Year of the Monsoon Read online

  “Um, we’re not sure, exactly. The doctor thought she was five or six.”

  “Okay, we have a six-year-old kid who expects us to go to church tomorrow. I’m not even Catholic. What are you going to do about it?”

  Leisa could hear the laughter from where she sat.

  “Yes… okay… all right.” Nan hung up and turned to Leisa. “They’re picking us up at eight-thirty.”

  Chapter 25

  DURING A BREAK IN between clients, Nan checked her cell phone to see a missed call from her parents’ number. Apprehensively, she called them back.

  “Dad? I saw you called. What’s up?”

  “It’s your mother,” Stanley said.

  “What about her?”

  “Well, a couple of months ago, she was stopped by the police.”

  Nan closed her eyes. “Again? What was her blood alcohol level?”

  Stanley didn’t answer immediately.

  “Dad?”

  “Point two.”

  Nan’s mouth opened and closed a few times. “Point two? I wouldn’t even be able to stand up at point two. Did she hurt anyone?”

  “No,” he said quickly. “She just hit a curb. Anyway,” he pressed on before Nan could say anything further, “the judge ordered her to rehab.”

  “You didn’t get her off this time?”

  She could hear her father breathing. “I couldn’t,” he said, but she knew he had tried, like he had done a half-dozen times before. “Anyway, she’s been there for a week, and I thought maybe you would want to come home and –”

  “No!” Nan pressed her hand to her eyes. “She’s starting to call you, isn’t she? Begging you to bring her home.” She took his silence as confirmation. “Dad, she needs to stay there the entire prescribed period. I’ll be here if you need to talk, but I am not coming home.”

  “He’ll give in,” she said to Leisa a few hours later when she got home and repeated the story to her.

  “Your mom has been in rehab before?” Leisa asked, looking up from an array of papers spread out on the kitchen table.

  “A few times,” Nan said, reading the papers upside down. “But he always caves and gets her out early. What are you doing?”

  “The home assessment,” Leisa sighed. “Maddie arranged for another agency to do it. Since I work at St. Joe’s, they can’t assess us.”

  “How can I help?” Nan asked as she sat.

  “Funny you should ask,” Leisa smiled. She held out a form. “Your family history.” Nan made a face. “Maybe it’s a good thing they’re three thousand miles away.”

  “Speaking of which,” Nan said as she accepted the form from Leisa. “How much are you going to divulge about the biologicals?”

  It was Leisa’s turn to grimace. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I really need to include them at all since we don’t have contact with them.”

  Nan noticed for the first time what Leisa was wearing. “Did you go to the gym today?”

  “Yes, on my way home.”

  “I keep meaning to ask you how things are with Sarah since your talk with her,” Nan asked casually, pretending to be concentrating on the form she was filling out.

  “And I keep meaning to tell you, I haven’t seen her,” Leisa replied, not fooled at all by Nan’s nonchalance. “At first, I thought we were just there at different times, but then I overheard one of the staff telling a member that she’s gone to another gym.”

  Nan looked up in surprise. “Do you think it was because of you?”

  Leisa smiled guiltily. “I hope so.”

  The telephone rang, and Leisa reached for it. How many times, she wondered later, is our life going to be disrupted by this damn machine? She seriously considered unplugging every phone in the house.

  “Leisa?”

  It was Eleanor.

  “Yes?” Leisa responded warily.

  “How are you?”

  “I’m fine,” Leisa answered, more suspicious than ever. “What do you want?” she asked, deciding to take the initiative.

  “Well, I wanted to see how you were doing,” Eleanor said lamely.

  Leisa thought she heard Donald’s whisper in the background. It gave her the courage to say, “The only time you and Donald care about how I’m doing is when you want something from me.”

  A very long, tense silence followed. Leisa resisted the urge to fill it, and let it drag on.

  “The hospital… they’re… they’ve turned us over to a collection agency,” Eleanor stammered. “I’m not asking you to pay the bill,” she added hastily. “I know that’s our responsibility, but… my car broke down. It needs a new transmission, and I don’t have that kind of money, and… I can’t get a car loan with my credit right now, and… I was wondering if you could lend me money for a car? I’ll pay you back, I promise,” she blathered.

  Leisa was torn. She knew she could easily afford to lend them the money, but “where will it end?”

  “Please, please, please,” Leisa begged. “Couldn’t you lend me the money?”

  The summer after eighth grade, she had fallen in love with a bright orange ten-speed bicycle. It cost a hundred dollars and she only had thirty-five saved up.

  “I know you won’t let me touch my college money, but I promise I’ll pay you back,” she said to her parents. “If I have to save all the money first, the summer will be over, and I’ll hardly get to ride it.”

  Rose and Daniel looked at one another in that non-verbal communication that parents share.

  “We will lend you the money,” Daniel said at last. “But it is a loan, and you will pay us back.”

  Leisa honestly couldn’t recall later if she actually thought they wouldn’t hold her to it, but they did. There were little slips of paper every now and then, for July fourth or Labor Day, that forgave five or ten dollars of her debt, but they kept an account, posted on the kitchen bulletin board, of what she had borrowed and each payment she made until the entire loan was repaid. She never mowed so many yards or babysat so many kids as she did that summer trying to earn money. She was so busy, she hardly had time to ride her new bike, but she loved that bicycle. She polished it and lubed it. She could still remember the pride of making that last payment.

  “Thank you,” she said to her parents years later. “For making me pay for that bicycle. It wouldn’t have meant nearly as much if you had given it to me.”

  As Leisa teetered on the verge of giving in, she heard Donald whisper in the background, “Say we’re family.”

  Instantly, she came crashing back to earth.

  “You know,” she said to Nan afterward, “I know they don’t understand that I gave the kidney because I couldn’t have lived with myself if I hadn’t, but when I heard him say that… Am I so pathetic that he knew to use that to get to me?”

  What she couldn’t admit, even to Nan, was how much she wanted to say, “How come I wasn’t family when you had your picture taken in the hospital?” but it would have sounded petty and childish.

  What she did say was, “No. Tell Donald we are not family.” She looked at Nan, her eyes bright with the strength of her emotions. “I have a family, a wonderful family of people who love me without wanting anything from me. I will not lend you money. I gave you a pound of flesh. Literally. It’s more than you deserve and it’s all you’re going to get. Please don’t call me again.”

  That moment of clarity, when she realized she had always had all the family she needed, would stay with Leisa for the remainder of her life. Like being there as her father drew his last breaths, or feeling Nan’s arms around her the night Bronwyn died, or seeing the trust in Mariela’s eyes as she lay down that first night in the police station. These were moments the memory of which never faded in intensity no matter how much time went by. “I was so blind,” she would say to Nan later. “Like Dorothy in Oz, it was right there in front of me all along, perfectly visible, but it wasn’t until someone challenged me and I was faced with either losing it or claiming it, that I could see it.” Donald
’s attempt to manipulate her by using a family connection helped her to see the truly unconditional nature of the love extended to her by those who surrounded her. That realization became the shield that protected her during those moments, ever rarer, when the shadows threatened to overtake her.

  Maddie helped to solidify that feeling when she came to Leisa’s cubicle a couple of weeks later, informing her that the home assessment had passed with no problems.

  “So soon?” Leisa asked, astounded.

  Maddie smiled. “Well, there were extenuating circumstances,” she said. “You knew what they needed in the paperwork, they know you, and… I asked them to give this priority.”

  “Thanks,” Leisa smiled gratefully.

  “But, since it is summer time, and Mariela’s not in school, we will have to wait to place her with you until you or Nan can take some time off to be home with her,” Maddie pointed out.

  Leisa’s brow furrowed as she considered. “What about Jo Ann? Could she be one of the caretakers as well, so we can rotate time off?”

  “I hadn’t thought of her, but I don’t see why not.”

  “Wow,” Leisa said as the reality of the situation hit her. “We need to go shopping.”

  “Wow,” echoed Nan that evening when Leisa told her they were approved. She expelled a deep breath. “This is really real.” She looked over at Leisa. “Maddie said that Mariela wants this, but have you spoken to her yet?”

  “This weekend?” Leisa asked hopefully.

  “This weekend,” Nan agreed. She looked down at Gimli who was enthusiastically ripping the stuffing out of a toy, trying to get to the squeaker. “A puppy and a little girl. What were we thinking?”

  On Saturday morning, they got in the car to go pick Mariela up for the weekend.

  “Are you okay?” Nan asked as she drove. “You seemed like you had a really restless night.”

  “Just some strange dreams,” Leisa answered, rubbing her eyes tiredly. “Sorry if I kept you awake.”

  Nan reached over for her hand. “Ready for today?”

  Leisa forgot all about being tired as she smiled. “Yes. How about you?”

  “Yes,” Nan said slowly. “I cannot believe I’m saying that.”

  A little while later, they were back home with Mariela. As usual, the first thing she did was sit on the floor and let Gimli climb all over her, licking her face and nibbling on her ears as she giggled.

  When she got up, Leisa said, “Mariela, we would like to talk with you.”

  Mariela sat at the kitchen table.

  “Do you like coming here to our house?” Leisa asked.

  “Yes,” Mariela nodded. She looked from Leisa to Nan and back again. She must have seen something in their expressions that alerted her because she asked, “Have I done something bad?”

  “No,” Leisa and Nan both replied at once.

  “We wanted to talk to you,” said Nan, “to see if you would like to live here with us, all the time.”

  Mariela’s face, instead of bursting into the ecstatic expression they had anticipated, became wary. “What do you mean?”

  Leisa leaned forward. “We would like to adopt you,” she said. “But only if that’s what you want, too.”

  Mariela looked back and forth, from one face to the other, still guarded, and asked, “For how long?”

  “It broke my heart to see her that cautious and defensive,” Nan admitted later, but, “Forever,” is what she said to Mariela. “We want you to be part of our family forever.”

  When Mariela still didn’t respond, Leisa said hesitantly, “But if that’s not what you want, we can still be friends, just like we have been.”

  “Excuse me,” Mariela said, sliding off her chair and leaving the kitchen.

  Leisa and Nan exchanged puzzled looks. “That wasn’t the response I expected,” Nan said, nonplussed.

  Together, they tiptoed out to the living room where Mariela was kneeling in front of one of the chairs near the fireplace. “Thank you for giving me what I asked for,” she whispered. “Please help me be good so they’ll always want me.”

  Leisa reached for Nan’s hand, squeezing it hard. She went in and sat on the floor next to Mariela while Nan sat on her other side. Mariela rocked back on her heels and looked at them.

  “This is what you want then?” Leisa asked softly.

  Mariela nodded, smiling now.

  “You don’t have to be good so we’ll want you,” said Nan. “We will always want you.”

  “That’s what mothers do,” Leisa said.

  “Mothers?” Mariela asked.

  “We’re not trying to take the place of your mother,” Nan said quickly, “but –”

  “But we would like to be your new mothers if you’re ready for that,” Leisa finished.

  This time, Mariela’s face lit up as she hugged each of them.

  Later that day, when they asked her what she would like to change in the guest room to make it feel like hers, Mariela couldn’t tell them anything she wanted to have changed. “I like it the way it is,” she kept insisting.

  “Well,” said Nan that night as she and Leisa lay in bed, “if everything else goes this well, this is going to be a piece of cake.”

  “I should have known better,” Leisa would say later.

  Chapter 26

  LEISA WOKE FEELING DISORIENTED as she looked at the shadows of her own room. Damn. She needed to get some sleep. Some real sleep. These dreams were coming almost every night now, and becoming more detailed. They started at her mother’s house where she wandered pointlessly from room to room, searching for… she didn’t know what. Sometimes the house was as she remembered it with all the furniture, other times it was empty, but still she searched. Whatever it was, she wanted to find it, but dreaded it at the same time. Sometimes, she left the house, but the dream always evaporated if she did, waking her with a start. Other times, she seemed stuck going through the house again and again for what felt like the whole night.

  She glanced over at Nan’s dark silhouette next to her and listened to her calm, even breathing. She shifted a little closer, just enough to feel the warmth of Nan’s back pressing against her arm, comforting her enough to allow her to fall back asleep.

  They were rotating days off to stay home with Mariela, with Jo Ann helping out once or twice a week. Mariela’s greatest discovery thus far had been the library.

  “I never saw so many books!” she exclaimed.

  They were soon going to the library for a fresh supply of books every couple of days as she voraciously read all the ones she brought home. She was soon bored with first grade books and began checking out second and third grade level books. Once home, she was content to read for hours.

  “We’re all reading more,” Nan told Maddie as they kept an eye on the grill. “We hardly ever have the television on lately.”

  Lyn and Maddie had invited them over for dinner, where Lyn put Nan and Maddie in charge of barbecuing the chicken while she and Leisa worked in the kitchen.

  “And how are you doing?” Maddie asked knowingly as she and Nan watched Mariela playing with Puddles on the back patio while Gimli was corralled inside to give the cat some peace.

  Nan smiled wryly. “Better than I expected,” she admitted. “I know we’re lucky that she is not more profoundly affected by everything she’s been through, but…” she hesitated.

  “But what?” Maddie prodded as she lifted the lid on the grill and turned the meat.

  “This sounds bad, but, it’s kind of like getting Gimli at four months old. I know the puppy, or I should say, baby stage is cute, but it’s so much easier when they’re a little older.”

  “Then why does Leisa look so tired?”

  “No offense,” Lyn was saying to Leisa in the kitchen at that moment, “but you look awful. What’s up?”

  “I’m not sure,” Leisa replied honestly as she set the table. “I’m not sleeping well. I’ve been having some really bizarre dreams. Almost every night.”

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sp; Lyn looked up from the potato salad she was making. “Are you having second thoughts about Mariela?”

  “No,” Leisa said emphatically. “At least, not consciously. In all these dreams, I’m wandering around Mom’s house. Around and around. I don’t know, maybe I’m having a delayed reaction to letting it go.”

  “How is Mariela adjusting to being part of a normal household?”

  “Really well,” Leisa answered. “She’s curious about everything – cooking, cleaning. You don’t realize how many things we’re exposed to as kids and don’t even think about. She thinks vacuuming and washing dishes is play.”

  Lyn laughed. “You’d better hope she keeps thinking that.”

  Leisa’s expression darkened. “She’s also starting to ask questions about her mother,” Leisa added.

  “Was my mama bad?” Mariela asked unexpectedly one evening at the dinner table.

  Leisa and Nan exchanged a quick glance. “Why would you ask that?” Nan asked.

  Mariela said, “I heard kids talking at the other place, at St. Joseph’s. They talked about their mothers or fathers being in jail because they did bad things, and that’s why the kids had to go there. My mama was in jail.”

  “Yes, she was,” Leisa said carefully. “And it’s true that some of those kids were at St. Joseph’s because their parents were sent to jail. Some were taken away because their parents weren’t taking good care of them.”

  Mariela looked hard at her. “My mama didn’t take care of me.” It wasn’t a question.

  Leisa leaned forward. “Your mother was sick. When people need drugs, they can’t think of anything else. Your mother took the best care of you she could, but you’re right. She didn’t take very good care of you.”

  Nan spoke up. “But that doesn’t mean she didn’t love you. Even if she couldn’t take care of you the way she should have, she loved you.”

  Mariela poked at her food, pushing it around on her plate. “She lied to me. Mothers aren’t supposed to lie.”