The Great Forgetting Read online

  Sam was instantly relieved. She looked younger again. More like the girl he’d left behind.

  “I need you to find Tony’s bones and pull them up out of that lake.”

  8 Someone was tickling his feet.

  In the darkness Jack forgot where he was, that he’d come home to Franklin Mills and was sleeping in the bedroom where he’d slept as a child. He was quite startled for a second, sure some pervert burglar was caressing his toes. He shot up against the frame.

  Paige jumped and scream-giggled with delight. Her shadow was framed by soft light from the hall. Her hair was done up in pigtails that stood out from her head at ten and two. “Mommy told me to wake you up, Uncle Jack! Up, up! It’s a great day for up!” She bounded down the hall, and a moment later he heard her galloping down the stairs.

  He remembered, now, leaving a note for Jean to wake him. Sam had asked Jack to meet her at her shop. He had agreed, though he told himself he had no real intention of helping her pull the remains of her dead husband out of Claytor Lake—he didn’t even know if such a thing was possible. It was too deep. Too dangerous. And it couldn’t be drained because the miners had blown a hole into the aquifer back in ’52.

  Jack showered and dressed in jeans and a Miami U sweatshirt. He came down, sat next to his niece at the kitchen table, and devoured a bowl of Honeycombs. The house reeked of high-octane coffee. Jack hated the smell—it reminded him of Sister Mary Agnus’s dragon breath. But if coffee and cigarettes were what it took to keep his sister clean, he’d keep his mouth shut. The Captain reclined in his bed in the living room, watching Fox & Friends.

  Jack often wondered how two die-hard conservatives had produced such liberal children. His father had never cared for his chosen profession (“Public schools are how the socialists indoctrinate the masses”), but the Captain forgot his son was a teacher as soon as the dementia set in. Jack wondered if there wasn’t some subconscious part of his father directing the destruction of his memories, an algorithm to his forgetting. A happy foreman of the mind. Nonunion, of course.

  “The bus!” screamed Paige, jumping up so fast she knocked a bit of milk out of Jack’s bowl. She grabbed her backpack off a hook by the shoe rack, gave her mother a wave, and was halfway down the drive before the door settled behind her. Jack watched the yellow bus come to a stop. It said John F. Kennedy Local Schools on the side. Jean could not afford to send Paige to St. Joe’s.

  “You better be off,” said Jean, looking at him in a curious way he didn’t care for.

  “I’m not getting involved,” he told her. “I’m just going to hear what she has to say.”

  “Who are you?” the Captain asked from the other room.

  I hardly know, at present, he thought. “I’m Jack,” he said. “I’m your son.”

  “No, you’re not. Jack was here yesterday.”

  9 He drove the familiar route into town and it felt a little like stepping back through time.

  * * *

  The summer after Jack’s sophomore year, Sam moved to Franklin Mills from Warren, a factory town near the Pennsylvania border. One summer afternoon, Jean found her sunning on the shore of Claytor Lake—which was officially closed by then but overrun by neighborhood kids who claimed it as their own private beach from June to September. Sam and Jean were on their way to eighth grade.

  Jack didn’t think much of her at first.

  For one thing, Sam was too young to be on his radar. He still thought of his sister as a little girl, and, by extension, all her friends must be little girls. For another, Sam was annoying. Around noon, she and Jean would take a break from swimming and walk to the house for lunch. Most days, he was inside with Tony playing Nintendo—Duck Hunt, Master Blaster—and the girls would sit on the couch behind them with their sandwiches, enveloped in a cloud of sun and coconut, and Sam would start in on her whispering. Sam was always whispering to his sister. Like she couldn’t be bothered to talk in Jack’s company. And after the whispers came the giggles. Or worse—the high-pitched screams. She was flat-chested and wore long rock-and-roll T-shirts (Journey, KISS) over her bikinis. Also, Jack was in love with Jessica Farley that summer. She was a young woman, a blonde, in his own grade. Sure, Jessica had never spoken to him, but he had a plan for when they would see each other again in the fall—he had written a list of conversation starters cut into a square and laminated that he kept in his wallet, at the ready. For many reasons, Jack did not see Sam. Not until the week of the county fair.

  It was mid-August and Franklin Mills was suffocating. It was the kind of heat wave that pushes down the branches of the trees and turns blacktop into a bubbling mess. A stubborn high-pressure system had settled over northeast Ohio like a giant dome. Dick Goddard, the godfather of Cleveland meteorology, called it a once-in-a-lifetime event. Scientists at NASA’s Lewis Research Center said it was like a mini version of the red spot on Jupiter. It was ninety-six degrees in the shade when the Captain returned from Arizona on turnaround and the Felters packed the Suburban for the journey to the county fair—a cooler of soda and beer, sunblock and mosquito repellent, blankets for the ride home. Jack got to bring Tony. Jean brought Sam.

  They split up when they arrived at the fairgrounds, a bluegrass field covered with long white tents. Clickety steel rides sparkled aggressively in the hot sun. Virginia had promised to volunteer at the St. Joe’s sausage sandwich stand and the Captain wanted a good seat for the demolition derby. The girls set off for the 4-H barn and Jack and Tony headed for the carny games, loaded down with singles the Captain had pulled from a pocket.

  “There’s tricks to beating some of these games,” Tony said, leading the way. Tony always walked with his hands in his pockets, leaning forward like he was fighting the wind. Jack tried to keep up, snaking through the crowd of people in Dale Earnhardt tees and cut-off jean shorts. “There,” he said, pointing to a rugged man in a red-and-white-striped top hat standing beside a mechanical scale.

  “You can beat guess-your-weight?” asked Jack.

  “It’s never just guess-your-weight. It’s guess-your-age, guess-your-birthday, too.”

  The carny was talking to a plump young woman with a pretty face. Even Jack could tell she was pushing two hundred. Why she had asked the man to guess her weight instead of her age or birthday would forever remain a mystery.

  The carny scribbled something on a piece of paper, handed the slip to the woman with an air of condescension, then leaned back on his display of prizes.

  The woman sniffed. “The hell you say,” she spat.

  The carny shrugged. “Step on the scale,” he invited. “Prove me wrong.”

  For a moment, she considered it. “You have it rigged high.”

  “The scale is as true as a St. Joe’s girl on her wedding day,” he said.

  “Give me back my money,” she demanded.

  “All sales are final. Pick age next time. You have a young face.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, then restrained herself. Her friends patted her on the back and then escorted her toward the funnel cake booth.

  “I’ll take that bet,” said Tony. “And I’ll take that when we’re done.” He pointed to a slingshot tucked in the upper corner of the prize wall. It didn’t look street legal.

  “That’s an upper-level prize,” said the carny. “I have to guess wrong on your age, weight, and birthday for an upper-level prize. How about a frosted Foghat mirror?”

  Tony pulled out a wad of cash. “I have ten dollars. It’s three dollars a guess, right? How about we put the whole ten on just one guess, my birthday, and if I win I get the slingshot?”

  The carny looked around. The stream of the crowd continued down the main drag. Nobody was looking their way. The carny pocketed the greenbacks and pulled out his notepad. When he wrote this time his hand was precise with its penmanship.

  Jack had a sinking feeling in his stomach. They were dealing with a professional and he had pegged Tony as a mark. And maybe he was. And now he would have to front his f
riend enough money to make it through the rest of the day. Still, the odds were technically in Tony’s favor—the carny had to come within two months of his correct birthday, after all. But there must be some advantage he didn’t see. Some secret carny mind-reading hoodoo.

  “What’s your birthday?”

  Tony smiled. “October twenty-seventh.”

  The carny wadded up the piece of paper and chucked it at them. “You fuckin’ cheat,” he said.

  Jack reached down and grabbed the paper, held it tight.

  “The slingshot,” said Tony, pointing.

  “Take your money back,” the carny said, pulling the singles out of his apron pocket.

  “No,” said Tony. His voice had never sounded so adult. “The slingshot. Or double my money. Unless you want to take it up with the fair chief.”

  Jack doubted there was such a thing as a “fair chief,” but the carny got the drift. He dug back into his apron and came out with twenty dollars. “Here,” he said. “Now scram. Get the fuck away from me.”

  Tony pushed the bills into his jeans and grabbed Jack’s arm, “C’mon,” he said, pulling them toward the rides. As they walked, Jack opened the crumpled paper. It was hard to read. Just three letters. Jack thought it might be “Jan” for “January.”

  “He made it hard to read on purpose,” Tony explained. “That way, he can say it means January, June, or July. Since he gets a two-month handicap, he’ll always win unless your birthday is in October.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “My old man has a book about how to beat carny games,” Tony said, nonchalantly. “If you know the tricks you can really clean up when they come to town. My dad used to take me to fairs all over Ohio. We’d come back with a trunkload of merch.”

  Tony treated Jack to a roll of tickets and they spent the next hour riding not-quite-up-to-code death traps. At the end of the main drag was the Caterpillar.

  The Caterpillar was a long train of white pyramidal pods, each enclosed under Plexiglas. The train rolled around a giant loop, carrying its passengers upside down, over and over, before reversing direction and going around the other way. The gimmick was that the pods were arranged in pairs, facing each other, and when the Caterpillar climbed the loop, the car in front of you collided against your own, bringing you to within a few inches of another person’s shocked face.

  “Ah, man,” said Tony, pointing out their windshield at Jean and Sam in the pod across from them. Jean flicked him off. Sam, seated directly across from Jack, whispered something funny in his sister’s ear.

  The car hitched forward, pulling them up the loop. Jean and Sam’s pod was traveling backward. Then the force of gravity brought Sam’s car crashing against Jack’s. It was a thunderous clap. It was the sound of the pods colliding. It was the sound of Jack’s future altering course, the sound of his destiny snapping like an elastic band drawn past its breaking point.

  Sam’s face was inches away from his own, and for the first time he looked into her eyes. Dark as volcanic rock. They pulled at him like mini black holes. And he saw her: her billion freckles, her copper hair, the gap between her two front teeth, the way her hot-pink T-shirt fell off one shoulder. He noticed a thousand little things in that second of time: the way her hair was so sun-bleached near her scalp that it was hard to tell where it grew from her forehead; her thin little eyebrows; her cracked lower lip. She stared back at him, daring. He had never looked into a girl’s eyes for so long. She smiled and mouthed a single word, “Hi.”

  They looked at each other, thin smiles playing at their mouths, until the ride ended. When it was over, Jean pulled Sam toward the 4-H tent. Jack watched Sam go. Some distance away, nearly lost in the mob of people, she turned to find him looking after her.

  The back of the Suburban was set up with sleeping bags for their journey home when the fair closed at eleven that night. Before they were on the highway, Jean and Tony had nodded off. Jack’s hand found Sam’s. She stroked his fingers. He reached over and gently touched her arm. They held each other the whole way back, his face in her long hair that smelled of the sun and the earth and the hot Ohio air.

  10 Nostalgia was at the corner of State Route 14 and Tallmadge, across from the Driftwood, an emporium full of repurposed antiques. Sam was a picker before picking was a thing. When they were dating she used to drag Jack all over Ohio searching for dilapidated barns full of treasures in forgotten corners of the state, places with names like Knockemstiff and Mingo Junction. She’d dress in overalls and pull her hair back in a ponytail. She could talk a farmer out of a handwoven Amish rocker for thirty dollars. He’d seen her do it. They never knew what hit them.

  In college Sam learned how to refinish her finds and flip them on Craigslist. Enough for beer money. Made a name for herself in Ravenna. After Tony disappeared, she cashed in their savings and bought the corner of the new plaza and placed a sandwich board outside, made herself too busy to think about what was happening.

  Jack stepped inside Nostalgia at five to eight, the cowbell above the door clinking softly. The place was a cluttered, cozy mess: half-open drawers full of wood stamps, shelves of Underwood typewriters, cabinets full of jade figurines, a rolltop desk stacked with paperback books, Grossvater beer logos. The air was dusty and smelled of industrial binding glue.

  “Back here!” she hollered from another room behind the big-button cash register. He walked through the polka-dot sheet that served as a door. Beyond was her workshop. Sam crouched beside a chifforobe, sanding a stubborn corner. She dropped the scour, wiped her hands on her bibs, then pulled off a pair of plastic safety goggles. “What d’ya think?”

  “It’s you,” he said.

  “I meant to say so last night, but I was real sorry to hear about the Captain,” said Sam, leaning against the dresser.

  “Thanks.”

  “He did a big favor for me right before he had his first stroke.”

  Jack felt a hitch in his chest. The thought of his father doing anything for Sam made him feel ugly inside.

  “This place is great,” he said at last. “Really great. Perfect for you. Is it going well?”

  “No,” she said. “That’s why I need your help. Why we need to find Tony’s body.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Most weeks I don’t see a dime from Nostalgia. I can barely pay the utilities. There’s nothing left over. Tony’s life insurance will pay out seven hundred thousand. And that will settle things.”

  “But you said it was suicide. They wouldn’t pay on a suicide, right?”

  Sam waved the thought away. “My lawyer says that if we found the body, they’d never be able to determine it was suicide,” she said. “Not after all this time. They’d have to call it an accidental drowning.”

  Jack watched her wipe away the tear that leaked from the corner of her left eye and let her pretend it was dust. There was an emotional center under that steel. He’d seen it once or twice. This was survival mode, her armor against the world, her default state. “So just go to the cops,” he said. “Tell them you think he took a swim or something that night. Never came back. They’ll be able to search the bottom.”

  “Uh-uh,” she said, shaking her head. “I tried that. This fucking detective tells me they have proof Tony drew money from one of his accounts after he disappeared. They’re not going to waste their time.”

  “Well, if they have evidence he’s alive…”

  “It was me,” said Sam. “I withdrew that money. It was five hundred bucks. I did it every other week until they froze it. Tony told me to. It was for bills. I didn’t know it was a business account. How was I supposed to know? All that kiting check stuff? He wasn’t kiting checks. I was withdrawing money from the hospital’s petty cash. I didn’t know that’s what I was doing. But ignorance isn’t a defense, right? It was me. It was all me. I tell the police, and now I’m on the hook for it.”

  Jack rubbed the bridge of his nose and tried to collect his thoughts. “What set Tony off?”
he asked after a moment.

  “He was working out at Haven,” she said. “Up on Fisher? He got this new patient he was all excited about. Then he got sick real quick. Paranoid. He started boiling water before he would drink it. He said the fluoride in the water was making us crazy. The day he went out to Claytor Lake, Tony told me there were jet planes outside spraying chemicals into the air.”

  Sam walked to a squat hundred-year-old cherrywood drafting table. She reached into a drawer and withdrew a plastic Target shopping bag stuffed with papers and handed it to Jack.

  “This is everything I found in his desk,” she said. “It’s all crazy talk. Read it. You get a pretty good sense of where his mind was in the end. Maybe he was just sane enough to realize he might hurt me if he got any worse. I think he was worried he might be like his father.”

  Jack sighed.

  “I know you’re the last person I should be asking for help,” she said. “But I don’t have anybody else.”

  I should have listened to my mother, he almost said. Virginia had warned him that Sam was damaged goods. A barracuda, she’d called her, like that Heart song.

  Instead, he nodded. “Let me see what I can do,” he said. “No promises.”

  11 Jack returned home just before noon. There was a sick feeling in his stomach, a tug of unease paired with a sense of urgency. What he finally decided was that he felt manipulated, pushed in a direction toward some unseen end. Manipulated by whom? By what? By the unnamed disease that stole his father’s memories, corrupting a bond he’d taken for granted? By Sam, who could still pull his strings?

  The question was as old as history itself: Why are these things happening to me?

  At least Jean had always been true. Always with him, honest.

  If anyone had reason to complain, it was her. She’d gotten tangled up with a member of Sam’s family, too. And had barely survived. She had the Captain to deal with now. And yet she seemed to enjoy the defeating work of keeping their father alive. Jack felt guilty for being so selfish.