They Never Loved Me. Now I Don't Remember Them. novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: The Toast

"Lydia, sweetheart," my mother said, from the platform. "You're confused. Come here."

"I'm not confused, Mom."

I turned to face the lawn.

Two hundred faces looked back at me in the lantern light, and none of them was kind anymore, only curious.

I climbed the three steps and took the microphone out of its stand.

It was dead, but the platform was small and the lawn was quiet, and my voice carried.

"At my birthday dinner, a man at the end of the table asked how school was going," I said. "I couldn't think of his name."

I pointed.

"Third row, by the lantern. It's the neighbor who lived next door to us my entire life. He taught me to ride a bike."

The man in the third row went red.

"The woman beside him brought a lemon cake to my fifth birthday," I said. "The tall one in the green scarf drove me to the hospital when I broke my wrist. The man by the champagne tower sold my father his boat."

I went down the lawn with my finger, one person at a time.

I named all of them.

I gave their first names and their last names, the names of their dogs and their kids, and the year they had come to our house for Christmas.

It took more than a minute, and nobody on the lawn spoke.

"I've forgotten nothing," I said. "I haven't forgotten anything since the week I stopped taking the capsules."

My mother laughed.

It was a perfect, pitying laugh, and a few guests joined her.

"Oh, Lydia," she said. "You've been rehearsing this. Of course you remember tonight. It's a good day."

"It's been a good three weeks," I said. "I've had every one of them."

I faced her.

"At the dinner, you said, 'She won't remember why she left by morning.' You said it to the whole room, and somebody laughed."

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