Read Thanks for the Memories for Free Online Page B

“I’m sorry, Mr. Conway, but we can only allow two guests at a time. You’ll have to wait outside.”
    Dad is delighted to be ejected from the room, so violent is the look I’ve thrown him. I had already informed him, quite firmly, that I wasn’t in the mood for visitors of any sort. His face is pink, revealing his guilt, if not of arranging this visit, at least of the fail-t h a n k s f o r t h e m e m o r i e s / 4 3
    ure to prevent it. He flies out of the room, up and down, down and up, like a fly that’s lost a wing.
    As soon as he’s out of the room, two faces poke around the edge of the door. Kate and Frankie, my oldest and best friends. They enter the room like two virgins approaching a gigolo; Kate’s hands clasped across her front, Frankie’s lips pursed, both their eyes wide and concerned. I feel my body tense, rejecting their presence, and they instantly know not to greet me with their usual hugs and kisses. Like the game of musical chairs that we so often played as children, they race for the armchair next to my bed, and their bums fight for space. Frankie wins, as usual, and relaxes in the seat, smug and lazy like a cat. Kate, momentarily caught in a time warp, glares at her childishly, and then finally, remembering the passing of thirty years and where she is, decides to perch on the armrest instead. She wobbles a few times on thin wood, searching for the correct place to place her backside. She can’t be comfortable, but she stops squirming to fix her gaze upon me. Her look is similar to the consistency of the food she spends her days making at home; puréed and organic, soft enough to squeeze through the gaps of baby teeth, the sounds from her kitchen not dissimilar to the Dublin roads ripped apart by roadworks, endless drilling and pounding. Her eyes melt down into her cheeks, her cheeks into her mouth, everything downward, sad, sympathetic.
    “You didn’t have to come,” I say. My politeness valve isn’t working, and the words gush out mean and cold; they sound more like “I wish you didn’t come.”
    Kate is momentarily taken aback, and then compassion oozes back onto her face, like a slow mush.
    “With the kids and everything . . . ,” I add lifelessly, an attempt at damage control, but the words are limp and hang in the air and then slither down to the ground in the silence that follows.
    “Oh, the kids are outside, on their best behavior.” She smiles. Behind her, I see a solo wheelchair race by with a teddy bear 4 4 / C e c e l i a A h e r n
    strapped inside. Seconds later, Dad runs after it in a panic. I’m glad I don’t see Sam, Kate’s baby. I couldn’t take that. Only adult lifeforms to pass my eyeline from now on. Frankie remains uncharacteristically quiet from her place in the armchair, looking around the room like a child in a waiting room, bored and uninterested, waiting for Mother to finish her adult duties so that the fun of life can begin again. My eyes fall to her lap.
    “What’s that?”
    Realizing it’s her turn, she looks at me. “Oh—” She bites her lip and looks at Kate, whose expression has quite dramatically altered to one of extreme anger. “Oh, this .” Her voice goes up a notch.
    “This is, um, it’s a . . .” She angles her head left and right, examining it. “It’s a gift,” she finally says and lifts it up so that I can see. “For you. From us.” She gives me her best, cheekiest, broadest smile. I look at Kate, whose mushy face has now tightened with anger. Words are bubbling beneath her lips, jumping to get out like heated kernels exploding in her mouth.
    “Okay, so I made a bit of a mistake.” Frankie tries to hide her smile now.
    “I told you to get her flowers ,” Kate finally explodes.
    “I wasn’t too far off,” Frankie defends herself. “It’s a plant.”
    “It’s. A. Cactus,” Kate spits.
    I smile at their usual bickering, surprised they managed to last this long without going at each other. They’ve been carrying on