Reclaimed Read online

  JENNA

  He really didn’t remember me. It bothered me, mostly because I felt guilty. I didn’t want to admit I’d been with a boy I hardly knew when Pops died. I’d said good-bye to Ian instead of my own grandfather. I’d carried that guilt around for the past seven months. Obviously, he hadn’t been worth it. I didn’t even warrant a footnote in his life.

  I walked back into the kitchen, which, despite how achingly familiar it was, had undergone its own metamorphosis. The wallpaper was peeling and the kitchen cabinets were warped and stained. The refrigerator was too big for the opening, so it was sitting in the middle of the room. The familiar gingham curtains were gone, leaving the window naked. The house had been shut up for a long time, and it smelled musty; it used to smell like cinnamon and pipe tobacco. I walked to the laundry room.

  Pops had marked my mom’s height on the doorjamb with black marker, then mine with red. I reached over and ran my fingers along the wood. My red lines were always just above Mom’s. Her lines stopped at twelve, when she reached five feet. Mine stopped at thirteen—I’d hit five feet six inches that year. I’d shot up over the summer, showing up to seventh grade taller than any of the boys. They’d teased me about my skinny legs, and I’d cried when they weren’t looking.

  God, this was like being seven all over again. I’d sat on the counters and helped Mops cook. She’d let me make all kinds of messes. We dyed Easter eggs there, and carved pumpkins, and made really ugly Christmas cookies. The past seemed to hover somewhere just out of sight, waiting for me to look the other way so it could slide into place. I remembered where every dish was supposed to go. The nail where Mops’s apron used to hang was empty.

  Even after Mops had moved out, she would come over here on Sundays and bring Pops dinner. We would all sit at the table and listen to his stories. He was always full of them—and full of bull too. After dinner, Mops would clean up the kitchen while Pops would lean back in his chair and smoke his pipe. In the summers we might go down to the pond before dark; sometimes we’d throw a line in, and sometimes I’d look for turtles and catch tadpoles.

  The house didn’t smell the way I remembered, didn’t sound the same, didn’t feel the same. Standing in the kitchen, I was slapped in the face with Pops’s death. I couldn’t forget, couldn’t pretend he was just out of sight. The house screamed his absence.

  “Looking for something?”

  I whirled around at Mrs. McAlister’s voice. She couldn’t have been much older than forty, but she looked tired. There were lines around her eyes and ones that pulled down at the corners of her mouth. Her dark hair was streaked with gray. She looked wary. I got the feeling she wanted me to leave.

  “Sorry,” I said. “My grandpa used to live here.”

  Mrs. McAlister gave me a small smile. “Thank you so much for stopping by.” She didn’t really look like she meant it. “And for the basket.”

  “Sure.” I stepped around her and out into the hall. She followed me to the door and shut it behind me before I’d even gotten off the porch.

  I opened the Bronco door, then looked up at the house before I slid in. Ian’s face peered out of an upstairs window—the room I’d once slept in. I climbed in and started the car. When I looked back at the window, he was gone.

  THREE

  IAN

  I woke up late, and it took me a minute to remember where I was. I’d dreamt about the tree house again. For just a moment, caught in that strip between waking and sleeping, I could smell the cut wood and hear the buzz of a lawn mower. But then I was fully awake, and the feeling shattered.

  It was quiet upstairs. Luke wasn’t around—hadn’t been much in the week since we’d moved in. There were unpacked boxes still stacked outside his bedroom door. He’d always been irresponsible; it was one of the reasons he and Dad couldn’t get along. They’d walked away from their last argument bloody and bruised—literally. Fistfights had a tendency to do that. Some mistakes just couldn’t be forgiven. We left because our family refused to look our problems directly in the eye. Better to neglect them completely and hope they starved to death. Then Dad could hide the bones in the basement, and Mom could plant roses in front so our neighbors could go on admiring our perfect yard while all the time there were piles of problems decomposing underneath us. The divorce was a shitstorm that had threatened to unearth everything we’d been trying to keep buried. Mom was going to make sure that didn’t happen again—because the McAlisters were perfect.

  Even though Luke and I had once been inseparable, we mostly avoided each other these days. He was the reason my parents divorced. If he’d just been able to control his temper then Dad would have been able to control his. I blamed Luke for having to leave the familiar behind. I didn’t know who I was here. I wasn’t an athlete or an honor student. I wasn’t anything everyone kept telling me I was supposed to be but couldn’t really remember. And God, I wanted to. Because if I could just remember, maybe we would be normal again. But at least there weren’t any bones in this basement. Yet. Mom was determined to keep it that way, which meant I was stuck reining in my brother. And he was being moodier than usual.

  “Ian?” My mom’s voice came from the living room.

  “Yeah, it’s me.” I walked across the hall. There were dents in the old wooden floor, a paint splatter here and there. Our house in Massachusetts had been new and pristine, still smelling like paint and wood—the perfect museum for the perfect family of the perfect soldier. This house smelled a little musty, and the wallpaper was peeling in places. This was a better setting for the family we were now—broken and scattered.

  This house had a lot of windows, and Mom had tacked thick blankets over them until we could get curtains. The only things close enough to see in our windows were bugs and coyotes, but Mom was used to neighborhoods—or maybe she was just protecting our secrets. The blankets made the living room feel like a cave. Or a tomb.

  Mom was sitting on the floor, a busted cardboard box next to her, the floor strewn with photo albums. The pictures were scattered.

  “What happened in here?” I asked.

  She’d been crying. She tried to play it off, but I could tell. I always could. “I was trying to put these away, and the box broke.” I sat next to her and helped her sort the pictures, our lives reduced to ink on paper, every single moment of the past seventeen years frozen in time.

  “Remember that trip?” she asked. She sounded hopeful as she showed me a picture of our whole family in front of the Yellowstone sign.

  I did. “Gophers,” I said.

  Mom laughed. “I’d forgotten that part.”

  Luke had begged Dad for a slingshot when we’d stopped at an old-fashioned general store on the drive west. Dad had gotten us each one, but Luke was the only one who could use his. When we’d stopped at some cabins to spend a few days, Luke and I had hidden behind a bush, lying on our bellies and being as still as eight-year-old boys could be. I was surprised when the first gopher popped up out of his hole. I was even more surprised when Luke nailed it in the side of the head with a rock. I’d tried hitting a couple but never even got close. I’d watched him instead. He’d also hit a bird and a passing car. That was what got us in trouble. The driver slammed on his brakes and Luke and I took off sprinting for our cabin, but the guy followed and told on us. Dad made us apologize and went to see the damage—there was none, somehow—but when he’d gotten back, instead of punishing Luke, he’d congratulated him on his aim. That was back before the cracks appeared.

  Funny how my memory worked, that I could remember that so easily but couldn’t recall a year ago. And while I was grateful that the black hole in my brain hadn’t gobbled up everything, I was desperate to find the pieces it had.

  The years were jumbled together on the floor, and I picked up a photo of me with a girl I should have recognized but didn’t. Mom snatched it out of my hand and stuck it in the middle of her pile. I’d only gotten the briefest of glimpses, but the girl had been looking at me and laughing. I couldn’t reme
mber if I’d been happy. There were a few of me in my football jersey and one in my baseball uniform, but none of them felt real because I couldn’t remember them for myself. I couldn’t hold them in my head and examine them from all angles.

  I picked up another picture, this one showing Luke and me outfitted for Cub Scouts. We had our little shirts with patches – Luke had a Craftsman for woodworking and I had one for Citizenship. Luke never did earn that one. We had our arms slung around each other. I had this big goofy grin, but Luke had already perfected his crooked smirk. It made him look like trouble, even at ten.

  “Remember Luke getting us kicked out of camp?” I asked Mom, showing her the picture.

  Dallas Caruthers had dared Luke to sneak over to the girls’ church camp on the other side of the lake. It was a good three-mile hike, and Luke had wanted me to go with him, but I wouldn’t. I didn’t want to get in trouble. Luke never backed out of a dare, so he’d marched through the woods alone, circling around the lake and whispering at an open window until Mary Catherine Johnson had come out in her nightgown and agreed to go canoeing with him. I had no idea how he pulled that one off, but they were busted trying to launch the canoe. Poor Mary Catherine. Her dad had been the lead pastor at that camp. They’d probably sent her to a convent.

  “I can’t believe they kicked me out too. I didn’t even do anything.” I was always paying for Luke’s mistakes.

  “They didn’t kick you out,” Mom said. “Don’t you remember?”

  I didn’t. I shook my head.

  Her smile was sad. “Your dad was in the car, reaming Luke out, and I came to your cabin to say bye. Your face got all red when you realized Luke wasn’t staying. I’d never seen you so mad. You said if Luke was leaving, you were too. Then you ripped the Citizenship patch off your shirt, threw it at the camp counselor, and stormed out to the car. Your dad was furious.”

  I remembered that part. We’d been grounded for the rest of the summer. “Has he called?”

  Mom concentrated on getting the pictures back in the album. “He’s been really busy.”

  “Yeah,” I said, getting to my feet. “I’m sure that’s it.” Mom opened her mouth to say something, but I interrupted. “I’m hungry.”

  I rummaged around in the fridge, piling everything I could find on the counter, and fixed myself a couple of sandwiches. I hadn’t talked to Dad since the day we’d left—which had been almost three weeks ago. No one was that busy. He didn’t forgive or forget, but I was surprised that he could cut us out of his life so completely, like we were some parasitic tumor he was glad to finally be rid of. How was I supposed to piece the family back together when no one else was even trying?

  “I have to work tonight,” Mom said as she stepped into the kitchen. She rummaged through one of the remaining boxes. “Late,” she added.

  She was always working late. She’d thrown herself into her new job at the Middleton hospital, and I was pretty sure it was the only thing holding her together. She had to focus on what everyone else needed instead of what was happening here. She had to take care of other people instead of taking care of herself. If she stood still for just a moment, the world might come crashing in, a wave on the beach. I was doing everything I could to help keep the waves out at sea, but I was afraid that, eventually, they were going to knock us all down. And I wouldn’t be able to stop them.

  Mom stacked a few pans in the bottom cupboard and tried to shut the door. It swung open slowly, the hinges creaking. She tried again, but the door refused to stay closed. I leaned against the counter, watching her get more and more frustrated, knowing that her anger had nothing to do with the cabinet. She slammed it shut, and it held until she stood up and opened another box. Then it swung open again.

  She swore at the cabinets and glared at the fridge. “We’ll need to have some work done in here,” she said.

  “Luke can do it.” He’d spent the last couple of summers working with Mom’s brother in his cabinet shop.

  Mom pressed her mouth into a tight, thin line and nodded once. Her eyes were hard. She was mad at Luke too. “Your first appointment with Dr. Benson is next Thursday.”

  “I don’t understand why I have to talk to him.” I’d been seeing a doctor in Massachusetts, but he’d been useless. Just like I was pretty sure this one would be. I couldn’t count on someone else to find my memories or get rid of the headaches. I was going to have to do that myself.

  “He’s one of the reasons we moved here. He thinks he can help you.” Mom refused to look at me.

  “Help me with what, Mom? There’s nothing wrong with me!” The waves sounded closer. “What about Luke?” Mom flinched. “He should be the one going, not me.” He was supposed to go in Massachusetts, but he’d always refused to show up. “The divorce, the bags under your eyes—they’re all his fault!” I tossed my plate, sandwiches uneaten, into the sink. The plate snapped in two. “I’m not Luke,” I said, gripping the edge of the sink, “so stop punishing me for his screwups.”

  Mom looked at me then, her eyes full of tears. I was the one who had to look away. I couldn’t stand to see my mother cry.

  “Of course there’s nothing wrong with you. I never said there was. But, under the circumstances…” She stopped, like she’d said too much. But she hadn’t said anything at all. She never did. No one ever did. Something had happened to cause my memory to gum up, but no one was saying what. Everyone thought it would be better for me to figure it out on my own. I was trying as hard as I could, but nothing seemed to be working.

  I sighed. I didn’t know where that sudden anger had come from—that wasn’t me—but it was just as suddenly gone, leaving me raw and worn-out. “Wait.” I crossed the small space and put my arms around her. She was so fragile and tiny, and I had no idea when that had happened. “I’m sorry.”

  She patted my shoulder and stepped away. “This is hard on all of us.” She wouldn’t look at me. She went to her room, leaving me in the kitchen with my guilt. I leaned over the sink and stared at the broken plate. It had cracked cleanly down the middle.

  “That was elegant.”

  I looked up and saw Luke’s reflection in the window.

  “Haven’t seen much of you lately,” I said.

  “Thought you didn’t want to.”

  He was right. “Can we not do this right now? I’m really not in the mood to deal with your bullshit.”

  “Fine.” He shrugged, but there was hurt in his voice. If I was going to piece us back together, I was going to have to forgive him. Just not today.

  Luke stared out the window, refusing to look at me as I turned and headed back to my room. When he spoke, there was something like fear in his voice. “Maybe he can help you remember,” he said.

  But the way everyone was acting, I wondered if I really wanted to.

  FOUR

  JENNA

  “Mops?” The little bell above the door jingled as I stepped into the store, the smell of old paper and dust welcoming me home.

  “Back here!” Her disembodied voice floated across the stacks of books. I followed it to the back corner, where Mops was digging through an old shopping bag. She looked like she’d already put in a full day’s work. It didn’t matter what time Mops went to bed; she was always up at dawn, and before most people had even had their coffee, Mops had done a load of laundry, cooked breakfast, read the paper, and straightened her apartment.

  Reclaimed was her store. It was cozy, full of books and chairs too ugly to keep in someone’s house and too comfortable to throw away. There were rusted washing machines and clothes no one would dare wear in public, as well as old rugs and anything else no one wanted but couldn’t stand to toss in the trash. Mops hated waste, and since she never threw anything away, she pretty much had to open a secondhand store. “Old Miss Harris dropped this off over the weekend,” she told me, elbow-deep in the torn bag.

  I loved the way Mops called other people “old,” people who were only slightly older than she was. Or sometimes who were younger.
But Mops didn’t age. She was the youngest sixty-year-old on the planet.

  Mops stood up, grimacing pleasantly as her back cracked, and swiped her freckled arm across her freckled forehead. Her hair was swept up in a nub of a ponytail, but several graying strands had escaped and were sticking to her neck. She dusted her hands on her overalls and grinned at me. “I put these aside for you.”

  She pulled a plastic shopping bag out from behind one of the shelves. It was full of books Mops thought I might like—travel books on Bali, Canada, and New Zealand. It was hard to believe that anyone from Solitude had actually been to those places. There were several old classics, too. Frankenstein was missing a cover, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde had been taped back together. There was also some book called The Hounds of the Morrigan, which I’d never heard of but looked pretty good. The last book in the bag was a good-condition hardback on writing.

  “Thanks.” I grinned.

  Mops shrugged, not even looking at me. “Just thought they sounded interesting.”

  “How much do I owe you?”

  “I’ll take it out of your check,” she lied. Mops had been supplying me with books since I was born. She’d taught me to read and love words, then Pops had taught me how to weave them into a story. Or in his case, a tall tale.

  At noon we locked the front door and headed upstairs to eat. She’d moved into the apartment upstairs when I was seven, but she’d gone by Pops’s house on Sundays. Sometimes, if Pops was “showing out,” as Mops called it, she would let him fend for himself until he could straighten up, but that never lasted for long. She loved Pops—she just hadn’t been able to live with him anymore. They didn’t divorce, just lived apart. I was pretty sure she missed Pops even more than Mom did. She just didn’t show it the same way.

  Mops pulled several large containers of leftovers out of the fridge; she still hadn’t figured out how to cook for one. It worked in my favor, since Mops had to be the best cook in the county.