The Memories We Keep

My life changed the moment I met him.

I was never typically adventurous, but water had always captivated me. Our house was located near a drowsy river that stretched in its bed. My knee protested as I sauntered upstream. I hadn’t realized how far I’d drifted when I beheld an abandoned gymnasium on the outskirts of town. By this point, my knee was aching, I needed a place to rest, and so decided to investigate.

I found him there. At first I was shy and apologetic, but he merely invited me to join him. Noticing a splintery bleacher, I obliged.

He was tall and handsome–had a crooked grin and a way of making you feel like the most important person. I knew almost immediately that I loved him. He never explicitly shared why he sought the shelter of a building so far from society, and I never asked him.

At first we were just friends. Decidedly different: he was sociable, I was withdrawn. He would bring his homemade golf clubs to hit rocks out through the ramshackle windows of the gymnasium, and I would sketch pictures of him from the bleachers.

Our fathers became great friends, and his family would often come to our house. Dinner discussions always consisted of politics and impassioned disagreements between them. Afterward, they would move to the porch to roll and smoke tobacco. If you were near them in the dimming dusk, you could still hear their rumbling voices and see embers as they inhaled.

Within the safe, loving embrace of the gymnasium, he and I would imitate our father’s differing views of whether America should join the war. Pretending to be my father, I said we shouldn’t: getting involved was like sticking our noses into someone else’s kitchen. He, pretending to be his, countered that we should: the world was suffering, and it was our duty to care–to fight.

Something blossomed between us on those warm, summer evenings that I could not explain, nor could I share with anyone. It was a ritual for us: we would meander along the river, seeing who could skip stones the furthest. Evening would envelop us in a cacophony of katydids. The warm orange and purple Carolinian sunset winked at us as it slowly yawned and put itself to sleep. In the building was where we’d talk about our families and our plans for the future. He wanted to be a soldier; I wanted to be a banker.

Such great fantasies he could weave, the storyteller within coming to life. While I had no notions of grandeur–not with my knee burning after our walks–he imagined himself as a high-ranking officer fighting for God and country. His voice would echo off the walls that were tattooed with generations of juvenile graffiti. I would sit and listen to tales of epic battles he would fight, men’s lives he would save, and glory he would garner for his efforts. Sometimes he would carve out a future where we would live in neighboring houses: we would drink our morning coffee on the porch–he would tell me how he got his medals, and I would tell him which stocks to invest in.

The first time he kissed me was also the first time he dared speak of a future together. The stars twinkled with pride, peaking through the building’s holes and windows as we carefully explored this new intimacy.

America joined the war soon after. My father had known someone who had been stationed on The Arizona, and a deep well of justice roiled within him after Pearl Harbor.

The first conscriptions went out; both of us were too young to be called. One night, we were sprawled on blankets gazing up through gaping holes of the gym’s dilapidated ceiling. He asked me: “Do you wish you could go?” He’d never asked me this before; I’d never minded. My knee twitched as I responded, “I want to be a part of something bigger than myself…but I do not wish to go.”

It was the last draft of the war. Most of the men had been drafted already, but they loosened the restrictions just enough. I continued to remain ineligible. He brought his papers with him in November. To India–that’s where he was going. My heart constricted as he told me when he would leave to join the fight. The gymnasium saluted him, while I simply emoted false enthusiasm.

We should meet before he left; he told me this under the tree behind my house. We would make what promises we could and say our final goodbyes.

From our back porch, my father saw us talking, saw the tender kiss we had then exchanged, went into a rage.

I missed our rendezvous. In the years that followed, people would ask how I got the scar that cut through my eyebrow and skipped across my cheek. My grandchildren would ask if I got it in the war–naively assuming my knee was also an indicator of gallantry. I would let them think what they would.

I never saw him again and only knew he had died when an officer showed up at his father’s house with a notification. His letter arrived a month later.

The final time I went back to our shared sanctuary, I took the letter. The battered walls of the gym empathized with my broken heart, and the wind whistled a mournful goodbye. Clasping the letter in my hands, I memorized the words he had written–words for a love we could never have had. The words weaved a future where he and I could live unburdened. Even now, years later, I take it out, add new tear stains to the weathered paper. This small token forever reminds me of the simple hidden love that had become the greatest adventure I could have ever experienced.