The Memory Book(69)

Mom: Beverly, yeah.

Dad: It was strange at first, so tight with people we knew but so much space at the same time.

Mom: But your dad got a job right away because he knew a guy working for the City of Lebanon, and that gave me time to get my associate’s degree, and then you came along! I mean, I wonder, Sammie, with all of your talk about getting out… You think we only stay in the Upper Valley because we don’t have enough money to leave?

Sammie: I don’t know. I guess so.

Mom: We’re lucky to be here. Maybe it’s because the mountains are bigger than everyone, they give people perspective. Listen, you can go anywhere you want, you can conquer the world, you could have gone to New York and been incredibly successful, and I know you would have been. (breaks in voice, sniffing) But the more you win, the more people you might have to beat out, or have to leave behind, the smaller your world becomes.

Dad: That’s absolutely right.

Mom (points out to the yard, to the mountain): We’ve got a big world here, Sammie.

Sammie: I know. I know now.





A LETTER I HAVEN’T SENT



Dear Coop,

I might forget some words so just read as you go and try to make sense. First I’m sorry Stuart punched you. I hope your nose and mouth are okay. I haven’t been able to think of much else since the other morning. I mean, more than just your nose and mouth, but you do have a very handsome nose and mouth and I hope they are not destroyed.

Most of all I hope our friendship isn’t destroyed. Remember the day we became friends? It was probably when we were five or four. I saw you a lot and I remember staring at your hair because you had the loudest color hair I had ever seen and you were always naked running around in your yard. Maybe not the right moment but there was a time when you had run all the way from your house to see how far the garden hose could go. You ran all the way yanking the green hose and right when you got to our yard you stopped. I think I was probably catching those little yellow butterflies between two cups like I often did. Anyway I looked up and there you were holding the hose, pulling it, trying to get it to go farther but it wouldn’t budge. So you set it down and ran away back to your house. You left the hose and I just stared at it and all of a sudden water started trickling out of the end. It was magic. I had no idea how you did it or if it was you that even did it. I walked up closer to the hose and watched the water flow out, harder and harder, and then you came running back. You were laughing because it was amazing. You picked up the hose and waved it around and I went and jumped in the water with you and I think we played together ever since.

I’ve been wondering where that person was for the last four years when we could have been friends. The person who noticed little things like that and thought they were special. I was so busy thinking about how I could be better than everyone that I stopped seeing anyone else at all. I thought I knew what I needed and perhaps I did need some of it. I am happy I worked so hard in school. I am happy I got to be in debate and give a speech. But now what does that mean? What about the space between the things I checked off my list? What about when the list has to get thrown out?

What I mean is we could have had four thousand and sixty days instead of just fourteen or seven or the six hours we had by the Potholes. I will be sorry for the rest of my life if we can’t have any more days together.

I’m sorry I told your secret. I don’t judge you, and I don’t think I’m better than you, and anyone who thinks they are can suck it. I was trying to be a better version of myself but didn’t care who I was stepping on to get there. I was trying to pretend I had a future that would never exist, and never will. But I would have rather gone back and had you with me, no matter what my future was.

I’ve lived with you right now and those right nows are everywhere, every time, in my house, in your house, on the mountain.

I love you. Home is where love is. You’re my home.

Sammie



PS And I don’t think you’re a dumbshit

PPS At least not all the time





STUART SHAH, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER


Stuart and I met in the early morning before he caught a bus back to New York. He came over and we sat on the plastic lawn chairs. He was wearing all gray again, a stuffed backpack strapped to his back. The echolocation between us was gone, replaced with a sort of pillow that seemed to muffle everything. I took tea, he took coffee, and we looked at each other with puffy eyes. He came on a good day.

“You look nice,” Stuart said.

“Don’t lie,” I said, and smiled at him with a mouth that didn’t go all the way up on one side.

“I’m not,” he said. “How are you holding up?”

I did not expect him to be so civil. But I guess he had gotten all his anger out. “I’m okay. How are you?”

“Back to the city life.”

“I’m happy for you,” I said.

“You shouldn’t be,” Stuart said, almost bitter.

There it was, the anger. “I’m sorry,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I said it before and I still mean it: I’m sorry for what I did.”

“It still baffles me,” Stuart said. “How far I was willing to go for you, and you threw it away.”

“I never…” I searched for this word, I remember, and was embarrassed. “I never understood why you were willing to give me yourself so fully without knowing me that well.”