Mulberry Park

by Judy Duarte

  The boy took the letter from her hand and looked at the handwriting on the bottom of the page and also on the back.

  “What did he say?” Analisa hopped and clapped her hands. “Tell me.”

  Trevor scratched at his head, then read God’s words to her.

  Dear Analisa,

  I’m sorry that your mother and father couldn’t stay long enough on earth to see you grow up, but I needed their help in Heaven. They miss you very much and send their love. We all hope that your uncle is giving you lots of hugs and finding time to take you to the park.

  Your mom and dad have met an angel here. His name is Erik, and he looks a lot like you. They told him how they miss you and want to know that you are happy and safe.

  Erik asked if he could be your guardian angel, and I have granted him permission to watch out for you. But please be careful when you’re climbing trees or crossing streets. Erik is still learning how to use his wings.

  Your mom and dad send their love. And so does

  Erik.

  Love,

  God

  Analisa quickly scanned the treetop in search of her angel, but all she saw was an empty bird’s nest and a broken kite. Then she searched all around her.

  “What are you looking for?” Trevor asked.

  “Erik.”

  “Aw, come on.” Trevor scrunched his face and shook his head. “You don’t really think God answered that letter, do you?”

  Analisa scrunched her face right back at him. “Yes, I do. Who else would know the name of my very own guardian angel?”

  Trevor opened his mouth to say something, then clamped his lips shut.

  Maybe he realized he was wrong.

  She looked from one side of the tree to the other, checking all the branches and hoping to spot a flutter of white wings or the sparkle of a gold halo.

  “You’re not going to see anything,” Trevor said.

  Analisa crossed her arms and frowned. She opened her mouth to stick out her tongue, but decided not to.

  Once, when she and her friend Soledad were arguing about who got to keep the pretty blue marble and who got to keep the plain brown one, Analisa had gotten mad and stuck out her tongue. But Mommy had scolded her, saying it wasn’t very nice.

  “Even if there is such a thing as angels,” Trevor said, “I don’t think you can see them unless they want you to.”

  Trevor might be right about that. She wondered if Erik would ever decide to show himself to her. She hoped so.

  As Trevor stooped to tie his shoe, she picked up Lucita from the bench.

  “Do you believe me now?” she asked.

  He shrugged, then got to his feet. “It’s going to take more than one little letter for me to believe God can do things like that.”

  Analisa laughed. “Then I’ll meet you back here tomorrow and the day after that.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m going to write another letter to God tonight.”

  “How come?”

  “To thank Him.” She hugged the letter and Lucita close to her heart. Then she looked at Trevor. “Want me to find out if you have a guardian angel?”

  “Nah. Don’t bother. There isn’t anyone looking out for me.”

  After her usual five-mile run, Claire made her way across the lawn at Mulberry Park, her body cooling down from another heart-pounding workout.

  Yesterday, while catching her breath and resting, she’d sat beneath the mulberry, looked up and scanned the foliage for the neon pink envelope. But she’d seen only leaves fluttering in the afternoon sun and a torn, wind-battered kite dangling by its tail.

  She had no way of knowing what had happened to the letter she’d left for Analisa. The little girl could have taken it, of course. Or it could have blown onto the ground, where a park maintenance worker might have found it and tossed it into the trash.

  There were a hundred different scenarios, and she decided it was ridiculous to give the unconventional correspondence more than a passing thought.

  Still, as she neared the stone bench that rested in the shade of the tree, she couldn’t help but search the vast array of leaves and branches again. This time something small and blue caught her eye.

  Another letter?

  Whatever it was rested too high to reach unless she climbed the tree, which Claire wasn’t about to do. Talk about unconventional. Climbing a tree to retrieve a letter to God bordered on crazy.

  Yet she continued to study the blue scrap of paper overhead, the message to her.

  Well, not exactly to her, but since she’d answered Analisa’s last letter, this was a response to what she’d written.

  Claire scanned the park and found herself alone. A vacant red pickup sat in the parking lot, but there was no sign of the driver. It looked as though everyone who’d visited the park today had already gone home.

  But Claire had no one to rush home to, no one to smile at her from across the table.

  For reasons she didn’t want to contemplate, that scrap of blue paper continued to call to her, and a strange compulsion settled over her, a growing urge to do something she wouldn’t normally do.

  Without any further consideration, she stepped onto the bench and reached for the lowest branch, then she placed a sneaker on the concrete backrest and pulled herself into the tree.

  The bark scraped against her knee, and she grumbled under her breath. Still, she pressed on.

  Claire hadn’t done anything remotely unladylike in ages, not since she’d been a kid. This was so not like her.

  What would her coworkers at the savings and loan think if they could see her now?

  She braced her feet on the sturdy bough and rested her fanny against a slanting branch. Then, even though she felt like a nosy neighbor opening someone else’s mail, she reached for the card-shaped envelope, withdrew the letter, and read the child’s words.

  Dear God.

  Thank you for Erik. I tried to see him but he hides good. Is Erik sopose to be a seekret? I dint tell any one abowt it. But Trever nos cuz I cant read cursev. Trever is nice, but Mrs. Richerdz doznt want me to play with him cuz he is old. Can you give him a angel to? No one looks out for him.

  Love Analisa

  Claire studied the rudimentary handwriting of a stranger, a little girl seeking God and finding Claire instead.

  The first letter had gripped her heart, had made her want to protect the child from grief, but now she feared for Analisa’s safety.

  Who was Trever? A dirty old man who’d set his sights on an orphaned child?

  Claire shuddered at the thought. Good Lord. Little Analisa was worried about Mr. Trever, but who was looking after the trusting child?

  Before she could ponder her growing concern, a graveled voice sounded from below. “Lose something?”

  Claire’s heart thumped, and she jerked back, nearly losing her balance. She grabbed a branch to steady herself, inadvertently crushing the letter in her hand.

  On the ground, an elderly man stood, one hand on his hip, the other holding the leather handle of a worn brown satchel. His hair was white and thick, and he needed a shave.

  Her embarrassment ran amok.

  “Crazy fool woman. What are you doing up there?” A sparkle in his eyes suggested he was teasing, although she couldn’t be sure.

  “I’m…” She glanced at the blue letter and envelope she’d crumpled in her hand. “Just reading.”

  He humphed, then shook his woolly head. “There’s probably a law against climbing trees in the park. And if there isn’t, there ought to be. You could fall and break your neck.”

  The man looked as old as creation, and an aura of bright light lit his head like a halo or some kind of heavenly crown. She could almost imagine that God had taken human form and come down to earth to punish her for reading His mail, for pretending to be Him.

  When the man shifted his weight to one hip, eliminating the reflected glare from the sun and revealing a pair of wire-rim glasses perched on his head, the pseudo-divine aura
completely disappeared.

  “I don’t suppose you have a ladder?” she quipped.

  “Not with me.”

  She watched him for a while, expecting him to move on and go about his way, but he continued to study her. “You’re watching me as if you haven’t been entertained in years. Don’t you have a television at home?”

  “Nope. Got tired of all the dang reruns.” A teasing glimmer lit his eyes, and humor tugged at his lips. He nodded toward the case he carried. “I don’t suppose you play chess.”

  “Afraid not. I never could figure out how to balance the game board in a tree.”

  “Too bad.” His grin broadened to an outright smile. “If you ever get it figured out, just give me a holler. My name’s Walter.”

  “Mine’s Claire. And I’ll do that.”

  He nodded, then turned toward the parking lot, heading for the red pickup with the American flag decal displayed on the rear window. She’d seen it here before. It had a bumper sticker that claimed he was one of The Chosin Few.

  A Korean War veteran, she suspected. A man who’d proudly fought at the Chosin Reservoir.

  She tried to smooth the letter, then carefully tucked it into the waistband of her shorts.

  As the pickup roared to life, she lowered herself to the ground. Her legs were still a bit rubbery from her run, and her foot slipped, causing her ankle to twist slightly and her knee to scrape against the bark.

  “Ouch.” She regained her footing, but grumbled again at the stupidity that had put her in this position.

  The old man had called her crazy, and she had to agree. All she needed was a broken neck. Or to get laid up and be unable to work. Or worse. God forbid she’d be unable to run anymore. The rigorous daily jog was what kept her sane and her life on track.

  Once safely out of the tree and seated on the bench, she pulled out the letter, reread it, and considered her response. Then she took the marker Analisa had again provided, printing this time so the girl could read the words all by herself—without Trever’s help. When she finished, she dropped the marker back into the envelope, folded the wrinkled paper, tucked it inside, and placed it on the lowest branch.

  As Claire drove toward the small condominium complex just off Chinaberry Lane and the three-bedroom place she called home, she again recalled the old man’s words: Crazy fool woman.

  For a moment, she’d wondered if maybe he’d been right. After all, how many grown women climbed into trees and responded to letters addressed to God?

  There was a time when Claire might have called Vickie, the woman who’d once been her best friend.

  “Hey, Vick,” she would have said. “You’ll never guess what I found today. And what I did.”

  But Claire had lost her connection to Vickie when Erik had died. Not that Vickie had been the one to pull away; she hadn’t. It’s just that one of the many things they’d had in common had been children the same age, and Claire hadn’t been able to face the constant reminder of what Vickie still had.

  And what Claire had lost.

  Chapter 3

  Walter turned down First Street and headed for the house he’d lived in for the past twenty years. He didn’t often chat with people he’d met in the park. Why should he? Folks just seemed to think he was either feeble-minded or a dirty old man, so he pretty much kept to himself.

  But that shapely brunette jogger reminded him a lot of Margie when she’d been a sweet young thing and full of spunk.

  He’d never said a word to the jogger before today, though. Women like her didn’t want to be bothered by a worn-out old man like him. But when he’d walked out of the restroom and spotted her climbing a tree, he hadn’t been able to resist.

  It had been ages since he’d kidded a pretty little gal who knew how to tease back.

  Margie, with her quick wit and playful side, had been like that. She’d had a way of making him smile and laugh at the simplest things. And when she’d died in the prime of life, Walter had been devastated.

  He’d tried to shake the grief that had dang near killed him by drowning himself in the bottle, but it had been only a temporary fix.

  How long had it been? How long had he been without the woman who’d shared his life and loved him in spite of his flaws and the demons that plagued him in the middle of the night?

  Nearly twenty years, but it seemed like forever.

  He supposed a man got used to fixing his own dinner, mending his own shirts. But living alone—or rather, sleeping alone—was tough.

  And he wasn’t talking about sex. It was more than that. It was the intimacy they shared, the conversations they had while lying close, holding each other.

  They said time healed grief, but he wasn’t so sure about that. After seeing the attractive young woman perched up in a tree, having a chance to talk and hear her voice, to catch a glimpse of her smile…

  For a moment, he’d let the years roll back and had pretended she was his sweet wife.

  And where had that gotten him?

  Now he had an overwhelming urge to toast Margie’s memory, to tell her again how sorry he was for the times he’d fallen off the wagon and let her down.

  Maybe he ought to talk to someone. But who? Blake or Tyler? The kids who hadn’t spoken to him in over ten years and had told him to lose their phone numbers? Or Carl Witherspoon, his best friend and mentor who’d died six months ago?

  Walter looked up in the dusk-tinged sky and shook his head. “You left me in one heck of a fix.”

  He wasn’t exactly sure who he was talking to, but as usual, there was no response.

  It seemed that even the Ol’ Boy Upstairs had forgotten him. Maybe He’d deemed a reformed hellion unworthy of entering the Pearly Gates. Not that Walter was looking forward to death. He suspected that all those years he’d been stubborn and had refused to accompany Margie and her sons to church had finally caught up with him. And that when he finally passed on, his tombstone would read: All Dressed Up And No Place To Go.

  But heck, here he was on the right side of the cemetery lawn, and he still had no place to go, nothing to do.

  Up ahead, flanked by an empty, weed-infested lot and a vacant building that had once housed a feed store, Paddy’s Pub waited to pour a flood of scotch on a man willing to drown.

  Happy Hour would be in full swing, which was tempting, but three years ago, Walter had made a promise to take one day at a time. A promise he hoped to keep.

  Carl had more or less become Walter’s AA sponsor, although Walter had refused to attend any meetings. “You’ll have to get me rip-roaring drunk first, Carl. Crowds make me skittish when I’m sober.”

  The two men had become friends anyway and met almost every afternoon at Mulberry Park to play chess. Now, even though Carl was gone, Walter still showed up and set up the board on a picnic table.

  Hanging out at the park alone was a stupid thing to do, he supposed, but it was a heck of a lot better than reverting back to the old ways, going back to the time when the pub had been his home away from home.

  When he felt weak, he willed himself to think again of the tragedy that had struck about three years ago and had been so instrumental in causing him to take that first step into sobriety when nothing else had.

  There but by the grace of God go I, the old saying went. And it was true.

  It could have just as easily been Walter behind the wheel that afternoon, his reactions dulled by Jack Daniels’, Walter who’d hit that little boy riding his bicycle along the street, Walter who’d have to live out the rest of his days behind bars.

  At least he’d been spared that.

  Still, there was enough other remorse to wallow in, other guilt to trudge through.

  He kept the steering wheel straight, his eyes on the road ahead, but the urge to stop at Paddy’s was growing stronger. He could make a turn down Main and change his route, but each day on his trek to and from the park, he chose to drive by the pub, forcing himself to face temptation and pass it by.

  Today he was dr
iving slower than usual, though. He glanced at the speedometer. Yep. Well under the twenty-five-miles-per-hour limit.

  He was practically at a standstill when he came to the pub, where a yellow neon OPEN sign flickered like a porch light, welcoming a tired old soul home, offering rest to weary bones, a place to unload a few burdens for a time, to share a few laughs.

  Yet in spite of the overwhelming impulse to stop, Walter pressed down on the gas pedal, increasing his speed. He’d beaten it again today, but he feared there might come a time when he’d give in, when he’d take the easy way out.

  As he passed the bar, he spotted a young boy walking along the sidewalk, kicking at a rock along the way. It was that kid from the park, the one who didn’t appear to have anywhere else to go, anything better to do.

  Again Walter suspected he and the boy had a lot in common, that they were both miserable and alone.

  He had half a notion to befriend the kid the next time he ran into him, but Walter didn’t have anything to offer anyone.

  And he was a fool to think he might.

  At quarter to ten, Sam Dawson grew tired of watching television and decided to read for a while. He clicked off the power on the remote, then headed to the room that had been his den before his niece moved in.

  She’d gone to bed hours ago, but checking on her before he turned in had become a nightly ritual. He wasn’t sure why, though. Maybe because he used to sneak off at night when he was a kid—not that anyone knew or cared when he did.

  Sam supposed that might not become a problem with his niece, but peeking in on her still seemed like the kind of thing a responsible guardian should do.

  From the doorway, he studied Analisa’s sleeping form, watched her chest rise and fall in peaceful slumber. She’d tucked a worn-out doll under one arm and a brand-new teddy bear under the other.