Shelter Us: A Novel (30 page)

Standing there, listening to them breathe a duet of steady tempos, I try to take them in. I lean over Oliver’s face, my eyes just a few inches from him, and count the emerging freckles smattering the bridge of his nose. I smile at how his tongue pushes against his bottom lip, barely contained in his mouth. I take a deep breath of the air he exhales, let peace settle in me. I move over to Izzy’s crib and put my face as low as I can lean in. His generous, soft cheek is pressed against the light blue flannel sheet, extending farther than the rest of his face from the weight of his head on it.

I’d have to stare at them all night to take them in. It’s tempting. I plant a kiss on each of their heads. It will never be enough. A lifetime of kisses would not fill the space in me that belongs to them. In the morning, when they come for me before the sun is up, begging me to get up and insisting that they’re starving, I will search for the feeling I have this moment, this sacred calm to stand against the day’s obligations and terrors that conspire to blow disappearing dust over all that I know to be true right now.

R
obert
and I move slowly this morning. A haze of calm fills the space between us, connects us. We all slept later than normal, even Oliver, and the residue of extra sleep lingers. A glow of beginnings graces us. We drink our coffee; the boys are uncharacteristically subdued. Oliver concentrates on instructions to make a Lego airplane. Izzy turns pages of board books. A television show they’ve requested plays in the background. A shift has happened. I revel in the intimate moment.

The plan is to take Robert to the law school, where we left my car last night, then visit Bibi in the hospital. Before I get dressed, I call Josie. My whole being vibrates with freedom as I call her in the open. I want to check in. I recognize her voice when she answers the phone. “Hi, it’s Sarah,” I say.

“Who?”

“Sarah?” Silence. “Sarah Shaw?” Robert looks up from the newspaper. Can she have forgotten me already?

“Oh, hi Sarah, this is Victoria. I’ll go get her.” I hear her call Josie, hear some talking in the background; then Josie comes to the phone.

“Hi, Sarah.”

“Hi. I thought your mom was you.”

“Yeah, that happens to everyone.”

That makes me feel better. “I was just calling to see how you are.”

“We’re okay.”

“What’s the latest with you staying with your mom?”

“We’re working on it. It’s not always easy, but she loves being with Tyler. She’d miss him too much if we move out. And it’s nice to have help with him.”

“That’s great.”

“I think so, too.”

“How’s Michael?”

“He’s fine. He’s grounded for, like, a year.”

“Ha. Good. And Tyler?”

“He’s good, too.” Her tone is light but not expansive. I wait for more, for some details about his exploits, what new things he’s said, or a favorite new place, but nothing is forthcoming. I feel awkward, as though I am prying.

Robert looks up from the newspaper and smiles at me. I return the smile and proceed. “Josie, I wanted to say that if you ever did need a place, you could stay with us for a while.” Last night Robert suggested I make her the offer. When I asked why he changed his mind, he said now he knows that I know her well, and he trusts me.

She doesn’t say anything, so I fill the space. “I mean, we don’t have a separate guest room or anything, but we have a sofa bed. And we have lots of stuff for Tyler—you know, toys and clothes and things—and we could help figure out the school situation.” Still no response. “I just wanted to tell you.” I wonder if I have said something offensive. I clear my throat to say something else, since she’s not saying a word, and then Josie breaks her silence.

“Thank you, Sarah. That is really nice of you.” She pauses as though she has more to say but doesn’t know how to say it. Robert walks over to the coffeemaker and pours himself another cup. He gestures to me to ask if I want some more, and I shake my head, turn back to concentrate on the call. I can feel the miles that separate me from her.

Josie continues, “But I don’t think it’s such a good idea. I think I should have my own place—I mean, if I’m not here with my mom. Something that’s mine and Tyler’s, so I don’t have to wonder how long until we, you know, overstay our welcome.”

She is so much wiser than I was at her age or am now. I feel a fault line shake across my chest; it hurts to let go of her. She continues to politely rattle off the reasons she can’t accept my lousy offer of a couch: “And I’m going to try to go back to school up here. I know the schools, the teachers, and maybe I can work at the preschool again. It’s better for me up here. And I’d like to keep an eye on Michael.” I could smack myself for the roller coaster of emotions I have put myself through trying to solve her problem for her, appointing myself her savior, without being asked.

“Besides,” she says, breaking into my internal monologue, “I really didn’t like LA. No offense.”

“Oh, Josie,” I say, looking back at Robert, then over the boys’ heads to the television, where the animated program is just ending, “none taken. Those are great plans. I’m really happy for you.” My mind goes to the conversations we shared over our months of lunches. I picture her now, standing in the kitchen in her mother’s apartment, talking on the phone and watching Tyler play with his grandmother. My heart sizzles with hope for her, and breaks with the certain realization that our friendship will not last.

Oliver stands up to turn off the television. Izzy, who also wants to turn it off, stands up and turns it back on, then off again. Oliver does the same; then the two of them start to fight about who gets to turn off the television last. I walk down the hall with the phone. “Please keep in—” My voice breaks, and I have to stop so I won’t cry.

“Sarah? Are you there?”

I clear my throat. “Ahem, yes, I’m fine. Keep in touch, okay?” I say it to soothe the sting of separation, certain that this is our good-bye.

“Okay. Bye.” She hangs up. I open the front door, leaving behind the cacophony of bickering boys and their frustrated father who is trying to make everything okay, and walk outside to mourn alone.

“L
et’s go
to the beach,” I say to the boys this crisp December morning. Six months have flown so fast.

Oliver had a rough start in kindergarten in September, but has now come to tolerate school. He has transferred his focus from Legos to forming perfect letters, but he may never have another teacher who gets him as much as Layla did.

Bibi is mostly recovered. After surgery and a month with a walker, and another month with a cane, she is now walking independently, albeit more slowly. She swims every other day, also more slowly. The doctors are amazed at her resilience. I take it for granted.

Robert and I are doing better. Our marriage feels like a car whose battery needed a jump; it’s working now. We see a therapist, talk about how to talk more. Some days I am the distant one; some days he is. Many days, the best ones, we find each other. As Jane predicted, USC snatched him up. Now his commute is longer but his office is bigger. I wouldn’t have minded us doing something totally different, like a rambling trip across America. But we’re trying to live in the moment.

I think about Josie and Tyler often. When I can’t sleep. When I struggle to buckle Izzy in the car seat. When I pass a McDonald’s. Tyler is in preschool now. I wonder if I’ll think of him at every stage—in kindergarten, in Little League, in his cap and gown at high school graduation. I wonder if I’ll know them then. Josie hasn’t initiated any calls. I understand. She doesn’t need reminders of that chapter
of her life. What opposite meanings the same moment can hold for two people. Her friendship saved me. I’d like to think mine meant something to her for a time.

We have Venice Beach mostly to ourselves this morning. It’s quieter here in winter. The only other people out are early joggers, a few disoriented tourists, and people waking up in the dewy grass. It’s too early for the sidewalk vendors and too overcast for crowds. We’ll have it to ourselves until the sun breaks through and the hangovers wear off.

Izzy spies swings on the other side of the bike path and bolts toward them, and Oliver follows. “Wait!” I call reflexively, though there are no bicyclists in sight. I run after them. Oliver tackles Izzy and they fall in the sand, screaming with delight. I catch up to them and tickle them until they wiggle away again. They each climb into a swing facing the ocean. I push each of my boys with one hand, and concentrate on sending all my latent worries into the Pacific, sinking them in its depths.

Behind us, bleary-eyed voodoo vagabonds and palm readers are starting to set up their beach chairs and umbrellas. I have an idea. “C’mon, guys. Chase me!” I run toward the boardwalk, and they run after me. One fortune teller, under a rainbow-striped beach umbrella, looks like the crossing guard at Oliver’s school—controlled, patient. Frizzy gray hair frames her round face. She wears no makeup. I walk in her direction.

“Hi,” I say as I get closer. I slow my pace. I wrestle with second thoughts.

“Hello,” she says back. “You ready?”

I raise my eyebrows. “Sure.”

“Have a seat.” There are no preliminaries. I like that she doesn’t make funny faces or noises at Izzy and Oliver, who each lean on my lap. She is attending to me. “Give me your hand, please.” I hold out my right hand, and she takes it. Hers are warm and dry. I wish it could be my mom I was showing my heartache and my mistakes, letting her reassure me that it will all be okay. But she’d tell me there are no assurances, that I must look for the bright spots of right now.

I feel a buzz of nerves while the woman looks at my hand. It’s silly. This isn’t real. Yet something about it disquiets me. I try not to give her any clues, just wait to hear her proclamations and predictions. She looks up, ready to enlighten me about myself. Still gripping my hand, she speaks. “I see red in your aura. You’re worried about your family.”

Duh—every mother worries about her family
, my cynical self says.
What else ya got?
But another part of me worries that she really can see red pain floating around me.

She looks at Oliver and Izzy, then back into my eyes. “You have another child.” She squints at me, like she’s trying to see inside my head. “A girl,” she says. My throat constricts. I wonder if she means Ella, or the nine-year-old girl from Guatemala we were matched with last week, who will be our daughter if all goes to plan. I don’t confirm if she’s right or wrong.

She considers me for another moment. The sound of calypso drums mixes with seagulls’ squalls. The sweet, queasy smell of incense floats across the ocean air. Next to us, a guy with a scruffy beard works a pile of sand into the shape of a buxom mermaid. On the other side, a middle-aged black man in a white turban sets out T-shirts on a table. From his boom box, will.i.am sings “It’s a New Day.” A group of boisterous guys wearing Swiss cheese–shaped foam hats and University of Wisconsin T-shirts moves in a pack past us, glorying in the miracle of New Year’s Eve sunshine and warmth.

My palm reader notices my reddened eyes and pats my hand. “Oh, don’t worry, honey, you’re going to be fine. Everything’s going to be fine.”

I stand up. I don’t need to hear any more.

“That’s it? You done? Okay, five dollars for you, honey.” She resettles in her beach chair, ready for the next sucker.

It still hits me sometimes, the darkness. Even while playing here at the beach. One moment I am appreciating the sound of the waves, the sun dancing on the water, my boys jumping off sand dunes. Then, for no reason, or maybe the beauty is the reason, the darkness slams me. It’s not a wispy little cloud of a thing; it’s a sudden and total eclipse
by a charcoal-black hurricane of shrieking, whipping winds. It’s the newspaper story I read this morning about the sixteen-year-old boy driving home who took a turn too fast, whose father got the call and raced down the street to the scene, whose wails reverberated across the canyon where his son’s life ended in a tangle of metal and smoke. I keep chasing Izzy and Oliver across the sand, but my breath now carries sound, chanting in time with my feet,
Oh God oh God oh God oh God
. That is not the way it is supposed to happen.

L
IFE
S
UCKS
, T
HEN
Y
OU
D
IE
, declared the bumper sticker I pasted on my three-ring binder my senior year of high school. I thought I’d hit bottom, losing my mom. It’s a good thing I didn’t know then that the losses keep piling up, or I might not have had the fortitude to keep on. But you learn to see the best of life, to look for the things that don’t hurt.

It’s hard to tell the difference sometimes, between the things that hurt and the things that don’t. I look at Oliver and Izzy and see blessings piled on blessings. But then the shapes shift and I am staring at the prospect of pain: the car that doesn’t yield, the toy that wedges in the throat, the cells that mutate into killers. I stand against the tide of terror. I try to claim my share of joy.

I hope there are people who see only the beauty. People who see us this day, this mommy playing with her boys under sunny skies and think to themselves only,
How lovely
, who do not see the scarred heart, the heightened worry. I hope my kids will be like them.

“Let’s go to the water,” I say. The boys take off running toward the ocean and I pretend that I can’t catch them. We play at the water’s edge, chasing seagulls and splashing each other in the white foam. We face the horizon, hold hands and plant our feet. With each lapping wave, the saltwater pulls us ever deeper toward the earth’s center. It feels like the truest thing.

I
am thankful
to the many people who offered their unique talents to help Shelter Us come to fruition.

I am grateful for the team at She Writes Press: Brooke Warner, Kamy Wicoff and Cait Levin, for their commitment, passion, and patience; to Annie Tucker for her incisive editing; to Julie Metz for her evocative cover design, and to Krissa Lasso for the finishing touches. I am thankful for the stars that aligned to point me to Ann-Marie Nieves, a powerhouse of creativity, enthusiasm and smarts.