by Sarah Willis
I take a quick shower, barely three minutes, to save water for Larissa. Then she takes a shower while I get dressed. I don’t stand outside the bathroom door to hear if she hollers for me. I just get dressed and mousse my hair up, thinking that I need to get it cut. There is absolutely no time I can imagine doing that.
It takes a half hour just to comb out Larissa’s wet hair and I wonder if I’m allowed to get her hair cut. Do I need permission to do that? I didn’t get to that foster parenting class yet. How could they let me do this? The entire time I comb and brush and braid her hair, she asks me questions about Sampson. Could he be hit by a car? Could someone steal him? Would you get another cat if he didn’t come back? Maybe he’ll come back if we put his house together and put food in it? I’m stunned by the fluidity of her words, and realize three things. One, that she has been holding back so much it must have been painful for her to keep quiet; two, that means she’s even tougher than I thought; and three, if she ever stops talking again, all I have to do is let the cat out. I answer all her questions as best as I can with no coffee. She doesn’t seem to notice that I’m not as pleasant as I might be. Maybe she thinks I’m worried about Sampson. Really, all I can think about right now is why I didn’t make coffee when I had a chance. Then I think back, trying to figure out when I did have a chance.
She tugs on my hand as we walk down the stairs. “Come on, come on,” she says. She pulls me through the kitchen and we head out the back door.
It takes fifteen minutes to find Sampson. He’s in the same neighbor’s yard, near their garage.
I carry him home in my arms. Larissa talks to him the whole way. “You shouldn’t have gone out of the house,” she admonishes Sampson. “We were worried. I made you a house, just for you, and it has a pink pillow. You were a very bad cat to run away. I was very scared. You’ll like your pillow. It’s slippery and soft and pink.”
Safely inside, Larissa looks up at me. “Can we give him the house I built now? Show it to him? Do you think he’ll like it?”
I close my eyes, trying not to sigh out loud. I am just not a morning person. “Can I have my coffee first?” I ask.
She nods, but her eyes say she had hoped for better.
“Okay, let me just get the coffee started, okay? But we do have a lot to do today. We can’t take all that long with Sampson.”
She nods, as if she perfectly understands.
There is no way, once we bring in the parts of Sampson’s house from the car, that Larissa is going to leave here to go on errands without our putting it together first. Of course, it has to go in her room. I’m charmed by the way she says my room. I agree to put the house together. I tell her she has to have a good breakfast first. “Okey dokey,” she says, and I almost choke laughing. She giggles because I’m laughing so hard. I come this close to hugging her.
When we’re done putting the house together, Sampson takes right to it, curling up inside on the pink satin pillow. I doubt he will ever leave his little house again, let alone my big one. Larissa has to lie on the floor with one hand inside the house, petting Sampson for a good fifteen minutes before I can lure her away with the promise of new school clothes.
We go shopping at Kaufmann’s and get pants, shirts, shoes, and a new dress. The clothes set me back more than I expected, but they’re so much fun to buy. One clerk keeps looking at us, and I know just what she’s thinking. She’s trying to figure out how we’re related. It bothers me, her looking at us like that, but she works in the section where we find a dress Larissa loves. I’m cool to the clerk to the point of being rude, my point most likely going right over her head. Hadn’t I looked at other people the same way a few times in my life?
We eat lunch at McDonald’s and I get Larissa a Happy Meal. No one at McDonald’s looks at us funny.
After that, we go to the elementary school and meet Larissa’s teacher, Mrs. Cummings. Finally someone older than me, and all I can think is that she’s too old to be teaching first grade. How can she possibly have enough energy for a room full of six-year-olds? I’m beginning to understand just how much energy that would take. Larissa has talked nonstop all morning, but she becomes silent as soon as we walk into the school and she hardly says a word to her teacher.
Mrs. Cummings shows us all around, pointing out the room for after-school care. “We’ll have a wonderful time together, Larissa,” she says, as if Larissa will be the only child in her class. She is certainly a sweet old lady.
At the day care house, Larissa stands behind me at all times and won’t answer the simplest of questions. I take Larissa’s silence personally, as if it reflects on me. It’s three o’clock by the time we leave there, and Larissa is yawning and rubbing her eyes. This would be a great time for her to take a nap and for me to call Yolanda about Michelle if we were home, but we still have to go to the grocery store.
By the time we get home, she’s asleep in the car.
There’s a message on the machine. Michelle Benton. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m really sorry. Please forgive me. I shouldn’t of never said those things. I shouldn’t of never called you a name like that. I thought maybe you took her away so I’d never see her again. I’m really, really sorry. Please forgive me, will you? Please don’t hold it against me. I came to your house to say I’m sorry, but you weren’t there. I left something on the porch for Larissa. I hope that was okay. I left you somethin’ too. Really. I’m sorry.”
Jesus Christ. I go out to the front porch and there’s a cardboard box, and next to it, a store-bought cake, one of those ones with pudding in them. There better as hell not be some dead animal in the box I think as I gingerly unfold the top. It’s Barbie dolls, and Barbie clothes, and some other things. I see the yellow of the stuffed banana. My hand spells shit.
They’re just toys.
No, they’re a Trojan horse.
Hey, Alice, toys bother you, you’re in for a really bad time.
The cake could be poisoned, I tell Vince. Did you think about that?
Getting more like Mother every day, aren’t you?
Oh, shut up. I put the cake on top of the box and bring them both inside. I know it’s not poisoned; I’m sure she knows Larissa will eat it too. But she was here again. I need a dog. The dog could eat the cake, too.
I call Children and Family Services. Yolanda says I need to make an official report. She tells me who I have to call.
“How could they not have me on record as being Larissa’s foster mother?” I ask. “How could that happen? I really didn’t appreciate a policeman coming to my house.”
“These things happen, Alice,” she says. “I’m sure they’ll get it fixed.”
She transfers me to the new social worker, and I tell her the same story. She sounds as if she’s too busy to talk to me, which gets me even angrier. Isn’t this all her fault? I let her know exactly what I’m thinking. She says she’ll remedy the problem. I don’t like the tone of her voice at all.
“Will Michelle Benton still be able to visit with Larissa tomorrow?” I ask, as if this is surely out of the question now.
“Yes, she will,” the new social worker says.
“Well, I hope she behaves. Larissa is getting so much better. She’s talking up a storm. Did you know she wasn’t talking before?”
“Before what?”
“Before she came to stay with me.”
“For how long wasn’t she talking?”
Don’t you have this on record? I want to shout. “Almost six weeks,” I say.
“And now she is? Talking?”
“Yes, quite a bit.”
“Well, that’s good.”
“Yes, it is. You will fix those records, so the police don’t come pounding on my door again?”
“I certainly will, Mrs. Marlowe.”
“It’s Miss Marlowe. Please get that right too. Write these things down if you need to.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I huff. I actually huff. “Thank you.” And I hang up.
&nbs
p; My hand spells bitch, but I don’t mean her.
When I show Larissa the box of toys, she runs to the front door.
“Mommy?”
“She’s not here,” I say as she looks out the door. “She just left the box.”
“She didn’t wait to see me?” Larissa asks.
“She probably was very busy. She probably just stopped on her way to—”
Larissa whirls away from the door. “Who cares! Who cares anyway! She sucks! She stinks like poop! I don’t want her to wait for me anyway! I don’t want her to be my mommy!”
Larissa runs up the steps. Her bedroom door slams. Then more things slam. I take the cake and put it in the refrigerator.
Larissa comes down an hour later when I call her for dinner. Her jaw is so clamped shut she doesn’t even put her thumb in her mouth. We don’t speak as we eat, but just as she’s finishing her macaroni, I say, “You know, Larissa, your mother does love you.” Michelle owes me big-time for this. Her name tastes like spit.
Larissa looks up at me, dry-eyed. She shakes her head back and forth. I nod once. “Yes, she does,” I say.
Larissa’s face stays stony. Outside, the Bonchek children play badminton. “Get it, Margo!” “Yes!” “Watch this!” Someone laughs.
As Larissa brushes her teeth for bed, I bring the box of toys up to her room. The top is opened, not folded shut the way I left it. I look inside. All the Barbies’ heads are missing, the plastic formed bodies even more grotesque with that nubby little neck naked and headless. They look less broken than purposely obscene. They are the embodiment of the words Fuck you. I close the box, put it in the closet. School starts tomorrow. What will she learn there that will help her?
Chapter Twenty
The next morning, we wake at six-thirty. Larisa has to take her shower while I pack her a paper bag lunch, then I get her dressed and fed. It takes forever to braid her hair just as she likes it, and she changes clothes three times. She’s nervous and quiet. I like the quiet at this time in the morning.
As I drive, I tell Larissa how I’ll pick her up right after school and take her downtown to visit with her mother, and that after that she’ll spend a bit of time talking with a counselor.
“What’s a counselor?” she asks.
“Just someone to talk to.”
“I don’t want to talk to no one.”
“Then don’t,” I say, then hear what I said. “I mean, you don’t have to tell her anything you don’t want to, but she may be very nice. Just see how it goes, okay?”
She doesn’t nod, just pinches her lips together. Maybe the counselor knows sign language, I think.
I walk Larissa over to a group of students standing outside by the flagpole, near a balloon with her teacher’s name. “There’s your teacher,” I say, pointing to the elderly lady who’s chatting with a little girl. Her face shows more animation than I’m even capable of at this time in the morning. “Remember her from yesterday?”
Larissa nods, a small, hesitant nod.
“You’ll do great. I’ll wait here till you go inside.”
She’s brought Lucy. Her teacher said she could. She is, though, the only child with a stuffed animal. I’ll tear apart any kid that teases her.
My first job of the day, Ed’s theater class, doesn’t start until ten so I go home and shower, then try to catch up on my paperwork. Only when I sit down at my desk, feel the familiar shape of my life, do I remember Polly. Her mother’s funeral is today. I haven’t even sent flowers. Please forgive me, I think. Please.
I try calling her mom’s house, but there’s no answer. I order a huge bouquet.
When I pick up Larissa after school, she’s standing in the spot we agreed on, alone, children playing behind her on the playground. She’s holding Lucy, thumb in her mouth. Her narrowed eyes and pressed lips say she is mad at the whole world.
“How was it?” I ask, and offer out my hand. She doesn’t take it. She doesn’t even look at me. “I’m sorry if it didn’t go well. First days are always tough. We have to get you downtown now, to visit your mother.”
Larissa starts walking quickly in the direction of my car. I follow her, catch up, and we walk side by side. I open the back door, and she climbs in.
We make it to the Metzenbaum Center just in time and I park right in front of the building, illegally, so I can run back out and get to my next job. Looking around the waiting room, I don’t see Michelle Benton. I’m torn between hoping she doesn’t show up, and knowing that I’ll kill her if she doesn’t. I leave Larissa with her social worker, who assures me that everything’s fixed with the records, and that I won’t have any more problems.
Want to bet, I think as I rush back out to the car.
I’ve got a ticket. The policeman is just walking off. I make it to the bank ten minutes late and apologize to everyone a hundred times.
Back at Metzenbaum, I find Larissa sitting with a woman whom I’ve never seen before. Younger than me. She explains that she’s Larissa’s counselor, and asks if I can talk to her just a moment. I want to say, Make this quick, looking around for Michelle Benton. I can’t go ten minutes without thinking about that woman.
We move away from Larissa. “She didn’t talk much,” her counselor tells me, to which I just nod. She gives me this look that says, I understand why you nod instead of talk to me. I want to roll my eyes, see what she thinks of that. “But, from what I did get, she likes you, thinks you’re taking good care of her.” Now I like her, and smile. “She does want to go home to her mother, but most children do.” Now I’m just tired. Really tired. “Just keep doing what you’re doing,” she advises, and I nod. We make an appointment for the next week. I have a job I will have to cancel to get here on time.
“Did her mother show up?” I ask.
“Yes, she did. It seemed to go fine.”
“Her mother’s been a bit of trouble for me,” I say.
“Yes, I know. I talked to her about it. It’s understandable, what she’s going through right now. It would be nice if you could be as understanding as you possibly can, but don’t allow her to interfere with what you need to accomplish for Larissa.”
Mumbo-jumbo, I think. Easy to say.
“Fine, thanks.” Larissa and I leave. She doesn’t say a word in the car, no matter what I ask. I give up pretty quickly.
I want to make something healthy for dinner, but when I suggest veggie burgers and green beans, Larissa looks at me as if I have suggested we eat eyeballs.
“My mother made me eat tongue once,” I say.
She cocks her head and squints one eye.
“Yeah, tongue,” I say, sticking mine out at her. “A cow’s tongue. They’re bigger than ours, and gross.” I say all this with my tongue still out, and she smiles a little.
“How about pancakes and scrambled eggs?” I offer, and she nods.
Larissa helps make the pancakes. I never ask her about her visit with her mother.
After I put Larissa to bed, I call Polly’s mother’s house. Polly answers the phone.
“It’s me,” I say. “How was it?” I don’t say the word funeral, but my hand spells it.
“Well, it was really very lovely, if you can say a funeral is lovely. It was in the small chapel she always liked so much. The minister knew her pretty well. He did a great job.”
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.”
“I understand,” she says.
“Did anyone else speak besides the minister?” I remember Polly’s mother had a brother, but I can’t remember if he’s still alive.
“Yeah,” she says. “I did.”
I hang my head down, close my eyes.
“It’s okay,” she says. “I understand. Really. So, how is she? Is she really living with you?”
“Yeah. She is. It’s tough, though. It can be really tough.”
Now she doesn’t say anything.
“I’m so selfish, Polly. Here you’re going through . . . through your mom dying, and I’m not there for you, and I
’m thinking about how I need to talk to you about all this stuff that’s happening with Larissa.”
“I want to hear all about it. I’ll be coming home Friday. We’ll talk.”
“And I want to hear about . . . you know. How you are.”
“Yeah.”
“Can I make you dinner? Sunday? Could you and Patrick come then?”
She doesn’t answer right away. “Maybe,” she says. “That would be nice. I’ll call you when I get back.”
We say good-bye, and I sit on the couch, unable to read or watch TV. Sorry, I spell out with my hand. Then I sign it, a circular motion of an A against my chest.
Once again we wake early, get ready, and I drive Larissa to school, walk her to the playground. She doesn’t bring Lucy today. We haven’t talked about yesterday, how school went, we haven’t talked much at all.
You’ve been an interpreter too long, Vince says. Just say something. Don’t be so Goddamn worried if it’s the wrong thing.
Yeah, I think. Like I should definitely tell her to look both ways before crossing the street. I wince.
“Do you want me to wait with you until the bell rings?” I ask.
She nods.
“Okay. I will.” We sit on a bench. There are a few mothers with young children, and we nod to each other. Do they know I’m only a foster mother? How quickly will that news spread?
“Give them a chance,” I say to Larissa. The bell rings. Kids line up. Larissa walks to a line of kids, and I hope she’s in the right one.
Ed’s Thursday class isn’t until eleven-seventeen, and once again I work through the pile of notes and messages. There’s a message from Elaine, and I call her back, agree to two more jobs, cancel one, and refuse another because it’s when I have to be at foster parenting class next Tuesday morning. Then I call Yolanda Walker at work. I ask her if she wants to come over for dinner tonight. “I’ll order pizza,” I say. “Larissa loves pizza.”