Finding Casey (16 page)

“What have you guys decided so far as your money and assets?”

“Oh, sixty-forty, since I said I didn't want the house. In addition, I get ten years' alimony. Believe me, he'll feel my absence for years to come.”

“I thought California had that no-fault law?”

“Terminology,” Halle said. “And if his income appreciates, you better believe I'll take him back to court. Reassess the whole enchilada.”

“Halle, I know you're hurt—who wouldn't be? But this sounds so calculated. Almost mercenary.”

“Maybe it is. Maybe he deserves that.”

Halle sang along with the radio, Elton John's “Candle in the Wind,” which always made Glory get tears and think of Princess Diana's short, unhappy marriage to the prince who essentially used her as a brood mare, though no one would say that outright.

“Halle, are you even listening to me?”

“Of course I am. That Topher is adorable, don't you think? Are they sleeping together?”

“I doubt it. When Juniper has an important decision to make, she usually talks to me or Joe about it.”

“About sex? Glory, talk about delusional! She's not going to tell you. Have you seen how she looks at him? You should have a chat with her about birth control and safe sex.”

“I already did,” Glory said, irritated and on the verge of a headache. If Halle made Juniper's private life her business, then Glory had a right to Halle's. “Hal, don't be upset—”

“Do I look upset?”

“Let me finish my sentence, will you?”

“Fine. Go ahead.”

“You poured Baileys into your coffee and it wasn't even nine in the morning.”

“It's a holiday.”

“No, yesterday was a holiday. Today is just a regular day, and nobody I know puts Baileys into their morning coffee unless they have a bad head cold or to celebrate the end of a war. It's none of my business—”

“You got that right.”

“You're my sister and my best friend. I love you. Please tell me that's not becoming a habit. Hey, you drove past the turn for Target.”

Halle snapped the radio off and the car went silent except for the whirring of the heater. She made a last-second lane change and right turn into the Starbucks take-out lane so abruptly that Glory had to grab the dashboard. “A venti espresso with three extra shots,” Halle said into the frost-covered speaker. “My sister here would like a bucket of shut the hell up.”

“Pardon me?” came the disembodied voice along with the slap of chilly air.

“A venti hot chocolate, extra whipped cream,” Halle said, zapping the window closed to pull up behind the truck ahead of them in line.

“I'm worried about you,” Glory said. “However things with Bart turn out—”

Halle sighed. “For crying out loud, I'm getting a divorce, not plotting world domination.”

“I apologize. That came out wrong. I just—what can I do to help?”

Halle's mouth trembled. Glory could see the worry lines makeup failed to cover. “If you really want to help, rent me
your guest house,” she said. “I'll pay whatever the going rate is. I won't bother you and Joe, I'll live my own life. And I love Mom dearly, but in order to get through all this without killing myself, I can't be around her constant blame and dire warnings. We can hire her a home health-care companion or something. Bart will pay for it. Besides, if I stay in Santa Rosa, I just know I'll run into the tree surgeon, and that will do me in.”

“What tree surgeon?”

Halle lowered the car window to pay for their drinks. “The pregnant thirty-one-year-old one that Bart's engaged to marry.” She handed Glory a wad of napkins, then laughed at Glory's expression. “I know, how backwards is that? Getting engaged to someone who's already pregnant with your child before the ink on the divorce papers is even dry? Buying her a ring that I only found out about because it was on our American Express bill!”

“Why didn't you tell me that part?” Glory said.

Halle pulled the car forward. “Why do you think? Because it's so freaking humiliating! I'm forty-four. That's not all that old, but put me next to a thirty-one-year-old and suddenly I'm an infertile dried-up crone with absolutely no purpose, so toss me out with the trash.”

“Jeepers, Halle, it's not your fault, it's his. How on earth did he meet a tree surgeon, let alone find time to fall in love and impregnate her?”

Halle sipped her coffee before placing it in the cup holder. “She came out to give an estimate on planting more cherry trees. You know Bart and his effing cherry trees. He wanted an entire grove planted and producing before he retired. Well, he's planted a crop, all right.” When the light changed, she turned into the mall parking lot. It was about half full, crowded for Santa Fe.

“I don't know what to say,” Glory said. She hadn't touched her hot chocolate.

“It gets better. Her name is Cookie and she wears a giant rodeo belt buckle that reads COWGIRLS FOR CHRIST. How ironic is that?”

“Cowgirls for Christ and she's sleeping with a married man? Oh, Halle. That's just crazy. Give me your phone.”

“What for?”

“Because I'm going to ask Joe or one of his cousins to beat the crap out of that two-timing Bart. Believe me, when they're done with him, he won't be impregnating anyone.”

Halle smiled as a tear ran down her face. “I'm tempted to let you.”

Half of the Candela board meeting was spent reviewing the balances of various funds and predicting the budget for the fiscal New Year. Certain expenditures needed to be pushed through before December 31, but looking at the pie graphs made Joseph think about how much Christmas baking he needed to do. Theoretical budget numbers seemed a world away from actual dollars and cents. He needed to be freezing cookie dough and planning Christmas, because his family depended on him to make the sweets for the holiday.

Dr. Adame said, “Fund-raising thus far has netted only seventy-five percent of our usual target amount. That does not bode well for this coming year.”

Joseph was thinking, should he make bizcochitos only? What about the Russian teacakes Juniper loved? Maybe he could sneak some arsenic into the marzipan and feed it to Gopher.

Harold Weiss was going on about the February fund-raiser,
saying that calling it the Black-and-White Ball sounded too much like “black and blue,” as in domestic violence, and he wanted the name changed to something innocuous like Sweethearts Ball, and Elena Gonzales said, “Absolutely not. If we infringe on Valentine's Day, no one will attend.”

Joseph didn't really care what they called it, because his back was hurting so bad he couldn't dance at either event. He pondered taking a pain pill here at the table or ducking into the restroom. “Why not just call it a fund-raiser?” he said, and was met with silence.

There was always one person on every board Joseph had served on who was adamant about
Robert's Rules of Order
, and whose voice could silence a roomful of quarrelers. On Candela's Santa Fe board, that person was Mary-Caterina Adame, a retired physician whose family had lived in Santa Fe for generations going so far back they remembered stagecoaches. In high heels she was barely five feet, and she wore her white hair twisted into a tidy chignon that would have been stylish in 1920s Paris. The gavel in Dr. Adame's small hand looked ridiculous, like she was playing with her father's tool box. Of course that got him thinking about his forthcoming daughter and genderless toys. No matter what Glory said, he was getting Baby Casey-to-be a tool set. Everyone needed to learn how to use a hammer. Once he'd caught Glory using his shoe to pound in a nail so she could hang a picture, and just the memory of it made him smile, which helped the pain a little bit, but not enough to skip the pill.

“Mr. Weiss,” Dr. Adame said to one of their biggest benefactors, “kindly submit your concerns about next month's agenda via e-mail so we can get through this month's. If you have suggestions for the name change, submit them to Jamie and we'll
get to it next meeting. Every person here has other places to be, and at the rate we're going, we'll be here all night.”

Harold Weiss looked sufficiently chastened, and Joseph was impressed. If it had been him in charge of the board instead of Dr. Adame, Weiss would still be jabbering on due to that posturing men could not help but indulge in.

“All right. Moving along to item sixteen,” Dr. Adame said. “Mr. Vigil has been offered a paying position. Should he accept it, he would begin in February, working in our Santa Fe shelter with the duties listed below. However, with his wife expecting their first child in February, he may need to delay acceptance, in which case we need to find a substitute. Nominations?”

“Congratulations, Joseph,” Elena Gonzales said. Elena was Candela's Española board member, and had actually trained Joseph when he first came to volunteer three years earlier. “How is Glory doing?”

“
Muy bien
,” he said. “Just a few more months and we will have a second daughter. May God give me the necessary strength to survive another female in my household. If not for the dogs, I'd be outnumbered. “

Everyone laughed, and then Dr. Adame rapped her gavel. “We're all very excited for you, but people, we have an issue on the table. Joseph, do you have an answer for us? Or should we consider nominations for a substitute?”

“Thank you, Dr. Adame,” Joseph said. “I'm still considering your very generous offer. I'm afraid I won't be able to make a decision until the baby is born. However, I am looking forward to developing our alliance with Española, so long as there's no conflict in my sitting on the board.”

“I don't see a problem,” Elena said.

“
Bueno.
Then may I suggest you consider Cynthia Madison
for my replacement? We've served on the school board together for the last two years.”

“May I have an official nomination?” Dr. Adame said.

“Of course,” Joseph said, calling for a second. Then he asked for objections, and when none were forthcoming, the matter was voted on, unanimously passed, and so noted in the minutes. The remainder of the meeting went well, with a few items shelved for the January meeting. After it ended, only an hour behind schedule, Joseph lingered behind to speak with Elena Gonzales. “Elena,” he said. “Do you have a moment?”

“Of course,” she said. “What's on your mind, Joseph?”

“Do you remember that Pojoaque child-abuse case last September? The verdict must have come when I was out of town visiting my parents.”

“Oh, yes. The boyfriend went to prison.”

“Good. I was wondering, did the little girl recover from her injuries?”

Elena sighed. “Well, in a way. She recovered, but there was some brain damage. Those shaken-baby cases are tragic.”

“Where did the child end up? In the foster system? Institutionalized?”

“She spent some time in Presbyterian hospital. The maternal grandmother was awarded custody.”

“And the biological mother?”

Elena sighed. “In and out of rehab. She was ordered to submit to mandatory weekly drug tests, and four hundred hours of community service.”

“Whew, that's a lot of hours.”

“Yes, Judge Eloy took a special interest in this case. You're aware of his daughter's drug problem?”

“Who isn't?” A judge's life was public, and Eloy's own
daughter had been arrested too many times to count. Despite all manner of help, the situation seemed hopeless. “It's very sad.”

“The child's in a good environment and the mother, who knows? Maybe she'll accept help eventually.”

“Outreach might be one way. Unfortunately, how far the arm goes depends on budgets.”

“Yes, I agree. If I hear anything else about the case, I'll let you know.”

“Much appreciated,” Joseph said. That case had haunted him because the scenario—runaway kid, pregnant at fourteen—could have been Juniper's had Glory not taken her in. “I'll see you after the holidays. Merry Christmas to you and your family, Elena.”

“To yours as well. Oh, by the way. I'd like to schedule an appointment with you to meet Ardith Clemmons. She's a psychologist at Presbyterian, looking to do some volunteer work.”

“Sounds great,” Joseph said. “Next week?”

“I'll get back to you.”

First Joseph headed to the Candela office, where a stack of paperwork awaited him. Jamie Reed, the beating heart of Candela, was on the phone. She found openings for women where there were none and knew exactly which attorney or judge would answer the phone in the middle of the night. Joseph sat in one of the chairs recently donated from a business in town. They could never have afforded them otherwise. Money was always tight, but this year so much more so. He was grateful to live in a community that invested in the women they helped, but he worried that if the recession continued, where would the money come from?

While he waited, he looked at the print hanging on the wall, a local artist's watercolor rendering of a bird's nest with three
blue robin's eggs inside. Artists took whatever opportunity they could to show their work in a town of upscale galleries. The bird was plentiful in Santa Fe, and noted for building insubstantial nests. Every year the Wildlife Center in Española took in all manner of injured birds. He wondered what percentage were robins.

He listened to the sound of children playing in the dayroom, which was partitioned off from the sleeping cots during the day. In another room, a local therapist offered massage and physical therapy. Snippets of conversations among staff members came and went and still Jamie was on the phone. Someone turned a radio to the Spanish station and not long after, someone else turned it back to classical. Out front a driver unloaded boxes from a truck that Joseph hoped were filled with donated coats and jackets.