The Sound of Us

by Sarah Willis

  “I’ll wait outside,” I say. “In the car.”

  “You want a donut and something to drink? On me?” Michelle offers. She sounds kind and speaks softly. Each time I see her, she acts differently. I can’t get a handle on what she’s really like. Is she on drugs? Bipolar?

  “No thanks,” I say.

  “Maybe some to take home?”

  “Maybe,” I say, and Larissa grins as if I said yes. I had better watch those maybes. They’re going to get me into trouble.

  In the car, I plan out the weekend, and none of those plans involve coming here. I’ll take Larissa along when I interpret for story hour on Saturday, and I want to take her to Shaker Lakes to see the ducks. Maybe she can help me with the garden. Sunday night Polly might come to dinner. Would Larissa like her? It’s hard to think. What are they talking about in there? My house? What we eat, what we do? Or are they not talking about me at all?

  I wait fifteen minutes, then get out of my car and go back inside. Larissa has chocolate frosting all over her face. Chocolate and a huge smile.

  “Mommy says we can come every day and get donuts! Can we? Can we?”

  She set me up. I wonder if she got a job at a donut place with just this in mind.

  “Thanks so much for bringing her,” she says. “It meant so much I could give her this treat. They don’t mind me giving out some donuts after four. I made a bag, too, to take back. You like donuts, don’tcha, Larissa?”

  “I do, I do,” Larissa says, hopping up and down, full of sugar right before dinner. The older gray-haired lady stands behind the counter beaming as if she’s watching The Christmas Story or some tearjerker. Even the bald man over the cup of coffee is smiling. He’s missing a few teeth. Too many Goddamn donuts, I bet.

  “You know, honey,” Michelle says, “I don’t know if Miss Marlowe can bring you every day. She’s a busy woman and has lots to do, but maybe a couple times a week? How about that? I’ll save you the fuzzy ones every day, just in case you come.” She looks at me. “She calls the ones with coconut fuzzy ones. Don’t know if you knew that.”

  “I didn’t.” My hands are in fists to keep from spelling out very nasty words. I don’t eat donuts, fuzzy ones or otherwise. I eat lean meats, vegetables, lots of fruit, although I sure haven’t for the last week. Standing here surrounded by the smell of donuts and bad coffee, the isn’t-this-wonderful look on the gray-haired lady’s face, Larissa’s wide smile, I think of just walking out without her. Let Larissa stay in this world if she wants. I can feel my eyes begin to well up and I turn toward the door.

  “Don’t forget your bag of donuts,” the gray-haired lady says brightly.

  I turn back and look at Michelle Benton. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” I say. “Outside?”

  For a moment there’s silence while everyone trades looks. The glance between the bald man with the cup of coffee and the elderly lady really sets me off.

  “Now. Right now.”

  “Sure,” Michelle says, wiping her hands on her apron as if that might do some good. As if we might be shaking hands out there. “Larissa, you can help Margie put out napkins. Can you do that?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Come here, sweetie, and help me,” the older woman says. I turn and walk out the door, even more pissed. My wanting to talk with Michelle has now turned into Larissa helping to put out napkins. She’ll probably want to put out napkins every time we come. She’ll probably want to work at Dunkin’ Donuts when she gets older. Fuck you, I finger-spell. Fuck you all.

  I walk over to the next building so Larissa can’t see us talking. Michelle comes out and stands a few feet away. Wise choice.

  “I will not be bringing Larissa here more than once a week. Do you understand? You lost your right to control her life when you left her all alone. The law is on my side, do you understand that? I could refuse to bring her at all. Do you want that? Don’t push me. You better find some way to make Larissa understand she can’t come every day, that you won’t be saving her donuts every Goddamn day.”

  “Why shouldn’t I save my own baby donuts?” She stares right in my eyes. I stare back. “Why should I tell her she can’t come, if you’re the one in charge now?”

  “Because if you don’t be the one . . . if you don’t tell her she can’t come every day, then we won’t come at all.”

  “I just told her you can’t come every day. You heard me.”

  “Yeah, and then you said you’d save her donuts every day, just in case. I’m not stupid. I see what you’re doing.”

  Michelle folds her arms across her chest. “Two things,” she says. “One, I’m not stupid, either. You’re her foster mother. You’re supposed to take care of her till I get her back. Her social worker says reunification is the goal. Re-un-i-fi-cation. It’s a big word, but I understand it. Do you? And second? I thought you liked Larissa. I thought you want to do all this shit to make her happy. Seeing me makes her happy. Don’t tell me you don’t see she loves me. Look at her in there. You see her smiling like that a lot recently?”

  “She smiles,” I say. “We’re doing just fine, thanks.”

  “Yeah, I heard. She likes your cat, don’t she?”

  “Yes, she does, doesn’t she?”

  Michelle uncrosses her arms, swings them at her sides. Now I’m glad she’s standing a few feet away. “So now we’re correcting my grammar, are we?”

  “Not we. Just me, apparently.” A man walks by, goes into the donut shop. I imagine Larissa handing him a donut, saying, You’re welcome, when he thanks her. I grip my hands together and crack my knuckles. “Look. I’m not bringing her here every day. You’re right. I am busy. And I don’t want her eating a bunch of donuts right before dinner. And I don’t want to see you at all. You’re not supposed to come to my house or call unless I say you can, and I’m saying you can’t. That’s what Family Services told me, and I’m sure they told you that, too. We need some stability, quiet time, time to do homework, eat, play Chutes and Ladders, go grocery shopping, read bedtime stories without you interrupting us, she’s just started first grade for God’s sake and she needs . . .” I stop talking. Tears are running down Michelle’s cheeks.

  “I wanted to be doing those things with her,” Michelle says in a hushed voice, so quiet I hardly hear her. “I want to be helping her with homework. I wanted to take my baby to school. We been talking about it, planning it. She’s my little girl and I miss her so bad. I’m sorry what I did to her, leaving her alone. I’m so sorry I got mad at you. It’s not your fault. You’re doing a good job. I know you are.” The tears are thick and don’t stop. She keeps wiping at her face and her eyeliner is smeared all over her cheeks, making her look like a soldier in camouflage. Yet, even though she’s crying, she’s trying not to. I can tell. I’ve been there before.

  We stand there, looking at each other. The man walks out with his donuts.

  Finally I speak up. “I can’t bring her every day. Don’t make me the bad guy.”

  “Me too. Don’t make me the bad guy. Please don’t tell her I’m a bad mother or nothing. I made an awful mistake. I’m paying for it big-time.” She pauses and pulls up the collar of her T-shirt from under the top of her apron, wipes her face with it. “How often can you bring her? Could you come twice a week? Just for ten minutes. I’ll only give her one donut, and one to take home. I promise. I’ll tell her it’s my idea. I’ll tell her they won’t let me have visitors that much.”

  I pause. Have I been played, to agree to twice a week? But she looks so Goddamn sad and pitiful. I shake my head, but not in disagreement. I understand her loss, these tears she hates to cry. “Okay,” I say. “How about Mondays and Fridays, but it might be other days, if I have a job, or maybe only one day a week. You see her at Metzenbaum on Wednesdays. You could bring her some donuts then, too.”

  “Thank you,” she says. “I ’preciate it. Thank you so much.” She looks behind her, back at the donut shop. “I better get back.” She shrugs, a childlike one-shoulder shrug that sa
ys Don’t you think so? I nod. She smiles at me. “Thank you,” she says again. “You’re good for my little girl. I know she likes you. I can tell.” She walks into the store and in a couple of minutes, Larissa walks out with a bag of donuts.

  On the car ride home Larissa says, “That lady had a funny ear.”

  “What lady?” I ask.

  “The donut lady. She had a funny ear. She was nice. She let me give that man a bag of donuts. He got six jelly donuts and I picked them out. And I got to take a donut over to that man. He didn’t have teeth. He was sad.”

  Yes. The gray-haired lady did have a funny ear, a cauliflower ear. I don’t say anything back to Larissa. Something about her words nags at me. I try to think. I stop at a stop sign and wait for it to turn green. The driver behind me honks. Stop signs don’t turn green. They just stay stop and you have to know when it’s time to go. I drive on, more carefully now. I don’t try to think. I have a little girl in my car.

  That night, in bed, it hits me. Larissa sees the bump on a boy’s head, and the cauliflower ear on an old lady, just like we all do; they define what these people look like to her, but she doesn’t judge them, she sees inside them right away. Is this something kids do naturally, or is she an exceptionally wonderful child? All I know is, if I’d been like that once, I no longer am. It isn’t just the terrible mistake that Michelle Benton made that defines her for me, it’s her bleached hair and that skunky black stripe, her gaudy fingernails, her overdone eyeliner. If I saw her anywhere, I would think of her simply as the girl with the bad dye job and dismiss her as anyone with a brain, as if being smart is all that matters. And now I have a new image of her I can’t shake, as much as I want to. I see her now as Larissa’s mother. Flawed. Confused. Angry. Possibly inept. But she loves her daughter. It kills her to hear me talk about helping Larissa with her homework, taking her to the grocery store. How can I hate her? She loves Larissa, and Larissa loves her. I am only the person standing between them, until I am no longer necessary.

  Over the weekend, Larissa and I do all the things I planned. It’s a gorgeous weekend. The sky can’t possibly be bluer, the temperature more pleasant. Larissa takes to digging holes in my garden with a seriousness that makes me smile all day. She calls her mother Saturday night and they talk for an hour.

  Polly comes to dinner Sunday. Patrick can’t, he’s too behind on work and has to catch up before he goes back on Monday. Polly brings a box of enormous chocolate chip cookies, the type where the chocolate chips are really large flat squares. By now I know Larissa’s favorite cookies are Oreos.

  After she puts the cookies down, I give her a hug and we both get a bit teary-eyed. Larissa’s upstairs in her room, cutting out pictures of lions and tigers from old National Geographics to tape inside the cat house. The scissors are children’s scissors, with blunted tips. Again, I tell Polly how sorry I am about her mother. She thanks me. “So she’s really here?” Polly asks.

  “Yep. She is.”

  “So how’s it going?” she asks, her voice almost a whisper.

  I think about everything that’s happened since Polly left, and it’s too much to tell her standing in my kitchen. It would take an hour, and I’d have to whisper. Polly and I have never stood around my house whispering. “Well, it’s good and . . . it’s hard. I guess you know that. Want to meet her?”

  Polly’s silent for a second, taking in the fact I haven’t really told her a thing, knowing there’s something I’m avoiding. “Sure. Where is she?”

  I lead her upstairs.

  “Larissa, this is my friend Polly. Polly, this is Larissa.” I step into Larissa’s room. Polly stays in the doorway. Larissa looks up but doesn’t say hello.

  “Hi, Larissa,” Polly says, smiling—not just the smile you make to a little girl, but the kind that shows surprise and amusement. She’s looking around the room at all I’ve done. “Pleased to meet you. What are you doing? Cutting out pictures?”

  Larissa looks at me. I explain about the project to put pictures in the cat house.

  “Oh, my,” Polly says. “Look at that! Where did it come from?”

  Larissa looks at her lap. I explain about her and my dad building the cat house, how we put it together when we got home.

  “That’s a very cool house. Does Sampson like it?” Polly says. Larissa’s thumb is securely in her mouth. I tell Polly how Sampson has taken to his house, how much he loves the pink satin pillow. The doorbell rings. Everyone looks at me.

  “It’s the pizza,” I say, hoping to God it is. It is. We eat dinner. I’ve prepared a salad and cut up a pineapple for Polly and me. I put four baby carrots on Larissa’s plate. That’s how many she’ll eat. I offer her pineapple, but she shakes her head no. Polly asks questions, and I answer them. Everything is conducted with pleasant voices. My shoulders ache and I have to roll my neck to relax.

  When dinner’s done, Larissa looks at me. I tell her she can go back up to her room and keep working on her project.

  “She’s adorable,” Polly says as she helps me wash the dishes. The sound of the water running helps hide our voices and we don’t quite whisper, but almost. It’s begun to rain outside.

  “She does talk. You should see her when she gets going.”

  “I’d like to,” Polly says, handing me a plate to dry. Polly always washes the dishes when she comes over, and I dry and put away. She pretends she likes to do dishes when she’s here, and I pretend I like to do dishes when I’m there.

  “She’ll warm up to you,” I say.

  “So, anything you want to tell me?” she says.

  I look toward the stairs. “A lot,” I whisper. “But not now.”

  “When?” Polly asks.

  I laugh. “Good question.” I take the last dish from her. “I want to hear about your mom’s funeral. Let’s go to the living room.”

  Polly tells me all about it, starting from the phone call she got from the hospital. We talk in hushed tones, but it’s because we’re talking about death. When she tells me about how she sat in the hospital room for a half hour after her mother died, not knowing how she could ever get up and leave, I once again say how sorry I am that I wasn’t there. I say the same thing when she describes the funeral. This time she says, “Yeah, I wish you could have been there.” There is not an iota of reprimand in her voice, only sorrow.

  “The coma was the hardest,” Polly says, rubbing a hand against the back of her neck, then closing her eyes. “The slightest sound would give her seizures. We couldn’t speak to her, or each other. Even touching her. I did once, and she moaned. Did you know that? The brain does this strange thing. It’s why they keep the lights low and make sure every one is quiet in intensive care. I learned all this stuff I really don’t want to know.”

  She pauses, looking past me toward the stairs. “Larissa’s there,” she says, raising her chin. “At the top of the stairs. Just standing there. I can see her feet.”

  I turn around. She’s there. I look at my watch. We’ve been talking for an hour. How fast the time has gone. “Larissa? Do you need me?”

  No answer. I look at Polly. “It’s almost her bedtime.”

  “You should go get her ready,” Polly offers.

  I put my hand on Polly’s thigh. “Thank you for your help getting her, asking the mayor. Did I thank you enough?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, you did. I’m glad I could help.”

  When I walk her to the door, it’s still raining. I think about Michelle Benton walking away from my house in the pouring rain. I haven’t mentioned her to Polly at all. Ever since Vince got killed, Polly’s known when I’ve gone to the grocery store, when I’ve picked up books at the library.

  “Drive carefully,” I say.

  “Call me when you can talk,” she says.

  Monday after school I take Larissa to visit Michelle at the donut shop. I stay in the car, letting Larissa run into the store by herself. It’s still raining. I wrote a note for Larissa to give her mother. Dear Michelle, I start it, not knowing any oth
er way. Does Larissa have rain boots and a raincoat you might bring to Metzenbaum tomorrow, or should I buy some? Also, she could use a few more pants, if there are any more at your house. I just think she’d like her own things, if possible. Thank you, Alice.

  It took me twenty minutes to write that note.

  Tuesday I start back on my foster parenting classes after missing two weeks. The session is titled Separation and Attachment Impact. Three foster parents have come to this meeting to share their advice. The woman who wore the lavender outfit now wears an outfit with large red flowers. I listen to everything she says. I take notes. I raise my hand. “Is it ever a good idea to get involved with helping the birth parent?”

  She smiles, but almost sadly. “In what way do you mean get involved?”

  “I don’t really know,” I say.

  “Well, it depends on your relationship with the birth parent, and what their obstacles might be, such as drug addiction, alcohol abuse, anger management, and your ability to deal with those issues. How much can the birth parent be included in the foster parent’s activities? Any suggestions?” She hasn’t answered me, just deferred the question to everyone else.

  Several people in the audience suggest inviting the birth parent to their church, buying presents for the foster child to give to the birth parent for birthdays and holidays. But two of the visiting foster parents tell stories about getting too involved. “I’d never do that again,” one woman says. “Me neither,” says another. “I take care of the child, and leave rehab to the experts. No way she’s coming to my home.” The third says she’s never had a problem and has invited many birth mothers to her house for dinner. It’s two to one.

  I don’t even know why I asked. How could I help Michelle?