“At least the young family that bought the house seems very nice, honey,” Jo Ann observed. “This old place will have a new life to it with children in it again.”
“I know,” Leisa said wistfully. “I keep remembering my childhood here. All the Christmas mornings, trying to sneak down the stairs to catch Santa Claus laying out my presents, but those squeaky stairs always gave me away.” She grinned. “Learning how to climb down from my bedroom window using the downspout and shutters.”
“What?” Jo exclaimed, clutching her chest in mock distress. “It’s probably a good thing I never had children. I’m not sure I could have survived all the things they would have done.”
Leisa chuckled. “You would have been a great mom,” she said with a hug.
“So would you,” Jo said. “And Nan,” she added in a very loud whisper.
They had both noticed Jo Ann’s hints – “and she is not subtle,” Nan said ruefully – ever since Easter that Mariela would be a welcome addition to the family.
“I can hear you, you know,” Nan said.
“Good,” Jo Ann shot back.
Leisa just smiled.
Only a couple of days ago, she had replied, “she’s not getting angry and she’s not walking out” when Lyn asked how Nan was handling the closer ties to Mariela. “That’s enough for now. And believe it or not, I think Todd is mostly to blame.”
Todd had e-mailed and texted both of them several times since his parents calmed down after his return to Savannah. It sounded as if he hadn’t shown them the photo of his great-grandfather, preferring to keep it to himself for now, “kind of like a talisman against the relatives,” Nan guessed.
But Leisa knew. She knew the real reason he hadn’t shared it was because it was a connection he wanted to preserve privately with Nan, with his roots, without having to defend it or explain it to his parents.
They spent nearly every remaining evening and weekend day before the auction cleaning, sorting, trying to group things in lots for the auctioneer. Leisa took a break to meet the new owners at Bruce’s office a couple of days before the auction so they could close the sale on the house.
“Normally, we wouldn’t close until the house was empty and ready for the buyers to do a walk-through, but they have to go back to New Jersey to close on their house up there. They agreed to do things this way. I assured them you were trustworthy,” Bruce grinned as he left her in the care of his partner.
Leisa was prepared to thoroughly resent them, but this young family was ecstatic to have found such a perfect house and they thanked her so profusely that she couldn’t help liking them. Their two children, a girl of seven and a boy – “I’m almost five,” he corrected indignantly when his sister told Leisa he was four – couldn’t wait for Christmas with a real fireplace. Leisa leaned toward them and whispered, “I almost caught him going up the chimney, twice.” Their eyes got huge as they squirmed in their seats.
All the same, it was heartwrenching to watch Bruce’s partner hand them a set of keys after all the papers had been signed.
Apparently, the auction people did a good job of advertising, because the streets for blocks around were lined with cars by seven a.m. on the Saturday of the sale.
“Go home,” Nan urged anxiously by mid-morning as Leisa looked ready to cry nearly every time an item sold. It didn’t matter whether they sold for a little or a lot, they were all treasures to her. “I’ll stay here and help out as much as I can. Bruce and Jo Ann are here, too. We can keep an eye on things.”
Leisa finally agreed when the dining table and hutch sold and all she could think of were all the family meals they had shared around that table. “You’re right,” she admitted, blinking back tears. “I’ve got to get out of here.”
She went home and tried to busy herself with some cleaning that had been neglected while they were working on the other house. She had the front door open and saw the mail carrier come onto the porch.
“Thanks,” she said as she went out to meet the mailman and collect the bundle. She sat down on the top step of the porch and sorted through it. There, amidst the catalogs and credit card offers, was an envelope from the Syracuse hospital that did the transplant. It looked like a bill. Frowning, she opened it. All of her expenses were to have been paid with no out-of-pocket from her.
She shook out the papers inside, and stared at them for several minutes, trying to make sense of them. It was a bill, but not for her. It was for Donald Miller, totaling over seventy-eight thousand dollars. The other paper was a financial form listing her and Eleanor as the responsible parties. At the bottom was her signature, except it wasn’t quite. The form was dated three days ago. Her hands were trembling in anger as she tried to think calmly. Forgetting to lock the front door, she carried the papers with her back over to her mother’s house.
Wandering frantically through the house, she searched the sea of faces for Bruce, Jo or Nan. She found Jo Ann first.
“Leisa, honey, you’re white as a ghost,” Jo said worriedly. “What is it?”
Mutely, Leisa held out the papers. Jo Ann’s face became a livid red and her lips pursed until they disappeared entirely. “Go find Nan. I’ll find Bruce and meet you on the back porch,” she said.
A few minutes later, they were all huddled over the forms. Bruce expelled a disgusted breath. “I was afraid they might try something like this.”
At Leisa’s puzzled look, he explained, “Real estate sales are public record. All they had to do was keep an eye on the Internet and do a search for your name. They know exactly how much you sold the house for.”
“He can’t get away with this, can he?” Jo asked in alarm.
“No, of course not,” Bruce said calmly. “But it is a pain in the neck. The hospital has your social security number from your admission paperwork?” Leisa nodded. “We’ll have to prove it’s not your signature and that you have no legal connection to him, but they could make things difficult with your credit in the meantime.” He laid a reassuring hand on Leisa’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’ll have my partner draft a letter and place a phone call first thing Monday morning.”
Leisa shook her head in total disbelief. “I just didn’t think they were capable of this,” she said in dismay.
One of the auction workers ran up just then to ask a question about an upcoming item. Bruce and Jo Ann went with him.
“Are you all right?” Nan asked, watching Leisa carefully.
“I’m fine,” Leisa answered in disgust.
“You couldn’t have known,” Nan told her firmly. “You had no reason to suspect them.”
“I could have listened,” Leisa said as her jaw hardened. “You all tried to warn me.”
“You had no more reason to distrust them than Todd and his parents had to distrust me,” Nan reminded her.
“I guess,” Leisa admitted, looking at the papers again and shaking her head.
Father Linus leaned his elbows on the windowsill, watching the kids out on the playground. Both basketball hoops were surrounded by boys shooting baskets, only a few intrepid girls brave enough to push their way in uninvited; a few groups of girls were jumping rope, creating their cliques as only girls can do, the outsiders sitting and watching wistfully, hoping to be invited to join in; the swings and slides were all occupied; a few loners were scattered about on the outskirts of the playground, mostly the odd kids, the ones the other kids thought weird, the ostracized ones. And then there was Mariela, an exception to every one of those social roles.
Maddie joined him at the window. Linus pointed Mariela out.
“She is amazing,” he said. “I’ve been watching her ever since her mother’s funeral. She enjoys being alone, but it’s always her choice. The other kids all like her. They ask her to play, and sometimes she does. Then other times, she deliberately seeks out the oddballs and invites them to play. It’s like she can tell when they’re feeling hurt or lonelier than usual.”
Maddie nodded. “She’s a good egg.”
&nb
sp; “What?”
Maddie smiled. “One of my psychology professors believed that some people are ‘good eggs’ and some people are ‘bad eggs’, and most of us are somewhere in between. The bad eggs are the ones who seem to have no conscience. They’re cruel and violent, with no empathy for other people. They can come from anywhere – good families or bad, or places like this. Then, there are the good eggs, the ones who would flourish in a nurturing environment, but who still find a way to not just survive, but thrive, in a bad environment. These are the kids who climb their way up from horrible conditions to become doctors,” she glanced over at Linus, “or priests.”
He grinned. “I think you’re right. Mariela is a good egg.” He cleared his throat. “She came to me last week.”
“What about?” Maddie asked in surprise. “If you can say,” she added hastily.
“Yeah, it wasn’t anything confidential. But she wanted to know if God could answer any prayer, even if it meant someone else had to do something to make it come true.”
“She worded it like that?” Maddie asked, frowning.
Linus nodded. “Yes. I told her God can sometimes touch someone’s heart and help them see something they were missing or help them realize they feel something they didn’t even know they were feeling. And sometimes it answers someone else’s prayer when that happens.”
Maddie closed her eyes for a moment. “What did she say to that?”
Linus smiled. “She said she was going to go pray.”
“Do you know what that was about?” Maddie asked.
Linus gave her a knowing look. “I think we can both guess.”
“Leisa.”
Linus nodded. “How is Leisa?” he asked casually. “She seems… wounded. I’ve tried talking to her, but she always avoids getting into it, whatever it is.”
Maddie sighed. “She’s been through more in the past few months than most people go through in decades.”
“So has Mariela,” he reminded her.
“Always assume the best of people,” Daniel used to say. “Then, if they prove you wrong, shame on them. But don’t ever get to the point where you assume the worst right from the start. If you look for the bad, you will find it.”
Leisa tried to remember that advice as she waited for a response to the legal correspondence on her behalf. Bruce’s partner had called the hospital Monday morning, and asked to speak with a patient account supervisor. He learned that the bill had come to Leisa because no payment arrangements had been made on the account to date. He informed her that Leisa was fraudulently listed as being responsible for the bills, and that he would initiate legal action if necessary. He followed up with a letter to them and another to Donald and Eleanor Miller advising them that they could all be subject to legal action if any collection activity against Leisa was pursued.
“Just when it seemed like we might be able to relax,” Leisa griped to Lyn and Maddie. “I was looking forward to a bit of nothing, now that the house is sold and the auction is over.”
“Well, how about our trip to the zoo this weekend?” suggested Maddie. “It will take your mind off things, and Mariela has been waiting for us to come up with a date.”
How is it, Nan would wonder, that she could have lived her whole life feeling a certain way or believing certain things, and then realize, suddenly, that she didn’t feel that way anymore? “It wasn’t sudden,” Maddie was to say afterward, when Nan talked about this. “It’s been changing bit by bit over a long period of time, you just didn’t see it.”
“No, it was God,” Mariela would have said.
How could it feel so natural, so right to have Mariela holding her hand as they walked to the ape enclosure at the zoo, or climbing into her lap to watch the snakes because they scared her? She watched Mariela’s freely offered affection with Leisa, and even with Maddie, though she was a little more shy with Lyn, and “she’s so resilient, so trusting,” she said to Leisa later, “even after everything she’s been through.”
At one point, they were all at the elephant compound, where there were two baby elephants gamboling about. Nan glanced down and realized that Mariela wasn’t watching the elephants. She was scanning the crowd as she clung to Leisa’s hand.
Squatting down next to her, Nan asked quietly, “Is this where you were when he took you?”
Mariela nodded, her dark eyes wide and frightened.
“He’s still in jail, and this time, we’re all here to look after you,” Nan reassured her. She directed Mariela’s attention to the elephants. “See how the big elephants protect the little ones? Watch, that baby is getting too far away and the grown-up is nudging her back where she belongs. That’s us. We won’t let anything happen to you.”
“Excuse me?” Maddie asked indignantly. “Are you saying I’m as big as an elephant?”
For some reason, Mariela found this hilarious and giggled contagiously.
A little while later, as they walked along to the next enclosure, Leisa leaned close to Nan and murmured, “I really love you.”
Later that evening, after they had left the zoo and stopped for burgers and shakes for dinner, Mariela fell asleep in the back seat of the Explorer. When they pulled into St. Joseph’s, Leisa said, “I’ll carry her up to her dorm. Be right back.”
Watching them go, Nan asked Maddie, “Has Leisa said anything more about Mariela? About adopting her?”
“No, she hasn’t,” Maddie said.
“So, hypothetically speaking, how would it work if someone was thinking about adopting someone?”
Lyn bit her lip and turned her face away to hide her smile as Maddie replied, “Well, most people start with a few overnight visits on weekends, just to see how everyone handles being together for twenty-four to forty-eight hours. You never know how it’s going to go, but that’s a fairly good way to see how compatible everyone is.”
She turned in her seat to look at Nan as she said seriously, “But I wouldn’t authorize anything between you guys and Mariela right now.”
“Why not?” Nan asked, caught off-guard.
“You know how much I love you two,” Maddie said, “but that little girl has been through hell. And so have you and Leisa recently.” She quickly considered whether to tell Nan about her conversation with Linus and decided not to. “I won’t risk pulling the rug out from under Mariela when you and Leisa still have so much healing to do. It wasn’t all that long ago that Leisa was on the edge of a breakdown. You’re still trying to get back on solid ground and until you are, I can’t take the chance it wouldn’t work out.”
“But,” Lyn spoke up hesitantly, “wouldn’t it help the healing to have someone like Mariela to love?”
Maddie weighed her words carefully and said, “That’s not a child’s role. Not anymore than when people think having a child will save a marriage. Solid relationship first, then a child. Not the other way around.”
The vehicle was filled with a very heavy silence when Leisa got back in. She quickly glanced from Nan to Lyn to Maddie. “What?”
“It’s probably a good thing you didn’t tell me about that conversation then,” Leisa said later when she found out. “Because Maddie was right.”
“How ironic is it,” she could have said, “that just as Nan is starting to believe she could be a parent, I’m questioning whether I should be one? Look at what I come from. I know, I was raised by wonderful people, but we’ve all seen that you can’t ignore genetics. We’re all a combination of both and you can’t ignore one side of who you are just because you don’t like it. I’m part of Eleanor, whether I like it or not.” That was the part that tormented her.
A week after the zoo trip, Leisa was surprised at work by an e-mail from Eleanor, also at work, saying they needed to talk and asking Leisa to call her over their lunch break. For the remainder of the morning, Leisa was distracted, wondering whether she should call Bruce first, and wondering what on earth Eleanor could have to say.
Nervously, she punched the numbers into her cell phone a litt
le before noon. “Eleanor,” she said coldly when the phone on the other end was answered.
She could hear the tremor in Eleanor’s voice as she said, “Thank you for calling.”
Leisa didn’t respond, but listened to Eleanor breathing and nervously clearing her throat. “You must… you must think…” She started crying. “I didn’t know,” she sputtered. “I didn’t know he did that. I know you don’t have any reason to believe me…”
“No, I don’t,” Leisa replied, surprising even herself.
“It’s just, I’m so scared,” Eleanor gasped, still crying. “I don’t know how we’ll find the money. I don’t have that kind of money…”
Leisa felt her resolve wavering just a bit. She sighed. “It’s probably too late to change him,” she said, “but you created this. He is arrogant, selfish, lazy – I could go on and on. He’s a user, Eleanor, and you have allowed him to use you all his life. You’ve never made him be accountable for anything. He is healthy enough to get a job now. He could help pay those bills. And don’t make excuses for him. I’m done listening to them.”
“You’re right,” Eleanor admitted in a small voice. She cleared her throat again. “We’ll work it out somehow. But I wanted to tell you… I hope you know, I really did want to find you, just to know you’re okay, and that you grew up happy. I wanted you to know that,” she finished softly.
Leisa swallowed hard. “Thank you,” she said.
Leisa hung up and pressed her forehead against her hands, her elbows propped on her desk. “Why couldn’t you include me, just a little bit?” she longed to have said. She knew it didn’t make any sense to feel that way. “I want it, and I don’t – all at the same time.” Looking at how Donald turned out, she was more grateful than ever that she’d been raised by her parents, but a small piece of her couldn’t help wishing Eleanor had wanted her, too. Or wanted more of me than just a kidney, she corrected herself.
Chapter 24
“HEY,” SAID LYN’S VOICE when Nan answered the telephone at her office. “Am I catching you at an okay time?”
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