Keepsake

by Kristina Riggle

  I could feel him nodding. “Yeah. That would be good.”

  “I’m sorry it’s so messy.”

  “What do we always say, Mama?”

  I smiled, eyes still closed, and we sang out softly together, “Mommy’s not perfect!”

  After Jack drifted off for the night and I came back to the living room to watch TV, I heard a rattling at the front door. I yelped at first, then crept past a pile of storage crates to try to get a look out the front window . . .

  The door swung open and I was terrified and then saw it was Andrew.

  “Drew! You scared me out of my mind!”

  “I texted you I was coming.”

  I whirled around, trying to remember where I’d put my cell phone. “I wish I’d known; I’d have put sheets on your bed.”

  Drew snorted, tossing his hair as he did so. “Like you can even see my bed. I just stopped by for a minute. I need my report card. They mailed them, and I have to get you to sign it and take it back to school.”

  He brushed abruptly past me without even a hug. It stung, this contrast between sweet Jack who will still nuzzle me, and my older son who doesn’t even live here anymore, truth be told. Just like Mary did to our mother, he hightailed it out of here. Every night, he sleeps at his girlfriend’s parents’ house. Why her parents allow that I haven’t the foggiest idea but if he creeps in her room and gets her pregnant, I will bash his punk rock head in.

  He grabbed papers off a stack on the kitchen table. In the yellow kitchen light his blackened hair glowed almost blue. He was such a handsome young man, always was, and then he had to go and ruin it by putting all that black stuff everywhere. Even his fingernails were black, which would get a boy’s ass kicked back in my day. His high sharp cheekbones gave him a hungry, hawkish look, just like his biological father had.

  “By the way, I had an interesting day at school,” he snarled, still snapping his way through my papers.

  “How so?” I asked, though I already knew.

  “A social worker came to talk to me. Now that was a laugh riot. They called me down to the office, and I could see all those office ladies staring at me and wondering why a social worker is coming to visit me at school.”

  “I didn’t know they were going to do that,” I offered weakly.

  “She wanted to know if I’m doing drugs, if I’m drinking, if anyone beats on me. Not that she said it exactly like that, but I get the idea. So after a while she’s leading me to talk about the house and it dawns on me—oh, that’s how Jack hurt his arm. Not roughhousing on the playground, right, Mom?”

  I shifted under his intense gaze. “No. Not roughhousing. Some things fell on him here.”

  “Well, you’ll be glad to know that I didn’t tell her you lied to me about what really happened. But I also didn’t tell her that home was a fabulous paradise. I figured she knew better than that already or she wouldn’t have pulled me out of English class. Fuck, I can’t find anything in here.” He threw down a fistful of paper and turned to me. “So now the doctor reported you, and if you don’t clean up they’ll take Jack away, is that about the size of it?”

  “They’re not going to take Jack away. I’ll just do some cleaning and it’ll be fine.”

  “Some cleaning? You’ll need a fuckload more than ‘some.’ ”

  “Watch your language.”

  “Where are they gonna send him?”

  “Nowhere! I’m gonna clean!”

  “You’ve ‘cleaned’ before, Mom. And know what happens? You buy a bunch of storage bins and you decide you can’t part with anything and nothing changes. They’ll probably make me live with someone else, too, you know. I’m only seventeen. So unless Miranda’s parents become my guardians, then what—I get shipped off to my dead father’s relatives I don’t even know? Or to Ron?”

  “I doubt it, and anyway, you’ll be eighteen soon . . .”

  “Almost a year from now. And even assuming you want to clean this time, how are you gonna do it? You can’t do it by yourself.”

  “You can help me, right?”

  “I’ve got school! And you work all day! You gonna hire some magic cleaning elves?”

  “Andrew Dietrich, don’t you start with me.”

  “I don’t know why I bother to start.” He shook his head at the table. “Forget this, it’s hopeless. I’ll tell them the dog ate my report card and pick one up at the office. I’ll stop by your work so you can sign it.”

  With that he started toward the door.

  “Andy!”

  “You know I like ‘Drew’ now.”

  “Drew, then. How is your report card? Do you know?”

  “All A’s, probably. Just like always.”

  With that he slammed out of my house and stomped to his rattly old car, back to his girlfriend’s house, leaving me alone with my things.

  Chapter 2

  When at last I recognized the man on my porch, I thought, Trish is dead; it happened again.

  At first he was a stranger to me. When I drew closer, I noticed the leather jacket I’d seen in photos, graffitied as it was with Sex Pistols patches and anarchy symbols. My nephew was seated on my porch steps, hunched forward, his head drooping low like he found it too heavy.

  I approached slowly, my arms weighted down by a cardboard box.

  He looked up. Those were still Andy’s deep brown puppy eyes, but now they were ringed with black eyeliner and set in a face that was hard and sharp, with a shadow of beard on his chin.

  His soft brown hair was dyed an angry black and hung half over his face. He raked his fingers through it—nails also painted black—and stood up.

  So tall!

  There was so much of him there on my porch that I suffered sensory overload. With some quick mental math I determined he must be seventeen.

  “Andy,” I finally said.

  “I go by Drew, now.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  I shifted the box in my arms. Its contents rolled and rattled, and I nudged it back up with my knee.

  “I didn’t have your number,” was all he said. He shoved his hands far down into his pockets. His black jeans were ripped.

  “It’s a long drive from Grand Ledge.”

  “Not so long.”

  My feet throbbed in my work shoes, and my shoulder bag slipped down to my elbow, yanking at the box and nearly spilling it. I wished Andrew would offer to take it.

  “Did something happen to your mother?”

  “Not yet,” he replied with a scowl.

  “Well, come in, I guess,” I said, clumping up the steps with my unbalanced load.

  “Gee, thanks,” he replied. I winced, and I hoped he would interpret that as a grimace of effort.

  I plopped the box down on the small cement porch near a mat that said WELCOME bordered by cheerful daisies.

  His presence unnerved me so much that I bobbled my keys.

  A nauseating swell of panic churned as I contemplated letting this young man—my nephew, yes, but a virtual stranger—into my home. I exhaled slowly, from the abdomen, and shoved the door open.

  He picked up my box and brought it inside. He stood like a delivery boy just at the threshold. My nephew looked at the box and then asked where to put it with a light, silent shrug. I pointed to a spot along the wall.

  He grunted as he deposited it and looked at me with his eyebrows quirked as if to ask a question. I pretended not to notice.

  “Can I get you something?” I asked. Really I had no idea about hospitality. It was something I’d seen people say in movies and TV shows, and it made a certain kind of sense.

  He shook his head and lingered in the entryway.

  “Sit down for goodness’ sake. And, Andy, tell me what’s going on.”

  “It’s Drew.” He scanned the room looking for a place to sit. I realized t
hat I should have indicated one for him. I froze in the moment of deciding which chair would be best.

  Without waiting for me, he opted for a kitchen chair, so I joined him there, kitty corner to where he sat at my table. I tried not to drum my fingers as he worked up to tell me what the hell brought him to my town house, unannounced, after all this time. . . . I hadn’t seen him since his hobby was doing tricks on his BMX bike.

  “We need your help,” he said, worrying a hangnail next to one of his black-tipped fingers. I thought, bizarrely, he was going to ruin his nail polish doing that.

  “Help with what? Is she sick?”

  “How long has it been since you’ve seen her place?”

  I tried to think. It must have been . . . eight years or so. When Jack was born.

  “It’s been a good while,” I answered, seeking comfort in being vague, not sounding quite so awful. I reminded myself Trish had never been to my home. So if we were keeping score, I was still ahead.

  “It’s gotten worse,” Andy—Drew, that is—said, for the first time meeting my eyes directly.

  He didn’t have to say what “it” could be.

  “How bad?”

  “Jack got hurt. Broke his collarbone.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “That’s not the worst part.”

  I realized I’d been holding my breath, as if I could freeze time and stop myself from hearing this. It’s amazing how when you wake up some days you have no idea that your life will be inside-out by sunset.

  “The doctor reported Mom. If she doesn’t clean up, they’re going to take Jack away.”

  I tried to comprehend Trish’s reaction to this. I lacked the imagination to register her grief.

  “Where . . . where would he go?”

  “To Ron, probably.” He said it like “prolly.” He’d been looking so much like a grown man I’d forgotten that he himself was actually still a kid.

  “And you?”

  He shrugged, slouching down in the chair, crossing his feet at the ankles. That’s when I noticed a glob of dirt slide off his Converse onto my cream-colored carpet. As casually as I could manage, I rose, turned to the kitchen, and pulled a piece of paper towel off the roll. Meanwhile, Andrew said, “I stay most of the time at Miranda’s house. Her parents are cool. I’ll be eighteen next year anyway.”

  I crouched down next to the dirt spot. Andrew yanked his feet back as if I were going to tie his laces together or something. I picked up the dirt gingerly, fearing that if I disturbed the integrity of the blob that more would spill. It could get everywhere.

  “How can I stop that from happening? I’m not a lawyer or anything.” I dropped the paper towel in the trash can and exhaled.

  “You’ve gotta help her clean. It’s too much for her to do alone.”

  “Well, I mean . . . When?”

  “Now. Tomorrow. It’s the first time since before Ron left that she even acts like she might want to try to clean up. If we don’t act now, we’ll lose our chance forever.”

  And he was back to sounding like an adult again. I shook my head, raised my hands, helpless. “I can’t just drop everything and fly to her side.”

  “Forget it.” Andrew stood up, bashing the chair back into place so hard I jumped and my gaze went right to the table, looking for marks. “I don’t know why I bothered, Aunt Mary.” His mocking tone highlighted how seldom he’d had occasion to speak those words.

  “No, wait, I didn’t mean . . .”

  “No, forget it. You’re right. You shouldn’t have to be bothered. It’s not like your nephew’s welfare should concern you at all, or the fact that your own sister could die just like her mother.”

  With this he was striding across my floor, so tall and fast that he was out the door for that last vicious phrase.

  “I’ll come! I will, maybe not tomorrow, but . . .”

  He was already climbing into a car I hadn’t noticed before, parked in front of the next town house down. He threw his arm back at me, too aggressively for a wave. I didn’t think I’d seen a middle finger. Rather, it looked like he was swatting away an annoying bug.

  He didn’t burn rubber. He pulled away carefully, even signaling before he joined the light flow of traffic on my sedate suburban street.

  My box remained where Andrew put it next to the wall. I hefted it up again and brought it to my kitchen table for sorting. As I passed the spot on the carpet where Andrew’s feet had been, I noticed a smudge. A tiny dot of ashlike dirt remained.

  I left my box and went to find my cleaning supplies. OxiClean carpet spray, yellow gloves to protect my hands. I gave the spot a squirt and then a few more, then sat back on the carpet to let the chemicals work their magic.

  The shadow of the box felt strange, off-kilter. I’d have to move it soon. I’d have to find places for these work things I used to have at the store, break down the box, and put it in the recycle bin. My work things had to become home things, I supposed. Maybe some of the things wouldn’t be able to transition, and I’d have to get rid of them.

  My nephew’s arrival had startled me so much that for a few minutes I’d forgotten about George, and the bookstore, and my sad little cardboard box.

  George had looked incongruously cheerful when he opened up the store for the last day of business. I wondered briefly if he was high, or drunk, or something, though that would be out of character for him.

  But he called me Mary-Mary with a big gorgeous smile as he swept by me, depositing a steaming coffee at the checkout counter where I was getting the registers ready for our last day. Mary-Mary was his nickname for me, short for Mary-Mary-Quite-Contrary, which other people had tried to use and I always squashed, angrily enough they wouldn’t try to persist. I was well aware of the irony of being cranky about that and would entertain homicidal fantasies every time someone felt pressed to point it out.

  George said it with a sense of cheery irony, I thought. Like calling a fat guy “Tiny.”

  So I sipped that coffee and watched the hands spin around the clock all day, a fluttery sensation building in my chest, and even in my hands. I dropped lots of things. I did not dread the closing of the store. I rather anticipated talking to George at the end of the day, finally and at long last no longer his employee. Interests no longer conflicting.

  My giddiness increased when he walked by me near the end of the shift and murmured in my ear, “Let’s talk in my office after closing.”

  He’d nudged me as he went by, having dive-bombed this invitation to me, and I allowed my heart to leap. A little experimental flight, to see how it would feel.

  So we said good-bye to the last weeping customer and I almost slammed the door on the back of her heels. Some of the people who’d been saddest about our closure had never spent more than $3 on a latte per visit and read our magazines without paying. I wished on those types an uncomfortable rash in a place they couldn’t scratch in public.

  I followed George to his office, nearly skipping, feet barely tethered to the ground.

  He sat down on his side of his desk—he hadn’t cleaned his off yet—and folded his hands. He beamed out at me, and I sat on my own hands not to leap across his desk and throw myself into his lap.

  “I’m getting married,” he blurted.

  I became a mannequin on my chair, my expectant smile frozen to my face.

  He took a picture frame that had been sitting on his desk, and he turned it to face me. A lovely young woman with short dark hair in feathery curls smiled out at me from under George’s arm.

  “Her name is Melissa. I’ll send you an invitation. You’ll have to make sure you tell me if you relocate so I can get your new address.” With this he scribbled on a piece of paper. He slid it across to me. I grasped that it was an e-mail address, but a fog of stupid had gathered in my head.

  How had he met, courted, and fallen in love with someon
e without me ever knowing?

  I asked something to the effect of why we hadn’t met her at the store.

  She’s a nurse, he said, she works weird hours. “And I assume,” he continued, still with that jaunty smile I’d grown to love, grown to imagine he’d saved just for me, “that your next word will be ‘Congratulations.’ ”

  “Of course,” I mumbled. I detected no sense of embarrassment from him, no recognition this might come as a shock, or unwelcome news. I’d been Miss Moneypenny for years to an oblivious James Bond.

  He chattered about the wedding date and his father’s plans for a new business venture for him, and I started to remember, like a trauma victim whose amnesia is fading, various mentions of a girl named Melissa. So this would be why he was so ebullient this morning though his beloved store was closing. His rich father’s money would catch him like a fireman’s net, and he could marry his one true love while the rest of us stood on the unemployment line in the worst economy any of us could remember.

  He finally noticed that I wasn’t beaming with happiness.

  It was a lucky break that I could pretend my distress was related to my joblessness and the closure of the store where I’d worked for thirteen years as manager, one of George’s first hires when he had the brainstorm to open his own bookstore. Back then, we were both U-M grads and booksellers at the original Borders. I was trying to figure out if I could afford grad school and panicking each time I pondered having to teach undergrads, and he was dabbling in writing a play. So when George told me he wanted me to manage his store, I was relieved to have a plan, and more than that, what washed over me was an unfamiliar sense of specialness. After all, I’d been chosen, hadn’t I? Out of the whole crop of young booksellers there, he’d picked me to start the store with him. For that he could call me Mary-Mary and I would never object.

  I always knew the store could close, but I’d thought that would happen early, and when it didn’t . . . I couldn’t imagine George ever letting it go.

  Yet here he was, looking at me with pity. George came around to my side of the desk, crouched down next to me. It was an awkward positioning. He was much shorter than me this way. He took my hand, and part of me wanted to yank it back.