(Memories in the Trash)

NOW

(Adena)

“Hey, I’m going to take off soon,” Riley said.

Bad enough I had already been ditched by Chloe and Leah. They wanted me to go out with them. Head to the bar for a few drinks and flirt with some cute guys. It wasn’t the worst idea in the world but I just didn’t feel like it. I could always count on Riley to stay with me.

Or so I thought.

“What am I going to do now?” I asked her.

I had tried to be all proper and womanly like with a bottle of wine and some cheese and crackers. The cheese was gone. The wine barely touched. But plenty of the hard stuff and beer had been consumed. At the end of the day, no matter how old we got or how dressed up and how much we pretended to be proper women, we were still a group of friends from a shit hole small town who all grew up struggling to survive. Which meant a cold beer had a better taste and feel than some room temperature wine that was bitter.

“Whatever you want to do,” Riley said. She had been drinking iced tea, her usual, but without whiskey in it. I should have known she was leaving. “I mean that, too. Why don’t you think about opening another business?”

“Please. How did the first one work out?”

“Oh, please yourself,” Riley said. She stood up. “You know why that business failed. And it didn’t fail. You were successful. People loved you. So you didn’t fail, Adena. You have to move forward. Move on.”

“To work for Mary Anne. And I’m pretty sure I’m fired.”

“Okay, first of all, she gave you a check for a week’s worth of pay,” Riley said. “Cash that thing and breathe. Second, you got to get back at Liz. I can’t believe that see-you-next-Tuesday has the nerve to still be in this town.”

I smiled. “Good points. Keep going.”

Riley walked to me as I sat curled up in the corner of the couch. She crouched and grabbed my knees. “Adena, I can’t fix anything. Nobody can do that. Only you can. Chloe and Leah went out to have fun. I actually have a date.”

“What? Really?”

“Yeah. I pushed it back until nine. So I have to go get ready.”

“Well now I feel like an idiot.”

“Don’t,” she said. “I’m here for you. You shouldn’t have gone to work when you did.”

I looked away.

Riley saved my butt the other day after everything went down. I went to her place and slept there for two nights. Until she gently coaxed me out of her apartment by walking me to the door and telling me to go home.

This was my first night back home and I couldn’t do it alone.

“I’m sure you and Mary Anne will figure things out,” Riley said. “Time and space. Let both do their job, Adena. You’re on edge because you’ve always been a protector. You’ve always had a built-in excuse.”

“What?”

“Think about it. Anything that went wrong, it was Anna’s fault. Anything that went wrong in your life, you could point to her. Not anymore. So figure out what you want. You could sell this house and pocket the money. Start over. Pay everything off you owe. Get a small apartment in another town. Work at a cafe and take in the sights and sounds. Right?”

“You make it sound so easy,” I said. “None of us have gotten out of this town, Riley.”

She nodded. “That’s true. But out of everyone I know, you’re the strongest.”

I blinked fast. “Thanks.” I sucked in a breath and sighed. “Okay, enough about me. Tell me about this date. I want details.”

Riley rolled her eyes. “Well, I haven’t been on a date in a long time. So I’m sort of nervous.”

“If it’s any consolation… I’m not sure I’ve ever been on a date in my entire life.”

“No offense, but that’s your fault,” Riley said with a grin.

“Yeah, yeah. Are you done crapping on me?”

“Are you done feeling sorry for yourself?”

“Don’t think I won’t slap you.”

“You can try.”

“Hey. Let’s do it in our panties. And then we can use our phones to record it. Then we can become famous.”

“Now you sound like your sister,” Riley said.

Then she frowned.

There was silence.

“Shit,” she whispered.

“It’s fine,” I said. “I think I’m expecting her to come through the door at some point.”

“I understand that. And you know she never will. I’ll stay. I can change my date…”

“Hell no,” I said. “Go. Now. Go have fun. Get freaky.”

“Freaky,” Riley said. “You just said freaky…”

I shrugged my shoulders. “What?”

“I think you’re the one that needs to get freaky…”

Riley stood up and winked.

When she left, I sat there alone, thinking.

There was one thing on my mind.

I grabbed my phone and thanks to the internet I was able to find a certain custom welding business. And that business had a phone number. That business also had a cell number. With a name next to it.

“No,” I said.

I got off the couch and decided…

Anna obviously wasn’t going to come home. Yet all her stuff was still here.

I was going to clean out all her stuff and rearrange the room.

Anna would never leave my memory… but it was time she left this house for good.

* * *

I played all those cheesy 90’s songs I used to sing to in my van when I had the bakery. And that bottle of wine I opened to try and appear to be classy? I had that more than half gone in no time. Which meant my brain tried to tell me I was a better singer than I really was.

The stuff I found of Anna’s was mostly junk. Half empty packs of cigarettes. Lighters. Empty lighters. Clothes that smelled funky. I ended up just getting a trash bag and throwing things out. A few times I felt my chest tighten with hurt but I refused to cry. I wasn’t going to cry for Anna. She was gone. I wasn’t. She did all of this to herself. Blaming the world for what happened to our parents wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. Even though it got to her so badly…

I see Anna steal an apple from the basket on the counter. Aunt Beth will be happy since all Anna wants is sugar. Cereal. Candy. Soda. She’s too young for that stuff but I think Aunt Beth just doesn’t know what to do. She never had kids before us. She was always just the fun aunt. But now she was a parent-aunt.

I follow Anna and watch as she takes the apple outside. She looks around at the sky and then crouches. She places the apple on the sidewalk. Right in the middle. She stands and waves her hands at… nothing.

It’s getting dark.

So I tell her to come inside. This town isn’t exactly safe. It’s better than where we used to live though. No gunshots. No people screaming in pain. Or maybe those funny noises coming from the bedroom. It’s quiet but a scary quiet. Aunt Beth tells us all the time to be careful. Whatever that means.

I get Anna on the porch. She grabs my hand. She smiles. She’s got a strange smile though. Like a bad kid smile. I’ve seen those smiles. On other kids. Kids that do really bad things. I hope Anna doesn’t become a bad kid.

I asked her what she was doing with the apple. She asks if I can keep a secret. I tell her of course I can. I have to keep her secrets. All of them. She looks to me. She needs me. I’m like her mother now. Not Aunt Beth. It’s confusing for me. Almost as confusing as why this one girl in class named Sarah left the room, saying her belly was bleeding. She came back an hour later in a different pair of pants. Why? If she was really bleeding from her stomach she should have gone to the hospital.

Anyway, Anna asks if we can sit.

So we sit on the top step of the porch.

I ask her again about the apple. She finally tells me what it means. That she read a story about a magical apple that brought someone back to life. That a princess was cursed by a troll. And that princess went to sleep. She died! The princess was dead. And there was a prince who was upset. Really sad. So he said he would do anything to save her. A witch who didn’t like the troll that killed the princess told the prince there was a way to save her. They needed a special apple from a special apple tree. The witch cast a spell on the apple. Once the princess tasted the apple she would come alive.

I listen to this story and it makes no sense. My guess is that Anna’s brain picked up on a few stories and twisted them together. But I let her talk. I let her tell me the entire story which ended with the princess coming to life and the witch turning the troll into a statue which she then put right outside her front door.

I ask her why she was doing this with the apple.

Know what she says back?

She says she hopes our mother finds the apple and eats it. Even though she’s dead, she could find it and eat it. Then come back to life.

I don’t know what to say to Anna.

Right then, Aunt Beth comes outside and says we look cute sitting next to each other.

What happens then is that animals start taking the apples. Every night Anna leaves one outside. The next morning it’s gone. Our mother never comes back. Aunt Beth thinks Anna is eating apples. And I know the truth, the secrets.

A few months later… Anna becomes one of the bad kids.

I sat on the floor in the room, the wine bottle in my hand. My phone still playing the music. But I just stared off into space for a few minutes. I glanced back at the closet and shook my head.

“One thing at a time,” I whispered.

I grabbed the trash bag and peeked inside. I had thrown a bunch of papers and stuff… Overdue bills. Warnings about her credit cards and cell phone. Even some legal stuff. Parking tickets. Speeding tickets. Guys numbers scratched onto paper napkins.

But then there was something I hadn’t seen before. A folded up picture. I plucked it from the trash bag and unfolded it.

I covered my mouth.

“She kept it,” I whispered.

Of all the pictures she could have kept. All the pictures I tried to save throughout the years. This was the one picture Anna kept.

The picture of she and Evan at the dance I was supposed to go to.