by Mary Wallace
Nonchalantly, she lowered her head and quietly unfolded the other note, reading it quickly. “I have applied for custody change from myself to my son, Edward Rafael O’Halleran and his girlfriend Celeste Hoffman. The court papers are nearly completed and will be sent wherever Rosalinda needs them. I am sick with cancer and cannot raise her anymore. In case something happens to Eddie, I ask that Celeste find a safe place for Rosalinda to grow up, since I’m the last one alive on both sides of my family, except for Eddie and Rosalinda.”
“I’ll need to make a copy of the transcript. Who has legal custody of Rosalinda?” Mrs. Lokelani asked with a forced calm in her voice. Celeste could see that she was straining to stay professional in front of Rosalinda.
Rosalinda looked at Celeste, stricken.
“I believe that her grandmother does.”
“Well, we’ll have to get a letter stating that she approves Rosalinda’s enrollment. Can you get that to us in the next few days?”
“I’ll call her Grandmother and ask her for it. As soon as we walk out of here.” Celeste knew what this meant. She would have to cross the great divide of her brokenness with Frank to ask him to help her get the forms, in case the grandmother was more ill than she had been when she’d seen her at her trailer on the way to the airport.
“That about does it, then. We’ll let her come to school on a provisional basis, but we’ll need the legal documents,” Mrs. Lokelani said, making a copy of the transcript on the small copy machine next to her phone. She turned towards Rosalinda and said, “Tomorrow you’ll meet your class. We serve healthy lunch and snacks in the cafeteria, made locally. We try to do everything sustainably. We don’t allow a lot of big diesel delivery trucks to come this far up the mountain, it keeps the air clear.” She grinned brightly, “Some of the parents work at the best restaurants on the island, so we’ve got great kitchen staff and you won’t find any greasy cheese pizzas or French fries here! You don’t need to make your own lunch at home.”
Celeste sat for a few seconds, and then suddenly realized the finality of the remark. They were finished with the business, so she hastily stood up, motioning to Rosalinda to stand up also.
“Thank you so much,” she put out her hand to shake, but Mrs. Lokelani walked around the desk, pulling her into a hug.
“Aloha and welcome, Mrs. O’Halleran”, Mrs. Lokelani smiled.
Celeste’s smile froze and her response, a heartfelt ‘thank you’ caught in her throat at the ‘Mrs.’
But Rosalinda took her hand and led her out, getting her own ‘Aloha and welcome!” embrace as she passed Mrs. Lokelani. Rosalinda was very nearly Mrs. Lokelani’s height and she beamed back at the stocky lady.
“Well, that’s a very huggy school,” Rosalinda said, as they walked quickly out the school doors to the car.
“We did it!” Celeste high-fived her after turning on the car engine.
“We did it, Mrs. O’Halleran“, Rosalinda giggled into her hands before high fiving Celeste back.
“Hush, now”, Celeste blushed.
“Oooooh, you love my daddy!” Rosalinda covered her louder giggles with her little hands.
Celeste rolled her eyes. “Of course I do,” she said. “Yes, I do.”
Rosalinda bounced on the car seat, smiling and Celeste realized what a gift it must be to feel safe enough to bounce after hearing that you are going to a new school.
She steered the car out the school driveway, heading towards home, grounded with a lease, a birth certificate, an old transcript and now approved enrollment forms for the new school.
She couldn’t wait to show Eddie, she thought. She handed her cell phone to Rosalinda and asked her to text her father with the news.
The next step would be harder and she realized she would not be able to simply make a phone call to Eddie’s mother. She needed to feel grounded. She’d wait until she got home to the cottage, until Rosalinda was occupied and she could go out to the front steps to make the call, to reach out to Rosalinda’s grandmother, to ask for the court documents that could make Rosalinda a legal student at her new school.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Preparing a light dinner of roasted chicken breast with a mango salsa, pasta, and asparagus spears covered with shaved parmesan, which Rosalinda deftly avoided looking at, Celeste noticed that Rosalinda sat at the kitchen counter, thoughtful and quiet.
She had taught Rosalinda how to chop and sauté tomatoes and together they made a garlic marinara sauce to go with some boiled gemilli pasta, only to discover that Rosalinda wouldn’t eat the red sauce.
“What?” Celeste asked.
“I’m allergic.”
“Are you really?” Celeste put her hands on her hips. “Because I used to only eat plain pasta with butter,” she watched Rosalinda’s eyes light up, “when I was your age.” She stared directly at the girl, “I thought so! You’re not allergic, you just like plain food.”
“I’m sorry.” Rosalinda hung her head.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me go to all this trouble?
“I like watching you cook.”
“You don’t have to keep apologizing. What did you eat at your grandmother’s house?”
“Toast or plain pasta.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all I could make. Grandma thought I was naughty for not eating what I was served. She said I turned my nose up. Then she got too tired to make dinner so I just make plain food.”
“What did you eat at school?”
“Rice, an apple, a bagel.”
“Anything with color?”
Rosalinda’s face reddened in confusion.
“Like red peppers, or green broccoli or orange carrots?”
“No.”
“No vegetables?”
Rosalinda’s face skewed up with embarrassment and sorrow. “No.”
“Is that why you’re so skinny?” Celeste looked at her toothpick arms and legs. “Are you hungry?”
“Sometimes.”
“Well, let’s get you fed. I didn’t put the sauce on the pasta yet, so I’ll save half the gemilli for you.” She drained the water from the pot and separated the pasta into two bowls, one with the simmering sauce, the other with a small pat of butter melting in the pasta’s spirals. She cut up a few pieces of chicken with the skin pulled off and put them on top of the bowl.
Rosalinda wolfed down everything in the bowl, while Celeste watched aghast. “If you eat too fast, you’ll throw it all up.”
But she hadn’t. She’d helped clear the dishes, wiped the counters, cut up an apple for dessert and then taken a bath to get clean for her first day of school.
“Can you dry my hair?” Rosalinda asked.
“With a blow dryer?” Celeste cringed. It wasn’t the work involved, it was the intimacy she balked at. She reached under the sink cabinet and found a red plastic blow dryer, plugged it in and turned it on, running her fingers through Rosalinda’s long, wet, soft hair.
Celeste watched as the little girl wrung her small hands, flattening them occasionally onto the bathroom sink to cool them, then nervously wrung them again. Finally, her little voice squeaked, asking what kids in Hawaii wore to school.
Celeste admitted that she no idea and it occurred to her that she didn’t ever look at kids, except Rosalinda, so she had no idea what kids wore when they were walking around the island towns, let alone what kids wore back in Detroit.
When her hair was fluffy and dry, they walked into the little girl’s room, in the bare light of a lamp that would need a shade. Rosalinda stood at her white wicker dresser.
Rosalinda held up a faded green t-shirt with a puppy on it, then rejected it as ‘too babyish’. She pulled out a black sweater with a cat on it, but pushed it back into the drawer. She looked sad.
Celeste asked absentmindedly, “What’s wrong?”
“Grandma bought my clothes.”
“That was kind of her.”
“But my stuff is old lady style.”
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Celeste grew more attentive. “Ah, I see.” She looked through the open dresser drawer and saw cutesy things that didn’t seem comfortable, a sweatshirt with a lace collar on it, a pair of plaid baggy shorts. She closed the drawer and looked at Rosalinda. “How about we go shopping?”
“Isn’t it too late? We just had dinner.”
Celeste had noticed that, oddly, even in Hawaii, small clothing stores had gone out of business, done in by the same superstores that dotted the map every ten miles or so in Michigan. At least the big stores were open until late in the evening, she thought.
She drove them down the mountain and into the flat part of the island near the airport to the huge shopping center with the open superstore. They walked into the children’s area and she saw Rosalinda let a small smile escape from her lips, usually held so tightly closed.
“Why don’t we find an outfit for you?”
“My dad’s not here. We forgot to get money from him,” Rosalinda said quietly in a worried voice. “I’m not sure we can afford this.”
“That’s okay, I’ve got money,” Celeste patted her purse.
“Okay,” she said tentatively. She touched every shirt in the racks, looking thoughtfully at each one. “How much should we spend?”
“Let’s not worry about that. This is a discount store. We can get whatever works for you.” She reached into a rack for a sweater and pulled it out to show Rosalinda. “For warmth?”
Rosalinda smiled sheepishly. “I don’t like sweaters, they make me too hot. But we can get it if you want.”
Celeste put the sweater back on the rack, “Let’s just get what you’ll wear, okay? A shirt and a skirt, or a shirt and pants?”
Rosalinda brightened and pulled out a red t-shirt and brown pair of lightweight pants at the same moment that Celeste pulled out a blue shirt and jean leggings. They smiled awkwardly at each other.
She tried on both outfits in the dressing room and she looked happy in each, patting herself on her stomach and her behind, pulling the shirts down on her little hips. “I like either one, so we can get what’s cheapest.”
Celeste wondered at the nervousness and frugality of the little girl and the life challenges that had brought her to this store at night on a Hawaiian island.
She texted to Eddie that she’d taken Rosalinda shopping and looked to see that he’d replied, ‘THNX!’
As Rosalinda changed back into her own clothes, which now looked too small compared with the new clothes, Celeste took the tried-on clothes to the register, buying both outfits. She quickly shoved them into the store bag as she saw Rosalinda approaching from the dressing room. “You’re dad’s out for a while setting up the store,” she said, reaching for the stack of candy boxes next to the register. “Let’s get a treat before teeth brushing tonight.”
Rosalinda looked shyly at row upon row of chocolate bars, candies and gum. She reached right for a chocolate-covered toffee bar. “These are my Grandma’s favorites.”
“Do you like them too?”
“Yep. She always split it with me.”
“That was very nice of her. Well, tonight you get your own.”
Rosalinda took the store bag from the cart and opened it, the candy bar in her hand. She gasped when she saw both outfits, tightly closed the bag and lunged impulsively towards Celeste, arms open for a hug.
Celeste’s first instinct was to throw her arms up as obstacles but Rosalinda got in close too quickly and Celeste found herself instead patting Rosalinda on her head and her shoulders, breathing in to receive the hug.
Frank would have a heart attack, she thought. No, he’d probably hug her himself, she realized, and she tightened her arms a bit around the smiling little girl, experimenting with this newfound connection.
Rosalinda went to bed easily, asking Celeste to keep her door open so that the hall light could peek in.
Celeste walked out in the cool darkness onto the front porch, seating herself a few steps down towards the ground. She let her eyes acclimate and then made out the additional flowering lavender plants that Eddie had planted right along the front porch line. He’d called it a ‘hope perimeter’, and she had let his words float between them.
After a peaceful hour or so, she moved back indoors, sat down on the living room sofa, covered herself with a wool throw and pulled out a news magazine, turning the pages to read about the world outside this Eden. She checked her cell phone, no texts and it was 9:54 pm. He hadn’t said what he was doing, just that he’d miss dinner.
She and Eddie had never fought about money except for the one quarrel back in Detroit but the sting to each of them, the covert embarrassment each felt kept them separate and silent on money issues. They split the house rent while he covered all living expenses and Rosalinda’s expenses and all the dive shop costs, until the dive shop started making money.
He had put out a small silver bowl that he’d found in a back cupboard of the cottage and asked her to put any receipts for cash and debit card expenses she had and he reimbursed her the same night. His face would light up, he’d pull out his wallet and peel off enough $20 bills to cover whatever receipt she showed him. For the first time in her adult life, Celeste felt the sweet comfort of being provided for.
She did not put Rosalinda’s clothing receipt in the bowl when they got home. She instead put it at the bottom of Rosalinda’s dresser drawer, in case they’d need it for an exchange or a return. It felt good to do something nice for Rosalinda, who was so sincerely grateful for the small sum of $50 for two outfits. She had written a check for the first month’s tuition payment and decided she wouldn’t put that into the bowl until they got a letter asking for the next payment.
Her eyes were tired, and she felt her head loll to the side, waking her up.
Now it was 11:59, midnight, and no Eddie. Celeste stirred enough to get herself to bed alone.
Back in Detroit, it had been easier to not hear from Eddie for a day or two. It was just her. She had her apartment to be in, she had work to go to. If he needed time to wander until his head and heart lightened, she let him take the time.
Here on Maui, she had a little girl about to go to her first day of a new school. The moonlight lay across his pillow. She rolled close to his side of the bed and fell asleep, wondering if he’d be home before her phone alarm went off at 7 am.
At 2:27, she woke up, sitting quickly, half asleep, checking under the covers for him but he was not there.
At 5:08, she awakened again, feeling echoes of that college all-nighter with too much caffeine hangover she’d had so many times while juggling school and jobs. This time, it was layered with a sense of dread. She was sure Eddie was okay. She was worried about what lay ahead in the next three hours, waking a sleepy child, overseeing her brushing her teeth, dressing, making breakfast. And now, the unthinkable, driving her alone to the drive-thru drop-off that she’d never been part of in her own childhood.
At 7:20, after hitting her snooze button twice, she bolted out of bed, pulled on a bra, a sweater and a pair of slacks, ran a brush through her hair and moved quickly into the kitchen.
The fire in the fireplace was fairly easy to light.
Rosalinda had brought in twigs from the redwoods on the property and they’d set up the fireplace the night before. A store bought, hour-long log that Malia had dropped off, made from coffee grinds, sat on the grimy metal log grate, some newspapers were crumpled up underneath with a few of the redwood twigs broken apart into the newspaper for the scent.
Celeste heard Rosalinda quickly roust herself out of bed, the little girl joined her in making strawberry scones from scratch, with only the firelight and the rising sunlight to guide them.
The smell of the sweet pastry dough from the night before’s last minute mixing, the tartness of the diced strawberries with a dash of lemon juice, the scent of the crackling redwood twigs pushed Celeste’s worries about Eddie out of her mind.
She went through the motions of her new life, warming herself by the fire
place, and was aware of the strange split in her heart. Part of her had never been happier. Another part of her realized that the man was missing. She thought about the wisdom of some of what Frank had said. In Detroit, she had batted his words away, they were too threatening.
Eddie might not be perfect, she might not be complete and mature, but sometimes the only available transportation is a leap of faith, and she had taken it. And instead of going to sleep with her head dizzy from liquor and her heart lonely from empty sex and the subsequent abandonment, she had slept in a lush bed, in a house with a fireplace set up for a morning fire, the fixings of a lovely warm breakfast prepped on the countertop.
And a little girl had slept nearby, whose life she clearly impacted in a good way.
Who knew where Eddie was? But she knew him better now, knew how deeply he wanted to redeem his life with Rosalinda, how much he wanted success in the dive shop so he could feel whole himself, that he wanted to survive his mental war wounds and be productive and take care of her and Rosalinda. He was a partner in a way that he hadn’t been in Detroit, before she knew that he had a daughter, before she saw how much he wanted to live a good life.
If he was alcoholic, or an addict, it wasn’t by choice, she thought. He fought bitterly within himself to do the right thing for Rosalinda and for her. And when he couldn’t do something like take Rosalinda to sign her up for school, it wasn’t simply that he was a bad father. He had asked explicitly for her help in doing what he could not bring himself to do, because of his own unspoken wounds. So, now, with him absent, she knew it was sadder that he would be missing the ordinary moments of grace, the crackling fire, the happy before school bustling of his child and the contentment and wonder of his girlfriend.
When he came back, she would ask him to tell her the truth, because in this place, she felt sure that Frank would agree, in this house, on this land, surrounded by these pungent trees and these scented rose bushes, she was more herself than she had ever known possible.
Her own wounds, the loneliness, the longing for her mother, were coming up more gently and she was able to nod and say yes to her thoughts, yes I hated that knock at 5:15 p.m. because it meant that my mother wouldn’t be home but I also kind of liked the old lady, she had enough spunk to have a little girl like me over every day. Yes, I was broken-hearted when my mom died and I felt so tortuously alone on the planet, but having the old lady to check in on as an adult made me feel not so untethered, not so orphaned.