28 December 2015
I wish I could say that it was my idea, but that honor belonged to Jesse Franklin. Jesse believed stories were the collective memories of the world, recorded in books so that each of us could know who we were before we became who we are. He said that’s why people love The Catcher in the Rye when they’re teenagers, but fall out of love with it as adults. We’re all Holden Caulfield at fifteen, but when we grow up we want to be Atticus Finch. I didn’t exactly buy Jesse’s theory, but I stumbled upon the copy of To Kill a Mockingbird he’d loaned me, and it came back to me. That’s when I knew what I needed to do.
Audrey and Diego were both in on the plan—it’d been easy to convince them. Convincing TJ to let us into Nana’s room without her permission required a more devious approach.
“And that, gentlemen, is what boobs are good for,” Audrey said as she shut Nana’s door behind us and dropped the box she was carrying onto the empty bed. We hadn’t spoken about breaking into Jesse’s house, and I was happy to forget it had ever happened.
I rolled my eyes, but I doubt we would have gotten in without her. “You can finish patting yourself on the back later. Mom said she’d have Nana here by three thirty, which leaves us less than an hour.”
Diego scanned the bare room. “Where should we start?” It was difficult to resist holding his hand or leaning over to kiss him. I caught myself a couple of times, forgetting we’d agreed to just be friends, and I wondered if it were easier for Diego.
“Let’s start at the beginning.”
It took the entire hour, all three of us working quickly to finish before Nana returned. That didn’t include our preparation from the last two days. This was my belated Christmas gift to Nana, and one that she wouldn’t need to remember to appreciate.
Mom wasn’t in on the plan. Not the real plan. I’d only told her that I wanted to hang something in Nana’s room at the nursing home as a surprise, and convinced her to delay bringing Nana back after spending Christmas with us. My phone buzzed, letting me know they were close. We finished in a mad rush, and were waiting outside the door for Nana when she arrived.
“What’s this, Charlie? What are all of you doing here?” A few of the residents shuffled from their rooms, drawn by Nana’s annoyed tone.
“Come on, Nana. There’s something I want to show you.” I held out my hand and led her into the room.
I already knew what was on the other side of the door, so I watched Nana’s face when she saw it for the first time. Her tight frown eased, fell, and disappeared completely, replaced by confused awe as she tried to take in everything at once. The walls were almost completely covered in pictures of Nana’s life. There had been hundreds of photographs in the boxes Charlie had taken from her room, and the ones we’d chosen barely represented a tenth of them.
“This is the story of you.”
Nana touched the nearest picture. She was dancing with a handsome young man. Her left arm was raised, and her flowered dress twirled around her, open like an umbrella. If you listened closely, you could hear the Coasters singing “Poison Ivy” in the background. Nana couldn’t have been older than I am when that photo was taken. That girl’s face was unlined, untroubled, and unconcerned about the future.
Framed next to the picture was a photocopy of a handwritten journal entry. The boy’s name had been Kenny Highcastle, and Nana had only allowed him to escort her to the dance because her mother insisted, but she’d had the time of her life that night. Each picture we’d hung had a corresponding journal entry, and Nana’s life filled the spaces of all four walls.
“Even if they steal all your memories, they can’t steal the amazing life you led. Whenever you forget, just come in here until you remember again,” I said.
Nana shuffled around the room, moving from photograph to photograph, stopping at some longer than others. “Oh! I remember this. Your father and I bought our very first car. A Pontiac Tempest, Teal Turquoise. I never did learn how to drive it.”
“Yes, but you were the only mother on the PTA who could drive a tractor.” Mom stood behind me and rested her hands on my shoulders.
A few of the other residents trickled in. “Look, Hannah. Charlie found my missing memories. They’re all here.” Watching Nana show off her life, all the things she’d done, was the most amazing feeling in the world. I didn’t even care that she called me Charlie.
Maybe our lives did have meaning. Nana’s did. It meant something to her and to the people in her photographs. Each and every one of those memories was a moment that had mattered, even the ones that hadn’t seemed important at the time.
Mom kissed my cheek before she left. Audrey, Diego, and I stuck around a while longer, listening to Nana recount stories from the pictures. I figured, even if she didn’t always know she was the woman who’d lived this life, she’d know how important it was.
On the way out, Audrey said, “For a guy who thinks the world is going to end in a few weeks, that was a pretty amazing thing to do.”
“Nana deserves to be happy, for however long we have left.”
Diego shrugged and said, “She’s not the only one.”