The People We Keep

by Allison Larkin

  I don’t go in.

  The crowd from the parking lot slows to a trickle. Someone closes the doors and there’s nothing to see. I watch anyway. Like maybe my dad will sneak out the back. Like maybe it was all a big sick joke.

  Twenty minutes later, I’m still sitting in my car. The silence is making me crazy, but I don’t want to play the radio and drain the battery. I’ve already turned the car on twice to heat it up. I pull out my map, study the roads that look like worms tangled across the states and think about where I want to go next.

  There’s a knock on the passenger window.

  “What are you doing in my car?”

  It’s Mrs. Ivory. She’s got a kid with her. A little girl with pigtails in a pink dress is twirling around on the sidewalk, watching her skirt spin out. One of Mrs. Ivory’s grandchildren. She has about fifty of them.

  The passenger window doesn’t like to roll back up once I’ve rolled it down, so I haul myself out of the car and walk around to the sidewalk to talk to her.

  “Mrs. Ivory,” I say. The girl is small and hides behind Mrs. Ivory’s skirt when I get close.

  “Oh, Autumn!” Mrs. Ivory says, putting her hand over her heart. Her fingers are so thin that her old ruby ring hangs between her first and second knuckles. “It’s only you! I thought I was being carjacked.”

  I don’t even know what to say. I don’t think it will help to explain things. She was barely on this side of sensible when I left. What do I care if she thinks I’m my mother? What does it matter anyway? I’ll be gone again momentarily.

  “You have some nerve showing your face around here!” Mrs. Ivory says, her eyes scrunched up and mean.

  “What—”

  “Leaving your husband and this one.” She pulls the little girl’s hand.

  The little girl looks like a picture I saw of me when I was that age, when I still had a mother to put me in pigtails and clean dresses.

  “You broke his heart,” Mrs. Ivory says.

  “He broke mine,” I tell her.

  “Well, I don’t want to get into it,” Mrs. Ivory says. “You’ll have your day of reckoning.”

  The little girl doesn’t even have a jacket on. I’m worried she’s cold.

  “What are you doing out here?” I ask Mrs. Ivory.

  “Well, this one needs a snack,” she says, pointing to the girl. “So I’m going to drive her to my house.”

  The girl hangs on to two of Mrs. Ivory’s fingers and uses the toe of her patent leather shoe to poke at a crack in the sidewalk. She’s going to get scuff marks. I’m sure her mother will be mad.

  “Do you have my keys?” Mrs. Ivory says. She shakes off the girl’s grip on her hand and walks around to the driver’s side.

  “Mrs. Ivory, you can’t drive.”

  “Nonsense,” she says. “What do you know?”

  “I’m here to drive you,” I say, changing tactics, praying it works. “I’ll take you home.”

  I open the passenger door for her and she gets in without much more argument.

  The little girl watches me. She has icy blue eyes like my father, the same hard stare, and it feels like seeing a ghost. I open the door to the back seat. She shakes her head no.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Mrs. Ivory is watching you. I’m taking you to her house. For cookies.”

  That gets her and she climbs on the back seat. I have to help her up, but it’s hard to with my belly in the way. Buckling her in is also a challenge. She wiggles around and I can barely fit myself back there. I’m pretty sure she should be in a booster seat or something. She’s so little.

  On the drive to Mrs. Ivory’s house, the little girl busies herself sticking her hand down the crack between the seats. I hope there’s nothing gross in there, nothing sharp that could hurt her.

  “My son John-John won first place in the science fair. Did you hear?” Mrs. Ivory says. “He trained a field mouse to run though a maze. They gave him a big blue ribbon.”

  John-John has got to be at least forty now. Maybe fifty.

  “What’s her name?” I ask, pointing to the back seat. Margo told me when Irene had the baby, but I said I didn’t want to know anything about it. Maybe the baby was a boy. Maybe I’m only making ghosts in my head.

  “Oh,” Mrs. Ivory says, giving me a blank look. “Oh, that’s my daughter Mary Beth. Don’t you remember?”

  I know I can’t leave this kid alone with Mrs. Ivory. But it’s not even a problem, because when we get to her place, Mrs. Ivory gets out of the car and walks into the house, without so much as saying goodbye to me or the kid.

  “What’s your name?” I ask the girl. I turn and look at her, trying not to notice the way the flyaway hairs around her temples curl just like mine.

  “Ju-ly,” she says.

  “Julie?”

  “No! July!” She giggles and bobs her head back and forth, rolling her eyes. “Aprilmayjunejuly!” she shouts in her singsongy little voice. “August! September! Ah-tober! Ah-tober!”

  What kind of idiot names their kid July? April is bad enough, but at least it’s a real name. Thank goodness she wasn’t born in December or on Independence Day or Halloween.

  “What’s your name?” she asks, pointing at me, like I won’t know who she’s talking to otherwise.

  “April.”

  “That’s my sister’s name!” July says, kicking her feet against the seat and pulling on her seat belt. It sags around her. I’m afraid she’s going to slip through the belt and fall on the floor. I wish I had a car seat for her. And a jacket and a snack. I wish she had a better father.

  “I know,” I say, taking a deep, slow breath. “I think I’m your sister.” I back out of Mrs. Ivory’s driveway so I can return July to the church.

  July laughs like I told her a joke. “Why you have a big fat belly?” she asks.

  “That’s your nephew.”

  July laughs again. I watch her in the rearview mirror. She’s beautiful.

  “You’re going to be an aunt,” I say, just so I can hear her talk more. She’s really smart, I think. I don’t know very much about these things yet, but for a kid so little it seems like she has a lot of words and she says them pretty well. “What do you think about being an aunt?”

  “Ewww!” She wrinkles up her nose. “An ant bited my finger in the sandbox.” She holds up her hand to show me which one. It’s her middle finger and it’s really funny, this pretty little girl in her frilly dress, sitting on the back seat giving me the finger. I try hard not to laugh. I don’t want her to learn bad things. “I squished it,” she shrieks, pinching her fingers together to show me how.

  When we get to the church, Irene is standing in the street. The church doors are still closed and no one else is around. It’s just Irene, right in the middle of the road, red faced, crying.

  I park in the same spot, get out, and open the door to help July with her seat belt.

  “Oh my god!” Irene says, running over, crouching to hug July, lifting her out of the car. “Oh my god! April!” She looks up at me. Her eyes are so puffy. I almost feel bad for her.

  “What is wrong with you?” I say. “Leaving her alone with Mrs. Ivory! She doesn’t even know who anyone is anymore.”

  “I didn’t!” Irene says, sobbing and hugging July to her chest. “She was with my cousin at the back of the church and then she wasn’t anymore and I don’t— I—” She stops talking and just falls apart. Grabs at July like she’s making sure all her parts are still there. All four limbs, every finger, both ears.

  July is shell-shocked. She reaches for her mom’s barrette and tries to pull it out of her hair. Irene just lets her.

  “Thank you for bringing her back,” Irene says.

  “Yeah,” I say. I turn around to get in my car. I don’t need to talk to Irene. I don’t need to have this conversation.

  “I named her after you,” she says. “I mean, sort of. You know, like names that go together.”

  “You left me there,” I say.

  “I’m s
orry, April,” she says. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Well, that’s good. That just fixes everything.”

  “I had these blinders on,” Irene says. “I wanted a dad for David. I kept thinking that somehow your dad would turn into the man I needed him to be.”

  I watch her for a minute, watch tears rolling down her cheeks. “He was really good at not being who anyone needed him to be,” I say.

  The doors to the church open and everyone starts the reverse trickle to the parking lot. I don’t want to be their entertainment.

  “Take care of July,” I say, and wave to my sister. She waves back with her perfect little hand.

  I cross the street to my car and don’t look back. I’ll call Margo from the road to say goodbye. It’s easier that way.

  — Chapter 66 —

  It’s after midnight when I finally make it to Binghamton. I took every back road and lingered at rest stops, steeling my nerves and searching for words. The walk from my car to Justin’s door feels longer than the whole entire drive. The baby kicks. I have to knock for a long time before anyone answers. I worry he doesn’t even live there anymore, that I won’t be able to find him at all. But I have to try.

  Through the window, I see some guy with messy hair and sleepy eyes turn on the porch light. He opens the door and says, “What?” his face freezing when he sees my belly. “I don’t know you,” he says, loud and fast, like he’s reassuring himself, and I realize that I am every college boy’s worst nightmare. That I’m about to be Justin’s.

  “Justin,” I say, and it’s all I can say before the guy runs from the door and yells for him. I hear bare feet on the wood floor, harsh whispers. Someone says, “What the fuck?” And then there’s Justin, in his boxer shorts and nothing else. He closes the door behind him and stands out on the porch with me, even though it’s freezing. Even though a few minutes ago he was sleeping soundly with no idea that his child had the hiccups and was kicking my ribcage.

  “It’s not mine,” he says in a sharp whisper. “You have to leave.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I should have told you sooner.”

  “It’s not mine.”

  “It is.”

  “I don’t know what you’re trying to pull. I have a girlfriend.” The way he tips his head when he says girlfriend makes me think that she’s upstairs. Maybe that’s why he’s being so quiet. Why he won’t let me in. I step closer to the house, so if she’s looking out the window she can’t see me. I don’t want to make things any harder on him than they already are. I don’t want to hurt him. I just want him to know. I just want him to help.

  “I’m graduating,” he says. “I have a job lined up. I won’t let you ruin it. We used a condom. I always used a condom with you. It’s not mine.” His chest is getting red and splotchy from the cold.

  “There wasn’t anyone else,” I say. “There wasn’t anyone it could have been.”

  “Bullshit,” he says. “You drive around and sleep in other people’s houses and fuck anyone who looks at you the right way. You think I don’t know that?”

  “You’re the only one it could be.” I don’t know why I thought Justin would somehow be thrilled that I’m telling him the truth. Like I expected a fucking parade for being honest.

  “No,” he says, “I’m the one with a future to kill. With something you can steal.”

  “Justin—”

  “Don’t think I never noticed how you always took something. Money missing. Other stuff. I don’t owe you more.”

  “That wasn’t what it was. I always—I always liked you.”

  “You’re basically a prostitute,” he says, opening the door to the house, “and you need to leave.”

  “It’s a boy,” I tell him. “Your baby.”

  He shuts the door behind him and turns the porch light off.

  * * *

  I sit in my car across the street digging my fingernails into my palm. I can’t bring myself to drive away, just in case Justin will suddenly come running out and invite me in and put his hands on my belly and he’ll feel Max kick and everything will change for him. Everything will change for us. I would give up the road. I would give up my guitar. I would give up everything in a second if I could have a good home for me and Max. A real place with a floor that isn’t on wheels, where there aren’t any lies left to catch up with me. I fall asleep waiting and by the time I wake up, the cars in the driveway are gone and no one answers when I knock on the door.

  — Chapter 67 —

  Driving will fix things. Changing direction. Gaining distance, getting to the kind of numb where miles fill in for feelings. I like the way the road sounds. I like the rhythms that come from the tires and the windshield wipers, rain and the rush of wind, and how the sounds change when I raise or lower the window. My dad used to say that good folk music is etched with the rhythm of the road. I always listen for it in songs and I find it in the best ones. So when I’m driving, I pay attention to all the noise; I take in the smells and everything I see and everything I am and I start my song. It begins like a story in my head and then somewhere in the middle it isn’t about me anymore—my love songs aren’t about Adam or Robert, that song about leaving home isn’t about Ithaca or Little River, Missing You is about a made-up girl missing a made-up friend. It’s not about Carly.

  I can make a better song when it’s less about the truth of what happened and more about making everything fit together in the most perfect way. Then when I sing my songs in front of an audience, it’s safer. I’m not giving everything I have, laid out for them like a flawless map of my insides. I’m singing songs about a parallel me, in some other voice, in code they don’t even know. And when I’m driving and the words are all coming together, I feel the most like myself and like someone else entirely at the very same time.

  I drive to Ithaca. It’s my magnet. Every time I’m near, it pulls. It’s the place I’d stay if I could ever stay someplace. It’s the place I wish I’d never left. I’m tired of fighting it. I just need to go.

  Carly is gone, I’m sure. Rosemary probably is too. So I walk through The Commons. It’s one of those weird days when it’s way warmer than it should be. It’s even sunny. Like the weather is trying to fool us into thinking it isn’t November and winter won’t be long and cold and cloudy.

  I walk past Decadence. It’s called Juna’s now. It’s still a coffee place, but it’s not dark and moody and perfect anymore. It’s all yellow tile and big windows.

  I get a cup of tea from the bakery across the way, from the little lady with the long white braids. She doesn’t recognize me. She sees kids come and go over and over. I’m just another face.

  I sit outside on a bench and watch people, looking for faces I recognize. I see all the same types, but not the same people. It’s the next crop of college kids. The faces who fill in for the ones who have left. I know it’s ridiculous to look for who I’m looking for, but I have a flash of a perfect happy ending in my head. Of Adam and me raising Max together, making pancakes for him in the morning. And then the more I think of it, the less it feels like our ending. That’s not the life I want for Max, those lies I’d still have to tell.

  Adam was my port in the storm and maybe I was his. It’s easy to fall in love with someone when you need them, but that doesn’t make it real or right. I don’t think how we were in our time together is how we’d always be. There’s a way you hold yourself in when love and need get tangled. It’s hard to know what would last and what would wear too thin to keep.

  I hope the thing Adam remembers about me isn’t the part where I left. I hope what he remembers is that for a moment we shared a bright little corner of life. That’s how I will choose to remember him. But I want to believe that love can exist on its own. I want Max to believe that too.

  I stop looking for Adam and I just look. Watch the wind scrape dry leaves across the concrete and the way the light comes through the bare tree branches. I watch this guy with a wiry red beard, sitting at a table by the window at Juna
’s, reading a battered paperback, chewing on his bottom lip. And then I see Carly, through the window. Her hair is long now, black and past her shoulder blades. She’s wearing a blue dress and she has a big green tattoo winding its way up her arm into her sleeve. I can’t tell what it is. A snake, maybe. A vine. She looks like a mermaid or a superhero or a warrior. She looks beautiful. She pours coffee for the paperback guy. He says something to her. She throws her head back and laughs a real laugh. The kind you can’t fake. And I love that she looks so happy, so different and new. Like maybe she doesn’t hurt the way she used to. Maybe I don’t have to either.

  I walk back toward my car. On the way, I stop in Woolworth’s and buy a big envelope, the yellow kind with the metal clip to close it.

  When I get in my car, I carefully strip the lining of my guitar case and shove all my letters in the envelope. The thin metal clip scrapes at the calluses on the tips of my fingers as I press it closed.

  I scribble Carly in bumpy letters on the top with an old marker so spent I have to lick the felt to get it to write anything. I lock up my car and walk back to The Commons. There’s a crack in the bottom of one of my boots. A click when I step with my right foot. I’m not sure if I can hear it or I’m just feeling it, the way the broken rubber sticks to itself and breaks apart every time my foot flexes.