Kith and Kin

by Kris Ripper

  Lisa double-checked the front yard, but sure enough, the Volvo was gone. Of course Mother was getting her hair done. She probably couldn’t wait to tell her old stylist all about her wacko daughter’s adventure in a cult. Mother’s voice would lower as she spoke, like whatever she was saying was top secret, even though she was thrilled that everyone in the salon would be trying to listen in.

  Not that it mattered. None of it mattered. Though apparently Lisa was still vain enough to hope no one she knew was there today. It was one thing to know the story would eventually spread; it was another thinking of some former friend or enemy hearing it directly from Mother’s mouth.

  Another text: Donuts.

  That wasn’t fair. Point to Jake.

  She went to the kitchen, which was oddly empty. Since donuts did not make a meal, she added a chunk of something that looked like it had been a casserole (which she reheated while helping herself to the donuts) and two slices of some kind of fruity, nutty bread.

  There were voices in the living room. Maybe the idea that Mother wasn’t haunting every corner was a sort of dull intoxication, but instead of taking her food back to her room, Lisa went out to sit with Singer and Jake. And Miles, obviously.

  Emery was a surprise.

  “Lisa, hey,” he said, and she tried to tighten her stomach against the whirlpool pleasure of his smile.

  “Hey.”

  She sat on the armchair. Eating in the living room was a new phenomenon. Had to be a Derrie tradition. The Thurmans never ate in the living room, which made it even more subversive to take the opportunity to do so when Mother could return at any moment.

  “Miles, come on. Check it out, you can do this.” Jake flopped onto his stomach and got closer until he and the baby were almost nose to nose. “I know your needs are totally taken care of and you have no actual reason to crawl, but think of the freedom, buddy. Think of the chaos you can cause. All those cabinets to break into, all those electrical outlets to stick your fingers in—”

  Emery laughed.

  “Jake.” Singer’s repressive tone sounded, actually, a lot like Mother, though he was trying not to smile.

  “What? Listen, Miles, you gotta start crawling or Singer and I will get all lazy with the childproofing. It’s your job to keep us on our toes.”

  “That’s true.” Emery raised a black camera and pointed it at Jake and Miles. “It’s your grave responsibility not to let your dads get lazy.”

  Whoa. Dads. Singer went stiff; Lisa could see it from across the room.

  Jake had started playing a game where his fingers inched forward, then back, then forward, and Miles watched with rapt attention. When they moved too close to him, he giggled.

  “Who needs toys when you have hands, right? I’m gonna get you, Miles. Gonna get you—”

  This was apparently the funniest thing Miles had ever seen in his short life. Jake moved faster and closer and started making noises for his fingers in response to the noises Miles made, which just cracked Miles up more.

  Emery kept taking pictures, but Lisa hoped he was keeping Singer out of them. Singer still looked frozen. He was smiling, but not-smiling. Lisa was familiar with that expression. It was a mask. To think they’d known each other their whole lives and she never realized that she and Singer had the same mask.

  She finished her meal and stood up to leave, but Emery caught her attention.

  “What about a few pictures with Aunt Lisa? Always easier to take pictures when a kid’s actually having fun than try to initiate having fun in order to take pictures.”

  Miles was definitely having fun now. He’d collapsed and rolled to his back, and Jake had upped the ante by crawling his fingers over Miles’s stomach and up his chest while Miles laughed himself hoarse.

  “I don’t think we should be using words like that.” Singer’s tone was repressive, but Lisa thought he was trying to hold back his own emotions more than anyone else’s. “It feels like inviting trouble.”

  “Jesus, Singer.” Jake walked his fingers all the way up to tap Miles’s nose. Miles guffawed. “He’s been here three weeks. When do you want to start acting like we’re his family? At six months? A year?”

  “When a judge tells us we’re his parents.”

  “That could be two years from now. Or longer.”

  “Fine. But I’d like to at least meet his mom before we take everything Brandi says as gospel.”

  “I don’t take anything she says as gospel, but what’s the harm in saying ‘aunt’? Lisa doesn’t mind, right?”

  Caught. Lisa accidentally met Emery’s eyes in an effort to avoid everyone else’s, and he mouthed, Sorry.

  “Can we not put Lisa in the middle?”

  “I wasn’t. I just think we don’t gain anything by being detached with him. Or I guess I think it’s kind of selfish. If someone takes him away, I want him to know that right now we played and I was having fun and that’s good enough.”

  “If someone takes him away, he’ll never even remember you.”

  Jake swallowed, fingers going flat over the baby’s chest. “Fine, Singer. You do it your way. Hey, kid, I think you could use a diaper change. All that formula. Maybe you should have some more avocado later, Miles. Remember avocado? It’s green and squishy and you can paint the table with it?” He scooped Miles up and carried him down the hall.

  “Apologies,” Singer murmured. He hesitated, like he was going to say something else, then appeared to give up and went to the kitchen.

  Emery grimaced. “Shit. Sorry, Lisa.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not sure what that was.”

  “Definitely my bad, though. Damn.” Emery pulled the strap of the camera over his neck. “So that goes down as not one of my best jobs.”

  “Is that what you do? Take pictures?”

  “It’s one of the things I do.” He flashed a smile. “I’m a man of many talents, Lisa. I also do tattoos, and more artsy photos than this.”

  “Artsy?”

  “Some of them might be nudes—but tasteful nudes, I swear. Anyway, how are you doing?”

  “Fine. You?” Nudes? Wait, nudes like what? What did that mean?

  His smile turned into a smirk like he knew what she was thinking, and damn, those dimples. “I never see you out in the house when I come over.”

  “Yeah, I mostly stay in my room. Especially now that Mother’s here.” She checked the front windows for the Volvo, though from here she’d certainly notice Mother pulling into the driveway. Jake was now parking on the street, which probably made sense but also was kind of irritating. He was paying half the mortgage. Shouldn’t he get the better parking spot?

  Jake trundled Miles back into the room, now in a onesie and a diaper. “Hey, you know what you need, Lisa? A lock.”

  “A lock?”

  “Yeah. So you can leave your room without worrying your mom’s going to go through your stuff again. A lock.”

  She blinked, not quite sure what to say to that.

  “Oh, lock shopping.” Emery’s eyebrows rose. “Doorknob lock? Hollow-core door?”

  “Probably. Can we get a keyed lock for a hollow-core door?”

  “Sure. Not one that will hold up to a determined thief, but I assume you’re more looking to send a message.”

  “Yeah,” Jake said. “Like ‘mind your own business,’ which is what I really wish Singer would tell her. Sorry, I’ll shut up about your mom.”

  Lisa shrugged. “Why? She’s gotta be bugging you more than she’s bugging me.”

  “I’m not sure we’re ever going to have a loving in-law relationship. But I shouldn’t talk shit about her. Anyway.”

  “We could go now.” Emery cleared his throat. “To get a lock, if you wanted. There will be a few different kinds.”

  We? Lisa shook her head. “Oh, no, it’s a— It’s a nice thought, but
I don’t actually need— I mean— It’s probably stupid that I—”

  He held up both hands. “It’s not stupid. Even if it is symbolic. Would it make you feel better to have a lock on your door?”

  She could feel her vulnerability as she sat here, in the living room. Her backpack was in there, her hoodie. If there were a lock on the door, would she still feel this wide open?

  “I guess so, but it’s so stupid—”

  “I could bring you one,” he said. “If you don’t mind me picking it out.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, do that.” Jake set Miles down beside the table so he could pull himself up and totter there. “Right, Miles? Because Aunt Lisa gets to feel safe in her own house, just like you do.”

  Lisa had always thought people who talked to children about things they couldn’t possibly understand were deluded or foolish. But Jake wasn’t either. He was simply including Miles in a conversation, and even though he didn’t know what was going on, he still seemed to like being talked to.

  “I’ll drop one off next week.” Emery offered that heat-inducing smile again, and it coiled in Lisa’s belly like it wanted to expand.

  She didn’t let it. “You really don’t have to.” He wanted something, he must want something. She used to be so good at figuring out what men wanted, but all she got from Emery was that smile, and a light in his eyes that might mean flirting, or might mean he was humoring Singer’s crazy sister.

  “Hey, I like Home Depot. It’s not a problem.”

  “Um. Thank you.” Thank you was appropriate, probably even if he was humoring her.

  “Sure.” He turned back toward Jake and raised the camera again. “Miles, look at me. Miles. Look at the weird black box. Yeah, there you go. Man, your eyes, Miles. Aunt Alice is gonna go crazy painting your beautiful eyes.”

  Miles cocked his head to the side as if he actually could understand.

  “There, that’s awesome. That’s fantastic. You’re saving my whole job, Miles, yeah, look right at the big black box—”

  Lisa went to rinse her dishes, expecting Singer to be in the kitchen. He wasn’t. She finished up, grabbed a few bananas and an armful of water bottles, dropped them in her room (a lock, a lock on the door so she could leave without imagining someone inside when she came back), then got to work gathering more supplies.

  Emery’s laughter joined Miles’s. He had a great laugh.

  13

  Singer

  20 days with Miles

  This was ridiculous. Mother showed no signs of leaving any time soon, despite the fact that Lisa was avoiding her as much as humanly possible. Did she think if she lurked in the kitchen long enough she’d starve Lisa out? Even Mother had to sleep. Singer was almost certain he’d heard Lisa up in the middle of the night making sandwiches.

  And that was nothing compared to Jake, who hadn’t asked for this, who hadn’t been born to it. Mother was coldly civil to him, but he had to know that she wasn’t happy about his presence. Or Miles’s.

  Singer needed to say something. He was really only pretending to get ready for bed. Miles was asleep, the baby monitor hummed on the counter, and only the bedside lamps were still lit.

  He had to say something, anything. There were probably many things, but he had to say something to Jake—about his mother, about his frustration, about, hell, anything at all.

  Jake leaned out of the bathroom doorway. “You remember that time at your apartment, when I spent the night after you had everyone over? This is like that. Only it’s not me wigging.”

  “I’m not—”

  Jake grinned and pulled back into the bathroom.

  “Oh, shut up.” That night, the first time Jake had overtly stayed with him in San Francisco instead of slinking out to follow his cousins with a lot of halfhearted backward glances.

  “It’s kind of cool not being the one freaking out for once. It’s usually me, Singer. It’s probably just your turn.”

  “Stop being so nice about this.” Singer got up, started pacing. “You should— You should be mad at me, or something, but instead you’re being so nice about it.”

  “About what?”

  “About this, this thing, where my mother shows up out of nowhere and apparently decides to move in, without asking, without giving any indication that she’s ever leaving!”

  “You think she’s staying forever?”

  “Or the way she looks at Miles, like he’s just some fucking set piece in the drama that is Mother’s life.”

  Jake dried his hands and moved to the bed, sitting at the edge of it, watching him pace. “Are we— Is this an air-your-fears moment right now? Or do you want to vent for a while?”

  “Vent? My mother moves in with us without asking, treats you like an uninvited guest, and you think I need to vent?”

  Jake raised his eyes and pulled his legs onto the bed to sit with them knotted in front of him. “Yes? Maybe? Venting might … help.”

  But now that he was thinking about it, that sounded so absurd. Singer sank down on the bed beside him. “I don’t know how to vent, Jake.”

  “Want me to teach you?”

  Singer shook his head. “Why aren’t you mad at me?”

  “Why would I be mad at you?”

  It wasn’t equivocation; Jake looked genuinely stumped. Which made everything harder. He could have kept up some of his anger if Jake had only—provoked him a little.

  “My mother.” Singer waved a hand. That should be enough, shouldn’t it?

  “Singer, if you want me to be righteously pissed at you because your family has slightly inconvenient timing once, in the seven years we’ve been together, I really can’t. I mean, if we were doing that, you’d be pissed at me a hundred percent of the time. Right? I don’t know if you know this, but my cousin lived in our backyard for a year and a half. Also, someone I’m related to ‘drops by’ pretty much every day.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “Why? Because you like them?”

  “I don’t— I didn’t say I dislike my mother—”

  Jake held up both hands. “Not what I meant. But sometimes I find all of them embarrassing. Sometimes I wish I was the one whose family kept a decent few hundred miles in between them and me. Not that it’s been easy, I don’t mean that either, but when Mom’s on me about whether Carey’s gonna have a kid and Frankie’s dodging her parents— Sometimes it seems like your family is more peaceful.”

  “We just hide it better.”

  “I know that. Intellectually.”

  “I wanted this to be time for us, time for us to get to know Miles. I feel like my mother is cheating us out of this time we’ll never get back with him. And she just looks at him. Like he’s an intruder.” He glanced over at the baby monitor, wondering if it would be weird to go check on him again. “She looks at you that way. It infuriates me.”

  “I know.” Jake pitched his voice low. “And I’m not saying I dig being the proverbial dog shit on Viv’s shoe. But I don’t know, I think she might be a little adrift right now. I doubt she really wants to be living in the guesthouse, anyway.”

  “We are not giving up the bedroom.”

  “I’m definitely not suggesting that. But when she pisses me off, I remind myself that as screwy as she is, she had a part in you being you. Which I kind of have to support, you know? Because I really … like you. The way you turned out. Um.” The light was too low to tell for sure, but Singer thought Jake was blushing.

  “You like me so much you don’t mind that my mother is in the backyard right now?”

  Jake looked at the exterior wall, then at Singer. “I guess that means we should be very, very quiet.”

  “Jake…”

  A pause, while they looked at each other.

  “She wears earplugs to bed,” Singer said. “And I think the neighborhood has
enough white noise.”

  “Oh, good.” Jake leaned in for a kiss, then pulled back. “Is this weird, with Miles asleep? I mean, is it super creepy that I’m, um, kinda in the mood?”

  “It’s really not creepy. I love it when you’re in the mood. Plus, we said we wouldn’t be those people who resent their child for demanding all their time.” Another kiss, and with every touch Singer felt his load lighten. Maybe it had just been a tough week. Maybe everything was all right.

  “We do not want to be those people,” Jake agreed. “But what if he wakes up while we’re … in the middle of things?”

  “We’ll hear him. Parents must do this. And it’s not like he’s in the room.” Singer paused. “Actually, parents probably do have sex while kids are asleep in the room.”

  Jake shook his head. “I couldn’t. I’m so glad Miles has his own room.”

  Turning off the lights almost seemed to rewind their lives—a month ago this would have been normal. A month ago making out in bed wasn’t even remarkable.

  And in the dark, with his eyes closed, Singer could remember what it felt like to believe in this. He banished all thoughts before he had the chance to feel that loss again. Just feel. Think later.

  Just feel, he repeated to himself, and shut down his brain to everything but the sensation of Jake’s skin on his.

  14

  Lisa

  47 days since leaving Grace

  Avoiding Mother was only possible in a limited way. Lisa could manage it, but she soon realized if she didn’t make an appearance at least once a day, Mother started to get twitchy.

  “Twitchy” was Jake’s word for it. Jake was her newsfeed to the outside world, letting her know when he was going shopping, buying her peanut butter and bread she could keep in her room.

  She still had to leave to get jelly, though he’d bought her an entire flat of water. She heard Singer and Mother fighting about it once when she was grabbing a few bananas.

  “He shouldn’t enable her like that,” Mother said tersely.

  “By buying her water? What would you rather we do, let her get dehydrated?”