Reminders of Him

negative one now.
My door swings open, and I immediately sit up. The girl from the
stairs walks into my apartment uninvited. “Why are you crying?” She

---

closes the door behind her and leans against it, scanning my apartment with
curious eyes. “Why don’t you have any stuff?”
Even though she just barged in without permission, I’m too sad to be
upset about it. She doesn’t have boundaries. Good to know.
“I just moved in,” I say, explaining my lack of stuff.
The girl walks to my refrigerator and opens it. She sees the half-eaten
package of Lunchables I left this morning, and she grabs it. “Can I have
this?”
At least she waits for permission before she eats it. “Sure.”
She takes a bite out of a cracker, but then her eyes get wide and she
tosses the Lunchables on the counter. “Oh, you have a kitten!” She walks
over to the kitten and picks her up. “My mom won’t let me have a kitten—
did you get it from Ruth?”
Any other time, I’d welcome her. Really. But I just don’t have the
strength to be friendly during one of the worst moments of my life. I need
to have a decent breakdown, and I can’t do that with her here. “Can you
please go?” I say it as nicely as possible, but asking someone to leave you
alone can never not sting.
“One time when I was like five, I’m seventeen now, but when I was
five, I had a kitten, but it got worms and died.”
“I’m sorry.” She still hasn’t closed the refrigerator.
“What’s her name?”
“I haven’t named her yet.” Did she not hear me ask her to leave?
“Why are you so poor?”
“What makes you think I’m poor?”
“You don’t have any food or a bed or stuff.”
“I’ve been in prison.” Maybe that’ll scare her off.
“My dad is in prison. Do you know him?”
“No.”
“But I haven’t even told you his name.”
“I was in an all-female prison.”
“Able Darby. That’s his name, do you know him?”
“No.”
“Why are you crying?”
I get off the mattress and walk to the refrigerator and shut it.
“Did someone hurt you? Why are you crying?”

---

I can’t believe I’m going to answer her. I feel like this makes me even
more pathetic, to just vent to a random teenager who walked into my
apartment without my permission. But it seems like it would feel good to
say it out loud. “I have a daughter, and no one will let me see her.”
“Did she get kidnapped?”
I want to say yes, because sometimes it feels that way. “No. My
daughter lived with people while I was in prison, but now that I’m out, they
don’t want me to see her.”
“But you want to?”
“Yes.”
She kisses the kitten on top of its head. “Maybe you should be glad. I
don’t really like little kids. My brother puts peanut butter in my shoes
sometimes. What’s your name?”
“Kenna.”
“I’m Lady Diana.”
“Is that really your name?”
“No, it’s Lucy, but I like Lady Diana better.”
“Do you work at the grocery store?” I ask her, pointing at her shirt.
She nods.
“I start work there on Monday.”
“I’ve worked there for almost two years. I’m saving to buy a
computer, but I haven’t saved anything yet. I’m gonna go eat dinner now.”
She hands me the kitten and starts walking toward my door. “I have some
sparklers. When it gets dark later, do you want to light them with me?”
I lean against my counter and sigh. I don’t want to say no, but I also
have a feeling my breakdown is going to last at least until morning. “Maybe
another time.”
Lady Diana leaves my apartment. I lock the door this time, and then I
immediately grab my notebook and write a letter to Scotty because it’s the
only thing that can prevent me from crumbling.
Dear Scotty,
I wish I could tell you what our daughter looks like, but I
still have no idea.

---

Maybe it’s my fault for not being honest with Ledger
about who I was last night. He seemed to take that as
some type of betrayal when he realized who I was today.
I didn’t even get to see your parents because he was so
angry I was there.
I just wanted to see our daughter, Scotty. I just
wanted to look at her. I’m not here to take her from them,
but I don’t think Ledger or your parents have any idea
what it’s like to carry a human inside of you for months,
only to have that tiny little human ripped away from you
before you even get to meet them.
Did you know that when an incarcerated woman
gives birth, if they’re almost finished with their sentence,
they sometimes get to keep their babies with them? This
mostly happens in jails, where the sentences are shorter.
It sometimes happens in prisons, but it’s rare.
In my case, I was just beginning my sentence when I
gave birth to Diem, which made it to where she wasn’t
allowed to stay with me in the prison. She was a preemie,
and as soon as she was born, they noticed her breathing
wasn’t where they wanted it to be, so they immediately
whisked her away and transferred her to the NICU. They
gave me an aspirin, some oversized pads, and eventually
took me back to the facility with empty arms and an
empty womb.
Depending on the circumstances, some mothers are
allowed to pump, and their breastmilk is stored and
delivered to their baby. I wasn’t one of the lucky ones. I
wasn’t allowed to pump, and I wasn’t allowed anything
that would help my milk dry up.
Five days after Diem was born, I was in the prison
library, crying in a corner because my milk had come in,
my clothes were soaking wet, and I was still emotionally
devastated and physically spent.
That’s when I met Ivy.

---

She had been there for a while, knew all the guards
well, all the rules, how far she could bend them and who
would let her. She saw me crying while holding a book
about postpartum depression. Then she saw my soaking
wet shirt, so she took me to a bathroom and helped me
clean up. She meticulously folded up paper towels into
squares and handed them to me one by one while I
layered them inside my bra.
“Boy or girl?” she asked.
“Girl.”
“What’d you name her?”
“Diem.”
“That’s a good name. A strong name. She healthy?”
“She was a preemie, so they took her as soon as she
was born. But a nurse said she was doing well.”
Ivy winced when I said that. “They gonna let you see
her?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
Ivy shook her head, and I didn’t know it then, but Ivy
had a way of communicating entire conversations
through all the different ways she shook her head. I’d
slowly learn them over the years, but that day, I didn’t
know the way she shook her head translated to, “Those
bastards.”
She helped me dry my shirt, and when we got back to
the library, she sat me back down and said, “Here’s what
you’re gonna do. You’re gonna read every book in this
library. Pretty soon you’ll start to live in the lavish worlds
inside these books, rather than the bleak world inside this
prison.”
I was never a big reader. I didn’t like her plan. I
nodded, but she could tell I wasn’t listening to her.
She pulled a book off the shelf and handed it to me.
“They took your baby from you. You won’t ever get over
that. So, you decide right now, right here. Are you gonna
live in your sadness or are you gonna die in it?”

---

That question punched me in my stomach—the
stomach that no longer contained my daughter. Ivy
wasn’t giving me a pep-talk. In a lot of ways, it was the
opposite. She wasn’t saying I would move past what I
was feeling, or that things would get easier. She was
telling me this was it—the misery I felt was my new
normal. I could either learn to live with it or I could let it
consume me.
I swallowed and said, “I’m gonna live in it.”
Ivy smiled and squeezed my arm. “There you go,
Momma.”
Ivy didn’t know it, but she saved me that day with
her brutal honesty. She was right. My normal would
never be the same. It hadn’t been the same since I lost
you, and losing our daughter to your parents just pushed
me even further from center.
The way I felt when they took her from me back then
is the exact same defeated misery I feel right now.
Ledger has no idea how much his actions tonight
have broken the last few pieces of me.
Ivy has no idea how much her words from almost
five years ago are still somehow saving me.
Maybe that’s what I’ll name the kitten. Ivy.
Love,
Kenna

---

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LEDGER
I’ve received three calls from Patrick on my drive back to the house, but I
haven’t answered any of them because I’m too angry at Kenna to have a
conversation about her over the phone. I was hoping the Landrys didn’t
hear her beating on their door, but it’s obvious they did.
Patrick is waiting in my yard when I pull back into my driveway. He’s
talking before I even get out of the truck.
“What does she want?” he asks. “Grace is a mess. Do you think she’s
going to try to fight the termination? The lawyer said it would be
impossible.” He’s still spitting questions at me as he follows me into the
kitchen.
I toss my keys on the table. “I don’t know, Patrick.”
“Should we get a restraining order?”
“I don’t think you have grounds to do that. She hasn’t threatened
anyone.”
He paces the kitchen, and I watch as he seems to grow smaller and
smaller. I pour him a glass of water and hand it to him. He downs the whole
thing and then takes a seat on one of the barstools. He drops his head into
his hands. “The last thing Diem needs is for that woman to be in and out of
her life. After what she did to Scotty . . . we can’t . . .”
“She won’t show up here again,” I say. “She’s too afraid of having the
cops called on her.”
My comment only heightens his worry. “Why? Is she trying to keep
her record clean in case she can take us to court?”
“She lives in a shithole. I doubt she has money to hire an attorney.”
He stands up. “She’s living here?”

---

I nod. “Paradise Apartments. I don’t know how long she plans to
stay.”
“Shit,” he mutters. “This is going to destroy Grace. I don’t know what
to do.”
I don’t have any advice for him. As involved as I am in her life, I’m
not Diem’s father. I haven’t been the one raising her since she was born.
This isn’t my fight, even though I’ve somehow immersed myself in the
middle of it.
I may not have legal say, but I have opinions. Strong ones. As much as
the entire situation doesn’t have one single positive outcome for all parties
involved, the simple truth is that being a part of Diem’s life is a privilege,
and Kenna lost that privilege the night she decided her freedom was worth
more than Scotty’s life.
Grace isn’t strong enough to face Kenna. Patrick may not be strong
enough, either, but Patrick has always made sure to at least pretend to be as
strong as Grace needs him to be.
He’d never act this distraught in front of Grace. He saves this side of
himself for the moments Scotty’s death gets to be too much. The moments
he needs to escape and cry alone in my backyard.
Sometimes I can see them both start to unravel. It always happens in
February, the month of Scotty’s birthday. But then Diem’s birthday comes
around in May, and it breathes new life back into them.
That’s what Kenna needs to understand. Grace and Patrick are only
alive because of Diem. She’s the thread that keeps them from unraveling.
There’s no room for Kenna in this picture. Some things can be
forgiven, but sometimes an action is so painful the memory of it can still
crush a person ten years down the road. Patrick and Grace get by because
Diem and I help them forget about what happened to Scotty long enough
for them to get through each day. But if Kenna is around, his death will slap
them in the face over and over and over again.
Patrick’s eyes are closed, and his hands are in a point against his chin.
It looks like he’s saying a silent prayer.
I lean forward over the bar and try to keep my voice reassuring. “Diem
is safe for now. Kenna is too scared to have the cops called on her and too
broke to start a custody battle. You’ve got the advantage. I’m sure after
tonight she’ll cut her losses and head back to Denver.”

---

Patrick stares at the floor for about ten seconds. I can see the weight of
everything he’s been through settled squarely on his shoulders.
“I hope so,” he says. He heads for the front door, and once he’s gone, I
close my eyes and exhale.
Every reassuring thing I just said to him was a lie. Based on what I
know of Kenna now—however little knowledge that may be—I get the
feeling this is far from over.
“You seem distracted,” Roman says. He takes a glass from me and starts
pouring a beer a customer has had to order from me three times already.
“Maybe you should take a break. You’re slowing us down.”
“I’m fine.”
Roman knows I’m not fine. Every time I look at him, he’s watching
me. Trying to figure out what’s going on with me.
I try to work for another hour, but it’s Saturday night and it’s loud, and
even though we have a third bartender on Saturday nights, Roman is right,
I’m slowing us down and making it worse, so I eventually go take the damn
break.
I sit on the steps in the alley, and I look up at the sky and wonder what
the hell Scotty would do right now. He was always so levelheaded. I don’t
think he got that from his parents, though. Maybe he did, I don’t know.
Maybe it’s harder for them to think with a level head when they have such
broken hearts.
The door opens behind me. I look over my shoulder, and Roman is
slipping outside. He sits next to me. He doesn’t say anything. That’s his
way of opening the floor for me to speak.
“Kenna is back.”
“Diem’s mother?”
I nod.
“Shit.”
I rub my eyes with my fingers, relieving some of the pressure from the
headache that’s been building all day. “I almost had sex with her last night.
In my truck, after the bar closed.”

---

He has no immediate reaction to that. I glance over at him, and he’s
just staring blankly at me. Then he brings a hand to his face and rubs it over
his mouth.
“You what?” Roman stands up and walks out into the alley. He’s
staring at his feet, processing what I’ve just said. He looks as shocked as I
felt when I put two and two together outside my house. “I thought you
hated Diem’s mother.”
“I didn’t know she was Diem’s mother last night.”
“How could you not know? She was your best friend’s girlfriend,
right?”
“I never met her. I saw a picture of her once. And maybe her mug
shot, I think. But she had long blonde hair back then—looked completely
different.”
“Wow,” Roman says. “Did she know who you were?”
I still don’t know the answer to that, so I just shrug. She didn’t seem
surprised to see me outside my house earlier. She just seemed upset.
“She showed up and tried to meet Diem today. And now . . .” I shake
my head. “I fucked up, Roman. Patrick and Grace don’t need this.”
“Does she have any rights as a parent?”
“Her rights were terminated because of the length of her prison
sentence. We’ve just been hoping she wouldn’t show up and want to be a