Forever Beach (27 page)

S
arah knew it was morning because Leila was climbing across her and sat on her stomach.

Sarah blinked her eyes open, realized the usual morning empty space beside her was still occupied. And she nearly dumped Leila on the floor in her panic to get up.

Wyatt was still asleep and naked. She was still naked. Fortunately the sheet covered most of them. Sarah grabbed it and pulled it up to their chins, and this time Leila did fall off, in the wedge between them. She didn't hesitate but climbed on Wyatt and pushed his face with both hands.

“Bunny wabbit,” Leila demanded.

Wyatt's eyes opened. “Huh?”

“Bunny wabbit,” she repeated.

“Oh. Bunny wabbit,” he said, his voice low and gravelly with sleep. Leila squealed with delight. “Again.” She pushed his lips together again.

“Bunny wabbit and Wyatt.”

“More.”

Wyatt yawned, groaned, “Bunny wabbit, Wyatt, and . . . and heffawumps and woozles.”

Leila narrowed her eyes at him, moved her face close to his. Sarah bolted for the wardrobe and a long T-shirt.

“Come on, bunny wabbit girl; let Wyatt wake up.”

Leila looked at Sarah. Back to Wyatt. “How come Wyatt gets to sleep with you and I don't?”

“Because grown-ups get to sleep together,” Wyatt said and turned over, dumping Leila on the mattress.

She blinked then climbed back on his side. “Again.”

Wyatt groaned and bucked her off again.

Sarah tried not to laugh. Obviously mornings with Leila were more than he was ready for.

Except that the next day he came back for more.

Things went well for the first couple of days, but then Wyatt had to go away to a two-day training course. Leila kept asking where he was, but when Sarah tried to explain that he had to go away for a few days, Leila got confused and started to cry. “Do I have to go, too?”

“Where?”

“Do I have to go away, too?”

“No, sweetheart. No one is going away. Wyatt had to go to school, that's all. He's coming back.”

“When is school over?”

“In a day or two.”

“Can we pick him up at the bus?”

“He's not on a bus. It's sleep-away school.”

“No-o-o-o.” Leila started to cry.

The more Sarah tried to explain, the worse it got. She finally gave up with a “Be patient.”

When he did show up, Leila ignored him.

“Hey, hokey-pokey girl. Did you miss me?” He bent down to give her a high five and Leila turned on him. “No.”

Wyatt looked at Sarah for explanation.

“She thought you had gone away for good.”

“Hey, goofball. I'm not going anywhere. Promise.”

Leila looked over her shoulder at him. “Promise-promise?”

“Hokey-pokey promise.”

She reached out her arms, and he picked her up, shooting a
What just happened?
look toward Sarah.

Sarah just breathed a sigh of relief.

But as the next Saturday came around, Leila became sullen again; cried at the smallest sound, woke with nightmares. She complained that she was hungry, but then wouldn't eat. Refused to get dressed. Everything was a battle of wills. An emotional roller coaster.

Every time she passed the wall calendar, she slowed down, looked, but didn't ask. They both knew there would be another visit.

Sarah began to hate the thing. What had begun over a year ago as a fun way to remember activities had turned into a dreaded enemy. Once Carmen's appeal was—hopefully—denied, Sarah would tear the damn thing off the wall.

And if instead, it reversed the adoption procedure, Sarah would go to plan B. Always have a plan B. Nonie had taught her that. And Sarah had an alternate plan, in spite of what Wyatt said.

O
N THE FOLLOWING
Saturday morning, Danny Noyes picked Leila up and she went without a word. Came back hours later, the same way. Danny just shrugged and left.

The silence lasted until Wyatt knocked on the door a while later. Sarah went to answer it.

“You look dragged out,” he said and kissed her.

From behind them, Sarah heard Leila scream. She whirled around. “What?”

But no catastrophe had occurred. Leila stood in the middle of the floor, fists clenched, screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Stop it!” Sarah demanded. She felt at the end of her strength. She didn't know how she could keep this up. How either of them could.

“Enough already,” Wyatt said and stepped toward Leila. He picked her up, and she lashed out hitting and kicking.

He put her down; tried to soothe her, kid with her, distract her, but it only made things worse. “I don't get it. What did I do?”

Sarah couldn't even begin to explain that it had nothing to do with him. She just didn't have the energy. She felt like kicking and screaming herself.

“I think you better go,” Sarah managed, holding on to tears of frustration and sympathy for Wyatt who was so good and was being treated abominably.

He hesitated, but on a new spate of screeches, he walked past Sarah and out the door.

Leila stopped screeching immediately. Just frowned at Sarah.

Sarah frowned back. “Satisfied with yourself? He's gone.” And this time he might just be gone for good.

That set Leila off again, Sarah snatched her up and carried her kicking and screaming to her room. Dropped her on the bed.

She kicked out and screamed the two bad words she'd
learned at Carmen's at the top of her lungs. “Stay right there until you can calm yourself.” Sarah shut her in her room.

At the first crash, she knew she'd made a mistake. She opened the door to find Leila sitting on the floor surrounded by books. She'd knocked all of them off the shelf. Sarah picked her up and carried her into the hallway where there was nothing that she could break and nothing to hurt her. Sarah sat her down on the floor and told her to stay, then sat at the kitchen table and listened.

When she tiptoed out a while later, she found Leila asleep on the floor and Sarah gave into her tears.

O
N
M
ONDAY MORNING,
Sarah didn't attempt to send Leila to school. Or the next day. She finally called the teacher and told her she was withdrawing her two weeks early.

“Having a hard time?” Mrs. Lester asked.

“Really bad,” Sarah confessed.

“Just love her, Sarah, if you can. We'll still be here if you need us before pre-kindergarten. And keep in touch.”

“Thank you. You've been . . . Thank you.” And Sarah hung up.

Sarah walked around on eggshells. Karen told her just to wait out the storm. One day they would look back on this and hardly remember the pain. Sarah doubted it, but she tried to believe it. Still she called Leila's therapist and made an emergency appointment.

D
URING THE NEXT
few days, the tantrums alternated with bouts of sullenness and quiet. Sarah couldn't decide which was worse, the little girl who was lashing out her fear and anger, or the one who seemed like she had stopped caring.

Karen sent Jenny over, but Leila didn't want anything to do with her. And Jenny went home in tears. She didn't come again.

“She's very upset,” Karen explained. “What happened?”

“I'm sorry. So sorry.”

“Sarah, it is what it is. Sometimes we adults just have to hunker in and weather the worst of it.”

So Sarah hunkered in and tried her best.

Wyatt called but she didn't answer, and he didn't leave a voice mail. He came to the door, but as soon as he knocked Leila started crying again. As soon as he left, she returned to silence.

Sarah began to wonder if it would ever be normal, their life together. Or whether Leila was already too damaged to ever learn to trust and love.

Then she remembered herself. She hadn't made Sam's life easy. She didn't throw tantrums, but she could be pretty cruel verbally. She defied him, insulted him, tried to make him send her away so that she could say,
See, nobody wants me, not even you
.

But he wouldn't say it. He'd just smiled that wise sometimes sad smile and loved her. Took her out to look at the stars where she would forget to be tough. One night while they were standing on the beach, they saw a meteor shower, like a quick quiet fireworks display.

And she forgot to want to run away, to have the world prove what she already knew: that she wasn't lovable. And over the years she'd forgotten, truly forgotten, that she was unworthy. She accepted his love. And learned in her way to return it.

And while he was alive, she lived with trust, believed that life was good. And when he died, she mourned as she didn't think she could mourn for another human being. And when
she was done, she vowed to give to another child what Sam had given to her.

And it was such a mess.

I'm failing, Sam. I don't know what to do. I don't know if I'm cut out for this unconditional love thing. I want to rest, to be able to relax just for a minute and I can't. Maybe I can't do this after all.

And if she couldn't, she'd be throwing his gift back in his face.

Sarah's work fell behind, and Alice had to call several clients and tell them that a family emergency had arisen and it had delayed their repairs. Most were understanding.

Alice was sympathetic. “You poor thing. You're making yourself sick looking after that child.”

And Sarah knew she was right. Neither she nor Leila was eating. Sarah could barely force food down. She made Leila meals that she refused to touch. Sarah tried talking to her, promising her that she loved her no matter what, that she'd be her forever mommee, no matter what.

But her bright, willful little four-year-old had already learned not to trust. How to strike out before they struck you. And it broke Sarah's heart.

W
HEN
S
ATURDAY CAME
and the doorbell rang, Sarah was almost relieved. She handed a sullen Leila off to Danny with barely a word. He frowned at her. “Are you okay?”

She just shrugged. He probably thought she was on drugs.

“She'll be back at five,” he said with forced enthusiasm.

“Love you, sunshine,” Sarah managed and closed the door.

Seven hours of peace. Sarah threw herself on the couch, curled herself around a pillow, and stayed that way.

She was once and truly effed up. She'd been a fool to think
she could do something useful, helpful, loving on her own. She'd screwed it up. She'd dangled hope in front of a defenseless child and now she couldn't stop it being snatched away.
Better not to have hoped at all.

At five there was a knock on the door. Sarah had washed her face, put her cell phone in her pocket, ready to cope when Danny returned with Leila and document any bruises or skinned knees. But she wasn't prepared for what waited for her on the other side of the door.

Danny stood holding Leila straight out in front of him. Her face was tear streaked and she was whimpering. She was also filthy and reeked of urine, Her shorts were wet and stained brown.

Sarah stared, not taking in what she was seeing. Leila who she had sent off clean and neat was being returned to her wearing a dirty diaper. She hadn't worn diapers in over a year.

For an eternity Leila just dangled there between them, limp as a rag doll. Then Danny pushed her toward Sarah.

Sarah took her, but as she held her Leila screamed. No wonder, she had obviously been left in this foul state for hours. Her skin was probably raw from the uric acid and whatever else.

“What happened?” she asked Danny through gritted teeth. If she hadn't been in a hurry to get Leila cleaned up, she would have hit him.

“I don't know, they said she got sick and handed her to me.”

“They? Who the hell is they?” Sarah used every piece of control not to yell the words at him.

“This guy DeShawn; I think she called him.”

Leila wailed and wriggled to get down.

“This ends. Now.”

Danny nodded jerkily. “I'm going to make my report. I think you were right not to want unsupervised visits.”

“Too late now.” Sarah slammed the door in his face. “Come on, baby, let's get you cleaned up.”

“Leila bad,” she whined.

“No, sweetheart. Leila's my precious girl. My forever girl.”
And if I ever see Carmen again, I'll kill her with my bare hands.

Sarah took Leila into the bathroom and set her on her feet, while she knelt and turned on the water.

“Tubby time?” she said quietly and smiled at Leila, who was no longer sullen—but the same unresponsive, almost comatose child she'd been when she'd first come to Sarah. All that work and building of trust and the promise of love erased in one damnable day with her mother.

In a just world, this would not be allowed.

She took out her phone. “Selfie,” she said and fired off two shots. Put the phone on the side of the lavatory.

“Okay, let's get out of these icky clothes.”

Leila just stood there, unmoving as a statue. Didn't help but didn't fight as Sarah pulled her T-shirt over her head. Sarah threw it in the corner of the bathroom to be documented.

She pulled her shorts off, and Leila squatted with a cry of pain.

“It'll be better soon,” Sarah crooned while anger filled her heart to bursting.

The diaper was too small to begin with, probably left over from one of Carmen's six other children. It had leaked and Leila's legs were streaked with the overflow.

She took two more photos.

“Tubby time,” Sarah sang again and lifted Leila into the tub, diaper and all. She pulled away the sticky tabs and carefully removed the diaper from between her legs.

Sarah documented the diaper then pulled it off Leila. It was filthy, and Leila's skin was red from not being changed. Sarah didn't even pretend to be taking selfies, willing her finger not to shake as she documented the state of Leila's skin. Turned Leila around and took more photos.