Harry nodded. “You’re safe.”
I stood, eyes on the door, terrified she’d return.
“You owe her something?” Harry asked.
“She’s my mother.”
“I figured. So you don’t owe her nothin’.”
Tears pricked my eyes. “Exactly.”
Charles sank back onto his stool. “I scared her off,” he said.
Harry pulled a tall draught from the keg and slid it over to him. “Thank you kindly for your service.”
I would have to be a lot more careful. I couldn’t trust anybody. I was like this big target anyone could bring down. What would happen if I lost my memory alone in my apartment? I wouldn’t even know I worked here. I wouldn’t know anything.
I felt sick. Big Harry told me to go home for the day. The restaurant was dead anyway.
Paranoia took over. What if I had a seizure in my apartment right now?
I worked like my life depended on it.
I printed the words “trust only this handwriting” on my belly, like my old notes told me to do.
I wrote down everything I had learned.
About the shelter.
About the things the women taught me.
Men can’t be trusted.
Don’t become a baby mama.
Don’t let anyone hurt you.
I wrote about Big Harry’s and how he kept me safe. I described my apartment. I wrote out everything from all the backs of the paper flowers I’d brought from my room at my mother’s house. Then I collected my birth certificate and medical records, everything I had.
I took the whole stack to a print shop and had the originals bound in a spiral, plus an extra copy made. I took the second book to Sheila. I said if I ever ended up at the shelter again, she should use it to help me figure out who I was. She said she would.
She sent me home with a DVD of a movie calledMemento. Said I might learn something. I watched it three times and bawled my head off. How could he live like that? If his mind drifted even for a moment, he forgot everything all over again.
But at least he knew his name, his childhood, his purpose. I wasn’t sure which was worse, his condition or mine.
The next afternoon, I collected some tips and went to the tattoo parlor down the street from Big Harry’s. I got my warning inked onto the inside of my wrist, based on the words I scrawled on a sheet of paper for the artist to use.Trust only this handwriting. Find the book. Remember your life.
Then I had them tattoo my name and birthdate on my hip, upside down, so I could read it myself. On the other hip, we addedMother is bad.
Nobody could erase them now.
I hoped Mother never found me again. She scared me.
Maybe my brain couldn’t remember everything she’d done or why, but the part of me that controlled my survival instinct knew to stay far, far away.
CHAPTER 24
Tucker
