The Sound of Us

by Sarah Willis

  “You two doing okay?” she asks, instead of answering my question.

  “Yeah. We are. I think. She likes my cat.”

  “It’s good you have an animal. Kids like animals.”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “I can’t tonight,” she says. “Maybe next Thursday?”

  “Oh, that would be good.”

  “My kids will be with their dad that night.”

  This stops me. Jesus, I never asked her if she had kids. I know she’s married—was married at least. They refer to her as Mrs. Walker.

  “Oh, you have kids? I didn’t know. How many?”

  “Three.”

  I ask her their names and ages. They’re all under ten. “Well, can you come when you have them? Maybe that would be fun for Larissa?”

  “No, it wouldn’t,” Yolanda says. “She’d feel threatened by three strange kids. She feels threatened by me enough already. You sure you want me to come?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “Okay. I will.”

  Around ten forty-five, when I go out to my car to leave for John Carroll, there’s a piece of paper on my windshield, tucked under the wiper. It wasn’t there two hours ago. I open it and look at the bottom of the page. It’s from Michelle Benton.

  Jesus, she’s been here again! My skin crawls. No wonder she can’t find a job; she’s spending all her time stalking me. I look around, but don’t see anyone.

  The lined notepaper has a yellow mum in the top corner. She prints the letters like a little kid.

  I’m sorry about calling you and comming to your house. I no I shouldn’t of. Please forgive me. I miss my Larissa so bad. Shes all I have and now I have nothing. They took away my asistance because Larissa dos not live with me anymore and I cant pay the rent. I work at Dunkin Donuts now. Im there noon to 6. If you bring Larissa to see me, I can give her some donuts and just say hi to her. Its on Mayfeild. Im sure you could get there easly. It would make Larissa happy if you bring her. I know you want to make her happy. This is very hard for me, asking you to bring my own child to me at a donut shop. I cry at night and hope Larissa is okay. I don’t know how I can pay the rent and maybe I will move in with Larissas Aunti. Its a small place and I have to sleep on the couch. They won’t let Larissa live there with me. They say I have to find a place where she can have her own room. Our apartment is nice. Its to bad I might have to move out. So much bad stuff has happened sinse that day you called the police. I’m not blaming you but its true. I am sorry I swore at you and called the Police. I shouldnt of. Please forgive me and please bring Larissa to Dunkin Donuts sometime. My heart is dead when she is not with me. I feel dead inside and that is why I swore at you. Please forgive me.

  Larissa Bentons mother,

  Michelle Benton

  I have to be at John Carroll University in fifteen minutes. I can’t think about this now. Tossing the letter into the car, I look around again. She could be hiding behind anything. She could be in my backyard behind a bush or the garage. I double-check that the back door is locked and leave, telling myself not to think about the letter, but it’s all I think about. I interpret badly, screwing up several times. As we walk to Ed’s next class, he stops walking and asks me what’s wrong. He can read me too well.

  Sleep restless, I sign.

  Why? Restless? Ed signs.

  I explain about Larissa and her mother. He nods as I sign, waiting till I finish. Students walk by, giving us curious glances.

  Ed makes a face, considering this. Then, his eyebrows pressed down, mouth a straight line, letting me know he’s thinking this through, he tells me that Michelle is feeling alone and scared so she wants to make me scared, too, to even the score. He thinks that she seems pretty smart to be doing that, and I ought to talk with her.

  This is not what I want to hear, but I nod anyway, my nod conveying that I understand what he’s saying, even though I don’t want to do that. What I do want to do is give Michelle back her note, all the spelling corrected with a red pen, then punch her in the nose. I always wanted to sock someone in the nose, just once. Ed knows I’m thinking something I’m not saying, but he lets it go—only because he’ll be late for his next class.

  It’s his Shakespeare class. A lot of finger-spelling. I shake out my hands, crack my knuckles.

  “Can we have a hamster?” is the first thing Larissa says when I pick her up from after-school care.

  “A hamster?”

  “Would Sampson eat it?”

  I glance into the rearview mirror when I talk to her. This backseat stuff is stupid. “Well, maybe, if it got out of its cage. Why do you want a hamster?”

  “We have one in our class. His name is Tom. Tom’s a stupid name. I want a hamster and name it myself.”

  “Well, a hamster would be very afraid of Sampson.”

  “A boy named Jeffrey pushed me on the swing. He has a bump on his head.”

  “A bump? Did he get hurt?”

  Larissa points to her forehead, above her right eye. “A big bump that sticks out. He says it grew there. It doesn’t hurt him.”

  “Well, that’s good.”

  “If we got a hamster, he could stay in a cage up on the TV.”

  “I don’t think so. Let’s just stick with one cat for now. Okay?”

  She pinches her lips together and shrugs. We’re almost to my house, but I don’t want to go home. I love that she’s talking to me. There’s something about driving around in the car, I think, that brings out this chatty part of Larissa. If we go home, she’ll head upstairs and pet Sampson, who has hardly left his little house in three days. I decide to take Larissa to Dairy Queen, a good fifteen-minute drive.

  “Did you meet anyone else you like?”

  “Uh-huh. There’s a girl with a big round face. Her tooth fell out on the playground.”

  “Did she find it?”

  “Uh-huh. I helped her look. It was little. She found it. She spit blood.”

  Well, school is going to be interesting, it seems. Larissa tells me about everything, even the bathrooms with sinks that spray water out like a fountain, which I don’t quite understand. We’re at Dairy Queen in no time. We drove right by Dunkin’ Donuts to get here.

  Larissa and I both have vanilla cones dipped in chocolate. We eat in the car because the wind is kicking up and blowing old napkins and leaves around in the open space where the cement tables sit squat and firm like old men who refuse to move. I see it as a modern dance, those napkins, those old men, and miss who I was when I was young.

  Hardened chocolate falls off into our laps and the ice cream melts all over our hands. We use a dozen napkins, but our hands are still sticky. I go back to the window and ask for a cup of water and more napkins. We stick our fingers in the water and wipe up as best we can. “I’ve invited my friend Polly and her husband to have pizza with us on Sunday. She’s been my best friend for a long time. Sometimes she talks with her eyes closed, and she has a mole on her cheek, by her nose.” I point to the spot on my face where Polly’s mole is. I haven’t thought about that mole for a long time, but it seems like the best way to describe her to Larissa. “She’s very nice, but her mother just died.” I know I shouldn’t have said that the moment it’s out of my mouth. Larissa’s face goes blank. I’ve missed a smudge of chocolate on her chin.

  “Can my mommy come? She likes pizza.”

  My hand on the key in the ignition, I say, “Gee, not this time, honey.”

  “When?” she asks.

  “Well, sometime,” I say.

  “And we can have pizza?”

  “I guess.”

  “Okay, I’ll tell her.”

  I drive home a different way, not past Dunkin’ Donuts. Larissa goes upstairs to play with Sampson. I have so much work to do. I sit in front of the TV and watch Judge Judy. Judge Judy would tell me I’m nuts to invite that woman into my house for pizza.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Growing up on Oak, in the same house year after year, there was safety in fami
liarity. I loved watching thunderstorms from the window near the head of my bed, thrilled with the shock of white light, the boom of thunder, the buffeting rain against the window. When I wanted to be alone I’d go up to the cluttered attic, sitting in a corner by a window, surrounded by boxes of Christmas ornaments, National Geographics, fabric, and old shoes. The basement, which frightened me as a four-year-old, became, for me at the age of eight, the best place to hide in a game of hide-and-seek. And in this basement there was a small room with a latch across the door, filled with cans of tuna, soup, condensed milk, peanut butter, crackers, jars of water, blankets, pillows, cardboard boxes, and a white box with a red cross. It never occurred to Vince and me that this room was unusual until one day when we were sitting on the living room floor playing pick-up sticks, and Mrs. Patterson and our mother were out on the front porch, talking. As soon as they lowered their voices, we began to listen to them. Our mother was listing the things in the basement room. “You should do the same,” she added.

  “You’re getting carried away, Hillary,” Mrs. Patterson said. “Certainly they’re not going to bomb a suburb of Columbus.” That night, Vince and I would not go to bed until she explained exactly who might bomb us. She called in our father.

  We played in the basement more often after that, building a fort from old chairs and faded sheets, as close to that stocked room as possible, imagining ourselves spending weeks and months in there as the bombs fell, the only ones in the world to survive. (Certainly the Pattersons would never make it.) We bought lollipops and string licorice with our allowance for my mother to store next to the jars of water, boxed up a few stuffed animals and packs of cards. We were never to go into the latched room by ourselves, and respected that rule, until a few years later, when nothing at all had happened, and we sneaked in to steal our own licorice. By age thirteen, we’d eaten all of the peanut butter, and used the jars of water for science experiments, placing crackers in the stagnant water, noting how many days it would take saltines to disintegrate, as compared to Ritz. By age fourteen, the closed-off room was only a reminder of our mother’s foolish fears.

  In our senior year, Vince became involved in the antiwar protests, and I studied for the SAT. My room was a place of comfort; I knew where every pen was, what pile a particular book was in, what was under my bed. On the other hand, to Vince, his room was a place where he was sent when his voice or actions got out of hand, a room to confine him—except that he knew exactly how strong the porch roof was, how to hang from the edge, how to drop and roll.

  I’ve lived in many other places since then, each one growing familiar as I inhabited it; being alone much of the time, the places I’ve lived in took on the personality of a close friend. Those times when a man lived with me it never felt safer, only fuller. Then I found this house, larger than any other space I’ve ever inhabited alone. Jimmy Bain lived here for a while, and I’ve had relationships with men who stayed at times, but kept their own places. It is possible that I’ve made choices between men and my home, as a single mother might make between her child and a man. I have my spot on the couch and at the kitchen table. I know how to drain the boiler, reconfigure the electrical box, find candles in the dark.

  And yet, there were things in my home from those men who I thought, for a while, I loved; even the man I did love left things behind that I moved with me time after time. Some of these things were large, like a TV cabinet, a bureau, a coat rack, a bookcase. And these men had given me gifts: the hand-carved mirror with the golden sunrays, a pair of brass elephant book-ends, even some of the earrings I wore. I grew angry with myself for having so much of these men whom I had somehow failed, and I gave away everything, buying myself presents to replace the presence of men. This house has become my home, as much as the one I grew up in.

  But with Larissa living here and Michelle calling, showing up, leaving notes on my car, maybe watching me from behind a bush, my life no longer feels familiar, nor my home comforting. I feel the need to learn how to drop and roll.

  Friday morning, after taking Larissa to school, I walk around my house, checking for broken windows or boxes left on my front porch, or someone—Michelle—hiding in the bushes. That I actually do this appalls me. I go inside and plug in my phone. I’m going to stop acting so Goddamn afraid to let the phone ring, to mention Christmas or mothers dying, and we’re going to start eating healthy food. There’s my garden, too, those potted plants I haven’t gotten into the ground yet, turning yellow from lack of care. I will finish that garden this week. And I’m even going to ask the Rothburghs’ daughter if she can babysit after Larissa’s asleep, and go back to Pilates. I need my life back.

  I have three interpreting jobs today: a class for Ed, a class for Shaun, and interpreting for a deaf man who wants to buy a new car. Larissa will have to stay in after-school care until a little after four. I sign wonderfully all day, finding joy again in the process of interpreting, of knowing instinctively the way to rephrase English into ASL, and ASL into English. My hands and face come alive—as a dance, as art, as science of words and grammar, and once again I feel proud of what I can do.

  How much of this good feeling comes from the fact that I am simply me alone, doing my job, not at my home? I turn off that part of me that allows Vince’s voice to answer me. That part of me that is Vince’s voice. I concentrate on interpreting. I do my job well. My client decides the financing is not good enough and we make plans to go to another dealership next week. He thanks me. Helpful you, he signs.

  After picking up Larissa from after-school care, she once again chats nonstop, telling me about the hamster, which apparently gets to go home with a different child each holiday.

  “Can I please, please, please take care of him just one time?” she asks me. “Please?” She uses a sweet little baby voice that I seldom hear, and I’m charmed by it for a moment, then question her ability to use her voice that way. Is it some inborn instinct to manipulate with tone? Has Larissa learned that kind of thing from Michelle?

  Jesus, Vince says, it’s just a little girl asking to bring home a hamster, and I know he’s right. I’m overthinking things. Relax, I tell myself.

  “Maybe,” I say, and Larissa claps her hands as if I said yes.

  At home, Sampson’s on the couch and Larissa sits next to him. “Would you like a hamster?” she asks him. “He would be in a cage, but you better not scare him.” I’m about to head upstairs to check my fax when she says, “Why’s it doing that?”

  “What doing what?” I say, but see right away what she’s looking at. The phone and answering machine are on the table next to the couch. The answering machine is blinking red.

  “It means there are messages on my phone,” I say calmly, remembering I’m taking my life back. “People who called while I was away.”

  “Maybe my mommy called?”

  “Maybe,” I say, thinking, Doesn’t she remember her mom smells like poop? “Probably just people who need me to interpret.”

  “Can we see if my mommy called?”

  I brush my left hand through my hair, keeping it from spelling shit. “Okay, we can do that.” There are four messages. The first is a phone solicitor. The second message is from my mother. “We had such a great time with you and Larissa,” she says. “Your father and I hope you can come again soon. The boys got back fine and called to thank us. We hope you’re doing okay, and Larissa had a good first week at school. Please call.” The implication in her voice is that the boys called to say they got back safe and sound and to thank them; why didn’t I?

  The third message is Larissa’s mother.

  “Mommy!” Larissa shouts, rising up onto her knees. As Michelle talks, I watch Larissa. Her whole body listens to her mother.

  “Miss Marlowe,” Michelle Benton says, “please honor my request and bring Larissa to visit me at Dunkin’ Donuts on May-field. I will be there until six tonight. I will behave properly. I just want to see her. Ten minutes is all I’m asking. It would mean so much to me and to Larissa
.” She sounds as if she’s reading something she wrote out first, but then she adds, “Oh, Jesus, please, please let me see my baby.” Then she hangs up.

  I should never have plugged in my phone. I’m not ready for my life.

  Larissa gets off the couch, Sampson forgotten. “Oh! My mommy wants us to go to Dunkin’ Donuts to see her! Can we? Can we?”

  How can I say no? How can I explain my not letting her see her mother for ten minutes? I can’t.

  “I guess,” I say, with a shrug.

  She jumps up and down. “Oh good! Oh good! Let’s go!”

  Her enthusiasm makes my teeth ache. The last message is from Adam, the home study guy. He wants to let me know that he doesn’t have to come back. The receipt for the fire extinguisher and the fire escape plan that I turned in are good enough. He’s pleased to hear I’ve become a foster parent. “Good luck!” he says.

  Michelle stands behind the counter next to a gray-haired woman, both of them wearing aprons stained with powdered sugar, jelly, and chocolate. The shelves behind them are almost empty. As we walk through the door, Michelle leans over to the other woman. “That’s my little girl,” she says.

  “Take your time, honey,” the gray-haired lady says. “It ain’t busy. Take your time and talk to her.”

  I assume she means Larissa. I stay by the door as Larissa runs forward. A bald man sits at the small U-shaped counter to the left, his head bent down over his mug of coffee. He looks like someone who wants to be left alone.

  “Mommy, we came!” Larissa sings out, raising her arms. “We got your message and we came right away!” Michelle leans over and scoops up Larissa. I wince. She’ll be covered in powdered sugar. Michelle’s hair is pinned back with large black hairpins, and she wears a hairnet. Her face is still pale, but now it seems puffy. There are dark circles under her eyes. She’s probably eating donuts for all her meals, to save money.