by Sarah Willis
Still, she smiled. She likes Sampson. She ate dinner, went to bed without a fuss. Not too bad, right? It could have been worse. I did okay. She’s not going to walk out in the middle of the night.
But then I hear a sound almost like the gurgling in my radiator pipes, but nothing like that at all. I have to strain to listen, and then I know what it is. She’s crying.
I get up quietly and sneak over to her door, standing there a full minute, hoping she’ll stop. She sniffles. Her nose must be running. Now there’s a gasping sound, as if she can’t quite breathe. I go into the bathroom and get the box of Kleenex.
Larissa turns sharply toward me as I enter the room, tears streaming down her cheeks, her nose running just as I thought. In the dim light, what stands out are the reddish-whiteness of her eyes, the shape of them now not wide but angry, furious, and forlorn all at once. I hand her the box of Kleenex and she grabs it out of my hand, then, bottom lip stuck out, she motions me away as you would a fly or a bug. I back out of the room, close the door halfway again, then close it even further. I back down the hallway, keeping my eye on her door, listening in case she calls out to me. I sit on my bed.
What should I have done? Knelt by her bed, spoken softly to her, told her everything would be all right, lies she would have known and hated me for? There hadn’t even been time to think. Her waving me away was quick and sure. Her look said that I had seen something I wasn’t supposed to, that she thought she had some privacy at last, and I came when I wasn’t wanted. In her look was the girl who had told the police officer to fuck off. In her look was the reality we have been avoiding all day: that she’s not really a happy child. That she could so easily hate me. So much in a look, but that’s what I’m good at, reading faces. Right now I wish I were blind.
I sit on my bed for a long time, numb, just breathing. Then I get up and go downstairs, double-check the doors and windows.
Chapter Fifteen
My alarm rings at six-thirty in the morning, a god-awful time of morning, but I’m afraid Larissa might get up before me. I peek in her room as if I am doing something wrong. Larissa’s sound asleep, the blanket crumpled around her. Sampson looks at me lazily, then closes his eyes again.
I make coffee and read through the stack of paperwork the social worker handed me. Larissa’s religion is listed as Baptist, nonpracticing. Her father’s name was Charles. Her birthday is June sixteenth. Just ten days after my birthday. She has only been six for a little while. She’s not allergic to anything.
Larissa comes downstairs around eight, her eyes puffy and red, and we nod to each other like strangers warily acknowledging each other on the street. I wave to the table, and she eats. After that, she walks to the couch and I turn on the TV, automatically muting it, and she slips her thumb in her mouth. Surely I am doing something terrible by not talking, but I don’t know what else to do. Sampson comes downstairs, eats, then hops up onto Larissa’s lap, content to live so simply.
I go upstairs and clean up all the used Kleenex in her room, telling myself this is my right, to come into this room. As I make her bed, I smell urine and pull the covers back farther. There’s a yellow stain drying on the white sheets. She’s wet her bed. I pull off the sheets and pile them in the hall. The mattress is still slightly damp. How do I clean this up? I go downstairs, get paper towels and dish soap. Larissa looks at me from the couch, seeing the towels, the soap. She turns her head quickly away. I go upstairs, scrub at the mattress, dry it with the hair dryer. Only as I’m doing this do I realize she still has on her pajamas, which must be soaked in urine too. And she’s sitting on my couch.
She’ll need more pajamas, and I’ll have to get one of those plastic mattress covers. Where do I get those? I’ve never seen them displayed in Dillard’s. I make the bed up with clean sheets, pull up the quilt. The room looks so clean, just as it did before Larissa came, as if she had never been here.
I take the sheets down to the basement, but leave them on the floor. I should wash her pajamas too, and give her a bath. And I need a shower myself. Already I see the day half gone.
I could talk. I could tell her that she needs to take off her pajamas and take a bath, but when I walk up to her as she sits on the couch, she looks so peaceful. We have a truce, a way to live with each other, and it is in this silence. It won’t be forever, but I’m not ready to break it yet. I kneel in front of her. I don’t use sign, but pantomime. I pinch at the material of her pajama bottoms, noticing now the smell of urine, and pretend to throw them off her body. Then I scrub myself, and point to her. Turning off the TV, I motion for her to follow me. She doesn’t move right away. Yesterday she didn’t want to be stranded in an unfamiliar room, but now she has Sampson in her lap and she knows the layout. She’s more in control. I clap two times, my signal for Sampson to get down from whatever he’s up on. He too does not move, which pisses me off. I clap two more times, and he gets up and hops off the couch. He looks at me, wondering what my problem is. Make up my mind. Didn’t I want him with the little girl? I walk over to the bottom of the steps and turn and look at her. Come on, is on the tip of my tongue. There must be something in my look, because she gets up, follows me.
In the bathroom, she watches me as I wash out the tub, begin to fill it up. She grabs my shirt and gives a tug. I almost say What?
Larissa points to the shower head. I make a face that says, Really? She nods vigorously. I make all sorts of motions, pointing to her, pointing to the tub, pointing to the shower head again, use my fingers to mime water coming down on her head. She makes a fist and signs yes so firmly that I laugh. Okay. She wants a shower. How do I wash her hair then? She goes out of the bathroom, and this time I follow her. She gets clothes out of her drawers, so adeptly switching Lucy around in her arms that the bunny never has to be put down. Then we go back to the bathroom and she puts her clothes down on the hamper. I place a towel on top of the clothes. Larissa brushes her teeth, and I watch as she does a perfect job, like a commercial for brushing teeth, and I think about her mother, how she must have taught Larissa this. I shake my head. I do not want to think about that woman. I turn on the shower and adjust the temperature, and Larissa motions for me to leave.
Can I leave her alone? What if she slips? Does she know which is the shampoo? The conditioner? She motions for me to leave again, not like last night, but with an assuredness that strikes me as both funny and frightening; I don’t know her at all. She likes my cat, and that is the only thing I can be sure of.
I pick up the shampoo, pretend to wash my hair, pick up the conditioner, do the same, put them on the ledge of the shower. She rolls her eyes, nods. I leave the bathroom. I feel worn out, ready to go back to bed. I lean against the wall and wait. Will I hear the thunk of her head hitting the bathtub over the sound of the running water? At what age do kids start taking showers these days? Larissa seems like an old pro. What else can she do? Maybe she knows how to get my computer to stop freezing up whenever I try to download something. I know I’m giddy. I’m living a silent movie, Charlie Chaplin or something. There is such sadness in his old movies, a sadness in his humor that would have been ruined by voice.
I time her. Twelve minutes until she turns off the shower. Ten minutes later, she comes out, dressed, a towel around her head. Who taught her to wrap a towel around her head like that? Oh yes, she has a mother.
We sit on her bed, and I carefully comb out her hair. I am very, very gentle. It takes a very long time to comb out her hair.
I take my shower. Put everything in the washer, then decide not to take her shopping for pajamas today. Maybe tomorrow. How can you shop without talking? I could pretend to be deaf, I’ve done it before, but just the thought exhausts me.
I decide to take her to the nature center. I don’t know how to tell her, but I try, signing drive-to, holding an imaginary wheel and moving it outward. Then I mime us walking, mime trees, mime breathing in fresh air. She may not understand a thing, but she follows me to the car. She will be good and follow me along;
maybe if she’s good, they’ll let her go home.
In the parking lot, Larissa steps out of my car, but just stands there. When I offer her my hand, she keeps her thumb in her mouth, but shifts Lucy into the crook of that arm, gives me the Lucy hand. This is new. Usually I get her hand with the wet thumb when we walk. It’s cooler out today, and feels like rain. Maybe she’s afraid of the rain.
Everything is so dry that our footsteps on the pebbles sound loud and crinkly, like the potato chip bag. She holds my hand tightly and stays so close to me that I’m afraid I’ll trip on her. A chipmunk scurries by and she flinches. I want to tell her she’s safe, that the animals are more afraid of her than she is of them, but how the hell am I going to mime that? When a bluejay cries out and flies across the path, she stiffens and refuses to go on. We turn back.
At home again, we have lunch: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We color and play several games of Chutes and Ladders, all in silence. I become aware of a humming in my ear that I never noticed before, the click of my water heater turning on, the scritch of crayons, the slight plunk of the game pieces on the Chutes and Ladders board. I have lived here in the silence of just me, and the silence of deaf friends, but this is different. Experiencing the sounds of us, together, without the words we could speak, is in some way curiously beautiful, as if the two of us are discovering a whole new world.
A little before five, the sky turns dark and we hear thunder rolling in. The thumb that came out of her mouth for Chutes and Ladders is back in her mouth with the first crack of lightning. The game is up. She goes over to the couch and sits down, legs crossed underneath, Lucy to her chest. Then she looks around the room. A worried look crosses her face and she looks up at me.
I sign What?, tilting my head, holding my palms out, shrug. She points to her lap. She wants Sampson. I nod. He doesn’t like storms much either and is probably under a bed. He’ll come if we call, though. He always comes if called, curious as cats are, wanting to know why we might want them.
I shrug, meaning I don’t know where he is. Her bottom lip quivers and she looks at me pleadingly. I sign Wait a minute, in the way anyone would, one finger up, and walk around the house, go upstairs, come back down. I’m right, Sampson is under my bed. But I don’t bring him down with me.
I shrug again, shaking my head. Lightning cracks and thunder rumbles, and her bottom lip quivers again. Using the best pantomime I can, I say We have to call him, then silently mouth the word Sampson a few times, showing the words coming out of my mouth with my fingers. She understands, I can see that in her eyes. Another crack of lightning, and the rain begins to beat down against the windows, coming sideways with a great deal of force. She looks down at her empty lap, then back up at me, nods, her eyes big. She wants me to call for Sampson, but I want her to. The problem is, I’ve never said Sampson’s name out loud except for that night I went to her house, and I’m sure she doesn’t remember his name. As I stand thinking about this, she points to me. I shake my head, point to myself, then back to her, then back to myself, so she knows I mean the both of us. She stares at me, then nods. I wave her over to me, by the bottom of the stairs. “Sampson,” I call softly, not wanting him to come yet. I wait. No sign of him. I turn to her, nod. She looks up the stairs. Finally, she says it.
“Sampson.”
She calls his name as softly as I did. I call again, a little louder. She waits a second, then calls him again. On her third call, he comes slowly down the stairs, knowing he’s wanted but not wishing to look too needy. I pick him up and we go back to the couch. I place him in her lap.
“Good kitty,” I say softly, and rub his head. Then we sit and listen to the rain, watching Everybody Loves Raymond again with no sound. Larissa flinches with each crack of lightning. Finally it’s bedtime. I’m so tired I feel twitchy.
After the bedtime routine, she gets into bed and I cover her up. I have lined the space between the mattress and the bottom sheet with plastic garbage bags. Next to her, on the little table by her bed, is the box of Kleenex.
Larissa looks at the space where Sampson slept last night, and I know what she wants. I sign say, a circular movement of one finger by my mouth, and she understands. She points to me, then to herself. I’m to go first again. I call him, softly, adding, “Here kitty,” then look at her.
“Sampson,” she calls. “Here kitty.” Her voice sounds so sweet. After a few tries, Sampson comes into the room, hopping up on the bed and lying down right where he slept last night, knowing now that this girl is his new best friend. Larissa takes her thumb out of her mouth and gently strokes his head between his ears. Her little fingers must feel like moth’s wings. He purrs, the purr growing louder until it’s a warm rumble. I sit on the edge of the bed, holding the book Goodnight Moon. When she looks up from Sampson, I point to myself, then the book, and make the sign for say again. After a moment of thought, she nods. In a quiet, almost reverent voice, I read Goodnight Moon. It’s just the right voice for reading this book.
When I’m done, I stand up and turn off the light, leaving her night light on. “Good night,” I say, in the same soft voice I used for reading the book. She just looks at me.
Standing in the doorway, I make a very sad face, a clown’s sad face. I point to her, then to myself. I sign say, point to myself again, and repeat the sad clown face. She watches me for a minute, then softly says, “Good night.” I smile widely and leave, closing the door halfway. I make it as far as my room before my legs give out and I sit on my bed. The effort it will take to wash my face is beyond me.
Tomorrow we’re supposed to go to Columbus for three days and nights to stay with my parents. Can she handle that? Can I?
I hear a sniffle from her room, a small, soft sob, then nothing. I’m listening so hard I think I can still hear Sampson purring. I wait.
Not hearing any more signs of Larissa crying, I begin to think of other things. I haven’t heard from Polly. The phone is off the hook and although I checked for messages several times whenever I could without Larissa noticing, there was nothing from Polly at all. She doesn’t even know I have Larissa.
I go downstairs and call Polly’s mother’s house in Massachusetts. No answer. I leave a message. “Hi, this is Alice, calling to see how Constance is. I hope she’s doing better. My love to all.”
The next morning, Larissa comes downstairs in her pajamas, holding Lucy. I’m sitting at the kitchen table looking at Ed’s philosophy book, hoping I’ll find the answer to all my problems; I need some wise, thoughtful insights, but it seems philosophers don’t have the answers, just the questions.
“Good morning, Larissa,” I say, not in a whisper, but as softly as I can, as if my voice might break things.
Larissa comes straight up to the table, stands in front of me, arms crossed, Lucy tucked to her chest. “I want to go home. Now.”
She doesn’t say it as if she hates me, just as if I might actually do this for her. Apparently she has decided that I’m on her side; she could try, once again, to ask for what she wants most. I know whatever I say will silence her again, and I’ll become just another bad guy, just like Mrs. Hunt, and Yolanda, and whatever social worker they assign her.
All my pretending we’re getting along fine is fool’s gold.
Larissa waits patiently as I think about what to say. I could blame everything on the government, like Vince would. Say the county took her away from her mother and there’s nothing I can do but keep her until they let her go back home. Or I could blame it on her mother, remind Larissa how she had been abandoned—which I think she has forgotten, put away into some place deep inside where it can’t bother her. All of these things are true, but I can’t say any of them.
“Your mommy’s trying very hard to find a job right now. She’s out looking for one and she can’t take care of you right now, until she gets the job she needs to support you both. There are a lot of people trying to help her. Sometimes we all need a little help. I’m helping by keeping you at my house so that you are taken
care of while your mommy looks for a job. It must be very hard for you because you miss her, and she must miss you very much, too. There’s a whole bunch of rules in this world, and the rules right now say you have to stay someplace else while your mommy . . . gets some things together.”
She looks at me with her chin up, eyes narrowed, thinking, trying to understand, then she just gives up. “I want my mommy! Take me to my mommy now!”
“She needs to get a job first, and—”
“Get her a job!”
“I can’t. I’m an interpreter—”
“I want to go home! I want my mommy!” She stomps one bare foot on the floor, glaring at me.
I lean forward in my chair. “Larissa, I can’t take you home. They won’t let me.” There, I resort to blaming the government. How easy that was.
She kicks the cupboard, smashing her bare foot into the wood frame.
“Larissa—” I reach out to touch her arm, and she turns to me, mad as hell, with tears in her eyes from hurting her foot and everything else in the world. She reels back from my touch, falling as she steps back. She doesn’t even try to stop herself from falling.
“I want my mommy! I want my mommy!” She thumps the linoleum floor with her heels so hard that I hear glasses tinkling in the cupboards. “I want my mommy! I want my mommy! I want my mommy!” she screams. The windows are open, and I wonder if the neighbors can hear her. She strikes out with her hands, thrashing around in the tight space, pounding on the wall and cupboard, howling. Her fist makes a dent in the wall; the plaster underneath is old, but it still has to hurt her hand. Lucy gets flung from her arms, landing in a jumble of legs and arms, looking nothing at all like a bunny. Larissa doesn’t even notice. I lower myself to the floor, saying her name over and over again, gently, softly, the sound of tears in my throat. She just kicks and hits anything near her, screaming, “I want my mommy!” I can’t restrain her. It’s one of the rules. I can hug her, but I can’t restrain her. Can I put my arms around her and call it a hug? Can a word change the meaning of what I do?