Keepsake

by Kristina Riggle

  Keepsake

  Kristina Riggle

  Dedication

  To Sam and Avery, my own genuine treasures

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Acknowledgments

  P. S.: Insights, Interviews & More . . .

  About the author

  About the book

  Read on

  About the Author

  Praise for Kristina Riggle

  Also by Kristina Riggle

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  The stranger gave me an empty smile. It was flat and mechanical: the forced grin of someone who delivers bad news all day long. She was holding out a business card, and I was refusing to take it.

  Ayana Reese, the card said. What kind of name is Ayana? On her left hand, which was clutching her notepad, I saw no wedding ring. I could bet every shingle on my roof that this girl was barely out of college and had no children. She would have a pamphlet and a workbook and seminars, but she’d never pushed a child into the world and felt what I felt both times I did it: that our bond was powerful and perfect and would not be broken. By anyone.

  Yet here she was, this tiny black woman with a huge messenger bag, holding out a business card with the words Child Protective Services as if my child needed protecting. From me.

  I made to close the door but she stepped forward. I stopped the door only an inch from her face. She flinched, and I was glad.

  “I don’t want to come back here with the police, Mrs. Dietrich,” she said. I detected in her voice a drawl she was trying to hide.

  I considered Jack’s reaction to the police pulling up here, knocking on this door.

  I reminded myself that no one could love a child more than I love mine. So there would be nothing to hide. No matter what that busybody Urgent Care doctor must have thought when he looked at Jack’s shoulder last night.

  I swung open the door and stood aside to let Ayana pass. I slammed it hard behind her, but she did not react.

  The empty smile, however, was gone.

  “I didn’t know you were coming,” I said.

  “That’s exactly the point,” she replied. “We received a report about your son’s injury and came to investigate his living environment.”

  “The doctor, huh? And I thought he was just making conversation.” I should have known. As a cop’s daughter I know what a “mandated reporter” is. But a broken collarbone from an accident at home? Worthy of a report?

  “We’re not allowed to say.”

  If Ayana was disgusted by my messy house, she didn’t show it. She probably dealt all the time with meth heads and gangbangers who had loaded guns on the coffee table and shit on the walls. Some clutter wasn’t going to faze anyone with an ounce of sense.

  “Mama? Who’s . . .” Jack appeared from his room, where he’d been reading. He stopped in midstep, one foot trailing behind him. “Oh. Miss Ayana.”

  “You know her?” I asked him, my palms slicking with sweat.

  Ayana, still looking around and taking notes, said mildly, “We talked at school today.”

  “How dare you!” I exclaimed, then bit my lip: Pull back, Trish. Don’t frighten Jack. I patted his head, told him it was fine, told him to return to his reading. He glanced back over his shoulder with widened, curious eyes before retreating to his room.

  Ayana wound her way through my living room, jotting notes on a yellow pad.

  “I don’t know what you think you’ll find,” I said.

  “Show me your son’s room, please.”

  Panic was now snaking up my spine. What was happening here? What would I be saying to Jack about this? “Honey, this lady says your home is dangerous and thinks you shouldn’t live with Mommy anymore.”

  This thought made tears prick at my eyes, and I clenched nails into my palms until I felt pissed off again.

  She stopped in the hallway in front of Jack’s room.

  His door was open, as always. He didn’t like to be separated from me by a closed door. He was sitting in what they used to call “Indian style” on the one clear space of his bed, the rest of its surface mounded with clothes I hadn’t gotten around to folding and putting away. His drawers were stuffed with other clothes, anyway.

  Jack looked up from his book. His face had that spooked look he would get from watching the Harry Potter movies, when things looked bad for the boy wizard and his friends. No matter how much I reassured him the hero would have to survive, that’s the way things worked, he never believed me until the triumphant music played.

  The pile of fallen things had not been cleared up just yet, except for the path I’d dug through to reach Jack. I pushed away that memory in order to focus on the real threat: this intruder with a clipboard, this . . . adolescent bureaucrat.

  “This is what fell?” she asked, jotting again. She took out a camera and snapped photos.

  “I didn’t give you permission to take pictures.”

  She made another note—“uncooperative” maybe?—and resumed clicking. Then she turned her lens on the rest of his room.

  “He doesn’t sleep in there,” I said, seeing her notice his bed that was piled with clothing.

  “Where does he sleep?”

  “With . . . In my room. On what used to be my husband’s side of the bed. He’s got plenty of space.”

  Ayana stepped away from Jack’s doorway, deeper into the hall, cocking her head to get me to follow her. As I did she said under her breath, “He’s seven years old. A seven-year-old should have his own bed”—here she began to tick off reasons on her fingers, as if reading from a chart—“for privacy, appropriateness, even hygiene.”

  “Hygiene? Are you telling me I’m filthy? He gets afraid at night.”

  “That happens sometimes,” she said, her voice empty of conviction, already looking away.
>
  She put a hand on the door across the hall from Jack’s room. “No!” I shouted before I could stop myself. “That’s just storage.” I could hear the strain in my own voice.

  She turned the knob and pushed, then shouldered the door open. She drew back slightly, her first visible reaction to my home since she’d crossed the threshold. She said nothing, only clicking a few pictures, before pulling the door closed again.

  She repeated the same routine in my room. While she was snapping pictures I noticed some bras and panties I’d left lying out, and I shouldered my way in front of her, snatched them up and said, “Do you mind?” Ayana was passive, her face masked by the camera.

  I had nowhere to put the underwear, not being able to reach the dirty clothes hamper, so I balled them up in my hand and followed her back to the living room.

  Ayana turned to me. The empty smile was back. It made me feel cold down to my toes.

  “Mrs. Dietrich, can we sit down somewhere, please?”

  I led her to my couch. There were some shopping bags on one end, so we had to sit very close. Our knees were almost touching. “I interviewed your sons this morning, at school.”

  “How could you? Without my permission!”

  I knew as soon as I said it what her answer would be. She replied something about official protocol when a report has been made. “I also spoke to your ex-husband.”

  “How dare you!” I said again, other words sputtering on my tongue, at a loss to express this betrayal, this sneaking and treachery.

  “This is not a healthy environment for your sons. The fact is, Jack was injured by a pile of falling debris and there are many more such piles in this house. Further, he has no room of his own to sleep in. Even if he had no nighttime fears, there is no other bed for him here that he can use. A child deserves a place to sleep.”

  “He has a place to sleep.”

  “Irregardless . . .”

  “Regardless. You mean ‘regardless.’ ”

  She drew herself up straighter on my couch, her eyes narrowing the tiniest bit. Then she blinked, back to cool and professional. “In any case. We have a problem here, and we need to help you address it.”

  “What . . . What are you going to do?” I settled back onto the couch. My bravado was crumbling. I wanted to stay pissed off because to be pissed off was powerful. But fear was outpacing anger.

  “I’m going to file a report. We’re going to refer you for a psychological evaluation and follow-up counseling.”

  “A psychological . . .” My vocabulary evaporated in the heat of my outrage. “I’m not crazy!”

  “No one said you were. I’m also going to come back on a weekly basis to help you stay on track with cleaning up this environment. It’s extremely hazardous not only for your children but for you as well. If something fell on you and if you were home alone, what would you do?”

  She was exaggerating, twisting reality to suit her purposes. She’d made up her mind about this place before she even knocked on my door. I’m sure my older son didn’t help matters. He’d turned on me long ago.

  “What happens if I don’t do it? If I refuse to go get evaluated. If I refuse to spill my guts to some shrink. What happens if I can’t clean up, because if I could keep this house neater, don’t you think I would? I’m a single mother, as you obviously already know.”

  “Surely you have some relatives who might be able to help you? Like I said, we can provide you support.”

  “There’s an ‘or else’ here, I know there is. You’re not just here to hold my hand. If I don’t do what you say, if I don’t get the house cleaned up, what will you do?”

  “In theory, your case could be referred to a judge, but that’s something we all want to avoid.”

  “And then what? What would this judge decide? What are you driving at, young lady?”

  “Ma’am, I have a master’s degree in social work so I’d appreciate it very much if you didn’t call me ‘young lady.’ As to your question, the judge could issue a temporary order of removal until you clean up this house.”

  “Removal? To . . . to where?”

  “That would be up to the judge. Likely to a family member such as the children’s father. Maybe your parents.”

  “Father. I only have a father,” I corrected, my voice trailing off as I pictured Jack being told he had to leave me. I had to fight for deep breaths as I imagined my little boy’s fear and grief at being taken from me and the only home he’s ever known. A perfect home, maybe not, but we made the best of it.

  “I don’t want that to happen, Mrs. Dietrich. I’d rather help you clean up your house. Don’t you want that, too?”

  “I do the best I can,” I gulped out. “I’m not perfect.”

  As I knew she would, she handed me booklets and pamphlets, plus a business card for the psychologist I was apparently required to call, if I didn’t want her to run to a judge to take away my kid. She then said she had some questions.

  I heard her like we were underwater—distant, distorted—while I turned the business card over and over in my hand, the shrink’s name spinning in and out of my vision. She asked me questions about my own history, probing questions about whether I’d ever been abused (no) and mental health problems in my family (no, I said, because it was none of her business) and, weirdly, whether I was Native American (duh). She reminded me to call the psychologist, who will determine whether I might need medication. At the state’s expense, not mine, she assured me. I thought, Drugs? This child who doesn’t even know me is talking about drugging my brain?

  She offered to rent me a large garbage Dumpster for outside, and when she came back she would show me some sorting techniques.

  “I’m not an idiot,” I barked, jolted back to life by the thought of my things in a Dumpster. “I know how to clean, but I don’t have time. Great, a garbage bin; can you also use taxpayer money to hire a cleaning crew to do the work because I’m a single mother with a full-time job! What I really need is time!”

  “We don’t expect perfection, Mrs. Dietrich. We do want to see progress. Please call me if you have any questions.” At my doorway, she paused. Turned back. “Believe it or not, ma’am, we’re not the enemy here. We are trying to help.”

  She closed the door behind her, and I listened to the crunching of her shoes across my gravel driveway. I held the papers she’d given me in my hands, not knowing where to put them. I was also still holding my underwear.

  I was still standing there when I heard Jack’s bedsprings squeak as he got up to come out to the living room.

  I jammed the social worker papers under a grocery bag and threw my panties under the coffee table.

  “Hi, pal!” I said, reaching out to hold him in a hug, carefully avoiding his injured shoulder.

  “Hi, Mama.”

  “Was school okay today?” I wanted to ask, but knew I shouldn’t, What did you tell that social worker?

  “Fine. Everybody thought my brace was cool. They were bummed they couldn’t sign it, though, like a cast.”

  Jack was wearing a white Velcro contraption that fastened his left arm to his side, bent at the elbow. The rigging pulled his shoulder back to the proper position to heal a broken collarbone.

  “And, um . . . Did you talk about how it happened?”

  “Yeah.” He looked down at the worn toe of his sneakers. His feet were almost busting through. He wore out his cheap shoes so fast I had a stockpile of spares. “They thought it was cool, like a cave collapsed on an explorer.”

  I imagined the circle of boys, Jack at the center, telling this story, his towheaded bangs bouncing as he elaborated with his one good arm. He always could tell one helluva story, that kid. I imagined a playground aide overhearing, trading looks with another adult, over the boys’ heads.

  “Um, pal?” I ventured.

  “Yeah?” Jack leaned back on the co
uch. He sat with one ankle crossed over the knee, just like Ron always used to, in that exact same spot on the couch.

  “I don’t think everybody needs to hear that whole story, do you?” I strained to sound casual. “I dunno, it just . . . It sounds kind of bad. That my things fell on you. Especially if you go making it sound very . . . dramatic.”

  “I’m sorry, Mama. I already told Ayana, cuz she asked. You always taught me not to lie, right?”

  “I didn’t mean you did anything wrong, I just . . . I just . . . Some things are not other people’s business, is all.”

  Jack was saying, “I told her I didn’t like how it was messy. She asked if I could wave a magic wand and fix anything what would I fix? And I said I’d want the house cleaner. And to have Daddy back here. Did I do something wrong, Mama? She said I shouldn’t lie to her. Lying is bad, isn’t it?”

  “You’re right, of course it is,” I said, pulling him toward me gently to hold him, so he wouldn’t see the tears snaking down my face. “You did fine. Just fine.”

  He nuzzled into my side, and I closed my eyes to drink up the moment. Before long he wouldn’t let me hug him anymore, I know. Most of Jack’s classmates already seemed so tough and masculine, their ages not even in double digits yet. And Drew might never come home again, given the events of the last two days.

  “I think we should clean up around here, though, don’t you, pal?”