And Do Remember Me by Marita Golden Page A

his heart. All this terribleness made him forget sometimes Hector Beaumont, the one-eyed owner of the general store, who made him kneel before him, take his member in his mouth, beating Chester until he did it without resistance, the scent of tobacco, licorice, old cheese and sweat swirling around the back room where Hector Beaumont unzipped his pants and claimed Chester Foster for three years that lasted forever.
    And women were just a blur, all one face to him, one body. He came to hate his wife because she had not broken the hold of memory, had not snapped the back of nightmare. In Olive’s arms he was the little boy again, each time, vulnerable and afraid. But when he took his daughter he became Hector Beaumont, instilling fear, not feeling it. Mornings after, he woke sick, unsatisfied, wondering what he had done. Knowing all too well. If he could kill himself, he thought, it would be over. But he’d never do that. Some poison was in him. Now that he had started, it was impossible to stop. Mornings after, Jessie stumbled from bed, already in the hold of a skillful, perfect amnesia that erased the night from memory while burying it in her soul.
    And so, theirs was a house where everyone had a secret. Mae Ann never said a word about Jessie returning to their room inthe dark, and slipping back under the sheets beside her, smelling of their father’s cigar, his whiskey clinging to her like a second skin. She said nothing, but began to run away from home so often that after a while, no one took notice anymore, for they knew she would come back eventually.
    Junior, the youngest boy, got into fights at school, and was sent to a juvenile home for stealing sneakers from a department store downtown. Nobody in the family talked about Junior’s behavior, or about the beatings his father inflicted with a savage sense of mission. Willie took refuge in utter, complete silence. He carved hundreds of tiny animals out of wood—mice, dogs, squirrels. Jessie found them one day in a box beneath his bed. He was so quiet they thought he was dumb. Chester Foster beat Junior because he was bad. He beat Willie because he was afraid he wouldn’t be a man.
    When her father touched her, Jessie tunneled deep inside herself. There she hovered quiet, unmolested, untouched. Daydreams became the texture of her life. While cooking, she learned to transport herself in her mind to a foreign country they had studied in school, to sweep the floor and hear the amusing, subtle laughter of imaginary friends. And there was always Aunt Eva.
    Jessie often stopped by Aunt Eva’s beauty shop on her way home from school or from the Bullocks’. She sat in the tiny shop, surrounded by the scorching scent of straightening combs and curlers, the acrid smell of shampoo and dye. The beauty shop was a confessional. Here women flaunted secrets, told raucous tales of lovers, recounted arguments with husbands and employers, divulged their fears for their children. Jessie swept the floor, gathering great balls of hair on the dustpan, cleaned the sinks, washed the towels and listened to the women unfold precious covert longings, draping them over the dreary exterior of their lives. When Eva gave Jessie a ridehome, she noticed how Jessie was reluctant to move once they drove up to her house, asking Eva more than once, “How come I got to come back here? How come I can’t go with you?” Concerned, Eva began visiting her sister’s house when she wasn’t expected and instantly sensed the chaos. She began taking Mae Ann and Jessie to her house for the weekends. When Chester Foster argued that they were needed to work in the house, Eva snapped at him, “Let them hardheaded boys of yours do some work, they got hands.”
    Her sister’s marriage was the cause of her illness, Eva had concluded long ago. As she watched the two girls stuff a few things into a paper bag for the trip to her house, she wrestled with the impulse to go into her sister’s room and drag her out of the