Unburying Hope

by Mary Wallace

  And last night, here in the upcountry, she had walked out onto the porch to hear the whispering of the trees, and it’d sounded very much like the whispers of her mother’s voice into her own little girl ears back in their small shared bed in their tiny apartment.

  When Celeste saw Eddie, she would tell him that everything was perfect and it was now time, that together the three of them could handle whatever demons he was facing. They had stability now, not just in the house, or the horizon, or the school, or the dive shop. He’d be safe now. The largeness of their stability could hold him as he faced his own sorrows.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  “Do you think I’ll find any friends here?”

  “I don’t know if you need friends, do you, at your age?” Celeste asked, not so sure, her memory foggy. “Did you have lots of friends at your old school?”

  “No. I moved too much. Some kids have been together since they were babies.”

  “I know that feeling.”

  “And my grandma had me stay in afterschool care, I was the only big kid there.”

  “So all your schoolmates left at 3 and you stayed.”

  “Until 5.”

  “Well, help me with the scones,” Celeste motioned, “and bring your backpack. We’ll get school supplies after school today when we know what you need.”

  “Will I stay in afterschool care?”

  “Do you want to?” Celeste wondered if she’d be sitting with Eddie by then, veering between abandonment rage and relief that he would be back to help with his daughter.

  “No.”

  “Then I’ll pick you up at 3 in the drive thru.”

  Rosalinda squirmed on the stool near the counter. “You mean I get a ride in to school and a ride home from you?”

  “Yep, that’s how we’re doing it today,” Celeste said, breathing hope into her words.

  The girl leapt off her barstool and ran down the hallway towards Celeste and Eddie’s bedroom, “I’m gonna thank my daddy for bringing you with us,” she said.

  “Your daddy’s not here,” Celeste felt the panic in her throat and she watched as Rosalinda stopped suddenly and pivoted slowly towards her.

  “He left this morning without saying ‘good luck’? Or giving me a hug?”

  “He texted me,” Celeste lied, “and asked me to give you a big hug from him.” She waited until Rosalinda shuffled back into the kitchen. “Here’s the hug,” she said, and put her arms awkwardly around the little girl.

  “Thank you,” Rosalinda said, disappointment evident in her voice. “I’ll thank him later.”

  Celeste smiled. “But your dad didn’t bring me here, I came on my own to be with him. It was my choice.”

  “Oh,” Rosalinda said distantly, “when he first found me, he promised me someday we’d move here and he’d bring me a lady who could be like a mommy to me.”

  “My, my,” Celeste said, at a loss for words. “He just told you that before he brought you here?”

  “No, he told me when my mommy died and we met. He said he’d leave me with grandma until the army let him go. Then he could get a business and a mommy.”

  Celeste raised her eyebrows, her voice stalled in the gray matter between her brain and her throat.

  She watched as Rosalinda stared into the barely lit oven. “They will need to cool a few minutes, so by the time you wash up, we can sit down to eat.”

  Rosalinda smiled and patted her head, “And brush my hair! I can’t go to my new school with messy hair!” She skipped out of the kitchen, into her bedroom, singing quietly in a little voice a song that Celeste did not know.

  The oven timer buzzed. She moved sluggishly towards the drawer, pulled out and put on oven mitts, pulled scones out of the oven and placed them by the open kitchen window to cool.

  Rosalinda returned with a very sweet smile on her face. “That smells so good,” she drawled.

  “It does, doesn’t it?” Celeste sat silently for a few minutes then put one pastry out onto a plate for Rosalinda. “Here you go, don’t eat it too fast.”

  Rosalinda took a small pinch of the bready part and tasted it. “Yummy,” she said, and she quickly ate one, two, then a third scone.

  Celeste had lost her appetite. “So, we’re ready to go?” She stood up and jingled the car keys in her pocket. Maybe she’d drive by the storefront to see if Eddie had slept there.

  “You okay?” Rosalinda eyed her.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just thinking that I bet your dad wishes he were here.”

  “I know!” Rosalinda bounced to the door, “but it’s okay that it’s just you and me.”

  Celeste smiled, trying to relax the worry lines on her forehead. Just you and me.

  “And I get to go home at the regular time! I’m so excited!”

  “Yep, we’ll have you out at the early time.”

  “And drive thru for pickup!” Rosalinda had a happy little smile, “I get to be a regular kid!”

  Celeste put her hand on Rosalinda’s shoulder as they walked down the front steps, the tender scent of roses in the air around them. “You and me both, honey. I never got to be a regular kid either, so this will be nice for you and me both.”

  “I’m ready for my new school, then.” Rosalinda climbed into the back seat of the car.

  An emotionally weighty moment, a healing made possible by the simple act of driving to and from school. She wished Eddie could be there, as much for herself as for Rosalinda.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  As the afternoon air heaved with tropical heat and moisture, Celeste fanned herself by the living room window. Through the screen door, she saw Malia standing out by the arbor at the end of the path to the street. She was wringing her hands, her face heavy with worry.

  Celeste scrambled off the sofa, putting her cookbook down. She padded lightly to the door, calculating the days left until the next rent check was due. Eight or nine, so Malia couldn’t be here to collect.

  She heard Eddie’s voice, watched as he sauntered over to Malia from somewhere in the garden. He had returned unceremoniously the night before. Their voices were low, so she crept out the screen door, holding it tightly so it wouldn’t make a sound as it closed.

  Malia now had her back to her and Eddie had his hands shoved down in his pockets, his shoulders hunched over.

  Celeste stepped out of her shoes and walked a few steps closer, thinking she could offer Malia some tea, relieving Eddie of any obligation to chat with her. She was probably just checking in, Celeste thought. She was such an animated old lady and it was clear that she was fearless and not afraid to meddle. Please god, Celeste said to herself, let her not be grilling Eddie about getting married. She’d soon see hanging flags or statues laid about, calling Malia’s spirit friends to push Celeste and Eddie together, as Malia had warned on that first day.

  She listened and stopped in her footsteps when she realized that Malia was crying. It was so unexpected to hear her voice shaking. She wanted to run forward, to connect with her, but something between Malia and Eddie kept her from that impulse. Should she offer tea or a glass of water? Stand next to Malia and console her for whatever was wrong?

  She looked at the side of Eddie’s face for a clue but his posture was unchanged, hunched over, listening. She watched as he reached out a hand to Malia. He placed it on her fragile shoulder and gripped it, giving her comfort or steadfastness, she couldn’t tell.

  Malia wiped her tears and began to walk. Celeste froze, afraid that they would see her and know that she’d been watching them without announcing herself.

  They walked instead a few feet into the property, sideways like crabs towards the rose bushes where Malia reached out and took Eddie’s arm, leaning on him.

  Celeste retreated to the front steps, sensing the intimacy of Eddie offering care to the little woman. She decided not to interfere and quietly slipped instead back into the house, depositing herself on a wooden chair in the foyer, watching them from afar.

  Eddie turned to
wards Malia, standing where he could have seen Celeste so she ducked her head.

  “Celeste,” he called out to her.

  “Yes?”

  Malia spooked, moving behind him, her small figure easily hidden behind his frame.

  That’s strange, Celeste thought. Why would she be afraid of me? Celeste stood inside the door and waved, which upset him. She thought he had seen her before but it was clear that he was disappointed and was now calculating his own response.

  “Nothing, honey, why don’t you go back to our room and rest for a while?”

  “Sure,” Celeste said, lowering her voice. She stepped backwards from the screen door and watched him stare in at her. She slipped back in to her shoes and clomped a few steps more towards the hall, staring back out at him.

  She saw Malia grab his hands, bow her head and was relieved to watch as Eddie cared for her. He put his hands on her shoulders and gave her a half hug, as much as she would accept. Then she receded quickly through the arbor and Celeste watched Eddie watch her go, then stand still, his shoulders no longer hunched, his hands on his hips, no longer shoved into his pockets.

  He looked into the house, didn’t see her and loped quickly out the arbor after Malia.

  She woke with a shock an hour later. Her head lay against the couch pillow in the front room where she could still see out to the front yard. It was almost time to do the school pickup and she was relieved to hear Eddie bustling around the backyard. Her mind in a fog, she stretched, hearing him walking from the back to the front of the house, out to the car and then back onto the property again.

  She sat up and caught a glimpse of him carrying large plastic containers. Cooking oil? Fluids for the car? It wasn’t soda bottles, she knew. She called out, “Honey, are you going to get Rosalinda?”

  She heard silence, then jumped almost out of her skin when his voice spoke inches from her ear.

  “We can do it together,” he said, his voice warm, tired. “But Malia asked me to do some gardening for her, to help her cut costs, so I’m going to be digging up some areas she wants to develop.”

  “Want me to do some of the digging? You can get Rosalinda and I’ll step on that shovel like you showed me,” she said, holding an imaginary pole in front of her and jumping with both feet on the invisible shovel head. She was hopeless at it out in the yard; it had taken all of her strength to break through the soil in spots where no one had gardened in recent years.

  “No way,” he said, his hands jittery. “Might as well give Rosalinda a little plastic ice cream spoon and ask her to do it, she’d get farther along than you would,” he needled, smiling at her. “Let’s go get her together and then I’ll do some digging while she’s doing her homework.”

  “Did I miss Malia stopping by?” Celeste asked, feigning a big yawn.

  Eddie shooed her off the sofa and out the front door, straight towards the car, “She was just driving by and she saw me out front. So she asked if I’d do some of the digging so she wouldn’t have to pay the gardener, who is even older than she is and would have to use a rototiller. That would ruin the stuff living in the soil.”

  “I can help you later,” Celeste pushed.

  “No, I’m good,” he dismissed.

  “But you said that thing about soil having microbes that make you happy when they touch human skin. I need some of that,” Celeste persisted.

  “It raises your serotonin, helping your brain,” he clarified. “But not today, Celeste.” He opened her car door, held it while she climbed in to the front passenger seat and then closed it gently, not talking until he got to his side of the car.

  “Today, I’m just going to do the work myself, I just need some fresh air to think.”

  Celeste hunkered down in her seat. “Sure she didn’t ask you to bury any bodies in the yard?”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” he answered, his voice suddenly tremulous.

  “Okay,” she said, “but I saw you carrying some jugs in. What were those?”

  “Christ, do you sleep with your eyes open?” He looked at her, his eyes blazing.

  “You don’t have to be mad, it’s our house, remember? I came all this way to do things with you, not be alone.”

  “Yes, we’re together right now, but sometimes we need to do things separately.” He drove the car off the gravel sidewalk and out onto the road, doing a U-turn to head towards Rosalinda’s school.

  “We’re separate too much. I’m really tired of it.” She crossed her arms, working through her desire to be petulant. She didn’t want to let her feelings slip into melodrama that could be swept aside. She wanted to connect with him. “What were the jugs?”

  “Fertilizer.” He stared intently at the road. “Shall we take her for ice cream after?”

  “Sure,” Celeste said.

  “I’m trying to get her to try a new flavor, it eats at me to see the same white ice cream cone over and over. She needs to stretch out what she exposes herself to, try new things,” he said.

  “She’s always trying new things,” Celeste said defensively. “She’s in a new school, new house, new place to live. Let her order the damn vanilla.”

  Eddie nodded his head, looking at her for a moment. “You’re right. Thanks.”

  “So what’s the fertilizer for?”

  “The garden,” he said, without missing a beat.

  “And I can’t get my hands into the dirt with you?”

  “Tomorrow,” he said.

  “I didn’t come here to be alone,” she said. “I left my huge city, where if I felt alone I’d just walk out my front door and be surrounded by people.”

  “Not really,” he said.

  “Well, a few years ago before the economy tanked. But here I walk out and it’s just plants. It’s creepy.”

  He burst out laughing. “You’ve got nature deficit disorder.”

  “Malia said that, too.” She noticed a twinge on his face when she mentioned the old lady.

  “Malia’s a pretty smart woman,” he responded, his voice quiet. “Look, I came here to be with you. You’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. You have dreams, like I do, and you had the guts to speak out through your paint, at home when everything was falling apart. You were able to be hopeful. I look up to you, I came here to start a new life with you.”

  “And your daughter.”

  “Yes, I came here to raise my daughter away from all the crap that was dragging me down in Detroit. But I also came here to be with you, where you want to be, so let’s start working on that. I don’t want to be one of those guys enslaved by my work.”

  “Or a secret life.” Celeste was shocked at her own audacity.

  “What secret life?” he slowed the car.

  “I don’t know, it seems like people get secret lives once they become a couple. I thought we’d be together more, working together at the dive shop. But you keep going off on your own.”

  “Well, what’s your secret life?” he said, turning the tables on her.

  “You know I don’t have one anymore!” she said angrily. “I landed here and immediately had to take care of a little girl and I have no skills for that!”

  “What do you want to do with your life?”

  “I have no idea. I just want to stay in bed and sleep all the time but I can’t because I’ve got to get a kid up and drive her and make her meals. Somehow I pictured this differently when you asked me to move here with you. Now I find myself in some middle class suburban at-home-mom nightmare.”

  Eddie pulled the car off the road. “You have no idea how lucky you are to be complaining about that. You aren’t addicted, you haven’t lost your mind, at least you have skills.”

  “Who is addicted?”

  “I mean, I went to the VA here to check in and I see guys who are barely able to keep their home lives together, let alone any work life. You’re a smart girl, get off your butt and figure out something to do.”

  “Hey, I’m raising your daughter! You keep disappearing,” Celeste spat. Then
she took in a deep breath. “That’s not what I’m upset about.”

  “What are you upset about? Make it clear. I can’t solve something that isn’t clear.”

  “I don’t need you to solve anything, I need you to be with me.” Celeste sighed. “I was talking to Frank before we left about starting a website of all the non-profits that provide services to old people in Detroit.”

  “Now you’re talking,” Eddie said, a smile creeping across his face. “You’re such a sweet girl, move on that. Get Frank on board. You can do so much of that from here. We should get you an iPad so you can go around the island and find out what’s working here and see if there are any similarities. That way you’d be out and about here but helping out at home, I mean D-town,” he said, realizing his gaffe. “This is our home now, I know.”

  “Frank and I aren’t speaking.”

  “Why not?”

  “I think he’s mad I left.”

  “But wasn’t he going to move to some island in Georgia anyway?”

  “He talked about it, but he wanted me to go with him.”

  “Hey, I was very clear at that bar that you’re MY girl,” Eddie said, squeezing her knee as he pulled into the long line of cars waiting for the school doors to open and disgorge the small horde of exuberant children.

  She smiled. “I miss you when you’re gone.”

  “I know. Me too. I just have a few loose ends to tie up and then we’ll live fifty long and boring years together here on the island.”

  “How could you have loose ends when you just got here?” She looked at him, unsure of how to shunt aside her loneliness so Rosalinda wouldn’t pick up on it.

  He turned away. “There she is,” he waved through his open car window, pulling the car forward bit by bit until they were the front car. Rosalinda’s teacher opened the back car door, scooted Rosalinda in and helped her with her seat belt, then closed the door, leaving the three of them alone in the car, one little girl overflowing with happiness, Eddie again in his own thoughts and Celeste walking the tightrope between her own feelings, trying not to squash the dreams of a chattering girl, a wounded soldier and herself.