A Time to Gather (15 page)

Erik eyed Lexi, as if he expected her to say something.

She couldn’t imagine what.

He gave his head a slight shake. “Lex says being here is an emotional nightmare.”

She glared at him, but he wasn’t paying attention.

Claire sat on the old stool and propped her feet on a rung. “I’m not talking about the emotional impact. It’s a physical thing. I’m just plain pooped out.” She smiled. “Taking care of the hacienda is more major than I imagined it would be. And most of the rooms aren’t even refurbished yet.”

Lexi toed the scruffy rug.
Emotional nightmare
floated like an invisible mobile strung from the ceiling. Maybe she didn’t want to be Erik’s friend. He said too much. He revealed things that were best left tucked out of sight.

Erik said, “What brings you down here?”

“Scrabble. Danny thought Tuyen would enjoy playing it tonight. Then we discovered there are no board games at the hacienda. So I offered to run down to the house. I wanted to pick up a few other things anyway. When I left, Nana was teaching Tuyen how to make spaghetti.” Claire crossed her arms, holding shut the jacket. “Speaking of emotional nightmares, your grandpa didn’t show himself all day.

” The heater hummed noisily.

Their mom sighed. “Can we talk, kiddos?”

Lexi scrunched down on the floor.

Erik hoisted himself up onto the workbench. “Shoot.”

“Your dad looked over Tuyen’s papers today and called some agencies. As far as he can tell, her story is probably legitimate.”

“Hm,” Lexi murmured.

Erik cleared his throat.

Claire said, “It seems you have a new cousin.”

“Hm,” Lexi said again.

Erik didn’t bother to make any response.

“But that’s not what I want to talk about. There’s more going on here. I know about the emotional nightmare, Lexi. And I know about yours, Erik. I know addictions are rooted in deep hurts. Dad already gave you the speech, but I’ll add my two cents.” She wiped a sleeve at her eye.

“Mom,” Erik said. “You don’t—”

“Let me finish. I admit, I didn’t come close to being a perfect mother. I’m sorry. We wounded you, most recently by almost divorcing. And now, by selling your childhood home. Even if that is just a normal part of life, it still hurts a place in your heart.”

Lexi hugged her knees to her chest.

Claire said, “But we can’t fix the damage. Only God can. I hope you’ll forgive me.” She took a breath and released it. “Okay, that being said . . . Erik, did you get fired?”

“Uh, yeah. Unless my attorney can wangle some loophole out of the contract.”

“I’m sorry. And is it true about Felicia and Brett?”

“I’m fairly certain she admitted it on the phone last night.” He had told Lexi about calling his girlfriend while not quite sober. “Or was it this morning?”

“I’m sorry,” Claire said.

“Mom, it’s not your fault.”

“No, it’s not.” Her voice caught. She whispered, “How much do you drink?”

He gazed back at her for a long moment, clearly measuring his response. “On a somewhat regular, frequent basis. There are times I can’t have just one drink. I’ve been known to black out on occasion.

” Claire’s lips almost disappeared. The flesh around them went white. “

Mom, it’s my life.”

She gave a slight nod and turned to Lexi. “Honey, I think you’re struggling with an eating disorder.”

Lexi shrugged and propped her chin on her knees.

Claire slid off the stool and sank onto the floor next to her. Wordlessly, she wrapped her arms around Lexi.

She would not cry. She would not cry. She would not. She would not.

Her mom kissed her temple, laid her damp cheek against Lexi’s, and rocked her like a baby.

  
Twenty-Four

J
anuary rain pelted against the stained-glass windows.

Claire could think of nothing else—other than the much-needed, thorough soaking rain—for which to give thanks that Sunday morning.

She glanced down the pew to her left. Somehow she had ended up on the aisle with Tuyen next to her. On the other side of the young woman sat Indio, then Danny, Max, and Ben. It was an odd seating order, the result of Ben rudely barging his way first into the row, Max on his heels trying to calm him.

Claire’s attempts to focus on the service fell flat. Snippets of conversations intruded on her thoughts. They were like annoying ditties from commercials. The more she struggled against them, the more insistently they replayed in her mind. Again and again and again.

There was one from the previous evening.
Erik, how much do
you drink? Lexi, I think you’re struggling with an eating disorder.
Their faces etched with pain, wordlessly expressing a hopelessness. Later, Erik’s reply, speaking for both of them:
No. No counseling.
Not interested.

There was Danny’s voice. He was the only one to come up to the hacienda. He had made excuses for the others. “Lex really wanted to paint. Jen had papers to grade. Erik needed to talk to his lawyer.” Ever the champion of the underdog, he hovered over Tuyen, teaching her about the hacienda. He even spent the night on a couch so he could be available for whatever they needed.

A short phone chat with Jenna. “Mommy, it hurts so bad. I miss Kevin so much . . .”

And dear Max. The only words she could remember him saying were, “The dots connect.” He spoke them in disbelief, a confused expression on his face. Technically, Tuyen’s story might be factual, but it was not settled in his heart as truth.

Claire closed her eyes.
Why now, Lord? He was just getting
acquainted with his heart. He was just beginning to open up.

Then there was the new voice. Tuyen’s halting speech grew familiar, its cadence finding a rhythm in Claire’s ear.

The girl had very few clothes in her bag, and so Claire shared some with her. When Tuyen undressed to try on a sweater, Claire noticed yellow-green bruises on her ribs.

“Tuyen?”

“It not hurt now. My friend say it ‘come with territory.’”

“Friend? Territory?”

She nodded. “Some men bad. They not like how we do things.”

“Do things?”

“Serve them.”

Claire realized she wasn’t talking about being a salesclerk or a waitress. BJ’s daughter worked as a prostitute.

Getting her mind wrapped around that revelation took some moments.

Tuyen touched her own cheek. “Sometimes they hate my face. Vietnamese and American. So ugly . . .”

Late last night, Indio spoke privately with Claire, her eyes wide with concern. “She’s never heard of Jesus! Buddha yes, but not Jesus. Imagine! BJ’s child not knowing . . .”

Then there was that morning in the kitchen. Ben finally showed up, in need of coffee. The face-off between him and Indio unnerved Claire. Her in-laws had been the only safe harbor she’d known.

Indio said, “Benjamin Beaumont,
it does not matter one whit who her parents were! She is a guest in our home. You will be civil. You will come to church with us.”

Claire opened her eyes. What was she supposed to do with all of it?

The mantle of matriarch weighed heavy again on her shoulders. Her neck ached. She stretched it, tilting her head this way and that.

A light caught her attention. Although rain still thumped against the windows, a stained-glass pane—a spot on Mary’s shawl—brightened from pewter to sapphire. Sunlight must have created the effect.

Sunlight while rain poured?

Sunlight plus rain equaled a rainbow. Somewhere outside. And what did a rainbow mean but hope?

The mantle moved, as if cosmic hands fluffed it, releasing its burdensome weight, repositioning it until it settled about her shoulders, featherlight.

Claire smiled to herself.
Thank You.

  
Twenty-Five

C
ome on, Lex.” Danny stood on the other side of her desk, hands on his hips. “You can take a short lunch break.”

With him and Max? She didn’t think so. “I told you, I have too much work to do.”

“We’ll eat across the street, at that Thai place. You can just pop in, pop out. Half an hour, tops. You have to eat something.”

All of a sudden everyone was mentioning food to her. Danny’s invitation to a meal was her fourth to turn down in two days. She’d said no to Nana twice and Jenna once. Had her mother blabbed to them all that maybe she had some sort of food issue?

She said, “No, I don’t have to eat some—”

“I wonder if Tuyen likes Thai.” His mouth yapping nonstop, he sat in the only extra chair in her small office, crossing his legs, ankle to knee, in one unbroken motion. “I invited her to lunch, too, but she and Mom were going shopping. Mom said that would be complicated enough in itself. She didn’t want to factor in a lunch date.”

“Shopping for what?”

“Clothes. I guess she doesn’t have many. She wore one of Mom’s dresses to church and looked a little schoolmarmish. But wow, Lex, you should have seen her face. All bug-eyed, like a kid in a candy store. The service was totally foreign to her, but I think she sensed something that’s going to taste sweet once she gets hold of it.” He chuckled. “Maybe the smell of incense hit her like chocolate does us at See’s.”

Lexi rolled a pencil between her fingers. She didn’t want to talk about Tuyen. “Why aren’t you working?”

“I am. That’s why I’m having lunch with Dad. He’s got some ideas for me.”

“So you told him?”

“About the losses?” His foot bopped in time to her music, a primitive African piece, lots of drums. “Yeah. He’s totally cool with it.”

She didn’t want to talk about Max either. “I have to finish this.” She looked down at the sketch, a landscape idea her boss hoped to show a potential client.

“What’s it for?” He leaned across the desk until his head blocked her line of vision.

“A new housing development in Escondido.”

“A new housing development. Lex, this is big stuff, isn’t it?”

She laid a hand on his head and pushed him back. “You’re in the way.”

He looked at her, his nose centimeters from hers. “It’s big stuff.”

“It pays the bills.”

“It’s big stuff.” Light from the window reflected in his unwavering, dark brown eyes. He was paying attention. Too much.

“Danny, what do you want?”

“I want to know what you’re so mad about.”

“I’m not mad.”

“You didn’t come up to the hacienda last weekend or all week.”

“So?”

“So, you practically lived there before.”

“Before the fire.”

“Before Mom and Dad moved there, you mean.”

“Things are different.”

“How?”

“They’re just different. Everywhere. Every which way.”

“What do you mean?”

She glanced beyond his shoulder, but was drawn immediately back to the eyes she’d stared into for as long as she could remember and probably even before then. In their mother’s womb. In the playpen. They’d always centered her, always made her feel safe.

Like hanging out with Nana and Papa at the hacienda did. Before.

But then things changed. Danny didn’t tell her about losing clients. Nana found a new granddaughter from Vietnam. Her dad acted crazier than weird. Her parents sold The House. Her mom finally saw her as she really was: a real loser who couldn’t even manage to eat correctly.

Danny should know all that. If he didn’t, it wasn’t her job to tell him.

She shrugged. “I don’t know what I mean.” She lowered her gaze to the sketch. “I really have to get this done.”

“It’s all good, you know. Everything has changed, yes, but it is good.” Danny stood. “You’re sure about lunch? We could bring you something— ”

“No!” She looked up at him.

“If you want to come up tonight, Nana and I are teaching Tuyen how to make meatloaf.”

Wasn’t that sweet? “I’m busy.”

For a fraction of a second his eyes scrunched. “Lex, why are you so angry? You almost got killed last fall, but you didn’t. You’re alive. You have this great job. You paint amazing things. You have a boyfriend. Mom and Dad are together. We have a new cousin. Life is good. Embrace it.”

In a flash, the anger she could not admit mushroomed into a fury. “Get over yourself, Mr. Know-It-All!” The words hissed from her like air escaping from a punctured balloon. “Maybe your life is good. You get to be pals with Max and Nana and that so-called cousin. You get to tell Mom the re-wedding baloney is wonderful. You get to ignore Papa and me and Jenna and Erik.”

“I’m not ignor—”

“Yes, you are!”

“I am not. You’re the ones who chose not to show up and get to know Tuyen better. I’m just recognizing the part of the glass that’s full. Which you could do, too, if you ever got that chip off your shoulder. We’re witnessing miracles right and left. I mean, Dad selling the business and asking for forgiveness from his kids? Mom, happy as a bride with him? Uncle BJ living on in his daughter? You don’t see them because all you can think about is how you have to share your grandparents and your private space at the hacienda.”

“I don’t want to talk to you!” She cupped her hands over her ears. “Get out of here!”

“Fine! I don’t really want to talk to you either.” He strode from her office and shut the door with a loud thud.

He was so wrong. So totally wrong. Those weren’t the things she thought about at all. What she thought about was Zak dumping her and about what food she would binge on next and about where she could purge it and about the nightmares full of smoke and fire.

The shaking slowed and she opened a desk drawer, bottom left. The cracker stash. A whole-wheat brand. At least it had some food value.

She tore
apart the cellophane and started eating.

  
Twenty-Six

G
ive me a break, Delgado.” Bobby drove their squad car into a 7-Eleven parking lot and braked outside the entrance. “Get the frappucino here. They got those bottles in the case.”

“Nah.” Rosie shook her head. “It’s not the same. Come on. Two more blocks to Starbucks.”

“You’re a coffee snob.”

“So?”

“So I have a wife and three kids, one in braces. I can’t afford to be a coffee snob. I like this manager’s free drinks.”