The Sound of Us

by Sarah Willis

  Hey, I think back to him. First you tell me I have to do this, then you tell me to watch out. Make up your mind.

  Do both, he says. Just do it right.

  Inside the doorway are two sets of buzzers and two doors leading to the two sections of the apartment building. I press 305, on the left. It’s so quiet. If I scream, I’ll wake up the whole building. The thought doesn’t comfort me; the idea of having to scream overrides the idea of help coming.

  The door buzzes and I tug it open, then stand there. In the stairway, the second bulb up is broken; shards of glass dully gleam on the steps. Wouldn’t it have been cleaned up if it had been broken for more than a day? With the key stretched out in front of me like a gun, I go up the steps. For a second I’m glad I’m alone so no one can see me looking so stupid.

  More lights are out, but not broken. Each floor has two doors. On the third floor, I knock on door 305.

  There’s a scraping sound. What in God’s name is that? Then the light behind the peephole changes, as if it’s blocked. She must be looking at me; the scraping noise was her dragging over a chair so she can look out the peephole. Good girl. Don’t open your door to strangers. As if I’m not one. I try to smile.

  “Hi, it’s me, Alice Marlowe, the lady on the phone.”

  The scraping noise again, then more sounds: locks being turned, a chain being unhooked. The door opens. She stares up at me.

  She’s beautiful.

  We look at each other for a few seconds, then she moves back and I step into the apartment and close the door behind me.

  I’m in a dining room. In the center is a thick-legged table covered with papers and bills in neat piles, although at one end everything is pushed back so there’s a small, clear area. At that end is a chair with two phone books on the seat. This is where she ate whatever she’s eaten in the past two days. The surface is wiped clean.

  The child is walking backward, eyes on me, until she’s standing near the archway into the kitchen. Her thumb’s in her mouth, and she’s holding an obviously well-loved stuffed rabbit to her chest. She’s wearing pink pajamas with some cartoon character design. Her ears are pierced and she’s wearing stud earrings that look like diamonds, although I assume they’re just rhinestones. The pink pajamas and the stud earrings are such an odd combination that it bothers me. I didn’t get my ears pierced until my twenties.

  I look away. Just behind her, in the kitchen, I see a stove, a countertop, the corner of a refrigerator, a green linoleum floor, and a cardboard box. Every light in the apartment is on. With all the lights on, there is an eerie feeling, like an overlit movie. The darkness outside seems absolute.

  She’s so small, and I’m so tall. At five-ten, and with my short-spiky white hair, I imagine I look imposing to a child—and, apparently, to some men. I try smiling again. She doesn’t smile back, just looks at me with those big dark eyes.

  Her skin is the color of strong tea and glows as if she’s the picture of good health. I was worried she might look sickly, unkempt, maybe ill—after all, she’s the child of a woman who has left her alone for two days. One side of her head has braids with pink beads at the ends. The hair on the unbraided side is long and curly. Her half-braided head reminds me of those empty ships that were found with plates of food waiting to be eaten.

  Her face is round and her eyes huge. They’re the largest eyes I’ve ever seen on a child. Unfortunately, that’s because she’s looking at me as if I might be a werewolf.

  “I don’t suppose your mother came back while I was driving here?”

  She shakes her head no. I nod. Deaf people and interpreters nod a lot. It means I got what you were signing, but it does not necessarily mean I understand. It feels very appropriate right now. I know that her mother isn’t here, but I certainly don’t understand it.

  I don’t move any farther into the room, although I wish that I were closer to something I could lean on. “Please call me Alice,” I say. “And you are?” My eyebrows rise with the question. Habit.

  She just stares at me.

  “Could you tell me your name, honey?”

  She looks around the room as if needing someone to give her permission to answer. Her lips quiver. “Larissa,” she says, then her thumb is back in her mouth.

  “What a lovely name. Hello, Larissa.”

  Now tears spill from the corner of her eyes. I know she needs to be hugged, but I can’t do that. “Everything’s going to be all right, Larissa. Your mother will probably be home soon. We’ll just wait for her. Do you know where she was going when she left?”

  She nods.

  “Where? Where did she go?”

  She takes her thumb out of her mouth but keeps it close to her chin, ready to pop it back in. Her top teeth are all pushed forward. “She go find a job.”

  “She didn’t have a job?”

  Larissa shakes her head no. Damn. No workplace to call. “Do you have a daddy?”

  Larissa nods yes, and I sigh, both glad she has a father, and frustrated; it’s like pulling teeth to get her to answer a simple question.

  “Where is he?”

  “My daddy’s in heaven.” She looks up at the ceiling, then back at me.

  The apartment is sweltering, all the windows closed. I need to sit down, but I’m afraid to in this stranger’s apartment. There are no family portraits on the walls, and I keep picturing Larissa’s mother as the mother of the deaf girl, Beatrice. It makes me nervous, imagining Beatrice’s mother coming home, finding me here. My brain is working about as well as my legs.

  In the living room I see more boxes, a couch, a plain wooden chair, and part of a mantelpiece. Maybe there will be pictures on the mantel.

  “I’m sorry about your daddy,” I say. “Do you have any pictures of him or your mommy?”

  She nods slowly.

  “Could I see them?”

  With her eyes still on me, Larissa backs into a hallway that must lead to the bathroom and a bedroom or two. She disappears to the right. When she comes back, she’s carrying a framed picture, the kind that sits on a table. She hands it to me, then quickly goes to the same spot where she stood before, glancing into the kitchen. I’m willing to bet there’s a back door there, that she’s eyeing her retreat. Smart kid.

  The picture is of a young black man, mostly just his face and shoulders. It’s a professional portrait with a blue background. He’s smiling, a happy smile that makes me want to smile back.

  He looks no more than eighteen. He has Larissa’s round face, but his skin is darker and it looks as though he had a bad case of acne once. How did he die? How could someone with that smile be dead? Now I’m sad for two people: this little girl and this young man. I have no sympathy for the mother.

  “Any pictures of your mother?”

  Larissa shakes her head no. From somewhere below there’s a loud bang and I flinch, turning toward the door. For a whole minute the two of us stand perfectly still, listening for footsteps. Nothing. My legs are about to give out.

  “May I sit down?” I ask when no one comes barging in the door asking who the hell I am. “Would that be all right?” All I really want to do right now is pick up a phone and call the police, exactly what I should have done in the first place. Larissa nods that slow nod and sidles into the living room, keeping as far from me as she can. She glances at a cushioned rocking chair in the far corner, showing me where I should sit, but I don’t want to sit there. I won’t be able to see the door. “May I sit over here?” I ask, pointing to the plain wooden chair. She nods once.

  On the mantel is a framed picture of Larissa, also professionally done. The beads in her hair are different colors, her hair is shorter, and she’s smiling, showing those crooked teeth.

  She stands by the couch, wary, watching me. Her eyebrows are dark and straight, low against the top of her eyes. They make her look pensive, somber. They’re a bit off-putting on such a young child.

  “Okay, Larissa,” I say, sweetly, trying to lighten my mood, “we need to figure so
me things out, I guess. Your auntie’s not answering the phone, and your mother’s been gone for two days.” I almost add, and your father’s dead. “Isn’t there anyone else we can call? Think hard.”

  “Un-unh.”

  “When did you move here?”

  She looks up and to the right, trying to figure it out. Tears well up in her eyes.

  “It’s Friday, July nineteenth,” I say, trying to help. “Do you know the name of the month you moved here?”

  She nods and slips her thumb out of her mouth to answer me. Oh, how I want that thumb to stay out of her mouth! I imagine her mother does too, and for the first time since my phone rang, I see the mother as a human being. Not a very good human being, though. “June.”

  “Where did you move from?”

  “Cincinnati.”

  What a big word to come out of her! My hand automatically spells it. Her eyes widen.

  “I spell words with my fingers,” I say. “I just spelled Cincinnati . See?” I hold up my hand, spell Cincinnati again. “I can spell your name, too, with my hand, but I’m not sure how you spell it. Can you tell me?”

  Along with the invariable nod, she spells her name. “L-a-r-is-s-a.”

  I spell it with my fingers, saying the letters as I go. “And your last name?”

  “Benton.” She slips up onto the couch, scrunching up into the farthest corner.

  I spell out Benton. She squints one eye, doubting me. “I can sign words too. You are a girl.” I sign girl, my thumb tracing the curve of my cheek. “What’s your bunny’s name?”

  She pulls it tighter to her chest, as if I might take it from her. “Lucy.”

  “This is how you spell Lucy,” I say, and spell it out very slowly. “Would you like to try?”

  She shakes her head no. At least she isn’t looking at me with quite the same amount of fear now. I’m strange, but probably not going to hurt her.

  It’s almost five. At eight, I’m calling the police. Until then, I’ll just sit here, as I told her I would. Keep her company. There doesn’t seem to be a TV. Maybe in a bedroom, but I’m not going to go into a bedroom.

  “This is the sign for bunny,” I say, and do it twice. “This is how you say, I love my bunny. This is how I spell my name. Alice Marlowe, remember?” To everything I say, she nods slowly. I keep showing her signs and making sentences with the words I’ve shown her. At some point while I’m showing her how to count in sign language, she lays her head against the soft curve of the couch’s arm. As I’m signing This is your apartment, her eyes close, and she falls asleep.

  I want to fall asleep myself. In my own bed. What the hell am I doing here, and where’s the phone? I need to look around, see if I can find it, but what if she wakes up and I’m snooping around?

  Now that I’ve stopped talking, I hear birds chirping madly outside. Morning is lightening the sky for real now, another day beginning—another hot day—and it feels at least eighty in this closed-in apartment. If I don’t open a window, we’ll suffocate.

  I get up slowly so my movements won’t wake Larissa. The only windows in the living room are behind the couch Larissa sleeps on, and two small, hinged windows on both sides of the fireplace that look painted shut. In the dining room, the windows don’t have screens. Still, I wiggle one open a little, hoping none of the chirping birds will fly in.

  I need to find the phone.

  It’s not in the kitchen, which is clean even though the linoleum’s stained and curling up at the edges and the cupboards are nicked and scratched. I open a cupboard. There are cereal boxes and cans of soup, and in the refrigerator there’s milk, butter, eggs, and covered containers. Instinct tells me to see if the stuff in the containers has gone bad so that Larissa won’t get sick, but that’s stupid—it’s not as if she’s going to be staying here alone.

  Peering into the narrow hallway that leads to the bedrooms and the bathroom, I see three open doors, and once again, all the lights are on. Thank God. I’m not about to walk into a dark room hunting for a switch.

  The bathroom is the first door on the right, and I only glance in. Even if I have to go, I can’t imagine my going in there, closing the door behind me. What if the mother comes home while I’m in there? Of course, thinking about going to the bathroom makes me feel that I have to.

  The next room on the right is obviously Larissa’s. There’s a toy stove made out of heavy-duty plastic, and next to it a sink to match, with an assortment of plastic plates and cups in the dish drainer. The surface of the stove and sink have been crayoned on, her name written in a waver of capital letters. There’s a stack of books near the bed, The Cat in the Hat on top. They’re still reading that? On one wall is a poster of a fish with silvery blue and purple scales. In the far corner there’s a cardboard box turned upside down on top of newspapers spread out on the floor. On the box are two jars of finger paints and a sheet of paper with a small red handprint. On the bed are stuffed animals, one a banana with a face and arms. My favorite stuffed animal was a tiger named Tiger.

  The room across the hall is her mother’s, and I step into it on tiptoes as if land mines might be buried under the floorboards. There’s the phone on the table by the bed. It’s a portable, and I pick it up, listen for a dial tone. Larissa must have called me on this phone, but I just have to hear it, that sound that connects me to help.

  Her bed’s made and the room clean, almost void of personal effects; still there is that smell of someone else. I back out, carrying the phone, going into the more familiar dining room. All I know about this woman now is that she has food in the refrigerator, her daughter has toys, and she keeps her place clean.

  Larissa is still sleeping, and I sit back down on the wooden chair, perched there with the phone in one hand, ready to jump up if I hear footsteps or see the doorknob turn. The slightly opened window in the dining room does nothing to help; there’s a sheen of perspiration on Larissa’s forehead. She sleeps with her thumb in her mouth, her legs folded up under her like a foal’s. Doesn’t it hurt to sleep on those beads?

  In a half hour, as my eyes begin to droop, I know I will betray her. It’s a little after seven o’clock and it’s day outside now. Her mother is not returning. What else can I do? Take her home with me?

  I consider that only for a moment before I get up and go into the kitchen, dial 911.

  Chapter Five

  The East Cleveland police officer sounds more than a bit confused when I explain the reason for calling. When he finally gets the facts straight—that I don’t know this girl from Eve and yet I’m in her apartment—he has me give him the address and phone number and spell my name, then tells me to stay exactly where I am. Suddenly, I have become a suspicious character.

  “Make sure a woman police officer comes,” I say, my voice calm and authoritative, but when I hang up the phone, my hands shake. I need to wake up Larissa. It won’t be good for her to be awakened by police banging on her door.

  “Larissa,” I say. “Larissa. You need to wake up, honey.” I say this so softly she doesn’t even twitch.

  I don’t want to touch her. I want to be able to tell the police that I never touched her. Suddenly it’s clear that I’ll have to answer a lot of questions—that they won’t be taking this as kindly as I meant it. “Larissa, wake up, please,” I say louder. “Larissa. Wake up. The police are coming.”

  That does it. Her eyes fly open. “No!” She takes a gasp of air. “No! No! No!” She sits up on her knees, no thumb in her mouth now.

  “I had to, honey. Your mom might need some help. They can help her.”

  “Liar!” she spits at me. “Liar! You said you wouldn’t. You said! Liar!”

  She’s furious, her nostrils flared, her eyes narrowed, and there is this look on her face that stuns me. She is suddenly not a child. She is just as old as I am, just as self-aware, just as smart, and she scares me; it’s as if she sees me clearly and knows I’m a liar, that we both know each other very well.

  “I had to,” I repeat. “We n
eed some help here. Someone who can find your mother.”

  She jumps off the couch and runs to the front door. “Go away! Go away now!” And now she is a child again.

  I have to stay, not just because the policeman said so. If I leave, she’ll lock the door and the police will have to break it down. She might even run out the back door, down the fire escape steps. “I have to stay,” I say. “I have to stay and wait with you.”

  “No! Go away! Get out!” She points to the door, stamps a foot on the hardwood floor. “Go away now! Go away! Liar!”

  “The police will help you find your mommy. Don’t you want to find your mommy?”

  She holds still, hearing what I said. She’s only six, but she can tell I have a point. Her thumb goes into her mouth and she moves her other arm around her waist. A flash of shock goes across her face, and she looks back at the couch. I’m standing between her and her stuffed bunny, but she is not about to come anywhere near me now. I go over to the couch, pick up Lucy, and hand the bunny to her. She snatches it from me.

  “Go away,” she says. Plain and simple. Then she bursts into tears.

  What have I done? “Oh, honey, I just want to help you. We need to find your mommy. I’m not a bad person.” I kneel down, wanting to be on her level. “I’ll stay with you, okay? I’ll stay with you until they find your mommy. Your mommy loves you. We’ll find her.”

  Oh Jesus. After so many years of being so careful about every word I ever use, here I tell this child that I’ll stay with her until they find her mommy.

  “Larissa, honey, it’s okay. I’m your friend.”

  She’s crying, her shoulders hunching up and down with her sobs. I hold out my arms. “I’ll protect you,” I say.

  The buzzer rings, a sharp, harsh sound, startling us both. Before I know what happened, she’s in my arms, the bunny pressed between us. “Don’t let them in, don’t let them in.” Her tears are falling on my bare arms. I know better than to make any more false promises, but I hold her tightly to my chest.