Remembrance of Things I Forgot: A Novel

Ch. 3

38 3 WALKING BACK to the Finney Room, I felt increasingly anxious and wondered whether I should have told Junior about Carol’s death already. What if something happened to me before nine o’clock? Opening the door, I hoped to find Taylor seated at the computer, playing online Scrabble, killing time while he waited for me to show up. To my disappointment, he wasn’t there. I turned on the computer and opened a file named “Telephone directories.” After a few clicks, I found Carol’s address and telephone number in Crescent City, California. I wasn’t even sure if the candlestick telephone would work. After all, who was paying the bill? But Taylor would have thought of that and taken care of it. I picked up the receiver and heard a dial tone. Before dialing Carol’s number, I tried to figure out what I should say. My first thought, shouting an unsolicited “Don’t kill yourself !” would be the iciest of cold calls. Carol would think I was crazy and hang up. Then I considered that perhaps I shouldn’t call. I was trying to change the future and it might backfire. What if my call first implanted the idea of suicide in her mind, making me ultimately responsible for 39 her death? It was a valid concern because every warning is also a dare: I’d always thought that if God hadn’t hung a big forbidden sign on the tree of knowledge, Adam and Eve might still be Gardening. All these thoughts were just a way of letting me pretend that I wasn’t scared. Scared that I couldn’t prevent her death and afraid that my failure would fundamentally alter my outlook on life, convincing me that none of us have any control over our fate. Even if it’s true, who wants to live with that oppressive belief? Carol’s phone rang five times before she answered. “Hello.” She sounded out of breath, as if she’d run up a flight of stairs. “Carol. . . .” “Hi, Groovy. You sound like you have a cold.” I noted that my voice must have aged, but was so powerfully moved upon hearing Carol once again that I couldn’t respond right away. I became choked up. My sister had always called me Groovy. It was a little private joke between us. I’d always loved the word—groovy has always been my highest praise. I’d started saying groovy in the late ’60s— trying to sound groovy—when we were kids. But after Carol’s death, I played back an old message she’d left on my answering machine. When I heard “Hi, Groovy,” I suddenly understood that she never used the word ironically. Carol really regarded me as her groovy older brother living in New York. “I’m a little congested.” It was close to the truth. Hearing Carol’s voice put me on the verge of crying. “I was just thinking of calling you. Mom called last night. She said the girls in Card Club were taking her to a Thigh restaurant. Yes, not a Thai restaurant. Thigh. She said it repeatedly: “I’m not sure if I like Thigh food.” Of course, I told her no one likes ‘Thigh’ food . . .” I laughed but also felt as if I might sob. Carol had always regaled me with yarns about our mother and the Card Club “girls”—friends my mother had been playing pinochle with for almost twenty years and would still be playing cards with twenty years later. It was odd but felt 40 completely natural to be chatting with Carol again. I relished hearing her voice at a time in her life when she was happy and contented. After purchasing my first cell phone in the late ’90s, I used to call Carol all the time, often sharing recent conversations I’d had with our mother. For instance, a day after our mother attended her first bris, I called Carol to tell her, “Mom said, ‘It was very interesting. I didn’t know the Jewish people don’t believe in original sin. They believe that you’re born good but that you’ll eventually disappoint everyone.’” For months after her death, when something funny or odd happened, for a split second I’d think, “I have to call Carol.” Then I’d remember she was dead and my grief would be...