I Know You Remember Page 2

  The urn is light and empty, and I feel that way, too. I feel more focused, more centered. I go back inside and put it into the throw away box. Then I pull out my phone and pull up Zahra’s number.

  Arriving in Anchorage this Sunday, I type. Can’t wait to see you.

  I hit send.

  I’m ready to go home.

  CHAPTER TWO

  IT’S NEARLY ELEVEN IN the morning when my plane lands in Anchorage. I barely slept last night, and I was too nervous to sleep on the flight, so I have that stretched-thin, almost hallucinatory sensation you get from exhaustion when I step into the terminal. Everything is too bright, too loud, too strange, after the hushed darkness of the plane.

  I adjust the grip on my guitar case and follow the rest of the crowd toward baggage. Before I leave the secure area I stop in one of the restrooms to brush my teeth. I barely recognize myself in the mirror—this girl with her long, serious face and dull skin, the color of old lace unraveling. Or maybe that’s just the cruel fluorescent glare of an airport bathroom. I comb my hair and wipe smudges off my glasses and splash water on my cheeks. It’s the best I can do. Will Dad even know me? What did I look like three years ago? Shorter, with more pimples, with chubbier cheeks. But he hardly ever looked at me that last year Mom and I were with him—so maybe he doesn’t even remember that much.

  I’ve stalled as long as I can. I have to leave sometime—though for a moment I imagine living in the terminals, spreading my coat in the darkened corners to sleep, eating from vending machines and Cinnabon. Riding the moving walkways back and forth all day. The thought makes me smile, and the face in the mirror suddenly gentles and becomes me again. I pick up my guitar case and my backpack and head out past security.

  My eyes twitch back and forth over the waiting crowd. I want to see him before he sees me. I’m not sure why—it’s just that the idea of him watching me as I approach, being able to size me up before I can do the same to him, makes me anxious.

  Then I think I see him, and I have to stop and blink a few times to make sure. Because he’s the same, and he’s different.

  The last time I saw him was the end of middle school, when Mom moved us out. And he’d been in bad shape—drunk by the time I got home from school, brooding in his armchair and flipping through channels on the TV. He’d always been a drinker, but it got much worse after he was laid off. He’d started to look somehow both flabby and sunken, and his skin had been raw and red all the time.

  The man just beyond security looks like that father, but from an alternate dimension, one where he’d never collapsed under the weight of his own addiction. He’s tall and broad shouldered, with just a little flab at his waist, and while his cheeks are still ruddy, it looks more like a healthy flush than a drinker’s bad skin. He’s clean-shaven and his button-down shirt is freshly pressed.

  His eyes meet mine, and neither one of us moves for a second. Then he waves at me, a nervous smile twitching across his lips. I can’t pretend I didn’t see him there. I walk toward him, my mouth dry as sand.

  “Your hair’s gotten so long, I almost didn’t recognize you,” he says as I approach. He looks down at me like I’m a puzzle he can’t figure out how to put together.

  “It’s always been long,” I say abruptly. When I see his face I realize it sounds like an accusation, so I add, “But I used to keep it in a ponytail.”

  He nods. Then, before I can say anything else, he pulls me into a hug. I’m still holding my guitar case, and it knocks awkwardly against his leg, but he doesn’t let go.

  “I’m so sorry about your mom,” he says into my ear. “We ended things badly and I never had a chance to make things right. But she was a special woman, and I’m so sad that you’ve lost her.”

  I’m pressed against his shoulder so I can’t speak, which is just as well, because I don’t know what I’d say. Make things right? How would he make things right? Travel through time? But suddenly he’s wiping tears from his eyes, and I don’t know what to do. I’m disoriented, and tired, and I’ve never seen my dad cry before. I look down at my feet.

  He straightens his back and takes a deep breath. “Sorry. It just brings up so many memories. So many regrets.”

  “Tell me about it,” I mumble. The vision of Mom’s foot, slipping a bare half inch on that mossy stone, hovers at the edge of my consciousness; the image of her eyes, wide and wondering, as she tilts backward . . . but I shake my head and it clears.

  “We should get your luggage,” Dad says. He leans down to take my guitar case from me, but I pull it away. He doesn’t say anything, just turns and leads me down the escalator to the carousels.

  We stand close to each other in the crowd around the conveyer belt as floral old-lady-tourist suitcases make the rounds next to duct-taped fishermen’s coolers and canvas military duffels. I can feel Dad next to me, wanting to say something, so I keep my eyes determinedly on the bags until I see mine. I know I will have to figure out how to talk to him sooner or later, but right now it all seems so fraught. I just want to feel my feet on the ground for a few minutes first.

  On our way out, we pass one of the airport’s taxidermied polar bears, snarling on its hind legs. A cluster of hipster tourists gather around it, taking selfies. I remember seeing the bear as a little kid—along with the musk ox and the trumpeter swans and the beaver in different displays around the airport—and feeling like it was a fluffy, friendly presence, the way you think of a teddy bear. Now, though. Now I can only see it as a trophy. It’s a wild thing that was killed and put under glass, transformed into a curiosity. It breaks my heart.

  He loads my stuff into a beat-up old Honda—that, at least, looks as shabby as I expected. The radio is set to a Christian rock station and it’s not long before the yearning power ballads grate on my nerves. Since when does my dad listen to stuff like this? Since he started recovery, I guess. I wonder what else I don’t know about him.

  The drive is just as surreal as everything else. I’m so tired the world vaguely sparkles, with little vision tracers popping in the corners of my eyes. This is the place I’ve thought of as home all my life—but I haven’t seen it for three years. It’s like having a dream where you’re walking through a building you know well, but the layout is just a little bit off, or there’s a room you never noticed before. I look out the window and tick off the things that are the same and the things that are new. The old salon Mom took me to—still there. But the bakery where we used to get croissants after? Gone, replaced with a CrossFit. The trees look small and ragged compared with the ones in Oregon; the lots we pass are choked with weeds, and I notice a lot of shuttered businesses. The sky is low and gray. Mid-September weather.

  I sneak a look at my phone. Zahra still hasn’t replied. My heart gives a little twist of anxiety. Our contact’s been erratic for the past few years—we text and email every so often, but she’s not great at staying in touch. She doesn’t really do social media, either, so I can’t keep up with her that way. It’s hard to know what her life’s been like. But I was sure the news that I was coming home would get a reaction.

  My dad’s voice interrupts my thoughts.

  “So, your stepmom and Ingrid are at the house waiting to meet you,” he says, clearing his throat. “They’re real excited.”

  The house. Not “home.” I’ve never been to my dad’s new place; he sold my childhood home after the divorce. But I know he and Brandy bought a place together, not far from the woods where Zahra and I used to hang out.

  “Okay,” I say. Then I realize he’s probably waiting for something more. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  It is the furthest thing from the truth. I have never been good at getting to know people. Sometimes I just want to hide, or withdraw, rather than risk the awkwardness. Dr. Karadzhova, the psychiatrist mom found for me, called it social anxiety, and he was probably right, I guess. He always told me I just had to realize how little other people
actually cared about me and I wouldn’t worry anymore, which is a very Eastern European way to comfort someone.

  But now I have an insta-family, and I’ll have to figure out how to deal with them. With Brandy, and her daughter, Ingrid. All I know about them is that Brandy is a recovering drug addict, and Ingrid is my age, two months into her senior year at Merrill High.

  We pull up to the rear of a dark blue house surrounded by chain link. Brandy and Ingrid are in the yard, sitting at a beat-up picnic table and watching for us, and I feel a tightening in my shoulders. I stay in the front seat while my dad grabs the suitcases from the back. It looks like they’ve got a brunch spread on the table, which is sweet, but all I want to do is go to sleep. Now there will be cantaloupe and small talk to deal with, and I just don’t know if I have the strength. But when Ingrid jogs over to beam at me through the car window, I open the door and let myself out.

  “You’re here!” She comes in for a hug without hesitation, ignoring or not noticing the tension in my body as she wraps her arms around me. I’ve never been much of a hugger. “I’m so glad I finally get to meet you.”

  She’s a plump, pink girl, neatly dressed in a fluffy white sweater and a yellow skirt. Dark blonde hair hangs in a straight line on either side of a bland, clean-scrubbed face. If anyone ever looked like an Ingrid, it’s this girl.

  “Um. I’m Ruth,” I say. Then I feel stupid, because she obviously knows who I am.

  Her smile just gets wider. “‘And Ruth said, entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee, for whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.’”

  I stare at her.

  “It’s from the Book of Ruth,” she says. “In the Bible. One of my favorite sections. It’s all about loyalty and friendship. Women taking care of other women. It’s very empowering.”

  “Oh,” is all I can think to say. I’m way too tired to try to deal with someone who has a favorite section of the Bible.

  “Hi, sweetheart.” This is Brandy. She looks like a more weather-worn Ingrid—or, I guess, Ingrid looks like a less weather-worn her. She’s come around the other side of the car, and I feel a little like I’ve been caught in some military maneuver, a pincer snare or something. Another hug: Brandy’s body is bonier than Ingrid’s, and there’s a warm, sweet smell to her, like bread. “Welcome home.”

  My dad comes out from behind the car, dragging both of my suitcases. He hands me the keys.

  “It’s yours now,” he says. “Well, yours and Ingrid’s. You guys will have to share. But she doesn’t have her license yet.”

  “I failed the parallel parking test,” she says cheerfully. “It’s okay, I don’t mind riding shotgun. I like playing with the radio.”

  I hope she has better taste in music than my dad, but it doesn’t seem likely.

  “Thanks,” I say, turning to Dad. The keys feel foreign and clumsy in my hand. I look again at the little car with new eyes. I’ve never had one of my own—in Portland I had to ask to borrow Mom’s. The Honda’s not much to look at, but it’s mine. Well, ours.

  “You’re welcome.” It sounds almost formal, but when I look at him he’s smiling. “You’ll need to be able to get around. It’s on you girls to keep gas in the tank, though.”

  “Hungry?” Brandy asks. “Or do you just want to get a little sleep? You must be wiped out.”

  “I’m pretty tired,” I say. “But you went to the trouble . . .” I gesture toward the table.

  She shrugs. “It’s nothing that won’t keep until later. Ingrid, why don’t you show her to her room? Rick and I can unload the car and you can go downstairs to rest.”

  Ingrid doesn’t even wait for me to reply. She grabs my backpack and slings it over one shoulder. “Come on, Ruthie, you’re downstairs with me.”

  “Are we sharing a room, then?” I try to keep the trepidation out of my voice. She laughs.

  “Just a bathroom. We’ve both got our own rooms on either side of that.” She opens the door onto a small landing and points up the stairs. “Mom and Rick sleep up there,” she says. “We sleep in the semi-basement but it’s kind of nice because we have privacy.”

  We descend into a big open room with windows set high in the walls, looking out on the flower beds at ground level. There’s a TV and a dumpy old sofa on one side; the washer and dryer rumble softly on the other. A pool table takes up the middle of the room, serving the function pool tables always serve in rec rooms: a folding station for clean laundry and a surface on which to stack random boxes. A dark hall leads down to our rooms.

  “Rick had me decorate your room,” Ingrid says, sounding suddenly shy. “I mean, obviously you can change whatever you want now that you’re here, but I wanted you to feel welcome.” She pushes open the door to reveal walls painted with pink glitter. The curtain and bedspread are white with black stripes. My name decorates the wall over my bed in black vinyl decals. There’s a gallery of framed typography art on another wall—LOVE and DREAM and WISH spelled out in gold-leaf script.

  “Wow,” is all I can say. I’ve always hated random word art. It feels like a command. And I wonder how hurt she’ll be if I paint the walls right away. They remind me of Pepto-Bismol, and it leaves a nauseated, chalky feeling in my throat.

  But she’s beaming with pride. “I’m glad you like it!” She bustles over to the bed and actually starts turning down the sheets.

  Now that I’m here, in my room, all the adrenaline that’s been keeping me going has dried up, and I sway a little, waiting for her to go. It seems to take forever. She smooths my sheets—which I see now are pale pink and threaded through with gold—and fluffs my pillow. I close my eyes and almost immediately see the deep grayish dark that usually means I’m falling asleep.

  Finally, she straightens up again. Her bright blue eyes meet mine.

  “I’ve always wanted a sister,” she says.

  If I can just say something banal and noncommittal like, “Me too,” or “I’m glad I’m here” she will leave and I can go to sleep. But all possible words stick in my throat. The moment drags out—it’s maybe ten seconds of silence but it’s time for me to simultaneously fret over hurting her feelings, resent her for saying such a weird thing, and then recursively wonder if it’s not weird at all and if I’m the weird one, failing to handle normal human social cues.

  Social anxiety is nothing if not brisk and efficient.

  But she finally just smiles a little. “Anyway. Rest well, okay?”

  And then she leaves.

  Finally. I pull off my jeans and slide down between the sheets. The room swirls around me a little. Quick snaps of the last few days’ events flash across my vision. No—I don’t want to see it.

  My gaze falls again on the type art. HOPE, says one of them, in flourishing cursive.

  “Fuck off,” I mumble out loud. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

  Then I turn my face into the pillow and slip away from the world.

  CHAPTER THREE

  WHEN I WAKE UP it takes me a minute to remember where I am. Then I see the pink walls, my bags on the floor, the neat row of pansies outside my window. My father’s house.

  My phone says I’ve been asleep for almost four hours. It also shows that Zahra hasn’t texted me back yet. I open my suitcase, pull out a change of clothes. The air is cold; I pull my jacket on over my sweater.

  No one’s in the downstairs rec room. I’m not sure if they’re all upstairs or if they’ve gone out, but I’m grateful. I’m not ready to see anyone yet. I sneak up the stairs and through the back door.

  Outside the sky seems big and flat. The space around me is so jarringly different from that in Portland—after two years surrounded by towering trees I feel a little exposed by Anchorage’s smaller ones. But my heart does a little heel-kick throb at the sight of the mountains cradling around
the edge of the sky.

  My dad’s house is on a quiet lane just a few blocks from Russian Jack Springs Park, the sprawling woods where I used to wander with Zahra. I step around a bollard with its red reflector, onto a trail carpeted with dead leaves. There’s a rich smell of rot and rain in the air.

  Just a few feet down the trail the woods close in around me. I can still hear the distant sound of traffic—but there are parts of the park where it feels like you could be hundreds of miles away. At the height of summer the hike-and-bike trails get crowded, but by autumn they’re quiet. There’s a low twitter of birdsong, a far-off shout from the neighborhood kids at the elementary school playground, but not much else to tether me to the world. I set off along the rising and falling hills.

  Every step takes me closer to a memory. Walking here with Zahra. Talking about the books we loved—mostly fantasy books, sword and sorcery and escape—or, later, writing our own. There was something almost haunted about those woods. The trees, the shadows, the long beams of sun working through at eleven or twelve at night in the summer—they shimmered with something close enough to magic.

  Our novel took place in a world we called “The Precipice.” In it, the sun was always perched on the edge of the sky, streaking gold and red, like our own midnight sun. A young witch known only as the Starmaiden and a warrior named Lyr from a clan of Amazonian women journeyed together to stop an evil force called the Elodea—we’d gotten the name from an invasive plant—from choking the life out of their world.

  A lot of it was derivative. No surprise, we were fourteen and fangirls and it was our first attempt at writing. There were hints of Middle-earth, of Garth Nix’s Abhorsen books, and Tamora Pierce’s Song of the Lioness. But it felt so powerful to make something of our own. To let our alter egos struggle and triumph. There were moments it felt more real than anything else in my life.