Keepsake

by Kristina Riggle

  It hadn’t been so bright in here since before Ron left, and I could picture him at my dining room table so easily my breath caught.

  “But,” she said, something dark creeping into her voice, “you look like you’ve been injured.”

  I folded my arms to hide my sore wrist. I’d wrapped it in an Ace bandage and had meant to put on a long-sleeve shirt before she arrived. “I tripped is all.”

  “That’s quite a trip that can do that kind of damage.”

  Ayana pointed at my head, and I grimaced. I’d forgotten about the cut and pulled my hair back in a ponytail, exposing it to God and the world.

  “There’s a lot of stuff here still, and I tripped on it. We’ve been working really hard.”

  “You make sure you take care of that.” Ayana started to move down the hall, then stopped. “You sure that’s how it happened? A fall? No one made you fall?”

  “Ha! My husband doesn’t even live with me, so no, he’s not beating me. I’m a freak and a supposedly bad mother but not an abused wife.”

  “No one said you—”

  “Yes, yes, I know. No one said I was a bad mother. Whatever. Let me show you Jack’s room.”

  I could feel her prying eyes glinting at me as I passed. Christ, but she was nosy.

  “Oh, so much better,” Ayana said, scribbling on her notepad. “Now this is how a boy’s room should look.”

  “I know that. I’m not stupid.”

  “I was just expressing how much better it is in here. How does he like it?”

  “Very much,” I lied. “He’s so happy to have his own space.”

  “So he’s sleeping in here now?”

  “He’s with his dad for spring break,” I said, walking away from her. “Let me show you the kitchen . . .”

  Ayana followed me, giving approving nods to the kitchen, writing more on her notepad. “But when Jack is here, is he sleeping in his room?”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “Great!” Ayana chirped, like I was five years old and I’d just given her a finger painting.

  “Now, have you made much progress in your own room, or in other areas of the house?”

  I braced myself for the reaming I was about to get, though I knew she’d toss in a bunch of fake-sincere empty smiles and bureaucratic nonsense to make it seem all nicey-nice. “My room is next.”

  “I’d like to see it.” She pivoted on her heel, and I noticed how she did not so much ask permission as announce her intent.

  She peered inside. “I notice how some of the piles are disturbed.”

  “I had to dig for some old clothes the other day.”

  She consulted her watch. “I’ve got some time before my next appointment . . .”

  “Another dangerous mother? Does this one feed her kid too much sugar?”

  “. . . And I’ve got time to help you sort. Why don’t you get some bags?”

  “My clothes? No, I’ll make those decisions.”

  “Of course. I’ll just hold the bag and talk you through it.”

  “I do not need a stranger’s hands all over my private things!”

  “Mrs. Dietrich, I’m trying to help you. If your things are so precious they can’t be touched by anyone, why are they all over the floor? Why does it smell the way it does in here?”

  “Insults, now. Some help you are.”

  “I’m trying to get you to challenge your counterproductive thinking patterns.”

  “What textbook are you quoting now? Talking to Crazy Bad Mothers, volume one?”

  “I’ve never said you were a bad mother, and I don’t believe you are.”

  “You’ve been bullshitting me every minute and don’t think I can’t tell, little girl.”

  Finally, I saw some reddening of her face.

  “There’s no need to be swearin’ at me, and who are you calling little girl?”

  I heard it again, that slight drawling sound. She recovered herself instantly with a tiny headshake. “Ma’am. I can see you’re frustrated. But if I thought you were a dangerous mother, I would have gone to the judge already.”

  “Well, thank you so very much for not taking my child away just yet.”

  “Why won’t you let me help you?”

  “Because I’ve got help. My sister and her friend are at the store for a few minutes. We can do it ourselves.”

  Ayana wasn’t budging.

  “Look, I appreciate your effort. Your intent might be just as you say, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s my stuff, and it’s hard enough to let my sister touch it, and her friend I barely know, let alone have a stranger come in here and handle my things. There’s no way I can forget who you are, or why you are here. And whatever you might say to the contrary, you are not here to help me.”

  “But, ma’am—”

  “You’re here for Jack. Not me.”

  “We all have the same goal.”

  I rubbed my temples. Was she really so thick, or had she just swallowed the party line that thoroughly?

  The doorbell rang, and I frowned. Wrong time for the mail, and I wasn’t expecting packages, anyway. I’d given Mary a set of keys. Well, maybe she’d forgotten them.

  “Excuse me,” I said, and pushed past Ayana. She trailed me to the door like a clingy child.

  I pulled it open to see Ron standing there with Jack.

  Jack flung himself at me, gripping my waist and sniveling.

  Ron wasn’t looking at me. He was gaping past me at what had become of the house he built.

  Ron and I ended up in his truck. He was silent, drumming his fingers on one thigh, his other arm over the steering wheel at the wrist, left hand draping loose. This was how he would always drive on the highway, seeming barely to be in control of the car, when actually in a half a heartbeat he could seize the wheel and wrench us out of the way of a crazy driver.

  In other words, his casual appearance didn’t mean he felt casual at all.

  We’d left Ayana and Jack in the house together and stepped out for privacy. At first, when Ron got in his truck, I thought he’d peel out of here, but he beckoned me in.

  “Say something,” I blurted.

  “You told me . . .” he began slowly, staring through the windshield as if he were driving. “You told me it was all crap, and that the accident was a freak thing, that he got hurt by tripping. You told me that it was all trumped up, and a misunderstanding. You told me it was already sorted out.”

  “I’m working on that. I’ve made progress.”

  Ron turned to me slowly, his eyebrows snarled together and his mouth hanging open. “You’re telling me it was worse than this?”

  “What! So there are some boxes in the living room, big deal. The kitchen is clean, the dining table is clean, Jack’s room is clean. You know I’ve never been a perfect housekeeper.”

  “ ‘Some’ boxes, Trish? There were probably fifteen boxes in there stacked as high as my head along the back wall. And look at that!” He jerked his finger at the open garage and Dumpster. “All that shit was in the house?”

  The garage piles were spilling out onto the driveway. It did look like the garage had puked up my junk.

  Ron slumped back in the truck and tipped back onto the headrest. “I didn’t see our room. I don’t even want to know.”

  “You don’t get to say ‘our room.’ You left.”

  “Small wonder.”

  “It was not this bad when you took off!”

  “No shit it wasn’t, cuz if it was, I’d have taken both kids with me.”

  “You wouldn’t have dared.”

  “If I’d have known my little boy would get a broken bone in his own house? Hell, yeah, I’d have taken him with me. I still might.”

  “No. Ron, you wouldn’t. You brought him back today because he was so upset to be away fro
m me. You wouldn’t do that to us.”

  Ron shook his head, staring out the windshield of the truck. “Trish, he’s my boy. I can’t let him get hurt. And look at you! It happened to you, too, didn’t it? You tripped, or something fell on you.”

  “We’re cleaning up!”

  “I’m such an asshole. I can’t believe I left the boys in this mess. I should have taken them with me in the first place.”

  “You don’t mean that . . .”

  Ron sat up in the truck and glared at me. “The hell I don’t. If you don’t get this shit cleaned up Trish, it won’t be that little Ayana girl in there you’ve got to worry about.”

  I curled up in my side of the truck. “Don’t say that. Ron, please.”

  “Please, my ass. What did you used to always say when the boys tried that? When you’d say ‘No, you can’t have Cheetos for breakfast’ and they’d say, ‘Pretty please, Mama?’ ”

  My heart was pounding in my ears. All I could think of was Jack sobbing for me on the phone.

  Ron answered for me. “You’d say ‘Please is not a magic password.’ Well, it ain’t.”

  “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I swear I didn’t.”

  Ron ran his hand through his hair and gave his nervous cough. “I know. I don’t mean to be so mad, but . . . my God, Trish. Look at that.”

  I wiped my eyes, my face, trying to recover some sort of decent appearance before going back in to see Jack. “Maybe . . . maybe you could help us.”

  “Are you outta your mind?”

  I couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t face his justified fury. “I just mean . . . You could spend spring break with Jack, still, and . . .”

  Ron shoved open the truck door. “You made this bed. You can fucking well lie in it.”

  The truck rocked with the force of the door slamming.

  Chapter 34

  Trish’s driveway was cluttered with cars. To me, this seemed an ominous sign.

  “I think that’s Ron’s truck,” I said, as Seth pulled his car to a stop behind a different vehicle, a gray sedan I’d never seen before.

  We shrugged at each other, and each took a couple of shopping bags up to the house. I had keys, but decided to knock, not wanting to barge in.

  “Come in,” I heard Trish shout in her exasperated, you’re so stupid voice.

  Seth shouldered the door open, and we walked into a four-cornered argument.

  A young black woman with short hair and a coat too big for her was gesturing, trying to get Trish and her ex-husband, Ron, to be quiet, and Jack was trying to talk over the lot of them, but it was all babble.

  Seth walked himself into the middle of the scrum and said, “Enough.”

  It wasn’t loud, or even that forceful. But his voice took on a resonance that brought everyone to attention.

  In the beat of silence that followed, Jack piped up. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Seth,” he replied. “You must be Jack. It’s nice to meet you. I’m a friend of your aunt Mary.”

  The new woman spoke next. “I’m Ayana Reese; I’m a social worker here to help Trish clean up.”

  Ron cleared his throat and ran his hand over his hair. “I’m Trish’s ex. Jack and Drew’s dad.”

  “What a nice little party,” Trish spat. “Let me just get out the cocktail weenies.”

  “Oh, I love those!” Jack blurted.

  Trish flopped onto the couch and put her head in her hands. “I didn’t mean that literally. It was just an expression.”

  “I love those, too, Jack,” I said, just to say something. “Maybe next time. Let’s go make you some food and let the grown-ups talk.”

  I noticed Seth stayed behind, and I was glad, not only for whatever mediating effect he would have. I wanted a few minutes with my nephew.

  Whatever kids passed through my orbit tended to be brats in the store pulling books off our shelves and drooling on our train table toys. Or the children of coworkers who would be pulling on Mom’s or Dad’s hand, whining to get moving, or to buy a cookie from the café.

  And here was Jack, who turned out to be an actual little person. Based on the warmth spreading through my heart at seeing him again, I must have really been missing the little guy.

  “Want to help me make some pasta?” I said.

  He pointed with his chin at his collarbone brace. “I dunno.”

  “You can stir, right? You can keep our pasta from getting sticky.”

  “Deal.”

  I pulled out one of Trish’s new purchases—a bright blue pot—and set some water to boiling. After I stared at it for a minute or two—a watched pot will boil eventually, right?—I decided to sweep the floor. The broom was handy, and the brushing of the bristles against the floor was soothing. I could overhear voices from the next room and heard Ron say something about lying.

  I cleared my throat, desperate for conversation to distract Jack. “So you’re back from spring break?”

  He leaned against the counter and chewed on his thumbnail. “I guess. I wasn’t having much fun.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “It’s hard to be away from Mom. I really don’t want to move away.”

  “We don’t want you to, either.”

  “I think my dad does. And Miss Ayana, too, cuz she said something about how she doesn’t like it that I sleep with my mom. Why doesn’t she like that?”

  Oh-oh. “I don’t know how to explain in a way that would make sense to you. Probably because you’re old enough to sleep by yourself. You’re a big kid now.”

  “We’re not perfect,” Jack mumbled.

  “I know, kiddo. No one is.” The water was boiling so I cracked some spaghetti in the pot. I pulled a chair over from the kitchen table, trying hard not to hear the tense voices bubbling over from the front of the house. “Here. Stand up here and you can stir.”

  I held out a hand and he took it, pulling himself up. He was surprisingly sturdy for a kid who seemed so slight. I watched him stir and noticed that he did have a solid build, like his dad. Maybe his situation was what made him seem fragile, from a distance. That, and his injured arm.

  Standing on the chair as he was, we were shoulder to shoulder. I dared to put my arm around his waist. He leaned into me slightly.

  Jack stirred and stared into the pot, thoughtfully. “It’s changing states. The water, turning to steam? We learned about that in school. Matter changing states.”

  “Neat,” I said.

  “I didn’t mean to tattle on my mom,” Jack said, then, still stirring with frowning concentration.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I guess she told Miss Ayana that I sleep in my own room, but when Miss Ayana asked me, I told her I wasn’t.”

  “Oh. But that was true, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re not in trouble for telling the truth, kiddo.”

  He shook his head and turned to me, chewing his bottom lip. On a chair, he was level with my face. I could see the long lashes around his eyes, and one wonky loose baby tooth at the front of his mouth. “Then why is everyone upset out there? I should never have told Miss Ayana those things at school, either.”

  “What things?”

  “When she came to see me, I talked about the house and how I hurt myself. I didn’t know all this would happen. I didn’t mean for this to happen, Aunt Mary.”

  Tears pooled in the corner of his eyes. “Oh, kiddo, don’t . . .”

  I didn’t dare leave Jack standing on a chair with only one good arm in front of a hot stove and a pot of boiling water to go fetch Trish, and he needed something right now, something I was ill-equipped to provide.

  I pulled him closer. At this height, he could tuck his head right into my neck, on my shoulder. He cried quietly on my shirt. I patted his back and rubbed smooth circles
like Mom always used to. “It’s not your fault, no one thinks that.”

  With my other hand I turned off the stove burner, and then rocked slightly in place with Jack, flying blind and hoping I was doing it right.

  “Jack!” Trish exclaimed. “What’s wrong?”

  She’d come in through the living room, her eyes bright and face flushed. Trish moved restlessly, seeming electrified and nervous. I assumed Jack would let go of me and leap to his mother, but he did not.

  I looked at Trish while Jack continued to lean on me, shrugging. What do I say? Do I repeat all that just happened as if Jack weren’t in the room? Do I let him tell it? He continued to snivel, and Trish grew more tense and furious with each second I didn’t explain.

  So I said, “He’s upset because he thinks this is all his fault.”

  “Of course it isn’t! Pal, of course it’s not.”

  “I told him that,” I said.

  Trish made to take Jack from me, but he didn’t budge. I watched the agony in Trish’s face. She clearly wanted to take him right off the chair, but to do so might hurt his arm. I started to nudge him off my shoulder, but he didn’t move. I wasn’t about to peel him off like a dirty shirt, so I just glanced at Trish and shrugged again.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, and sagged, then stormed down the hall to her room and slammed the door.

  “See?” Jack whimpered. “She’s mad at me.”

  “No, she’s not. She’s upset right now. She’s having a bad day.”

  “She has lots of bad days.”

  Jack finally stood back from me. I wiped some wetness off his face with my thumb. “Your mom just needs a hug is all. Do you think you should go hug her? Because I promise she’s not mad at you.”

  He nodded, and I helped him down from his chair. I watched him move off down the hall to knock on his mom’s door, and I hoped to God my promise was true, that the demon in Trish hadn’t turned on Jack, too.

  I turned the water back on, waiting for the pasta to boil again, waiting for someone to come in and catch me up on current events.