Free Remember by Eileen Cook Page A

Unless you don’t want to know.”
    I grabbed the papers and shoved them into my bag in a giant wad. “Fine, I’ll read them.”
    Neil didn’t break eye contact. “This isn’t just about me. I was outside the clinic that day. I was one of the protestors. I saw you go in.”
    I flushed. So much for my sunglasses master disguise and theory no one would notice. “How do you know it was me?”
    “You’re not the kind of girl someone forgets.”
    My heart skipped a beat. “I was visiting my dad. I do it all the time.”
    My heart beat faster. I was glad for the hum of conversation and jazz music playing in the background. It seemed like without the other sounds he would be able to hear the pounding in my chest, even though I knew that was absurd. I reminded myself he hadn’t been inside the clinic. He had no idea what I did in there.
    “For almost three hours?”
    “What’s your point?” I took another sip of my latte, but it was cold and bitter.
    “You stumbled at the mall. Are you having vision problems?”
    It took a beat, but then I realized what he was hinting at. I swallowed and it went down the wrong way and I coughed. “What?”
    Neil leaned forward. “Are you having memory problems? Trouble sleeping?”
    “Now you think I’m developing Alzheimer’s? Well, that’s just great. I suppose, on the upside, I might forget this meeting ever happened.” I sat back, wanting to put some space between us.
    “Are you having any odd symptoms? I’m being serious.” He leaned even closer.
    “So am I. Thank you for your concern.” My mind flashed to the sound of the woman I’d heard in the mall, and I pushed away the thought. I looked down at the time on my phone. “I gave you more than your five minutes. I listened to what you had to say, and I still disagree.” I shoved back from the table. I wanted to bolt out of the café.
    “Wait!” Neil scribbled something down on a piece of paper and tucked it into my open bag. “It’s my name and phone number. In case you change your mind. Or if you need anything.”
    I walked out of the cafe without saying anything.

chapter ten
    O ur house had a media room. That wasn’t unusual, at least not in our neighborhood, but nothing my dad did was halfway. Our media room could have belonged to a Hollywood movie mogul. It had three rows of red leather theater seats, giant La-Z-Boy chairs that fully reclined, with armrests that flipped open to reveal cup holders. There were vintage movie posters on the walls. Originals. My mom had used a decorator to hunt them down. Heaven forbid anyone discover that we had a mere reproduction of the Maltese Falcon poster hanging on our wall.
    There was even one of those rolling metal popcorn carts parked at the back of the room. I couldn’t remember us ever using it. We weren’t big popcorn-cooked-in-a-vat-of-oil people. We weren’t big movie people either, but having a media roomwas one more thing my dad could have that demonstrated his success. It wasn’t always clear to me what was more important to my dad: that he do well, or that everyone know just how well he was doing. My mom said it had to do with him having grown up poor. It wasn’t that I didn’t like having nice things, but I wished we didn’t have to tell everyone exactly how much each of our nice things cost. Once, we were at dinner and the waitress told my dad she liked his watch. “Can you believe it cost over twenty thousand bucks?” he asked her, rolling up his sleeve so she could see it better. I wanted to crawl under the table. It was likely more than she earned in a year. Couldn’t the guy just have said thanks?
    I sat in the dark in the media room staring at the screen. I didn’t have the sound on. I’d seen this movie hundreds of times. I didn’t need the soundtrack to be able to quote entire sections. I let the black-and-white images wash over me. I kept pushing away the thoughts of the discussion I’d had with Neil, but the thoughts were like some