Read Online The Memory Garden by Mary Rickert - Free Book Online

into the basement where she modifies them with fancy laces, polish, colored markers, ribbons, and paint. Over the years, many shoes have come and gone, but for some reason, the old pair of boy’s sneakers remains. Bay asked her Nana about them once, and she said they were “unsuitable,” whatever that means. Over the years, Bay has seen them shoved into an old flowerpot, in a box of old magazines, on the shelf above the work table, and at the foot of the stairs. Currently, they are wedged between two piles of clothes set aside for Goodwill. Bay saw them just that morning when she was looking for the card table.
    Or so she thought, because they are not there now. She spends quite a bit of time shoving things around, almost giving up, when she finds the sneakers neatly hanging from a peg behind the door. She wonders if they carry sentimental value that her Nana is reluctant to explain, but what could be sentimental about smelly old shoes?
    Bay tiptoes through the kitchen, not wanting to arouse her Nana’s curiosity. Though Bay has nothing to compare it to, she is certain Nan would not approve of her becoming friends with the runaway hiding in the forest.
    But he is gone. Bay searches for him in much the same way she looked for the shoes, thinking perhaps she had not left him among the hostas with their stalky flowers, but near the lilacs, devoid of blossoms, bushy with green leaves, a great place for hiding, though he isn’t there either.
    “You could wait five minutes,” she says, so annoyed she considers taking the sneakers back inside, but remembering the nettles in the forest, Bay sets the shoes on the ground, then catches herself waiting as though he might suddenly materialize in them like a ghost. The thought sends a shiver down her spine, even though Bay does not believe in ghosts, in spite of what her Nana, or Thalia, or anyone thinks. “After all,” Bay says, “wouldn’t I know if my own house was haunted?”
    She walks up the hill, opens the back door, and enters the kitchen, murmuring to herself about the stupid things people say, so absorbed in her monologue she doesn’t even notice that all the kitchen cupboards are open and her Nana is standing there, frowning.
    “Where have you been? We have to go to the store. I don’t know what recipes you’ve chosen. They’ll be here soon.”
    “Nana, no one’s coming until tomorrow. Everything’s going to be fine.”
    Nan, her head slightly tilted, looks at Bay as though studying a problem, until she nods. “Yes, you’re right. What was I thinking? I’m lost in space, I guess! Why don’t we take the cookbooks out to the porch?”
    Which is what they do, sitting in rockers in the shade, drinking sun tea and discussing the merits and deficits of various recipes. Nan says everything looks wonderful, but it’s important to consider how much kitchen time is involved. “I haven’t seen my friends in sixty years. I don’t want to be cooking all day.”
    They choose the chocolate lasagna, which can be assembled in the morning and baked off for dinner. They discuss what snacks to have available (fruit, good store-bought cookies, bread and jam for toast, also some of those chocolate toads Nan recently discovered), drinks (Coke, bottled water, red wine, prune juice, milk, coffee, and tea). Bay writes the shopping list, making several trips into the house to check ingredients against supplies. When she returns from her final check, having determined that they have plenty of olive oil, Nan is asleep. Bay watches closely to be sure.
    She still remembers the day at kindergarten when Thalia said, “Your grandma’s here.” Bay was excited; she’d noticed that other kids had grandmas, and she wanted one too.
    “Where’s Grandma?” she asked Nan, waiting with the other mothers.
    “I’m sorry, Bay,” Nan said. “She died before you were even born.”
    Bay cried the whole way home. Nothing Nan said could comfort her. It was Bay’s first experience with death.