Thanks for the Memories Read Online Free PDF Page A

a leg length discrepancy, his left leg longer than his right. Despite the special shoes he was g iven in later years, he still sways, the motion instilled in him since he learned to walk. t h a n k s f o r t h e m e m o r i e s / 3 1
    He hates wearing those shoes and, despite our warnings and his back pains, he goes back to what he knows. I’m so used to the sight of his body going up and down, down and up. I recall as a child holding his hand and going for walks. How my arm would move in perfect rhythm with him. Being pulled up as he stepped down on his right leg, being pushed down as he stepped on his left.
    He was always so strong. Always so capable. Always fixing things, lifting things. Always with a screwdriver in his hand, taking things apart and putting them back together—remote controls, radios, alarm clocks, plugs. A handyman for the entire street. His legs may have been uneven, but his hands, always and forever, were steady as a rock.
    He takes his cap off as he nears me, clutches it with both hands, moves it around in circles like a steering wheel as he watches me with concern. He steps onto his right leg, and down he goes. Bends his left leg. His position of rest.
    “Are you . . . em . . . they told me that . . . eh.” He clears his throat. “They told me to . . .” He swallows hard, and his thick messy eyebrows furrow and hide his glassy eyes. “You lost . . . you lost, em . . .”
    My lower lip trembles.
    His voice breaks when he speaks again. “You lost a lot of blood, Joyce. They . . .” He lets go of his cap with one hand and makes circular motions with his crooked finger, trying to remember. “They did a transfusion of the blood thingy on you, so you’re, em . . . you’re okay with your bloods now.”
    My lower lip still trembles, and my hands automatically go to my belly, long enough gone to no longer show swelling under the blankets. I look to him hopefully, only realizing now how much I am still holding on, how much I have convinced myself the awful incident in the labor room was all a terrible nightmare. Perhaps I imagined my baby’s silence that filled the room in that final 3 2 / C e c e l i a A h e r n
    moment. Perhaps there were cries that I just didn’t hear. Of course it’s possible—by that stage I had little energy and was fading away—maybe I just didn’t hear the first little miraculous breath of life that everybody else witnessed.
    Dad shakes his head sadly. No, it had been me that had made those screams instead.
    My lip trembles more now, bounces up and down, and I can’t stop it. My body shakes terribly, and I can’t stop that either. The tears; they well, but I keep them from falling. If I start now, I know I will never stop.
    I’m making a noise. An unusual noise I’ve never heard before. Groaning. Grunting. A combination of both. Dad grabs my hand and holds it hard. The feel of his skin brings me back to last night, me lying at the bottom of the stairs. He doesn’t say anything. But what can a person say? I don’t even know.
    I doze in and out. I wake and remember a conversation with a doctor and wonder if it was a dream. Lost your baby, Joyce, we did all we could . . . blood transfusion . . . Who needs to remember something like that? No one. Not me.
    When I wake again, the curtain beside me has been pulled open. There are three small children running around, chasing one another around the bed while their father, I assume, calls to them to stop in a language I don’t recognize. Their mother lies in the bed next to me. She looks tired. Our eyes meet, and we smile at each other.
    I know how you feel, her sad smile says, I know how you feel.
    What are we going to do? my smile says back to her. I don’t know, her eyes say. I don’t know.
    Will we be okay?
    She turns her head away from me then, her smile gone. Dad calls over to them. “Where are you lot from then?”
    “Excuse me?” her husband asks.
    t h a n k s f o r t h e m e m o r i e s / 3 3
    “I said where