The Memory Key by Liana Liu

there’s another billboard featuring that same couple.
    When the light turns green, I ride over to where the attractive man is sliding a diamond ring on the attractive woman’s finger. Still no print. At the next corner, the attractive couple cradles an attractive baby. At the next corner, the couple, older now, but still attractive, stand next to an attractive teenager in a graduation gown. At the next corner, the couple, much older now, but only slightly less attractive, sit with their arms around each other on an attractive porch. Still no print.
    But at the next corner, the billboard contains only print. In big letters it announces: THIS TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE WAS BROUGHT TO YOU BY KEEP CORP .
    Has Keep Corp launched a new marketing campaign, or have I just never paid much attention to their ads before?
    I grip my handlebars tight, then tighter, and pedal home as fast as I can.
    When I come into the house, Dad is still up. He asks about my night and I make up cheerful answers to his questions until I can find an excuse to escape to my bedroom. My chest is heaving, my head is throbbing, but most of all, worst of all, I’m sad. Just all-of-a-sudden and hopelessly sad.
    Lora, it’s okay .
    I’m blinking tears as Mama comes to sit next to me on my bed, where I’m curled up after a terrible day at school. Shestrokes my hair, her hand soft and slow against my head. She tells me it’s all right, that I’ll be all right, her voice as soft and slow as her hand. I take deep breaths until I’m calmer. I take deep breaths until I’m calm.
    Then I pick up the phone.
    â€œWhat are you doing tomorrow?” I ask Wendy when she answers.
    â€œI came by earlier, and your dad said you were out. Where were you?”
    â€œSorry, I was with Raul. What are you doing tomorrow?”
    â€œYou were with Raul? Tell me everything!”
    â€œThere’s nothing to tell,” I say quickly. I shouldn’t have mentioned him. Now she’ll only want to talk about him. “I don’t like him like that. He just wants me to join his soup kitchen, anyway.”
    â€œWhat? Never mind. He loves you. I know he—”
    â€œWhat are you doing tomorrow? I want to find Carlos Cruz.”
    â€œWho’s that? Is he cute?” she asks.
    I sigh. I tell her he’s that writer for the Middleton Tribune , the one who quoted my mother in several articles.
    â€œTim and I are supposed to go to the lake, but there’s a chance he’ll get called into work again. If that happens I’ll be able to help you—if you want,” she says.
    â€œYes, I want,” I say. “Thanks.”
    â€œGood night, sweet dreams . . . about Raul. ” She hangs up quickly, before I can respond. But I am only giggling. Wendy is so Wendy.
    I go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, and wash my face. The soap I use is new. I’d gone to the drugstore this afternoon to buy Dad a tub of his favorite chocolate ice cream, but got distracted by the display of soaps wrapped in floral paper, wrapped up pretty as presents. Standing there in the aisle, I held a lavender bar to my face and inhaled it through its lavender paper. It was the soap my mother used to use.
    I bought one bar and it wasn’t until I was halfway home that I realized I’d forgotten the ice cream and had to go back.
    Now I rinse my face and slide on pajamas and fall into bed, and when I close my eyes all I smell is lavender, the herbal grassy sweetness, half perfume, half medicinal, and I imagine that she’s sitting next to me, pulling the blanket over my shoulders, smoothing my wayward hair from my face.
    And she’s there. Here.
    Mama says good night. She says sweet dreams. Then she’s about to go, so before she can go I hook my fingers into the scratchy wool of her sweater and tug her close, closer, and ask her to tell me a story. I don’t let go until she agrees. Just one , she says. Then right to sleep,