Lottery

by Kimberly Shursen

  She heard the door creak, looked up, and saw Mei in the doorway.

  “He sleeping?” her mother whispered.

  “Almost,” Ling whispered back. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

  Mei pointed at the ceiling. “I go upstairs. See if Jenee’s room needs anything.”

  Ling nodded. Jenee would be here this afternoon. Ling had so much to tell her that she didn’t want to say over the phone or in an e-mail. Caleb’s behavior had gotten even stranger since Sammy was born; watching her every move, and making sure she was where she said she was going to be. Ling didn’t trust that he wouldn’t somehow try to get into her computer and read her mail.

  After she saw Caleb talking to himself several times, Ling had asked him to make an appointment with a psychologist. But he’d refused, and became even more withdrawn.

  Ling had struggled for months about what to do. But Caleb was no longer the man she’d married. Ling had started to accept that she would never have the Caleb back that she once knew. His temper would flair at the slightest disagreement, and there were times he glared at her so hatefully she’d been afraid of him.

  A tear ran down her cheek when she remembered the first time she saw him. They’d run into each other … literally run into him, when she opened the door to the Tonga bar. He’d made Ling feel as if she was the most beautiful woman in the world. What had happened? Was it the liquor? Or a mental illness he refused to address? Or maybe it was something about Ling that had pushed him over the edge.

  She glanced down at Sammy. The baby was sound asleep, his rosebud mouth puckering as he made sucking sounds as if he still taking his bottle.

  Ling stood up slowly and gently laid Sammy in the bassinet. He looked so peaceful with the sweet angelic expression on his face. She tiptoed across his room, glancing back at him when she reached the door.

  Ling had so wanted a marriage like her parents. She swallowed back tears knowing that Ahna and Sammy might never know the Caleb she’d fallen in love with.

  Ling checked her pocket to make sure she had the baby monitor. The rest of the day was spent the day filling bottles with formula, washing clothes, and helping Mei in the kitchen. She couldn’t wait until Jenee got here, and the hours drifted by slowly.

  Ling had no idea what Caleb did all day and he became angry when she asked. Nothing about him made sense. Ling only knew that if she didn’t get out of the marriage soon, he’d pull her into his dark abyss.

  At four-thirty, Ling was in her office when she saw the limo pull into the drive. “Jenee’s here,” she called to Mei and Ahna, rushing through the foyer and out the front door.

  When Jenee jumped out of the car, she let out a squeal, running toward Ling with open arms.

  They embraced for a few seconds before Jenee pulled away and glanced down at Ling’s stomach. “You did not just have a baby.”

  “Oh, I have a few more pounds to lose.”

  “Where?” Jenee looked Ling up and down. “You look fabulous.”

  Trying to catch up as fast as they could, the two friends strolled arm-in-arm up the steps and into the house. Mei was waiting in the foyer holding Sammy in her arms as Ahna clung to her grandmother’s leg.

  “Mei,” Jenee said and kissed her cheek.

  “So happy you here,” Mei said cheerfully.

  “Me too.” Jenee knelt down next to Ahna “Hello, pretty girl.”

  Ahna looked up at Ling.

  “She doesn’t remember me,” Jenee said, sadly.

  “It’s okay, honey,” Ling told her daughter, “give Jenee a hug.”

  Ahna chewed on a tiny index finger, staring up at Jenee.

  Jenee opened her arms and Ahna cautiously walked to her. “Oh, Ahna.” Jenee gently hugged her. “You’ve gotten so big.” She kissed the top of Ahna’s head and stood. “And this,” she said, peering at the baby, “must be Mr. Sammy.”

  “He’s such a good boy,” Ling said, and looked at her son adoringly.

  “He’s precious.” Jenee told her. “I can’t wait to hold him.”

  Sammy slowly opened an eye, yawned, and fell back asleep.

  “They’ll be plenty of that while you’re here,” Ling said. “But first, let’s get you settled.”

  She started to pick up Jenee’s suitcase, but Jenee grabbed it from her. “New mommies can’t lift anything but their baby.”

  “Mom.” Ling put a hand on Mei’s arm. “Will you be okay while I get Jenee settled?”

  “Ah, we all be fine.” Mei smiled.

  “What’s that I smell?” Jenee asked on the way to the stairs.

  “Make Kung Pao Chicken special for you,” Mei answered, walking into the kitchen with Ahna following close behind. “My helper here”—Mei glanced down at Ahna —“help me make.”

  “It smells wonderful,” Jenee commented, as she and Ling started up the staircase. Jenee turned to Ling. “Where’s Caleb?”

  Ling looked down. “I don’t know.”

  Jenee put her hand on Ling’s back. “You okay?”

  Ling nodded.

  “I think we have some major catching up to do.”

  After Jenee had deposited her suitcase in the guest room and changed, Mei, Jenee, Ling, and Ahna had dinner on the deck. Sammy slept in the playpen, protected from the setting sun by a large umbrella.

  By the time Caleb arrived home, Mei and Ahna were already in bed. He’d joined Jenee and Ling on the deck, but was distant.

  Ling noticed Jenee didn’t look at Caleb whenever she spoke. Had they had a disagreement when they’d all been in Shanghai? Was there something Jenee hadn’t told her?

  “Major headache,” Caleb said and stood. “I’ll see you two in the morning.”

  “You want something to eat?” Ling asked.

  “Naw,” Caleb opened the patio door. “I already had something. I’ll see you in the morning,” he said before he closed the patio door behind him.

  Ling and Jenee’s eyes met.

  Jenee leaned over toward Ling. “I need to talk to you about something.”

  By the expression on Jenee’s face and the tone in her voice, Ling sensed that whatever she had to say was serious.

  When Sammy stirred, Ling stood and started for the playpen. “Okay.”

  “Not now,” Jenee whispered. “Just sometime while I’m here and we’re alone.” She glanced at the patio door.

  Was there trouble between Jenee and Justin? Was Eli having a difficult time adjusting, Ling wondered. Or … did what Jenee want to talk to her about have something to do with Caleb?

  Early the next morning, Mei stood at the stove and Caleb, Jenee, and Ling sat around the table. Ling had fed Sammy at two a.m. and he was still asleep. Ahna sat in her highchair between Caleb and Ling.

  Caleb folded the paper and set it down on the table. “So, Justin’s doing well?” Caleb asked Jenee.

  “Fine.” Jenee picked up a piece of toast.

  Mei refilled coffee cups, and put another half piece of toast on the highchair tray for Ahna. “More egg?” she asked Jenee.

  “Oh, gosh no, I’m stuffed, but thank you.” Jenee leaned back in her chair.

  “Eli must be … what?” Caleb asked.

  “Four,” Jenee answered flatly. “He’s a handful.”

  Feeling the tension between Caleb and Jenee, Ling stood and started to pick up the dishes. “Jenee and I are going to work this morning.”

  “And then?” Caleb asked, following Ling with his eyes.

  “And then we’re going to lunch.” Ling put the dishes down on the counter. “Mom,” Ling said to Mei, “is it okay if you take the monitor and when Sammy wakes, come get me?”

  “Oh, yes.” Mei waved her hand. “You go have fun with Jenee.”

  “I’m going to take Ahna for a walk,” Caleb said, and stood.

  Ling’s heart skipped a beat. “A walk?”

  “Just around a couple of blocks. Ahna loves the fresh air.”

  “Ahna needs to go down for her nap at ten.” Ling wiped her hands on a t
ea towel, trying not to show her concern. The last thing she wanted was a confrontation. She’d found his liquor bottles hidden all over the house and even inside the flower pots on the deck. Ling didn’t want her daughter in harm’s way if he’d already been drinking.

  “We won’t be gone long.” Caleb stood and held out his arms to Ahna. “Come on, big girl, let’s get you cleaned up.”

  Ahna giggled, her face dotted in scrambled eggs. She wiggled to get out of her high chair. “Go walk,” she said.

  “Caleb, please put her in the stroller,” Ling said. “She’s just so quick and I worry she’ll run out in the street.”

  “No problem.” He jiggled Ahna in his arms. “I’m your protector, right, baby girl?”

  “You be good for your daddy.” Ling cupped Ahna’s chubby cheek in her hand. “Mommy will see you when you get back.”

  In Caleb’s arms, Ahna waved a dainty hand. “Bye-bye, Mommy.”

  Jenee stood. “I’ll walk with you to the door,” she said to Caleb.

  Puzzled, Ling watched Jenee follow Caleb out of the kitchen. Walk him to the door? They’d barely said a word to each other last night or this morning at breakfast. Suddenly, she heard Jenee’s raised voice. When Ling reached the foyer, Caleb and Ahna were already gone, and Jenee had her hand over her forehead.

  “What’s going on?” Ling stared at Jenee.

  Jenee blew out a breath. “When I went into my room last night, my suitcase was open and something was missing.”

  “Huh?” Ling asked, even more confused. “You think Caleb went through your things?”

  “Maybe I forgot to bring something. But I’m pretty sure I put something in there that’s gone.”

  “So you remember unzipping your suitcase last night?” Ling asked.

  Jenee nodded. “Yes, I did. But I distinctly remember zippingit back up before I came down for dinner.”

  “But why would Caleb do that?”

  Jenee shrugged her shoulders.

  Jenee wasn’t telling her everything. Ling opened the door to her office off the foyer, and Jenee followed. “Jenee.” Ling closed the door and folded her hands across her chest. “I need to know what’s going on.”

  Jenee strolled to the window that overlooked the front yard. “I had some things … I printed out,” she stammered, “that I wanted to show you.” She turned and faced Ling.

  “That had to do with what?” Ling asked, walking to where Jenee stood.

  “It will take a while to explain.” Jenee made her way to the chair on the other side of Ling’s desk and slumped down in it. “I need to find what I printed out at home on your computer and print them out again.”

  “Is it something I need to know now?” Ling turned toward the window and saw Caleb starting down the boulevard with Ahna in her stroller. She turned back around. “You have me kind of freaked out.”

  Jenee’s face was beet red. “Probably nothing. I just felt I should at least tell you what I found.” She leaned forward. “You worried about Ahna being with Caleb?”

  “I’ve warned him that if he drinks when he has her, he’ll never have her alone again.” Ling sighed. “He’s hung over, but he probably won’t start drinking again until he leaves the house.”

  “I’d be worried, too.”

  Ling sat down behind her desk and placed her hand on top of the stack of applications. “We need to get through these.” Ling glanced back out the window again. She wouldn’t feel comfortable until Ahna was home.

  Jenee picked up an application off the top of the pile. “I found a couple of families you e-mailed me whose information looked pretty good.”

  “Great. This, however,” Ling whispered, eyeing Jenee, “will be my last adoption. At least for a while. I have some things I need to get straightened out in my life.”

  “What?” Jenee leaned forward, a puzzled expression on her face.

  Ling put a finger over her lips to shush her. “I don’t want to go into it here.” Ling nodded at the door, signaling Caleb might be listening.

  A few seconds later, they heard the front door open, and Ahna’s footsteps, and then Caleb talking to Mei in the kitchen. When Ling heard the front door open and close again, she glanced out the window and saw Caleb get into a cab.

  “Why’s Caleb taking a taxi?” Jenee asked. “I thought you guys bought a car.”

  “He wants to drink, not drive.”

  “I’m so sorry, Ling. You shouldn’t have to go through this.”

  “I won’t for much longer. We’ll talk about it at lunch.”

  Jenee and Ling spent a couple of hours discussing applicants until they narrowed down to five couples. At noon, Ling stood and stretched. “I’m going to feed Sammy and then we’ll go. Would you like to read a book to Ahna before she takes her afternoon nap?”

  “I’d love it.”

  Jenee followed Ling up the stairs and, when Ling opened the door to Sammy’s nursery, Jenee peeked in. “Oh, this room is so adorable.”

  “Caleb likes ships.” Ling nodded at the wallpaper border of sailboats on the light blue walls. “You know where Ahna’s room is, right?”

  “Yep.” Jenee said, and closed the door to the nursery.

  Half an hour later, when Jenee stepped out of Ahna’s room, Ling was waiting for her.

  “I love that little girl,” Jenee said.

  “Me, too. Ready for lunch?”

  Jenee rolled her eyes. “You know me. Famished as usual.”

  Ling found Mei in the kitchen and told her mother that she and Jenee would be home in a couple of hours.

  “Caleb’s lost a lot of weight,” Jenee mentioned, as Ling started the car and backed out of the driveway.

  “I know.” Ling kept a watchful eye over the maze of traffic on the highway. “There’s another motive for going to Chinatown.”

  “Which is?”

  “I want to look for an apartment for the kids, Mom and I.” Taking Broadway to Chinatown, she glimpsed into the rearview mirror every few seconds, noticing that the same cab with a dent on the right front fender had been behind them since they’d left the house.

  “You’re going to leave Caleb?”

  “I never thought I’d ever get a divorce, but I can’t do this anymore.”

  “Well … I …” Jenee started, as Ling drove under the green tiled roofed entrance of Chinatown.

  Ling glimpsed over at her. “You what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You think I should stay with him?”

  “I think you’re doing the right thing,” Jenee added quickly.

  Ling glanced into the rearview mirror again and saw that the taxi had disappeared. She was getting paranoid. Why would Caleb follow her?? She pulled into a parking ramp, stopped at the gate, and pulled out a ticket. “I feel guilty leaving him when he’s obviously not well.” The BMW hugged the curved concrete wall as they traveled up to the next level.

  “But does he want help?” Jenee asked.

  Ling found an empty spot, pulled in, and turned off the car. “I think he’s losing his mind,” she said, her dark eyes misting over.

  Jenee reached over and took her hand. “What makes you think that?”

  “I’ve caught him talking to himself.”

  “I caught him, too, when we were in China. What about the house?” Jenee asked.

  “I don’t want anything. I just want my children, my mom, and me safe.”

  Jenee’s eyes grew wide. “Safe?”

  “Sometimes he looks at me like he wants to kill me,” Ling said, trying to hold back tears.

  “Oh, God, Ling.” Jenee opened her car door. “You have to get out of there.”

  Meshing in with the crowd on Grant Street, Ling glanced back over her shoulder every few seconds.

  “You okay?” Jenee asked, and put her arm through Ling’s.

  Ling nodded. “Just want this divorce over quickly.”

  “Don’t blame you,” Jenee said. “Just know I’ll stay as long as you need me. Justin can handle the k
ids.”

  “Thanks.” Ling put her arm around Jenee’s waist. “That means a lot.”

  “Maybe you should get a restraining order, just in case Caleb goes ballistic.”

  Jenee might be right. The one thing Ling had learned to respect was Caleb’s temper. From what she’d heard, however, restraining orders were useless.

  Chinatown was where Ling belonged and where her children should be raised. She’d never even met the neighbors in Pacific Heights and, if she did see a neighbor when she took Ahna for walks in the stroller, no one ever stopped to introduce themselves.

  Ling lingered in front of the dry-cleaning store her father had sold, peering through the large picture window. She saw a young man standing behind the counter. Ling thought of the many times she’d seen her father standing in the exact same place. She titled her head back, shielded her eyes from the sun, and saw the window box outside of her old apartment filled with bright red geraniums and ivy.

  “It’s okay, hon,” Jenee said, interrupting Ling’s thoughts. “Let’s have some lunch, and then find you a new home.”

  Ling nodded, anxiously looking up and down the street. She had to stop thinking that Caleb was going to hurt her. He couldn’t know she was leaving. After Jenee went back to Topeka, she’d move the kids, Mei’s, and her personal belongings after Caleb left for the day. She’d already contacted a lawyer, and needed to remind him not to serve Caleb until her family was safe.

  Ling wished this was over. She had no idea what Caleb would do when he found that Ling and his children were gone.

  acing back and forth, Caleb watched Ling and Jenee go into an upscale apartment building. Hiding in the shadows across the street, he was on edge and madder than hell. They’d been in there for over an hour. What the fuck were they doing?

  Caleb had the cab let him out at the end of the street after Ling pulled into the parking ramp. Ling and Jenee were up to something.

  “She’s leaving you. That’s what they’re up to,” Weber told him. “Probably renting an apartment for her and the kids.”

  Caleb slid into an alley between two buildings and twisted the cap off the pint of gin that was inside a brown paper sack. “You’re wrong.” Feeling his blood pressure rise, he took a long swallow, twisted the cap back on, and pushed the bottle into the inside pocket of his jacket.