Grief

Henry always scolded her if she returned home from her errands after the street lights came on. But Henry wasn’t at home. And he’d never be coming home again. Alley clutched a purple tote; her fingers burying deep into the canvas folds.

She found the tiny taxidermied animals behind the glass unsettlingly captivating. There were fuzzy mice perched in tiny velvet chairs, steeping tea, and a squirrel in a stiff tutu, its body locked in a perpetual pirouette. Even the weasels were caught in a passionate embrace, their beady eyes gleaming with a life that had long since been hollowed out. Each preserved in a series of glinting glass cubes with a display light glaring down, highlighting their strange existences.

The amber light from the window spilled across the sidewalk, but died before the curb, swallowed by the encroaching darkness. The street lamps flickered on. Alley wrapped her arms around the sack, desperately seeking solace. The hour was late, and the fog had begun to crawl from the shadows, slicking the cobblestones. 

A light inside the shop blinked out, and then on, bringing her attention back to the window. Red matte letters on the glass rejected the mist, standing out like a fresh welt: “In Memoriam: Gifts and More.” Alley had walked past this storefront hundreds of times. The display constantly changed, the animals participating with such finality in different tasks. 

“How many people buy you little things?” She whispered to the glass. The street remained mute, save for the distant gurgle of the sewer somewhere behind her. Her fingers brushed the cold pane, feigning a caress against the fur of a white mouse. “I guess I should go in, huh?” 

The white mouse blinked. 

Alley gasped. And looked closer. Her hand splayed on the window. Her nose nearly rubbed the pane as her breath left puffs of fog. She scrutinized the little mouse. It remained perfectly, deadly still. She rubbed her eyes with the meat of her palm.

“Just a trick of the light. You’re just tired.” As if to confirm, she stifled a yawn. Sleeping in the waiting room chairs and on the lumpy chair next to Henry’s bed had taken its toll. She hugged the bag and turned towards the door. 

A tiny tinkling bell sounded as she stepped into the warmly lit shop. From behind the counter, a wrinkled woman with soft gray hair mounded in a bun peered back at her with watery blue eyes. 

“Good evening,” she said, nodding. “Can I help you find something?”

Alley froze.

“Oh. Um. I’m sorry. I…I usually prepare in my head what to say. Henry was much better at this.” The words flew out of Alley’s mouth. “I just… I was… I heard…” She continued to stammer before she slapped a hand over her mouth and turned to flee.

“Hun. Please, come sit and tell me all about it.” Before Alley could take a step towards the door, the older woman had her elbow guiding her to a small table and chairs at the back of the store. In another breath, she was cradling a dainty china cup and sipping steaming tea. It was then that Alley noticed dozens more of the little animal dioramas, stacked on shelves along the back wall. 

“Feeling more yourself?” Inquired the shopkeeper. Alley nodded dutifully. 

“Wonderful!” The old woman patted her hands on her thighs. “Now tell me why you have come. And how I can help.”

Alley took a deep breath, set the teacup on the saucer, and breathed out. She longed to keep the tears away but knew that was likely impossible—in fact, one already dangled from the tip of her lashes. She quickly swiped it. 

“I heard you help people forget.” Alley pressed the canvas bag to her lap, where it’d been sitting, waiting to be hugged again. 

“Forget?” The shopkeeper rubbed her palms on her blue linen pants. 

“Please. Ruth said you helped her forget when her father passed. I just need to… to not remember Henry anymore.” Tears dropped onto the canvas bag. Alley didn’t wipe them away.

“Hun. We don’t help people forget. We help people not hurt anymore.” Strands of the woman’s gray flyaways feathered about her head like a halo as she shook her head. 

“Please. I’ll do anything, Ma’am. I can pay.” Tears dropped with splashes on her hands still clutching the bag. 

The woman sighed. “Call me Beatrice. Let me see what you’ve brought me.” She gestured to the bag. 

“Ruth said you needed something,” Alley pulled a blue and tan plaid shirt from the tote. Folded neatly, she set it carefully on the table. Her fingers caressed the worn fabric, unable to let go. “He loved this shirt. Wore it all the time.” Her voice trailed softly. “He’s had it for years. When we were young, he wore it to ask me to marry him. Of course, I said yes. Nothing like that man. Nothing like him. But then he started forgetting. He forgot where we lived, the dog, then me! He forgot me.” Alley sniffled and swiped at tears again, her face flushed with heat. “So, I want to forget him now.”

“That is not exactly how this works. You will not forget him. I can only help you to forget a moment—a single moment. The rest you will remember, unless the moment you want to forget is one that alters your course entirely. But I can take only one memory to preserve. In preserving that one, you must give up another forever.” 

“I understand. I need this. And, oh…” she pulled from the breast pocket of her raincoat a lock of mousy brown hair. “I brought this too.”

The woman sat back in her chair. “You will pay quite steeply. You know this, right?” 

Alley nodded again. “Yes, Ma’am. I mean, Beatrice. Yes. I understand.” Alley twisted her wedding band on her finger. 

“Then I will need a lock of your hair.” She slid scissors across the table. “And a drop of your tears freshly lost—more if you're able.” She handed over a vial. Her fingers were red and rounded at the joints. Alley took the vial, capturing a heavy tear that hovered on her lashes. Then she snipped a lock of her own blond hair. “Is it okay if it’s dyed?” She held up the curling lock.

“Oh, yes. Yes, it’s fine. No worries, dear.” Beatrice looked at her watch and then at the door. She shrugged a stooped shoulder and hobbled to the door, where she flipped the sign to closed. “Come with me, dear.” 

Alley followed into a small, sterile back room. A bare stainless-steel table in the center was illuminated by its own bright light, glowering over it—a silent observer to the mysteries the shopkeeper performed.

“Set your items there, except the hair. Bring those.” Beatrice said, motioning to the table. “And step this way.” Her knobby fingers gestured to a red door. Matte like the letters on the window. 

Again, Alley followed her, gingerly holding the two locks. This time, she stepped into a room with every species of animal she could imagine. All frozen like little soldiers. Rows and rows of taxidermied beasts: a morbid zoo of life in death. 

Beatrice held out her hand for the hair. She hummed a short melodic tune, deep and quiet, before retrieving a mouse the exact shade of Henry’s and another the color of her own hair. The tiny beings stood in her palm like they were awaiting orders. She set them on the table and pulled a stapled packet from a drawer beneath.

“Before I begin, you must sign paperwork. The memory exchange and diorama are not refundable, returnable, or transferable. Sign on the line at the red ‘X’ please.” Beatrice slid the document across the table to Alley with a black felt-tip pen. 

Alley had come too far to stop now. She picked up the pen and signed the line without reading it. Henry would be turning in his grave if he knew she hadn’t read the fine print. She slid the packet back. Alley spun her wedding ring. 

The hunched woman settled a glass box on the counter. It clinked against the table. She cut a portion of the flannel and stuffed it in the box along with both locks of hair. Atop those, she set both mice, still jauntily at attention. Then she took Alley’s hands in hers. 

“In a moment, I will ask you to clearly articulate the memory you want to forget. You must be very specific. Do you understand?” Beatrice’s watery blue eyes were now sharp and demanding. Their intensity made Alley’s heart race. She nodded.

“You will also need to focus on the memory you want to preserve. You cannot falter.” The knobby fingers pushed into Alley’s younger ones. Alley nodded again. 

She watched the woman go through a series of steps she couldn’t have explained if she tried. The woman snatched her hand, held it over the glass case, and sliced her palm to drip blood onto the mice. The blood sizzled and steamed, fogging up the box. 

Suddenly, Alley was back on the floor over her husband, trying to keep the blood from escaping his body while he held her hands wrapped around a kitchen knife thrust deep in his gut. She had returned home and found him struggling as he often did, his memory slipping farther and farther from her and the life they’d built. But this time, he could not remember her. And when she’d entered the room, he had been startled and attacked her. He never recognized her face. Never saw her. In the scuffle, she had only meant to protect herself.

Now, she longed to forget the expression on his face when he finally recognized her. The betrayal. The fear. The sadness… as he bled out on the living room floor.

The fog swirled in the case. She never heard the old woman asking her to recall the memory she wished to preserve. Couldn’t hear anything but the sob that tore from her throat when she’d realized her hands were covered in his blood. Couldn't recall the memory of his proposal, which she had wanted so badly to keep forever and watch play out over and over. 

Then the box cleared. The woman stopped her administration. 

The glass case sealed, the old woman sighed and shook her head. 

“It is done.” The shopkeeper clicked her tongue.

Alley couldn’t recall why she’d come to this shop, yet the woman was handing her a box. Blinking, Alley took it and was led by her elbow to the door. The bell didn’t jingle, but the door latched behind her with a snick, and she was ejected into the foggy street feeling oddly discontent. 

Carrying the strange box, she made her way home on autopilot, where she set the tea kettle to boil. Awaking as if from a fog, Alley noticed the pictures of her and a man on the mantle beside a wilting bouquet of flowers, on the shelves, and on the walls. Smiling. Happy. Kissing. Who was he? Why was he on her walls?

Alley opened the odd box before her, revealing a glass case with the most terrifying taxidermy display. 

Two mice, one wearing a flannel shirt stained with blood, and the other, leaning over the top of him, grasping the handle of a tiny kitchen knife embedded in his stomach. Both frozen in silent fear, expressions wretched and awful. 

She violently pushed the box away with a shriek. The kitchen lamp flickered. The tea kettle screamed. The corner of the case caught on a gold band on her ring finger. Alley looked in horror at the ring, at her hand, bandage soaked with blood.

“Who gave me this?” she asked, her voice sounding small in the dark house. No one answered, but she thought she saw the tiny mouse in the flannel shirt blink.