Free The Memory Jar by Elissa Janine Hoole

uncle?”
    â€œGreat uncle. When my folks had to put Granny into an assisted living place because of the dementia. He was a mean one, and my great aunt only told me to get Joey out from underfoot and to keep him out until dinner time. If my folks ever knew how we were treated that summer … ” Fishing line sang out as he extended his arm, a graceful zing and then a small splash as his lure hit the water.
    â€œDid he hurt you?” I treaded water so that I could look him in the eyes. Looking for damage? Looking for danger, maybe. “Did he hurt Joey?”
    Scott slowly reeled in his cast. “Fishing was the only time he wasn’t angry.”

Now
    My phone rumbles again in my pocket and a rush of nausea hits, my face prickling, my head spinning. “I’m sorry,” I say, and I pull the mic from my collar. “I can’t do this. That wasn’t the right kind of story at all.”
    Tom takes the mic and doesn’t try to stop me, though it clearly disappoints him when I ask him not to use any of that on the news. I check my phone on the bus headed home and there are two more pro-life texts, both from different numbers. I try calling the first one, my stomach uneasy as I debate what to say if someone answers. The number rings over to an automated message saying that the user is currently unavailable, and the second number does the same. The numbers don’t exactly seem local. Whoever it is must be using some kind of phone number service, some kind of spammer software. Is it a real person, or a bot? I suppose it could be some kind of political activism group, but how would they know to target me? The drugstore bathroom, the shoplifted test? It’s not like I purchased baby formula or prenatal vitamins or whatever. I mean, I’ve searched a few things on my phone about pregnancy and abortion laws and stuff, but it would be so creepy for people to be texting me based on my search history. Is that even legal? I wonder if I should take those vitamins. I shut down my phone for the rest of the night and resolve to be more careful to browse in private mode.
    The next morning, I’m actually supposed to go to school. My mom clinks her spoon against the inside of her bowl, trying to get at the last of the oatmeal. “I suppose you haven’t finished your homework.” She sighs. “Taylor, you have to go.”
    I don’t know what I thought was going to happen. I guess I thought that people whose boyfriends have lapsed into comas—not lapsed so much as crashed , I suppose—did not have to attend school. Or maybe people with lacerated faces. Or a person who is secretly pregnant and mildly amazed that no medical personnel have suspected or revealed said secret to said person’s mother, for that matter.
    I am not able to go to school. The thought is ludicrous. “I have a concussion.” My fingers wander over the stitches on my chin. “I have memory loss.”
    She snorts, tossing her dish into the sink to make it clatter. “You have a C in English, for chrissakes. In English . The language you’ve been speaking since you were born.”
    â€œA C is average.” I don’t quibble about my speaking ability on the day I was born, though I’m tempted. I can’t help it. She brings out my will to argue.
    â€œToo bad you’re not average,” she says, and flicks me in the face with her wet fingers. “Now go to school.”
    â€œA half day,” I plead. “The doctor would call that reasonable. I’ll go to school this morning and then spend the afternoon at the hospital.” Mom stops, midway through the door to the garage, her keys bouncing in her fingers. “Please.”
    She walks out the door with a slam, and I slump against the kitchen counter. The old garage door rattles up in its crooked tracks, and I know without waiting to listen for it that she’s going to leave it for me to wrestle back