Anything for Her(40)

Usually Allie’s mother blocked any talk about the past. We’ve eased into it, good. “And Nanna,” Allie continued. “Does it bother you that, well, you weren’t there when she died?”

Now Mom’s face froze. “What do you think? Of course it bothers me!” As if aware of how her voice had risen, she scanned their fellow diners, none of whom appeared to be paying any attention to them. “Why would you ask something like that?”

“Because I’ve forgotten so much. I wish...I wish we’d kept more, to remember people by.” She wished for more than that, but knew she couldn’t say so.

“Oh, things,” her mother said dismissively. “You always did like to collect mementos.”

“Did I?”

“Every vacation, you’d insist on hauling home shells or pebbles and piles of brochures. Do you remember pressing flowers and leaves? You told me you wanted to keep the smells.” Her mouth curved reminiscently. “You were so disappointed when you discovered that dried flowers and leaves lost their scent.”

The memory of eagerly pressing flowers between the pages of a fat book, then piling a dozen other equally fat books atop, came to her as if it had been yesterday. And the dry, faded result. She’d lifted the book after she opened it and inhaled deeply, but caught only the hint of the smell she sought, or it might have been the memory of it.

I do remember, Allie thought with astonishment. She’d had a huge bulletin board over her bed, crowded with photos and bits and pieces of this and that. Postcards from places they’d been, a sand dollar that had smelled for a long time—quite unpleasantly, but still. Worn-out dance shoes, programs from recitals and performances, Lady’s collar after she had died in her sleep one night. Notes friends passed at school. A picture of Hunter surreptitiously taken and tucked beneath a brochure from a Catskill resort where the Marr family once vacationed, so that her brother didn’t see it and tease her mercilessly.

It had all been left behind.

She’d tried to begin again, after that first move when she had become Laura Nelson. But making friends wasn’t easy, and there was no dance, and no Lady, and no Nanna, or Grandmother and Grandfather in Florida, either. Letters and birthday cards from them were forwarded, but they had to be so careful when they wrote back. And if there had been vacations...well, she didn’t remember them. Their house had been so silent, her parents maneuvering around each other in brittle silence. The tension had grown and grown until Dad moved out. Her parents’ marriage, Allie had always believed, was a casualty of the decision Mom had made and Dad had opposed—the one that ended with the whole family having to go into the Witness Security Program.

“I remember that,” Allie murmured now, then saw that their food was being delivered. “We had time to go to Florida,” she said once the waitress left. “Why didn’t we have time to pack more?”

Mom looked at her with something like anger. “How could we disappear quietly if everything we owned had to be loaded into a moving truck? You understood then.”

“No.” Allie met her eyes. “No, I didn’t. I didn’t understand anything that was happening.”

“Well, this certainly isn’t the place to talk about it.” Her mother’s body was rigid.

Allie hadn’t tried to discuss the past in a long time, but today she felt stubborn. “You never want to talk about it.”

“What good does it do? I did the right thing. We all knew it required a sacrifice on all our parts. The best we can do is move on, not dwell on what can’t be changed. You know that’s what I believe.”

“There’s a difference,” Allie said quietly, “between not dwelling and pretending a huge part of our lives never happened.” Not pretending—forgetting. The difference expanded in her head. How had she been so blind? “We didn’t leave everything behind because we couldn’t take it. You didn’t want us to remember, did you?”

“You were teenagers, both of you. Jason was chafing to get out on his own, you were furious at having to move. Your father and I agreed that we all needed to look ahead, not behind.”

“Did he agree?” Allie asked, shocking herself. “Or did you not give him any choice, either?”

Her mother’s face pinched. “You’re still that bitter?” she whispered.

Allie closed her eyes. What was this gaining either of them? The past was past. How wrong would it have been to let a murderer walk, when Mom’s testimony could convict him? That’s what Dad had wanted her to do, Allie knew, but despite all Allie’s grief and, yes, bitterness, she’d also admired her mother for following her conscience. So now what was she trying to say? You should have put us first, and to hell with your conscience?