The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson
“It’s a Halloween costume, Andy,” Trish said mildly. “It’s very cute.”
“You should see the mask,” Finn said, holding out the bird face.
“Stop it!” I shouted, not willing to let them turn this into a game of plastic people talking about nothing while hungry lions paced in the middle of the room.
“Hayley, please,” Trish said.
I pointed at my father. “This isn’t about Halloween or pants.” I pointed at Trish. “It’s about you. Did you drug him? Is he having a brain bleed? I mean, God—”
“That’s enough, young lady,” Dad growled.
“No, Andy, don’t!” Trish shouted.
And this, always this. The part where Dad loses it, except he was supposed to grab her, not me, that’s what it said in the script; she’d bitch at him and nag, or he’d yell at her and no matter how it started, it ended with shoves and screams and broken things, and sometimes the broken thing was her, and sometimes it was him. Never me because I was small enough to hide in the closet or under my bed.
But that wouldn’t work anymore. I was too big.
Dad’s breath smelled like whiskey and apple pie. This close, his eyes were dead flat, with no expression, not even anger. He looked at me like he didn’t know me. Maybe if my hair was still in pigtails, maybe if I was two feet shorter and missing my front teeth, then he’d see me.
Finn shouted something and suddenly he was next to me. Dad shoved him away. Finn came back and Dad grabbed his coat and there was Trish right in the middle of everything, her face inches from mine, from Dad’s. This was where she’d slap me or maybe Dad or maybe even Finn. This was where the screaming would pitch up and then something would fly through the air, an ashtray, a beer bottle, a table, and they would roar at each other and somebody would bleed and—
“Andy.” Trish’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Look at me.”
Dad squeezed the front of Finn’s coat tighter.
“Please, Andy,” she said. “Please look at me.” She put her hands on my father’s fists. “What have we been talking about all night?” she whispered.
Daddy closed his eyes and opened his hands.
Finn and I both stepped out of range. I mouthed “Go,” but he shook his head. Dad sat heavily on the couch, expressionless. Spock hopped up next to him and laid his shaggy head on Dad’s lap.
“How about we let Hayley get her sweatpants and go to her girlfriend’s for the night, like she planned?” Trish asked.
The only sound was the whump, whump of Spock’s tail on the couch cushions as Dad scratched his ears.
“Or I can leave,” Trish said. “Whatever is going to make you comfortable.”
Whump, whump, whump, whump, whump.
Dad looked at the dog, but spoke to me. “You should go, Hayley.”
“But—”
He shook his head. “I need to talk to Trish. Will this guy walk you to Grace’s?”
“Of course, sir,” Finn said.
“Would you mind waiting for her outside?” Trish asked.
Action
56
I emptied my backpack on my bed, then stuffed it with a pair of jeans, socks, underwear, a couple of books, and all the money in my secret stash . . . heart pounding legs running lungs heaving . . . I pulled on leggings and then sweatpants . . . get out get out get out . . . Put on a turtleneck and my heaviest hoodie . . . run hide watch your back . . . Took the hunting knife out of my sock drawer and put it in the pouch.
Fought the urge to set my room on fire and scream while the windows and mirrors shattered. Fought the urge to reach inside and punch my own heart until it stopped beating or until I stopped caring, whichever came first.
I walked out of my room. Down the hall.
They were sitting at the table again. She had the coffee cup to her mouth. He stared into the candle flame.
I grabbed my feathered shawl off the floor. Slammed the front door behind me, hoping that it would make the roof cave in. I did not look back to see if it did.
57
“Wait!”
I turned right at the bottom of the driveway and kept walking.
“Wait, where are we going?” Finn called after me.
Walking, walking . . .
He fell into step next to me. “Gracie’s house is the other way.”
What if she kills him? What if she upsets him so much, he shoots her, and then turns the gun on himself?
“I’m not going to Gracie’s.”
“So where are you going?”
Walk. Just walk.
“Bus station.”
“That’s ridiculous. You don’t run away because you don’t like your dad’s date.”
What if he’s been getting worse because she’s been messing with his head? What if he has truly lost it, as in he needs to be tied to a bed, he needs them to shock his brain again? What if he’s already gone over the edge and can’t come back?
“Come on, really?” He jogged ahead, then turned and walked backward a few paces in front of me. “What time does the bus leave? Where is it going? You don’t know, do you?”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m getting on the first bus out of here.”
“What if it’s going to Poughkeepsie?” he asked. “Nobody in their right mind would go to Poughkeepsie.”
“Stop following me.”
“You’re following me,” he said. “I’m in front.”
“I’m not playing, Finn.”
“I know. That’s what’s scaring me.”
Just walk.
“You’re going in the wrong direction, you know,” he said. “Unless you were going to walk twenty-five miles to the Schenectady station.”
“If you get your car, you could drive me.”
“If I go back to get my car, you’ll disappear.”
I kept my mouth shut, head down, and feet moving because he was right.
Five minutes. Ten.
We left the last streetlight behind, but the road was lit by the stubborn moon. We passed an abandoned farm and walked through the smell of something dead and rotting in the weeds.
Without any warning, Finn suddenly tripped and went down hard.
I wanted to walk past him, over him if necessary, but the sound he made when he hit the ground, a soft “ow,” was so real that I almost felt it.
I stopped. “Break anything?”
He sat up. “Not sure.” He reached forward and felt his right ankle, then slowly flexed his foot, wincing a little.
I put out my hand and helped him up. He dusted off the back of his coat and took a few steps.
“Ankle’s okay, but I think I sprained my butt bone.” He walked a few paces and turned to look at me. “Let’s go.”
The Halloween wind that had blown us all over town hours earlier cut through me, slicing through my clothes, biting my skin, and breaking the fever that had been boiling in me ever since I opened the door and saw Trish at our table.
“Do you think we’ve crossed the border yet?” I asked.
“Canada is that way.” Finn pointed north. “A very long walk.”
“I meant the border to the next town.”
“Why?”
The moon chuckled. It did. I heard it.
“I wish they painted black lines on the ground to show you where the borders are, like on a map.” I wiped the tears off my face. “You know, like when you’re little in an airplane, and you look down and you expect to see fat lines on the ground dividing one state from the other?”
“The company that made the giant paintbrushes to do that went out of business,” Finn said quietly, stepping closer to me. “Sabotage, I think.”
I shivered. “Why are you doing this?”
He pulled a feather out of my hair and held it between us. “I have this thing for Sexy Bi
I tried to keep my face hard, my fists clenched, but a smile crept up. We kissed, gently at first, then harder. Hotter. We kissed in the moonlight in the middle of nowhere, our arms winding around each other like vines. For a moment, I didn’t feel lost.
“Are you hungry?” he finally asked.
“No.”
“Good.” He lifted my hand and kissed the knuckles. “Let me cook you breakfast. I’ll call Topher, tell him to stay away. We’ll eat and then I’ll take you to the bus station, Scout’s honor, whatever bus station you want.”
“You were never a Boy Scout.”
“Pancakes or waffles?”
58
Night vision goggles turn the dark into shades of green, Oz-like, but they can’t see everything. Thermal-imaging goggles show the heat signature of the hidden enemy. Kill him and you can watch the heat leave his body like a spirit reaching for the moon.
I am a good soldier, a good officer. I believe in my country and my mission. I still believe in honor, but sand plugs my heart. It sifts through the holes in my brain. Some days I see the world in the green of night vision. Some days I see the heat.
I blink and I forget why I walked into the room. I forget why I am driving on this road. The remembering takes up every breath until there is no room for today. I pour a drink, ten drinks, so I can forget that I have forgotten today. I smoke. Choke down pills. Pray. Eat. Sleep. Shit. Curse.
Nothing chases away the sand or the memories engraved on the back side of my eyelids. They play on a continuous loop, with smells and sound and sorrow.
59
Finn’s house was a narrow condo in the middle of a row of other condos lined up like slices of white bread in a plastic bag.
“You won’t believe how much they charge for this place,” he explained, unlocking the front door. “Mom’s moving as soon as I graduate.” He flipped on the lights as we walked in.
“You’re positive she’s won’t turn up?” I asked.
“She hates driving at night, don’t worry.”
In the bathroom, I tried to repair the damage the tears had done to my makeup. The past rushed in through the mirror . . .
. . . Trish taking me on a city bus to get my library card, riding bikes under tall dark trees, baking lopsided birthday cupcakes,
. . . me wiping the tears off her face with a little-girl hand, her wrapping me in a blanket and carrying me to the car,
. . . running from the beast daddy who roared and threw bolts of lightning, her holding me tight . . .
I turned the light off.
* * *
Finn opened the refrigerator. “Milk, chocolate milk, orange juice, or the red diet stuff my mom likes? Or I could make hot chocolate.”
“Vodka.”
“Milk, chocolate milk, orange juice, red stuff, hot chocolate,” he repeated. “Or tea.”
“I’ll buy vodka off a homeless guy outside the bus station.”
He sighed, took the orange juice out of the fridge and a vodka bottle out of the cupboard above it. He set them both in front of me, with a scratched plastic cup. I unscrewed the vodka cap and poured a couple inches.
“Aren’t you having any?” I asked.
“Chocolate milk is my drug of choice.”
I looked him in the eye, squinted, and looked closer, under the bright light. “Are you wearing eyeliner?”
“Took you long enough to notice,” he said. “Like it?”
“Yeah.” I chuckled. “Kinda hot. But no mascara, okay? I can’t be seen with a dude whose lashes are longer than mine.”
He stared at the plastic cup, then kissed the end of my nose. “Are we really talking about this?”
“No.” My gut made a decision for me and before I realized it, I had poured the vodka back in the bottle and filled my glass with juice. “Definitely not.”
As Finn cooked the bacon and pancakes, he tried to keep me distracted by chattering about his years as an apprentice chef at an emir’s palace in the middle of the Sahara Desert. It didn’t work. Worries boiled up, wrapped in a twisting gray ribbon of panic.
What was Trish’s plan?
She always had one, always stayed four or five steps ahead of everyone around her, especially my father. Was she after his disability check? She probably thought it was huge. Was she going to make him to fall in love with her again, let her move in? Get on his life insurance and then help him kill himself?
“Hey!” Finn snapped his finger in front of my face. “You need to eat.” He set down a steaming plate of pancakes in front of me, a smiley face of butter melting on top.
“Cute.”
“And bacon,” he set down a separate plate of crispy bacon strips, “and real maple syrup.” He poured dark syrup from a leaf-shaped glass bottle.
“Is that all you have?” I asked.
“My people come from New Hampshire; we only eat the real thing.”
“Your last name is Ramos.”
“There are Hispanics in New England, you know.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I didn’t mean . . .”
He grinned and raised a hand. “No worries. It gives me permission to say stereotypical things about white girls.”
“Great,” I said. “What about your mom’s family? Do I dare ask?”
“WASPs from Conway.”
“Where people like funny-looking maple syrup.”
“Which you are now going to try.” He speared a forkful of pancake and swished it in syrup. “Open up.”
“Forget it. I only like the cheap stuff they make out of corn syrup.”
“You’ll stand on the edge of a cliff, but you’re too chicken to try the best maple syrup in the world?”
He was being a pain to cheer me up and it was starting to work, even without the vodka. “Maybe you’re trying to poison me.”
“Wuss.”
“Now you’re picking a fight.” I dipped my pinky finger in his syrup and lightly touched it to the tip of my tongue. “People pay money for this?” (After putting up such a fuss I could hardly admit that it tasted amazing.)
“It’s boiled-down sap, totally natural,” he said. “No chemicals or preservatives.”
“It’s tree blood. That makes you a tree-sucking vampire. I bet you have splinters in your lips.”
“Maybe you should check,” he suggested, swooping in for a bite.
The doorbell rang.
“We’re ignoring that,” he murmured.
“All trick-or-treaters should be in bed,” I said.
But it kept ringing, and then came the heavy pounding. Finn cursed and sat back, his shoulders slumping.
“Damn,” he said. “I forgot to call them.”
60
Gracie tripped over the threshold. Topher trailed behind her with a stupid grin on his face. Both of them were red-eyed and buzzed.
“Did you drive?” Finn asked.
“Got a ride,” Topher said. “We escaped just in time.”
“So many police cars,” Gracie said with a giggle.
“Police?” Finn opened the door again to check.
“They busted the party at the quarry.” Topher grinned like a ten-year-old. “We ran. They didn’t see us.”
“We flew,” Gracie said, eyes wide. She pointed at Finn. “We have to sleep here tonight. In fact, we’re moving in. We’ll be hippies and have a commune and raise chickens. And goats.”
Topher put his arm around her. “Sorry, dude,” he said. “She’s a little messed up.”
“You two,” Gracie’s swayed her finger back and forth between Finn and me, “are good. Friends.”
“I made pancakes,” Finn said.
“Dude!” Topher let go of Gracie and headed for the kitchen.
“Hurry up,” Gracie called after him. “I want to talk to dead p
Finn looked at me. “What did she just say?”
* * *
By the time we finished eating, Gracie had somehow convinced Finn to take the big mirror off the wall of his mom’s bedroom and set it on the floor of the family room with a fat red candle in the middle of it.
Gracie curled up under an afghan on the couch, her head on Topher’s lap, her fogged eyes losing the fight to stay open. Topher tilted his head back and fell asleep, too. I thought about dragging the two of them outside and letting them sleep under the bushes, but that could create massive deposits of bad karma for me, and I needed all the help I could get in that department. By the time Finn came in from the kitchen with the rest of the bacon and a small bowl of maple syrup, the two of them were snoring, Gracie’s soft alto alternating with Topher’s bass.
“Turn off the lights,” I said.
Finn muttered something I didn’t catch, but shut the lights off and groped his way back in the dark. He sat across from me, the mirror between us.
“Now what?” he asked.
“Haven’t you ever done this?” I wrapped my shawl of feathers around me to shield me from thoughts of Trish and my father. “The veil between the worlds is thinnest on Halloween night. We’re supposed to be able to see dead people in the mirror.”
Finn crunched a piece of bacon. “My mom would never buy a mirror that had dead people in it.”
“You can be an old fart sometimes.” I leaned forward and lit the candle, holding my shawl away from the flame.
He pointed at the mirror’s surface. “See? You and me, very much alive.”
“Take off your glasses,” I said. “Let your eyes go out of focus.”
“If I take my glasses off, my eyes go out of focus automatically.”
I snorted. “Just do it, okay?”
Finn removed his glasses. “All right,” he said. “Bring on the dead. They better not like bacon.”
I took a deep breath, half closed my eyes, and let them go blurry until I could only see shapes. Oval silver mirror. Square red candle. Circles and then crescents of flame colored blue, yellow, white, and then gray until it faded into the lanky Finn-shaped shadow that melted into the darkness.