“Both of you hush,” Lola says, pressing her hands down against thin air in that keep it down motion that looks like a baby bird learning to fly. “He’ll hear you.”
“He doesn’t know that you know?” Mom asks.
I put the coffee carafe and the now-chipped mug into the sink.
“This is crazy,” I say and take the stack of cards out of Mom’s hand.
This is Mom’s family-gathering preparatory package. It’s index cards of family photos of infrequently seen people mixed in with those more frequently seen, but annoying, and then peppered with people encountering some drama that Mom feels Lola should know about. I told Mom she should market it as a family game of some sort. She said that was rude. I thought it was an interesting way for people to keep up with family gossip and the like.
“Do you want to do this?” I ask Lola, holding out the note cards. “Or do you just want to wing it?”
Lola “wings” a lot of things.
“Maybe I’ll just get plastered,” Lola says. “I’ll use being drunk as an excuse for any slipups.”
Mom glances at me, and I look away. The drinking was before the accident. We’re not sure how much Lola remembers prior to it. Mom’s “problem” seems to have fallen into one of Lola’s holes. Her memory is selective. It’s not like she forgets how to walk or use a fork—although during the early years of her recovery both of those things happened—she just misplaces information. It’s all in there; the recall function just doesn’t work like it should. So she has to use visual aids sometimes. Hence her house being polka-dotted with Post-it Notes.
What day the trash is picked up.
Her neighbor’s first name.
When the rent is due.
Which gallery is showing her art.
Lola is an amazing artist. That came after the accident too, although the talent for it was surely already there. It’s just that since her brain wasn’t working like it should, Mom and Dad didn’t press the issue of good grades. They were just happy she remembered everyone when she came down to the breakfast table. She was allowed the freedom to be creative. She was good at it, and her success made us all feel better.
Sometimes, I think her brain works just like it was meant to and perhaps the accident was a way for us to let her be who she was meant to be.
After the accident, it seemed as though Lola would never come home from the hospital, that she would live forever at the rehabilitation hospital. I had a room to myself—something I had wanted, but once I got it, it was like living with a ghost. When Lola got out of the hospital, Dad threw a party for her. Dad and I decorated at home while Mom signed the papers at the hospital and put Lola in the car to bring her to us. Our older brother, Ray, stayed in his room.
It was a coming-out party for Mom as well. While Lola had been recovering, Mom had too. She’d started attending AA meetings and stopped drinking. This party was supposed to be a celebration of our new, reinvented life.
Dad hummed and joked and tousled my hair. Every so often he would call out for Ray to come downstairs, but Ray didn’t. While Mom set up cake and brought out presents, Dad went up the stairs. I followed him and hid around the corner. Dad knocked on Ray’s door.
“You sister is home,” he said to the closed door, even though Ray had not answered. “She’s asking for you.”
Ray must have been standing just on the other side of the threshold because the door creaked open almost immediately.
“What about Mom?” Ray asked, avoiding eye contact the way a teenager will do even when they don’t need to.
“Your mother is back too,” Dad said and sighed. “This is a chance for us all to make a new start. Let’s try, please. Even if we don’t feel up to it.”
Ray slithered out of the small space he afforded between our world and his. He had a present in his hand. Although it was wrapped in Christmas paper, Dad nodded his approval and clapped his hand on Ray’s shoulder. Ray jerked away. Dad sighed again and let Ray walk down the steps alone.
“It’s a start,” Dad said to no one in particular. Then he looked back down the hall. “Let’s go, Nina.”
I snuck out of hiding, thinking I was in trouble for eavesdropping. Instead, Dad took my hand and walked downstairs with me. In the living room, Lola was propped up on the couch, looking like any little girl sitting on a couch, except for the metal braces attached like bear traps on her ankles.
Ray thrust his gift toward her, but didn’t step close enough for her to reach it. Dad took it from Ray and placed it on Lola’s lap. I thought Ray would slink away to the recliner on the other side of the room, but he lowered himself softly onto the couch beside Lola, careful not to jostle her.
Ray watched as she opened his gift. No one said anything.
It was an elaborate paint set. Real paint. Not kid paint. Real brushes and mixers and things that I didn’t recognize. It was expensive, and it explained all the lawn mowing he had done around town.
“It will give you something to do,” Ray said, speaking quickly the way a person does when they feel they’re talking out of turn.
“I’ll paint a picture for you,” Lola said.
She was ten. In the hospital, she had to be told who each of us were. But she seemed to recognize Ray. She looked at him like she had known him in a far-off dream. Later, she wouldn’t stop painting pictures of him. It was like she knew him from before. Like she was trying not to forget. Like, even then, she was trying to make him remember who he was and show him who he didn’t have to be.
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“I don’t think
