Remembering

You sit down silently next to me—it is the only open seat. Clearly you are uncomfortable, like so many who visit here. I plop my elephant figurine abruptly on the table in front of you. “Some girls take on personal symbols—flowers or hearts or butterflies or kitty cats or some other pretty picture,” I tell you, “Easy to draw, easy to find on t-shirts and stationary. Angie's was an elephant.”1

I don’t give you time to respond. “Why? Because elephants never forget. Coming across the bones of a long-deceased ancestor an elephant will caress them with his trunk. He will moan in sorrow and recognition. These great mammals store who-knows-how-much history in their equally great heads.”2

I smile, let you think on the puzzle, psychoanalyze Angie.3

“Surely, she has suffered amnesia; she cannot remember some important event... or person-- her mother?"4

"You're warm," I tell you, “but not quite."5

"She has been forgotten, then?"6

“She was raised these past years by her great graying pack-rat of a grandmother, who hoarded stories and trinkets alike.”7

"Her mother left, then? Left her and forgot her?"8

"No, no," I protest, "Her mother is dead, long dead. Yet daily Angie finds her old pictures and jewelry, hears stories of how her mother was wonderful, how her mother did such great things and would have done greater things still, if only..."9

You grow silent for a moment, out of respect for the dead, perhaps, or a young girl's grief. But you must know. "Still, why the elephants?"10

I look straight into your eyes, half-hoping to unnerve you. "Because memory is misery and misery loves company. Because Angie cannot forget her mother's face in the moments before she died. Because her mother's terrified eyes stare through her bedroom window at night just as they stared, terrified, up through the car window. Because Angie knows that she should have been the one to drown, not her mother; her mother was good, could have done good things. And Angie can run her fingers over the trunks of her elephant figurines and know they understand.”11

My breath is coming in short, quick breaths, but I don’t look away from your gaze.12

“What,” you finally ask, “did you say your name was?”13

My voice is hardly more than a whisper: “Angela.”14