Abbott - Blame

Two Years Ago

W HAT SHE WOULD never remember: their broken screams starting with I love and I hate, the sudden wrenching pull, the oh-no-this-is-happening-this-cant-be-happening feeling of falling as the SUV rocketed off the road, the horrifying downward slope of the hillside in the headlights, his hands tight over hers on the steering wheel, the smashing thunder of impact, the drivers-side airbag exploding in her face, the rolling, the lights dying, the unforgiving rock, and then the blow to the head that undid her and wiped her clean and made her new.

The old Jane died; every version of David died. The new Jane, product of a dark nights fury and tragedy, knew nothing more until she woke up four days later, remembering nothing, not her name, her mothers face, the crash, what had happened to her in that hospital bed, or any of her past seventeen years. Slowly the memories began to seep back: her birthdays when she was a child, cake sweet and soft on her lips; the smoky, rich aroma of her grandfathers pipe matched with the woolly smell of his tweed jacket with leather elbow patches; her mothers favorite lavender soap; the notebook shed filled with short, odd adventure stories one summer and proudly read to her dad; the faces of her teachers; the smile of the librarian whod give her stickers during the summer reading program; the feel of her hand in her fathers palm; the faces and the laughter of her friends when they were kids.

Sometimes the memories felt immediate; sometimes they felt like something shed seen in a film, present but distant, nothing to do with the person she was now.

Except for the past three years.

Jane was seventeen, but as the memories surged back, she was stuck at fourteen. Those last three years were gone, all the joy and all the drama of her high school life, lost in the damage and the trauma. Including those mysterious, unexplainable final hours, when she was with a boy she wasnt supposed to be with, when she was out doing no one knows what. The girl lived and eventually limped back into the bright sunshine, and the boy died and went into the cold ground, a secret sleeping with him.

And so the world she knew turned against her.

Except someone watched, and waited, and wondered how much of that night Jane Norton really remembered.

J ANE NORTON WONDERED what it would be like to remember a single detail of the biggest moment in her life. Today was the second anniversary of the crash. She lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, as if waiting for pictures to appear. But the ceiling above her was only a screen empty of images.

She got up at six fourteen, alone, glancing at the other unoccupied bed in the dorm roomAdam had once again spent the night at his girlfriends. It was best to get ready before the dorms residents did. She put on a robe and gathered a bag of toiletries and opened the door a crack, peering down the empty hallway. She walked down to the dormitory showers in her robe, like she belonged, stood under the hot spray, and brushed her teeth. The bathroom was empty, so no odd looks from the other girls in the mirrors. Done and back in the room, she changed into the last clean set of clothes in her backpack. She would have to figure out where to wash clothes soon; too many students lingered by the machines in the basement here, trying to make conversation. She didnt like conversation.

She went down to breakfast, selected her items, and made sure she went to the older cashier, who recognized her and smiled. She used her old student ID Adam had hacked for her to pay for the mealit withdrew money now from his account, making it look like he was steadily burning through his meal plan. Other college students sat together, chatting amiably at the round tables. She sat alone in a corner with her scrambled eggs and bacon and coffee. Other early-rising kids who sat alone stared into their smartphones as if the answers to the worlds riddles lay there. She didnt; she didnt want to fill her unsteady brain with memories from looking at a screen. She looked out the window, at life, at St. Michaels professors and students walking by, at the warming sky, at the tree branches swaying in the November breeze. She ate in silence, trying to push back the emotions of the day, then went back to Adams room. When the bells of St. Michaels began to sound, she opened a window and slid out through it, leaving the window unlocked, lowering it so it was barely open.

You could go to his grave, she thought. You could take flowers.

It was a mild fall morning in Austin, the sky dotted with clouds against a bright-blue vault. She walked to an American history class where the professor never seemed to notice her erratic attendance. Shed taken the same class last year, but with a different professor.

She could always find a seat in the front row, and it was daring and bold to sit right under the professors nose. The actual students brought sleek laptops, but Jane took notes in a thick sketchbook designed for drawing, not writing. But she liked it. Once, the notebook had been the journal she was supposed to fill with her recovered memories and the events people had told her about that she didnt remember. Her Book of Memory. It had been Dr. Ks idea, and shed abandoned it, except for when she went to a class. Sometimes during the lectures, she doodled on the new pages. Often she drew endless mazes and ornate Gaelic patterns, labyrinths impossible to escape, and she would think of stories where interesting characters were trying to escape the mazes shed lay out, like heroes trapped in a video game. Today she did not draw; her mind was full of David. Her hand shook a little.

The lecture today was on early New England funerary customs; she didnt have a syllabus, of course, and she thought, Thanks, fate, and she bit her lip as the professor began a slideshow of worn tombstones from Massachusetts. So often they were for children or those who died as teenagers, angels wings attached to skulls. Gruesome and lovely, all at once. Twice she saw Davids name on the engravings. Her heart tightened in her chest. She blinked and Davids name was gone from the picture of the tombstone on the screen. She started to feel like she couldnt breathe. She left halfway through the lecture, ignoring the glances and the one stray laugh that accompanied her out the door. The professor paid her no mind.