“You mentioned that,” I said. It was weird that I felt like I had to keep her calm, when I was the one in crisis. There was a movie poster from Casablanca (a black-and-white movie, how odd), from The Piano (a musical, maybe?), from The Hours, with three women staring back at me. I knew none of these films. I wondered if I would like them now. Would my tastes change if I couldn’t remember what I liked?
I had not remembered the room’s location, but I immediately recognized my bedspread. The arrangement of books on one shelf, unchanged from when I was younger. I knelt and studied the titles. I recognized them all. I realized, with a jolt, that one was missing. My favorite: A Wrinkle in Time. How could I remember that book but not all my friends or my own father’s passing?
But the book was gone. Was I imagining that I thought it should be there? It was an odd thing to notice, but I was clinging to any recognizable sign that this was the home I knew. Why was it so important? Why?
“Where’s my copy of A Wrinkle in Time?” I asked.
“I don’t know, honey, I’m sure it’s around here somewhere. You remember that’s your favorite book?” Hope sweetened her voice.
“Yes. Meg and Charles Wallace and Aunt Beast and Camazotz. I remember the whole story.”
I thought she was going to cry, maybe in relief. If I could remember fictional people and places, more memories of what was real would surely soon return.
Below the shelf of books was a line of video games: more of the puzzle-solving variety than first-person shooters. I pulled one out at random, with two cartoonish, big-eyed girls on the cover: SPYGIRLZ! I smiled.
“You and David used to play video games together,” she said, then bit her lip.
I stared at the game. Remember, I told myself. Remember. You played it with David. But nothing. I put it back and moved away from the games.
On the shelf were sketchbooks. I pulled one down. It was designed for drawing but I’d filled it with stories. Several pages were full of three-panel comic strips with sarcastic teddy bears. “You and David made comic strips just for fun, when you were little. He drew the pictures and you wrote the stories. I wanted to send them to the newspaper, they were so cute. He drew very well, he wanted to major in art, but Cal and Perri would hear none of that.” I studied the drawings: cutesy bears, confident superheroes. He was talented.
I moved to the other side of the room. Photos of me, with other kids, were stuck on a blue corkboard above my desk.
And a picture of my dad. Dead from a gun accident. Now Mom had to tell me twice that he was dead. She carried a heavy load, I was aware now. I wondered how she would get through this nightmare—and what I would do if she didn’t, if she couldn’t cope. Her strength seemed, well, as variable as the wind.
“You made me buy blue, although I wanted to get you pink,” Mom said, pointing at the corkboard. “You might like the pink better now.” As if my amnesia was a good way to enforce her decor choices.
“The blue is fine,” I said. I didn’t want her to alter anything in this room. This was a moment of my old life, untouched since the accident. This was a map to me and my past few years. The last time I’d been here I’d had no idea that my life was about to evaporate. I looked at the pictures on the shelf. The framed ones seemed to be reserved for adults. Me and Dad. Me and Mom. Not Mom and Dad together. I wondered, What was their marriage like? Did they love each other or did they have troubles? I have no idea. How odd not to know. Then to the blue corkboard. Most of these were with high school friends. Standing awkwardly in a group, the girls in pretty dresses, the boys in suits or ties, all of us by a pool.
“Homecoming,” Mom said. “Do you remember that?”
I knew the tall, broad-shouldered blond boy next to me was named Trevor Blinn, he’d come to see me once in the hospital after I woke up. He seemed quiet and slightly scared of me, like he didn’t know what to say, but he had brought flowers and I’d watched him give my mom an awkward hug. I didn’t want anyone hugging on me. I was still physically so sore from the accident. An old friend, although he’d certainly gotten taller and bigger since I remembered middle school.
But he made a memory tickle.
“Husky jeans.” I pointed at Trevor. “When we were little. A girl with a big red bow in her hair made fun of Trevor having to wear husky-sized jeans, and I was so mad at her, we got into a fight on the playground and I snatched that bow right out of her hair. I got sent to the principal’s office and the boys teased Trevor about me fighting for him. Fourth grade?”
“Yes,” Mom nodded. “You remember.”
“Well, I remember that one incident. Don’t get too excited. You picked me up at school.” The words came in a rush. “You took me home and talked to me about it and then wrote about it in your blog. But you got me pizza for lunch, and Trevor’s mom called to say she was sorry I’d gotten into trouble.” A memory, slick and clear and newly born. “And David and I did a comic strip about a girl who fights bullies and called it Bowsnatcher!” I thought I would faint. Memory, bright and clear and full. Overwhelming.
“And you still hate giant bows.” Mom pressed her hands to her mouth in happiness.
I didn’t recall my feelings on that important fashion issue. I looked closer at the homecoming picture. Adam was on the other side of the group, smirking; I knew his name from his hospital visit but remembered nothing about him. How could I forget that handsome smirk? He had announced, as if nothing was wrong with me, “I know you don’t remember me, but you will, I’m your friend who’s a bit of a jerk.”
The pretty dark-haired girl next to me was Kamala. Our heads were nearly together, our smiles matching. [Written in the margin in a different color of ink: In two more weeks many more childhood memories of Kamala and Trevor would start to rush back, but I didn’t know that then.]
And then the boy I’d killed. David. He was in two pictures. One, when we were young, maybe eight, smiling, his front teeth missing. We were both in matching blue-and-white football jerseys. He had a cowlick in his dark hair, I had on a thin matching ribbon in mine—decidedly not a bow—that went with my jersey. I looked real cute. I remembered this. It didn’t come like an electrical shock. The memory was just there, as if waiting for me.
“We played flag football together. The team was the Lions.”
“Yes! When you were little, for one season. You wanted to do it because David did it and you hated to stay on the sidelines.” Mom nearly clapped her hands together. Every new memory felt like a yard of land won in a battle.
“One of the other moms didn’t want me to play,” I said. “She wanted me to be a cheerleader instead.”
Mom nodded.
“You and Dad politely told her I would play and that was the end of that.”
Our smiles were huge. But then I thought of David, dead, and the smile faded.
“There don’t seem to be a lot of recent pictures of me.” The ones with me and Kamala smiling, being sisterly, were all when I was a few years younger.
“You stepped back from a lot of activities after your father died. You felt depressed.”
Depressed. Who had I been, what sort of young woman had I been before the crash? And who was I going to be now?