Unburying Hope

by Mary Wallace

  Celeste had thought that the girl would be fine by herself for an hour or two. “I grew up being by myself a lot,” she huffed, trying to keep his pace one morning when she joined him.

  “No, you were with that old lady. Your mom made sure you weren’t alone.”

  That was true, Celeste realized, and she slowed her pace. “Well, I got myself home from school every day. And sometimes if there was a creep on the bus, I’d get off and walk home, so I was alone then.”

  “You hate to be alone now.”

  Celeste felt cornered. “Yes, but I’m 26. I’ve been through a lot.”

  Eddie slowed down and came back to her, “She’s 9 and she’s been through a lot, too. Celeste, Rosalinda and I are a package deal. I got up early so I could get a short run in. As soon as I get home, you can go for a run. We can take turns for the early time, if you want.”

  “Alright,” Celeste said, grudgingly, and she peeled off the trail, reversing course, running back to the house at a slower, more manageable pace. She wondered what Frank was doing. Was it lunchtime? Would he be sitting at their restaurant, alone? Did he cash his escrow check and get on a flight to South Carolina? She wished she knew a way back to their friendship but she’d never needed to reconcile with someone and didn’t know how to take reasonable steps.

  So, to be with Eddie, she would have to calculate in Rosalinda. It helped if she could be civil to the girl. She noticed Eddie was warmer if she smiled at her and occasionally asked how she was doing.

  Surprisingly, the little girl always answered, so Celeste learned the quickest way to engage her, a half conversation so to speak.

  Until a day later, sitting on the sofa with her feet curled up under a quilt, she noticed that Rosalinda wasn’t moving much. She put her newspaper down and looked over.

  The little girl was curled up on the sofa, a mirror of Celeste’s position with comics in her hand.

  “You’re awfully quiet.”

  Rosalinda looked at her quizzically.

  “Are you happy here?”

  Rosalinda shrugged her shoulders.

  “I mean here on the sofa, but I guess I also mean here in Hawaii. You don’t want to be outside the house exploring?”

  The girl shook her head, no.

  Celeste put the newspaper off to the side and put her feet on the ground.

  Rosalinda did the same.

  “Do you want to go somewhere?”

  “Dunno.” The little girl shrugged again.

  “I don’t know what we could do. What do you like to do?”

  Rosalinda pursed her lips. “Dunno, really.”

  “What did you do at your grandma’s?”

  “Behave, mostly.”

  Celeste paused. “Were you pretty naughty?”

  “Oh no,” Rosalinda shook her head adamantly, “I behave. I couldn’t move much, it hurts my grandma’s hips.”

  “You run into her?”

  “No, if we sit and watch her shows.”

  Celeste remembered sadly the terror she felt when her own happy bouncing caused the old lady to cry out in pain. “Ah, I used to do that too.”

  “What?”

  “I went home to an old lady neighbor every day. And if I bounced on the sofa, I hurt her.”

  “Yep, I gave Grandma the cancer by bouncing.”

  “What?” Celeste looked at her in alarm.

  “I squirm too much. She worried about what I was going to be good for.”

  “I’m sure she had cancer before. She must have gotten it because her immune system was down. That’s what old age will do to you.”

  “She shouldn’ta had to have me. It was too hard on her. She rested all the time and the cancer keeps getting stronger and she keeps getting weaker.”

  Celeste took Rosalinda’s hand, pulling her to the spot on the sofa right next to her. For a moment, she worried that Rosalinda would sit on her lap, so she twisted herself sideways so the girl would land on a seat cushion.

  Rosalinda plopped down and looked at her expectantly.

  “I’m not an old lady, like my old lady or your grandma, so you can bounce around a little bit with me.”

  Rosalinda looked stricken and she sat unmoving.

  “Like this,” Celeste said, and she pushed against the sofa cushion with hands on either side of her hips, giving herself a bounce into the air.

  Rosalinda let out a surprised giggle. “You look silly.”

  “I’m sure I do.” Celeste pushed herself into another bounce, then another.

  Rosalinda took one of the bounces and used it for momentum, bouncing herself into four or five exuberant takeoffs, each time scanning Celeste’s face for any sign of anger.

  “Okay, let’s do something else.”

  “What?”

  “Let’s go pick up your daddy early. We can see what spaces he’s looked at and then maybe get some ice cream.”

  “Vanilla?”

  “Oh no,” she said, hearing Frank’s shred of a southern accent in her own voiced endearment, “if you are in Hawaii, you have to eat Hawaiian food. Maybe coconut? Or pineapple?”

  Rosalinda skewed her face up, trying to keep it clear.

  “Or maybe vanilla,” Celeste said, “with taster spoons of a new flavor each time we go, until you find a new flavor you like.”

  Rosalinda relaxed in relief. “Okay, let’s go.”

  Celeste reached for the car keys and unexpectedly felt the softness of the child’s hand in hers. She walked to the door, not letting on her own conflicted reaction to the small fingers clutching hers.

  “My girls,” Eddie crowed, hugging each of them when he saw them walk towards the vacant storefront he was surveying. “This place isn’t going to work either. It’s got a bad reputation and has been empty too long. I might have to go out to Hana. I met a guy who runs a shop there.”

  “Why won’t this work?” Celeste looked down the street. “Right next door to a surf shop? Seems like a perfect fit.”

  “Nah, it’s not going to work,” his voice grew hard and he led her a few feet away from the store.

  Rosalinda tensed up, Celeste noticed. “Why not? There’s a snack shop on the other side, you could sell ‘Picnic Dives’. People could get lunch, rent a surfboard, scuba dive. They’d have the whole day planned right here on this block.”

  His brusqueness subsided for a moment, as he scanned the two storefronts Celeste was pointing to.

  The front door of the vacant store was broken; it looked like a crowbar had been used to jimmy it open. Celeste looked through the window and saw blankets and trash lying under empty sales racks. “It needs to be cleaned out.”

  “Someone’s squatting in it, I think. I don’t want it.” Eddie’s face clouded. “It’s got a foul chemical smell, it’s not safe to be in.”

  “Come on, it’s the best situated that we’ve seen. It’s probably just rancid from not being cleaned out.” Celeste cajoled. She wanted him to get going so they could have a routine, Rosalinda starting in school, Eddie going to work. Then she could find a job herself for their future, the future she still wasn’t sure was solid.

  “It’s going to be my business. I have to trust my instincts.” He crossed his arms. “It smells like a bomb factory in there.”

  She was stunned and watched as Rosalinda’s eyes strayed downward. She couldn’t undo his wartime paranoia, she thought. She walked towards the door and picked up the tangy scent of ammonia. “Probably someone has been in there cleaning?” she asked.

  Eddie abruptly turned and walked away.

  How suddenly the area changed, she thought, as soon as he turned his body away from her. The storefront looked foreboding, unwelcoming. She pulled out her phone, though, and logged in the landlord’s phone number in case Eddie changed his mind, then followed him. He had Rosalinda by the hand and was not looking back for her.

  She rushed to catch up, “What’s going on, Eddie?”

  He stopped and raised his voice. “I pictured this every single day while I w
as lying on my bunk against chicken wire in Afghanistan.” His voice shook for a moment. “It’s my dream, I have to do it. If you can’t let me make the decisions to avoid spots I think are dangerous, you should fly back home.”

  “I don’t have a home, remember?” She froze. “I gave it up. I don’t have an apartment to go back to.”

  Rosalinda shuffled her feet and Celeste watched as Eddie crouched down to her, “No tears, Rosalinda, man it up.”

  Celeste stood, staring at the bit of tenderness in Eddie’s eyes as he fought inside himself to find a way to soothe his daughter. “It’s going to be good, all good. Daddy’ll get this business going.” He looked backwards at the row of windows, and a trace of fear crossed his face. He shook it off, “Maybe I’ll have to take this place.”

  Celeste turned back to see the storefront in the distance. There was a raggedy looking man hovering in the doorway. That’s what happens, she thought, when places are shut for too long. It might be good to take the space and bring some life to it, scare off the street element.

  She saw Eddie was following her gaze and his expression wavered again, a fast mask of hopelessness, then she saw determination emerge. He stood, letting go of Rosalinda’s hand. Celeste sensed worry, memories, dark thoughts clouding his mind. His eyes looked lost and confused. She got a chill on her neck, and then looked down to the vacant storefront, now cleared, then back to Eddie who wiped his face with his hand. He turned away, took her hand and began to walk. Celeste put her other hand out and Rosalinda slid silently over to take it.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The clatter of metal tools falling onto the brick walkway brought Celeste off the lounge chair on the front porch. She raced around the exterior of the house and down the side steps towards the small shed tucked away under a grove of macadamia nut trees.

  She saw Eddie flinch when he registered her coming around the corner of the house and he shooed her away from the pile of rakes, shovels and pick axes that had fallen pell-mell on the ground around him. The shed door was open a foot and a half and he was cursing, ‘Who would pile crap up like this?’ He lifted a rake and a pick axe and walked them into the shed, came out and picked up more tools until he was left with only one axe and a shovel.

  “Decided to have a dance with some tools, eh?” she said, warily. She’d never lived near a yard of any kind and the heft of the equipment intimidated her.

  He smirked, “I thought I’d clear some of the brush so you can grow vegetables, but some half-brain junked all the tools in the doorway.”

  She was surprised at his short temper. He waved her off, trying to keep her away from a pile he’d made with his sweatshirt on the path.

  “What’s in the shed?” she asked, looking sideways through the door, her years of watching horror movies made her leery of small dark spaces.

  “Come see,” he motioned her directly to the shed, “the tools are amazing, they’ve got enough for us to start a farm of our own.”

  “What?”

  “You and Frank said you wanted to grow a garden,” he said, confused.

  “Yeah, but at a house I own.” She noticed a darkness over his eyes, her snappy return was an apparent slap to him. “I mean, if we ever buy a house. You can’t grow a garden at a rental house, can you?”

  “You’d better ask Malia.” He carried a shovel over to overgrown elephant leaf bushes. “Didn’t she tell you to be careful in case we hit those jars of vinegary cabbage?”

  “Kim Chee.” Celeste thought about Malia’s easygoing garden introduction and she wondered how she would feel about Eddie digging up around her beloved plants. “What are you going to do?” she asked with an edge in her voice.

  “I’m going to dig up an area for some new plants. “

  “You’re going to clear out her plants?” Celeste thought she’d better get on the phone quickly before Eddie massacred the garden.

  “No, you rube,” he said, teasingly. “I’ve done this before. You find places in between plants where you can put in a couple of new ones. You find plants that like to be together and then they help each other grow. Some of these could use flowering bushes, that’s all I’m saying. Malia told you to watch out for Kim Chee, that means she wants us to care for her garden.”

  Rosalinda rounded the corner and stood with her arms crossed. “What are you doing with that shovel, Daddy? My guinea pig died at Grandma’s house. She buried it there.”

  Celeste’s mouth dropped open and Eddie looked at his daughter, then at Celeste.

  “Neither of you have ever done yard work?”

  “Nope,” Rosalinda shook her head. “Grandma said she buried it while I was asleep.”

  Celeste shook her head, too. “I’ve never had any land.” She was distracted by the very real possibility that the guinea pig had been trashed instead of buried, because Rosalinda’s grandmother’s trailer park had no open ground around it. It was a concrete living place, just like all the pavemented apartment complexes Celeste had looked through before finding her own place in Detroit. She didn’t let her thoughts show on her face, but she saw Eddie’s eyebrows rise at her and a small smile escaped her lips. Thank God Rosalinda hadn’t kept the dead animal in a shoebox and brought it with her.

  “Well, I grew up ranching, had to pull out acres of invasive weeds with my bare hands until my uncle could buy a tractor.”

  “But Malia put all these plants in herself, she might not want us to kill them.”

  He dug the shovel in a few inches into the ground and stood tall, leaning on it. “Celeste, you’re such a city girl. I am not going to kill or move her plants. I’m going to dig some holes.” He looked around the side yard. “There are lots of places in between her plants and I figure if we can find some of those vinegar pots and pull them out for her, she’ll be happy. So go on, get out of here.” He shooed her back towards the porch. “You too, Rosalinda. Go do some homework.”

  “I don’t have any homework. I’m not in school yet.” Rosalinda stood fast, “What if you find buried treasure?”

  His eyes flashed for a second, then hooded over and he looked away. “No treasure. Get back in the house.”

  Celeste moved gingerly up the pebbled path towards Rosalinda.

  “Hey,” he said, “why don’t you two drive into town and get a couple of new plants?” He motioned to Rosalinda to run over to him and Celeste watched as the little girl loped towards him, encouraged by his interest.

  He patted down several of his filled pants pockets, reaching into one to pull out a wad of money. “Here’s 200 bucks.” He pulled off two bills. “Get a couple of big plants, blue hydrangeas and ask the nursery worker about the kim chee. Malia wants blue hydrangeas around the kim chee, because the acid in the vinegar makes pink or purple turn blue. Blue is rare, so let’s help her out. Maybe also get some lavender, so bees will come.”

  Celeste stared at the wad of cash, wondering if they were all $100 bills but she looked away when she saw that he noticed her stare. Maybe he was crazy enough to carry his business investment money on him?

  “Go on, get out of here,” his voice was a mixture of kindness and vehemence and she sensed it would be best to drive to the nursery with Rosalinda to do a little investigative shopping. She knew nothing about plants, having killed every houseplant she’d ever brought home. A plant lost its newness and invariably faded in her consciousness, she’d forget its needs for water and sunlight and a larger pot and all the attention that was part of keeping one alive.

  But in just the few days that they had been in this house, she had a new morning tea habit. She boiled water in the silver tea kettle, made a pot of green tea, brought it out to the porch table and would wander the yard with a cup of tea, looking at and under the plants, returning to the porch to refill her cup. Then she’d pace again, along the winding paths looking at the effusively growing greenery on either side of her.

  So maybe someone at the nursery could teach her a few things about the life of a plant, so she could grow a new si
de of herself, a side that could actually caretake the soil around her instead of fearfully glancing at it to see if its bushes were browning because of neglect.

  When they returned, she let Rosalinda pull the three large hydrangea shrubs and two smaller lavender plants from the trunk of the car and she smiled a little when Rosalinda squealed in delight and called out to her father in a sing song voice, “We’re back, Daddy, and you’d better dig us five big holes!”

  Celeste wandered to the corner near the shed, but Eddie was nowhere in sight.

  “Back here, babycakes,” his voice came from a far corner of the property, near a circle of purple jacaranda trees. Rosalinda had one plant in her arms and she ran towards her father’s voice, so Celeste turned back around and retrieved two of the remaining three largest plants from the car trunk into her arms, then headed towards the redwoods.

  Rosalinda skipped back towards her, empty handed, then stopped. Her little arms crooked onto her hips, her face awash with shock and sorrow, and she admonished, “You said I could carry them all.”

  “But it’s so far back in the yard,” Celeste answered defensively. “I thought I’d help.”

  “But you said!”

  “Alright. You take them from here,” Celeste put her hands out, offering the large pots.

  “I can’t hold two.” Tears formed at Rosalinda’s eyes.

  Celeste stuttered, not knowing what to do. She put one hydrangea plant on the ground and walked the other one to Rosalinda, whom she could tell was more heartbroken than petulant. She stood with the one plant in her outstretched hand.

  Rosalinda reached forward sadly and took the plant, then plodded back to where Eddie stood, again leaning on a shovel.

  Celeste lifted the plant from where she’d placed it against the large quartz rocks that lined the pebbled path. She thought about either standing still with it or walking it to the back yard, but she suddenly changed her mind and walked it back to the car, placing it into the trunk right next to the remaining two plants. She stood for a moment or two, crushing a lavender flower in her fingers to release its oily fragrance. As she rubbed the oil onto her neck as perfume, she was joined by the tearful little girl who was now wiping her eyes, a big smile of hope rising across her face.