Remember When

Fiction - by Jennifer Winston 

first published in Passages, Best of NewMyths Anthologies Volume I

Her grandparents’ house was filled with the smell of old wood, a tangy lived-in scent that all types of wood get when they’ve been used for decades. She was surrounded by the smell of wood with memories. The smell of something more than a house. It was the smell of a home. A place where the floorboards creak in greeting every time you pass by. Where the building shifts comfortably around you with fond memories and embarrassing stories. It was the type of place where Sharon made her living.

Sharon went to other people’s houses and she remembered for them. She listened to the oak paneling on the walls, to the sturdy pine furniture rocking gently in time with the house, to the fraying green carpet with a sense of humor that still enjoyed tripping people up. She called to the countless memories imbedded in the objects, asking each one to come back to life inside her own mind. And she showed her employers what she heard.

Some people wanted to relive their past. Others wanted to learn about their family’s history. The most lucrative clients, however, were the ones desperate to bring back the minds of loved ones. A jolt of memories, carefully arranged to make the right type of imprint on the mind, could do that. Could set the synapses firing in the correct order again, reminding the brain how to recognize the old patterns that stored memories and letting it create new patterns for new memories. 

But it only worked some of the time. And once copied into a mind, wooden memories remained there for a day at the most. If it didn’t work and if the clients had the money to pay for a second attempt, Sharon could go through the house again, picking up the same memories, searching for the ones that wouldn’t be unconsciously rejected as hallucinations.

This was her business, but she’d never thought her own aunt would hire her. Would track her down and call her, never quite apologizing for the past, but asking for her help in the present. She’d never expected to be invited back to a place filled with her own childhood memories. To open a door on the bottom floor, and be attacked by the artificially sweet smells of medicines or the sour reek of dying bodies. 

She’d never really believed that her grandmother could become so seriously ill that one day she would forget her own family. Sharon had seen it happen dozens of times with her clients, but she could not bring herself to believe that the vibrant storyteller of her youth had become the faded mound of flesh propped up by pillows on the ancient bed in the master bedroom of the old farmhouse.

Her aunt, Rebecca, looked up from rearranging the pillows behind her grandmother. “You should have come back sooner. When she was still walking around. When she still remembered who she was.”

Sharon stepped into the room, leaving the door open. As she neared the bed, a memory glowed like a vision in a movie, fuzzy edges and all, in her grandmother’s face. The wrinkles became animated, revealing the face Sharon had known throughout childhood, changing the old woman into a smiling friend. 

Her grandmother’s eyes focused on the sunlight behind Sharon. “Shame on you, Lissie. You know better than to leave the door open.”

Every day after school, Sharon had argued with her grandmother about leaving doors open inside the house, whether or not it could let the bogeyman in, since he never came in the front or back door. It had been a game between them when she was young, but now it appeared that Lissie, Sharon’s mother, had played the game too. Sharon sat on the edge of the bed, carefully avoiding contact with the older woman before replying. “Yes, Oma, but it’s so nice inside. Why can’t we just…”

Sharon heard the door click behind her and the memory faded from her grandmother’s face, the picture dimming as her mind wandered away. The memory seeped into the bed, shuffling through the crowd of memories already there, making its own place deep within the wooden frame. Her grandmother’s eyes became dull, unseeing. The wrinkles were no longer animated, no longer revealing the beloved face. All that was left was a generic old woman, no different from the hundreds of faces, living and dead, that she’d seen in her years of recalling other people’s memories.

Sharon twisted around, looking for Aunt Rebecca, and found the woman standing by the door. “You shouldn’t have closed the door. She was remembering something on her own.”

Her aunt straightened one of the cuffs of her blouse. “You shouldn’t agitate her like that.” She pulled the other sleeve straight, then traced her belt with her hands to make sure the blouse was still tightly tucked in. “She needs her rest, not an argument.”

Her grandmother tapped a vaguely familiar rhythm into the edges of the crocheted blanket at her waist, then started picking at the threads. Sharon’s aunt walked to the oversized bed and gently covered the old woman’s hands with her own. The fidgeting stopped.

Aunt Rebecca straightened the blanket. “How was your trip?”

“Fine. How long has this been happening?”

Her aunt smoothed her skirt and sat down next to her grandmother. “Has what been happening?”

“Her fidgeting. It was—”

“It was nothing. A lot of people with Alzheimer’s fidget. Do you need anything or can you get started right away?”

Sharon opened her mouth to point out her aunt’s blindness, her inability to see her own mother’s attempts at remembering. Things that were so obvious to Sharon, but never believed by anyone else in her family. She closed her mouth quietly, not wanting to rekindle that old fight. She’d been hoping for a reconciliation with at least some of her family. But now she began to wonder about the authenticity of her aunt’s newly professed belief in Sharon’s sight. Sharon stood up and let her professional smile cover her face. “I need to walk through the house. Alone.”

“Everyone’s at the mall. They’ll be back in—” her aunt slipped back her sleeve to reveal her watch “—two hours.” She pulled the sleeve back over the watch. “You’ll have the rest of the house to yourself until then.” Aunt Rebecca picked up a hardcover romance novel from the bedside table and brushed invisible dust from it before opening it to an earmarked page. Without looking up from the book she said, “Remember to look for the silver, dear.”

Sharon held back another series of insults. She reminded herself that she was here to help her grandmother, not restart the fights that had led to her own departure. She got up and left the room, carefully closing the door behind her as her grandmother had always insisted—Never let a door make noise, Sharry. You never know what it might call up.

In the living room, she quickly passed the television set and stand, and didn’t even look at the love seat that had replaced the old pair of patched chairs. They were too new to hold the memories she needed.

However, the old rocking chair was still there. It invited her to rest her hands on the carvings of its headrest, promising soothing memories of children being rocked to sleep. She accepted the invitation and breathed in the wooden smell of the old home. She ignored the faint traces of medicines and ill health, and listened to the torrent of stories flowing from the chair through her hands and into her mind.

Remember when your first tooth came in and you cried until Oma brought you to me and we rocked you to sleep. Pain shot through Sharon’s mouth, but she was safe in Oma’s arms, smelling the sweet traces of magnolia perfume under the sharper scent of soap, moving gently in time to a lullaby, getting sleepy from the motion until the tooth moved again and she cried out in protest. It went on forever. She’d feel safe and sleepy then the pain came back, and she’d complain until the rocking started up again.

Remember when Oma sat on my edge and told stories to her grandchildren on those summer nights without air conditioning. Sharon was comfortably full from dinner, still able to smell the roast on one night, chicken the next, and pork after that, remembering the feel of the cold, fluffy ice cream and hot, sticky cobbler on her tongue. She sat around the rocking chair with her cousins, quietly punching and kicking each other until they were told to behave, listening to “Little Red Riding Hood,” to tales of King Arthur and his knights, to stories about bogeymen who searched for portals left open by doors in houses. 

Remember when Oma’s father got so excited while describing a fight that he almost fell out of my embrace. She felt her feet lifting and the wild movements of her right arm pulling her toward the ground as inexorably as if it actually held the metal weight of Excalibur. Remember when he finished carving my headrest and gave me to his wife in triumph. Remember when…

Sharon opened her eyes. Decades had passed in that one breath. She took her hands from the back of the rocking chair and let the memories settle around each other, cherishing the feel of the new knowledge. They would be gone from her mind far too soon. Some people could remember what she showed them, could remember remembering the memories, though they said it was never the same as experiencing them those first few hours when the memories were in their minds. But Sharon could remember only the overwhelming feeling of a crowded mind forced to concentrate on too many things at once.

She walked to the overstuffed couch, the one with the purple and red pinstriped upholstery hiding most of the wooden frame. She sat down on the carpet and touched a short wooden leg. 

Remember when they caught you jumping on my cushions. Remember when Lissie slept here for a week because there were monsters in her room. Remember when…

Sharon opened her eyes and moved her hand away from the couch, getting as comfortable as she could with the memories before receiving more. She put her hand in her lap and took another deep breath full of upholstery and carpet. 

The carpet knew something. It always did. But fabric memories were never as vivid as those she found in wood. The images were too soft, randomly mashing together every time the fabric bent.

She sat there for a moment, running her fingers in random patterns on the carpet. She looked for memories beneath the frayed green ends, but found only fuzzy images in pastel colors. So she got up and walked slowly to the wooden walls. Her hand shook as she reached for an oaken panel. She wasn’t used to so many personal memories. It had been too long since she’d been in this house.

She breathed in the wood, letting it soothe her, letting it remind her of times she knew nothing about, of lives she’d never known. Of her own history wrapped up in the memories of the house. She avoided the painful memories stored in the wall, blocking them out the way she blocked out her own, drowning them in a confusion of the memories she wanted.

Remember when…

Sharon took her hand away from the wall. Her whole body shook with the stress of holding in the information, keeping them intact, ordering them into categories. Her mind stretched into painful contortions to keep up with the swirling memories, and she still had the rest of the house to go: the kitchen, where traditions were taught from chef to chef; the dining room, where the whole family came together for every meal.

She would go through those before she went to the children’s bedrooms. The one place in any home where thoughts and dreams became one. Where nightmares were real and every emotion was amplified. And beds remembered everything.

Maybe she could get accustomed to the memories of this house before she had to face those. Maybe then she wouldn’t be overwhelmed. Maybe she wouldn’t have to go up there. Maybe she could revive her grandmother with the memories from the downstairs rooms.

Sharon went to the foyer and stood at the bottom of the stairs. She probably had enough memories swirling in the back of her mind, but, as she’d told every one of her clients, she could never be sure.

Looking up the partially carpeted stairs made the tiny hallway feel stuffy and made it difficult for her to breathe. Cool, dusty air flowed down from the upstairs rooms into the sunlit air that filled the foyer. The beckoning darkness above her promised refreshment and solitude, the way an attic could promise forgotten treasures. 

She knew it was lying. Like the attics she’d met, the stairway seemed to have a personality of its own. A self-possession that was only hinted at in the rest of the house. Attics promised treasures, but the price was an uncontrollable rush of memories from every room, every piece of furniture, every object, from the chandelier to the carpets to the utensils. Attics knew all of the memories of their houses. And they acted like it.

The stairway reminded her of an attic she’d visited. How it had subtly drawn her in, then gave her every memory it held before she could ask, ignoring her attempts at blocking the tidal wave. She’d nearly drowned in memories that morning, and the house had been only half the age of her grandmother’s. 

The banister glinted in sunlight reflected from the tile floor of the foyer. Dark, wooden steps stretched their edges beyond the carpet that ran down their middle. Cool air, laden with memories, drifted down to her and she felt dim images pass through her mind. This was the only way to the bedrooms where her grandmother had lived as a child. There were memories up there that were probably important to her, but it was more likely that she still remembered them. Her long-term memory shouldn’t have deteriorated much past Lissie’s childhood. Not yet.

But Sharon could never be sure that she’d found the right memories until she tried to pass them on. No matter how much money her clients offered her, she always told them that she could only guess how much memory people needed before they started to remember on their own. She never promised that the miracle would happen every time. That she would find the one thing that they’d been searching for, that one precious memory that would tip the balance and bring back a lost mind.

She could never be sure. If the memory jolt didn’t work the first time, she doubted her aunt would allow her to try again. Aunt Rebecca had seemed to believe in Sharon when they’d talked on the phone. That was part of the reason she’d dropped everything to come here. But her aunt’s actions when she’d arrived made her suspect that she was supposed to fail. She was expected to prove once and for all that Aunt Rebecca had been right to send Sharon to that hospital. They expected her to discredit herself by not bringing back her grandmother, and give them a reason to continue to dismiss her as a fraud despite what the rest of the world believed. Sharon put her right hand on the oak banister. Her foot raised onto the first step. Then it hit.

Remember when…

From the whole house, all of it. Every memory, every thought was stored in the banister. The house creaked. The step beneath the carpet shifted. The past flooded into Sharon’s mind like a monsoon. She remembered how the house was built, board by board, sweat dripping into each crevice as they labored through the days. Remembered all the people who had lived here: the farmer who’d chosen this site to make his home, the wife who swore she saw a man walk through the kitchen door and disappear into the sunlit dust, the mother who’d wrecked her car while driving home in the rain and survived long enough to die in the house. 

And Sharon remembered the fights she’d had with her family. First when she’d told them she could hear memories in the wood, then when she told them their secrets. Her cousins beat her and threatened worse if she told others, her aunt told her that she should be put into an asylum, and her grandmother warned her against admitting to her wilder imaginings. Sharon remembered her last day in the house. She’d gone to the attic to be alone with the house, and she’d been overwhelmed by the memories there. Her aunt had found her, lying unconscious at the bottom of the ladder. She was taken away by an ambulance, but the house remembered none of the wild celebrations she’d imagined from her bed in the hospital, only quiet relief. Days later, her grandmother cried in her room as she signed the papers the psychologist had brought with him.

“Sharon.” Her aunt’s voice floated to her through the memories. “Sharon, are you all right? Sharon, speak to me.”

Sharon opened her eyes and saw the time when Lissie asked her mother about the stars, stalling to delay her bedtime. “Do stars have memories too?”

“Stop kidding around and get up off the floor.”

Lissie shook her head, knowing that her mother had told her something different. Something about fire.

“Sharon. Quit being so melodramatic and get up.”

That was her sister, Rebecca, speaking. No, it was—

“I’m not going to call the ambulance this time. Get up, Sharon.”

—her aunt. Sharon forced her eyes to focus on the older woman. Forced herself to feel Aunt Becky’s hands on her shoulders. She dragged some of her mind out of the past, keeping her eyes open so she could concentrate on the reality behind the visions of the memories, letting it all swirl together, but watching the blurry bits which remained constant as they coalesced into parts of her aunt’s face.

The practice she’d had in the homes of strangers helped. She could remind herself that she was a professional, that this time, she wasn’t a ten-year-old child. She wouldn’t need that ambulance or the doctors who said they understood but bolted when she told them the secrets their chairs showed her. Eventually, she’d proven that she wasn’t crazy, and earned the doctors’ respect as well as the respect of others. But her family still thought she was a fraud, and she remembered every word they’d said behind her back.

Her mind was filled with memories, and not just of the happy times she’d chosen from the rest of the house. There was no room left in her mind for her own thoughts, like being in a room with overly loud music. The memories were all she knew. All she could do was hold them back long enough to reach her grandmother’s room and pass on what she’d learned.

She sat up, her aunt’s hand shifting to support her back. Sharon waited for the rush of moving memories—running up and down the stairs, sliding down the banister, falling on the living room carpet—to pass, then stood up. She didn’t let herself grab for something to steady herself. Anything she touched with a hand might trigger a new flow of memories. 

Sharon walked to the master bedroom, aware of her aunt’s chatter, but thankfully unable to hear the words. She paused in front of the closed door, and after a moment, her aunt opened it, with many more words that Sharon’s mind couldn’t process.

Sharon sat down on the bed and searched through the memories, experiencing each one again, but more slowly this time. She sorted, letting her unconscious mind tell her what to ignore, purposely forgetting as many memories as she dared, but keeping everything her grandmother would recognize. 

Before she began the transfer, she paused for a moment, treasuring the memories of her mother. She didn’t have many of her own, and no matter how hard she would try to hold onto them, they’d be gone as soon as she showed them to her grandmother. She touched her grandmother’s hand and let the memories flow.

Remember when doors were the gates that kept the monsters out. Oma curled up in her bed, her blankets wrapped tightly around her small body. She stared at the door, just to make sure it stayed closed. Every night as a child, she’d fallen asleep staring at that door. Every morning, she became more convinced that she had survived the night because of her vigil. She could never get rid of the childhood horror, it was as much a part of her as her arms and legs. So she turned it into a story and a game she played with her children, then her grandchildren. Remember when you came back here from Lissie’s funeral. The graveyard had been lined with magnolia trees. The sweet scent of the flowers clung to Oma’s black dress and to the hair of the small grandchild sleeping in her arms. Lissie’d always loved the smell of magnolias. Oma put her granddaughter in Lissie’s bed and tucked her in. Sharry looked so much like her mother. It was such a shame that both of the child’s parents had died in that accident. They shouldn’t have been out driving in the first place. If Oma’d remembered the flour when she’d gone to the store the day before, they wouldn’t have left the house that day. It was all her fault. But she would take better care of her granddaughter. She wouldn’t let the child’s imagination wither away like Lissie’s did after she married.

Remember when you played dominoes with Opa on the front porch. The sun was setting, his brown eyes picked up the yellows and changed into a deep, shining bronze as he bent on one knee beside Oma’s winning hand and asked her to marry him.

Remember.

Sharon opened her eyes and took her hand away from her grandmother’s. The few moments of waiting while the other person’s mind dealt with the new information had never seemed to take so long. Her grandmother’s breath came evenly, but there was no other sign of life.

“Shouldn’t something be happening by now?”

Sharon turned to face her aunt. “It takes time. A few minutes at least. Sometimes hours.”

“And how long until we know if your miracle cure worked?”

“She should wake up any moment now if it worked.” Sharon turned her back on her aunt and watched for proof that her grandmother would recover. 

An eyelid fluttered, then settled back down to rest. Time did its macabre best to stop, making Sharon wait for every breath. 

A wrinkled finger twitched on the blanket. Then another followed suit. Her grandmother’s eyes opened and she stared blankly at Sharon before smiling in joy. 

“Sharry, my dear! You’ve finally come home.”