Year of the Monsoon Read online

  Leisa went to work on Friday, Nan’s last scheduled day home before returning to work the following week.

  “You sure you’ll be okay?” Leisa asked.

  Nan sighed in resignation. “I have to admit, it’s not how I planned to spend my last day at home, but we’ll be fine.” With a touch of wry humor, she added, “I feel like this is a warm-up for my clients.”

  Todd slept in late and had two huge bowls of cereal for breakfast.

  “How about a walk?” she suggested when he was done. “I could use some exercise.”

  “I don’t want to tell him what happened with the shooting,” Nan had insisted. “He’s got enough drama in his life. We’ll just say I’ve been sick if he asks.”

  She led the way now to the park, passing houses where azaleas and dogwoods and redbud were just coming into bloom. Todd looked around at everything with interest. “These already bloomed down in Georgia,” he observed.

  “I remember,” Nan said. “Savannah’s beautiful.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What are your plans for the summer?” she asked as they walked.

  Todd rolled his eyes. “There’s a family reunion in June,” he said dully.

  Nan looked up at him curiously. “You don’t want to go?”

  He shook his head. “Both sides of the family are the same, but this is my mom’s side. There’s tons of them.”

  “So what’s the problem?” Nan asked.

  Todd bent down to pick up a stick and began peeling the bark off as he walked. “I don’t fit in.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He walked a few more steps before saying, “Well, the cancer thing for one. No one ever knows what to say to me. They never ask me where I’ll be going to college or anything about the future.”

  “Does that make you feel like they’ve already written you off?” Nan probed.

  Todd looked down at her and smiled. “You’re the only one who says the things everyone is thinking, but won’t say out loud.”

  Nan laughed. “Lots of practice trying to figure people out. You do know that they just don’t want to remind you of what you might not have. Death is an awkward topic of conversation. It’s hard trying to know what’s okay to say and what’s not. Especially with a young person.”

  “I know,” he admitted, snapping the stick in his hands. “Plus… I’m the only one who’s adopted,” he added as if it didn’t matter.

  “Is that a problem for the relatives? I mean, your parents obviously are proud of you and love you very much,” she reminded him.

  “Yeah, but, we’re in the South. I swear, every time we get together with any relatives, someone makes some comment about ‘blood being thicker than water’ or ‘family is everything’. And all the comments about how much the grandkids look like this person or that person…” He released an exasperated breath.

  Nan thought about the things Leisa had said to her over the years. “And you don’t look like anyone. Don’t you feel like family?”

  Todd looked skyward as he struggled to explain. “It’s not me. It’s like… every time someone says something about family, they look at me real quick like they’re afraid they said something that would offend me, so it’s more like they don’t think of me as family.”

  Nan laughed and said, “Believe me, even when you’re born into a family, you can feel like you aren’t part of it.” She proceeded to tell him a little about her family.

  “Wow,” Todd said after listening. “Your family is more screwed up than mine.”

  “You know, it’s really weird talking to you about this, because, technically, I suppose they’re your family, too, except they don’t know anything about you.”

  Todd was quiet for a few seconds. “You didn’t tell them about me?”

  Nan shook her head. “I only told one person. And she will kill me if she finds out you’re here and she didn’t get to see you.”

  That evening, Maddie stood in their kitchen, the only person tall enough to look Todd level in the eye, and said, “Oh, my gosh, I held you right after you were born. You fit in my two hands. I can’t believe this… you’re all grown up.” She looked him up and down. “You’re still bald, but you looked different naked.”

  Todd snorted with laughter, choking on his Coke. When he could talk, he looked from Maddie to Lyn and asked, “So, are you two…?”

  “Yes,” said Lyn, coming over and wrapping her arm around Maddie’s waist. “We are.”

  “Cool,” he grinned. “My parents would so freak out,” he said, sounding very happy at the thought.

  Dinner conversation was especially animated that evening as Todd had them all in stitches with his stories.

  “What a great kid,” Lyn said later as she wrapped leftovers and put them in the refrigerator.

  “Leisa thinks so, too,” Nan said.

  “You don’t?” Lyn asked in surprise.

  “No, it’s not that,” Nan said quickly. “But I think she keeps looking at him and wishing he was ours. I think she identifies with him in a lot of ways, like not looking like the rest of your family.” Her expression shifted suddenly as she thought of something. “I’ll be right back.”

  She went to the den and opened the cupboard at the base of the built-in bookshelves there. “It’s in here somewhere,” she muttered to herself as she sifted through the files and records stored there. At last, she pulled out a large leather folio fastened with a leather strap. The flap was embossed with an ornate T.

  “Come here,” Nan’s grandmother said, calling Nan into her bedroom which was normally off-limits to the grandchildren. Nan sat in one of the two chairs there, upholstered in the same formal black toile as the wallpaper, while her grandmother sat in the other, holding a large album in her lap.

  “Has your mother ever told you about your grandfather or great-grandfather?” she asked, looking at Nan through her wire-rimmed glasses. She scowled when Nan shook her head no. “I’m not surprised, though I don’t see where your mother gets the idea she has the right to put on airs just because she married a lawyer.”

  She flipped open the album. “It’s time you know what kind of people you come from.”

  Nan loved spending time with her grandmother. “She really talks to me. She asks me what I think, like I’m a grown-up,” she sometimes longed to brag to Bradley and Miranda, but she was afraid they would ruin it somehow.

  Nan leaned over so she could better see as her grandmother showed her an old photograph of three young men. “This is your great-grandfather,” she said, pointing to the middle of the three with her knobbly, arthritic finger, “and these are his brothers. Together, they started a logging company and sawmill near Mt. Hood.” She flipped the pages of the album as she talked, showing Nan more photos of the brothers and other men in their logging camp, floating logs down a portion of the Columbia River to their sawmill.

  “And this,” she said, turning another page, “is your grandfather, just as he looked when I met him.” A small smile softened her sharp features. Nan recognized a photo of her grandfather as a young man, standing next to a felled tree whose diameter exceeded his height by two or three feet. “Your grandfather had the smarts to realize that after the war people wouldn’t just need lumber for houses, they would need stores that sold everything to build houses. That’s when he started Tollin Building Supply. Before long, he had five stores all around Portland. We ran those stores together,” she said proudly, her eyes misting a little. “But your mother,” she said sharply, sounding much more like her usual self, “seems to think there’s some shame in having parents who were shopkeepers. Your grandfather was a good, honest man,” she added, turning to a professionally done portrait of him in a suit and tie. “If you can find a man like that, you’ll be happy.”

  Nan smiled now, remembering that misguided bit of advice as she flipped through the album. This had been the sole thing bequeathed to her at the reading of her grandmother’s will. It came with a note that read, “This is the most valu
able thing I can give you.” Miranda had smirked in derision when the attorney handed it to her, clearly embarrassed as he proceeded to read aloud the remaining bequeathals, which consisted of varying amounts of money and stocks. Nan had held the folio tenderly as Miranda leaned over and whispered delightedly, “Still love the old bitch?”

  Having found the photo she was looking for, Nan gently pried it loose and got to her feet. She found Todd in the living room where everyone had gathered.

  “I found something you might want to have,” she said, suddenly feeling a little emotional. She held out the formal photo of her grandfather.

  Todd took it curiously and his jaw dropped. Even given the current changes in his physical appearance, Todd was looking at someone who could have been a slightly older version of himself.

  “Your great-grandfather,” she said.

  As the others gathered round to look, exclaiming over the resemblance, Todd glanced up at Nan with a look that said more than any words.

  When he tried to hand the photo back to her later, she shook her head. “You keep it. If you have kids someday, you pass it on to them. If not, well, have your parents return it to me.”

  Later that evening, she was back in the den trying to stuff the bulky album back into its leather folio when a sheaf of papers fell out. Curious, she gently shook the album and more papers fell out. Picking them up, she saw they were stock certificates and statements from various financial institutions with her name as co-holder of every account. “Old bitch indeed,” she said softly.

  “Todd got back to Georgia okay?” Maddie asked Leisa a week later when they ran into one another in a corridor.

  “Yeah,” Leisa answered. “He sent a text, but we haven’t talked.”

  “Was his father angry?”

  “Well, it probably helped that he had a few extra days to cool down,” Leisa replied, smiling. “But he didn’t want to come back to our house. He insisted on Todd meeting him at the airport with the car so they could head back right away.”

  She had driven the Mini while Nan rode with Todd to the airport where they both waited with him until his dad’s flight got in. As Mr. Taylor entered the terminal, Todd had given Leisa and Nan each a tight hug.

  “Remember, cars are great places to talk,” Leisa whispered. “He can’t get away.”

  Todd grinned at her before turning to face his father who did not look happy about being there.

  “All we’ve heard so far is that they got back home,” Leisa said.

  “How are things with your mom’s house?” Maddie asked.

  “Good. The real estate agent has been through the house with us and thinks it’s ready to go on the market as is,” Leisa replied.

  Maddie looked closely at Leisa. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” Leisa sighed. “I’m kind of torn. I don’t want this to drag on now that I’ve decided to sell, but it’s going to be hard to see anyone else in that house.”

  Maddie gave her shoulder a sympathetic squeeze before parting. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  Leisa continued downstairs to her cubicle. Despite her mixed emotions about selling the house, life felt more settled than it had in a very long time. Nan was keeping a light schedule and they were home together each evening. In many ways, it felt like it had when they were first together, except there was a constant haze of sadness, like a mist hanging over everything.

  “Does it ever go away?” Leisa had asked her mother as they baked cookies together the second Christmas after Daniel’s death. Nan was at work and Bronwyn was lying in wait under the kitchen table, watching attentively and ready to pounce on any dropped crumbs of cookie dough.

  Rose, long accustomed to Leisa’s seemingly extemporaneous comments and questions, smiled. “Not completely,” she replied as she sprinkled cinnamon sugar on a sheet of snickerdoodles. “You forget for brief bits of time, but it always comes back. More so at special times like holidays and birthdays, but you never feel completely whole again.” She paused, looking out the kitchen window at the snow falling softly. “There are still times when I miss my mother terribly and it’s been almost thirty years.”

  Leisa thought about this as she transferred a finished batch of chocolate chocolate chip cookies from the cooling rack to a Tupperware container. “Have you – I mean, if you ever met someone, and you know, wanted to date or maybe get married again… it would be okay with me.” This felt like a very strange conversation to be having with her mother.

  Rose smiled again as she rolled out more cookie dough. “Thank you for saying that, but I don’t know… I guess I should never say never, but I can’t imagine ever loving another man as much as I loved your father.”

  “It doesn’t have to be a man, Mom,” Leisa teased.

  “Oh, that’s right,” Rose responded, looking surprised. “I keep forgetting there’s another whole team I could play with.”

  “Play for, Mom, for, not with.”

  “Are you all right?” Nan asked softly, reaching over for Leisa’s hand later that evening as they sat in the back seat of Maddie and Lyn’s Explorer on their way to St. Michael’s for the weekend.

  Leisa squeezed her hand. “I’m fine.”

  They had left right after work, and by seven were pulling into the parking lot of their bed and breakfast, a charming Victorian house once owned by a sea captain and his wife, according to the brief history posted on the inn’s website. As they checked in, the inn’s owners told them they were the only scheduled guests for the weekend. They deposited their bags in their rooms and walked through town toward a restaurant.

  “There!” said Lyn, pointing to a darkened building. “That’s the gallery that agreed to do a small exhibit of some of my paintings. I’ll bring them by tomorrow.”

  When they were seated at the restaurant and had placed their orders, Lyn asked, “So, Nan, what did Bruce say about your grandmother’s papers?”

  “Well… apparently, the financial advisor he spoke with told him the various accounts’ current total value is about five hundred thousand.”

  Lyn stared at her. “As in half a million? Dollars?”

  Nan chuckled. “About five times what she gave everyone else. I think that’s why she did it that way, hid the statements inside the photo album. She knew there would be hell to pay if they found out.” She took a sip of her iced tea. “But you know, I think I liked the album better before, when I thought that was all she meant by ‘this is the most valuable thing I can give you’.”

  The weather forecast for the weekend was ideal, sunny days in the seventies, nights cool enough for a sweater. On Saturday, Lyn delivered her canvases to the gallery. She had chosen mostly seascapes, which she thought would sell well at this location. After lunch, they rented a boat and went on a cruise of the Chesapeake Bay, exploring some of the inlets and watching fishermen haul up crab traps. Dinner that evening was a feast of crab cakes and shrimp with a few bottles of wine.

  “Good thing we walked,” Lyn giggled as she wove a trifle unsteadily on their way back to the bed and breakfast.

  The inn had a private patio with a beautiful view of the bay. They sat and talked, Leisa’s head resting contentedly on Nan’s shoulder as they watched the moon come up, reflecting brightly on the water. Nan could finally let herself breathe a sigh of relief that the monsoon was over. Leisa was back where she belonged and they were together and whole again. She caught Maddie’s eye and smiled.

  That night, she and Leisa made love and it was like coming home. Leisa’s mouth and body welcomed her. They fit together the way they used to, reading each other and pleasing each other without the need for words. Afterward, Nan spooned in behind Leisa, fighting sleep, not wanting to lose a moment of this perfect time. She could feel Leisa’s breathing slow and grow deeper as she drifted off. As Nan grew drowsy, she tried to remember how recently it had felt as if her life was falling apart. “We survived,” she whispered.

  The next morning, the four of them went down for breakfast, where the innkeepers
had small bouquets of wildflowers at each place at the table.

  “Happy Mother’s Day,” the wife said with a smile as she poured coffee for each of them.

  Maddie, Lyn and Nan all turned to stone. The woman, looking puzzled, returned to the kitchen.

  “It’s okay,” Leisa offered. “You guys are horrible secret keepers. I know it’s my first Mother’s Day without my mom, and you were trying to help me forget, but it’s been a great weekend.” She reached over for Nan’s hand.

  “Well, since you feel that way,” Maddie said uncertainly. “I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle this, but…” She placed two cards on the table, each made of brightly colored construction paper and decorated with their names spelled out in bits of colored paper and crayoned writing. “I was asked to give these to you this weekend.”

  Puzzled, Nan and Leisa opened their cards. Inside each was scrawled, “Happy Mother’s Day! Love, Mariela.”

  Chapter 23

  “I STILL CAN’T BELIEVE the house sold its first week on the market,” Jo Ann said from inside the refrigerator as she scrubbed.

  “I know,” said Leisa where she was boxing up all the cleaning supplies under the kitchen sink.

  From the dining room Nan called out, “Bruce said it would sell fast.” She came back into the kitchen. “I’ve got all the good china stacked on the dining room table, and the hutch is empty.”

  Together, they were trying to have the house ready for an estate auction in a couple of weekends. “It’s so tempting to hold on to everything,” Leisa bemoaned. “It all has memories attached to it.”

  “That’s why it’s easier to let a stranger handle it,” Bruce had advised. “Mr. Jansen will get you the best price for everything, and then it will all be over. Just make sure you take anything you want before he comes for a final inventory, or you’ll have to bid on it to get it back.”