Year of the Monsoon (36 page)

“I’m not sure,” Leisa replied honestly as she set the table. “I’m not sleeping well. I’ve been having some really bizarre dreams. Almost every night.”

Lyn looked up from the potato salad she was making. “Are you having second thoughts about Mariela?”

“No,” Leisa said emphatically. “At least, not consciously. In all these dreams, I’m wandering around Mom’s house. Around and around. I don’t know, maybe I’m having a delayed reaction to letting it go.”

“How is Mariela adjusting to being part of a normal household?”

“Really well,” Leisa answered. “She’s curious about everything – cooking, cleaning. You don’t realize how many things we’re exposed to as kids and don’t even think about. She thinks vacuuming and washing dishes is play.”

Lyn laughed. “You’d better hope she keeps thinking that.”

Leisa’s expression darkened. “She’s also starting to ask questions about her mother,” Leisa added.

“Was my mama bad?” Mariela asked unexpectedly one evening at the dinner table.

Leisa and Nan exchanged a quick glance. “Why would you ask that?” Nan asked.

Mariela said, “I heard kids talking at the other place, at St. Joseph’s. They talked about their mothers or fathers being in jail because they did bad things, and that’s why the kids had to go there. My mama was in jail.”

“Yes, she was,” Leisa said carefully. “And it’s true that some of those kids were at St. Joseph’s because their parents were sent to jail. Some were taken away because their parents weren’t taking good care of them.”

Mariela looked hard at her. “My mama didn’t take care of me.” It wasn’t a question.

Leisa leaned forward. “Your mother was sick. When people need drugs, they can’t think of anything else. Your mother took the best care of you she could, but you’re right. She didn’t take very good care of you.”

Nan spoke up. “But that doesn’t mean she didn’t love you. Even if she couldn’t take care of you the way she should have, she loved you.”

Mariela poked at her food, pushing it around on her plate. “She lied to me. Mothers aren’t supposed to lie.”

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.”