Mary's

There are times in a person's life when they are violently forced to remember things from a lifetime which seems not their own. Memories from a place long lost to them, until, inexplicably, they are reminded of all over again almost to a point of tears. How could I have forgotten all this? Was this ever part of me?

It's now twenty years later yet my eyes and my heart still know the way to Mary's house. I had driven the short twenty miles without being lost once, something that was strange to me since I always seemed to end up wandering lost somewhere or another lately. The steering wheel turned and suddenly I was turning too, onto Greenfield, onto childhood once again. I was no longer in my car; instead, I pulled up to the brick house in roller blades, slowing down just enough to jump over the first curb which was the highest on the block; her dad's mistake while re-paving the driveway.

"Madison, is this you?" Mary had called me, breathless, earlier this morning.

"Yes, this is she. May I ask whose calling?" I was just as breathless myself, chasing after my toddler. "Michael, put your pants back on right now! No! Sweetie, stop it -- I'm sorry; who did you say this was?"

"Madison... its Mary. Do you remember me?" The voice breathed.

Of course I had known who it was from the moment I had heard her voice. I had spent my teen years talking to that voice over the phone long into the night about boys and hairstyles and "Did she really think she could backstab me like that?" A voice that had impacted me in more ways than I will ever admit. A sort of husky, yet gentle, and sweet voice. How could I not remember? Of course I remembered. How could I have forgotten it? Mary. Mary's. Mary's where cats nuzzled you awake, the Margie's candy story with 20 flavors of ice cream, Mexicorn from the local friendly Mexican store, chocolate peanut butter. Lots and lots of chocolate peanut butter.

After the initial shock, the details of the death in the family and the house that was now left to her were quickly told through half-sobs and half-laughs. An entire decade re-told in what seemed like brief moments and quick sighs.

"Madison it's so good to talk to you again. You have no idea," she said towards the end of our conversation. I could hear her blowing her nose.

"Same here Mary, I feel like we never stopped talking."

"Look... um... this really sucks and I know that you were good with Real Estate and stuff through you mom, would you mind coming over just to help me with some legal things?"

***

Three hours, one trip to the pre-school, one phone call to my husband and one kiss goodbye to a very whiny toddler, I was on Mary's block again. Wow, I thought. I couldn't believe that she had inherited all of this. I scanned the exterior as I shut my car door. Although the house was old and falling apart, it was worth at least twice what I made a year.

I had to gingerly pick my way over the broken walkway that led up to the steps. A tipped-over cement birdbath lay to the side of the steps. I remember the day that Mary's mother, Virginia, had placed it there, much to her husband's dismay. I had agreed- it really was an ugly birdbath.

I tried to ring the buzzer but nothing happened except I received a friendly electric shock from the plastic button.

"Ouch!" I sucked on my index finger for a minute. I hate hate hated winter.

I knocked on the side window loudly and was immediately hit with memories of throwing rocks at Mary's window just above the door. I looked up but it was now boarded-over. Nothing was left to remind of her purple curtains that would always blow out onto the short roof just above the red door.

It's been almost twenty years now, but as soon as Mary swung open the brown door and came out to greet me, I remembered everything. It all rushed back in a gulp of smells and sounds; images that I had forgotten but now remembered clearer than when I had actually seen them. The pungent smells, the linoleum floors, the cat hairs spread methodically over certain areas of the carpet like snake patterns of white and grey. Twelve-year old Mary standing in the middle of her living room, screaming at her parents. Mary at thirteen crying in the kitchen because the mouse-trap actually killed a mouse, oozing its blood next to the refrigerator. My favorite cat, Blue, climbing up onto my bed where I slept next to Mary and demanding to be pet. Thomas, Mary's younger brother teaching me to play Nintendo in his small bedroom with no curtains and the curious neighbor who was later arrested for child pornography.

That summer came back to me in a wave so strong that it brought tears to my eyes.

"Madison!" The much taller, long-haired Mary forgot all manners and flung herself into my hug.

"Mary! You look the same!" And she really did, her hair was longer but still black with streaks of purple. Even though she was much older now she still wore a band t-shirt with jeans, and very little make-up.

"Look at you Maddie, all dressed up! You look amazing, even more beautiful than when I last saw you. Hurry up and come in before we freeze," she swept me into the house, never fully letting go of our hug. "I have some milk boiling for tea in the kitchen."

***

"Hey! New girl! Haven't you ever seen a milk carton before?" I looked up into the black eyes of a girl with purple bangs.

"Um... no, kind of. I don't know. I'm sorry, is this your seat? I'll move-"

"Here," she quickly sat down next to me. "Its ok if I can tell you're new, but some of the other kids might be really mean to you." She took my milk carton and ripped it open, put the straw in it, and put it back on my tray.

"Wow, thanks. How did you do that? I've tried and-"

"I'm Mary, what's your name?" She slapped hands with another girl that walked around the lunch table and sat across from us.

"I'm Madison. Nice to --"

"M and M, I like that. Like M&M's. Do you like M&M's Madison?"

***

This front porch was what stood out the strongest in my memory as I stepped inside and simultaneously recalled that long-forgotten summer. Maybe it was the smells that welcomed you like a burning blanket or the forever broken small windows on the sides of the porch letting the hot air lick your skin in the summer where air conditioning could not overpower. Mary's house was always dark, dark, dark. Dark with the ever-present hum of the air conditioning unit in the wall, leering out like a black monster, throwing angry cold into the room. Contradictory to memory, the house was now brightly lit with florescent lights that let me see things which before I wouldn't have been able to distinguish. The walls were covered in airy light pink wallpaper that clung to the corners like a thin lover. I followed Mary's tall frame as she led me into the kitchen where I could hear the tea kettle whistling. I remembered the walls in the kitchen were always lined with dozens of cookie jars, back then.

***

For the rest of junior high and for most of high school we were known as the two M&M's. We always argued about which M came first, Mary or Madison. I argued it was me because alphabetically my name came first but I always let her win, I liked it when she won. She was the chocolaty and sometimes bitter inside, and I was the sweet and shiny, nicely labeled M, outside. She was soft and curvy, and I was the crunchy first impression, always bright, always shiny, always covering something. I was the better liar out of the two of us because I looked more innocent. I always covered her tracks when she did something bad.

The time she dropped Virginia's cookie-jar out the second-floor window on purpose was a pretty bad one. Her mother had wanted to put Mary on more medication, but she had refused, so in defiance she had taken Virginia's favorite cookie jar and threw it out the window. Her mother was a collector and that one in particular was priceless to her. When she started screaming and asked what happened, I lied for my friend.

"Mrs. Holler, I am so so very sorry. It's completely my fault. It was really hot upstairs so I was trying to get cold by sitting next to the window and I wanted some cookies very badly so I came downstairs into the kitchen and grabbed a cookie jar. I know you don't normally keep cookies in this one, but I put just a few in it for me so if anyone wanted cookies from the other jar they could have some. And so I was upstairs eating cookies and I leaned over to say hi to Mr. Holler as he came into the house and I accidently dropped it. I am so very sorry Mrs. Holler."

Virginia looked at me and then looked at her mad daughter. She never questioned why there were no cookies amongst the broken jar pieces on the sidewalk outside, but she accepted the lie.

Mary had locked herself in her bathroom afterwards for two hours, ignoring my pleas and knocks on the door. When she came out, she had perfect little cuts along her forearm.

"You didn't have to lie to that bitch. I could have handled her. Don't do that ever again," she looked at me, her eyes red and her arm still bleeding.

"Oh my God! Mary! What happened to-"

"I called your mom," she shut the door again. "She's waiting for you downstairs."

Mary didn't speak to me an entire day after I got home and I wasn't allowed back to her house for an entire week. Only when my mom replaced the cookie jar was I allowed to see my friend again.

***

"Do you want green tea or chamomile?" Mary asked as she poured milk into two suspiciously dirty mugs.

"Green please, and no sugar." I crossed my legs, my heels bumping against the wooden table legs. The two of us could just barely fit comfortably at the table.

We stared at each other for a while, familiar friends that didn't recognize each other.

"I heard that you're married now, you even have two boys!" She just lightly scrunched her nose which was the barest indication of her proclaimed hatred towards kids.

***

The night that Mary turned thirteen there was a lunar eclipse. An eclipse that would happen only once in a lifetime, they said. Her parents wouldn't let us stay up late to watch it, so we had secretly made chocolate peanut butter sandwiches and then snuck out her bedroom window onto the back roof. We ate in speechless awe, laying on our backs with towels under our heads to soften the hardness of the tiled roof.

We ran out of apple juice so Mary snuck back inside to get more. I heard her running quickly down the narrow stairs that led right into the kitchen. They weren't stairs that were meant for a warm home; they were meant for a dark dark place. Mary's room was in the attic, a conjoined bedroom with a kitchen and a bathroom, made to be a second upstairs apartment but never fully finished. Her room was up there - and the stairs were the pathway that let shadows and monsters in. We always ran up them really fast when going up to her room so if any thing was chasing us, it couldn't catch us. Her room was safe; we burned a lot of incense to keep it that way. Once inside, no monster could touch us.

Mary came back onto the roof and settled back into her spot. She turned her head towards me and had a wicked gleam in her eye.

"Oh no Mary, I know that look. What did you do now?"

"Madison," she was suddenly serious. "You have been like a sister to me. I only wish we could have been real sisters. Maybe in another lifetime, in another place, we were. Maybe that's why I feel so close to you," she smiled sweetly.

"You are my sister," I whispered in the dark, dark night.

"Do you want to be blood sisters?" She pulled a kitchen knife from the window ledge.

"What? Mary! Put that back, you know knives scare me! Cut it out! What are you doing?" She grabbed my hand and cut open my palm. "Oww! Mary! What the hell are you doing??" Tears began to stream down my face.

"Relax! We're becoming blood sisters!" She did the same to her palm, and then grabbed mine in hers. "See? We're now blood related. If I need a transfusion or something, I'm going to call my sister."

After the initial shock I held her hand back, wiping my nose with the back of my sleeve. "Sisters?"

"Forever," she kissed my cheek.

"Forever," I kissed her back. "But you could have at least warned me!" I whined.

"Yea, but you wouldn't have done it; you're too big of a pussy!"

"Am not!"

"Are too! Madison, the goody-two-shoes!"

"Shut up! If I have to be your sister can you at least not be so annoying?"

"Ok, I'll try. But now, we have to make each other a promise. If we're really old and we --"

"How old?"

"I don't know, like forty?"

"Ok, when we're forty-"

"We're still going to be best friends, of course. When we're forty, and if we're still single, we have to promise that we will marry each other!"

"Why do we have to marry each other?"

"So that we can get old people's pay and so that no man could ever steal me away from you."

"Ok, I promise, that if we're forty and both still single, we'll marry each other. Can we have pets though?"

"Yes! Yes, we will be the sexy forty-something old grandmas on the block with at least ten cats! And at Halloween, we'll give the best candy to the kids!"

"We have to never forget what it's like to be a child...that way we won't be mean to our kids in the future. Maybe your mom would understand you better if she remembered, maybe she just forgot-"

"I hate my mom," she wrapped a towel around her palm, "and I really hate kids. I am never going to have any!" She vowed.

"You'll change your mind," I said, holding my now aching palm between my legs.

"Never."

***

"I'm sorry that we had to meet under such depressing circumstances," Mary apologized, stirring her tea idly.

"I'm so sorry about your mother. I heard in college that your father died, and now Virginia, that's horrible. I'm sorry I didn't try and contact you then," I looked down at my tea, not knowing what to say. Would I have called her? Why didn't I?

"It's ok," she looked back up at me, her black bangs moving as she blinked. "You're here now." She reached across the table and squeezed my arm. I noticed small cut marks and scars up her arms to her sleeves, disappearing below the fabric.

"I feel like I didn't even really know your parents that well. When is the funeral?"

Like I would have gone to the funeral. Maybe out of respect to my friend, but Virginia was a stranger to me. She was also like a mother, yes, but a very inattentive and distant mother. The only times I had real interaction with her was when she would force pills down her daughter's throat for depression or anxiety or bi-polar disease. Who has anxiety at twelve?

"Its tomorrow," she pulled her arm back, continuing to stir her tea.

I was hoping she wouldn't ask me to come.

She didn't. Instead we went over the details of the house, how much I thought it would sell for.

"Do you really want to sell the house?" I asked.

When she looked back up at me, there were small puddles forming in her eyes.

"I've had nothing but bad memories here, Maddie," I smiled at her per name for me. "I really would just like to get rid of it, the house, the memories. All of them, except the ones with you." She was all seriousness again, looking right at me from across the table. "The only reason I'm even here today, was because you were my friend and the only person that loved me. I don't think I would have survived without you."

Memories of dragging Mary's red body out of the bathtub came rushing back to me. The ambulance, the doctors, her parents, all of them asking questions I couldn't begin to answer. More therapy for Mary. Virginia feeding her more pills. Stealing the razors from her bathroom, hiding knives, always expecting the worst.

"Mary, you know that's not true. There are so many people that loved you then," I lied. "Don't sell the house just because you hated your parents. This place is going to be worth a lot in a few years."

She didn't say anything after that, just grabbed my hand across the table and kissed it. I smiled. It was from when we were twelve and we'd practice kissing boys on each other's hands.

"It's late Maddie, your son is waiting for you to pick him up."

We both awkwardly got up, avoiding eyes, avoiding knowing glances.

I stepped out onto the cold porch with Mary behind me.

***

Mary walked behind me onto the porch, wanting to wait with me until my mom came to pick me up. I couldn't wait to get my driver's license next week. No more of this being driven around crap. We carefully avoided eye contact and I made sure I knew exactly how many tiles were on the floor. No, 57 cannot possibly be correct. I should count them again.

"Maddie, I'm sorry for what I said," she was looking at her hands. "I just don't understand why you have to date him. Bryan, he's nice, but he's not for you."

"Oh and why not? You're just jealous because you don't have a boyfriend! Or girlfriend! Mary, I don't even know what you like these days but you're just jealous!"

"I'm not jealous!" She raised her voice a little. "I just miss my friend! Where's my friend?? I don't even see you anymore!!"

"And you're not going to if you keep calling my boyfriend a masochistic whore!" I yelled back. "Get your own boyfriend and then talk to me about it!"

"I don't want a boyfriend, Maddie!! I just want --"

"What?!? You want a nice girl then?!"

"No!" She was on her feet now, moving closer to me. "I only want you!" And then she leaned down and kissed me.

I pushed her away from me and stood up, running for the front steps, running out onto the sidewalk. "Mary! Ew! I'm never coming back here again! You're horrible!" My mom was just pulling up as I ran out.

"I hate you Mary! I hate you! I cannot believe you just did that! I'm never going to see you again!" I got inside my mom's car and slammed the door.

***

I got into my car and started the engine. Right before I pulled away I looked up onto the porch and waved at Mary. Right before I blinked it was fifteen year old Mary again, waving at me as I drove away in my mom's car.

The steering wheel turned away from her house and I left my memories and my childhood behind. How could I have forgotten all of this? How am I going to forget it again?