Reminders of Him

I thought you were dead, Scotty. But dead people can’t crawl.
I walk back to the cab with the cross in hand. I set it on the back seat
next to me and wait for the driver to pull back onto the road, but he doesn’t.
I glance at him in the rearview mirror, and he’s staring at me with a raised
brow.
“Stealing roadside memorials has to be some kind of bad karma. You
sure you want to take that?”
I look away from him and lie. “Yes. I’m the one who put it there.” I
can still feel him staring at me as he pulls back onto the road.
My new apartment is only two miles from here, but it’s in the opposite
direction from where I used to live. I don’t have a car, so I decided to find a

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place closer to downtown this time so I can walk to work. If I can even find
a job. It’ll be difficult with my history and lack of experience. And,
according to the cabdriver, the bad karma I’m probably carrying around
right now.
Stealing Scotty’s memorial might be bad karma, but one could argue
that leaving a memorial up for a guy who verbally expressed his hatred for
roadside memorials could be bad karma as well. That’s why I had the driver
take the detour down this back road. I knew Grace probably left something
at the location of the wreck, and I felt I owed it to Scotty to remove it.
“Cash or card?” the driver asks.
I look at the meter and pull cash and a tip out of my purse and hand it
to him after he parks. Then I grab my suitcase and the wooden cross I just
stole and make my way out of the cab and up to the building.
My new apartment isn’t part of a huge complex. It’s just a single-
standing unit flanked by an abandoned car lot on one side and a
convenience store on the other. Plywood covers a downstairs window. Beer
cans in various stages of decay litter the property. I kick one aside so that it
doesn’t get stuck in the wheels of my suitcase.
The place looks even worse than it did online, but I expected as much.
The landlord didn’t even ask for my name when I called to see if they had
any vacancies. She said, “We always have vacancies. Bring cash; I’m in
apartment one.” Then she hung up.
I knock on apartment one. There’s a cat in the window staring at me.
It’s so motionless I start to wonder if it’s a statue, but then it blinks and
slinks away.
The door opens, and an older, tiny woman stares up at me with a
disgruntled look about her. She has curlers in her hair and lipstick smeared
to her nose. “I don’t need anything you’re selling.”
I stare at the lipstick, noting how it’s bleeding into the wrinkles
hugging her mouth. “I called last week about an apartment. You said you’d
have one available.”
Recognition flashes on the woman’s prune-like face. She makes a
hmph sound while looking me up and down. “Didn’t expect you to look like
this.”
I don’t know what to make of her comment. I look down at my jeans
and T-shirt while she walks away from the door for a few seconds. She

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comes back with a zipper pouch. “Five fifty a month. First and last month’s
rent is due today.”
I count out the money and hand it to her. “There’s no lease?”
She laughs, stuffing the cash into her pouch. “You’re in apartment
six.” She points a finger up. “That’s right above me, so keep it down, I go to
bed early.”
“What utilities are included?”
“Water and trash, but you cover electric. It’s on now—you have three
days to get it switched into your name. Deposit is two fifty to the light
company.”
Fuck. Three days to come up with $250? I’m starting to question my
decision to come back so soon, but when I was released from transitional
housing, I had two choices: spend all my money trying to survive in that
town, or drive the three hundred miles and spend all my money in this one.
I’d rather be in the town that holds all the people once connected to
Scotty.
The woman takes a step back into her apartment. “Welcome to
Paradise Apartments. I’ll bring you a kitten once you get settled.”
I immediately put my hand on her door to prevent her from closing it.
“Wait. What? A kitten?”
“Yeah, a kitten. Like a cat, but smaller.”
I step away from her door like it’ll somehow protect me from what she
just said. “No, thank you. I don’t want a kitten.”
“I have too many.”
“I don’t want a kitten,” I repeat.
“Who wouldn’t want a kitten?”
“Me.”
She huffs, like my response is completely unreasonable. “I’ll make
you a deal,” she says. “I’ll leave the electric on for two weeks if you take a
kitten.” What in the hell kind of place is this? “Fine,” she says, responding
to my silence as if it’s a negotiation tactic. “The month. I’ll leave the
electric on for the whole month if you just take one kitten.” She walks into
her apartment but leaves the door open.
I don’t want a kitten at all, ever, but not having to spend $250 on an
electricity deposit this month would be worth several kittens.

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She reappears with a small black-and-orange kitten. She places it in
my hands. “There ya go. My name is Ruth if you need anything, but try not
to need anything.” She goes to close her door again.
“Wait. Can you tell me where I can find a pay phone?”
She chuckles. “Yeah, back in 2005.” She closes her door completely.
The kitten meows, but it’s not a sweet meow. It sounds more like a cry
for help. “You and me both,” I mutter.
I make my way toward the stairs with my suitcase and my . . . kitten.
Maybe I should have held out a few more months before coming back here.
I worked to save up just over $2,000, but most of that was spent on moving
here. I should have saved up more. What if I don’t find a job right away?
And now I’m tasked with the responsibility of keeping a kitten alive.
My life just became ten times more difficult than it was yesterday.
I make it up to the apartment with the kitten clinging to my shirt. I
insert the key in the lock and have to use both hands to pull on the door and
get the key to turn. When I push open the door to my new apartment, I hold
my breath, afraid of what it’s going to smell like.
I flip on the light switch and look around, releasing my breath slowly.
There’s not much of a smell. That’s both good and bad.
There’s a couch in the living room, but that’s literally all there is. A
small living room, an even smaller kitchen, no dining room. No bedroom.
It’s an efficiency apartment with a closet and a bathroom so small the toilet
touches the tub.
The place is a dump. A five-hundred-square-foot absolute shithole, but
it’s a step up for me. I’ve gone from sharing a one-hundred-square-foot cell
with a roommate, to living in transitional housing with six roommates, to a
five-hundred-square-foot apartment I can call my own.
I’m twenty-six years old, and this is the first time I’ve ever officially
lived somewhere alone. It’s both terrifying and liberating.
I don’t know if I can afford this place after the month is up, but I’m
going to try. Even if that means applying to every business I walk past.
Having my own apartment can only serve to help as I plead my case to
the Landrys. It’ll show I’m independent now. Even if that independence
will be a struggle.
The kitten wants down, so I put her on the floor in the living room.
She walks around, crying out for whoever she left downstairs. I feel a pang

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in my chest as I watch her searching corners for a way out. A way back
home. A way back to her mother and siblings.
She looks like a bumblebee, or something out of Halloween, with her
black and orange splotches.
“What are we going to name you?”
I know she’ll more than likely be nameless for a few days while I
think about it. I take the responsibility of naming things very seriously. The
last time I was responsible for naming someone, I took it more seriously
than I’ve ever taken anything. That could have been because the whole time
I sat in my cell during my pregnancy, all there was to do was think about
baby names.
I chose the name Diem because I knew as soon as I was released, I
was going to make my way back here and do everything in my power to
find her.
Here I am.