Wonders Never Cease (3 page)

2

T
he instant Natalie Pelton opened the door she knew things were running behind. Leah was still sitting at the table in her pajamas, angrily picking the raisins from her toast and dropping each one on the floor in disgust. Mrs. Rodriguez, still dressed in her flowered housecoat, was standing at the counter smearing peanut butter over two limp slices of bread.

“Good morning, Mrs. Rodriguez. How are we doing today?”

“Me, I'm doing fine,” she said, and then with a nod toward the table: “That one's a pistol.”

“One of those nights?”

“Is there any other kind?”

Natalie dropped her keys on the counter with a
chink
and walked over to her six-year-old daughter, planting a quick one on the side of her forehead. “Good morning, sweetheart. You're going to be late for school. What's the holdup?”

“Raisins.” Leah scowled, wiping off the kiss with the back of her hand and returning to her work. “She knows I hate raisins. She gives 'em to me anyway.”

“Don't eat them.”

“I'm not.”

“Don't drop them on the floor either,” Natalie said, squatting down beside the chair and collecting the black dots with one quick swipe of her hand.

“Raisins are good for you,” Mrs. Rodriguez scolded. “Raisins are fruit, and you need three servings of fruit every day to stay regular. Dr. Oz says so.”

“We can argue about it later,” Natalie said. “Right now we need to get you to school, young lady. Get dressed and grab your backpack—let's go.”

When Leah disappeared into her bedroom Natalie turned to Mrs. Rodriguez. “How did things go last night?”

“No problems—no new ones, anyway. She did her homework and she watched one hour of TV. Then she read for a while—that girl loves to read. She was in bed by nine, I was in bed by nine fifteen. I swear, she wears me out. I raised three of my own, but I was younger then. Now I run out of steam.”

Natalie paused. “Any more stories?”

“Always stories. Lots of stories. She tells them to her dolls, she tells them to the walls, she sits on the front porch and tells them to the cars passing by. She has quite the imagination. Maybe she'll be a writer or a poet someday. She's gifted, that one—maybe that's why she's so
obstinado
.”

Gifted
, Natalie thought.
That's not the word the counselor
used
.

“How was work?” Mrs. Rodriguez asked.

“It was work,” Natalie said.

“A nurse's life is not an easy one.”

“I can't complain. It's only three or four nights a week.”

“But twelve hours straight, all night long. I don't know how you do it.”

She glanced at Leah's bedroom. “Neither do I sometimes.”

“But what would life be without work?”

She patted Mrs. Rodriguez on the shoulder. “I think they call it
play
.”

The door opened again and a man stepped into the kitchen. He was tall and good-looking, with thick black hair and dark eyes to match. He was dressed in blue nursing scrubs, exactly like Natalie's.

He winked at Mrs. Rodriguez. “Hey,
mamacita
. Did you keep the bed warm for me?” Without another word he walked directly into the second bedroom and closed the door behind him.

Mrs. Rodriguez rolled her eyes. “I hate it when he calls me that.”

“He knows,” Natalie said. “Sorry.”

Natalie turned and followed the man into the bedroom. When she opened the door she found him already sprawled facedown across the bed.

“Kemp, what are you doing?”

“What does it look like I'm doing?” he said without opening his eyes.

“It's your turn to take Leah to school.”

“Can't be.”

“You know it is. I do it three days a week and you do the other two. Come on, we don't have time for this.”

“School holiday,” he mumbled. “Give the kid a day off.”

“Come on, I'm not kidding. If you don't leave right now you'll be late.”

Kemp slowly propped himself up on the edge of the bed. “Why do we have to go through this every day? We don't finish our shifts at UCLA until seven. By that time we're both brain-dead—but then we have to race home just to get the kid off to a school fifteen miles away. This is Culver City, Natalie—they've got the best public schools in West L.A. They've even got these clever things called ‘buses' now that'll pick her up right in front of the house.”

“Kemp, come on.”

“It's a waste of time and energy, not to mention money. Think about it, Natalie, ten thousand bucks a year for a private school. Think what we could buy with that.”

Think what
you
could buy with that
. “I'm not having the public vs. private school debate with you this morning. Are you taking her or not?”

He lay back down on the bed. “School holiday,” he said. “Check the calendar; it must be Saint Somebody-or-Other's Day. We don't want to offend the powers that be.”

“Fine.” She turned on her heel and slammed the bedroom door behind her.

Leah was waiting for her at the kitchen door; she held her backpack open while Mrs. Rodriguez loaded her lunch box.

“Better not be any raisins,” Leah grumbled.

“Oh, you scare me,” Mrs. Rodriguez said. “Make your own lunch next time.”

Leah looked up at her mother. “I thought it was Kemp's turn.”

“Kemp had a long night,” Natalie said. “You ready?”

“I like Kemp better,” she said. “He drives real fast and he never talks.”

“We'll have to speak to Kemp about that. Let's go.”

“I forgot to tell you,” Mrs. Rodriguez said. “My niece—she's moving back to L.A.”

“Your niece?”

“She has two little ones of her own.”

Natalie's eyes widened. “Mrs. Rodriguez—what are you telling me?”

“She's going to need me. I'm sorry, I have to take care of my family.”

Natalie closed her eyes. “When?”

“Soon—a couple days maybe. I would have told you sooner, but I just found out myself. Sorry.”

“Mrs. Rodriguez, how am I supposed to replace you in a couple of days? Please—I need at least a couple of weeks.”

Mrs. Rodriguez smiled a sheepish apology.

“Is this about money? Because if it is—”

“It's about family,” she said. “If it was money I would say so.”

“Do you know of anyone? Can you recommend somebody?”

“Let me ask around.”

“Please, I'd really appreciate it. Somebody who can sleep over; somebody who's good with kids; somebody who might be patient with the—you know—the stories.” The more she described the person she required, the more hopeless she felt. Mrs. Rodriguez had been a godsend, and God didn't seem to be sending her any extra blessings these days.

Natalie walked her daughter to the car in silence. She opened the back door and held it for her.

“I guess no more raisins,” Leah said.

“Just get in the car.”

She started the engine and pulled out of the driveway. They were already ten minutes late; she hoped she could make up the time on the freeway.
Her timing couldn't be worse
, she thought.
How do I find another Mrs. Rodriguez in just a couple
of days? There's no way. Kemp and I will have to fill in—one of
us will have to switch to days. Won't that be wonderful—one
of us working nights and the other one working days. We can
shake hands at the door twice a day! Terrific—we're not even
connecting now
.

She felt a familiar knot in the pit of her stomach.
This is
how it started before. I can't let it happen again—I just can't
.

“Put your seat belt on,” she called to the backseat.

“It is on.”

Natalie glanced in the rearview mirror. She could see the loose ends of the seat belt lying on the vinyl.

“Put it on, Leah—I mean it.”

“Fine.”

Several seconds passed before she heard the buckle click.

She thought about Kemp again—backing out of his responsibilities with Leah whenever it suited him. She wondered how many other single moms faced the same struggle with the men they allowed into their lives. Kemp was fine with Leah—even affectionate sometimes—right up until the moment it inconvenienced him, and then it was always, “She's your kid.” Natalie hated that—it made her feel like she was begging: “Please—love my daughter as much as I do.” It made her feel weak and powerless, and that was something she despised.

When she merged onto the 405 her heart sank—eight lanes at a virtual standstill. There must have been an accident somewhere; even the 405 wasn't usually this bad. She tried to look up ahead, but the vehicle in front of her was one of those towering SUVs that she always complained about and secretly wished she could afford. She eased out of her lane a little to try to peer between the lines of traffic, but the man in the car to her left laid on his horn and flashed the universal sign of brotherhood.

“He flipped you off,” Leah said.

“Yes, honey, he did.”

“Kemp always does the same thing back.”

“That's something else we'll have to talk to Kemp about.” She pulled back into the right lane and into the shadow of the SUV.

It made her furious that Kemp had played the “private school” card again. He knew why Leah was in a private school; he knew that so many grade school kids in California were struggling just to learn the difficult English language that it sometimes slowed the classes down. It's not easy to learn science or arithmetic when you don't even have a basic vocabulary, but while those students were learning English, the other kids were learning nothing—or less than they could. That was the reason for St. Stephen's Episcopal; that was why it was worth the ten thousand a year.

That was one of the reasons, anyway. The one that mattered to her more—the one she never mentioned to Kemp—was that there might be teachers there who would be a little more understanding of a child with Leah's . . . uniqueness.

For Kemp it wasn't about quality of education or what was best for Leah—it was just about money. Every time he saw a commercial for the latest luxury car or drove past some new upscale housing development, the subject of private school always came up. It was always about money with Kemp—but that's because Kemp grew up with money and he didn't have money now.

She looked at her watch: It was almost eight thirty and they were now hopelessly late. They had been inching forward for the last thirty minutes, and there was no breakthrough in sight. Natalie stopped entertaining the possibility of a miraculous on-time arrival and began to concoct an excuse instead.

“Once there was a girl with golden wings.”

Natalie looked in the rearview mirror. “What did you say, sweetheart?”

“The girl never showed her wings to anyone. She kept them folded under her clothing. The straps of her backpack rubbed them and it hurt, but still she kept them hidden.”

Natalie turned and looked at her daughter. “Did you see that on TV?”

“But when she was alone she would take off her shirt and stretch out her wings, and the gold was so bright that they would blind anyone who looked at them. That's why she had to hide them. That's why they had to be a secret.”

Natalie felt her eyes begin to burn . . .

Suddenly she began to see flashing lights and emergency vehicles lined up to her right along the shoulder of the road. There was a brilliant red fire engine with the LAFD logo emblazoned on the side, and two boxlike EMS trucks from UCLA's trauma center. The traffic slowed down even more as drivers and their passengers rubbernecked to take in every detail of the terrible accident. It was like watching a parade, except that this parade stood still while the viewers passed by. First the fire truck, then the EMS rigs, then two firemen wielding some kind of cutting device, then a gurney with a pair of medics holding either end. They all looked exhausted, as though they had been working for hours.

At last came the parade's grand marshal—the accident vehicle itself. It was a fiery red BMW—or what was left of one. The car was flattened and crushed, as though it had rolled several times. There was no roof on the car, and the windshield was nothing but a bent and empty frame. The vehicle was surrounded by medical and emergency personnel, and to Natalie's horror she realized that the victim was still in the car—a blonde-haired woman slumped back in the driver's seat with her eyes closed tight and her mouth gaping open.

“God help that woman,” she whispered.

As Natalie's car drew even with the accident vehicle, the traffic came to a complete stop. Natalie heard the click of a seat belt behind her and turned to find Leah standing in the backseat with her face pressed against the window.

“Leah, sit down!” Natalie said.

Leah continued to stare.

“Sit down and put your seat belt back on! Do it right now!”

But Leah was glued to the glass with eyes as wide as saucers.

“Don't look at that woman!” Natalie shouted.

But Leah wasn't looking at the woman. She was looking at a man standing beside the car. He wasn't dressed like the others—he wasn't wearing a fireman's jacket or a doctor's white coat. He was dressed in simple clothes—like a man passing by who had just stopped to take a closer look. He stood right beside the woman with the blonde hair, but no one seemed to notice him and no one seemed to care. The man stood quietly, peacefully, holding his right hand palm-down just above the woman's head.

Then he turned and looked at Leah.

He looked directly into her eyes.

He smiled at her.

Then he put a finger to his lips and went,
Shhh
.

3