragged six cinder blocks inside. She spaced them underneath so that the mattress was several inches off the ground.
If we laid still enough at night and held our bodies in just the right angles, then it wouldn’t sag and dip between the blocks.

Someone knocked at the door. “Dinner in ten minutes.”

I walked to the closet and found a floor-length black skirt, a gray tunic, and a white apron with a matching headcap. I dressed
slowly, unsure of where everything went, how it all fit together. Even in a Tennessee winter, I’d never worn so much. I wished
for a mirror as I struggled to pull my hair into the headcap. The girl in me, the one that watched Momma lean so sexy against
that green car, cursed that outfit. Even though I knew it was a costume. Something I had to wear, had to hide myself in, until
I found better.

At the dinner table an ivory card was placed before every seat. Names were handwritten across them. And silver flashed everywhere.
Forks and spoons and knives circled every plate. I wondered how many of those Janie would have tried to steal.

The old woman nodded and pointed to my seat. I sat as others, guests and uniformed workers like me, came to the table. An
old man, not as straight or poised as the woman, shuffled into the room. He sat down at the head of the table. His hands shook
as he unfolded his napkin and laid it across his lap. The old woman reached down, helped smooth the napkin. Motioned for the
kitchen women to begin dinner service.

The guests were served first. Each dish presented, described, and then spooned onto individual plates. The women worked quickly, and soon I had a plate of roast chicken and vegetables. A bread basket was passed around.

“Lord, we ask thee to bless this food,” the old woman said. Others whispered
Amen
, and everyone began to eat. The old woman began to cut up the old man’s food. She placed the fork in his hand, helped wrap
his fingers around the handle. He dropped it. She picked it up for him, wrapped his fingers around it again.

Guests were talking about hiking. About how beautiful the mountains were in fall. They planned an afternoon picnic by a waterfall
nearby.

“I’m Tabby,” the woman next to me said.

“Angel.”

“So, what’re you in here for?” She laughed. “It’s the joke we tell all newcomers.”

“Oh.”

“I mean if we hadn’t messed up somehow, we wouldn’t all be desperate for room and board.”

“I’m not here for long.”

“We all said that once. You’ll change your mind. Sure, the routine here is borin’. The silence will drive you nuts. The clothes
are shameful, they’re so ugly. But it’s safe. You wake up knowin’ what to expect. Go to bed warm and full, and most importantly,
go to bed alone. I didn’t have that luxury before I came here.”

“I just need a place to stay for a while.”

“Runaway?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re our first. We’ve got battered wives. Addicts. Homeless bums. And hookers like me. Nice to have you, Runaway.”

“Thanks.”

“The old woman means business about her rules. But in time, we’ll teach you the secrets. We have a bit of fun in spite of
her.”

“Who’s he?”

“The old man? Her husband. Stroked out a few years ago. He keeps to himself, reads all day long in a study at the end of Bedroom
Hall. Supposedly, he was a genius once. There’s a book of newspaper stories about him. Now he just shuffles and reads.”

Our eyes met. I held his gaze and noticed that unlike his wife, his eyes weren’t busy. They were just sad. They rested against
mine.

Women emerged from the kitchen, served coffee and passed a plate of sugar cookies. As the guests drifted into the Great Room,
we began to clear the dishes. I turned around and found the old man standing next to me. He reached a shaking hand out. I
thought he was trying to introduce himself, so I reached my hand to meet his.

“My name’s Angel.”

But he grabbed my hair. Held it up so that the light could shine across it.

“Sorry, couldn’t fit it all under the cap.”

The old woman hurried over and grabbed his arm. “I’ll help you to your study.” She turned to me as he walked ahead of her
through the door.

“Angel?” she asked.

“Yeah?”

“Your bed… the quilt on it, on every bed here, is hand-made.”

I looked at the ground.

“Perhaps, you’ll learn how. I can always use another seam-stress.”

I cleared the dishes. Mopped the floor the way Tabby showed me. Then we straightened the sitting room together. After our
chores were complete, Tabby led me down Bedroom Hall.

“He lost a daughter,” Tabby said about the old man. “Sometimes he cries out for her before the old woman can hush him.” She
stopped and put her hand on my shoulder.

“Listen, Angel, if there’s somethin’ you need, somethin’ you can’t do without, I’m the one to bargain with around here. I’ve
got ways around all of her rules. And I always like to give my new customers a welcome present. So name your poison. What
do you need?”

“There is one thing…,” I whispered lowly.

Later that night I couldn’t sleep. I had never been more comfortable. My body full of healthy food. Wrapped in soft blankets.
But my mind was busy like the old woman’s eyes. Going over every little piece of my day. From the new brochure down in my
pocket to the old man holding my hair up to the light.

The moon was nearly full, and its light spilled in from the window. I noticed a carving above the door. The same as in the
kitchen.
And having food and raiment, let us be therewith content…

Whispering the words over and over didn’t help me sleep. Neither did trying to make a plan for finding you. I went to the
closet. Reached inside for the whiskey that was Tabby’s welcome present. I drank from it and returned to bed soothed by the
familiar burn in my throat. I closed my eyes as the room spun pleasantly around me. “Tell me of your table,” the old woman
said.

It was a trailer floor. I sat a cupcake on it once, while Janie sang and Momma lit the candle with her cigarette lighter.
It was the brown earth of a bacca field. I hid snacks from school under the baby spring leaves. They could last me till mid-June.

I shifted in the bed until my body found its familiar angle, the one that kept my old mattress from sagging between cinder
blocks.
Tell me of your table
, she repeated.
Did it have… scratches?
Yes. The day the milk spilled. I sat at a graying picnic table beneath a famous sycamore tree. The table was scarred and
weathered like an old barn. I looked up and saw bark peeling off the tree in slabs. I wiped milk from my face and called the
tree Sister. Bark yields to a rising trunk. It hurts to grow.

Within a week I finished my welcome whiskey. After one sleepless night, I became one of Tabby’s customers. Money was as important
at Red Castle as any other place. None of us earned real cash. But we all had things we wanted to buy and things to offer
in exchange. The alley was our marketplace. As we stuffed meals into our mouths we whispered desires. Cigarettes for some.
They’d pretend to enjoy a hike when all their chores were done. But they walked just far enough to keep the smell of smoke
from reaching the house. Magazines for others. Dressed like pilgrims, some of the girls still longed to know the latest fashion
and gossip. Lotions and lip gloss for Shari. Her hands and lips chapped from kitchen heat. One girl just ordered candy. Bubble
gum and Kit Kat bars. The men ordered the same as me:
Whiskey, please.

Tabby jotted down our orders on a scrap of paper and handed it to the mailman each Friday. He’d tuck a parcel underneath a
garden rock for her. She paid him in her own way. And we paid her. Each of us shared a portion of our loot, so Tabby enjoyed
everything. Cigarettes, magazines, lotions, candy, and whiskey. We also gave her our break times as we covered her chores
for her. And we’d lie for her.

“Where’s Tabitha?” the old woman once asked me.

“Her stomach wasn’t feelin’ right. She ran up a few minutes ago to lay a cold washcloth to her head. I think she may have
the milk allergy. Seems every time she puts cream in her coffee that happens.”

“Let me know if she doesn’t return.”

But Tabby was on a date with the gardener. Shari had packed them a picnic basket. I had loaned her my cutoffs. She wore them
beneath her gray tunic and long black skirt. In return, I sipped whiskey and slept again.

My days of work were easy. Mop a floor, dust some shelves. Make sure my apron was never spotted with food or dirt. The rules
were easy, too. Rising at dawn wasn’t hard when hot coffee and pastries, sometimes fruit salad and eggs, were waiting downstairs.
I gained weight. Always skinny like Momma, I soon had to squeeze into my cutoffs every morning. But I always wore them, unless
Tabby needed them, beneath my long black skirt. I kept my pocket treasure close.

It was easy to keep quiet, too. The rule of silence was a welcome one. I nodded as guests filed past, but never tried to choke
out
Good mornin’
. And I didn’t have to tell anyone why I signed the Appalachian Ancestry book out from the sitting room. I searched the index,
looking for the history of a family named Ray.

During my first two weeks there, I rarely saw the old woman. Most of the daily management was left up to Shari. But one morning
the old woman came to me as I dusted the sitting room.

“Follow me.”

She led me to the library. Sat down and pointed to a chair for me. She pulled fabric from a basket on the floor.

“Can you learn?”

“What?”

“If I showed you the stitches, would you pick it up quickly or struggle? It’s best to answer this now before we waste each
other’s time.”

“I taught my own self to read. Years after the teachers gave up.”

“It’s a simple stitch. I’ll be doing all the actual quilting.” Her fingers lined up the edges of two squares of fabric. She
pressed patterned sides together while I knelt before her, watching as she sewed a straight row of stitches a pencil’s width
from the edge. “This is piecing,” she said. “A perfect place for a beginning quilter to start.”

And that’s how our mornings together in the library began. After breakfast, and after I delivered trays down Bedroom Hall
and dusted the small sitting room, she would find me.

Fresh fabric always waited for me in the basket. I wasn’t quilting. Or making long hems of lace, the way her old fingers did.
But I was still creating. Taking scraps that were nothing alone and putting them together to make something new. To make something
warm.

“You know many people on this mountain?” I dared to ask one day.

“Can you work
and
talk?”

“Long as I don’t look up.”

“Very well. I know a few business owners that I purchase supplies from.”

“I’m lookin’ for a family named Ray. They live on this mountain, or around it somewhere.”

“I don’t know them.”

“Where should I start?”

“You should pray.”

I looked up. My sewing fell to my lap.

“Please attend your stitching,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“Have you never?” she asked, minutes later.

I thought of Daddy. “I’ve prayed a few times. Didn’t help none.”

“Then recite the line carved above your door until your desire to find something God has not brought subsides.”

“ ‘Havin’ food and raiment let us be therewith content.’ ”

She nodded. “Angel, everybody comes here wanting. The guests want
peace. The workers want refuge.”

My stitches were crooked. I ripped them out and started over.

“I call this a mountain sanctuary, and that is my goal. But I know the truth. This place, it’s the House of Wanting. Everybody’s
aching like you. Everybody’s searching like you. My hope is that with time those words above your door will become real. They
will bring you peace, even through your wanting. They will remind you that a full belly and warm skin are tender mercies from
God. Who are we to ask for other happiness?”

That day, my question opened something between us. From then on, she didn’t comment on stitching patterns anymore or the scratchy
feel of new fabric. Instead she asked about my life at Red Castle. If I had noticed the pattern of frost on the alley windows
in the morning. If I enjoyed the apple strudel that Shari had baked. If I knew those apples were raised in the back orchard.
If I had studied the book of Appalachian birds in the Great Room.