Year of the Monsoon (21 page)

Nan didn’t respond.

“Listen,” Leisa said as she took Nan’s hand. “We’re going to be one of the exceptions. I will never cheat on you,” she promised. “And to prove I mean what I’m saying, I want to shop for rings while we’re here.”

Leisa clenched her jaw as she remembered that conversation. She rubbed her thumb on the ring on her left hand. It had taken years for Nan to stop questioning if Leisa was tiring of being with her, if she was still happy.

“I keep expecting you to say, ‘I’ve had enough’,” Nan had said over and over.

And Leisa had happily replied over and over, “Not yet.”

When she finally got back to Baltimore Tuesday evening, she avoided driving by Jo Ann and Bruce’s house. She had called them to say she’d be in late and would be by the next evening to get Bronwyn. She didn’t want to get waylaid by their questions about what Eleanor was like. Not now. She pulled up behind Nan’s Mini and sat there for a few minutes, not sure what she would say. She remembered when her heart used to quicken at getting home to Nan, not this painful thudding in her chest. At last, she got out and knocked on the front door.

Nan opened the door after a moment, and stood back silently to let her in. She followed Nan to the kitchen.

“Are you hungry?” Nan asked. “Do you want something to drink?”

“Uh, sure,” Leisa replied. “A Coke?”

She sat at the kitchen table as Nan went to the refrigerator.

“Glass?”

“Yes, please.” She waited while Nan brought her a glass with ice and took the seat opposite.

“I’m not sure where to start,” Leisa said when Nan just sat there looking at her. She fumbled with the tab, and poured her Coke into the glass. She took a nervous drink before the foam settled and snorted what felt like half the contents up her nose.

Nan folded her hands. “When did you first see Sarah?”

Leisa thought. “Shortly after my birthday. I went to the gym and she was there.”

Nan nodded. “But you didn’t know she worked there when you joined?”

“No, I didn’t.”

Nan nodded again, her mouth tight. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Leisa fidgeted, wiping the frost off her glass with a fingertip. “I’m not sure,” she said lamely. “I… I meant to, but…”

Nan’s intertwined fingers tightened almost imperceptibly as she asked, “Was it because part of you was already thinking you might not be coming back?”

“No!”

“Then you were thinking you’d be coming home?” Nan prompted, her voice betraying none of the anxiety she felt inside as she pushed Leisa for an answer for the first time.

“I… I wasn’t…” Leisa stumbled. Her mind flashed back to the morning she’d left for Ithaca, the morning of that damned dream, and all the things she felt but couldn’t say out loud.

Nan looked at her and said very quietly, “I know I’ve been far from perfect lately, but you know me well enough to know there is a line I will not cross. You’re getting dangerously close to it.”

Leisa sat there helplessly, still unable to voice all the emotions churning within her.

Steeling herself, Nan said, “You have some decisions to make.”

“Come in, come in,” said Jo Ann Wednesday evening, impatiently pulling Leisa inside.

Bronwyn loudly scolded Leisa for being gone so long as she wriggled and wagged her stump of a tail.

Jo led the way to the family room where Bron jumped up into Leisa’s lap on the couch, nestling into the crook of her neck.

“So, honey,” said Jo Ann, sitting on the edge of her chair while Bruce lowered his newspaper and looked at her over the tops of his glasses. “Tell us all about her. What was she like?”

“Well, she was really nice,” Leisa said. “She never married my father. He took off when he found out she was pregnant so I don’t know anything about him. She did marry later, but is divorced now. I told you she has a son.” Leisa paused, not sure how much detail to offer about Donald. “He’s okay. Kind of lazy.”

“Does she have other family?” Jo asked.

“Nobody she’s close to. And no one who knows about me,” Leisa said, stroking Bronwyn who snuffled contentedly in her arms.

“Do you plan to see her again?” Bruce asked, watching Leisa with narrowed eyes.

Leisa could feel her cheeks get hot. “Well, yes. He, Donald, is diabetic and is close to being in kidney failure. They asked me if I would be tested to see if I’m compatible to donate a kidney.”

She’d been prepared for some resistance to the idea of donating a kidney. She was not prepared for Jo Ann’s anger.

“They just met you!” Jo declared. “And this is the first thing they ask you? To give up a kidney? You don’t even know what kind of people they are.”

Bruce, who had continued to watch Leisa closely, laid a calming hand on Jo’s arm. “It doesn’t matter what kind of people they are. We know what kind of person our niece is.” But he turned back to Leisa and said, “Did they ask for anything else?”

“No… well,” Leisa squirmed. “They didn’t ask, but she, Eleanor, did say that Donald doesn’t have any insurance and she’s not sure how she’s going to pay for this.”

“You didn’t offer?” Jo Ann asked immediately.

“No,” Leisa hastened to say. “I’m not offering any money. I only said I’d be tested. And if I’m compatible, the donor isn’t supposed to have any financial obligation.”

“Oh, honey.” Jo Ann blinked as her eyes filled with tears. “Is this the only reason they looked for you?”

Leisa didn’t answer. She couldn’t admit to her aunt that she had wondered the same thing. She remembered the baby book, kept squirreled away all these years.
It has to be more than that,
she said to herself.

Maddie peered over the top of Leisa’s cubicle. “Hey. Medical tests go okay?”

Leisa immediately locked her computer monitor and turned around. “Yeah. It looks like I’m a match.”

“Really?” Maddie came around into the cubicle and sat down. “Are you going to donate?”

Secretly, Leisa had hoped against hope that she wouldn’t be a match, so the decision would be taken from her hands, but “I feel like I don’t really have a choice,” she admitted now.

“You don’t owe them anything,” Maddie pointed out.

“I know but…” Leisa had tried to imagine the guilt of getting a letter from Eleanor one day telling her that Donald had died of kidney failure when she could have done something to save him. “I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t.”

Maddie nodded, glancing at the dark computer screen. “Anything else you want to talk about?”

Leisa felt the telltale flush in her cheeks but said, “No. Nothing else.”

Maddie nodded again. “Okay.” She got to her feet. “By the way, have you seen Mariela lately?”

With another pang of guilt, Leisa realized she hadn’t spent any time with Mariela since Easter weekend. “No, why?”

Maddie shrugged. “She was asking about you. Said she hadn’t seen you in a while.”

“I’m sorry,” said Leisa. “I’ve been so busy with getting to New York and all this medical stuff. I’ll go talk to her today.”

“Okay. I’ll let you get back to whatever you were doing, then,” Maddie said as she left.

Leisa turned back to her computer and brought the screen up to a job posting for a social work position with Ithaca social services. She printed off the application and put it in her bag. Then she went looking for Mariela.

Outside on the playground, Leisa spied Mariela sitting on one of the swings, barely moving. Leisa wondered if she knew how to swing and made a mental note to teach her. No one else was swinging. Even after all this time, Mariela often preferred to be alone.

“Hi,” she said, taking the empty swing next to Mariela.

Mariela didn’t respond and didn’t smile.

“What’s the matter?” Leisa asked.

Mariela looked at her sternly.

“Mariela?” Leisa prompted.

“Where have you been?” Mariela asked. “You haven’t been to see me for a long time.”

“I know,” said Leisa. “I’m sorry. I had to go out of town for a few days, and then I got busy when I got back here.” Mariela stared at her stonily. “But, you’re right. It’s not a good excuse. I should have come to find you when I got back.”

She reached over and gave Mariela a little push and then pushed off herself.

“Are you going away?” Mariela asked.

“What?” Leisa dragged her feet in the dirt and stopped the swing. “Why would you ask me that?”

“You’re different,” Mariela replied. “Something is wrong. Like with my mama.”

Leisa frowned. “What do you mean?”

Mariela twisted on the swing to face Leisa. “I could tell when my mama was going away. She got different. Now you’re different.”

“They’re like abused dogs,” Maddie had said to the staff more times than Leisa could count. “The things they pick up on – body language, off-hand comments, your eye contact – they have learned how to read the people around them like you wouldn’t believe. Sometimes their lives have depended on it. They pick up on signals we don’t know we’re giving. Often when they’ve been acting up, we eventually realize it’s in response to something we didn’t even know we were doing.”

“You don’t look the same,” Mariela said.

Leisa tilted her head, puzzled. “You mean my appearance has changed?”

Mariela’s brow furrowed as she struggled to express herself. “Yes… but you don’t look the same,” she repeated. She got off the swing and stood in front of Leisa and placed her hands on either side of Leisa’s face. “You don’t look at me the same. You’re different.”

Leisa took Mariela’s hands in hers. “I guess I am different. I’ve… I’ve had some problems I have to figure out. But that doesn’t change how I feel about you,” she insisted.

“You said you wouldn’t leave.”

Leisa thought for a long moment, trying to remember. “What do you mean?”

“The night you came to get me, you told me, ‘Go to sleep. I won’t leave you.’” She stared hard into Leisa’s eyes. “Are you going away?”

Leisa looked down at Mariela’s hands in hers. “I may have to go see someone who is sick,” Leisa said. “And I might be gone for a while. But I’ll be back.”

“You promise?”

Leisa pulled Mariela to her and held her tightly. “I promise.”

A short while later, Leisa sat at her desk, her hands covering her face.

I won’t leave you.

When she was little, maybe six or seven, she’d gone through a period where she had nightmares almost every night which would wake her, sobbing and terrified. She could never remember any details, only the sensation of something ominous waiting for her in her sleep. Rose and Daniel would hurry in, holding her and murmuring reassuringly that nothing could hurt her while they were there. Usually, Rose would send Daniel back to bed and she would lie down next to Leisa. “It’s all right,” she would croon. “Go to sleep. I won’t leave you.”

“But you did,” Leisa cried into her hands. “You both left me.”

Chapter 17

NAN PULLED UP AT
the house and was surprised to see Maddie’s Explorer parked on the curb. Maddie got up from where she was sitting on the porch steps as Nan got out of her car.

“What’s wrong?” Nan asked.

“We need to talk,” Maddie said, following Nan inside.

Nan dropped her briefcase on the couch.

“Not your bed any longer, I see,” Maddie commented as she took one of the chairs.