Year of the Monsoon Read online

  Leisa blanched a little and sat back.

  “We won’t lie to you,” Nan said firmly, with a worried glance at Leisa.

  “Promise?” Mariela demanded.

  “We promise,” Leisa murmured.

  It wasn’t until hours later, after Mariela was asleep, that Nan had a chance to ask, “What happened earlier, at the dinner table?”

  “Nothing,” Leisa said. “It’s just hard to listen to a child questioning why her mother didn’t love her enough to take care of her.”

  But it didn’t escape Nan’s notice that Leisa didn’t look at her as she answered.

  “Leisa!”

  She turned to see Linus running up the stairs after her.

  “Hi,” he gasped. “Whew, I gotta get more exercise than just playing video games.”

  “What’s up?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to congratulate you and Nan on becoming mothers,” he said, holding out a wrapped package. “It’s nothing much,” he added as she accepted the parcel. “A couple of books of bedtime stories and some pouches of cookie mix.” He shrugged. “Just some things I thought you guys could do together, as a family. Things I remember from when I was a kid, before…”

  “Before you were placed in foster care? Thank you,” Leisa said, giving him a hug. “We’ll invite you over to help with the cookies.”

  “Really?”

  Leisa laughed. “Yes, really.”

  “That would be great.”

  They continued up the stairs.

  “How are you doing?” he asked. “I mean, you’ve been through a lot from what Maddie says.”

  Leisa didn’t answer immediately. “I think it’s calming down at last. I hope we can just settle into a normal life as a family now,” she smiled, hefting the package.

  “I hope so, too,” Linus said. “Say hi to Mariela for me.”

  When she got home that evening, Nan and Mariela were already home, waiting for her.

  “What’s that?” Mariela asked immediately.

  “It’s from Father Linus,” Leisa said. “For you.”

  “And this came for you,” Nan said in a low voice as Mariela tore the wrapping paper off Linus’s package. She held out a small box. “It’s from Ithaca.”

  Leisa’s face hardened. “Even then,” she would tell Nan later, “I was stupid enough to think maybe it was a belated thank-you present.” But, “It’s my baby book.” She turned away, not wanting Nan to see the disappointment on her face. “I guess she really is done with me.”

  Nan flipped the book open and, looking through the photos, came upon a blank page smudged with the imprint of an old photo. “Maybe not completely.”

  Leisa’s dream shifted as for the first time she walked out her mother’s front door and found herself outside the funeral home. She didn’t want to go in, but the doors were propped open, beckoning her inside. Reluctantly, she entered. As she walked down the main corridor, all of the small parlors were filled with people who turned to watch her as she passed. At the end of the hallway was one last parlor, which was empty. She entered and sat down, waiting. She could smell the lingering odors of flowers and candles. After a while – it could have been minutes or hours – Rose came in and sat next to her.

  “You’ve been looking for me?” Rose asked.

  And though Leisa hadn’t expected her, she knew then that all the nights of wandering through her mother’s house had been just that. She nodded.

  “You want to know why I never told you about the note?”

  Leisa nodded again.

  “I should have, I know,” Rose said. She looked at Leisa with an expression of unutterable sadness. “But I was afraid.”

  “Of what?” Leisa asked, speaking for the first time.

  “If she kept you once, maybe she would try again. I lived with the constant fear that she would change her mind and try to take you back,” Rose confessed. “And… I suppose I was also afraid that if you met her, you might wish she’d kept you.”

  “I would never –” Leisa began, but thought how she would feel if Florida Gonzalez were alive, what it would be like to live with the apprehension that she might come back into Mariela’s life. She looked at Rose and saw, not her mother, but a woman, imperfect and frightened as she admitted her deepest fears. “But I can understand why you felt that way,” Leisa said.

  “The longer we went without talking about it, the safer it felt. And… it was easy to say it was okay as long as you didn’t want to know anything about her. Of course, it wasn’t fair to put that on you. Your father wanted us to sit you down and show you even if you weren’t asking, but I kept saying, ‘when she’s older.’ Only, it didn’t get any easier as you got older, and it seemed best just to keep it shut away.”

  Leisa sat there, thinking about this. “I met her, you know.”

  “I know.”

  Leisa’s throat burned as she said, “She only wanted to find me because she needed something from me.”

  “Maybe,” Rose said, “but I think she always wondered if she did the right thing.”

  Leisa shrugged. They sat in silence for a while.

  “You won’t say it, will you?” Rose said.

  “Say what?” Leisa asked uneasily.

  “How angry you are with me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You should be,” Rose said softly.

  “It… it was just… when I found it, you and Dad were gone. I couldn’t ask you,” Leisa said as she began to cry.

  “I know,” said Rose, her eyes beginning to tear up as well. “What can I do for you?”

  “Hold me.” Leisa turned to her and sobbed as Rose wrapped her arms around her.

  Nan woke to the sound of Leisa crying. She turned to her and took her in her arms, holding her as she cried. She couldn’t tell if Leisa ever woke, but she eventually quieted and fell asleep, still lying in Nan’s embrace.

  Ellen Cavendish was again Nan’s last client of the day. “I like knowing that if I’m really bonkers, I can pay you extra to run over,” she often joked. She reached down for her purse. “How are you, Nan?” she asked.

  Nan stopped writing next week’s appointment in her planner and glanced at Ellen. “Why? How do I seem?” she asked cautiously.

  “Relax,” Ellen smiled. “I only ask because you seem to be in a very different place from where you were just a couple of months ago.”

  “I am,” Nan said simply, not offering any further explanation.

  “How do you… how do you be so happy?” Nan had asked Maddie years ago when they were working on their doctorates, working part-time – Nan in a mental health clinic and Maddie at St. Joseph’s – and going crazy. Or at least Nan was going crazy. Maddie seemed to sail along with whatever came. Nothing fazed her, where Nan was so easily frustrated by the ups and downs of their schedule, so much of it beyond their control. That was what bugged Nan the most, not having control.

  Maddie smiled as she thought about Nan’s question. “I be happy,” she mused. “I should have that made into a bumper sticker.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Part of it is deciding to be happy instead of dwelling on the crap. It’s not that there isn’t crap in my life, or that I don’t notice it, but I don’t want to become one of those people who are addicted to misery.”

  “Are you saying –”

  “I did not say that’s what you are,” Maddie interrupted, anticipating Nan’s protest. “Although, you do have a slight tendency to dwell on the negative,” she pointed out tactfully. The other part,” she continued, before Nan could argue the previous point, “is finding a way to accept that there will be things you cannot control. The world will not end; your life will not be totally ruined; there will be no truly serious consequence to most of what makes you angry. You need to learn how to step back and get some perspective, really see the big picture and let things go.”

  Nan smiled as she followed Ellen out the door. It had taken the collapse of her world and the near ruination of her life for her to learn
that lesson. “You always did learn things the hard way,” Maddie would have reminded her.

  When she got home, Leisa and Mariela were already there. Mariela was now going to day care, where she was getting some review prior to the start of first grade in a little over a month.

  “I could keep taking care of her,” Jo Ann had protested.

  “We know you could,” Leisa said fondly, “and we may take you up on that sometimes, but this is good practice for school. And this way, you’re not tied down when you’ve got other things to do.”

  Leisa helped Mariela get Gimli outside so they could play in the backyard. “How was your day?” she asked as Nan flipped through the mail on the kitchen counter.

  “It was –”

  Leisa turned to see Nan staring at a manila envelope in her hand.

  “What is it?” Leisa asked, coming over to her.

  “It’s from Savannah,” Nan said quietly.

  “Todd’s mother wrote a very nice letter,” Leisa told Maddie and Lyn on the telephone later that evening after Mariela had been put to bed. “When Todd went back into the hospital a couple of weeks ago, he asked her to return the photo of Nan’s grandfather. He must have known he wouldn’t be going home this time.”

  Lyn, speaking on a second extension, sounded as if she was crying as she asked, “How is Nan?”

  “I’m not sure,” Leisa said softly. “She’s back in the den. She wanted a little time alone.”

  “She never got to speak to him again after she told him he couldn’t come up here, did she?” asked Maddie heavily.

  “No,” said Leisa, her own throat tightening painfully. “I think that will be the hardest part, that she never got to say she didn’t mean it.”

  When Leisa hung up, she went back to the den. Nan was watching City of Angels. Leisa sat down next to her on the couch, putting an arm around her shoulders.

  “I hope his angels were with him,” Nan whispered as her eyes filled with tears.

  “I know they were,” Leisa said, holding her tightly.

  Chapter 27

  MARIELA’S FACE WAS SCRUNCHED up with her intense concentration as she took a mighty swing and… hit the whiffle ball to the far end of the yard. Amidst the cheers and claps, she heard Leisa yelling, “Run!” Still carrying her bat, she took off for the paper plate serving as first base. “Keep going!” Leisa yelled again and Mariela kept running, Gimli nipping at her heels as she rounded second and kept going to third while Bruce fumbled about in the azaleas for an extraordinarily long time trying to get his hands on the ball. “All the way!” Leisa called out, and Mariela ran towards home plate, beating Bruce’s feeble throw in to home.

  “I did it! I did it!” Mariela squealed happily, giggling as Leisa picked her up and swung her around.

  The game broke up as Gimli grabbed the whiffle ball and ran away with it, his huge ears folded flat against his head as he was chased by Mariela who thought this was as much fun as the puppy did.

  “I haven’t heard this much laughter in your house in a very long time,” Maddie said, leaning toward Nan as they sat at the table on the patio, watching the goings-on.

  Nan smiled. “You’re right.”

  Maddie watched Nan’s face shrewdly as she asked, “How are you?”

  Nan thought about her answer as she watched Mariela and Gimli who were now playing tug of war with a stick. “I’m doing better than I would have before.”

  They were interrupted by Leisa calling through the kitchen window, “Nan, could you get the grill started, please?”

  That was the signal for everyone to pitch in and help with dinner preparations. Mariela was learning how to husk corn outside with Jo Ann and Bruce; Lyn and Maddie were putting together a huge salad while Leisa sprinkled seasoning on the steaks and hamburgers.

  “Give me something to do,” Nan pleaded.

  “It’s your birthday,” Leisa said. “You take it easy.”

  Nan went back outside to help with the corn. She sat down next to Mariela who was wearing a large number of corn silks – all over her lap, in her hair, everywhere.

  “When’s my birthday?” Mariela asked out of nowhere.

  “Ask your mother,” Jo Ann said.

  “Which one?” Mariela asked.

  Nan stared hard at the ear of corn she was husking. “You better ask your other mother,” she said quietly.

  “I am so sorry,” Jo whispered when Mariela had left. “It just came out.”

  “It’s okay, I just… Wow. Hearing that for the first time.” She shook her head.

  Mariela went to find Leisa who was in the kitchen with Lyn and Maddie. “Mom, when’s my birthday?”

  Leisa’s only sign of shock was dropping the steak knives in her hand. “That could have been dangerous,” she muttered under her breath. “Um,” she stalled, with a quick glance over to Maddie who shook her head. “We don’t really know.”

  “Do you remember your mama ever celebrating your birthday?” Maddie asked. “She might have called it cumpleaños.”

  Mariela shook her head.

  “Well,” said Leisa slowly. “I came to the police station to get you on January 16th. How about we make that your birthday?” she suggested with a shrug, glancing at Maddie who shrugged also.

  Mariela thought about this. “Okay,” she said, and went back out to shuck more corn.

  Soon, they were all seated at the table, eating and laughing their way through Nan’s birthday dinner. After dinner, a large cake with thirty-eight lit candles was produced as they sang to her. “Thirty-eight?” Mariela counted with a gasp, as if she couldn’t comprehend such a large number.

  “Thanks a lot,” Nan grumbled jokingly.

  Mariela seemed to be impatient for everyone to finish their cake. “Is it time yet?” she whispered dramatically to Leisa.

  “Yes,” Leisa whispered back. “It’s time.”

  Mariela leapt out of her chair, taking Nan by the hand, and dragging her from the kitchen. “Come on,” she urged.

  “Where are we going?” Nan laughed as Mariela pulled her down the hallway toward the den. “I haven’t been allowed in here for two days,” Nan said suspiciously as they approached the closed door. “What have you been up to?”

  “Open it,” Mariela commanded.

  Cautiously, Nan opened the door of the study and entered. There, one entire wall had been converted to a huge collage of photos. Some of them Nan recognized as ones that had been in Rose and Daniel’s house, the ones Leisa had packed away. But there were others as well – there were pictures of Maddie and Lyn, Bruce and Jo Ann, Jo and Rose. Many of them Nan had never seen. In the center was a recent snapshot of Mariela with her arms wrapped around Leisa and Nan’s necks.

  “It’s our family!” Mariela said proudly.

  Nan stepped closer and saw an early photo of Florida Gonzalez, before drugs and a harsh life had taken their toll on her beauty. There were photos of Bronwyn, and a few of Gimli. And there, in the middle, was Nan’s grandfather next to Todd’s high school photo. Leisa stepped close and wrapped her arm around Nan’s waist as everyone else came closer as well, laughing and pointing to various pictures.

  Nan turned to Leisa. “Our family,” she murmured. “Thank you.”

  “Play for us?” Leisa asked.

  She could see the hesitation in Nan’s eyes, but then, to her surprise, Nan went to the piano and sat. Everyone stopped talking and turned as she began to play. Leisa recognized it as one of those pieces Nan said she’d learned for Marcus many years ago, a wistful, haunting composition.

  “If people know the monsoon is coming, why don’t they flee?” Nan asked, perplexed.

  The old woman peered at her with her stony black eyes. “Would you flee life? Yes, monsoon brings flooding and death, but without monsoon, there is no life. All becomes stagnant and still. Only after the destruction can life begin again. Without the rains, the floods, all would wither and die. Nothing could grow. We fear monsoon, but we need it as well.”

  N
an had never understood what the old woman meant. Life was tough enough without putting yourself in harm’s way, but “she was right,” Leisa would have said. “I would give anything to have Mom and Bronwyn back, but now, knowing how easily it can all be taken away, knowing what it feels like to be so utterly lost… everything feels more real, more precious… just more.”

  “So, you thought of me as a monsoon?” Mariela asked years later when they spoke of this.

  “Not you,” Nan said, smiling indulgently. “But all of the things that coincided with you coming into our lives? Yes. You blew in with the monsoon. The deaths, the loss, the threat of losing everything we held most dear. But, without that, I don’t think my heart could have opened enough for all that came later.”

  In her mind’s eye, she could see the old woman nodding her approval. “Now you understand.”

  THE END

  Author Biography

  Caren was raised in Ohio, the oldest of four children. Much of her childhood was spent reading Nancy Drew and Black Stallion books, and crafting her own stories. She completed a degree in foreign languages and later another degree in physical therapy where for many years, her only writing was research-based, including a therapeutic exercise textbook. She has lived in Virginia for over twenty years where she practices physical therapy, teaches anatomy and lives with her partner and their canine fur-children. She began writing creatively again several years ago. She is an award-winning author of several novels, including Looking Through Windows, Miserere, In This Small Spot and Neither Present Time. Look for her books on Amazon, Smashwords and other booksellers.