The Woman Who Died a Lot

Everyone was silent around the table. We all knew we had heard too much, and that led to only one possible outcome for the evening.

“We’re not going to remember any of this, are we?” said Friday.

“Maybe when you’re older, small shreds of Aornis’ death will filter up from the deep subconscious, but they will be unclear and indistinct, no more real than half-forgotten dreams.”

“What about Jenny?” I asked. “What will happen to her? She’s so strong in my mind that I can smell her. I can’t imagine her not being there any more than I can imagine Friday or Tuesday or Landen not being here.”

“You’ll never know she was ever there,” said the Cleaning Lady. “There was only ever one Jenny, and she wasn’t yours.”

“Aornis had a daughter?” asked Tuesday, who was sharp enough to pick up this stuff two minutes before the rest of us.

“No one ever created a Homo mnemonicus without an intimately known and intimately lost person as a subject. I think Aornis missed Jenny dreadfully and wanted her to live on. The more she created her for you, the more Jenny became alive. But it’s not important. We can remove every single part of her so that all you will retain is a fondness for people named Jenny.”

“You’re that good?” asked Tuesday.

“I’m the second best there’s ever been.”

“It’s a great plan,” said Landen, clapping his hands, “and we all need to get an early night. Big day tomorrow.”

“I was about to say the same thing,” said the Cleaning Lady, glancing at the clock. “It will take a couple of hours, and I have a serious eradication tomorrow. Plus, the trains are not that regular to Whitby these days. Now, if you can all simply relax and hold hands, it will make things easier and none of this will have happened. And don’t worry about the tattoo,” she added to me. “You’ll go into Swindon on Monday and have it removed. You’ll think the scar was a scald that you got three years ago when the handle broke off a pan of water. So if you’ll just empty your minds, Jenny and I can be out of your hair for good and—”

“Wait.”

The Cleaning Lady raised an eyebrow and stared at me.

“I want to keep her.”

“What?” exclaimed Landen.

“I want to keep her. You might as well tell me you were going to scrub Friday.”

“Mum,” said Tuesday, “she’s not your daughter and never was. Just a notion designed by Aornis—based on the daughter she had and lost.”

I fixed my look at Tuesday. “Can you remember her?”

“Yes.”

“And those memories are good?”

“It’s irrelevant, Mum. Sure, she was a hoot and great fun to have around, but I know she’s not real. Besides, by tomorrow you won’t even know she was once here.”

“But I know about it now, and it’s the wrong decision.”

“But you won’t even know about your wrong decision,” said Friday in an exasperated tone. “If it’s wrong at all—which I doubt.”

“All my decisions will be forgotten eventually,” I said quietly, “but it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t make the right ones. I’m going to keep her. Can I?”

“It would be a lot easier,” said the Cleaning Lady, “and with less risk of peripheral memory loss.”

“I think you’re nuts, Mum,” said Tuesday.

“I want to keep her, too,” said Landen, reaching out to hold my hand. “You’ll not be the only one in the house who has fond memories of a child with existence issues.”

There was silence for a moment.

“I’m in, too,” said Friday. “Sis?”

“Okay, fine,” said Tuesday. “She always made me laugh, the little scamp.”

“All righty,” said the Cleaning Lady. “Looks like I’m going to make that train to Whitby after all.”

She pulled a cell phone from her pocket and pressed a couple of buttons. “Remember that ten-seater tiltrotor that came down near Barnstaple two years ago due to a gearbox failure?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Jenny would have been on that, en route to visiting a pen pal in Liskeard.”

Landen and I looked at each other. I held his hand, and he blinked away a tear.

“Graham?” said the Cleaning Lady into the phone. “You were right. They’re going to keep her. Get onto the Falsification Department and tell them we need a memorial stone in Aldbourne Cemetery.”

She looked at me. “Jennifer Houson Parke-Laine-Next,” I said, tears welling up in my eyes, “1990 to 2002.”

“Under the yew,” added Landen. “The dappled shade during the summer will make it a peaceful spot.”

I gave out a choke of grief, and Landen got up to give me a hug. I had seen her not half an hour ago, and soon she would be gone forever. But we’d remember the good times, even if they’d never happened—or at least not to us.

“Don’t start blubbering, Mum,” said Friday wiping his eyes. “You’ll set us all off.”

But it was too late.

“All set,” said the Cleaning Lady, snapping the phone shut. “I’ll bid you good-bye. You might hear from me again, and if you do, you’ll do me a favor but never know why. We often need favors. Now,” she said, cracking her knuckles, “let’s put everything to rights.”

“Can I ask a question before we lose all this?” asked Landen.

“Of course.”

“Has something like this happened before? A daughter like Jenny, a family like us?”

“Many times.”