My Heart's Memory

Most Precious Gift

Back at my sister's house I ask her about any belongings I might have given her for safe keeping in the past. She doesn't like seeing me anxious so she has rarely talked about the past or given me any details about what I don't know. But she's able to find a few old journals of mine and many of my favorite books ranging from elementary school to college.

"Don't start going all crazy,"she says handing me the box, skeptical of my excitement. "Let's at least have a nice meal together and then you can start reading or writing, or whatever this is."

I agree to it and I try to keep it off my mind while I sit next to her on the couch. One ridiculous chick flick later, I can finally excuse myself to the bedroom. Eager to find any clue that will lead me to what I've erased about Noah. Quite literally, I can't help but remember mostly wonderful things about him.

I skim through journals of sketches and unfinished poems. College journal entries of what my goals were and what I wanted my future to look like. Some entries after each one of Noah and I's fights figuring out what we had to work on. I knew this. I still remember these fights, we were two very different people. Who loved each other.

There's a letter to him that I never sent.

November 11, 2053.

"Dear sweet Noah," I don't remember writing this. It was about four years ago.

"I miss you. And you must hate me.

You must hate me with all your gut and I deserve it.

But I hope you understand why I had to leave what we had, because it could never be the same after what happened. Although I loved you still, I had to set you free of it all. There's so much love left for you to receive, and what you'll find will be much more pure than this.

I'm angry. But never at you, at everything thing else for being the way that it is.

I wish that you'll be able to forgive me for what I've said and done. For the bad choices I've made and the ones I'll continue to make.

Thalia"

This letter reassures the feeling I had felt for so long of Noah still being the same, and us separating as being my mistake.

I dial Noah's number, all the books and journals still around me on the bed.

"Hello?" He picks up.

"Hey, it's me." I feel a rush of nervousness through my whole body.

"Oh...hi. I wasn't expecting you to call so soon." I can almost hear his smile.

"I know, I'm sorry. I just had to talk to you." I pause, trying to gather my thoughts. "I don't know much, but I do know it was my fault."

"What do you mean?"

"Us," I say. What else could I mean.

"Oh, Thalia, you don't have to-"

"Yeah, but I want to." I cut him off, full of impatience to apologize for everything. "I know I went through a lot back then, but I had no right to choose to cut you off."

I shuffle one of the children's books on my bed trying to get rid of the jitters I'm feeling. Most Precious Gift. I don't remember this one. The illustrations on the pages are vivid and beautiful.

"Any way," I continue. "I guess what I'm trying to say is that..."

My eye is caught by the back cover's inside. It's full of writing. The same name written over and over.

"Annie?" I read it out loud.

"You.. .remember?" Noah's voice sounds hopeful.

"What?"

"You said her name." He's being cautious with his words.

"What does Annie mean to me?" I say, realizing he knows this person.

"She...Um, what is it you know exactly in regards to your past, Thalia? I want to help you but this is strange for me. I'm talking to a stranger."

It hurts that he says this but it's true. I feel like a stranger.

"I...know about the assault," I say. "About you being gone that night. About breaking up what we had because of what it did to me. And I know that I lost my baby. The miscarriage I had from the hate I held and mom's refusal to love her."

"No," he sounds angry. "You didn't have a miscarriage, your mother needs to stop feeding you all this bull."

"Huh?" Nothing makes sense again. "Mom made her up?"

"No, that part is real." I hear him exhale. "Annie is real. You had your baby, you just didn't decide to keep her."

I stare at the page full of nothing but Annie. The room is spinning.

"I shouldn't have said it this way. I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"I can't...keep talking." With trouble I come up with those words.

"Thalia let's meet tomorrow. To answer all your questions...I'm sorry." He's searching for anything I might say to reassure him but I can't.

"Okay," I say and hang up the phone.

And I lay in bed firmly gripping the book. Waiting for tomorrow to come with her name across my chest, as it tears a hole inside me. I'm finally able to understand that she has been the emptiness I walk with. Only now it feels like I am nothing but emptiness.