Crust No One

by Winnie Archer

  The story was interesting, but I couldn’t quite see how it was going to help us. “You both have been such good friends to Hank,” I said. “You’ve done so much. Let us go talk to Hank’s father. He may be able to help us.”

  Nancy threw one hand up suddenly. “Oh! I know where it is!” She turned and hurried down the hall and back into the kitchen, reappearing a few seconds later. She had a business card and brochure in one hand, her dish towel and a gallon-sized plastic bag filled with perfectly round, thick corn tortillas in the other. She handed me all three items. “Would you give these to Hank’s dad?”

  I took the tortillas and nodded.

  “We definitely will,” Mrs. Branford said, and then she winked. “If there are any left by the time we get there.”

  Her off-the-cuff remark had the desired effect. We all laughed, lightening the tension and the sadness in the modest little hallway. “Let me get you some,” Nancy said, and before either Mrs. Branford or I could object, she was off again, returning with a second baggie filled with tortillas. “It’s not quite a dozen,” she said sheepishly, as if she’d let us down.

  “Mrs. Sanchez,” I said, “you don’t have to—”

  “I want to.” She offered a faint smile that didn’t quite reach to her eyes. I knew she tried hard for the two kids in the TV room, but the pain of her loss would never quite go away. She spoke to both of us, but settled her gaze on Mrs. Branford. “You are very sweet. Thank you.”

  I knew she wasn’t talking about us trying to find Hank, or bringing tortillas to Hank’s dad. No, she was talking about something so much more than that. She was speaking to a kindred spirit, to her heartache, to another woman who’d lost a child—and who’d ultimately survived.

  Chapter 19

  We left the Sanchez family to their evening, both Mrs. Branford and I aching from the hollowness we’d seen and felt in both Nancy and Danny. Nancy Sanchez might not understand it now, but somewhere in the depths of her heart she’d recognize that Penelope Branford, who’d also lost a child, had managed to make a new normal and ultimately to move forward. I didn’t know Mrs. Branford’s story yet and I knew she still had to ache inside, whatever had happened, but she had not let her loss define her, and I hoped that Nancy Sanchez would also be able to recapture her life at some point.

  We walked back to the car in silence. I helped Mrs. Branford navigate the curb, get situated back into the passenger seat, and after I’d put the tortillas on the backseat, we drove away. It took a good minute for either of us to speak, and even then it felt as if we were skirting around the heavy stuff.

  “Poor family,” I said.

  “They’ll be okay,” she said.

  I’d been trying to find some words to express what I was feeling, but I couldn’t pull any from my brain. Nothing worked. “You never told me,” I managed after a while, but I couldn’t finish the sentence that was circling around in my head. The fact was that she hadn’t told me and there had to be a good reason for that. It wasn’t my place to push her into revealing something she’d buried within herself.

  I caught Mrs. Branford’s shrug from the corner of my eye. It wasn’t a dismissive movement, but more of a deep breath saddled with the idea that it just was. “Losing a child isn’t something you bring up in casual conversation with new people in your life,” she said.

  I felt a pricking behind my eyes. I blinked the feeling away and kept driving, listening as she started talking. “Her name was Katherine.” I caught her grin from the corner of my eye. “I named her after Katherine in Taming of the Shrew, you know. It was not the way of things when she was growing up—to be a strong girl. To have opinions. To speak your mind. But my daughter was not going to be a shrinking violet, to coin a phrase. I raised her to be bold and daring. She was one of the smartest people I ever knew. Quick-witted, book smart, but also intuitive and wise. I used to tell her that she was an old soul stuck in a young girl’s body. Of course, she didn’t understand that when she was just ten years old, but when she hit her twenties, suddenly it made sense.”

  There was a park up ahead, the parking lot lit just enough to feel safe. I pulled in so I could listen to Mrs. Branford talk without the distraction of driving. She was lost in her narrative, so she hardly noticed that we’d stopped driving and that I’d turned my body to face her. She continued without a break. “She was close with her brothers. Jeremy—he’s the one who lives in San Francisco. He has struggled with addiction on and off. He’s in a good place now,” she said, “but I don’t think he’ll ever get over Kat’s death. She would have been fifty this year,” she said, almost to herself. “She was a good girl.”

  “What happened?” I asked, wondering if the question would push her too much toward memories she didn’t want to have resurface.

  But she answered matter-of-factly. “Cancer, of course. She fought as long and hard as she could, but it eventually took her.” She looked at me then, the daze in her eyes clearing. “It took part of me, too. I understand what that woman is going through,” she said. “For a long time I didn’t think I’d get over it. That was when Jimmy . . .” She trailed off and I filled in the blanks. It was when her husband had almost sought comfort with Olaya Solis. In the end, he hadn’t, and Penelope and James had lived out his days together. Statistically, they were not the norm. I hoped Danny and Nancy Sanchez could beat the odds, too.

  “You remind me of her. Of Kat,” Mrs. Branford said in an uncharacteristically soft voice, and my eyes filled. I didn’t think there could be any greater compliment.

  * * *

  Before trying to find Hank’s father, I called Richie. Hank had stayed at the boarding house, so there was a chance Richie knew some specifics about where Hank’s father lived. It was worth asking, but Richie didn’t answer. I called Janice next, for the same reason, but again, no answer.

  “We’re on our own,” I told Mrs. Branford.

  “I’m up for the challenge,” she said.

  I was, too. I’d do whatever it took to find Hank.

  The retirement community where the senior Rivera lived was called Rusty Gates, and the tongue-in-cheek approach to senior living didn’t stop there. We pulled up to the main building, which advertised the Out with a Bang recreation center. Mrs. Branford squinted her eyes at the sign, opened them, squinted them again, and then let loose a deep belly laugh. “Well,” she said, “I guess this is where the road ends.”

  I laughed along with her. “I guess it is.” We doubled over, and after we finally pulled it together, I realized that the hilarity of the retirement community and the emotions tied to it were spillage from the sorrow of the last hour. Feelings have a way of reversing themselves.

  I hopped out to look at the map while Mrs. Branford collected herself. “There are four resident buildings, two on either side of the rec center,” I said as I slid back into the driver’s seat.

  “A needle in a haystack,” Mrs. Branford said.

  “Maybe,” I said, “but let’s check it out anyway.” I drove to the left, winding around the rec center. The first resident building lay straight ahead. The sign marked it clearly: AGED OAKS. Mrs. Branford and I looked at each other, each of us doing our own version of a titter under our breath. “Aged Oaks, really?”

  “If you can’t laugh in the face of death, then it just looms there, scary and ominous. I’m eighty-six years old, Ivy. I’ve had ups and downs. I’ve experienced loss, but it hasn’t all been bad. I had Kat for as long as I was able. It’s been a good life. And I’m not ready to leave it just yet. I’m tired. My knees hurt. My joints hurt. My heart hurts sometimes. But the minute I stop wanting to get up in the morning and get out into the world for the day, I’m done. But let me tell you, Ivy, if and when I am ready to go to a retirement community, this place is where I want to be.”

  Oh no, now that I’d found her, I wasn’t going to lose her. Mrs. Branford was quickly becoming my rock. “If you ever get to that point,” I said, “we’ll get you a place here, but that’s a long way of
f.”

  “Deal,” she said.

  I pulled up in front of Aged Oaks, put the car in park and left the car running, and ran out to try the front door. It was locked and used a keyless entry system. I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered through the glass. I didn’t see anything or anyone. There was no way to tell who lived in this particular building. I got back in the car. “If it were an apartment complex, there would be people coming and going, but—”

  “But the old folks are probably already in bed. They’re just staying.”

  “Right.” We sat, thinking about how to get in, but neither of us had any big brainstorms.

  “There’s always Phil,” Mrs. Branford said.

  “Right,” I said again. “There’s always Phil.”

  Although I couldn’t say why, I didn’t want to call Phil to ask him what building his father lived in.

  I started to back out of the parking space, when a car approached and slipped in two spaces down from us. “Maybe we won’t need Phil after all,” I said, pulling forward again and putting the car back into park.

  The driver’s-side door of a pale green sedan opened and a woman stepped out. I leaned over my steering wheel to get a better look. There was something familiar about the woman. Her hair? Her posture? Maybe both. I sat back suddenly, recognition surfacing. “That’s Consuelo.”

  “Consuelo Solis? Olaya’s sister?” Mrs. Branford squinted her eyes to try to get a better look, but she sat back, frustrated. “My eyes don’t work like they used to.”

  “It’s definitely her,” I said. I opened my door, got out, and hurried around to the other side, lifting my hand to wave.

  Consuelo looked my way, shading her eyes from the glare of an overhead streetlight with her hand. “Ivy, is that you?”

  I held my arms wide. “Surprise!”

  The back driver’s-side door opened and another set of legs swung out, these draped in a blue-and-gray caftan. I smiled. If there was such a thing of perfect timing, this was it. The head followed the legs and Olaya emerged from the car.

  I rushed forward and wrapped her up in a hug, relief washing over me. If Mrs. Branford was like my grandmother, then Olaya had become my favorite aunt.

  She tightened her arms around me for a moment, and then she patted my arms and pushed back. “Ivy, why are you here?”

  With perfect timing, Mrs. Branford stepped out of the car. “Hank Rivera, of course,” she said. “His father lives here—”

  “Here somewhere,” I interrupted. “Problem is that we have no idea where.”

  The passenger door of Consuelo’s car opened and yet another woman swung her legs out. Under the bright parking lights, I could see that these were clothed in light-colored loose pant legs. “Connie,” the woman called, her voice frail.

  Consuelo rushed to help the elderly woman from the car. She guided the woman to the back of the car where we stood. Her voice was louder than normal as she said, “Dorothy, this is a friend of mine. Ivy.”

  The elderly woman, Dorothy, cocked her head. “Ivy? What a funny name.” She looked to be in the same age vicinity as Penelope Branford, but with her feeble voice, sagging skin, and spindly frame, Dorothy seemed so much older.

  “It is a funny name,” I said. I’d often asked my parents where the name had come from. The answer was always the same. My mom’s two favorite options were Ivy and Mathilda. But my mother didn’t like nicknames, which pushed Mathilda out of the running. She wouldn’t have been able to resist calling me Mattie or Tilly or some other shortened version. There was also no poetic story or famous literary character that bore my name. It wasn’t inspired by some person or ideal like Mrs. Branford’s Katherine had been. I was just Ivy and I had figured out how to make my own way in the world with a name that was all my own.

  I must have had a curious expression on my face, because Consuelo answered the question I hadn’t yet asked. “We volunteer with a local organization,” she said. “We take seniors for outings.”

  “It’s called Helping Seniors,” Dorothy said. “These ladies come to see me a few times a week. I don’t know what I’d do without them.”

  I bit my upper lip. Everywhere I turned, there was something pulling at my heartstrings. I’d read the statistics. It was like Mr. Caldwell had said: Elderly people living in a senior living situation were often the forgotten ones, yet here were two of the Solis sisters doing their part to lesson that isolation.

  Dorothy was petite and her thin frame was hunched. I walked on one side of her and Consuelo walked on the other so we could guide her. Olaya and Mrs. Branford walked behind us. “Olaya said Hank Rivera is missing,” Consuelo said as we walked Dorothy up the pathway toward the door.

  “For several days now,” I said.

  Dorothy stopped her forward shuffle and looked up at me. “My ears aren’t working. Who are you looking for, dear?”

  “Her hearing aid is on the fritz,” Consuelo said.

  I put my hand to my mouth to hide my smile. Dorothy was adorable. “We’re looking for a friend. Do you know Hank Rivera? Mustache Hank?” I asked, speaking loudly enough for her to hear me.

  “Mustache Hank?” she asked, her face crinkling in her puzzlement. “That’s a peculiar name. This is a seventy-five and older facility. Does he meet the age requirement to live here?”

  “No,” I said. Hank was a spring chicken compared to the average Rusty Gates tenant. “We are trying to find him,” I said, but further clarified, “but at the moment, we’re trying to find his father. He lives here. Somewhere.”

  We’d made it to the front entrance. Consuelo swiped the key card, the lock clicked, and the door opened. “What is his name, dear?” Dorothy asked me.

  I felt ridiculous admitting that I didn’t actually know the name of who we were looking for, but I admitted it anyway. “All we know is that the last name would be Rivera,” I said.

  She lifted one arm, pointing a heavily knuckled finger toward the back of the lobby area. “There is an information and mail center, and the emergency and nurse’s station. Straight ahead. They take good care of us here at Rusty Gates. We want for nothing, except our youth,” she said with a feeble chuckle.

  I’d wondered about their emergency services with such an elderly population, but the nurse’s station eased my mind. “Thank you, Dorothy,” I said. Olaya took my place at the woman’s side. She and Consuelo took Dorothy to the elevator while Mrs. Branford and I headed straight through the lobby. After a full evening, Mrs. Branford was moving slowly. I kept pace with her, commenting on the cleanliness of the lobby and the pleasant aroma of vanilla bean. A moment later, Olaya suddenly came up alongside me. “Dorothy thinks they might not talk to you since they don’t know you.”

  “But they know you,” I said.

  Olaya tapped a finger to her nose. “Exactamente.”

  “Good thinking.” Mrs. Branford nodded with approval.

  “Should we wait for Consuelo?” I asked, but Olaya shook her head.

  “No, no, we can leave her here. I will drive back with you two.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Mrs. Branford said, “but I call shotgun.”

  I laughed out loud at that one. Surely, she’d picked up that turn of phrase from past students, but it was hilarious coming out of her mouth now as if she were fifteen years old.

  Olaya’s reaction was just as juvenile. She heaved a disgruntled sigh, pursing her lips and breathing out through her nose. She topped it off with an aw, shucks snap of her fingers.

  “How long have you volunteered here?” I asked once they were ready to move on.

  “Years and years. Our mother was here for a short time. My sisters and I—one of us came to see her everyday, but we saw so many people . . .” She paused, swallowed. “So many people are alone in the world.”

  I hadn’t known how deep Olaya’s compassionate spirit went. Penelope Brandord and Olaya Solis, the two women I’d come to love as family, both had undiscovered depths to them. “So you volunteered to brighten u
p their lives?”

  “No, not right away. We would come to see our mother, to take her to the hairdresser, to the library, to the bookstore, the grocery store, the senior center in town. I would take her to the bread shop, or I would bring a loaf of bread here to her. So many of the others here, they always looked so sad. I thought to myself, a little bread. It makes my mother so happy, maybe it can make others happy, too.”

  “So you started bringing bread to them?”

  She nodded, sparkling silver strands in her short, cropped hair glistening in the diffused light of Aged Oaks’s lobby. “Just the leftovers at the end of the day at first. I’d come every afternoon and we would . . . how does the Bible say?”

  “Break bread,” Mrs. Branford supplied.

  “Yes. Exactamente. We would break bread. The staff, they told me how it helped people. They had something to look forward to, they said.”

  I could see why. The idea that someone was coming to see them, that in itself would be uplifting enough. Add in bread, which seemed to fulfill a basic need, and it couldn’t help but raise spirits.

  “The staff, they said the people were sleeping better. Eating better. Smiling more.”

  “I’m not surprised. Your bread does that for people,” Mrs. Branford said, and it was true. Olaya had a reputation that had traveled far and wide. People came from all over to experience magic of Yeast of Eden.

  “Our mother, Dios la tenga en la Gloria,” she said, making the sign of the cross, “she passed, but mis hermanas—”

  She stopped when she saw Mrs. Branford’s baffled expression.

  “God rest her soul,” Olaya said, switching to English for our sake. “My sisters and I, we continued to come. We take the people out as we did for our mother. I bake extra each day to bring here. Maybe we are making a difference. We hope we are.”

  I wasn’t often at the bread shop at the end of the day, so I’d never realized that Olaya had a surplus, or that she made a trip here to Rusty Gates with it. I took her hand, squeezing lightly. Hidden depths, I thought again.