by Sarah Dooley
“I think I liked you a lot,” I whispered to the apartment building. I was fourteen, so of course I knew apartment buildings couldn’t whisper back, but I thought maybe it waved at me a little, just with its curtains. I gave it a wave and a soft, sad smile. It wasn’t a sad place, but memories felt that way anyhow.
At the crossroads, I looked longingly left, toward the blue-and-white trailer with my name sketched on the door of the hall closet, toward the cabin with its rough walls and my name drawn on the bathroom windowsill.
Then turned right onto Pendleton Street.
There was longing on this road, too, but it was different. Older and less peaceful. It felt like a scratch that never closed up no matter how many Band-Aids my parents tried to slap on it. This road, it hurt to learn, didn’t recall my step. It would have been easier to walk on the other side, where there was less gravel. If I had known in time, I could have crossed at the corner. It wasn’t like there were cars at this hour, stealing through the darkness like a burglar, or like me.
“But I didn’t know,” I said out loud. “I guess I did forget something.”
We stopped coming here once the whistle stopped blowing. When we lost our house at the end of the road, when we moved into the trailer park and started the string of rentals we had lived in ever since, none of us quite had the heart to turn right onto Pendleton Street anymore.
Still, as the lawns with their political signs and their plastic riding toys and their mailboxes gave way to vacant lots, to weeds and old beer cans and the start of the fence that would run alongside the factory all the way to the entrance, I felt a familiar feeling whirl up through my stomach and come to rest in my heart.
It wasn’t sun yellow anymore, but there it was. The railroad track snaking behind it, the factory holding its hand on the right. It was slightly bigger than the other houses on the street—not big in a fancy way but like it was simply overgrown, too big to be as fanciful as it was, a lot like me. I loved the way it looked at me like it remembered, windows familiar even though the paint had changed from sun yellow to moon white. I loved the way it still smelled of new paper and fried potatoes.
In the dark and the cold, I felt warm, conjuring memories of the gas furnace in the living room, the first place I ever drew my name. You lit it with a switch on top—Karen never let me touch that part—and it made clicking noises. Once it was lit, the fire sprang up inside. I was little, but I knew about fire, so I thought it remarkable that a fire could sit politely in a box on the wall and not burn down the house. The first few times you lit the heat in winter, you smelled gas throughout the house, a smell that always made Karen and Simon nervous, but to Natasha and me, it smelled like warm kitchens and fleece blankets. We stood together in front of the box of flames, arms outstretched with our blankets dripping off the backs of them, capturing the heat together. But even when we weren’t there to catch the warmth, the house held it for us, no cracks or gaps for the heat to escape.
This house got a real wave. There was nothing shy about it.
I stood beside the sign tacked to the porch rail and looked at my old bedroom window, all the way on my left, the house’s right, beside the factory fence. The window was acting weird, though. Instead of having warmth behind it, it felt cold and distant like it was staring at me, like maybe just this one window didn’t recognize me now. Something about the windowpane made me worried, and I clenched and unclenched my shoulders a few times, then started walking a little faster toward the factory.
As I stepped through the gate, hobbling a little on my sore foot that was making me wish I hadn’t walked so far, it occurred to me that I really didn’t actually have much of a plan. Sometimes I thought ideas and plans were the same thing, and it turned out they were different and now it was too late, almost five according to the light. I was pretty sure the light was accurate, because the clouds had finally started to thin and drift their separate ways.
That’s why it scared me so much when it started to rain, and I made a squeaking sound like Bentley and looked straight up into the sky.
Fat raindrops plopped onto my face and one had the nerve to go straight into my eye. The rest hammered into the soft dirt at my feet, making it sticky. I knew now that I had made the wrong choice. Slippers were not for rain. Slippers were for inside only; there was that rule I had forgotten. Now my slippers would be wet and so would my sleep clothes.
I had really messed up this time.
I started to run, covering my head with my hands like I saw people do in movies. I knew it was silly because a hand is nowhere near as effective as an umbrella. I got mad at myself even for trying, but my hands didn’t listen and stayed in the air. My slippered feet shuffled and tripped on the slick, wet dirt and I could feel wet blades of grass tickling up into the back of my slippers. It made me feel like I had swallowed something slimy.
“This was a stupid idea, Olivia!” I shouted as I ran for cover under the nearest roof I saw. My hand dropped from my head to cover Orange Cat’s collar in my pocket, hoping I could manage to keep it dry. Cats didn’t like wet. “You do not have very good ideas sometimes, young lady! Slippers are not for rain! They are to stay inside! Don’t you dare go outside in your slippers, Livvie Owen!”
My voice cranked up a little louder, but the roof I had found was empty and no one would hear. It was the oddest thing, my roof. It was standing by itself on stilts, with no walls. It seemed to be there solely to protect a bench.
The bench stirred something in the back of my memory and I shivered hard and did not sit, even though my foot was throbbing and my slippers were soggy. The night air cold but familiar on my face, I thought maybe I remembered this bench.
I smelled the paper. That was the strongest part, once the memory took hold. Somehow after all these years, the paper mill smell never quite faded from the streets and the trees and the sidewalks of Nabor, but back then it was different. More solid. Everyone hated it, talked about how awful it smelled, but to me it smelled like home.
We sat on the bench—all four of us, and that was the whole family then, although from the look of Karen, that was going to change soon—while we waited for the bus, back when there was a reason for Neighbor’s bus to run to Nabor. When the bus came, a big, smelly contraption blowing smoke and darkness all over the sky and scaring me with its round, staring headlights, Natasha grabbed my hand on one side and Karen on the other and we all climbed aboard.
“Don’t, don’t, don’t,” I said to Karen. I wasn’t very good at words back then, usually using the same one over again instead of finding a second or a third. “Livvie, don’t.”
“You’re okay, Livvie-bug,” Karen said. “We’re going to the city, that’s all.”
It was the simplest, briefest memory, but it felt so warm and so familiar that I wanted to crawl under it like a blanket. Inching my wet self down onto the bench, I shivered in the darkness that was getting darker as the clouds came back. Here I am, I thought. At the factory. Whistle if you dare. But the whistle remained stubbornly silent and I realized, now that I was here, that I hadn’t the first clue which building the whistle sounded from.
Funny thing about being Livvie Owen. Sometimes the more difficult thoughts, the ones like “I know the way to the paper mill, I might as well walk it,” occurred to me long before the simple ones. Here in the darkness, for the first time, it occurred to me that for a whistle to blow, a button had to be pushed or a chain pulled.
That meant a hand, which belonged to a person.
Tighter and tighter down into the bench I pressed myself. Closer and closer the dark pressed in around. Pressure started to build in my chest, in my stomach. Pressure and fear as I started to rock gently. My hands found their way into my hair and began to tug.
“This was a stupid idea, Livvie Owen,” I whispered. “Don’t you dare leave the house alone, young lady.”
Another thing, though, about being Livvie Owen. She rarely ever listened when I spoke to her. Usually when she did, it was already too late.
I rocked and tugged until the rain began to lessen, till the clouds began to go their separate ways. The shaggy fabric of my slippers was clumped together from the wet, and the backs of the slipper heels were muddy. My own heels were muddy and the feeling was cold and yuck and slime. My skin felt crawly, my muscles clenching over and over as I tried to release the pressure.
I wanted to go home, but walking here was such a bad idea that I did not want to walk anymore. “I’ve learned,” I said out loud. Miss Mandy was always telling me to stop and take stock of what I’d learned, and, once in a long while, I thought to obey. “I’ve learned something today.” Sitting firmly on the bench as the rain blew away and the light started to come, I remained planted like the trees overgrowing themselves along the fence line. My fists rolled up, pinkies wrapping around my ring fingers, thumbs pressing on my middle knuckles. I pressed my thumb knuckles into the spaces behind my ears so my hum got louder inside my head. “Hmmmm. Hmmmm.” Furious G notes, one after another. If I could stop the pressure, I could get this situation under control. If I sat long enough, someone would come and get me, like the bus that day. They were going to have to do it. I simply could not do it for myself.
Chapter 5
Orange Cat found me one day when I was lost in Walmart, and that was how he joined us. He was chasing a moth, quite unconcerned, through the lawn and garden section when I saw him, and the minute I did, I knew he was for me. He was only a little scrap of a thing then, and so tiny it was almost difficult to imagine him getting as fat as he later would. He was striped and his baby kitty belly was tight and bloated with worms. His meow sounded like sandpaper on rusty metal. I picked him up that first day, his stubby little legs sticking out in all directions, and he immediately bumped his face against me to claim me. Somehow, with Orange Cat cuddled up under my chin, his baby claws kneading, I was able to focus and find my way back to the toy department.
The entire three years Orange Cat was in my life, I felt calmer and happier than I ever did before and certainly since. Touching him was like touching my mud mug or sliding my feet into my slippers. He was pure comfort, like my nine blankets or my real estate book. He also happened to be my best friend.
The little collar around my wrist, his very first, was all I had left of him and I rubbed it and rubbed it, but it didn’t feel the same as petting him. I sat on the bench while the sun came up, and by then the sky thought the rain had never been. Maroon and dark purple worked up from the horizon first, followed by streaks of ice blue that shattered the blackness all the way up to the stars.
“Dumb stars,” I said to no one. “Where were you three hours ago?”
I figured it had to be seven by now. It almost never got light until we were all piled in the car, on our way to school, and that was right about seven. My slippers were still soggy and I could tell they were going to dry stiff. They would never feel right on my feet after this.
Some time ago, I had become aware of my hands. They were, quite on their own, acting out a finger play I didn’t remember. Something about a church and a steeple, I thought, but I couldn’t be certain. I had never been good at charades, although my hands apparently thought otherwise.
From the bench, I could just make out the world beyond the factory gate. Lights were beginning to spring on in houses. Cars were beginning to chase each other, out on the main road. Headlights dimming as the sky grew brighter. Windows catching the glint of the sun.
The factory whistle, apparently, was not something that wanted to be chased or caught. Six o’clock had come and gone and I hadn’t heard so much as a single note. My feet crossed and uncrossed. My hands continued their play, over and over, fingers tepeed like a building, then flipping to interlace like the people inside. I had never really understood the point of such games. I think maybe it was something I’d seen Natasha do once, but I hadn’t the faintest clue when.
I was calmer now and thought I could probably walk home, but I’d been sitting for so long that I wasn’t sure whether I should change my game now. If I planned on walking home, I should have done it three hours ago, when the world was still dark. It was light now. It was day. What if I walked on a different street than the one Karen and Simon used when they came looking for me? What if I got turned around and only thought that I knew the way home? Every five minutes I sat, I was five minutes closer to my family coming to find me. I was afraid by standing I would restart some kind of cosmic timer, so I stayed seated even as the wind picked up, even as the school day started without me.
And sure enough, not five minutes later, I saw the first headlights of the day arc off the main road onto Pendleton Street, bumping their way across the potholes to the factory gate.
Still, I didn’t stand. My eyes roamed to the trees leaning gracefully over the fence toward the Sun House. There was something to be said for putting down roots. I was a girl with a tentative grasp on emotions and there was no telling which ones Simon and Karen would be experiencing this morning. Beginning to rock, just slightly, I kept my humming to a minimum, just barely this side of under my breath. The car took shape and became definitely ours, which was a relief in spite of my concerns.
They must not have seen me right away, because the car stopped just shy of the factory gates and wavered toward the Sun House like it was going to turn in. It was not the same car we’d had back then. Our car back then had been a Nova and we lost it for a while. Three cars later, it was a red Toyota Tercel that finally laid its headlights across me and, that mystery solved, began bouncing once again in my direction.
I stretched out one leg and my knee crackled at the change of positions. A little more carefully, I followed with the other leg. The Tercel picked up speed, then shimmied in the mud and slid to an ungraceful stop by my bench. Doors were flung open and feet hit the ground. And still I didn’t stand.
“You’ve done it now, Livvie Owen,” I whispered, careful to keep this, like the humming, just under the surface of a whisper. “You’ve caused quite the uproar now, young lady.”
I needn’t have whispered, because no one could have heard me over my father’s strong voice shouting, “Olivia!”
And my mother right behind him, still in her slippers, with her hair down on her shoulders. She must have been as confused as I was about what was okay to wear out of the house, and when. “Livvie? Are you all right?”
They were both shouting and I wasn’t sure when I should answer, because they both kept asking. Simon swept me up off the bench, standing me on my sleeping feet so quickly I almost toppled over. I couldn’t have fallen, though, not with his arms tight around me. “Are you all right? Are you all right?” Over and over so quick it made my ears dizzy. I didn’t have language all of a sudden. I could have made use of a Velcro strip like G’s.
“Livvie, what were you thinking?” This was Karen, more sensible than Simon. She assessed me quickly with her eyes and figured out I was okay. “When we woke up and you were gone—Livvie—what did you think you were doing?”
This question, so much more interesting than a simple “Are you all right,” stopped Simon silent and he, too, stepped back to look at me. His warm hands stayed on my forearms and I let him hold me up.
“I—”
That one word, all alone, came back, so I said it two or three more times.
“I—I—”
“Let’s—” Simon said at the same time, talking over my “I”s. “Let’s get her in the car. It’s freezing out here.”
Between them, as if I might escape again if they gave me an opening, they led me to the car. The inside of the Tercel was warm and I worried about my wet clothes soaking up the seat, but I didn’t have the words yet to explain.
Karen guided me into the backseat and slid in beside me. “Don’t worry about the water,” she said in a voice higher than her usual one, like she couldn’t believe I would hesitate about something as silly as the car’s upholstery. Karen was like that. She understood without understanding. Knew what I was worried about,
but not why.
Simon was more of a “why” kind of guy, so it was him I fixed my gaze on as my language finally started to come back.
“I heard the factory whistle at eleven-forty-eight last night, and I wanted to investigate.”
Karen’s hands found my face. “Tell me you haven’t been here since eleven—”
“I went to Natasha first. I slept in there for a while. But when I woke up because Lanie was snoring so loud, and I went back to my room, I wanted to—I wanted to know. Because Natasha said maybe you have to be in a certain state of mind to hear the whistle and if it’s only whistling for people in a state of mind like mine, I want to know how come.” There were too many feelings all tangled up in my head for me to make sense of one or to settle on something. Karen stayed stiff, holding me at arm’s length as Simon put the car in reverse. We bumped and sputtered across the weeds and the ruts of the factory road, long unused by anyone but us.
“Olivia, what would possess you?” Karen pleaded. The crinkles around her eyes got deeper and then something horrible happened, something I couldn’t remember happening for a long time. Karen’s eyes started shining extra bright as if there was water forming in them.
I reached out one cold hand, finally shaken loose from its absurd finger play, and stroked it down my mother’s cheek.
“I made you cry,” I observed. “I didn’t want to do that, Mom.”
Her stiff arms folded into soft Mom ones, and she drew me tight into her embrace.
