Essential Sentimentals
"Mom, I'm home," I called from the living room.
"How was school, Cassie?" she called back in her frail voice which sounded forty years too old for her.
She'd withdrawn to her bedroom three days earlier, only ever coming out to use the bathroom. That routine was nothing abnormal for her; she did it a lot, although some weeks were better than others. On occasion, I'd come home to see her out of bed and doing things around the house, and maybe even listening to music on the radio as she cleaned or cooked. But as the months and the years wore on, her good weeks became less frequent.
That week had been the worst. Every night, I was woken by her crying, and a couple of times I heard her howling out my father's name.
I cooked a meal of chicken soup for us both and took hers into her bedroom.
"Make sure you eat this," I told her as I set her bowl down on her bedside table. "It's good for you."
"Thank you, darling," she smiled at me from under the covers. "It smells delicious."
I gave her a soft kiss on the forehead before heading into the living room to eat my bowlful. After finishing my meal, I did the washing up and then sat down to do my homework. That was my life during the week – looking after my mom and keeping up with school. But that night was a Friday, and I was keen to head down to Oscar's Sports Bar to shoot some pool, but mostly I was looking forward to seeing James.
"I'm going out," I said softly from her doorway.
"OK dear."
I noticed that her bowl of chicken soup hadn't been touched, and she was now sitting up in bed, holding her favorite photo of her and my father on their wedding day. She was stroking his face with her finger and muttering something that was too quiet for me to hear.
"Don't forget to take your meds, OK?"
"I won't," she replied, still stroking the photo.
"I'll be back in a few hours."
"Cassie, come here."
I entered the room and sat on the edge of the bed at her side. She clasped one of my hands with a bony one of hers and placed her other hand on my cheek. "You're a good girl, and your father would've been proud of you," she smiled.
"Thanks…"
"I know things haven't been easy on you. I know I've been a burden-"
"Mom, don't say that. Everything's fine. We cope, right?"
"No, you've looked after me for far too long now, and it shouldn't be this way. It's not fair on you. But things will get better soon. I promise." She pulled me closer to gently kiss me on the forehead. "Your father and I love you, Cassandra. Never forget that."
Three hours later, I came home from Oscar's. As soon as I walked through the front door a cold, eerie feeling crawled over me that made my skin break out into goosebumps. It was a feeling of being completely alone. I crept down the hallway and into my mother's room. She was out of bed and sitting in her rocking chair. The bedside lamp shone just enough light onto her face for me to see that her eyes were closed and her lips were pale blue. Both of her hands were loosely laying in her lap; one was still holding her wedding photo and the other held an empty medication bottle.
—
I was sitting up in bed, hugging my knees and staring at the sheets that were damp with sweat and tears. It was the same position I'd been in for the past few hours. The dream was so vivid; I had remembered every detail - every little object in her room, her voice, the perfume my father gave her that she always wore - it was like reliving what had happened.
But as the hours went by, it faded from me and seemed like a distant memory once again. Except for that photo she'd been holding. I felt like I'd seen it much more recently.
We had kept our family photos in a shoebox – it was light-blue and had been prettied up by gluing lace around the edge of the lid. These were photos of my mother and father before they were even married, of when they were babies, of my grandparents and of when I was a baby. My favorite photo was one of me sitting on my father's knee as we looked out over the ocean at a beach Santa Cruz - I was three years old.
The dream had left me with an image in my head of that exact box tucked away at the back of a closet, hidden under some kind of dark cloth. The more I thought about it, the more I was certain that I had hidden it somewhere for safe-keeping. The dream had triggered a lost memory.
As I worked in the diner that day, I strained to remember more about the place I had seen. It was so stressful, like trying to remember someone's name that you'd forgotten – you know you know it; it's right on the tip of your tongue, but no matter how hard you try it just doesn't come to you.
After finishing up, I locked the front door of the diner and then stood on the sidewalk looking at the mess that the storm had left behind. Some areas of town had had power outages, there were fallen and uprooted trees, and even a couple of house rooves had been lifted. I thought back to my ride home with Ace. He seemed to know stuff. Potentially useful stuff.
-2-
The pungency of cigarettes and booze hit my senses as I stepped into the smoky poolhall. It was a Saturday afternoon, and the bar had a full house. Jerry Lee Lewis's Real Wild Child raved on the jukebox at the back of the room through the hubbub of conversation and the sounds of billiard balls clinking together. The four pool tables that were laid out in the center of the room were jammed with patrons, and the rustic, wooden bar to the far right kept the old guys entertained as they threw wild bets at the baseball game that was playing on a television set above them.
It reminded me so much of Oscar's. I almost felt like I should see James behind the bar. But the barman didn't look nearly as friendly as James. He was middle-aged, 6ft and solid - just the right type of guy to front a place where alcohol goes down like water. He stared straight at me from underneath his thick, heavy eyebrows as he poured a guy a beer from one of the taps. I had read the sign before entering - it quite clearly stated "NO MINORS" in bright red capital letters, but I hoped to get what I came for before being kicked out. It looked like I would need to move fast.
I put my head down and shouldered my way through the crowd, trying my best to disappear into it entirely. Ace was on the table furthest back, right next to the jukebox. Just like the barman, he hadn't missed a beat. He leaned on his pool cue, expressionless and staring straight at me as we caught glimpses of each other through the gaps in the crowd.
"You were easy to find," I said as I reached him.
He snatched his beer off the top of the jukebox and chugged the rest of it back before stamping it down on the edge of the pool table. "Your timing's impeccable. Bar's over there."
"I didn't…" I was going to say, I didn't come here to buy you a drink, but thought I should play nice. I could always go back to hating him again afterward. "I didn't think they'd sell to me."
Ace looked over to the barman who was watching us carefully as he served his customers. Ace gave him a slight nod and the barman sighed deeply. "Joe will sell to you. Now go get me a beer. And one for Charlie."
I looked at the lean and wiry, blond headed guy who had stopped mid-turn at the arrival of this new face in the waitress dress. He raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips together in a half-smile to acknowledge me. I did the same in return before heading towards Joe the brawny barman. He leaned rigidly on his bar as he stared at me from under those thick eyebrows without blinking. I squeezed into the widest gap I could find which was between two old men who both leered at me in a way that made me cringe inside.
Joe breathed a heavy sigh and shook his head. "Not another one. I'm gonna lose my license, mark my words." He grabbed three beers from the refrigerator behind him and set them down on the bar in front of me.
Out of guilt, I put a whole dollar on the counter to make it seem more worth his while, and he snatched it up and moved on.
"You bought me two. How thoughtful," Ace said as I handed him and Charlie their beers.
"Consider it payment for the information you're about to give me."
Ace cracked the top off his first bottle. "Soon. Leaving the table forfeits the game and that money's mine." He nodded at the small stack of dollar bills on the edge of the table and then leaned over to take a shot. He smoothly pocketed the ten into the corner of the table. "Do you play?"
"No…" The lie fell out of my mouth. It had been months since I last picked up a cue, and I felt rusty just watching Ace and Charlie play. I didn't want to be pulled into a game and embarrass myself.
I watched Ace's game intently, paying close attention to the way he held the cue, the decisions he made and the types of shots he was best at. His form was one of the smoothest I'd seen.
Ace pocketed the eight with a very difficult cross-corner bank shot which he made look easy. "I should teach you sometime."
"Maybe," I shrugged.
He led me outside, into the backstreet where it was quiet and private. He leaned against the brick exterior and took a swig from his second beer. "What do you wanna know?"
"I have some… sentimental items somewhere out there, and I want to find them. I need to find them."
"You wanna know your last address."
"Yes."
"I dunno what that is."
"Oh."
"But… we might be able to find out."
"Really?"
"But it'll come with a cost."
"I can buy you a six-pack…"
Ace smiled. "OK, you do that. But that's not what I meant. There's some guys who are looking for you, and if anyone knows where you used to live, it'll be them."
"Someone's looking for me? What guys? Wait… didn't you say something about that yesterday?"
"I did."
"So, who are they?"
"Just a bunch of notorious mob men," he said before taking another swig.
"Mob men?" I spat. "What do they want with me?"
"They're looking for Lewis. He ripped them off and then disappeared. And you, Cassie O'Connor, were the last person to see him."
"And… what makes them think that?".
"Because you're his girlfriend."
I leaned against the wall next to him, stunned. Lewis. The name didn't sound even remotely familiar. It both baffled and amazed me how I was supposed to know this person, probably intimately, and yet I couldn't even put a face to the name.
"So, if I want an address, I'm gonna have to confront these guys. Is that the deal?"
"Bang on."
"Shit. Mob men. You think they just wanna ask me where Lewis is? Because I don't know. But, what if they don't believe me?"
"All you can do is tell them the truth. But don't get into all that bullshit about losing your marbles. Just say that Lewis knocked you out and left you for dead. I can vouch that Vince picked you up alone out on the highway."
"You're gonna be there?"
"Course," he shrugged.
"OK. I guess I have to. They'd find me eventually anyway, right?"
"Guarantee it." Ace took one last swig before smoothly swinging the beer bottle into the nearest trashcan. "Be ready to go tomorrow. We'll be leaving early."
