All four of her children each fervently believed in separate versions of their childhoods that often didn’t match up with Joy’s memories, or each other’s, for that matter. Sometimes one of them would tell a story about an incident that Joy was positive never happened, or at least not in the way they described it, because she had biographical facts at her disposal: “But we weren’t even living in the Fairmont Street house then!” “But your grandmother wasn’t alive when you turned thirteen!” And sometimes they’d argue about which of them was the villain or the victim, the martyr or the hero. “That wasn’t you that got stung by the bee, helping Grandma after she fainted at Troy’s party, it was me!” And Joy would think, It was Logan’s party, not Troy’s, and there was no bee, it was a wasp, and no one got stung, Amy just thought she did, and none of you helped, and Grandma didn’t faint, she passed out drunk.
Her children refused to be corrected. That’s what they remembered, therefore that was what happened, and when their memories didn’t match up with each other’s, they held on tight to their versions of the stories, as stubborn as their damned father.
Although sometimes one of them would get a far-off look, and you’d see something click into place, and they’d reexamine a childhood event with grown-up eyes and say: “Wait a minute, maybe Grandma was drunk that day?”
Joy put on her dressing gown to go into the kitchen. For the first few days Savannah was staying Joy had made sure she was fully dressed before she left her room each morning, but it was funny how quickly she’d begun to feel relaxed around her. Most houseguests, no matter how pleasant, gave you a sense of something being out of place, so that you only relaxed fully when they were gone, but Savannah had slotted into their home so seamlessly.
Joy noticed that Savannah never closed her bedroom door at night. Not even a little bit. She went to bed with the door wide open, so that if Joy went to bed later than Savannah it was like walking by the bedroom of a small sleeping child. “Good night!” she’d call out, if Savannah had the bedside lamp on. “Good night, Joy!” Savannah would call back cheerfully. “Sleep tight!”
It came to Joy with sick clarity that the poor child had probably learned the art of fitting in when she was growing up. She hadn’t said all that much about her childhood, but she had told Joy that she’d grown up in the foster system. She said some of her foster homes were great, fantastic! But some were not so great. She’d been moved many times, because there were relatives who agreed to take her on but then it didn’t work out, or they changed their mind. She said that to be honest, those were the living situations that were not so great. Savannah didn’t know anything about her biological parents, although she vaguely remembered some supervised visits with her biological mother, but those had stopped when she was very young, and now she had no idea, and not much interest, as to the woman’s whereabouts.
Joy combed her wet hair. She’d blow-dry it after breakfast. She was starving. She looked at herself in the mirror. Did Savannah cook for Joy and Stan to make them like her? The awful thing was it did make them like her.
Was that another hair on her chin? For goodness’ sake. Where were the tweezers? She put on her glasses, leaned in close, and removed it with one tiny violent tug that brought tears to her eyes.
It would be terrible if Savannah was cooking to buy their affection. They weren’t fostering Savannah, she was a grown woman, but still, Joy needed to be mindful of her background.
She readjusted the tie of her gown. A day like today would be so hard for Savannah. She would have to see Joy’s children celebrating their father with gifts and jokes, when she had never had a father herself. Joy had never had a father either, but she had grown up in the one home, with a mother who loved her (albeit in her own peculiar, not especially loving way), but most important of all, Joy had had beloved grandparents who’d more than filled the missing-father gap. Poor Savannah had grown up with no stability.
Joy walked into the kitchen to find Savannah breaking an egg into the frying pan with one hand.
“Good morning, Stability!” cried Joy emotionally. She blushed. “I mean Hannah, I mean Savannah!” Good heavens.
Stan, who was sitting at the table eating bacon and eggs and doing the crossword, looked at her over the top of his reading glasses. “Are you having a stroke?”
“Morning, Joy!” Savannah lifted another egg from the carton between her fingertips. “One or two eggs today?”
“Oh, well, just one would be lovely, but you know you really don’t have to make us breakfast every day! Especially when you’re making lunch!” Joy hovered uncertainly by the stove. It didn’t feel like her stove anymore. It had never respected her the way it respected Savannah.
The kitchen smelled of baking. She could see something cooling on a cake tray under a sheet of aluminum foil.
She glared at Stan. “I’m not having a stroke. If I was having a stroke you should ask me to raise my right arm.”
“Raise your right arm,” said Stan.
“But I love to cook,” said Savannah earnestly. “It’s a privilege to cook in a kitchen like this. Please let me cook.” Her eyes, with those rabbitlike white eyelashes, held Joy’s. Sometimes Joy found her direct eye contact almost unnerving. She had to look away first.
“Oh, well, of course you can cook. I love that you cook! Thank you!”
“One of your eyes is bloodshot,” said Stan to Joy. “Is that a sign of a stroke?”
“I got shampoo in my eye,” said Joy irritably. “Happy Father’s Day.”
“Thank you,” said Stan. He finished his last mouthful, put down his knife and fork, and fastidiously patted his lips with the cloth napkin Savannah had laid out for him, as if he were the king of bloody England. “Best Father’s Day breakfast I’ve had in my whole life.”
“Gosh, that’s high praise.” High praise your grown-up children probably don’t need to hear. Joy had a flash of memory of Brooke on tippy-toes by the stove, her tongue stuck out the side of her mouth, as she attempted to flip the side of an omelet she was making Stan for Father’s Day.
“What’s this?” Joy lifted the corner of the sheet of aluminum foil. The smell was heavy, sweet, and familiar.
“Chocolate brownies,” said Savannah, and it was so silly and melodramatic how Joy’s stomach lurched, as if Savannah had said “Snake!” or “Fire!” not “brownies.”
“Lovely,” she said. She avoided looking at Stan. “How lovely.”
She distracted herself by opening the refrigerator door too fast, which sent that damned souvenir magnet rocketing toward the floor, taking with it a recycling notice from the local council that Stan had busily laminated so they could keep it forever (instead of recycling it). She caught the magnet just before it fell. The magnet was a souvenir from the London Eye, and it showed a photo of Joy and Stan, arms around each other on the Eye, pretending to be smiling retirees on the trip of a lifetime (when in fact Stan couldn’t stop complaining about the cost of the tickets).
When they’d bought that magnet, Stan said it was too heavy for a fridge magnet. “It’s not fit for purpose,” he’d said, dismissively, infuriatingly, because Joy wanted so badly to take it back to Sydney, to put it on their fridge as photographic evidence of the kind of holiday they didn’t really have, and it worked, because she’d overheard Savannah asking Stan about it, and he’d gone on about the magical views of London. He’d actually used that word: “magical.”
The views had been magical. What was the harm in it? Why not rewrite the memory and remember it as a perfect day? What was the actual benefit of accuracy when it came to memories? What would her dear sweet little memoir-writing teacher have to say about that?