Windfalls: A Novel (38 page)

Lucy caught sight of Honey first, approaching across the grass.

“Honey! I’m pumping,” Lucy cried gleefully as she drew near. “Look how high I am!”

“You better watch out,” Honey called up to Lucy at the height of her arc, “you don’t kick holes in that sunset.”

Lucy let her legs and head flop down in mock exhaustion. “I’m tired of pushing,” she announced. “Honey, will you push me for a while?”

Anna watched as Honey stood behind Lucy and commenced to push, her whole body rocking easily back and forth with the rhythm of her work. She watched Lucy lift her face to the coral-colored sky, her eyes closed, her expression soft with the bliss of swinging. Anna had had a vague idea that she might help Honey somehow. She’d thought she could offer to help Honey write a letter or ask for a hearing, thought she might write a letter of complaint herself, but Honey’s silence reminded her that the two of them were strangers. She gave Ellen another little push and tried to think what to say next.

Finally she asked, “Do you have another job?”

“No,” Honey answered with a little grunt as she thrust Lucy up into the air.

“What will you do?”

Before Lucy swooped back to earth, Honey shrugged. “I’ll find something, I guess. Probably not child care,” she added as she pushed Lucy skyward.

Anna asked, “Do you like child care?”

“I like kids,” Honey answered quietly.

“Do you have children of your own?” Anna asked.

There was a pause while Honey tossed Lucy up into the air. Then she said, “No.”

The swing ascended again, and Lucy called down to the woman on the ground, “Where do you live?”

There was another silence as Lucy fell back to earth and Honey pushed her once more. Then Honey answered, “I live at the Redwood Women’s Shelter.”

“What kind of a house is that?” demanded Lucy.

The woman was quiet for so long that Anna thought she hadn’t heard Lucy’s question, but then she answered, “It’s not a house. It’s a shelter for homeless women.”

“Stop!” Lucy yelled. With each pass of the swing she jammed her feet on the ground until finally she was able to leap off her seat. Turning to face Honey, she demanded, “You’re a homeless person?”

“I’m not anymore, am I?” Honey said, kneeling down and answering Lucy so directly that Anna felt like an eavesdropper. “If I live at the shelter.”

“But you were,” Lucy insisted.

“Well.”

“What happened to your home?”

Anna said, “Oh, Lucy, we shouldn’t—”

“It’s okay,” Honey answered, though she was silent for such a long time afterward that Anna felt certain Lucy’s question had been a blunder. But when Honey finally spoke, her voice was neutral. Looking straight at Lucy, she said, “My trailer burned. I lost my home.”

“And now you’ve lost your job,” Anna said softly.

“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!” Lucy cried, stretching her arm in the air as though she were begging to be called on in class. “I know! I know! Mommy—Honey could have a job from us!”

S
TANDING BESIDE THE LITTLE FOUNTAIN, WITH THE SUNSET DEEPENING
behind her, Anna studying her, Lucy jumping up and down, and the baby watching big-eyed from her swing, Cerise felt both danger and a terrible compunction. It confused her that she’d told them so easily about the shelter and the fire. It troubled her that she’d lied so directly about not having children, and it frightened her to think what she might unwittingly say next.

Lucy’s mother was like no one else Cerise had never known, although she reminded her just a little of the woman who’d been her mentor teacher. She liked how Anna looked pretty without appearing perfect. She liked the way Anna treated her daughters, as though she were both amused and pleased by them, and she liked the way Anna treated her, too, as if the world were a thing they shared. She even liked the clothes that Anna wore, and the simple way she fixed her gleaming hair. She liked Anna way too much to disappoint or contaminate her, too much to risk exposing herself to her.

“Please,” Lucy pleaded, as though Cerise were a candy bar or another ride at the fair. “Oh, please, please, please, please.”

There was a long pause while Cerise stood with her head bent, waiting for Lucy’s mother to say the hard words that would free them both. But instead, after another moment, Anna said, “I’m not sure I have any work for you right now, but maybe you’d like to come and spend a few hours with us on Wednesday afternoon? I know Lucy would be thrilled to have you visit. And Ellen, too,” Anna added, as she lifted the baby from the swing.

Cerise didn’t want to have to spend more time with Lucy, with her funny way of talking, her million moods, and messy clothes. Even though Lucy’s eyes were brown instead of blue, and she wasn’t anywhere near as beautiful as Melody had once been, Lucy made Cerise think of Melody, her body the size of Melody’s, her hair as soft as Melody’s, her voice the ghost of Melody’s voice back before everything went wrong.

And Cerise didn’t want to have to be with the baby most of all. She was afraid that if she touched Ellen, she would never be able to let her go, afraid that if she held her, her hands would somehow twist to claws. She was afraid that in Ellen’s presence, she would start to cry and never remember how to stop.

“Please?” Lucy asked turning to her. Her voice was sweet and urgent, as insinuating as Melody’s had once been. “Oh, please?” And standing beside the little fountain in the tender purple twilight, the only word Cerise could find was, “Sure.”

O
N
T
UESDAY MORNING
, A
NNA DROPPED
E
LLEN OFF AT
M
RS.
C
HAUNCY’S
half an hour early and drove to the Redwood Women’s Shelter. It was a low, dull building in a tired neighborhood close to the city center. She parked in front of it, locked the car, and then surreptitiously double-checked the doors. A knot of women were loitering on the sidewalk with their cigarettes and bundles, and as she passed through them, she smiled sympathetically into the middle distance.

Inside was a reception area with a chair-lined wall, a graying carpet, and an office desk on which sat a telephone and a Rolodex file. It all seemed so startlingly normal that Anna realized she had unwittingly been imagining the etchings she’d seen of Bedlam, with wild-eyed women lolling in the straw.

A voice said, “We’re not open now.” Anna jumped and looked around to see a woman coming toward her down the hallway. She was short and plain, and her glasses were taped at one corner with black electrician’s tape.

“I’m sorry,” Anna said, “I just need … are you … do you work here?”

“I do,” the woman said, entering the room. “And I’m afraid we’re full right now. We can’t even take any more applications until our waiting list shortens a little.”

“Oh, I’m not—I mean, I have a place to live. I just wanted,” Anna stammered, “some information about someone who’s staying here.”

The woman had been looking pleasantly at Anna, but suddenly her worn face hardened. “And who are you?”

“I was thinking of inviting one of your—Honey Johnson—to my house. And maybe even having her watch my daughters.”

The woman pushed her glasses up on her nose. She said, “I’d be breaking confidentiality if I told you anything about any of our residents.”

“I know,” Anna said, “It’s just, I have a responsibility, to my—”

The woman’s eyes suddenly softened. “You don’t want to endanger your children by helping Honey.”

“No. I mean, yes. That’s—”

“In that case I’ll tell you a little more than I should, though I don’t know much.”

“I’d appreciate whatever you can say.”

“We have to have a lot of rules here,” the woman began. “We can’t help everybody, so we have to concentrate our energies on those with whom we might have a real chance. If a woman can’t follow our rules, we have to ask her to leave, to make room for someone else. It’s hard,” the woman shrugged, “but there it is.

“Now Honey’s never caused a bit of trouble,” the woman continued. “She watches out for people, does extra chores, doesn’t complain. She’s great with the kids—and some of the children here have good reason to be a handful.”

Anna said, “What about her—background?”

“Most of the ladies want to talk, to tell their stories. But Honey’s never said a word about herself, at least not that I’ve ever heard.”

“She told me she lost her home when her trailer burned.”

“If that’s what she said, I don’t see why we should doubt it. She must trust you, to reveal that. Honey’s quiet,” the director went on, “but seems sturdy, like a real survivor. She’s certainly kind. Her stay with us is almost over, and we’ll miss her when she has to leave.”

“Why would she have to leave?” Anna asked.

“Three months is the limit any woman can stay with us—three months, as long as she can follow all our rules.”

“What are your rules?”

The director adjusted her glasses once again. “The women have to look for work, and when they find a job, they have to do their best to keep it. They have to do chores and maintain their personal hygiene, they can’t fight or use obscenities, and they have to stay drug-free and sober.

“I don’t think Honey has any dependency issues,” the woman continued. “We do drug testing. One dirty catch, and you’re out. I’d trust my own kids with her, if I had any.”

She paused for a moment, and then she said, “It’s good of you to take an interest in her. It’s what all these women need—a bridge back. It’s communities that make people homeless, and only communities can help them regain what they’ve lost.”

“The government—” Anna began.

But the woman interrupted her, “—is an abstraction. These women …” Her voice trailed off as though she’d reached a dead end, but then her thoughts seemed to take a different turn, and when she spoke again, her tone was resonant and firm, “‘Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.’”

Anna asked, “Who said that?”

“The Bible, of course. Saint Paul, in the book of Hebrews. It isn’t always easy,” the woman added, “to try to help. But then it isn’t easy to be homeless either, to be stripped to just a life.”

“No, though I’d think—I mean, there must be some way….”

The woman gave Anna an appraising look. “There’s another thing I try to keep in mind,” she said. “It’s a legal phrase, oddly enough.”

“What’s that?” Anna asked.

“‘The right to folly,’ “the woman answered.

“Oh,” Anna said, though for a moment she was not sure whose folly the woman meant.

I
T HURT NEARLY AS MUCH AS STARTING HER JOB, TO HAVE TO GIVE IT UP
. When Cerise woke on Tuesday morning, the whole day loomed uselessly in front of her, as eternal and immovable as a mountain.

“Have a good day at work,” the director said to her as she filed out onto the sunny streets with the other women, and though Cerise nodded and mumbled, “Thanks,” inside she winced as if she’d been slapped.

By midmorning she missed the kids so much, she thought she might sneak back anyway, thought she could lurk around the playground or maybe hide in the hall in hopes of stealing even a peek of them. But as she neared the schoolyard, she veered away again, afraid that someone might notice her and call the police.

She spent the rest of the day wandering the Santa Dorothea that people with jobs and homes and destinations never see—the alleys and weedy lots and vacant buildings, the dank or dusty hiding places, the thickets and wild pockets, the places that could only be reached by crawling or surreptitious climbing.

They were the only places left where she belonged. She’d wanted a place she could go where people would be glad to see her, had wanted a room of her own where she could retreat to pursue her encounters with Travis. But now she saw that she would never have those things. She’d done her best, and she’d lost her job, and it was proof of how little she’d belonged there to begin with that she would do again the thing that made her lose it.

“They say I gotta look for work or leave,” Barbara had muttered as she’d packed. But the bars and restaurants hadn’t wanted Cerise, the motels and nursing homes hadn’t needed her, and even if she could find another day care foolish enough to hire her, she couldn’t bear having to start over one more time. “Get real,” she remembered Melody scoffing. “Do you remotely think I’d have a chance?” And now Cerise wondered why she’d ever thought she had.

“Where there’s life, there’s hope,” the shelter director was always saying. But hope was a hoax, just a way of trapping people into staying alive. Hope was a mirage, a trick. Hope meant nothing, and still life ground on, still Cerise combed the streets for nooks and hidey-holes, still she went to the soup kitchen at noon to eat cheap food and scan the crowd for Barbara. Forking mealy potatoes into her mouth, watching the others eat, it seemed their only purpose was to fill forbidden toilets with their homeless turds.

When the shelter opened, she slipped inside and snuck the blankets from her cot, took her bag of toiletries and her extra clothes from her shelf, helped herself to a handful of shriveled doughnuts from the pantry, and then stole out the kitchen door before anyone could notice. As dusk came, she made a bed for herself in a stall in a livestock barn at the fairground, sweeping off the wooden floor planks as best she could with a half-rotten grooming brush, spreading a layer of old newspapers along the back wall, arranging her blankets in a tidy rectangle on top.