Unburying Hope

by Mary Wallace

  “I’m not that late, honey,” Celeste said defensively.

  “I’ve had students who get catatonic if their parents are five minutes late,” the teacher whispered. “It’s usually the ones who are adopted, they get scared to their core if their ride doesn’t show up on time. Some kids think their parent has forgotten them.”

  Celeste rubbed Rosalinda’s hands, cupped them in her own and said, “Sweetie, open your eyes.”

  Dark eyes rimmed with tears opened from under heavy lids.

  “See me? I’m here.” A part of her heart recognized that inconsolable look in Rosalinda’s eyes. “I’m here and you are here and we are going home. Okay?”

  Rosalinda nodded, her eyes staying open.

  “And we’ll make some dinner, maybe some coconut crusted chicken strips like we saw at that diner the first night we got here to Maui.”

  Rosalinda’s eyes brightened.

  “Mommas always know how to make things better,” the teacher leaned forward herself, winking at Celeste, who cringed a bit, then pretended it was pain as she pulled herself to standing. She walked Rosalinda to the car, opened the door and helped her sit and then snapped her seatbelt into place herself instead of following the school rule of having the teacher do it. She walked around the car and sat in the drivers seat, turned the car engine on and drove slowly out of the school circle. She felt a small pressure on her right shoulder and she looked to see Rosalinda’s wavy haired head leaning against her, seeking comfort in a quiet way.

  Keeping Rosalinda from worrying about her dad’s absence was easier than Celeste had expected. Any apprehension evaporated when Celeste told her that her father sometimes was gone for a couple of days, working.

  It stung less to tell Rosalinda this lie than it did to tell the cops. Because Rosalinda took her at her word. Lying to a child wouldn’t ordinarily bother her because they’d always seemed so wily and relentlessly true to their own inexplicable, immature agenda. But Rosalinda was different. She had a heart and depth, she considered her impact before she asked for anything.

  So Celeste said the words, ‘He’s working straight through for a couple of days’, and Rosalinda shrugged her shoulders, a momentary sadness swept away by a delighted rush in describing her school’s new, ridiculously elaborate play structure, how she’d wall climbed six feet high, toes digging against little plastic footholds nailed into the wall, then she’d rappelled down the other side, climbed up a ladder, slid down a long curvy slide that reminded her of a waterslide she’d once been on with her mother when she could still fit in her mother’s lap.

  They made a quiet dinner, coating the cut up parts of two chicken breasts in buttermilk, dredging them in coconut shavings, then frying them lightly, making sweet potato fries from sweet potatoes grown in a barrel in the garden after washing the dirt off them in the kitchen sink. Rosalinda unexpectedly loved the crispy sweetness of the orange fries offset by the sea salt she’d sprinkled liberally over the pan. But she turned up her nose at the three-inch long, spiny anchovies from the fish market that Celeste ground into mush in the pestle, and shook her head when a forkful of the resultant Caesar salad was offered to her.

  Rosalinda ate heartily, talking the whole time. New friends, new teachers and the happiness of being able to stay in the bustling crowd of kids herded to the car pickup area at the end of the school day.

  Celeste really wanted a cocktail but decided to go to bed when Rosalinda did instead, on the now more probable chance that she’d be alone to drive Rosalinda to school the next day.

  As she lay in bed, the house quiet, Rosalinda happily sleeping down the hall, her little clothes laid out for her next school day, Celeste thought of her own mother and how she wiped the worry or loneliness off her face whenever Celeste got her attention in their small bedroom on school nights.

  She shook her head in confusion, then amazement at the strangeness of life. Here she was, 4,000 miles away from the room in the boarding house she’d grown up in, wondering if worry and loneliness are as easy to wash away when the child is not your own.

  Sleep came when she let go of thoughts of Eddie at the dive shop, instead imagining him in the ocean, coaching her to stand up on a rented surfboard, telling her to place her feet parallel, hunker down to a half stand, then laughing as she toppled into the salty ocean waves. The joy she felt in this daydream relaxed her, letting her slip softly into real dreams of waves of warmth that she held some hope would be part of their future.

  Chapter Forty-One

  “Don’t tell me you’re coming home to me, Missy, because I’ve sold the old homestead.” Frank’s face showed surprise and anger.

  “You’re still mad?” Celeste asked into her laptop camera.

  “You can’t just Skype whenever you please.” Frank moved off-screen and Celeste could see piles of moving boxes.

  “You’re really leaving Detroit?”

  “Yup. Quit the job. The office is closing anyway. Announcement came down. Those pay-as-you-go phones finally did us in.”

  Shutting down the office meant both a massive cultural change that awed her, and a personal change that panicked her. It was bad enough when there was no bus to get her to work. But now there was no job to return to. Somehow, losing this connection hurt more than leaving her apartment.

  “I need your help,” Celeste said.

  “Of course you do,” Frank spat.

  “Hey, you don’t have to be rude.”

  “Really? I’m rude? You ditched me.” He came back to the screen, glowering. “What’s wrong, boyfriend leave you? I can’t come over there and be with you, you pulled yourself thousands of miles away. You’re on your own,” his voice had twinges of regret in the swell of anger.

  “No, he didn’t leave.”

  “Then what? I’m moving tomorrow.”

  “So fast.”

  “I’m onward ho, Missy.”

  “Well, Eddie’s got a daughter.”

  “Say what?” His face came close to the screen. “You? Please tell me you’re not the wicked stepmother.”

  “Her mom died.”

  Frank’s face fell but he didn’t speak.

  “And her grandmother raised her.”

  “Why didn’t Eddie?”

  “He didn’t know about her. The mom got addicted to Meth and heroin.”

  “Sounds like it runs in the family.”

  “I don’t need to hear this bullshit again,” Celeste said, shaking her head.

  “Hey, you called me,” Frank said, pointing his finger at her through the screen.

  They sat, glaring at each other for a few seconds, then Celeste continued. “And the Grandma’s now dying. She’s got cancer and she’s alone in Detroit.”

  “You met his mother?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “I saw her from the taxi before we left for the airport.”

  “So you want me to bring the daughter to you? I don’t transport children, it’s not in my skill set,” he said facetiously.

  “She’s here already.”

  “You’ve got a kid hanging around?” Frank asked with smirk.

  “Yes.”

  “Really?”

  “Frank, stop it. I need help. Her Grandma has custody papers, she said. She’s signed them and put them through the court. She took custody when Eddie was in Afghanistan. We need to get the forms that put Eddie in charge of her again.”

  “So that’s why he re-upped so many times,” Frank sneered.

  “Don’t be a jerk. I’m only asking you because,” Celeste stumbled on her words, “because…”

  “You have no other friends.”

  His words hit her like a full force slap. She gasped and went silent, looking away from the screen.

  “You left me.”

  She looked back at him, her lips pursed with sorrow. “I know I did.”

  “And you never called.”

  “I know.”

  “Why?”

  “I love him.”
>
  “I know that. But he’s an addict.”

  “I don’t know. He’s fighting it so hard, if he is.”

  “And now he’s dumped his kid on you?”

  There weren’t words for her confusion because, no, Eddie had not dumped Rosalinda on her. Or had he? She was on Skype with Frank because Eddie was not around to help stabilize the legal custody of his own daughter.

  “So you want what?”

  “I need the custody papers from her Grandma.”

  “Her Grandma? Not my boyfriend’s mother? What, have you gone soft on her?”

  Celeste bit her lip. “Yes,” she blurted out, “she’s an okay kid.”

  “You HATE kids,” he said vehemently.

  “I hate MOST kids. But,” Celeste said thoughtfully, “this one is not so bad.”

  Frank leaned back, threading his fingers together, hands behind his head. “Well, this IS intriguing.”

  Celeste waved him off. “I just need you to go to Hamtramck. Today.”

  “Go where, you say?” He leaned forward in disbelief.

  “Hamtramck, you heard me. She lives in a trailer park there. She’s either left the papers under the front mat in an envelope or she’s got them with her inside the trailer.”

  “I’m supposed to knock on a trailer in Hamtramck? And why wouldn’t she be there?”

  Celeste’s voice lowered, “She might be in the hospital.”

  “Oh.” Frank sat upright. “But seriously, me? You think I’ll be safe there?” He leaned forward to show his head to his laptop camera. “I’ve dyed my hair. I’ll get the crap beaten out of me.” He pointed to a streak of blue in his spiked hair. “And you would NOT send me into a trailer park, would you? Really? Can’t you call Fed Ex?”

  “Frank, I know I’m asking a lot,” she started.

  “Hell, yes! You ditch me, you don’t check in for weeks and then you want me to go out to a township to get some papers from your new daughter’s grandmother? Will she even be there? Will anyone be around?”

  Celeste saw the dangerous situation she was sending him into. It wasn’t the town so much as getting a city person out into a township where unemployment was high, money was tight and people were already mad. A city boy with a blue streak in his hair might easily become the lightning rod for their unrest. “If I could, I would go myself,” she said.

  “And you can’t because...” He left the question hanging.

  “Because Eddie isn’t around and I have to take care of Rosalinda.” There, she’d said it.

  Frank’s face fell. “He left you?”

  “No,” she said slowly. “It’s just that thing where he goes walkabout for a few days.”

  “And you’re alone with a kid.”

  “Like I said, she’s an okay kid.”

  “What does she look like?” Frank asked.

  “She’s got pretty brown eyes and really good black hair with chestnut streaks in it like she paid for them, fluffy, down below her shoulders. We’re going to grow it out, she’ll be so pretty with long hair.”

  “We?”

  Celeste blushed, “She.”

  “I missed you,” he said softly. “And here I thought you’d replaced me with that hot military thing of yours and instead, it’s so much worse. You’ve left me,” he fake sobbed, “for a kid!”

  Celeste laughed nervously, “I know, it’s strange.”

  “I did not see this coming. But this is good,” he said, putting his hands together, fingers pointing upwards. “My little girl is growing up.”

  “Frank, don’t go all melodramatic on me,” Celeste said, rolling her eyes.

  “Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll get in a cab and go out there. But you owe me!”

  “I’m afraid to ask,” she said.

  “I get to be Uncle Frank.”

  “You?”

  “I could say the same thing, Missy. YOU?”

  “Alright, truce.”

  “Text me the address so I have it with me.”

  “Frank?” Celeste asked quietly. “Why are you leaving Detroit?”

  “This place is dead without you,” he answered gently.

  “I really miss you too,” she said.

  “Did I say I miss you?” he responded teasingly. “Besides, the sun and sea beckon. I’m going to the shores of South Carolina, back with my people. I’ll live there a little while until global warming melts all the icebergs and it’s underwater.”

  “Then you can move here.”

  “Right, islands. You’ll be underwater too.”

  “No, we’re up in the mountains, you should see it Frank,” she said, her voice filled with pride. “It’s a Victorian cottage.”

  His jaw dropped. “You didn’t!”

  “I did!” she said, betraying her deep sense of joy.

  “Then I’m happy for you,” he said. “It was time for both of us to re-pot, I guess. I just didn’t think it would be so sudden.”

  “I know. I think that bombing did me in,” she confessed. “I jumped at Eddie’s offer after that.”

  “That did it for me too,” he admitted.

  “How are you? Any other bombs?”

  “Nope, it’s been oddly quiet. Two gangs have idiotically massacred themselves and each other. They’ve blown each other to bits. So it’s been quiet since you left.”

  “That’s good,” she said. “I’ve been worried about you.”

  “Then why haven’t you Skyped?” he asked.

  “I thought you hated me. I didn’t know how to make amends.”

  “Just Skype, for god’s sake,” he said. “I’ll go get your baby papers but, like I said, I’m Uncle Frank and I get to do Skype hair with her like I did,” he corrected himself, “like I DO with you.”

  “Thank you,” Celeste said, “from the bottom of my heart.”

  “Which, apparently, much like the Grinch’s, has grown more than a few times in one day.”

  “Oh, don’t kid yourself, it took more than a few days. It’s been really trying. But she’s a good kid and everyone around her is dying or leaving. So I want to get the custody papers so she’s Eddie’s before his mom passes.”

  “I’m on my way,” he said.

  “And Frank?”

  “Yeah?

  “Thank her for me and tell her that Rosalinda’s so happy in her new school.”

  “Alright, Missy.”

  She smiled wanly and, with great effort, clicked the hang up button on her laptop.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  She sat at the corner table of the bakery, typing all her notes about Detroit’s elder care organizations into her laptop, making a spreadsheet with business names, addresses, phone numbers, websites, divided into four or five neighborhoods in both East and West Detroit, out to the townships.

  She could show Frank the storyboarding she had done for each page of the webpage. As much work as she could do from far away, she would definitely need to have him do the design work and the technical setup. Needing him helped her overcome her fear of his anger at being disconnected for so long. She thought for a moment, sipping a hot mint tea, that they could meet as equals in a new friendship, each in their homes but still connected as closely as they had been from their separate apartments. The thought warmed her and she scanned her laptop screen again, checking to see that all the information was plugged in from her handwritten notes on the papers in front of her.

  The frantic ringing of her cell phone startled her.

  “We don’t want to worry you, but Rosalinda hurt herself today out in the play yard and she was just taken by ambulance to the hospital.” Mrs. Lokalani’s voice was urgent.

  Celeste held the phone tightly to her ear. “Where is the hospital? What happened? She hurt herself?” Words tumbled out of her mouth and images of Rosalinda’s little face, gray with pain, maybe bloodied, washed over her. She grabbed the car keys and wrote down the hospital address in the margin of her notes.

  “She fell from the top of the playground climber. She’s got a
n open gash over her ear. She’s not in Kula, she’s down by the airport at the Kahalui hospital. Better trauma unit there.”

  Celeste stood at the table, shutting the laptop and jostling her papers into her purse with one hand.

  “I’m so glad I got a hold of you,” Mrs. Lokelani was no longer calm, “I couldn’t reach your husband.”

  Even in her panic, Celeste instinctively bit her tongue and did not correct the school secretary. “He’s starting up a new business out in the water and he’s hard to reach,” she said. “Tell Rosalinda that I will be right there!” she said.

  “She’s already gone in the ambulance, you’ve signed the release form,” the secretary said. “You should get there when she does, if you leave right now. The school nurse is with her, Mrs. Donahoe. She’s trying to keep Rosalinda peaceful. Rosalinda stopped crying to hear about the hedgehogs that visited a few months ago, so she’s in pain but has a great big heart, that little one of yours.”

  Celeste hung up the phone and ran out of the bakery, then drove down the mountain into the flat area, balancing the need to be vigilant about bicyclists with her fevered desire to speed to Rosalinda’s side.

  The hospital was near the shopping center, she knew, but in the daylight she saw that there were small malls every few blocks and she grew frantic, looking for signs for the trauma center.

  When she found it, she pulled into the nearly full parking lot, distracted by the wail of an ambulance. She had to look both ways and inch forward until she got out of the driving lane and then she parked, forgetting to grab anything more than her purse. The five seconds it would take to look at the car key to see which button to push to lock the car didn’t seem worth it and she raced through the emergency room door, then to the windowed check-in nurse and said, “I’m hear to see little Rosalinda O’Halleran, who fell off her school playground equipment.”

  Celeste suddenly felt desperation, with a plexiglas wall between her and aid. Having that kind of power, when you don’t know what it’s like to be powerless, it sickened her to think she might have been so unfeeling all those years in Detroit. She wanted to cry and bang on the window like the angry customer that got her fired.