Heart Like Mine: A Novel

Kelli didn’t set out to lie about her past. At first, she thought she could just outrun it. The moment she’d saved enough money, she left the tomb of her parents’ house and decided not to look back.

“You don’t love me,” she told them. Her voice shook. “There’s no point in staying here.” She waited for them to argue with her; she looked to her mother to stand up and beg her not to leave, but instead, they both were quiet, their shoulders curled forward, just as they had been the day they dropped her off at New Pathways. As though they were relieved to see her go.

She bought a bus ticket to San Francisco, thinking she’d find a hostel to live in for a while, but then ended up renting a room in a huge house near the marina. The landlord was a skinny, balding man in his forties who’d stared too long at Kelli’s breasts for her to be comfortable, but when he implied he’d lower her rent if she went out on a date with him, she complied. The sex was quick and painless. It made her feel ill to do it, but it gave her what she needed at the time, and she told herself that was all that mattered.

After she got settled in her small room, she found a job cleaning houses and relished the hard work, which tired her to the point of almost falling asleep in the bowl of ramen noodles that typically served as her evening meal. She didn’t talk much to the other tenants, until one day she was sitting on the front porch, reading one of the romances she’d borrowed from the library, and another woman sat down in the other white wicker chair.

“Beautiful day,” she said. She was older and heavyset, with limp brown hair and bright pink lipstick.

“It is,” Kelli agreed, setting her book in her lap.

“You getting settled in okay?” She paused. “Burt sure seems to like you.”

Kelli picked her book back up, staring at the words as they blurred on the pages. She hated that anyone noticed he visited her room. Most of all, she hated that she let him.

“Ah, honey,” the woman said. “I don’t mean no harm.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Wendy.”

Kelli only hesitated a moment before shaking Wendy’s hand and introducing herself.

“You’re just cute as a button, aren’t you?” Wendy said. “Like a cheerleader.”

“I was a cheerleader,” Kelli said, the lie popping out of her mouth before she’d even realized she had the thought.

Sitting on that porch with Wendy in the late afternoon sun, Kelli spun a tale of her tryouts and ultimately being named captain of the team. I love to dance, Kelli told herself. It’s just a little white lie. Over the next six months, she began opening up more to the people she talked to—always referring to her high school years as being the best of her life. She made up details about the color of her uniform—royal blue with yellow braided trim on the sweater. She talked about the complicated routines she and her friends put together that were the talk of the whole school. She deflected questions about her parents, saying only that they were old-fashioned and didn’t approve of Kelli’s trying to make it in the world on her own. She told herself the story of the life she wished she’d lived—and eventually, she began to believe it was true.

At night, though, reality spun its web around her and sticky memories clogged her mind. She dreamed of painful spasms in her abdomen, tangible enough to wake her and make her gasp in pain. She heard her baby’s weak cries, the searing moment when the nurse took her away. “The doctors need to see her now,” the nurse said. She never got to hold her baby. She never was able to tell her her name.

Reliving this moment, dark, aching emptiness felt like it might split Kelli wide open. She squeezed her eyes shut, curled fetal, and rocked her body back and forth, back and forth, the way she never was able to rock her baby girl.

She took a second job bagging groceries at a local store, trying to keep herself busy so she didn’t have too much time to think, but then one night when she came home, she found Wendy sitting on the porch with another woman, who was holding a little girl.

“Hey, Kelli,” Wendy said as Kelli walked up the front steps. “This is Jenna and her daughter, Macy. They just moved into 2-B.”

“Hi,” Jenna said. She looked like she was trying to channel the 1950s, with her cat-eye glasses, yellow cardigan, and full, rose-patterned skirt. She looked down at her daughter. “Can you say hi, Macy?”

“Hi!” the little girl chirped. She appeared to be about three years old and had her mother’s fine, practically white-blond hair and blue eyes. She thrust out the stuffed gray kitten she held in her lap toward Kelli. “Chuck!” she said, and Jenna laughed.

“I don’t know where she came up with that name.” She nuzzled Macy’s neck, and the little girl shrieked with laughter and held Chuck tightly to her chest.

“Mama, don’t tickle!”

Kelli couldn’t speak. She watched Jenna hold this child who could have easily been Rebecca. Her daughter would have had Kelli’s hair and her blue eyes . . . wouldn’t she? Or would she have looked more like Jason? Her throat closed as she was reminded of what she’d never know, the child she’d never see.

“Kelli?” Wendy prompted. “Are you okay?”

“What?” Kelli said, realizing she hadn’t responded to the introduction. “Oh, sorry. I’m so tired.” She forced herself to smile at Jenna. “Nice to meet you.” She looked at Macy, who was twirling a lock of her mother’s hair around a stubby finger. “She’s beautiful.” She hoped she didn’t sound as close to crying as she felt.

“Thanks,” Jenna said. “We think so.”

“We?” Kelli said, keeping her eyes on Macy, who smiled shyly back at her. Oh, my heart, she thought.

“Jenna’s husband works the night shift over at the hospital,” Wendy said. “He’s going to be a doctor.”

“Oh,” Kelli said as a sharp pang of jealousy began to knit itself together in her chest. Jenna couldn’t be much older than me, and look at all she has. Look at her daughter. It isn’t fair. “Well, good night,” she said, and quickly made her way to the safety of her room.

Over the next few weeks, Kelli tried to avoid seeing Jenna and her family in the building. She stopped hanging out with Wendy on the front porch. The times she came home to find Jenna playing with Macy in the front yard, it was all Kelli could do to keep from dissolving into tears right there on the sidewalk. She held her breath as she walked by, unable to look at this beautiful little girl.

“Hi, Kelli!” Jenna said one sunny but humid Saturday afternoon. She was running through the sprinkler with Macy, who wore a tiny pink and white polka-dotted bikini and matching hot-pink sunglasses. “Want to join us?”

Kelli shook her head and kept on walking, accidentally colliding with Burt as she raced up the front steps. “Whoa there, missy!” he said. “Where’s the fire?” He stank of alcohol and cigarettes; his white T-shirt had a brown stain on the sleeve. “Rent’s due Monday. Want some company?” He leered at her, and Kelli had to hold back the bile in her throat. She heard her father’s voice: Whore.

That was it. She needed to leave San Francisco. She couldn’t stay there a minute longer. Her past was nipping at her heels. She pushed past Burt and ran down the hall. “Hey!” he said. “Where you goin’?”

“I’m leaving,” she called out over her shoulder. “Moving out.” She was on a week-to-week lease; she didn’t need to give him notice.

“Wait a minute! You still owe me for this week. At the full rate!”

Kelli grabbed her suitcase from the closet and opened the lining where she kept her cash. Burt appeared in her doorway. “You hear me?” he bellowed, and she practically threw a stack of bills at him.

“There,” she said, her voice breaking. “Now, please, just leave me alone.” She slammed the door in his face and began to pack her bag. She would start again. She’d create the best version of herself, only showing people the bright, happy side of who she was. She’d work hard, fall in love, and maybe even have a family of her own.

When the taxi she called arrived, she strode out to the street, keeping her eyes on the ground, not answering when Jenna and Macy asked her where she was going. She climbed in the backseat of the yellow cab and told the driver where to take her.

Twenty minutes later, she was at the bus station and she stood in front of a bulletin board, wondering where she should go. A brochure caught her eye, a picture of the Space Needle and a snowcapped mountain against a dazzlingly blue sky. Seattle. All Kelli knew about the city was how wet it was always supposed to be, and so she closed her eyes and imagined the clouds, the lush green grass, wondering whether if she lived there long enough, all that rain might finally wash her sins away.