The Sound of Us

by Sarah Willis

  “You went to his place?”

  She nods. “Yeah. Stupid.” She rubs her lips with her fingers. Her nails are a bright garish orange. One fake nail is missing.

  “I got real drunk and passed out. In the morning when I woke up, he wanted to start all over again, but I knew I had to get out of there. He kept playing with me, not letting me get to the phone, teasing me mean, you know, like we was playing a game. Finally I called home, but no one answered. I figured her Auntie Teya took her to her place. I had to get the bus home. He wouldn’t take me. I don’t know why I did what I did. I was just low. I needed a job and they made me feel like shit. I’ll never do that again. I promise. You gotta give her back to me.”

  I stiffen. So that’s where this was leading. I’m such a sap. “It’s not up to me.” I feel a raindrop and get up from my step, move under the porch. My butt hurts from the concrete.

  Michelle leans forward, pressing her hands together as if she’s about to pray. “You could say good things about me. Tell them I’m a good mom. I can’t stand this, being without her. It’s wrong. She’s scared. She doesn’t know what’s happening.”

  Thunder rumbles, and Larissa opens the front door, her face peering out from behind the screen. “Mommy?”

  “It’s okay, sweetie pie,” Michelle says to Larissa, then turns to me. Once again she has that look on her face, as if she is opening up for the first time in her life, as if she needs me. “It’s all my fault she’s scared of thunderstorms. I told her that’s what a gun sounds like, that lightning sound. I shoulda kept my mouth shut. I got a bad habit of saying things out loud I should just be thinking. That’s why I yelled at you. Really, I’m sorry. Can I hold her again?”

  Jesus. How the hell can I say no to that now? I nod.

  Larissa goes over to Michelle and puts her arms around her mother’s drawn-up legs. They lean together, becoming one thing with four arms, four legs. They have the same contour, thin but sinewy. Michelle kisses Larissa’s head and they hold still like that for a moment, Michelle’s lips against Larissa’s hair. I move over to the door.

  Slowly, Michelle shifts her weight and rises, Larissa still hanging on to her mom’s legs. “Can I come back? Just see her now and then?”

  “Call first,” I say.

  “I will.”

  Larissa pulls her arms away, crosses them across her chest. Her lips are tight, her eyes narrowed, eyebrows drawn down. Her body language says, If you’re not taking me home, I’m not hugging you good-bye.

  “I got to go,” Michelle says to Larissa. “I can’t take you. I want to, but I can’t. You be good with this lady. I’ll come back soon as I can.” She kneels down on one knee, holds out her arms. Larissa doesn’t budge.

  “I love you, baby. Mommy’s going to get you back.” She looks up at me. “You’ll take good care of her, won’t you?”

  I nod.

  “I love you, honey. Don’t ever forget that.” She stands and leans over to kiss Larissa on her forehead one last time, but Larissa twists away and runs inside.

  “Well, then, I guess I better go,” Michelle says, looking at the closed door. But she doesn’t move, just chews at her bottom lip. “Listen, don’t take this wrong. I’m sure you’re doing a good job, but she should be in the backseat in a car, ’cause of her weight. She shouldn’t be in the front seat till she’s fifty pounds.”

  “Oh. Okay.” My face is hot. Jesus, what else am I doing wrong? For a second, I want to ask a girl with a T-shirt that says TRY ME what else I should know.

  Michelle walks down the steps, into the rain and down the sidewalk to the corner. I could give her a ride to the bus stop, but I’m afraid of the urge to do so.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Larissa won’t speak again. For the rest of the day as the rain beats hard against my house, we play Chutes and Ladders, color, watch TV shows without the sound, look at picture books, eat. I’m just as quiet inside myself as she is, and oddly we fit together perfectly this way, our timing in unison as we silently, with only a slight movement of our eyes, agree this will be our last game of Chutes and Ladders. Only a tilt of the head is needed to turn on the TV. When Larissa falls asleep on the couch around four, I go upstairs and call Yolanda.

  “I’m not her social worker anymore,” she reminds me.

  “Okay. Can I talk to you as a friend then? I don’t know anyone who could understand what I’m feeling. I’m lost.”

  There’s a moment while she pauses, and I wish I hadn’t called. “Sure,” she says. “What’s going on?”

  I let my breath out. “Her mother came,” I say. “She just showed up.” I tell her how we talked on my front porch, the story about her husband getting killed.

  “Yeah,” Yolanda says. “If you can believe her.”

  “What?” I don’t know what she means.

  “Alice, Alice, you’re so innocent. The story about her husband, it’s such a setup. Poor Michelle.”

  “You mean he wasn’t killed?”

  “Oh, he’s dead. But the details . . . Who the hell knows? I don’t trust her as far as I could throw her. Alice, hasn’t anyone ever lied to you?”

  No, I think, dismissing every lie ever told me. But this? Lying about her husband getting killed by police? I close my eyes. What an idiot I am to think she was confiding in me. But then I remember her face when she told me. I’m an interpreter. I can tell when someone lies just by watching their face.

  “Well, it could be true. And she sounds like she’s really sorry. I think she’s learned her lesson. She’d never do that again, leave Larissa alone. Couldn’t Larissa go back with her now?”

  Yolanda laughs, quick and hard, and for a moment I don’t like her at all. “Alice, you bought it? The story? Come on. She’s desperate, what do you expect her to say? ‘I went out drinking and forgot my kid’? Alice, Aunt Teya can hardly walk. She’s three hundred and some pounds and uses a walker, has been in and out of the hospital for the last year. You really think Mom thought she was coming over? Come on. And let’s pretend her story was even close to the truth; no, Larissa’s in the system now. Mom has to do all those things I told you before she gets her daughter back. There’s no shortcuts. You have Larissa now. You’re responsible. Mom is not to come over unannounced. You need to report this.”

  The way she says Mom instead of using Michelle’s name bothers me. It didn’t before, but now it does. “I don’t want to report her, Yolanda. If she does it again, I will. I promise. I told Michelle to call first, next time.”

  “Next time? You know, Alice, when I met you, I thought you were so tough. I’m beginning to wonder . . .” She laughs again, but it’s a friendly laugh this time, I think. “Look, it’s nice of you, not reporting her, telling her she can come back, calling me and asking if Larissa can go home now, but you’re doing all this ’cause you feel inadequate. It’s natural for a first-time foster parent. You’re doing fine. Any problems with Larissa herself you want to tell me? We can handle her mother.”

  I think about her not talking, the frightening scene in my kitchen. “She wets the bed,” I offer.

  “That’s your biggest problem? Get a plastic mattress cover. Is she talking?”

  “A little,” I say. “She likes my cat, too.”

  “Good. You’re doing fine. It could be a lot worse. But with Mom showing up like that, I think Larissa’s going to need counseling. I’ll have them set up an appointment for Wednesday, the same day she visits her mother at Metzenbaum. Hold on while I check and see if that’ll work.”

  I wait. Five minutes later, she gets back to me. “Okay, it’s set,” she says. “Can you get Larissa to Metzenbaum by four?”

  I have a job at that time, but I think I can move it around. “Yeah, I can do that.”

  “Just keep doing what you’re doing, Alice, but watch out for Mom. I think she’s trouble.”

  “Yeah, okay. But I’m going to take Larissa to my parents’ in Columbus tomorrow. I have to get out of this house. Who do I tell?”


  “Give me their address and phone number, and I’ll pass it on. And listen, hang in there. We went through a lot of trouble to place her with you.”

  We means Yolanda, and I know that. “Okay,” I say. “I will.”

  After I hang up I think about Yolanda saying there are no shortcuts. There are, though. I got Larissa in six weeks. All Michelle needs is a letter from the mayor.

  That night, Larissa tucked in, I sit on her bed and clear my throat; I want to signal to her I’m about to speak. “Larissa, we’re going on a special trip tomorrow. We’re going to go visit my parents for Labor Day weekend. My brother’s sons will be there. They’re twelve and fourteen. Their names are Bruce and Dylan, and I think you’ll like them.” I don’t mention my brother is dead. “We’ll have a good time.”

  Larissa doesn’t nod, shrug, or blink. This nothing hurts. I want to go to bed and curl up, sleep for a week.

  Sampson saunters into the room, and Larissa pats the bed. He jumps right up and settles in.

  Stupid cat. Doesn’t he know I need him too?

  In the morning, while Larissa takes a shower, I tear off her wet sheets, throw them in the basement, then pack her things into a suitcase while she takes a shower. I’m not traveling with that canvas bag.

  It takes so long to dry and brush her hair, but she’s going to have to take a shower every morning because of the bed-wetting. I’ll have to remember to put a plastic bag on the cot she sleeps on at my parents’. Before we leave, I show Larissa where I keep Sampson’s dry food, and ask her to pour him a big bowlful, and another of fresh water. I tell her this will be her job from now on, and pleasure shows on her face. She still isn’t speaking, though. I am, but not much. I say everything quietly, with the fewest words possible. Sometimes I sign the words, sometimes not. The quiet inside me is growing; I’m in an in-between place, partly who I was before I met this child, partly someone new I don’t know yet.

  As I drive to Columbus we listen to children’s songs on tapes. We don’t sing along. Now and then I say something, like This is the highway to Columbus, or Those are turkey buzzards up there. She’s in the backseat. I have to look at her in the mirror.

  Driving by Akron I think about Vince. Miss you, I think.

  Ditto, he says. Remember when we didn’t speak for five months?

  I remember.

  After I broke up with Jimmy Bain, Vince stopped coming to visit me, and we stopped speaking for almost five months, neither one of us wanting to give in and make the first call. I knew, though, that it would have to be me, that I was tough, but Vince was just plain stubborn. I told myself there was a difference. On the day of our fortieth birthday, I drove down to Akron.

  Bruce and Dylan ran to meet me as I got out of my car. “We knew you were coming!” Bruce shouted, hopping up and down, slapping his brother across the head. “Told you she would!”

  “Dad said you aren’t talking to each other,” Dylan said, younger than Bruce by two years, and quieter.

  “Where is he?” I asked. It was early June, a Friday. Sun sparkled through the green leaves, the feel of summer on the light breeze.

  “At work,” Bruce said, shrugging almost apologetically. “Dad says you aren’t talking ’cause him and Jimmy are too low-rent for you.”

  Why the hell did Vince go around telling them this stuff?

  “He’s not talking to me because he’s made all sorts of assumptions that are not true. You got the card I sent you?”

  “Yeah,” Bruce said. “Thanks for the money for my birthday.”

  “He was supposed to send it back,” Dylan said. “He told Dad he did, but he didn’t.”

  “He made me give him half not to tell,” Bruce said, looking at his brother, raising a fist. “Don’t tell I didn’t,” he said to me. “Please?”

  It was just like my brother to tell a seven-year-old kid to mail back money, not wonder if a kid could address an envelope and put on a stamp. Then again, most likely Vince knew Bruce wouldn’t send it back, allowed him this unspoken bit of rebellion. Vince appreciated a bit of rebellion.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t tell. It’ll be our secret. And I’ll make up for that half you had to give Dylan.” Dylan and Bruce looked at each other. It was okay now, now that more money was coming.

  “Thanks,” Bruce said, then looked down at the ground and kicked a stone. “Did you bring Dad a present?” he asked, pretending it really didn’t mean much to him if I did or not.

  “And why would I do that?”

  “Because it’s his birthday!” Dylan said, coming around and standing right in front of me. “And yours!”

  “That’s why I knew you were coming,” Bruce said. He stood right next to his brother, spreading his fingers out over the top of Dylan’s head. They were seven and five, and perfect, their skin just beginning to pink from the summer sun. They’d both have freckles in a week that would spread across their face like days across the summer.

  “Who’s watching you?” I asked.

  “She is,” Dylan said, nodding his head to their neighbor’s house, where a Mrs. Hathaway lived, sixty and hard of hearing.

  “She even know where you are?” I asked. Bruce shrugged.

  “Well, I’ll go tell her I’m here, and she’s off duty. Then you can help me unpack.”

  “Did you bring him a present?” Dylan asked this time. Presents were big things in their lives. They meant you were loved.

  “Yeah, I brought him something,” I said. “It’s in the trunk. Did he get me anything?”

  They both nodded, smiling. Goodness filled my throat, and I smiled back. Vince and I enjoyed the weekend just as if the last few months of not speaking hadn’t happened. But when I got into my car Sunday evening, he leaned over and looked at me through the open window.

  “Remember that time you got drunk with me?” he asked with a chuckle.

  “Yeah, why?” Usually I got his drift before it needed to be explained, but not this time.

  “You threw up in my hands,” he said.

  “Yeah, I did.” And then I knew.

  “I’d do it again,” he said. “Anytime.” We were both silent for a minute. “You need someone to fix that dick mower of yours? Have you even tried it this year?”

  “I pay a kid to mow,” I said.

  “Damn. We’ll come up next weekend. I’ll fix it.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  When he was killed, I wasn’t worried that I’d ever forget him, but that I couldn’t, not even for a moment.

  Almost to Columbus, I turn into a rest stop. It’s a holiday weekend and the place is overflowing. The sky is a vibrant blue, not a cloud in sight, as if it has forgotten the storm of just yesterday—or maybe the storm was never here. Maybe it was only over my house.

  We park all the way at the end of a line of cars, a good distance from the bathrooms. A man walks a golden retriever by us, its tail wagging, nose to the ground as if he’s discovered a whole new country. I almost got a dog once, but I thought a dog might get in the way of the things I do. I can’t even imagine now what I thought I did.

  I hold Larissa’s hand as we walk into the building. I want to tell her to not sit on the seat, but she’s too little to stand over a toilet. “Don’t touch anything,” I whisper as we stand in line.

  I open a stall door for her and she looks up at me, worried. “I’ll stand right outside the door,” I say. I wait a good two minutes before I hear a tinkle, then flush. When she comes out, I realize how badly I need to go.

  “Here” I say, placing her by a sink. “Wash your hands until I come out.” I squirt a handful of liquid soap into her hands. “Look, it’s pink!” I say, as if this is miraculous, and now she will be happy.

  Afterward, we use the hot air blower. Her hand is warm and soft as we walk back to the car. My mother will love this child.

  Over the past eighteen years, I have brought four different men with me down to a holiday dinner at my parents’. My mother liked every one of them. Two made it
down for a second visit, one for a third, but we broke up soon after.

  One of the reasons I don’t date anymore is because I can’t do that again, make the drive down to my parents’ with my new man, the hope that goes into those rides—telling family stories, hearing theirs, the way my mother looks at these men as if they might save me. It’s her look that makes the car ride back so uncomfortable.

  I no longer want to find love. I want to have had love, the history of love, not the possibility.

  I pull into the driveway. Vince painted their garage a few months before he got killed, and it still looks fresh and bright. I bet my father washes the garage monthly. “They’re nice people, Larissa,” I say. “I know they’ll like you very much. You don’t have to speak if you don’t want to, but they are going to talk to you. It’s friendly to talk to people, and they’re going to want to be friendly. Do you understand?”

  Larissa nods, her face showing concern. My mother walks out the back door and waves, a hand up high. Even from here I can see the sag of skin beneath her arm.

  “That’s my mother.”

  My mother moves slowly down the steps; she has arthritis and is a bit bent over. Her hair is short and gray, with one of those perms that older people get. She looks like so many other women her age that even in Cleveland I sometimes imagine that I see her in a store or parking lot. Sometimes I help those women who look like my mother. I open doors, help them load their cars. I hope someone might do the same for her.

  I get out of the car and wave back in the same way. “Hello, Mother! We’re here!” We tend to say the most obvious things in my family. Well, Vince didn’t, but I’ve always stuck to the program. Without him, the three of us are so white Protestant.

  Not anymore. I walk around the car to Larissa’s side and unbuckle her. She takes my hand and we meet my mother halfway.

  “Hello, Mother,” I say again. “This is Larissa, the little girl who I’m taking care of for a while. Larissa, this is my mother, Mrs. Marlowe.”