I remember Irene from before she had anything to do with my dad. She was in high school when I was in elementary. She had the lead in West Side Story and danced on the stage in these red ballet slippers and after I saw it I used to twirl around and pretend I was her. Colored my sneakers with red magic marker and everything. She was beautiful and her parents were so proud they brought roses in that shiny plastic wrapping and her father ran up to the stage to give them to her when she took her bow. I don’t think it was too long after they found out she was pregnant with the boy and kicked her out of the house.
“Why are you driving Mrs. Ivory’s car?” I ask, pulling the rubber bands from my hair like I’m just fidgeting.
“Your dad bought it for me.” She looks kind of young when she says it, like a kid who just got a pony. It doesn’t occur to her that I can’t get my dad to buy me groceries voluntarily.
“You could sail to France in that thing,” I say, picking at the cracked inlay on my guitar neck.
“I know, right?” she says, giggling like we are girlfriends. “It’s three times the size of the Datsun.” She smooths hair behind her ear. “Duncan Ivory doesn’t want his mom driving anymore. He sold it to us cheap because I promised to take Mrs. Ivory to her appointments.”
The teapot whistles. Irene gets up, turns off the heat, takes the pot from the burner. “I had to drop her off at Mrs. Varnick’s, so I decided I’d come see you.”
“Lucky me,” I say.
I know she heard me, but she pretends she didn’t. She opens the cabinet where we keep plates, closes it, opens the next one and takes out two mugs. They’re also Margo hand-me-downs, chipped and cracked from too much use at the diner. Irene rinses them with the jug water, touches the chips with her finger like it might repair them. She starts fishing around in drawers. I’m pretty sure this isn’t about the ring. I don’t think she could keep a poker face this long.
“Oh! You know, I think we’re out of tea,” I say like the thought just occurred to me. I try not to smile, but I feel my mouth going there anyway.
I watch her shoulders creep to her neck. She slams the drawer closed. “Damnit, April! I’m trying. I am trying here.” She sits across from me in the booth and drops her head in her hands. “I don’t know what I did to you,” she whispers, poking at the splinters of my guitar like she’s playing pick-up sticks. Move one sliver without the others collapsing. “I love your father. How does that hurt you? I don’t get it.”
“Because you’re an idiot,” I say.
“Not fair, April.” Her voice breaks. I can see tears well up. “Not fair!”
“Is it fair that you took him? That you take all of it? I get crap and you get a new car? What’s fair about that, Irene?” I get up and walk out, slamming the door behind me. I pace in the driveway, walk around the car and kick the tires, feeling the sting in my toes.
Irene comes out. She’s standing on the steps, just like my dad when he smashed my guitar, but she’s crying, mascara running down her cheeks like dirty slug trails. “I just wanted us to get along. I thought—I just thought since I’m pregnant with your little brother or sister you might decide you give a shit. You might try to be my family too.”
The jumper cables hit my heart again. “Yeah, that’s what my dad needs. Another kid.” I stand between her and the car so she can’t get away yet. “Fucking brilliant! Especially since he does such a good job taking care of the one he already has. Smart, Irene. Good one.”
“April,” she says softly, and I think she’s going to say something else, but she crumbles, shoulders shaking. I can see her tears fall to the ground, raining on the coffee. A part of me wants to tell her that she was so beautiful I wanted to be her. A part of me wants to say Yes, I’ll be your family, because I don’t have one either. But I can’t. I don’t work that way.
“He’s with you because you look like her,” I say, picturing myself smacking her basket of plastic letters, scattering our talk everywhere. “My mom. You look like her.” I walk off into the woods and wait by the flooded house foundation, kicking at the thin film of ice with the edge of my flip-flops until I hear her drive off in Mrs. Ivory’s car.
* * *
After Irene leaves, I go back to the motorhome and dig around under the mattress until I find the ring. The box doesn’t look so new. It’s not just that it’s covered with pocket lint. I didn’t notice before, but if you look close, some of the velvet is rubbed off the top. I open it, take the ring out, and slide it on my finger, stacked on top of the promise ring Matty gave me. It’s a little loose, but it almost fits.