Gran’s Memory Book

GRAN’S MEMORY BOOK

Carla took a deep breath and checked her Amazon book account. As the information flashed up on the screen, her eyes widened. Her numbers were better than she’d ever dreamed! Her sales were climbing, and people were talking about The Silenced Witness.

One Goodreads reviewer gushed about the intricacy of the plot. Another couldn’t get over how real-to-life the characters were. A third reviewer raved that the historical authenticity was impeccable. There’d even been a phone call from the New York Times Book Review editors who hinted that maybe she would be part of an upcoming article: The Top 25 Indie Published Books of the Year. Her book, The Silenced Witness had gone viral, and sales soared. Carla had checked—the vast majority of self-published books sold less than one hundred copies. But she’d beaten the odds. Her e-book sales were climbing, and her print-on-demand numbers were soaring.

And the coup d’état—she’d been contacted by one of the Big Five publishing houses and had signed a contract to print a full run of The Silenced Witness—fifty thousand copies, plus a promotional book tour of seventeen major cities and markets. And they wanted another two books for a trilogy, and had given her a hefty advance.

It had happened so quickly. She was making money, and people knew her name. Too bad she hadn’t actually written the book.

*****

What a shitty week, Carla thought. Her parents, Larry and Sue had dropped the hammer—Gran had to move to a memory care facility. She could no longer look after herself, they said, even though they had hired Carla to look after her, so technically she wasn’t actually looking after herself. Gran was fine, and everything was copacetic. Mostly. But Larry and Sue did not concur. They said Gran couldn’t live by herself. Carla pointed out that Gran wasn’t living by herself. She had Carla and a cadre of trained professionals making sure she was looked after, comfortable, and safe. Mostly.

Carla had quit her crappy minimum wage job (yay!) to move in with Gran. It was a good gig. Gran’s estate paid her for her time. She was on-call from seven a.m. until seven p.m., when the the overnight respite worker would arrive for the second shift until seven the next morning. Carla was responsible for ensuring that Gran was fed and watered. There was a home care worker who got Gran up, toileted, and dressed every morning. The nighttime respite worker got Gran ready for bed every night. As well, there was a housekeeper who cleaned the house weekly.

It was a good gig. All Carla had to do was hang out with her Grandmother and make sure that she didn’t hurt herself or wander away. And Carla did just that. Mostly. She had every other weekend off, didn’t pay rent, and ate for free. She had the use of Gran’s big old Oldsmobile, and her credit card. Larry kept a pretty close watch on how much Carla spent, and there’d been no blowback about any of her spending.

And now all that was about to change. All because that stupid night respite worker, Gillian, had fallen asleep and Gran had wandered away. And when Carla said wandered away, she meant wandered away. It was the perfect storm of mistakes that led to Gran’s escape. First, Gillian hadn’t set the alarm on the doors. Then, Gillian—or maybe Carla, but she wasn’t going to bring that up—hadn’t locked the front door properly. Nor was the sliding bolt at the top of the door out of Gran’s reach, thown, allowing Gran to escape.

Right before she’d gone to bed, Carla had snuck out for a weed vape. She wasn’t sure whether or not she’d relocked the sliding bolt. Hell, she wasn’t even sure she’d closed the door properly. But as far as Carla was concerned, it didn’t matter. It was Gillian’s job to make sure that the place was buttoned up tight at night because Gran was a wanderer. But Gillian had fallen asleep, and not checked that they were properly locked in.

Gran had gotten up and wandered away. She’d made it all the way to the main street closest to her home, about three miles. She’d been wearing a thin cotton nightie—that was it. No shoes or slippers, no housecoat or robe. Just a thin cotton nightie.

Gillian had woken up about five, and had gone down to make a cup of coffee for herself. When she saw the open door, the shit hit the fan. She checked the house—no Gran. She’d checked the yard—no Gran. She’d checked the street—no Gran. At that point she’d woken Carla up. The two of them had driven around the neighbourhood—no Gran.

Carla found out later that a bus driver had spotted Gran at two-thirty in the morning, he’d pulled over and tried to get her into his bus. But she was having none of that. She told the bus driver she was looking for Joseph, and she was not going to be deterred. Problem was that Joseph, her first husband, had been dead for fifty years. The police were called.

That was the reason Larry and Sue had pulled the rug out from under Carla. She was fired—more or less. Not “fired” fired, like Gillian, but her employment now had an end date. As soon as a spot became available for Gran, she would be moving out.

“But we’d like you to stay on—” said Larry. Carla’s heart soared, just a tiny bit. Her father was notoriously a good news/bad news kinda guy. “Your Grandmother’s been living in this house for sixty-three years,” he continued, “And we need someone to clean the house out. We’re going to get the place ready to sell.”

Carla had looked at her parents. “Before Gran dies?” she’d asked. Her grandmother was ninety-six, had dementia, and probably wouldn’t be coming back, but Carla didn’t understand why they had to sell her home. Besides where was she going to live?

Carla had looked at her parents. “Mom? You agree?” Gran was Sue’s mother, but she always let Larry do all the heavy lifting.

She’d nodded. “Yes,” was all she said.

So it was decided. Gran was going into a home, never to return. And Carla’s days living rent free were about to end.

Within two weeks Gran had a place. And Carla had to switch from caregiver to house cleaner. Not only did she have to clean out her Grandmother’s sixty-plus years of junk, she also had to find a new place to live. And get herself a real job. And, she had three months to do it all.

Carla had decided to start from the top down—attic first. And that was where her luck had changed. Gran kept a lot of stuff in the attic of the old Victorian house. An awful lot of stuff. Wearing a face mask because of the decades of dust that covered most surfaces, Carla had started sorting—furniture, clothes, toys, papers, and junk. She’d found an old cedar chest and had tried to pull it over into the furniture pile, but is was heavy as hell. That’s when she’d opened the lid and found them.

Journals. Lots and lots of journals. Apparently Gran was a lifelong chronicler. She picked a book at random, and started reading. Gran was thorough. She wrote down everything—what she’d had to eat, what she’d worn that particular day, what she’d seen, who’s arms she had broken—. Wait what? Carla kept reading. And reading. And reading.

If what she’d written was true, Gran and her first husband Joseph were part of the mafia. The mob. The five families. La Famiglia. And Joseph was a made man. Oy! and her Gran was a bad ass—a really, really bad ass. That’s when Carla got the idea to “write” a novel. She’d write it using Gran’s diaries. Gran wouldn’t mind. She’d never even know.

She’d read the diaries into one of the free AI platforms, and violà, her first book.

*****

And here she was three months later, everything coming up dollars. She hadn’t told Larry and Sue. Her mom would probably have a conniption—blah, blah, blah, family secrets. She was so boring.

But a secret is hard to keep in this world of social media everything. A friend of a friend of a friend had alerted Larry and Sue about Carla’s debut novel.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

“Carla Louisa! You open this door right now!”

When she opened the door, there were her parents, both furtively looking up and down the street. They pushed past Carla, and slammed the front door and locked it.

Sue turned towards Carla, her eyes wild, fear rolling off of her in waves. “What have your done?” she screamed.

“Uh, you’re going to have to be a bit more specific,” said Carla, truly confused at her mother’s aggressive behaviour.

Her dad took a step towards her. “This is not the time, Carla! You’re going to get us killed!”

Carla took a step away from her obviously deranged parents. She folded her arms across her chest. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

Her mother rushed into the living room and pulled the drapes across the large picture window that looked out on to the street. She ran back into the front hall. “The book, Carla! The God-damned book!”

“Ohhhh, the book,” she said, looking from parent to parent. “Did you, uh, read it?” asked Carla, wondering how she was going to explain the content to her parents.

“Yes!” screamed Sue. “Of course I read it!”

“That’s why we’re here!” said Larry, only slightly less manic than Sue.

Carla was confused. Sure her parents should have been pissed that she’d “borrowed” Gran’s life, but this was a bit over the top.

“We’re gonna die because of you and your stupid book!” shouted her mother.

Carla looked between them. “What are you talking about?”

Larry looked out the sidelights on the door, scanning the street. “They’ll find us. And kill us.”

Now Carla was really confused. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, but she had an unpleasant niggling feeling in her belly.

Sue leaned in towards Carla. “The book was based on Gran’s life, isn’t it?” It really wasn’t a question, so Carla didn’t answer. “How did you know?” Her mother squinted at her, eyes like lasers.

Carla swallowed. “She told me.”

Her mother’s eyes flared. “When? She hasn’t been able to have a lucid conversation for years.” Sue took a step closer to Carla. “You’re lying,” she whispered.

Carla knew when she was caught. “Fine. I found Gran’s diaries in the attic. I borrowed a couple to—”

Larry audibly gasped. Sue’s eyes bulged. “Her what?”

Carla was getting scared. Her parents, while mostly okay were not drama queens. Today, though, they were acting way over the top. “Journals,” she said. “They were in a cedar chest in the attic.”

“Show me!” demanded her mother.

The trio rushed up to the third floor of the house, ascending the narrow staircase to the rafters of the house. Carla pointed to the middle of the floor where the chest was. Larry and Sue hurried over to the chest and threw open the lid. They gasped in unison.

“There have to be a hundred books in here,” said Larry, not taking his eyes off the journals.

“Ninety-four,” said Carla.

They ignored her. “We have to get rid of them!” said Sue, her anxiety ratcheting. “We’re dead if anyone finds these.”

“We need to burn them!” said Larry.

Carla stood between her parents and the chest, protecting her precious books.

“No way!” she shouted spreading her arms wide to prevent her parents from touching the journals. “You’re not touching my journals! They’re mine! I need them!”

Sue’s eyes flared. “They are not your journals. They are your grandmother’s personal property. And you stole her story,” she hissed. “You are a cheater and a thief. And now you’re going to get us killed.”

Carla was taken aback. Her mother never spoke to her like that. But, she stood her ground. “You said I could have anything that I wanted from the house. I want the journals and the chest.”

“You’re going to get us killed!” screamed Sue. She turned to Larry, grabbing his arms. “Tell her!”

Larry took a big breath. “How many of these books did you read?” he asked.

Carla shrugged. “Just the nineteen seventies stuff."

“So you read about your grandfather death?” Carla nodded. “Did your grandmother write about how he died?”

“Yes. She said he was shot one night when he was out with some friends.”

“Well, it was a hit, and the beginning of a mob war. And when your grandfather died, your grandmother took over the family business.” He used air quotes around family business. “Both legal and illegal.” Larry looked over at Sue, who was studiously staring at the floor. “She was ruthless. Until she was arrested in 1997. “

Carla was dumbstruck. “Sweet, funny, let’s-bake-come-cookies Gran?” she asked

Larry nodded. “She was facing a long prison term. They offered her witness protection if she’d rat out her ‘family.’ She took it. She and your mom were relocated here, under a different name. They were sworn to secrecy. No one could know who they were. There was a bounty on Gran’s head.”

“How come you know?” asked Carla. She knew that her mother and father had met in 2000, and were married in 2001—four years after Gran had entered witness protection.

Larry looked at Sue who was still looking at the floor. “I was your grandmother’s case agent.”

Carla shook her head. “So, my grandparents were in the mob, my grandfather was murdered, my grandmother was the head of her ‘family,’ you were a fed—” she nodded towards her father. “—and Gran was arrested for—” she looked at her father.

“Murder and tax evasion,” said Larry.

Carla just stared at him. He shrugged. “She didn’t actually kill anyone, she just put a hit out on them.”

Carla stared at him. “Just?” He shrugged again. “And we’re in witness protection, and my book might get us killed because the bad guys will know where we are?”

Larry looked at his daughter. “Yup. That about sums it up.”

Sue spoke up, tearing her eyes from the floor. “We’ve have to go. Now. If they know where we are, we’re dead.”

Carla, while a bit disturbed by the knowledge that her grandma had people killed, was pretty sure that Sue was overacting. “Mom, it’s been what? Twenty-eight years? I’m pretty sure nobody’s looking for us!”

At that exact moment, they heard the front door smash open, three three floors below them, and the sound of running feet.

“Wanna bet?” said Larry.