Heft - By Liz Moore Page 0,94

sometimes a front door or a fancy car in the driveway. This is what my mother wanted for me, I think. Not baseball. This.

I see the garden down at the end of Lindsay’s driveway—bare, just a low scrubby plant left—and drive slowly past it. Field hockey’s over for the year. School ended an hour ago. If she’s not at a friend’s house she’ll be here.

There are no cars in the driveway, but hers could be in the garage. This is what I tell myself. Her parents won’t be home. I know their schedule now.

I drive up the road a little farther and pull over in a place that isn’t visible from Lindsay’s house. I don’t want to be presumptuous. In case she has told her parents. I can’t bring myself to park in the little spot reserved for me by her sisters, last time I was here—it is not mine anymore. I imagine that I am back in that time and that my mother is home, drunk but at home, waiting for me to return and feed her something. My mother, a baby bird.

Why I never took her anyplace I do not know.

I do know but I don’t want to know. It was that I was embarrassed of her, of the way she looked and acted.

But I could have said, Mom, do you want to go for a drive?

And then she could have said, OK.

Then I could have taken her to the secret places that I am fond of going to, the nooks and crannies along the Hudson that I have rooted out with my car.

I open the door and get out, avoiding my reflection in the car window. I’m still wearing the cotton shirt I put on to meet my father, who was not my father. I’m instantly freezing. I still smell bad. I find a wool winter hat under my front seat and put it on: it’s the best I can do. I walk back up the road to the driveway and then I walk up the driveway.

The Harpers’ house is big as ever. I keep waiting for alarms to sound, or for the front door to fly open.

I look up at the row of windows along the top. Again I wonder which is Lindsay’s. I walk onto the porch. An old wooden swing creaks over to my right. Its pillows are off for the winter. I ring the bell.

Let it be Lindsay who answers, let it be Lindsay, I think. I whisper it too, out of superstition.

I wait.

After one minute I ring it again.

But there is nobody there.

I sit on the naked swing over to the side of the porch. I am planless again, so I decide to stay.

After ten minutes there’s a crunch on the driveway and Lindsay’s Lexus comes rolling up the slight hill toward the house. I freeze. I do not know whether it is better to sit or stand. I’m shaking a little from cold. I have both arms wrapped around me. My breath is coming out in quick small puffs of gray cloud.

Lindsay is dressed for the weather, wearing a down vest. She hasn’t seen me yet. She shuts the door and grabs her backpack from the passenger’s seat, throws it roughly over her shoulder. She coughs. She does not know I’m there. I want to disappear. She slams the car door and walks toward the porch, swinging her keys on the end of a lanyard you can buy at the Pells merchandising table set up after school every day, in the gym wing. I have one too. I want to watch her forever from a distance, just like this. She swings them around and around until the lanyard is wrapping her hand.

Lindsay, I say, but it is too quiet.

Linds, I say.

She’s on the porch now, trying to let herself into the house.

She jumps backward, dropping her bookbag. Both of her hands fly to her chest.

Oh my God oh my God, she says. You scared me so much.

She looks at me. Kel? she says. Are you OK?

I shake my head. Not really, I say.

Where’s your coat?

I shrug.

Hang on, says Lindsay. Just hang on a second.

She fumbles with the door again and then it is open. I stand up.

She shuts the door behind her again. Oh.

But then she comes out, says, Sorry, I had to put in the alarm code, and gestures with her head for me to come inside.

Where’s your car? How’d you get here? she asks.

It’s parked on the road, I