“I had no idea,” I say. For someone who has been going through my daughter’s room for as long as I can remember, how did I miss this photo? Clearly, she doesn’t get her forensic skills from me.
“Anyway, when the custody change was made and I knew Mom was just as satisfied with the outcome, I needed to do something so I didn’t have to be reminded of her. I lit the hone on fire in the backyard."
“You were playing with matches at fifteen?”
“Dad.”
“Sorry.”
“Anyway, I watched it burn, and as the photo turned into dust, so did some of the pain.”
“How did you come up with that idea?” I ask her.
“Well, my therapist said I should write her a note, then throw it away, but it didn’t seem like enough at the time, so I took it a step further.”
“Of course you did. You’re Hannah Pearson, you always take everything a step further,” I say, nudging her in the side.
She rests her head on my shoulder. “I think maybe you should do something like that. It might give you some peace.” I don’t know how she knows that Pete’s death weighs heavily on me, but she seems far more intuitive than I’ve given her credit for.”
“I’m not sure where any of our old photos are, to be honest.”
“Check your pocket,” Hannah says.
I reach into my coat pocket and run my fingers across a rigid piece of plastic. I wrap my fingers around it and pull it out, then uncurl my fingers to confirm what’s in my hand.
My fingers fold back over the pager and lean back into my elbows. “Journey knew about tonight, didn’t she?”
“Would you believe me if I told you that I know what a pager is?” Hannah asks.
“No,” I say with a laugh.
“It was my idea. I told her what I just told you. Then she pulled this out from your nightstand and slid it in your coat pocket this morning when I was leaving for school.”
“You two are ganging up on me, and I don’t know if I like it,” I say.
“Soon enough, Isla will be old enough to join us, and then you’re kind of screwed,” she says.
“You’re telling me.” I look at the pager again, realizing I haven’t touched this thing in years.
“Keeping that useless thing is a reminder of what happened, isn’t it?” Hannah asks.
“It’s all I have as a reminder,” I reply.
“You just told me your memories are scars, although not all scars are bad, right? Some are pretty cool if you did something wild to earn them.”
“I don’t like hearing you talk like that. No scars for you.”
“Ugh, you’re ruining the point of my lecture.”
“And now you’re lecturing me. I thought I was the parent?”
“You are, and this is the part where you teach me that objects aren’t memories—they’re reminders of a moment in time. This wasn’t a good moment in time for you.”
Words like Hannah’s have never been spoken to me, not by a therapist, Mom, Dad, or Journey, yet it makes more sense to me than any piece of advice I’ve received over the years. If I let this object holding the bad memories go, I can focus on the good stuff. I get it. It makes sense. I don’t know why I didn’t figure this out myself. It’s ridiculous that I’ve held onto this damn dead pager all these years. The last numbers to scroll across the top were 9-1-1. I turned it off and never turned it back on after that night. It’s been like a black hole sitting in my nightstand drawer all these years.
I sit up straight and look over at Hannah. “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” I say, repeating the words she told me a few weeks ago at the cemetery. I chuck the pager as far as I can into the center of the bay, letting the past go, and I immediately sense a weight lifting off my shoulders.
Hannah was right.
