All the Good Parts (23 page)

CHAPTER 26

Fear is a parasite, attaching itself to plump, healthy emotions like hope and desire, longing and aspiration. It jumps on your back and sucks hard. I’d managed to pry the beast off just enough to get a little of my mojo back, but I hadn’t noticed the one holding Garrett so tightly around the neck that he’d choked that day at Rizer Technologies.

It hadn’t let go of him. Shortly after the disastrous job interview, he called Carly to quit his job as Maura’s tutor.

“Let him go,” Carly said after I’d insisted we call him back. She ran a hand through her limp curls, which looked every bit as exhausted as she did. “He’s not your problem anymore. I know that sounds harsh, but don’t you think you should let him lick his wounds in private?”

I nodded, but still I found myself parked in the library lot as day slipped into night, slumped down in the driver’s seat, spying on Garrett as he diligently collected the garbage other people carelessly tossed into the air without a thought.

He tied off the refuse bag and lobbed it into the Dumpster, shrugged on a jacket he’d pulled from his duffel bag, and stood, still and watchful, under the uncertainty of a blinking street lamp.

I held my hands out as I walked toward him, but what I had to offer wasn’t a juicy roast beef sandwich wrapped in shiny paper, but a bland apology, heartfelt as it was. “I’m sorry I forced you into that situation,” I began, feeling like it wasn’t enough. He didn’t look surprised to see me, and he didn’t look sad either.

“It’s all right, Leona.”

“I understand if you’re angry with me.”

“Well, I’ll admit I was a mite upset with you for not noticing my distress.”

Why is it when we give someone permission to be angry with us, we still get instantly defensive when they take us up on the offer? “I didn’t mean any harm. I was thinking about your future—”

Garrett put both his hands on my shoulders. They felt steady, reassuring. “I said it was
okay
, and I meant it. I think you might have helped me, in a way, though I don’t know if you’ll see it in kind.”

“How in the world did I help?”

Garrett smiled. “Right now, in order for me to be happy, this is what I have to be doing. I like living at the Episcopal church, and I like helping out at the library. I like carrying around my duffel bag and occasionally arm wrestling with Mr. Williams. I don’t want to think about the future, or the past. If this is what they call ‘living in the moment,’ it’s working for me.”

I understood the value of appreciating the moment, but living only there? Completely ignoring the past didn’t erase it. Not acknowledging the future meant giving up hope. “Thinking like that makes you feel safe, Garrett,” I said, “and that’s not a bad thing, but it’s not the best thing for living a life.”

“Right now, it’s the best way I know how to live my life.”

I wasn’t going to argue with him. There was something in Garrett’s brilliant blue eyes I’d never seen before, a confidence newly born and skittish, but also healthy and robust. Maybe it could grow stronger if he kept his world small for now, if he learned the particular skill of succeeding at life on your own terms.

“Best of luck to you, Garrett,” I said, after kissing him on the cheek for the last time and offering him the ride I knew he would decline. I got into my car and pulled around the lot, stopped right alongside him, and rolled down the window.

“You’re a good person,” I half shouted over the wind.

“I know,” he said, and as I drove away, the grin on his face kept me smiling for miles.

Brophy House was slowly becoming uninhabited. Boxes lined the hallways, packed with all the things the kids could do without, the items that would languish in a storage facility until they returned. I forced myself to look at them—chances were, by the time they got back, the kids wouldn’t want any of it. They’d have outgrown their lives here. They would have outgrown me.

Carly placed an ad on Craigslist, searching for renters. She included the basement apartment, certain I’d join them overseas. If all went as expected, strangers would be living in this house by the New Year. I tried to imagine some other woman in my basement, or would it be a guy? Would they shove my rag rug in the closet and paint over my gray walls? I couldn’t picture it. I couldn’t picture anything. Because I hadn’t made up my mind yet about my future. For a moment I wished I could adopt Garrett’s live-for-the-moment philosophy, but I’d spent too many moments with the kids to not know that I’d be missing countless others. I had to remind myself that the future was built on hope.

“I’m so sorry for this, Lee,” Donal said when he caught me sitting on the front stoop, shivering and staring off into space. Donal was smoking again, and he lit up with a shrug. “Kara says if the process runs smoothly, we’ll be back in a year or two.”

“When does a process ever run smoothly?” He winced as I said it.

“Do you want to come with us? Carly seems to think you do, but you’re frightened. Is that it? Are you scared of leaving?” He gestured to the home he’d built with my sister. “I am. I’m fucking terrified. I haven’t been back since my twenties, and Ireland’s a lovely place, really, it is, but I don’t know if I’ll recognize it. It’s been so long I don’t remember why I left in the first place, and that’s dangerous. It means I might want to stay, and then I’ll add on another element of unhappiness to our lives.”

“Maybe you’ll all be happy there,” I said, though the thought of it cramped my stomach.

He shook his head and tossed the cigarette butt. Donal’s cleanliness obsession was in remission. “I’m happy where your sister is,” he said softly. “It’s always been like that for me, but she needs more. It’s why I love her, but it’s also why I worry. We’ll be living on a farm. My grandmother fancies herself a modern woman, and the house has all the amenities, but is it too much to ask?”

“I don’t think you ever had to ask.”

“Then I am a lucky man.”

The screen door flapped open, and Maura came bursting out. She wore bright green skinny cords and a tank top underneath one of Carly’s leather jackets, which slid off her shoulder. Her backpack was gone, replaced by an enormous blue suede hobo-style purse I hadn’t seen before.

“I’m going out,” she announced, already halfway down the driveway.

“Did you ask your mother?”

“She’s busy. I’ll be back soon.”

“Maura Evelyn!”

Maura tripped to a halt. She turned and glared at Donal. “Why are you making this a big deal?”

“Because you are. Now, if you haven’t told your mother, you’re going to tell me. Where are you going?”

“I’m meeting up with some kids at the park.” She lifted her chin in my direction, as if daring me to say something. The thing was, she gave me more credit than I deserved. What was it about the park I was supposed to remember? Was that the kissing park? Was Maura meeting a boy? Something more sinister? She’d been butting heads with Carly nonstop since the hearing, but I figured that was to be expected. Teens excelled in wielding their anger like a weapon. It was one of the few they had, so it got the most practice.

Maura’s hands went to her hips. “Are you going to hold me up any longer?”

“Who’re you meeting?” Donal had crossed his arms in a countermove, but I already knew Maura would win this battle. He didn’t have it in him to fight anymore.

“Katie and Eliza Jane. You’ve met them.”

“I don’t want you walking by yourself.”

“I’ve got to go to work,” I piped in. “I’ll take her.”

Maura huffed a sigh. “Fine,” she said, and walked to my car without a glance in my direction.

We drove in silence, save for Maura giving me directions. “When we get to the park, I want you to leave me off at the corner of it. I’ll walk the rest of the way.”

“Not going to happen.” I pulled into the parking lot. I could see a group of kids Maura’s age by the play park. Their gangly bodies draped over the equipment like dripping candles.

“See ya.”

“Not so fast.” I didn’t have the patience to wait for her to deem me worthy of conversation. “Are you still angry, or is it something more?”

“I’m not just angry,” she growled. “I’m pissed. You could have told me what was going on when we were in the bathroom, and you didn’t. You chose to keep me in the dark like a stupid little kid.”

“Again, it wasn’t my place.”

“Was it your place to mess up Garrett?” She looked almost scared as she said it, like she was pushing buttons and didn’t know what they would do.

“I told you what happened. Garrett needs some time to be alone.”

“Well, I don’t have time. You and my mom and dad messed everything up, so none of you have any right to treat me like I’m
going
to mess things up. I haven’t done anything!” She kicked the dash with her sneaker, her heel landing hard on her purse. I heard a tinkling sound, glass hitting glass, and a memory surfaced, quick and clear, of what Carly and I hid in our purses when we were only slightly older than Maura.

“What’s in your purse?”

“Nothing,” she said in a weighty tone of voice that said she really meant
everything
.

“Show me,” I said, the echo of Estelle’s mocking laughter in my ears. “Now.”

Maura lifted the door lock and looped the purse over her arm. “I said it was nothing.”

I should have been embarrassed by the tug-of-war that ensued, but I wasn’t, because I won. Maura scowled at me as I dug through her belongings.

“You’re violating my privacy,” she hissed.

That did give me pause. How was this different from Estelle raking through my things? I watched the color drain from my niece’s face and decided now was not the time for analysis.

My hand found something cylindrical, a mason jar filled with clearish liquid, sprigs of darkened thyme giving it a light green cast.

“It’s herbal water,” Maura mumbled.

“It looks an awful lot like the infused vodka I gave to your parents for Christmas last year.”

She saw that protest was futile, and then the tears came, a guilty cry, the kind that turns frantic and hiccupy. “I’m so sorry, Auntie Lee. Please don’t tell my mom and dad. I won’t do it again, I promise.”

“Why did you do it in the first place?”

One shoulder went up. “I don’t know.”

“Is that what you do at this park? Drink?”

“No! I just thought . . . well, I thought . . .” She couldn’t finish, and I knew why. I’d have a hard time admitting it, too.

“You thought everyone would look at you with different eyes.”

“Sort of,” she said, but I could sense her relief. “Yeah, I guess.”

“I get that.”

“You do?”

“Sure. Everyone does. You know that, right?”

Maura snorted. “Not my mom.”

“Your mom, too. Everyone wants people to see them as special and like them for it. And it doesn’t go away when you get older, you just don’t need the approval so much. The problem is when you try to be someone you’re not. The attention doesn’t last because you can’t keep up the ruse. Eventually, they’ll see what you’re presenting is not the real you. Am I making sense?”

“I don’t know.” She glanced at her friends, and then back to me. “What are you going to do about the . . . stuff you found?”

I thought for a moment. “I’m taking the vodka back. If you promise this will never happen again, I’ll forget about it, but
you
shouldn’t. Will you think about what I said?”

“Sure,” she said excitedly. “You’re the best, Auntie Lee.”

Maura kissed me on the cheek and bolted from the car, slowing only when she drew close enough to her friends to be noticed, adjusting her pace, sauntering like she didn’t have a care in the world. I realized how much she was growing up, and what little impact my words had. She’d already learned to modify the self she chose to show the world, to hide the things that made her feel weak.

CHAPTER 27

“How does it feel to have two hands again?”

“Wrong question,” Jerry said as he fiddled with the remote. “Ask me what it’s like to have this
thing
hanging off my upper arm. Answer is, it stinks.” He settled on some
Magnum, P.I.
reruns and leaned back in his Barcalounger. “Ask me how glad I am you stopped by.”

“Are you?”

“Answer is, very. That Lim won’t be back for another hour, so you’ve got good timing.”

I blushed, knowing how I’d made it here before the aide began her hours—I’d rushed through mine with my other clients, mentally promising to make it up to them the following week. I could have talked to Darryl, or maybe even Dr. Bridge, but I found myself driving fast toward Jerry’s neighborhood, and when I spotted his small, neat bungalow, its green trim framing it like a long-cherished photo, I knew I had to stop.

He stared at me, blue eyes narrowed to slits. “You’ve got bags under your eyes. Aren’t you sleeping?”

“You’ve got them, too. We match.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I’ve been sleeping. All day sometimes.”

“That’s not good either. Does Mrs. Lim allow it?”

“I sleep on the days she’s not here.”

“Maybe I need to come by those days. If you get too much sleep, you’ll be sluggish. It has the opposite effect.”

He shrugged and turned back to Tom Selleck and his impressive mustache. “What does it matter?”

I worried for him, but like everything else in my life, there were boundaries, laser lines guarding human behavior, invisible to those who didn’t know where to look, and I usually didn’t.
How much do I insert myself in this man’s life?
I did that with Garrett, and look how that turned out.

“Well, you must not hate your prosthesis all that much. You’re wearing it.”

“I’m afraid of Lim.”

“She doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Let’s stop talking about nonsense. You must be here for a reason.”

“Checking up on you isn’t reason enough?”

“Please.”

He was right. I did run to him with my problems. “Sorry. I like your opinion, even if I disagree. Sometimes especially if you disagree. Is that strange?”

Jerry turned his body awkwardly so he could fit his good hand in mine. “Telling an old guy he’s needed is like a dealer making a person a dope addict. You’ve been giving me a little here, a little there, and now I need it. Go ahead. Talk.”

I told him everything. When I finished, he said, “Do you want to go to Ireland?”

“No.” I didn’t have to think about it.

“There’s the answer to the first problem. Second, do you still want to have a baby?”

“Yes.” It felt good to answer so emphatically. “But my sister—”

“Is her own woman. She’s moving with her family.”

“It’s my family, too.”

“Oh, sweetheart, it is and it isn’t. You know that.”

“The situation is complicated.”

“People say that when they know they have to make a choice between hurting themselves or someone else. Very few things are really complicated. You don’t want to act selfishly, I understand. What you need to know, though, is that the person who would call you selfish doesn’t have to live your life. And life is long, sometimes motherfucking long—excuse my French—and their judgment won’t carry you to the end, only your choices will. Do you know what I’m saying?”

I nodded, the pain of losing Carly, Donal, and the kids already clogging up my throat because I’d made my decision, made it before I’d even acknowledged it—I was staying here. There was no other way for me. I put my head on Jerry’s shoulder, rasped out a thank-you, and let his solidness hold me up for a moment.

“And you need to have some fun, kiddo,” he murmured. “Go meet up with this Darryl. Try him on for size. Make your world a little bigger and you’ll have more room to roam.”

“What if I make it bigger and end up getting lost?”

“You’ll find your way.”

We sat together for a while, watching the figures on the television screen move through action plots, exciting lives we’d never have.

“I should go,” I said when I felt my eyelids getting heavy. “I don’t want to run into The Lim.”

“Hold on a minute, I got something for you.”

I helped him from the Barcalounger, with more difficulty than I had in the past. Jerry moved like an old man now, slow and deliberate, as if whatever was pushing against him was winning. He disappeared into his bedroom for a moment and returned holding a small red box. “Take it,” he said gruffly. “I want you to have it.”

My hands were trembling when I took it from him. The moment felt important. Inside the box was a charm bracelet, with one lone charm dangling from it—a tiny slot machine. “Well,” I said. “Thank you.”

His laugh held too much sadness. “It was Anna’s. I bought it for her when Paul was born. I figured us having a kid was a gamble. I know it’s kind of stupid, but she liked it. Wore it all the time.

“We weren’t the best parents, and I can’t even say we tried as hard as we should have, but we cared, at least most of the time. There was love in this house, not always enough, but it was there. I want you to know that.” He nudged my hand, and I slipped the bracelet over my wrist. “I think you can do better than we did. It’s a risk, bringing a life into the world, but the person you are, Leona, lessens the hell out of that risk. Remember that.”

Later, after a bout of indecision lasting well into the evening, I texted Paul:

Me:
Hi, Paul. This is Leona, your ex-home-health aide. I feel it’s my job to tell you to monitor your father’s sleeping habits more closely. He’s sleeping all day when Mrs. Lim isn’t there.

Paul:
I’m not going to even ask why you retained this number. First, how is my father’s medical care still your responsibility? And second, how do you know this if you aren’t visiting him?

Me:
I might have stopped by the other day.

Paul:
Might have.

Me:
Fine. I did. I needed his advice on something.

Paul:
I’m sure he was more than willing to give it.

Me:
Jesus, just don’t let him sleep all day, okay?

Paul:
I’m taking good care of him and I resent your implication that I’m not.

Me:
Maybe you should focus less on spreadsheets and more on interpersonal communication.

Paul:
Maybe you should mind your own beeswax.

Me:
Did you really just type “beeswax,” or was that some kind of autocorrect debacle?

Paul:
Leave us alone, Leona. Don’t make me report your stalker activities to Home Health.

Me:
You really are the definition of asshole.

Paul:
That is quite possibly true, but irrelevant. My father needs a regimented routine. When you come around, you undermine it. So don’t come around. Understood?

Me:
Understood.

Me:
Asshole.

The Love Community Center wasn’t painted pink and graffitied with hearts and cupids as I’d imagined, but a squat, mud-colored building surrounded by the dried-out, wispy remains of Illinois cornfields in late fall. Twenty minutes early, I parked between the only two cars in the lot, a souped-up Hummer and a minivan with AYSO stickers plastered to the bumper, one of which proclaimed, “Soccer families know how to kick it.” I hoped neither one belonged to Darryl.

I unclicked my seat belt and opened my laptop, glad to have a little time to review the list of survey questions I’d sent to Darryl in preparation for today’s meeting. I hadn’t heard back yet, but I was pretty certain I’d covered what we needed to complete our project:

1. What types of resources does your community offer single mothers?
   
2. Did you use any state-run medical services during your pregnancy and/or after birth?
   
3. How do you manage child care? Do you utilize Head Start or other government-subsidized care?
   

I read on, happy with the clear practicality of my questions, until a cold realization hit me harder than the blustery November wind shaking my tiny Honda—
all
of my questions were practical. I’d completely ignored the emotional aspects of single motherhood. And I’d done it on purpose, because I didn’t want to know. I was
afraid
to know.

It was too late to type the additions. The parking lot had filled while I stared at my screen, and I watched women pluck children from car seats, greet each other warmly, and head inside. I didn’t spot a guy yet, but my phone said it was five minutes until six, almost time for the meeting to begin.

My whole body shivered with an earthquake of nerves, my heart the epicenter. I took a deep breath to settle things down, not wanting to give Darryl or the single mothers the impression I suffered from convulsions. It helped a little. At least I was able to get out of the car.

“Could you hold the door?” came a voice from behind me as I entered the building. The woman—petite, African American, casually dressed in jeans and a thick green knit sweater—held a squirming toddler in one arm and an overstuffed diaper bag in the other.

“Thanks,” she said, smiling at me. She glanced at my messenger bag. “Are you here for the bridge club? Little young for that, aren’t you?”

“I’m here for the single mothers’ group.”

“Since you’re not dragging a kid in here, am I right to assume you’re one of the students we’re meeting with today?”

“Yep.”

“Little old for a student, aren’t you?” Her laugh, a deep, unrestrained cackle, relaxed me.

“I’m Leona. And we ancient ones prefer ‘nontraditional student.’”

She laughed again. “Sara. Nontraditional person. Nice to meet you.”

The toddler called out for something unintelligible, and Sara produced a pacifier as if from thin air. “He’s too old for them, but whatever,” she said. “They say he won’t go to kindergarten sucking away at one, so I shouldn’t worry. Between you and me, I don’t care if he graduates from college while chomping away at his Binky. It keeps him happy.”

I shrugged. “I guess it’s not such a big deal.”

“That’s the great secret,” she said, and kissed her son on the temple. “There are actually very few things that are a big deal. When you figure that out, life becomes so much easier.”

Her open manner gave me the courage to ask, “Were you a single mother by choice?”

Her son wiggled impatiently, and she tilted her head toward a bench just inside the foyer. “Do you mind if I change him?”

“Not at all.”

Tucking a clean diaper behind his head, she laid him on the hard plastic bench. His large brown eyes watched her every movement. “I went to the Bahamas with a bachelorette party, had a good time, and went home without a care in the world,” she said while changing him with quick, efficient hands. “A month later I figured out I’d brought home an unusual goody-bag present. I was thirty-four. I spent a very long time trying to decide what to do, and an even longer time feeling ashamed of myself for being so reckless.”

“When did you stop feeling that way?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Eventually, I thought it might be a bad idea to keep beating myself up. I had this strange feeling that once the baby arrived, he’d be able to feel my shame, and it would be unfair to him. I wanted him to feel joy. At first, I faked it, but one day, I realized I didn’t have to. I was happy.”

She gathered her son up and tucked his shirt into his cute little jeans. “I worried about doing this whole parenting thing alone, but I’m doing it, and that’s what counts. These ladies definitely help. Some of them have a similar situation, some of them don’t, but it doesn’t matter. We’ve got divorced ladies, widows, and some who were sick and tired of waiting for the right guy and took matters into their own hands.”

My people,
I thought.