“I remember all the wrong things.”
“What do you remember?”
“For one thing, I don’t remember who you are.”
“That’s okay. I’m Josh, your great grandson. But what do you remember?”
“I remember Nora and the week I spent with her in a tent made of bedclothes.”
My granddaughter looks at her wristwatch and it is time for them to go. I do not blame either of them. I am a very old woman now, perhaps older than I even realize. The days speed by in blurs; I can close my eyes to sneeze and a month will have passed. There are only a few mirrors in the nursing home. If there were more I think we’d all be shocked at our color-drained eyes peeking out from nests of wrinkles to see bodies attached to wheelchairs and only fifty white hairs on each head. Every morning I look down at my hands, expecting to see the smooth peach I knew so well and every morning I’m surprised to see a map of creases formed over eighty-seven years.
When they are gone I am wheeled to a room washed in a flickering blue from a television set. The game show makes no sense to me so I whisper out my memories. If I say them enough I’ll remember more. And if I remember more I’ll remember more of the things I should.
“I remember day camp in July. I remember being paired with a girl I thought was a boy in the three-legged race. I remember our introductions went ‘I’m Poesy and I’m 12’, and ‘I’m Nora and I’m 13’. I remember being invited over to her house and building a tent in the backyard. I remember that the sunlight through the sheets made everything yellow, or pink, depending upon which sheet it was. I remember my mother said it was okay if I slept there. I remember the pancakes smothered in margarine her mother left on the porch for us. I remember that we stayed barefoot and the dewy grass stuck to our feet and made them itchy. I remember telling Nora that all the bubblegum you swallow sticks to your anklebone. I remember being on the edge of sleep and hearing ‘are you awake?’ I remember the night it drizzled but we toughed it out. I remember the next night it rained Nora’s father made us sleep inside. I remember ‘will you play with my hair?’ I re-”
“Shhhhhhhh!”
Visiting day again. The nurse sets me up in the library next to a window etched with frost. It is snowing the lightest snow outside; so light that each flake seems stuck in midair. There is a figure reading aloud from a leather book next to me. Her flaxen hair skims her earlobes and her long fingers trace out each word. Nora? It must be Nora.
“If I could do it over, I would. And I would not be afraid,” I tell her.
“What?”
Nora looks up and it is not Nora. It is not a girl at all.
“I’m sorry I thought you were Nora. It must be your hair.”
“I’m Josh, remember? Who’s Nora?”
I tell Josh that since Peter died, my memory is not working the way it should. I tell him it is the strangest thing; I had not thought of her in all the time I was married to Peter, in all the time I raised our only child, David, or in all the time our son begot a daughter, who begot the boy in front of me. Begot begot begot. And now that Peter has died and the children have grown, I cannot remember anything I should. I tell him how now, with the years in front of me dwindling, slipping away like everything else, I would like to find her.
“That might not be so hard to do.”
“Yes it would. She might be dead and if she isn’t dead then she wouldn’t recognize me. I am so old.”
“She’s old, too.”
I think for a moment.
“We would both be unrecognizable.”
Later, I force myself to remember my husband. The old days, when we first got together, are clearer. We met after the war at a dance the army set up for soldiers whose sweethearts did not wait for them. The whole first year of our marriage we never stopped talking. We talked talked talked, coating our lives with words, filling up the spaces, hoping it would be enough. Eventually, through the years and hours, we ran out of words. It was as if we had used them all up in our verbal fervor to know each other. And then our marriage was soaked in silence. Peter worked in a factory making plastic parts and I… I raised our son, cleaned the house all day, every day, and I cooked elaborate meals with spices we could not afford. We ate the exotic dinners in the quiet and I remember thinking when he wordlessly reached for my hand, This is Love— when you are comfortable enough to be silent.
“Will you tell me more about Nora?”
“I know nothing more.”
“Try.”
“Well... I remember cold milk shaken with a dash of cinnamon. I remember asking how long we would stay in the tent. I remember she said forever and then she kissed me. I remember this happened every night before we fell asleep. I remember apologizing to each other after kissing. I cannot say anymore.”
“It’s okay.”
“I remember seeking a warm body late at night when the sun was so far away. I remember finding Nora and arms that wrap around and around. I remember tennis shoes and denim jumpers. I remember speaking in whispers even though there was no one in the yard to hear us. I remember days at camp filled with archery, swimming and painting lessons. I remember missing Nora because the groups switched around each day. I remember the last night in the tent.”
“What happened on the last night?”
“I cannot remember.”
“Do you know her last name? Where she may have gone?”
“Van Vechten, I think. She could be anywhere. We did not speak after the last night.”
When I fall asleep during my sponge bath the nurse shakes me awake. It is so exhaustive to remember the past, even when it is all you can think about. Even when it is all you have. It is all anyone has. What about the life I could have lived? I see that clearly. I see the world we could have lived in. It is not so unlike the tent we lived in three quarters of a century ago.
{We would have grown up and gone to different schools. We would meet up in movie theaters and diners. We would hold hands on streets where no one goes and kiss under the cover of night. We would dance dance dance and be young. We would go out and see the world. And when we got tired, we would buy a house and a great big bed. We would drape blankets over the bed, recreating the tent of our girlhoods and dream the day away, ignoring the pink sunshine.}
But I am not a foolish woman. Nor am I a brave one. I know that there are some things that are so impossible, they become magical.
“Have you heard of telepathy?”
“I think so.”
“Well, there was a program about it on the television set last night and scientists decided that it is not real. But if we can pretend it’s real for five minutes I’ll tell you about the last night in my head. You just have to concentrate. Okay?”
“Okay…”
“The last night. Camp was ending the next day and Nora somehow seemed urgent. We kissed a bit and tried to fall asleep. The peep frogs in the nearby pond rang in my ears keeping me somewhere between wake and sleep. Nora too; she stirred every time a cricket strummed its legs together. I kept my eyes squished closed. I kept them closed even when Nora slid on top of me, airing out the quilt we shared. Fingertips flew over my body and so I touched what she touched, mirroring her movements. Her body was so familiar I could have sworn I had left mine and jumped into hers. Afterwards we both fell asleep. When I woke up the next morning it was as if I had cut away from an old life, but fallen into an empty space before getting to the new one. I was terrified of what spending another night in the tent might mean. So after the last day of camp I went home and slept in my own bed. I kept repeating to myself what my mother always told me: good girls don’t go lifting their skirts. I could not even imagine what she would have to say about girls who go lifting their skirts for other girls.”
“Did you hear all of that?”
“Poesy, you were talking out loud.”
He smiles gently at me. So I was.
“You shouldn’t feel bad about you and Nora. That sort of thing happens all the time.”
“Not in 1932 it didn’t. In any case I never saw Nora again. And it didn’t matter, I was fine. I married your great grandfather some years later and everything was fine. But I can’t help but wonder, Josh.”
He smiles again because I remembered his name. He’s a lonely boy, I can tell. Why else would he drive out here every visiting day to listen to this old woman? Why else would he want to fix the broken things? His mother isn’t forcing him. She doesn’t even come now that Josh has filled the obligatory familial space. Before Josh, there had been a different family member here every week since Peter died last year. It’s so hard being young. Then again it’s so hard being old. I smile back at him.
The whispering is working. I’m starting to remember more of what I should. The memories are hazy and unless I close my eyes they’ll slip away.
“I remember loving that the public library wrapped their books in plastic. I remember reading to David in a mother’s voice. I remember sitting on our fuzzy plaid couch with Peter once David was asleep. I remember his hands were caked in blackness from the factory. I remember church on Sundays and out to lunch on Saturdays. I remember the pride that came with turning piles of laundry into neat stacks. I remember hearing about the Kinsey Reports on the news. I remember that forty-six percent of people were not with only women or with only men. I remember Peter shaking his head. I remember that David was the quarterback of the football team every autumn. I remember that when David got his first girlfriend, I thanked God that I hadn’t infected him.”
“I think I found her. Lenora Van Vechten. She’s still in this state.”
Josh holds out a piece of yellow paper, torn from a phone book. He says he can ask the nurses if he can take me tomorrow. There are parts of me that are afraid, but there are more parts of me that know I have nothing to loose.
We leave as soon as the snow plows clear the roads. Josh has only had his license for a little while and he is only allowed to drive family members so it is lucky we’re related. His car is old and it reminds me of the brand new Cresta Peter bought himself for his sixtieth birthday. Josh plays with a familiar radio dial, switching stations every few minutes before settling on the silken voices of my past. We sink into the music, the notes growing fuzzier as the hours pass and we approach the coast. Because I am nervous and wordless, Josh talks. He tells me about school; the girl who paints seascapes during the lunch period and just wants to stay friends, the boys who tease him because of the clothes his mother buys him, and the music shows he and his best friend go to. These are nice things to know about someone you care for.
{I would’ve had to go to the bars and drink hard liquor. I would’ve had to wear three-piece suits and slick my hair back. I would’ve had to throw out my lipsticks and not want a baby. I would’ve had to lower my voice and swear like a sailor. I would’ve had to tell my mother and father. I would’ve had to trade in my whole family for one person.}
When we finally arrive it feels nice to be out of my wheelchair and using a walker like I did when I was younger. Josh knocks on the door of Nora’s supposed house, a little brown cape. I think I can smell the ocean from the doorstep. A woman pokes her head out of the door and Josh asks if she is Ms. Van Vechten. I know she is not; this woman is about fifteen years too young, a mosaic of ebbing freckles and carrot-colored hair.
“No, my name’s Agnes. Nora isn’t here anymore.”
“My great grandmother knew her when they were younger and we’ve been trying to find her. Do you know where she is?”
“Why don’t you two come in? It’s freezing out.”
We walk into a home that could have just as easily been Peter’s and mine. The dishwasher exhales steam, a Christmas tree sheds needles in the living room, and framed photographs clot the walls. I am stunned into silence and let Josh do all the talking. He tells her how long ago his great grandmother went to summer camp and made a friend. Of course he skips over the less savory details. Agnes fixes us tea, nods her head and smiles, clearly still confused about our search. When Josh finishes my story Agnes tells us her own.
“I first saw Nora at a Daughters’ meeting, and I was just floored. She was a good bit older then me, probably forty-five if it was around 1965. It took me two more meetings to get up the courage to talk to her. But we got on so well and spent a lot of time together. I loved to hear her talk; her whole life was so interesting to me. And Nora was there for me at a time when no one else wanted to be. She was a real world traveler and by the time we were both ready to settle down together. So we bought this place. An amazing woman. I’m glad you and I both got to know her, Poesy.”
I wouldn’t think it would be easy to say these things aloud, but Agnes is so forthcoming. I swallow whatever envy I have, and Agnes continues, flicking around her long hair every other sentence. She sketches out their life for Josh and I, how they both got jobs at the same high school, Agnes as a history teacher and Nora as an art teacher, how they took up sailing and saved their money to vacation in Sweden. How it wasn’t always easy, they had their fights like everyone else, but they made it until the end.
“Where is she now?”
“She passed on a few years back of old age, I’m sorry to say.”
It’s like the horror movies that we watch at the home. In the end the character always finds out from someone with a wavering voice that their friend has been dead for seven years. And they weep because they have been courting a ghost this whole time. And now, I find my eyes are stinging. Death is nothing new. You would think I would be used to it by now. The old should be used to it—people fall down around us and crumble into ghosts everyday. But still I cry, just a few little tears. It is enough for everyone, including myself, to recede in embarrassment. Josh says it’s about time we got back on the road. On our way out, I scrawl out notes in my mind I would have left in years past for Nora.
{Nora, I left the plane tickets on the table. Don’t forget to set the alarm clock when you come to bed. ♥ Poesy—on the bathroom sink. Nora, Must our discussions always end with you slamming doors? ♥ Poesy—on the doorknob. Nora, I didn’t get a chance to tell you today: you are beautiful. ♥ Poesy—on her pillow.}
If it were not for so many things, I could have had what Agnes did. Not Nora, necessarily, but someone like her. We could have kept our hair long. We could have been enough for each other to make up for the losses. We could have been two happy little deviants, trapped in love like bugs in amber.
