by Naima Coster
“I’m not coming to work for you, Amado.”
“But I’m thinking about you, man. Before you had the garage. It might not be so easy going back now. You’re a felon. You should thank God you have your citizenship, otherwise, they’d be deporting you.”
“I’ve been here my whole life.”
“What do they care?”
“I’ll make my own way.”
“So valiant.” Amado laughed. “Optimistic. I’ve never looked at the world and thought, It will all work out.”
Robbie said nothing. He wasn’t afraid. What could Amado do to him that he hadn’t already learned to survive?
“Well, hermano, I won’t count it against you if you wind up eating your words. You come see me if you need a job. Or if you need anything else.” Amado pointed at the empty shot glass, asked if he wanted another.
Robbie stood. “I better be heading home. My wife is waiting for me.”
“That’s fine.” Amado smiled at him. “I’ll be seeing you, hermano.”
By afternoon, the girls were restless, sun-scorched. They had sand in their bottoms, they were hungry and cranky, but they couldn’t go home. Not when they’d come so far, and the sky was bright and unending. A day at the beach was a prize, no matter how miserable they all became.
Lacey May and Hank bought Margarita a kite to appease her. She twirled beneath it, whenever it caught on the wind, putting on a little show, whether anyone was watching or not. Noelle was in the water, leaping over the waves, talking to a gang of slightly older boys, who seemed about fourteen. Only Diane had stayed close. She was piling sand into a bucket, digging out a moat. Hank needed to send her away. Lacey May was chugging beers, and if he didn’t muster his nerve, she’d be drunk before long.
“Aren’t you hot, chickadee? You’re just sitting there, roasting. Why don’t you go and play with Jenkins under the pier? Get some shade?”
Diane, obedient by nature, sprang up and ran off with the dog. Hank turned to Lacey and grabbed her hand. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something. I want to know if you could make a little more room in your heart for me.”
Lacey drained her beer and reached for another. “You’re already in my heart, Hank.” She kept her eyes on the sea. The crash of waves along the shore. A faraway bark.
“What I mean is,” Hank said, rummaging in the backpack beneath his chair. “Goddamn it.”
He heard Diane scream, and when he turned to the pier, he saw her and Jenkins, a large, rust-colored dog circling them both. Diane was stuck between them, Jenkins tangling her legs in his leash as he tried to dart away. The rust-colored dog growled, lurched. Soon Hank was running down the beach, Lacey May close behind.
Hank shoved the dog, thumping its chest with one hand. He used the other to push Diane, and she tripped backward onto the sand. He managed to unclip Jenkins, who ran off, away from the snapping maw of the red dog. He kicked the dog once in the face, and again, then Lacey May was there, scooping Diane into her arms. Both of them stared wide-eyed at Hank.
A man in aviators ambled over, not nearly fast enough. He grabbed the red dog by the collar, knocked him on the nose. Hank started in on him.
“You son of a bitch. What’s wrong with you bringing a dog like that to a family place like this? He could have killed my daughter.”
Lacey May turned at the word.
The man started to mutter excuses, and Hank shook his fist in the man’s face. “Control your goddamn dog, man, or I’m calling the police.”
Diane whispered in Lacey May’s ear. “Uncle Hank saved me, Mama.”
Lacey May kissed her and carried her away, squeezed her belly to check for wounds, but she was thinking of Hank, how he’d thrown himself between her daughter and the dog. The way a real father would. She had never seen him so angry, so strong. He had noticed the trouble before she had. She had been busy watching Noelle and those boys. She had been daydreaming about the way she and Robbie had been young together, while a dog tried to eat her baby.
The other girls were with them now, and Jenkins weaseled his head between Lacey May’s ankles. Noelle shivered and shouted, “Dee, are you okay?” and Margarita, stunned and speechless, held her crumpled kite to her chest.
When Hank joined them, he slung an arm around Lacey May, another around Diane, who was red-faced, trying hard not to cry.
“Let’s go have some sodas and calm down,” Lacey May said, and the girls went ahead with Jenkins, their slim bodies pressed together. They were rarely harmonious, the girls, but in moments like these, they had a way of falling together, like a single organism.
As they climbed up the dunes, Hank leaned into Lacey May, pressed a lip to her ear. “I hope that wasn’t a sign. A bad omen or something. I was fixing to ask you to marry me. I’d reconsider, but I love you too goddamn much.”
A shiver ran down Lacey’s neck. Perhaps the residue of fear, and something else. She turned to face him. Hank’s eyes were a cloudy blue, his skin lined and leathery. He sealed his lips together to hide his teeth, his expression pleading and pitiable. He was harmless in the end. The way he looked at her, he could have been one of her children.
Hank kissed her, and she could feel his hands quivering around her shoulders.
“If you say no, Lacey, we can keep going on the way we’ve been,” he said. “I won’t cast you out. But I hope to God you’ll say yes, and let me make you my wife.”
It was dark when they pulled up, the headlights sweeping over the living room, where Robbie had set the table with everything he’d made: rice and beans, plantains, and carne mechada. At the last minute, he’d dashed out for an ice cream cake—Diane’s favorite—strawberry with a cookie crust. It had started to melt, but he couldn’t bear to put it away. He wanted them to see it when they walked in, to clap and to climb on top of him. He knew he’d win the girls back eventually. He was their father; it was in their DNA to choose him. Lacey would be harder, but he was ready to fight. Sometimes you had to work against the universe, the fucked-up order of things, your body, your own brain, to keep the things that were yours.
Take his friend, that baker. A man with talent, a good heart. He had been judicious, stayed out of trouble, and still, the universe had blown his dreams away. Life was a gust of wind, a puff of air, and nothing more—Robbie had to remember that. He couldn’t afford to waste any time.
The girls came crashing in, sandy and red-skinned. They surrounded him, kissed his cheeks solemnly, and immediately Robbie knew something was wrong. Lacey May and Hank hung back, holding hands. Hank grinned too wide.
“We might as well come right out with it,” he said.
Robbie’s eyes drew instinctively to Lacey May’s hand.
“But Lacey and I are still married,” he said. “I haven’t signed any papers. She hasn’t asked me to sign any papers.”
“I’ll go on and put this cake in the freezer,” Hank said, and he called the girls into the other room. Lacey May yanked Robbie by the hand out to the porch, but he couldn’t feel her holding him. The night was humid. Lightning bugs flickered across the lawn.
“I should have let you visit,” Robbie said. “We lied to the girls, and they found out anyway. Maybe if they’d seen me, we wouldn’t be here. Maybe you wouldn’t have forgotten you love me.”
“Robbie, none of this is about love.”
Her voice was a pin sliding under Robbie’s skin.
“You don’t need him anymore, Lacey. I’m here. I’m going to get back on my feet.”
“It’s not about money neither.”
“Oh God, please don’t tell me it’s physical.”
“He’s a good man. I can count on him.”
“He used to take high school girls behind the store to feel them up. He used to pretend to squeeze your ass when we worked at the restaurant. Why would you trust him? Noelle will be a teenager in a couple years.”
“Those were just rumors. Besides, he was lonely then. It’s different now.”
“How could you wear
that ring in front of me? I just got out.”
“I don’t believe in fairy tales anymore, Robbie. I don’t believe love solves anything. We’re still family, you understand? I’ll never keep you from the girls. But I can’t be your wife.”
Robbie had a flash of running into the house and swinging at Hank, bringing his fist down on his skinny head until it was all pulp, ripe. He shook the vision away; he had to act fast. A ring was nothing; a promise wasn’t the same thing as a life lived. He had more to offer her: a future, yes, but also their past. You couldn’t change your roots, and he was hers. Lacey had grown from him, like Eve from one of Adam’s ribs. There wasn’t one of them without the other. He had to help her see.
“You remember, Lacey, that time we went to the quarry together? You were teaching me how to swim?”
“Robbie, we’ve had a lot of good times. It was all so long ago.”
“You remember?” he asked again.
They had left the Hot Wing early. Lacey drove them to a deserted parking lot with a knocked-over trailhead. She led them to the old rock quarry lake. There were other teenagers there, drinking and diving off the rocks. The lake was sunken in a ring of trees, the water green and warm, sixty feet deep at the center. They started close to the edge, where it was shallow. Robbie went too far out, and when he couldn’t reach the bottom with his toes, he panicked, slipped under. He remembered it as if he’d been able to see Lacey May gliding across the surface, her pale arms cutting through the water. She wrapped an arm around his chest, hauled him back to land.
They had laughed, as if Robbie hadn’t nearly drowned. His mouth was already open when Lacey May tilted him back onto the grass. The earth stuck to their wet skin; there were ants. They went on kissing for a long time. Robbie had a gummy, hot sensation in his shorts, a lightness in his head. It was the best he’d ever felt, and the best he would ever feel, until he had cocaine.
“When I was in there, I used to put pictures in my head. To motivate myself. To make me do the right thing. And even when I knew you were with him, the picture I held on to was you, dragging me up. I’d see myself with my head underwater, and then I’d see you bringing me back.”
“You ever think anyone else could use some rescuing besides you?”
“It’s a sickness,” Robbie said. “I’m sick.”
“If you’re sick, then so am I.”
“Then let’s be sick together.”
“Two sick people can’t run a house. Robbie, I’ve made up my mind.”
She embraced him, but it wasn’t the way he’d wanted her to. She fluttered her fingers against his shoulders, angled her hips away. It was worse, far worse, than if she hadn’t touched him at all.
* * *
They settled on a routine of weekend visits. Robbie drove up in an old blue Chevrolet, honked, and the girls would go running to meet him. He had become a celebrity to his own children, whisking them away to the mall or bowling or for milkshakes. When he dropped them off, the girls would be sullen and smart with Lacey May, as if she were the one who had gotten high, stolen a cop car, and ruined it all.
She was wearing Hank’s ring, though he had promised to give her time to square away her affairs. He meant the divorce, the house. He hadn’t told her to sell it, but it was obvious what he wanted. He sulked whenever she left to tend to the house, as if she were off to meet a lover. She’d come back from clearing the gutter or mowing the lawn, and Hank would ignore her until they were alone in bed, then he’d be rougher with her, grab her by the hair, flip her around, and hold her where he wanted her. It wasn’t quite mean, but it wasn’t sweet either.
He was at the store, and the girls were hiking the state park with Robbie, when she finally arranged a meeting about the house. She was waiting for the realtor when her old neighbor, that fat nurse, climbed onto the porch, uninvited, in a pair of pink scrubs and rubber shoes.
“Hey there!” she said, and Lacey May couldn’t help but scowl at her. All this time, and Ruth Green was still here, living in these woods, driving her cream-colored car with the hospital parking pass stuck on the windshield.
“Can I help you?”
“I hear you’re getting the house appraised. Your tenants told me.”
“Unh-hunh.”
“I wondered if I could talk to you.”
“Aren’t we talking now?”
“I was hoping you’d come over. I made us some lunch.”
Lacey said yes before she could catch herself, her own eagerness surprising her. Was she so desperate that she’d accept an offer from Ruth Green? She had watched Lacey lose her life, return to tend to the house, and never once had she said good morning. She had denied her the little loan that might have spared her everything. Still, Lacey followed her across the yard.
Ruth’s house was plain and pretty: pale wood floors and seafoam-green walls, her son’s toys and her knitting in straw baskets strewn through the rooms. They drank sweet tea and sat looking out at the garden, where Ruth’s boy was watering his tomatoes. Lacey complimented her on her home, asked whether she was thinking of selling, too.
“God, no. We love it here, me and Bailey. I want to die in this house.”
Lacey remembered when she’d thought the same.
“There’s some developers who’ve got a plan to buy up all this land. They want to build a community with town houses, a playground, a pool. I’m worried if they get your land, they’ll just build around me. They’ll clear out the woods, and my view will be of some big old gate.”
“You expect me not to sell my house because you’ll miss the trees?”
Ruth pointed at Lacey’s finger. “You remarried?”
“Not yet.”
“You going to try for more kids?”
Lacey laughed. “I got my tubes tied right after I left my husband.”
“Your fiancé know that?”
Lacey shrugged. “He hasn’t asked. Sometimes it’s better to just let a man dream.”
“As long as you don’t get caught up in the fantasy.”
“Please. I couldn’t forget my circumstances if I tried.”
“No, you can’t. Not when you’re a mother. Your circumstances stare you in the face every morning, ask you what’s for breakfast.”
Lacey May laughed, and Ruth went on. “My ex always had his head in the clouds. He was all, Let’s travel here, let’s move there, let’s have ten kids. I had to be the boring one who said things like, But what about the car payment? and Bailey needs new shoes. He called me a killjoy.” Ruth shook her head, sipped her tea. “He gives surf lessons now, lives with his girlfriend on the coast. Well, it’s always a new girl, and he’s always living with her on the coast. He doesn’t get out to see Bailey much.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Lacey said.
Ruth grew somber. “I wanted to ask you not to sell the house. But it’s not about me or my view. I’ve been carrying around this guilt since that winter you left. I didn’t help you, and I’ve never stopped wondering what it cost you. That’s why I never say hello—I’ve been too ashamed. You see, I was raised to be hard, and you seemed so…Would you believe me if I said I thought I was helping you back then?”
“What I needed was a loan.”
“I was relieved you didn’t wind up having to sell the house. And I’m telling you not to do it now. That house is your wealth. It’s your future.”
“That house is a monthly payment, and my ex is no help.”
“What about your girls? It’s their inheritance.”
“My fiancé doesn’t want me to keep it.”
“Well, his name isn’t on the deed, is it? You can’t let these two men yank you around so you forget what really matters.”
The woman had some nerve. Lacey May rose to leave, and Ruth stood and stammered.
“I’m not very good at holding my tongue. Please forgive me. I hope you’ll come back. Next time, I won’t have a lecture prepared. We can just have tea. You can bring the girls.”
Lacey made no
promises, moved for the door. It shocked her when Ruth pulled her into a hug. Lacey didn’t resist her strong arms. She let the woman hold her. It was as if Ruth were a deep-rooted tree, as if she knew that what Lacey May needed was a steady thing.
The realtor didn’t mention a developer, and the number he gave Lacey wasn’t much more than she and Robbie had paid for the house. Lacey didn’t like to think she was being cheated, but it bothered her even more that he genuinely couldn’t see how much the house was worth. She and Robbie had loved that house and loved in that house. That kind of love did something to a place, it lived in its walls. You could feel it when you walked in. A house was more than windows, wood, and frame.
The girls were waiting for her on the porch when she got back. They were covered in mud, electric, babbling about their morning with Robbie.
“Papi caught a snake!” Diane said. “He picked it up with a stick and his bare hands!”
“He was so brave!” Margarita swooned.
“Oh my,” Lacey said because she didn’t want to stamp out their joy. “What kind of snake?”
“A copperhead,” Noelle supplied, and they rolled into the house, the girls going on about how he’d taken them to a food truck after. Among them, they had devoured eighteen tacos: potato and chorizo, beans, eggs, cactus.
“Cactus?” Lacey May asked, playing along.
“Cactus!” they shouted, shedding their outer layers in a heap for her to wash. They were in a better mood than usual, as if they’d forgotten they were angry with her for reasons they never named. They argued about who would get the shower first before the hot water ran out, and Lacey carried the clothes down to the basement.
The downstairs belonged to the girls. They’d brightened it up with pink armchairs and a rainbow rug to make up for the meager light that came through the window. There were bunk beds for Diane and Margarita, a pullout for Noelle, a TV, the washing machine. Lacey May started a load and went upstairs, where Noelle, unsurprisingly, had claimed the shower. Diane and Margarita were down to their underwear, watching cartoons beneath a blanket on the couch. Even after all those tacos, they were sharing a bowl of cereal.