How We Remember

M. Monaco J.

Description

The blood ties that have kept Jo and her brother Dave together are challenged when an unexpected inheritance fans the flames of underlying tensions. Upon discovering her mother's diary, the details of their family's troubled past are brought into sharp relief and painful memories are reawakened. Narrated with moments of light and dark, J. M. Monaco weaves together past and present, creating a complex family portrait of pain and denial in this remarkable debut novel. Perfect for fans of Anne Tyler and Sylvia Brownrigg, this is a novel that will stay with you long after you stop turning the pages.

Informations

• Publié par: RedDoor Publishing
• Date de parution: 13 septembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781910453995
• Langue: English

Extrait

HOW WE REMEMBER
HOW WE REMEMBER
J.M. MONACO
Published by RedDoor www.reddoorpublishing.com
© 2018 J.M. Monaco The right of J.M. Monaco to be identified as the author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the author
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Cover design: Clare Connie Shepherd www.clareconnieshepherd.com
Typesetting: Tutis Innovative E-Solutions Pte. Ltd
For my mother
One
My father insisted on paying for the flight, the limousine from the airport and whatever extras. He knew I would prefer to stay at my old friend Beth’s place and not with him at the house, but I needed a car, so he offered my mother’s. My dead mother’s. Her flash, maroon 2011 model Ford Mondeo, the prize baby she loved so much. She used to marvel at how fast it moved from twenty to seventy coming onto the highway.
‘It’s so smooth, Jo, you don’t even know you’re moving,’ she’d say. ‘But watch out, those state police will get you for going over by just five miles an hour, so best be on the safe side.’
I used to worry my mother would fall asleep at the wheel on interstate 90 on her long journeys to visit my uncle Tom, the priest, who lived in upstate New York near Albany. Not much skill needed to drive these things. Americans meander along happily on automatic pilot, cell phones, travelling coffee mug in hand, music blaring, their own private oasis until – wham . It only takes a second and it’s over. No, that’s not how she died. Lung cancer was the unsurprising culprit, but after Ma passed away Dad discovered she had taken out another life insurance policy that covered accidental car death. She was pretty thorough in planning for the future.
The route out north from Boston Logan Airport is as tedious as ever, in spite of the tempting mid-March clear sky that shakes and shimmers along the edges of the urban landscape. After passing a few local news billboards, flawless anchormen and women smirking with perfectly made up complexions that you want desperately to squeeze till there’s nothing left, my driver moves farther away from Boston and onto Route 60 where the shopping plaza strip soon begins.
Revere’s International House of Pancakes is a stop I knew well during my high-school years, a popular hangout on Friday and Saturday nights after cruising the beach. The IHOP has survived in this same location for more than thirty-five years. I shouldn’t be surprised at the longevity of such places around here. A few years ago, to my parents’ great disappointment, the Hilltop Steakhouse restaurant up on Route 1, well-known for its gigantic cactus sign and several large plastic cows that hovered out front by the entrance, closed down after serving the community for over fifty years. Who needs fancy urban food innovation for lactose-intolerant and gluten-free snobs – that just translates into small portions – when you can rely on the old gas-generating favourites? After all, you’re not getting value for money unless you’re taking a doggy-bag home. Still. Fifty years. They had their time, just like Ma.
Still going strong, The Squire, a local strip joint that’s had its fair share of shootings with drug deals gone wrong, looks cleaned up. The place sells itself as the ‘Premier Gentlemen’s Club,’ but don’t be fooled. You won’t spot any gentlemanly-squire types around here.
By the time you hit the mini plazas, gas stations, Italian-American and Chinese restaurants, the all-day breakfast diner, Dunkin’ Donuts and yet another Papa Gino’s, you can be sure you’ll never have to worry about starving. America. Land of the free and the home of the obese.
I can’t claim the taxi ride from home in north London to Heathrow is much more exciting. But somehow the slog through the outskirts of that rain-sodden, grey capital doesn’t generate the same aversion in me, that wave of nausea way down in the gut when I’m emerging out of Logan to the place I used to call home.
Match all this with the conversation I have with the oh-so-friendly Italian-American driver, Dino. His perfected, rocket-speed small talk with characteristic Bostonian whiny shortening and stretching of vowels would win him a gangster-film Oscar in a flash. If only he knew he possessed such talents. It appears Dino has become some kind of personal escort choice for my parents.
‘Jimmy’s old school, but that means he does things right. Yeah, your father, Jimmy,’ he pauses, as if to contemplate the enormity of Jimmy O’Brien’s transcendent qualities. ‘He’s good people,’ he says, glancing at me in his rear-view mirror. ‘I’m sorry to hear about your mother. She was a nice lady, she was.’
Dino picked me up a month ago, when my mother was dying, after Dave phoned to tell me about the hospice. ‘You better get here soon,’ he said with an urgency I hadn’t heard until that point.
I rushed over on a flight the next day and saw her later that afternoon. My mother was sitting upright scanning a newspaper in the sun room of the renovated colonial mansion, now her hospice, and offered me a bright, toothy grin. For someone who was so close to the brink I thought she looked pretty good.
My visit lasted three weeks and while I was there she decided to postpone her death. My brother brightened up fast, said we should get together, catch up with a brother and sister night out. But Dave never brought up the subject again. Two days after I arrived he went away for the weekend with a friend. A woman friend, I thought. Oh, that’s strange, wasn’t our ma just about to die when he called me , but I stopped myself from saying anything. Be kind.
‘So you have a girlfriend now, that’s nice.’
‘No, no,’ he said. ‘She’s just a friend… a friend with benefits.’ He belted out his trademark laugh, reminiscent of an excited seagull. ‘You know that kind, right? They’re the best, those friends with benefits. Right? Am I right?’ And off he went to have his fun.
After my mother had pressed her doctor to tell her how long she had left, she shopped around for the perfect surroundings where she could say her goodbyes. The website described it as ‘a home away from home,’ but I knew from first glance it was much grander than the old homestead. ‘I really like the look of that bedroom fireplace,’ she said in her email. ‘And it has wifi.’ She knew she couldn’t die in the house where my brother and I grew up. ‘Your father can’t cope with all that,’ she said on the phone, her voice fading. ‘And the last thing I want is to be worrying about him .’
Dad complained about the long drive, the cost. ‘Greedy sons of bitches. Making money from dying people.’ He kept his visits to Ma’s hospice short.
It took her longer to go than we all imagined. After my second week there, with each day that passed, it looked as though her body was getting more ready, beckoning her closer to that eternal light she sometimes talked about. Her eyes began to look glazed as if she was in a trance. Her mouth appeared frozen, cracking slowly when she tried to smile.
‘I’m not afraid,’ she told me. ‘It’s going to be beautiful when I’m up there with my maker. They’re all waiting for me, you know. My parents. Sisters. My brothers.’
But something kept holding her back. I’m sure now the something must have been me.
I was the only visitor who saw her daily from morning till evening during that three-week stint. She felt bad, she said, about the inconvenience she was causing me, the busy academic with my important work.
‘You know you don’t have to stay so much. Aren’t you bored? All this hanging around when I’m sleeping? I hope you brought some work with you.’
‘Hey, Ma,’ I said, leaning towards the bed from where I sat in the armchair. I noticed the red fleece blanket by her feet and started to unfold it. ‘I’ll decide for myself what’s boring and what isn’t.’ I covered her feet and legs with the fleece. ‘And I can tell you,’ I continued, patting her arm, ‘there’s lots of times when I’d like to grab some rest and relaxation. Yup, I wouldn’t mind a chance to just sit and do nothing.’ I nodded a few times, pursed my lips and sighed. ‘All comfy now.’ I glanced up with a smile and caught her eyes for a few seconds before returning to smooth the blanket over her knees.
‘Oh, Jo. I knew you’d come. You know I appreciate it, don’t you?’ she said, with moist eyes. ‘I just want you to know that. You know that, right?’
I sensed that staying alive was an effort for her. There must be nothing worse than opening your eyes to another day, knowing it’s going to be the same as yesterday; the pain, the disturbed sleep, the retching, more sleep, waking up again. She was on standby at the gate with her boarding pass and she was pretty pissed off with all the delays.
‘My doctor said three months, max. Look at the calendar, Jo. Now it’s four. I’ve had it. Enough already.’
The old man across the hall kept her awake day and night.
‘Waitress? Waitress? Anyone? Can I have some service here? What kind of a place is this? Never coming back here again. Oh, please. Please! Why are you doing to this me? Can’t any of you hear me? Hello? ’
But one night the man stopped screaming, my mother said, and the next day he was gone.
There was a shouty nurse who would bounce into my mother’s room, all chippy-chirpy, and call my mother hon or honey. ‘Hiya, hon. Aren’t you looking good today?’
In spite of my mother’s irritation, she offered a polite response. ‘You think? Maybe better than I