Bring Him Down

1- Meeting Jenny

Back when I was a little girl, my mom took me on her knee and tried to impart some words of wisdom.

"Keeley," she said, rocking me back and forth in the darkness. "Money's not worth a thing. I want you to know that, honey."

Even then, I thought it was strange that she should say that, when money always seemed so important. She was always poring over papers with dollar signs on them, always on the phone begging for extensions on bills.

Occasionally, she had me go on my hands and knees, searching for coins in the crannies of our minivan. If I found enough, she took me through McDonald's for a Diet Coke. It always tasted the best with the windows down, the sun on our skin, blasting 90's pop as we drove home. 

Little memories like that have been flashing through my mind these past few weeks. I receive them almost as an impartial observer. There's no reason to cry. She's dead either way.

My social worker, provided to me by the state of Pennsylvania, is delivering me to my Aunt Jenny. I've never met her in my life. After Jenny married a man Mom didn't like so much, years before I was born, they stopped being sisters and became strangers. 

I'm in the passenger seat of the SUV. Clara, my social worker, is only ten years older than me— 27. 

When we met, Clara smiled and shook my hand, and said we looked like twins. We're both bleached blonde, both pale and blue-eyed, but all resemblance stops there. 

Besides that, Clara was completely put together— she always is— and I had— and still have—an inch of brown hair showing at the roots, heavy eye bags, and bitten nails. 

She was only trying to be nice. I know that. Everyone is painfully nice to me. But nice doesn't change the facts of my life: I'm motherless, and I'm going to go live with an aunt who's an utter stranger.

We pull up to a red light and Clara glances over at me. "Feeling excited?" she asks.

I don't dignify that with an answer. I just sigh. But Clara is used to miserable orphans, and keeps up a little stream of happy nothings in an attempt to draw me out.

She's unsuccessful. We're all the way to Olive Garden by the time I speak, and then it's just to order a Diet Coke.

Clara is tapping on her phone. She frowns, then sets her phone face down on the table and smiles at me. "Are you going to eat today?"

I roll my eyes. "Yes."

"Good. You know it worries me when you skip meals."

It isn't lost on me that if my mother had never died, I would never have met Clara. She's a fact of my new life. My whole world is cleaved down the middle— one half childhood, and one half a heavy month of a blurry funeral, a group home, my clothes in trash bags, and Clara.

"Hailey? I mean, Keeley?" Clara looks at me with concern.

Clara deals with a lot of girls, but it still hurts to be mixed up. "Yes?"

"You were staring off into space. You okay?"

Again I only sigh. But I'm saved from more prodding— a woman, about 50, thin and sharp, sits down in the booth. Right beside me. 

"Oh, Keeley! You're so grown up and beautiful!" She pulls me into her grasp and squeezes me. And doesn't let go. She's crying. 

I try to pull away, but it takes a few seconds before she relinquishes me. Clara has her hand over her heart and a sentimental look on her face, like she's watching a Hallmark movie. 

Jenny sniffs and pulls her cardigan tighter around her narrow waist. "I'm sorry, sweetie, it's just— you look just like your mom." She wipes at her face.