The Impossible Knife of Memory

We got in and rolled down the windows so we wouldn’t be choked by my father’s stench.

  Finn drove faster than I’d ever seen. “How much longer can you keep doing this?”

  “This has never happened before,” I said.

  “It’s not just tonight,” he said. “It’s everything. You take care of him more than he takes care of you. How much longer?”

  I didn’t have an answer.

  * * *

  Michael drove Dad around the next day until he found the pickup truck. The window had been smashed and the radio stolen, but other than that it was fine. We both stayed home for a few days after that, feeling like we were coming down with the flu.

  75

  I pedaled until I broke a sweat. Gracie and I had been able to snag exercise bicycles in gym because so many zombies had blown off school the day before Thanksgiving. (I wondered if they were rampaging in downtown Albany, or maybe took a train to join the larger horde, probably in Poughkeepsie.) The substitute gym aide was working on a laptop in the corner. A half-dozen girls were lying on the gym mats, talking about nothing, and laughing too hard. A couple more sat in the bleachers painting their toenails.

  I pushed harder until the sweat dripped off my face and splashed on the floor.

  “It doesn’t matter how fast you pedal,” Gracie said, handing me a water bottle. “That bike’s not going anywhere.”

  I took a long drink. “Now you tell me.”

  “You look like crap,” she said.

  “I just need some sleep.”

  “You need more than that.”

  I shook my head.

  She cycled slowly, like a little kid turning lazy circles on a tricycle. “What’s wrong with Finn?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He didn’t say a single word first period.”

  I shrugged. “Physics is kicking his butt.”

  “He didn’t touch you, either. You grabbed his belt loop with your finger once and after a minute, he pushed your hand away.”

  “What kind of pervert are you, counting how many times we touch each other?”

  “If you want me to shut up, just say it,” she said.

  I took another drink. “Don’t shut up.”

  “I wasn’t planning on it, but thanks,” she said. “I’m worried. You’re both so weird and incompatible with anyone else that you’re perfect for each other. When he stops touching you and when you stop teasing him, it screws up the universe, know what I mean?”

  I held the water bottle against my forehead. “He’s got a lot on his mind.”

  “His sister?”

  I set the bottle on the floor. “He’s driving to Boston with his mom tomorrow to have Thanksgiving with Chelsea and his dad.”

  “Sounds like hell.”

  “I know, right? He was so bummed when he told me and I felt so bad for him that I said I’d go to the mall with him after school. His mom is making him buy a new shirt for the occasion.”

  “You hate the mall.”

  “He said he was desperate.”

  Gracie got a text message. I changed gears and stood up to pedal. Since the night Finn helped me bring Dad home, something had changed. Gracie was right; he wasn’t touching me. I wasn’t touching him, either, because a token belt-loop grab didn’t count. We’d stopped teasing each other. He hadn’t broken up with me, but I could smell it coming. He wanted a normal girl with a matched set of unscarred parents. Someone with a “bright future.”

  “I need to steal a referee’s whistle.” Gracie stuck her phone in her bra. “The therapist says we have to eat Thanksgiving dinner together, all four of us.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Thanksgiving?” Gracie’s eyes bugged out. “Think about it. Carving knives! Boiling gravy! It’ll be a disaster.” She pedaled faster. “Dad’s got to be sleeping with her.”

  “Your mom?”

  “The therapist, dummy. Why else would she recommend such a stupid thing?”

  “I don’t know, G. Maybe she thinks your parents should stop being idiots and find a way to still be a family even if they are going to split up.”

  “No way.” She stopped. “What are you and your dad going to do? Turkey at home or a restaurant?”

  Two years before, we’d been on the road to Cheyenne, getting paid extra for driving on the holiday. We drove until midnight and ate turkey sandwiches to celebrate. Last year, we’d been stuck in a motel outside Seattle. It had a mini-fridge and a microwave, so I’d cooked up a box of stuffing and served canned peaches for dessert.

  “How is he doing?” she asked.

  “Better,” I lied. “Every day without Trish he gets a little stronger.”

  “Come to our house,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Bring your dad to my house for Thanksgiving.”

  “Shouldn’t you ask your parents first?”

  “They’ll be overjoyed with the distraction, trust me.”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” I said.

  “You have to do this.” Gracie reached over and pushed the button on my console to make it harder for me to pedal. “You owe me.”

  “For what?”

  “I helped you the night you had to bring your dad home.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “I talked to you, didn’t I? And I totally would have gotten the car for you if I could have. Besides, it worked out okay in the end, right? Please come to dinner.”

  “I don’t know, G.”

  “Bring a pie if you want. Pie makes everybody happy. Bring pie and your dad. Maybe it will make them all be on their best behavior. It’s worth a shot, right?”

  76

  “Why didn’t your mom call the police?” I asked, trying to keep up with Finn.

  “There’s no way to prove it was Chelsea,” he said, grim-faced.

  “Actually, there is.” I broke into an awkward half jog. “They have this new thing called ‘fingerprints.’ Since she was arrested before, they’ll be on file someplace.”

  “Please don’t be a bitch,” he said. “Not right now.”

  He opened the glass door of the red entrance of the mall and walked in without waiting to see if I was still with him. While we were at school, someone had broken into his mom’s condo and stolen her emergency credit card (chiseled out of its hiding place in a block of frozen ice at the back of the freezer) and a pound of sliced ham. Obviously, it was Chelsea, and it should have been the end of the trip to Boston and his parents’ misguided plans for Thanksgiving, but his mother was still acting like everything was fine.

  Finn plowed ahead into the crowd of pre-pre-Black Friday shoppers. (His mom said he had to buy a new dress shirt because he had outgrown his old ones. His family always dressed up for Thanksgiving dinner. Utter insanity.) He didn’t realize I wasn’t with him until he was ten stores in. He turned in a full circle, looking for me.

  I took a deep breath and opened the door. Approximately two billion people were inside, all hollering so they could be heard over the irritating holiday (buy-our-stuff) music. I fought my way through the swarm until I reached him, standing next to one of those fake mini-booths that sell bad cell phone plans.

  “It’s too crowded,” I said. “Let’s come back tomorrow.”

  “We’re leaving at six in the morning,” he pointed out. “It won’t take long.”

  I followed him into a small, crowded store that was so dark no one could read the price tags. He picked out a half-dozen shirts and we squeezed our way back to the dressing rooms. He went in and closed the door behind him. I called Dad, just to check on him, to tell him I was running late, and I’d be home soon. Also, I needed to hear how he sounded.

  He didn’t answer the phone.

  I counted to sixty and called again. Still no answer.


  “Does it fit?” I asked.

  “Not the first one.”

  Five minutes of silence later, I knocked again. “Any luck?”

  “Not really.”

  “Why is this taking so long?”

  “What’s your problem?”

  Where should I start?

  “Just hurry up.”

  Someone turned up the store’s music so loud it made the floor shake. A new crowd of people pushed their way into the dressing room area, even though there was nowhere for them to stand. It suddenly felt like I was standing in front of the stage at a huge concert and sixty thousand people had decided to make the place into a mosh pit. I swallowed hard and looked up, above their heads, looking for air and trying not to panic. I called Dad again. The phone rang.

  I pounded on the dressing-room door. “Seriously, Finn, it’s just a shirt. I need to get home.”

  He flung a heap of white shirts over the dressing room door. “Can you put those back?”

  I tensed as a couple of college-aged guys squeezed past me, waiting to feel their hands on parts of me they weren’t allowed to touch. They kept their hands to themselves, which was good because I could feel it, the gray closing in on me like a toxic fog, filling my lungs with poison.

  “Miss Blue?” Finn asked. “You still there?”

  “None of them fit?”

  “They itched.”

  “They’re cotton.” The phone at my house kept ringing. “Stop being such a baby.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” he asked.

  No answer. No answer. No answer.

  The music got even louder. I was sweating. Out of breath, too, because there was not enough air and too many people.

  No answer.

  I pushed my way toward the front of the store, ignoring the complaints and curses people threw my way, until I finally broke free into the mall.

  Finn found me a few minutes later, clenching the railing.

  “Where’s your bag?” I asked.

  “There’s another store by the food court.”

  I licked my lips. Hordes marched past us, shrieking like crows into their phones, carrying small fortunes in big shopping bags, their faces distorted in the reflection of the hanging silver-and-gold decorations.

  “Take me home,” I said.

  “I have to get a shirt,” he said slowly and loudly, as if I was deaf.

  “Come back and get it after you drop me off.”

  “Trying to get rid of me?” He leaned in to kiss me.

  “Don’t.” I stepped away from him. “I’m not playing. I hate it here, I want to go home.”

  “Is something wrong? Is it your dad?”

  “He’s not answering the phone.”

  “He never answers the phone. Just give me fifteen minutes.”

  No answer. No answer.

  “No, we have to leave right now.”

  “Since when did you become a drama queen?”

  My legs moved.

  I bumped, shoved, slipped into tiny cracks in the crowd, needing to get Out! Out! Out! as soon as possible. I couldn’t stop the pictures in my head, explosions like a flash-bang grenade was going off behind my eyes: carnage in the street, bodies on the floor of a pizza shop, a movie theater, the county fair. I walked as fast as the crowd would let me, eyes scanning for exits, hair tingling on the back of my neck as if someone, somewhere was pushing the button that would detonate an explosion. Lining me up in his sights and pulling the trigger.

  Say the alphabet. Count in Spanish. Picture a mountain, the top of a mountain, the top of a mountain in the summer. Keep breathing.

  None of my father’s old tricks worked anymore.

  Finn caught up with me just before I slipped out the door. He grabbed my arm, spun me around. “What’s going on?”

  The me of me curled into a dark corner in the back of my skull and some Hayley-bitch version I’d never seen before came out roaring. “Leave me alone!”

  “Why? Tell me, please.”

  “Forget it,” the bitch said, using my mouth, balling my hands into granite fists. “Forget everything. I don’t know you, you don’t know me, and this is all a waste of time.”

  “But—” Finn started.

  The bitch wanted to fight, wanted to scream. She wanted someone else to get in the middle and give her an excuse to kick, to punch, and hurt. She looked at the zombie shoppers who had stopped to watch the sideshow, stared at them, daring them to say anything.

  “I’ll take you home,” Finn said. “We’ll talk tomorrow. Or Monday, whenever you want.”

  The look in his eyes went right through the me of me, piercing my heart, but the bitch was in control.

  “We’re done,” she said in my voice, sounding stronger than I felt, bluffing her way through the end of this game. “I don’t want to be with you. I’ll take the bus home.”

  “Are you breaking up with me?”

  “Clever boy,” the Hayley-bitch said. “Just leave me alone.”

  77

  The bitch in me was mostly quiet by the time I woke up Thanksgiving morning. I could still feel her lurking in the back of my skull, reminding me how thin the ice was. I turned on the parade and turned up the volume. The first three giant balloons were cartoon characters I’d never seen before.

  I hadn’t called or texted Finn. Of course, he hadn’t called or texted me, either. I didn’t know if he was home or in Boston or on the turnpike or maybe he was still asleep.

  Bitch Voice: better off without him, he doesn’t understand, you can’t trust him.

  I knocked on Dad’s door. “It’s Thanksgiving. We’re going to Gracie’s for dinner, remember?”

  “Four o’clock,” he said.

  “Don’t drink,” I reminded him. “You promised.”

  I found Gramma’s recipe box, pulled the card marked Mason Apple Pie, and watched a bunch of videos to learn how to make a pie crust. I took the butter out of the fridge so it could soften. Set out the flour, salt and ice water, bowl and forks. Peeled the apples. Sat on the couch and watched the Hatboro-Horsham Marching Hatters perform in front of the grandstand. Wondered what possessed a school to call itself the Hatters. Looked up why my apple slices were turning brown. Ate half of the apple slices.

  The parade ended. Football began.

  I ate the rest of the apple slices and pulled some more cards from Gramma’s recipe box. Anna Chatfield’s Key Lime. Esther’s Pumpkin w/Walnut Crust. Peg Holcomb’s Perfect Pumpkin. Edith Janack’s Apple Crisp. Ethel Mason’s Mincemeat. And a small surprise: Rebecca’s Lemon Cake.

  My fingers hovered above the keys of my phone, wanting to talk to Finn. Did his shirt itch? Was his whole family sitting around the table, everyone dressed to kill? Was there any way to explain to him why I’d been so mean?

  No. I barely understood it myself. I just knew that I wanted to push him away from me more than I wanted to hold him close.

  * * *

  Dad stayed in his room all day, not even coming out to watch football. My pie came out burnt on the edges and a little watery in the middle, but I thought that for a first try, it wasn’t too bad.

  Gracie texted just before four o’clock:

  plans changed can u com at 6?

  I wrote back:

  sure

  An hour and a half later, she texted:

  thxgving canceled

  ttyt

  * * *

  I carried the pie to her house. Cardboard turkeys and black Pilgrim hats were taped to the first-floor windows of Gracie’s house. (Did they really wear hats like that? If you were on the brink of starvation, would you really care about your hat?) Tall, narrow windows flanked the front door, covered by bunched-up lace curtains that made it impossible to see inside.

  I rang the doorbell, but nobody answered.


  * * *

  Gracie called at ten and gave me the blow-by-blow description of the battle between her parents that had caused the cancellation of the dinner. Instead of being hysterical, she spent the night finishing her applications to four universities in California.

  Just before midnight, I texted Finn to say happy Thanksgiving. He didn’t answer.

  78

  I became a little unstuck in time after that, drifting like a dead leaf caught in the current of a half-frozen river, bumping into rocks, spinning in slow eddies, not worrying about the waterfalls ahead.

  It snowed again on the first day of December. The cold switched my brain to hibernation mode, shutting down the ability to think in favor of keeping my internal organs functioning. The downside was that it also created minor memory glitches. I was halfway across the parking lot that afternoon before I remembered that Finn and I hadn’t talked in a week and I couldn’t ride home with him. I wouldn’t get in his car even if he asked me to. At least, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t.

  On the bus, I jammed in my earbuds, dialed up Danish death metal, and played it loud enough to make my ears bleed. By the time I walked up the driveway, my head hurt and I was almost deaf. It felt good in a sick way.

  I flicked off the music, turned the doorknob, yanked open the front door, and almost pulled my shoulder out of the socket. The door was locked. Dad hadn’t locked it in weeks, but I didn’t give it much thought, because something trickled in my ears and I worried that maybe the music had punctured my eardrums and fluid from my brain was leaking.

  Get a grip and stop catastrophizing.

  I unzipped the front pocket of my backpack and reached for my keys, but they weren’t there. I emptied my backpack onto the front porch before I remembered the last place I’d seen them: next to my computer. I’d left in such a rush that I’d forgotten to grab them.

  Crap.

  I rang the bell and knocked on the door. Nothing. If he was sleeping in his room, I’d have to go to Gracie’s or hang out at the park until he got hungry enough to wake up.

  Crap. Crap. Crap.