The Unforgotten
*not mine. Author: Joni_Slade. Credit to her and characters from AIO*
I never forget.
I may say this as a threat to others, but it can be quite a curse for me. Oh, there’re certain benefits. The kid sitting beside me on the bus is draining batteries with his Sony DSJ15 discman, blaring scratchy beats through equally scratched-up headphones. I have an especially good auditory memory--I don’t need to buy CDs. Once I hear a song a couple times, I can play it back in my head note for note. Neat trick, I know. But my memory is as treacherous as it is useful-sometimes my mind starts playing things I’d prefer not to hear-especially in this place. Ever since we passed the “Welcome to Odyssey” sign, a soundtrack of conversations started up in the back of my mind, and it keeps going back to my last trip here, when I warned somebody that I don’t forget. Ever.
As the bus winds around the hill, Mr. DSJ15 beside me leans forward to stare at the view. I spare it a glance. If not for the memories, I’d keep looking. It’s beautiful this morning, all of Odyssey spread out down there, chill and golden in the dawn. But being on this particular road, this particular hill, doesn’t allow me to marvel at the beautiful town below.
Instead, I remember-I remember the new-car smell, the leather seat clinging to my face when I awoke, hearing the two men in the front talk about where they were going to kill me. I glanced around without moving much and noticed the unlocked doors. Amateurs. So I sat up, head splitting, tingling all over while Myron turned his puffy, jeering face toward me. The words we said skitter through my mind now. I’d bantered to distract him while waiting for the car to round this curve. Jumping out on the side of the road wouldn’t have done any good; I was in no state to run, even from these two goons. So I prepared myself for the cliff. It would be like flying, I told myself. Besides, I was still so numb from the electric shock that it wouldn’t hurt. I’d been wrong, of course.
The bus veers left down the hill, toward town. I close my eyes and pray that the reminders won’t come so hard and fast that I can’t hold on. I’ve always prayed, even when I was my hotshot idiot computer hacker kiddie self, who believed I’d never get caught. Even then, I had to rely on voicing my concerns to whoever was listening inside my head-maybe it was the collective subconscious, maybe aliens, maybe my inner self. Is there a saint for my brand of sinner? Maybe she’s listening. Maybe even God is listening. All I know is, sometimes it helps.
The soundtrack doesn’t stop.
I heard a clock ticking in between awkward pauses as I waited to get this conversation over with. Eugene was tedious about it.
“The notion of forgiveness is questionable to me,” he said. “If to forgive is to forget, then I cannot forgive you, for I will never forget what you did . . .”
I understand what he meant. Especially here, I understand. If to forgive is to forget, then I will die unforgiven.
As we approach the Electric Palace, more memories come, of fire and what it is to be trapped. I spy Rodney Rathbone leaving the store, which brings me back to the present. The kid hasn’t changed a fraction, not in appearance anyway, and for a moment I envy that. There’s a lot of mourning goes into changing, a lot of mourning that people like Rodney blissfully avoid.
Soon we’ve passed. The morning ride through town is quiet. The kids just got off school for summer vacation, so they’re probably sleeping in or something. I wish I was one of them. With a place like Whit’s End to go to, I might have turned out all right. But Whit’s End hadn’t been around when I was a kid, or if it was I hadn’t known about it. I bet Whit’s End will be packed later today. I wonder vaguely who’s working there these days, whether it’s someone who would make a fuss if I showed up. I know that Whit’s back in town, and I want to talk to him privately-I plan to call him at his home phone. I resist the temptation to get off at the stop nearest Whit’s End, though the kid beside me stands now and leaves. I have errands to run before I’m ready to talk to Whit. Errands to run, and thoughts to think.
Some of the people on the bus look vaguely familiar, people I used to see around, a few friends of my mom who don’t recognize me or do but don’t care. When the bus slows on Winged Foot Court, I take my duffel in my left hand and call “Thanks!” to the driver as I step out through the back door. The little house on the corner looks cheerier than I’ve ever seen it. It’s peach now. Rachael warned me about that-when she called me last week begging me to go home, she said Mom was getting really absorbed in housekeeping to take her mind off her recent divorce. And Rachael going away early for college on the west coast left Mom with no one to obsessively care for.
I admire Mom’s work in the garden as I unlock the door with the new key Rachael sent me. Mom had never been much of a gardener, or a housekeeper. She’d never been much of a mom, either-not to me, anyway. She was the sort of person whose world could revolve around only one thing at a time. My memory doesn’t extend into my early childhood, but I can’t help but think that, for a little while, I was that focus for her, that reason for living. Then she met Ray. Then she had Rachael. Ray encouraged her doting on Rachel, but not on me. I’d never liked my stepfather, but at least he’d had the decency to get properly divorced before leaving. My old man had just left.
The clutter is gone from the front room, from the hall, and, amazingly enough, from my room. My room had been a junk closet since they kicked me out on my eighteenth birthday. I knew that from the rare occasions I’d had nowhere else to go and they’d let me stay overnight-on the couch. The room was freshly decorated, too-gone from the wall were my diagrams of the Ultimate Computer of Destruction I’d hoped to build, and the maps of Odyssey I’d meticulously drawn. My decorative chess pieces were also nowhere to be seen-I used to collect the knights from thriftstore sets. They were my favorite pieces-unpredictable, and so often undervalued. I wonder if Mom kept any, and doubt it. She’s not a chess sort of a gal, nor sentimental.
This is a proper guestroom now-also peach, as if there’d been some paint left over from the exterior, with two bland paintings of farm scenery on either side of the room, blue sheets and white blankets to match the new blue drapes and white desk and dresser. Excessively boring. Oh, well-not like I’m going to be here for long enough to get bored. I set my duffel on the bed and unpack, putting some clothes in the dresser, lining the books along the desk against the wall. I pull my laptop out of the bag carefully. I’m about to set it on the desk when I make the mistake of looking out the window.
It’s not outside the window that scares me. It’s the window itself, or rather, the reflection. For just a fraction of a second, I think it must be a ghost. But I can’t be a ghost. I’m still alive. As I stare at this fellow in the window, it’s like he’s looking in at me from outside, from the yard I used to play in. Maybe he is that me-the ghost of the kid who used to live here, who went by my name, dressed a little more casually, kept his hair a little shorter, wore the perpetual smirk of the self-satisfied and the young. For one crazy moment I want to punch through the glass to get my hands around his neck, but the feeling passes quickly. Instead, I reach out impulsively just to touch the window, but that leaves my right hand holding the laptop computer and my right arm spasms with pain. I set the computer down as carefully as I can and clutch my wrist tightly. It and some of my fingers were broken in my fall, when I tried to catch myself, and apparently my hand won’t ever be as strong as it was. I’ve had to become left-handed as a result, which took a lot of work and even now my handwriting is sloppy and my pool game abysmal. Left-handed precision and right-handed strength are on my list of ways to improve myself, but they’re near the bottom.
I look up into the window again and now see myself, not the kid I was. I’m a little disappointed-I’ve thought about what I would do if I saw him, and as much as I’d like to beat him up, I know that instead I’d break down with pity. I get the feeling he’d pity me if he saw me now, me trying so hard to earn the kind of approval he’d always scorned.
As I leave the house through the back door, the kitchen table catches my attention. In Mom’s spotless house, it’s strange to see a spaghetti strainer leaning against a box of macaroni on the center of the table. Beneath them is a note.
Dear Richard,
Welcome home, sweetie! I’ll be back by 7:00, so don’t feel like you have to cook. Really, I’d be happy to. But if you must, here’s something easy. Just follow the directions on the side of the box.
It’s easy.
Love, Mom
I notice incredulously that she’s filled a pot with water already and set it on the stove. Yeah, gee, Mom, thanks--all that time in jail and I forgot how to use a faucet. I set the note down, feeling a strange sort of pity instead of anger. I’d told her during our awkward phone conversation last night that I’d make her dinner tonight.
”Yes, Mom, I can cook,” I said.
“No, don’t be silly. I’ll bring us some takeout.”
“I’d rather cook something.”
“No, really, there’s a new Chinese place on the corner of Main and Stewart.”
“But I said I’d cook something for you.”
She hadn’t believed me. She’ll find out tonight, though. I’ll make the macaroni all right, I’ll just toss it into the frittata I’d been planning to make anyway. I allow myself a smile at how surprised she’ll be. I guess I can’t blame her for not believing me. She probably remembers me as the kid who never had much interest in food, but that all changed the moment I got out of jail. I never, ever wanted to eat bland, straight-from-a-can food again, so I’d learned to cook. I learned pilafs and pestos, dips and dressings, chutneys and cheesecakes. I learned what ingredients were in season when and what I could do with them. It takes me awhile to prepare a meal, with my right hand aching like it does and my left hand still more awkward than it should be. But it’s worth the time-I’ve discovered how much everyone loves a good cook. Once people know you can cook, it’s instant friends. Food unites people. Over a meal you cooked for them, people open up. And in the brief space of time when people are well-fed and satisfied, the world seems all right.
I leave the house in sudden guilt, letting the morning chill reprimand me. Strike one. The most important thing on my mental list for self improvement is not to think of people like they’re things to be bought, used and sold. If I have one basic flaw in my character, it’s how I view relationships in terms of costs and benefits. What I can get out of someone for the time and energy I put into giving them what they want. Take my relationship with Mom-I’m here because Rachael told me Mom needs someone she can fuss over. Fine, I’ll let her take care of me because I need a place to stay for a few days. It’s always been about utility, about survival, about logic. But it’s not about humanity. The first person to show me humanity was John Avery Whittaker, who rescued me from the fire in Blackgaard’s Castle when I hadn’t done anything to deserve his mercy. I didn’t understand it for the longest time-whatever made my life worth saving to him? And then I got to thinking that it was just the human thing to do, and maybe it’s my perception that’s wrong.
When I was a kid, I used to think I was really a computer, because I liked computers more than I liked most people. I think people can become what they believe themselves to be, and I think I have. Not literally, but what kind of human being quantifies interactions with other human beings in terms of mutual benefits? I try to catch myself when I lapse into this, but it’s such a part of me that I usually don’t even notice.
I stroll down the sidewalk, hearing the familiar sounds of early summer, kids playing in someone’s backyard and a lawnmower in the distance. Muted sounds. The sun is far away and hasn’t had a chance to warm up the day yet. For now, this place feels frozen, in memory as much as in temperature. The street looks the same, and walking down it makes me feel like I could be the old Richard Maxwell. But that guy didn’t have this soundtrack in his head, these guilty memories. That guy heard something and recalled it only when he wanted to, ignoring it the rest of the time. I’m not so lucky.
”You used me Richard,” said Lucy.
I had. God, or whoever, help me.
I don’t think about Lucy much these days. I did time in the detention center for some things, so technically those debts are paid, but I never served time for what I did to Lucy. I tried to make it up to her, and I guess some would say that rescuing her from Myron and the Bones of Rath counts, but I know it’s not enough. She was genial then, like she’d really meant it when she said all was forgiven, but I have trouble believing it. I wonder how she turned out, if she’s a well-adjusted young lady, or if she’s somehow scarred, like maybe she cringes whenever she hears the word “applesauce”. I know I do. But Rachael told me that Lucy left town awhile ago, not sure where to, and I’m at once glad and disappointed.
When I’m in Chicago, nothing ever hits me this way. The only real memory I have there makes me feel amused and triumphant. I see Blackgaard on his knees, begging me for his life. It had been hard for me to keep from laughing at the look on his face, his eyes so wide, his hands clasped before him, shaking. That had been one small victory. My relationship with Blackgaard was one I’d tried to balance, too-he’s the reason I spent two years of my youth in jail, and no amount of payback would have been enough as far as I’m concerned. I wish he’d been caught and brought to justice instead of dying like a coward. Still, that’s one less relationship for me to keep score for. There’s just one thing I wonder: did he die thinking I was murdered at his command, thinking I was beaten? Or did he know that I’d escaped, that I’d won? I’d get more satisfaction from my successful mission to distract him from Myron’s computer if I knew that Blackgaard had, in the end, known what I’d been up to. But the guy always underestimated me, so I suspect he never realized what I was doing in Whit’s End that day. If there’s a hell, maybe Blackgaard will see that I’m not there and conclude that I must still be alive. I comfort myself with the thought.
I find myself on the campus at last. There’s a new sculpture in the center of the fountain, some red-brown metal object d’art that I don’t understand but like just the same. Other than that, the campus hasn’t changed, and gives me no pleasant memories. Here, they’d expelled me. Here, that kid who was me said he didn’t care. Nicky had been another utilitarian relationship. He helped me change students’ grades, I made sure he stayed here, where he wanted to be. What a warped little mind I’d had. No threats, voiced or unvoiced is also on my list. There are exceptions to this rule-people who deserve a good scare, people like Myron. No blackmail and no bribes are easy rules for most people to live by, but they’ve been in my arsenal of interpersonal relationships for as long as I can remember, and I have to watch myself constantly.
I’m on my way to the admissions office when a voice off to the left shrieks: “Richard!”
Connie runs up to me, grinning. Her hair looks different. It makes her look older, but she sounds just the same.
“Connie,” I say, my voice sounding thrilled while inside I dread the things she might mention. “How’ve you been?”
“Never mind me, how are you? What was the big idea, running off like that? Tom said he went to visit you in the hospital one day and you’d just up and left. And nobody else has heard a word from you. I was beginning to think we’d never see you again!” Connie had managed, while talking, to steer me gently toward the fountain.
I don’t know Connie well, not really, but I always feel like she was made for Odyssey. She’s open and outgoing, likable and friendly. I was born and raised here, but she’s the one who fits in.
“Sorry to make everyone worry,” I say. “I had some business in Chicago, you know how it is.”
Connie narrows her eyes for a second. She isn’t as gullible as you’d think she’d be, and her suspicion makes me realize that I just broke one of my rules. No lies. Strike two.
I sigh and sit on the edge of the fountain. Connie sits, too, setting her bag next to her feet, while around us, summer students meander through their day. They look younger than I remember CCCC students being.
“Well,” Connie prompts. “What sort of business was so urgent that you couldn’t even say goodbye?”
No lies. But how much can Connie possibly understand? She’s going to jump to conclusions no matter what I say-I remember her tirade when I went to visit Lucy in the hospital. But that was the other me, and maybe she’s grown, too.
“I’ve been in school,” I say. “Studying computers at the University of Chicago.”
“What is it with people like you and Eugene?” Connie asks, rolling her eyes. “Like you two really have anything more to learn about computers.” She crosses one leg over the other and drapes a forearm across her knee. “That still doesn’t explain why you left town. You’d have had plenty of time before fall term started.”
Lies leap into my head. I didn’t want to pay for the hospital anymore (my insurance had covered it), my aunt Agatha had been deathly ill (all my relatives live in Odyssey), the experience had scared me and I wanted to run away from Blackgaard and his cronies (I would never run away from them. Never, ever.)
“Well, Connie, in all honesty . . .”
“Yes?”
“The hospital reminded me of jail a little too much. Stuck in a room all day, seeing the same few people. Even the food was the same.”
“Oh, I don’t blame you for wanting to be out of the hospital. But why didn’t you stay in Odyssey, at least for awhile?”
She won’t understand. She’ll take it personally. Lie, lie, lie, part of me shouts. It’s the old me, the me that used to stroll this campus every day, whistling his unconcern for the rest of the world. Lie, and she’ll leave you alone.
“Because,” I begin. I pause and, remarkably, Connie doesn’t interrupt. “Because Odyssey was a prison, too.”
“What?” Ah, the indignance. I’d been right.
“Connie, when you’ve done the kinds of things I have, you want to get away from anything that reminds you of that.” It’s a half-truth. A little less than half.
”Everything you told me was a lie,” said Lucy.
“Not everything.”
“Yes, everything.”
“Well, why do you keep coming back, then?” Connie demands.
Because I love this town, and I want to deserve it. I want to challenge who I’d been, to forcibly remove his memory and influence from both me and Odyssey. I swallow and gaze ahead, not knowing what to tell her.
“Richard,” she says. “You’ve been forgiven. If you had stayed, you’d know that-you were a hero, how you rescued Lucy and kept Blackgaard from seeing that computer. You just didn’t give Odyssey a chance to thank you. No one cares what you did before. God can forgive you-you need to forgive yourself.”
I look down. She’s missed the point entirely-in trying to reason with me, she’d just voiced the real reason I’d been avoiding Odyssey. She’s not as intuitive as Whit-maybe he’ll understand without my having to articulate it. I cough and make my tone light. “Well, that’s why I’m here,” I tell her. “To put the past behind me. I want to start up again at the four C’s. Or the five, if they’ll have me.”
”That’s clever,” said Lucy.
“And cute, too,” I added.
“You want to go from the University of Chicago to Campbell County Community College?”
“Yep.” To come full circle, so I could make new tracks over the old ones that had gone so awry. “But, ah, they expelled me. I was just on my way to find out the procedure for petitioning the school to let me back in. I have a good transcript now, and recommendations from U of C professors. I was kind of hoping to find some character witnesses in Odyssey. You know, someone who knows I’ve changed.”
“You should ask Whit,” Connie says immediately. “He knew you back when you were expelled, so who’d be better to tell the college that you’ve changed?”
I smile gratefully, inside feeling the familiar terror that my guilt-laced gratitude has become. Now I shift the conversation to Whit, and Connie fills me in on happenings around town. Some of it, I already know about, like the new mayor and the other shop in Connellsville. Connie is curiously quiet about herself, but I figure if Connie keeps mum on anything, it’s because she has a good enough reason to. Eventually, she stands and stretches, saying she has to go to work, leaving me with a warm smile and a “Welcome home.”
I watch her leave the quad and then slouch forward, head bent. That half-truth I told her about avoiding Odyssey because of my past should be strike three for the day, which makes me a failure again. But it was half-true. Maybe I’ll call it a foul ball. That gives me one more chance before the day is a loss.
The truth is, I couldn’t tell her all of it. It’s easy enough for people to believe that I’m haunted by what I did-that’s only natural, they assume. That misses the real point, which is that I’m haunted by Odyssey’s forgiveness.
It all started right after I got out of jail. Right away I got a little revenge on Blackgaard-relationships should be equal, after all. He deserved a little, shall we say, token of my esteem for leaving me trapped in a burning building, not to mention what he made me do to Lucy and Tom Riley. Then I came home. All I had in mind was to say I was sorry-that was it. People could take it or leave it, but I’d have done my job: let myself off the hook from my regrets.
But I asked for Whit’s help, because as much as I knew what I wanted to do, I had no idea how to get people to listen to me. And Whit explained something that, to this day, I don’t fully understand.
“Did you only want to say you’re sorry, or-or are you going to ask for their forgiveness?”
I didn’t know the difference, and asked him what it was.
“Saying you’re sorry just lets them know you feel bad for what you did. It doesn’t really need an answer. But when you ask for their forgiveness, you’re admitting that you need something from them. Their pardon for what you’ve done.”
I didn’t understand it, but I asked their forgiveness anyway. Some people gave it, some withheld it. It sort of awed and humbled me when they said they forgave me, but I knew they couldn’t mean it. I hadn’t done anything to earn it. My cost-benefit analysis of human relationships had me owing them more than I could ever pay-first, I’d hurt them, and then they’d forgiven me. To my computer brain, that means I owe them doubly, not that all debts are canceled. So I thought about it for a few years, while keeping an eye on Odyssey and on Blackgaard. And when Blackgaard came back, I was ready to help-to really pay Odyssey back. I guess I did help out a little in that whole thing.
And then Tom Riley was there in the hospital, talking to me. Apologizing to me. And it scared me. I’d burned down the guy’s barn. And yeah, I’d been trying to earn this reconciliation, but now that he was offering it, I didn’t feel like I’d done enough. When he asked me to forgive him, the first thing I could think was to suggest that we forgive each other-to make it even. And then he sat beside me while I rested, and that’s when the fear really struck me. I’d shrugged off people’s forgiveness in the past-Eugene was under pressure from Whit, Lucy was a sweet, naïve kid, Connie and Whit had to forgive me because they were Christians. But when Tom Riley gave in, I realized just how little I deserved it. And suddenly I knew that I owed him-I owed this town. If I stayed here, every day would be about paying them back. And what would happen when I made a mistake? Would I be doubly suspect? It was jail all over again, not because I couldn’t transcend my own past, but because I could never even the imbalance that Odyssey’s forgiveness had created.
I’d never understood the phrase “fear of God,” the way Christians use it. Like fear is a good thing. I thought, if God is so loving, why are you supposed to be afraid of him? The contradiction kept me cynical about religion for a long time. But there in that hospital room, I realized what fear of God means. Forgiveness is terrifying. If God really can forgive anything-and if you listen to them, that’s what they say-well, what a great and terrible thing. I couldn’t bear to be forgiven by God. I owe enough to mortals.
I stand up from the edge of the fountain, shaking off these thoughts, these memories. The day has warmed up and there are more people around, skating, jogging, walking their dogs. This is home and I’ve missed it unbearably. I’m here to give back to Odyssey-not as a debtor, but as, I hope, a true friend. The first step is getting back into CCCCC, because that’s where I started. I head to the admissions office, convinced that if I can let go of the past, I can replace it with something new.
The only problem is, I never forget.
I never forget.
I may say this as a threat to others, but it can be quite a curse for me. Oh, there’re certain benefits. The kid sitting beside me on the bus is draining batteries with his Sony DSJ15 discman, blaring scratchy beats through equally scratched-up headphones. I have an especially good auditory memory--I don’t need to buy CDs. Once I hear a song a couple times, I can play it back in my head note for note. Neat trick, I know. But my memory is as treacherous as it is useful-sometimes my mind starts playing things I’d prefer not to hear-especially in this place. Ever since we passed the “Welcome to Odyssey” sign, a soundtrack of conversations started up in the back of my mind, and it keeps going back to my last trip here, when I warned somebody that I don’t forget. Ever.
As the bus winds around the hill, Mr. DSJ15 beside me leans forward to stare at the view. I spare it a glance. If not for the memories, I’d keep looking. It’s beautiful this morning, all of Odyssey spread out down there, chill and golden in the dawn. But being on this particular road, this particular hill, doesn’t allow me to marvel at the beautiful town below.
Instead, I remember-I remember the new-car smell, the leather seat clinging to my face when I awoke, hearing the two men in the front talk about where they were going to kill me. I glanced around without moving much and noticed the unlocked doors. Amateurs. So I sat up, head splitting, tingling all over while Myron turned his puffy, jeering face toward me. The words we said skitter through my mind now. I’d bantered to distract him while waiting for the car to round this curve. Jumping out on the side of the road wouldn’t have done any good; I was in no state to run, even from these two goons. So I prepared myself for the cliff. It would be like flying, I told myself. Besides, I was still so numb from the electric shock that it wouldn’t hurt. I’d been wrong, of course.
The bus veers left down the hill, toward town. I close my eyes and pray that the reminders won’t come so hard and fast that I can’t hold on. I’ve always prayed, even when I was my hotshot idiot computer hacker kiddie self, who believed I’d never get caught. Even then, I had to rely on voicing my concerns to whoever was listening inside my head-maybe it was the collective subconscious, maybe aliens, maybe my inner self. Is there a saint for my brand of sinner? Maybe she’s listening. Maybe even God is listening. All I know is, sometimes it helps.
The soundtrack doesn’t stop.
I heard a clock ticking in between awkward pauses as I waited to get this conversation over with. Eugene was tedious about it.
“The notion of forgiveness is questionable to me,” he said. “If to forgive is to forget, then I cannot forgive you, for I will never forget what you did . . .”
I understand what he meant. Especially here, I understand. If to forgive is to forget, then I will die unforgiven.
As we approach the Electric Palace, more memories come, of fire and what it is to be trapped. I spy Rodney Rathbone leaving the store, which brings me back to the present. The kid hasn’t changed a fraction, not in appearance anyway, and for a moment I envy that. There’s a lot of mourning goes into changing, a lot of mourning that people like Rodney blissfully avoid.
Soon we’ve passed. The morning ride through town is quiet. The kids just got off school for summer vacation, so they’re probably sleeping in or something. I wish I was one of them. With a place like Whit’s End to go to, I might have turned out all right. But Whit’s End hadn’t been around when I was a kid, or if it was I hadn’t known about it. I bet Whit’s End will be packed later today. I wonder vaguely who’s working there these days, whether it’s someone who would make a fuss if I showed up. I know that Whit’s back in town, and I want to talk to him privately-I plan to call him at his home phone. I resist the temptation to get off at the stop nearest Whit’s End, though the kid beside me stands now and leaves. I have errands to run before I’m ready to talk to Whit. Errands to run, and thoughts to think.
Some of the people on the bus look vaguely familiar, people I used to see around, a few friends of my mom who don’t recognize me or do but don’t care. When the bus slows on Winged Foot Court, I take my duffel in my left hand and call “Thanks!” to the driver as I step out through the back door. The little house on the corner looks cheerier than I’ve ever seen it. It’s peach now. Rachael warned me about that-when she called me last week begging me to go home, she said Mom was getting really absorbed in housekeeping to take her mind off her recent divorce. And Rachael going away early for college on the west coast left Mom with no one to obsessively care for.
I admire Mom’s work in the garden as I unlock the door with the new key Rachael sent me. Mom had never been much of a gardener, or a housekeeper. She’d never been much of a mom, either-not to me, anyway. She was the sort of person whose world could revolve around only one thing at a time. My memory doesn’t extend into my early childhood, but I can’t help but think that, for a little while, I was that focus for her, that reason for living. Then she met Ray. Then she had Rachael. Ray encouraged her doting on Rachel, but not on me. I’d never liked my stepfather, but at least he’d had the decency to get properly divorced before leaving. My old man had just left.
The clutter is gone from the front room, from the hall, and, amazingly enough, from my room. My room had been a junk closet since they kicked me out on my eighteenth birthday. I knew that from the rare occasions I’d had nowhere else to go and they’d let me stay overnight-on the couch. The room was freshly decorated, too-gone from the wall were my diagrams of the Ultimate Computer of Destruction I’d hoped to build, and the maps of Odyssey I’d meticulously drawn. My decorative chess pieces were also nowhere to be seen-I used to collect the knights from thriftstore sets. They were my favorite pieces-unpredictable, and so often undervalued. I wonder if Mom kept any, and doubt it. She’s not a chess sort of a gal, nor sentimental.
This is a proper guestroom now-also peach, as if there’d been some paint left over from the exterior, with two bland paintings of farm scenery on either side of the room, blue sheets and white blankets to match the new blue drapes and white desk and dresser. Excessively boring. Oh, well-not like I’m going to be here for long enough to get bored. I set my duffel on the bed and unpack, putting some clothes in the dresser, lining the books along the desk against the wall. I pull my laptop out of the bag carefully. I’m about to set it on the desk when I make the mistake of looking out the window.
It’s not outside the window that scares me. It’s the window itself, or rather, the reflection. For just a fraction of a second, I think it must be a ghost. But I can’t be a ghost. I’m still alive. As I stare at this fellow in the window, it’s like he’s looking in at me from outside, from the yard I used to play in. Maybe he is that me-the ghost of the kid who used to live here, who went by my name, dressed a little more casually, kept his hair a little shorter, wore the perpetual smirk of the self-satisfied and the young. For one crazy moment I want to punch through the glass to get my hands around his neck, but the feeling passes quickly. Instead, I reach out impulsively just to touch the window, but that leaves my right hand holding the laptop computer and my right arm spasms with pain. I set the computer down as carefully as I can and clutch my wrist tightly. It and some of my fingers were broken in my fall, when I tried to catch myself, and apparently my hand won’t ever be as strong as it was. I’ve had to become left-handed as a result, which took a lot of work and even now my handwriting is sloppy and my pool game abysmal. Left-handed precision and right-handed strength are on my list of ways to improve myself, but they’re near the bottom.
I look up into the window again and now see myself, not the kid I was. I’m a little disappointed-I’ve thought about what I would do if I saw him, and as much as I’d like to beat him up, I know that instead I’d break down with pity. I get the feeling he’d pity me if he saw me now, me trying so hard to earn the kind of approval he’d always scorned.
As I leave the house through the back door, the kitchen table catches my attention. In Mom’s spotless house, it’s strange to see a spaghetti strainer leaning against a box of macaroni on the center of the table. Beneath them is a note.
Dear Richard,
Welcome home, sweetie! I’ll be back by 7:00, so don’t feel like you have to cook. Really, I’d be happy to. But if you must, here’s something easy. Just follow the directions on the side of the box.
It’s easy.
Love, Mom
I notice incredulously that she’s filled a pot with water already and set it on the stove. Yeah, gee, Mom, thanks--all that time in jail and I forgot how to use a faucet. I set the note down, feeling a strange sort of pity instead of anger. I’d told her during our awkward phone conversation last night that I’d make her dinner tonight.
”Yes, Mom, I can cook,” I said.
“No, don’t be silly. I’ll bring us some takeout.”
“I’d rather cook something.”
“No, really, there’s a new Chinese place on the corner of Main and Stewart.”
“But I said I’d cook something for you.”
She hadn’t believed me. She’ll find out tonight, though. I’ll make the macaroni all right, I’ll just toss it into the frittata I’d been planning to make anyway. I allow myself a smile at how surprised she’ll be. I guess I can’t blame her for not believing me. She probably remembers me as the kid who never had much interest in food, but that all changed the moment I got out of jail. I never, ever wanted to eat bland, straight-from-a-can food again, so I’d learned to cook. I learned pilafs and pestos, dips and dressings, chutneys and cheesecakes. I learned what ingredients were in season when and what I could do with them. It takes me awhile to prepare a meal, with my right hand aching like it does and my left hand still more awkward than it should be. But it’s worth the time-I’ve discovered how much everyone loves a good cook. Once people know you can cook, it’s instant friends. Food unites people. Over a meal you cooked for them, people open up. And in the brief space of time when people are well-fed and satisfied, the world seems all right.
I leave the house in sudden guilt, letting the morning chill reprimand me. Strike one. The most important thing on my mental list for self improvement is not to think of people like they’re things to be bought, used and sold. If I have one basic flaw in my character, it’s how I view relationships in terms of costs and benefits. What I can get out of someone for the time and energy I put into giving them what they want. Take my relationship with Mom-I’m here because Rachael told me Mom needs someone she can fuss over. Fine, I’ll let her take care of me because I need a place to stay for a few days. It’s always been about utility, about survival, about logic. But it’s not about humanity. The first person to show me humanity was John Avery Whittaker, who rescued me from the fire in Blackgaard’s Castle when I hadn’t done anything to deserve his mercy. I didn’t understand it for the longest time-whatever made my life worth saving to him? And then I got to thinking that it was just the human thing to do, and maybe it’s my perception that’s wrong.
When I was a kid, I used to think I was really a computer, because I liked computers more than I liked most people. I think people can become what they believe themselves to be, and I think I have. Not literally, but what kind of human being quantifies interactions with other human beings in terms of mutual benefits? I try to catch myself when I lapse into this, but it’s such a part of me that I usually don’t even notice.
I stroll down the sidewalk, hearing the familiar sounds of early summer, kids playing in someone’s backyard and a lawnmower in the distance. Muted sounds. The sun is far away and hasn’t had a chance to warm up the day yet. For now, this place feels frozen, in memory as much as in temperature. The street looks the same, and walking down it makes me feel like I could be the old Richard Maxwell. But that guy didn’t have this soundtrack in his head, these guilty memories. That guy heard something and recalled it only when he wanted to, ignoring it the rest of the time. I’m not so lucky.
”You used me Richard,” said Lucy.
I had. God, or whoever, help me.
I don’t think about Lucy much these days. I did time in the detention center for some things, so technically those debts are paid, but I never served time for what I did to Lucy. I tried to make it up to her, and I guess some would say that rescuing her from Myron and the Bones of Rath counts, but I know it’s not enough. She was genial then, like she’d really meant it when she said all was forgiven, but I have trouble believing it. I wonder how she turned out, if she’s a well-adjusted young lady, or if she’s somehow scarred, like maybe she cringes whenever she hears the word “applesauce”. I know I do. But Rachael told me that Lucy left town awhile ago, not sure where to, and I’m at once glad and disappointed.
When I’m in Chicago, nothing ever hits me this way. The only real memory I have there makes me feel amused and triumphant. I see Blackgaard on his knees, begging me for his life. It had been hard for me to keep from laughing at the look on his face, his eyes so wide, his hands clasped before him, shaking. That had been one small victory. My relationship with Blackgaard was one I’d tried to balance, too-he’s the reason I spent two years of my youth in jail, and no amount of payback would have been enough as far as I’m concerned. I wish he’d been caught and brought to justice instead of dying like a coward. Still, that’s one less relationship for me to keep score for. There’s just one thing I wonder: did he die thinking I was murdered at his command, thinking I was beaten? Or did he know that I’d escaped, that I’d won? I’d get more satisfaction from my successful mission to distract him from Myron’s computer if I knew that Blackgaard had, in the end, known what I’d been up to. But the guy always underestimated me, so I suspect he never realized what I was doing in Whit’s End that day. If there’s a hell, maybe Blackgaard will see that I’m not there and conclude that I must still be alive. I comfort myself with the thought.
I find myself on the campus at last. There’s a new sculpture in the center of the fountain, some red-brown metal object d’art that I don’t understand but like just the same. Other than that, the campus hasn’t changed, and gives me no pleasant memories. Here, they’d expelled me. Here, that kid who was me said he didn’t care. Nicky had been another utilitarian relationship. He helped me change students’ grades, I made sure he stayed here, where he wanted to be. What a warped little mind I’d had. No threats, voiced or unvoiced is also on my list. There are exceptions to this rule-people who deserve a good scare, people like Myron. No blackmail and no bribes are easy rules for most people to live by, but they’ve been in my arsenal of interpersonal relationships for as long as I can remember, and I have to watch myself constantly.
I’m on my way to the admissions office when a voice off to the left shrieks: “Richard!”
Connie runs up to me, grinning. Her hair looks different. It makes her look older, but she sounds just the same.
“Connie,” I say, my voice sounding thrilled while inside I dread the things she might mention. “How’ve you been?”
“Never mind me, how are you? What was the big idea, running off like that? Tom said he went to visit you in the hospital one day and you’d just up and left. And nobody else has heard a word from you. I was beginning to think we’d never see you again!” Connie had managed, while talking, to steer me gently toward the fountain.
I don’t know Connie well, not really, but I always feel like she was made for Odyssey. She’s open and outgoing, likable and friendly. I was born and raised here, but she’s the one who fits in.
“Sorry to make everyone worry,” I say. “I had some business in Chicago, you know how it is.”
Connie narrows her eyes for a second. She isn’t as gullible as you’d think she’d be, and her suspicion makes me realize that I just broke one of my rules. No lies. Strike two.
I sigh and sit on the edge of the fountain. Connie sits, too, setting her bag next to her feet, while around us, summer students meander through their day. They look younger than I remember CCCC students being.
“Well,” Connie prompts. “What sort of business was so urgent that you couldn’t even say goodbye?”
No lies. But how much can Connie possibly understand? She’s going to jump to conclusions no matter what I say-I remember her tirade when I went to visit Lucy in the hospital. But that was the other me, and maybe she’s grown, too.
“I’ve been in school,” I say. “Studying computers at the University of Chicago.”
“What is it with people like you and Eugene?” Connie asks, rolling her eyes. “Like you two really have anything more to learn about computers.” She crosses one leg over the other and drapes a forearm across her knee. “That still doesn’t explain why you left town. You’d have had plenty of time before fall term started.”
Lies leap into my head. I didn’t want to pay for the hospital anymore (my insurance had covered it), my aunt Agatha had been deathly ill (all my relatives live in Odyssey), the experience had scared me and I wanted to run away from Blackgaard and his cronies (I would never run away from them. Never, ever.)
“Well, Connie, in all honesty . . .”
“Yes?”
“The hospital reminded me of jail a little too much. Stuck in a room all day, seeing the same few people. Even the food was the same.”
“Oh, I don’t blame you for wanting to be out of the hospital. But why didn’t you stay in Odyssey, at least for awhile?”
She won’t understand. She’ll take it personally. Lie, lie, lie, part of me shouts. It’s the old me, the me that used to stroll this campus every day, whistling his unconcern for the rest of the world. Lie, and she’ll leave you alone.
“Because,” I begin. I pause and, remarkably, Connie doesn’t interrupt. “Because Odyssey was a prison, too.”
“What?” Ah, the indignance. I’d been right.
“Connie, when you’ve done the kinds of things I have, you want to get away from anything that reminds you of that.” It’s a half-truth. A little less than half.
”Everything you told me was a lie,” said Lucy.
“Not everything.”
“Yes, everything.”
“Well, why do you keep coming back, then?” Connie demands.
Because I love this town, and I want to deserve it. I want to challenge who I’d been, to forcibly remove his memory and influence from both me and Odyssey. I swallow and gaze ahead, not knowing what to tell her.
“Richard,” she says. “You’ve been forgiven. If you had stayed, you’d know that-you were a hero, how you rescued Lucy and kept Blackgaard from seeing that computer. You just didn’t give Odyssey a chance to thank you. No one cares what you did before. God can forgive you-you need to forgive yourself.”
I look down. She’s missed the point entirely-in trying to reason with me, she’d just voiced the real reason I’d been avoiding Odyssey. She’s not as intuitive as Whit-maybe he’ll understand without my having to articulate it. I cough and make my tone light. “Well, that’s why I’m here,” I tell her. “To put the past behind me. I want to start up again at the four C’s. Or the five, if they’ll have me.”
”That’s clever,” said Lucy.
“And cute, too,” I added.
“You want to go from the University of Chicago to Campbell County Community College?”
“Yep.” To come full circle, so I could make new tracks over the old ones that had gone so awry. “But, ah, they expelled me. I was just on my way to find out the procedure for petitioning the school to let me back in. I have a good transcript now, and recommendations from U of C professors. I was kind of hoping to find some character witnesses in Odyssey. You know, someone who knows I’ve changed.”
“You should ask Whit,” Connie says immediately. “He knew you back when you were expelled, so who’d be better to tell the college that you’ve changed?”
I smile gratefully, inside feeling the familiar terror that my guilt-laced gratitude has become. Now I shift the conversation to Whit, and Connie fills me in on happenings around town. Some of it, I already know about, like the new mayor and the other shop in Connellsville. Connie is curiously quiet about herself, but I figure if Connie keeps mum on anything, it’s because she has a good enough reason to. Eventually, she stands and stretches, saying she has to go to work, leaving me with a warm smile and a “Welcome home.”
I watch her leave the quad and then slouch forward, head bent. That half-truth I told her about avoiding Odyssey because of my past should be strike three for the day, which makes me a failure again. But it was half-true. Maybe I’ll call it a foul ball. That gives me one more chance before the day is a loss.
The truth is, I couldn’t tell her all of it. It’s easy enough for people to believe that I’m haunted by what I did-that’s only natural, they assume. That misses the real point, which is that I’m haunted by Odyssey’s forgiveness.
It all started right after I got out of jail. Right away I got a little revenge on Blackgaard-relationships should be equal, after all. He deserved a little, shall we say, token of my esteem for leaving me trapped in a burning building, not to mention what he made me do to Lucy and Tom Riley. Then I came home. All I had in mind was to say I was sorry-that was it. People could take it or leave it, but I’d have done my job: let myself off the hook from my regrets.
But I asked for Whit’s help, because as much as I knew what I wanted to do, I had no idea how to get people to listen to me. And Whit explained something that, to this day, I don’t fully understand.
“Did you only want to say you’re sorry, or-or are you going to ask for their forgiveness?”
I didn’t know the difference, and asked him what it was.
“Saying you’re sorry just lets them know you feel bad for what you did. It doesn’t really need an answer. But when you ask for their forgiveness, you’re admitting that you need something from them. Their pardon for what you’ve done.”
I didn’t understand it, but I asked their forgiveness anyway. Some people gave it, some withheld it. It sort of awed and humbled me when they said they forgave me, but I knew they couldn’t mean it. I hadn’t done anything to earn it. My cost-benefit analysis of human relationships had me owing them more than I could ever pay-first, I’d hurt them, and then they’d forgiven me. To my computer brain, that means I owe them doubly, not that all debts are canceled. So I thought about it for a few years, while keeping an eye on Odyssey and on Blackgaard. And when Blackgaard came back, I was ready to help-to really pay Odyssey back. I guess I did help out a little in that whole thing.
And then Tom Riley was there in the hospital, talking to me. Apologizing to me. And it scared me. I’d burned down the guy’s barn. And yeah, I’d been trying to earn this reconciliation, but now that he was offering it, I didn’t feel like I’d done enough. When he asked me to forgive him, the first thing I could think was to suggest that we forgive each other-to make it even. And then he sat beside me while I rested, and that’s when the fear really struck me. I’d shrugged off people’s forgiveness in the past-Eugene was under pressure from Whit, Lucy was a sweet, naïve kid, Connie and Whit had to forgive me because they were Christians. But when Tom Riley gave in, I realized just how little I deserved it. And suddenly I knew that I owed him-I owed this town. If I stayed here, every day would be about paying them back. And what would happen when I made a mistake? Would I be doubly suspect? It was jail all over again, not because I couldn’t transcend my own past, but because I could never even the imbalance that Odyssey’s forgiveness had created.
I’d never understood the phrase “fear of God,” the way Christians use it. Like fear is a good thing. I thought, if God is so loving, why are you supposed to be afraid of him? The contradiction kept me cynical about religion for a long time. But there in that hospital room, I realized what fear of God means. Forgiveness is terrifying. If God really can forgive anything-and if you listen to them, that’s what they say-well, what a great and terrible thing. I couldn’t bear to be forgiven by God. I owe enough to mortals.
I stand up from the edge of the fountain, shaking off these thoughts, these memories. The day has warmed up and there are more people around, skating, jogging, walking their dogs. This is home and I’ve missed it unbearably. I’m here to give back to Odyssey-not as a debtor, but as, I hope, a true friend. The first step is getting back into CCCCC, because that’s where I started. I head to the admissions office, convinced that if I can let go of the past, I can replace it with something new.
The only problem is, I never forget.