Sign Here(28)

“If you have to hold on to just one thing,” he said, “remember your last name.”

I rolled over, lowering my voice like his.

“Why? I’d much rather remember people—”

“You’re not going to stay down here like me,” he said. “You’ll move up, sooner rather than later. And if you keep moving up, you’ll get to the Fifth Floor.”

I had heard about the Fifth Floor. Private studio apartments, multiple eateries. A salary of some kind. I caught the scent of stomach acid under my fingernails and thought the Fifth Floor sounded like Heaven. Or close enough.

“If you can remember your last name, you can get out of here.”

“The Second Floor?”

“No,” Slips said. The conversation was hard for him. I could hear it in his pauses. I wondered what details of his list he was sacrificing as he spoke to me. Whose scent he had just lost.

“Out of Hell.”

I thought I’d misheard him. This was Hell. The lack of an exit was paramount to the brand.

“That’s impossible.”

“Just remember your last name,” he said, before his heavy breathing gave way to heavier snores.

I rolled onto my back again and stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep. After endless kvetching, begging, and groveling on my knees, I had accepted my fate. I was in Hell, and there was nothing I could do about it. But now I saw a sliver of light through a padlocked door. Once I saw it, I could never unsee it. I could never go back to acceptance.

Maybe there was a way out.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, pulling up the memories that faded like dreams with the morning news.

I clasped my hands together.

“Harrison,” I whispered.





PART II





LILY





AT SEVENTEEN, LILY WAS a stranger to forgetting. She was too young for it to creep in uninvited, and things were good enough that she had yet to invite it. On the contrary, at that age, Lily wanted to remember everything. She’d be at a sleepover with her friends or on the school lawn with Silas as he kissed her neck, and she’d take a mental snapshot, telling herself, You’ll want to remember this. It started with something her mother used to say as she leaned against the doorframe of Lily’s bedroom, watching her get ready for bed. You should enjoy this body of yours, Lillian. Before you know it, it will all be gone.

Of course, she didn’t actually mean Lily should enjoy her body—as in delight in all of the pain and pleasure from each slippery little inch. Rather, she meant Lily should take full advantage of the power a young woman’s body gave her, because when it was gone, she would be nothing.

It wasn’t until she got the news that Philip had killed himself in his cell while she was picking out wedding flowers that seventeen-year-old Lily made her first conscious effort to forget. Once she got that call, she took to forgetting like everything else she had set out to accomplish: utterly, and with teeth. In fact, she forgot so well over the years that when she first saw Gavin in the frozen-food section of Market Basket, she didn’t recognize him.



* * *



—

“LILY THOMPSON?”

Lily stopped her cart and swept her new bangs from her face—an ill attempt at keeping up with the trends that her hairdresser pushed on her, along with free wine and compliments.

“What?”

“Lily Thompson, Sweeney High?”

Lily crumpled her shopping list in her fist and smiled at him. He looked familiar, but only in the way the whole town looked familiar: white skin and whiter shirt collars.

“Yup, you got me,” she said, checking the yogurt selection. Mickey was flirting with veganism after watching a documentary in health class, but Sean still loved the yogurt with the separate pouch for candy or crunch.

“You probably don’t remember me,” he said. “I didn’t go to Sweeney, but my sister did. Sarah.”

“Oh really?” Lily asked, flicking her eyes, briefly, to his face. “Sarah who?”

When she looked back, it was in that moment—the moment she actually took the necessary second to look at his face, her mind on nothing but how to keep the dairy products cold when she knew she still had bakery and produce to go—that the first of her ancient memory blockades formed its inaugural crack.

She could see his sister in his features. His long face, thick hair, something in the eyes that seemed to suggest she wasn’t in on a joke. He was older now than she had been, of course. His life had allowed him that. Gray started at his temples and fanned out, an army with a plan.

She remembered him. Or, rather, even after so many years of trying to forget, she remembered her. Sarah.

“Gavin,” she said, her hand back in her bangs. “Of course.”

“How have you been?” he asked, his slate eyes holding hers. She was surprised to see no blame in them.

“Fine,” she answered, glancing away. Not because she was distracted, but because, for the first time in a very long time, she wasn’t. “Good. I mean, I have two beautiful children, and Silas is—” She froze.

“How old are your kids?” Gavin asked.

“Sean is almost seventeen, and Mickey is thirteen. What about you? Do you have kids?”