Erased From Memory Read Free Page B

Daddy’s and my former next-door neighbor. She is also my oldest friend, my best friend, my surrogate mother. She’s the one who got me through my difficult childhood.
    She’s loving and overwhelming and I don’t want her around now.
    A minute later she billows through the door in a surge of purple wool, trailing an embroidered cape. “My psychic is going to do an intention for Ed, that will help enormously; this psychic is totally powerful. And I’ve brought this”—extending a bunch of fibers—“a bayberry smudge; we’ll burn it to expel the harmful influences. Darling Carla, I am so sorry, how is it possible, Edward is such a complete human being.”
    Susie is a sexy old hippie who likes tie-dye dresses and macramé jewelry. She says she wants to continue the image of the sixties. Tie-dye is fashionable again this year, but I don’t tell Susie that.
    “Mom, we need more than a roseberry smudge.” Rob sounds cross, which is the way he usually sounds around her. She corrects him, “Bayberry,” and then kisses me, enveloping me in purple fabric.
    “Love will find a way; love will get Ed out of jail, although going to jail is a sign of your personhood; many of my friends have done it.” And she subsides onto Daddy’s couch.
    Rob sits on a chair and looks at his knee. He gets a notebook out of his pocket and asks, crossly, as if he’s addressing somebody feeble-minded, will I please try for a sequential account of what happened. But right away he’s sorry. “Oh, hell, Carl; jeez, I’m out of line,” and after that he’s good about listening. It’s only when I’m almost finished that he starts firing inquiries like, “Where is he now? You don’t know? Well, what did they say?” and tries to look patient.
    I don’t tell him, “Hey, Rob, that was my dad it was happening to.” He knows I’m not usually like this.
    He makes more notes. “We need a lawyer.”
    He adds that he has a good friend who is a lawyer, but this friend lives in Madison, Wisconsin.
    I remember that the Manor has two lawyers. But they’re the stocks, bonds, investments, bequests kind of lawyers. “They wouldn’t get anybody out of jail.”
    “Well, I know a lawyer.” This is from Susie, who has been crossing and uncrossing her knees on the couch. She smiles her sunny Susie smile. “I know a very good lawyer. She would be fine for getting somebody out of jail. She does it all the time.
    “And I just called her. She’s on her way over here.
    “She was my lawyer for the grocery store,” she adds.
    Susie owns a natural foods grocery store in Berkeley. These days the Berkeley landscape is littered with organic stores, but when Susie started up her store it was the only one. She got sued frequently. She needed a lawyer. People love to sue natural foods stores because, what with organic fertilizers and no pesticides, the products get multiple worms and dirt, which customers don’t want; they just want the ORGANIC label.
    “She was wonderful,” Susie says. “She saved me a bunch of times.”
     
 
I stare at Susie, who still surprises me pretty often. In my childhood I alternated between loving her passionately and being cross at her for being so scattered. It was usually when I was most cross that she came up with one of her interesting and helpful solutions. But I’m not so sure I want to trust her with choosing our lawyer.
    “Her name is Cherie Ghent,” Susie says. “She is really, really good.”
     
 
Cherie Ghent shows up half an hour later. The three of us have been speculating about various questions: Where is my father? What’s he charged with? How long can they hold him? How do we get him out? That’ll take money; where do we get money? Susie says she has money, which is a lie; Rob claims he has money, also a lie. We are deep into this discussion when Cherie Ghent arrives.
    Cherie doesn’t inspire confidence. I look at her and reject her hands down. I have a preconception about the ideal lawyer. That