Summer Girl

by Sophie Hill

  The older woman was wandering off towards the road, confused.

  “Abuelita, come back!” Consuelo called.

  The woman turned towards her voice and began walking back, very slowly. She clearly suffered from some form of dementia.

  She looked at Consuelo, and her face creased into a smile. “Pollo,” she said happily. Spanish for chicken.

  Consuelo smiled at her tenderly. “I’m not a chicken, grandma,” she answered in Spanish. Then her face grew fearful again as Dottie and Veronica walked toward us.

  “These are my friends, Dottie and Veronica,” I said. I looked at the boys. “What are your names?”

  They glanced up at Consuelo, waiting for her cue. She nodded unhappily.

  “I’m Luis, and he’s Roberto.” Luis managed a shy smile, then buried his face in Consuelo’s leg. She put her hand on his head protectively. Their clothes were as faded and saggy as hers, and they all wore plastic flip flops.

  “My cousins,” she added.

  “Shall we go inside? It’s hot out,” I said.

  She shrugged, staring at the ground, and led her grandmother up the steps, with the boys trailing behind her. Veronica, Dottie and I followed her inside.

  There was no air conditioning, and it was broiling. The kitchen was spotless, which I suspected was Consuelo’s doing, but everything in that room was scuffed and old, with big patches of paint peeling off the kitchen cabinets. When I walked over to flip on the light switch, nothing happened. The electricity had been turned off.

  I glanced around in dismay. “This…this is where you live?”

  Consuelo stared down at the floor, not answering me. She looked like she thought I was about to take an axe to her and her whole family.

  “I’m really, really, only here to help you.” I looked around. “Does anyone else live here with you?”

  Silence.

  “Okay,” I said slowly. “How about…how about if we take you and the boys into town for some ice cream?”

  “Ice cream! Ice cream!” The boys jumped and down, pulling on her shorts, pleading. She glanced at me, then down at them, then nodded slowly.

  “We need to take her too,” she said, jerking her thumb at her grandmother. “I can’t leave her alone.”

  So we all piled into the BMW and drove to town, to the grocery store, which was two miles away. I had a sudden feeling that Consuelo probably had to walk to the grocery store; I couldn’t imagine how else she’d get there.

  “What are you going to do?” Veronica asked quietly, as the three of them sat on the bench outside digging into their little tubs of ice cream with flat wooden spoons, and guzzling the bottles of lemonade I’d bought them. “Shouldn’t you call CPS or something? They can’t live like that.”

  “I know, but the first thing CPS would probably do is put them in a foster home. Maybe even split them up to different homes. I think I’m just going to stay here and hang out for a couple of days and hopefully she’ll start to trust me, and tell me why she’s not living with her mother any more. If there’s abuse there, I might have a good case for gaining custody of them.”

  “Stay out here? Are you crazy?”

  I shrugged. “It’ll be like camping. I have my cell phone.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “I don’t like anything about this whole situation, but this is the best I can come up with for now. After a few days, hopefully, Consuelo will start to trust me and tell me why she’s here instead of living with her parents, and then I can call Aurora and we can go to family court.”

  Veronica looked skeptical. “Take my mace. And keep the Beemer. I’ll ride back with Dottie.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure you’re crazy. Yes, I am sure you’re keeping the car. And I’m calling to check in on you tonight and tomorrow morning.”

  “Thanks, Mom.” I managed a rueful grin.

  I went back in the grocery store and bought a tiny portable camping stove, fuel, matches, cans of soup, cereal, bottled water and canned milk, since there’d be no refrigeration back at the house.

  When we got back there, Dottie and Veronica waited outside while I put the groceries in their near-empty cupboards. Consuelo helped me, watching me suspiciously the whole time.

  “You know, we could stay at my friend Veronica’s house. She has air-conditioning, and electricity,” I said. She shook her head quickly, shrinking away from me.

  “Okay, fine. I need to stay here then. I can’t leave you guys here by yourself.”

  “Grandma’s here.”

  “But she isn’t able to take care of you. You need an adult here keeping an eye on things. I’ll sleep here tonight. Maybe we can talk some more tomorrow.”

  Consuelo shrugged, picked up the box with the mini portable stove in it, and walked outside, where she set it on a rusty metal table and began setting it up. I followed her back outside. I had a feeling she’d been forced to be way too self-sufficient for a long time now.

  Veronica and Dottie were leaning on Dottie’s car, drinking soda. I walked over to them. “I got this,” I assured Veronica. “We’ll be fine. It’s only for a couple of days, I swear.”

  But I wouldn’t really be fine. There was one more thing that I was going to have to do, and it just about tore my heart in two.

  I was going to have to say goodbye to Slade.

  Consuelo had nobody but me. She was my sister, my flesh and blood, and she was living in squalor, in utter poverty. She had reached out to my father for help and been rejected. I needed to step up to the plate, to take care of her, and I couldn’t see her abandoning her cousins either. Obviously there were no parents in the picture to take care of those little boys, or they wouldn’t have been stuck in that trailer in the backwoods, in the middle of nowhere.

  I was going to be a single mother now, and there was no way I could lay that on Slade. We’d come so close…we’d gone through so much together in such a short time. I felt like he was my one and only. I couldn’t imagine loving anyone else, being with anyone else, but him.

  But it just wasn’t meant to be.

  “Before you go, I need to ask a favor of you,” I said slowly, my voice heavy with sorrow. “I need you to tell Slade about Consuelo and the boys. Don’t tell him where I am, though. You’re going to have to pick up my stuff and bring it to me, because…because I can’t face him. Tell him I’m sorry, but I have responsibilities now that I can’t ask him to share.”

  “Are you sure?” Veronica raised an eyebrow questioningly.

  Tears burned my eyes and I blinked hard. I didn’t want to cry in front of Consuelo and the boys. “Very sure. I can’t do this to him. I’m basically going to have to be a single mother of three kids. There’s no way I would ask him to take that on with me.”

  “You could at least see what he says about it,” Dottie said. “He might surprise you.”

  She was dangling hope in front of me. She meant well, but it was like rubbing salt in a wound. “He’s a good guy. He’d feel obligated,” I choked out the words. “It’s not fair to him. Just…just tell him I’m sorry. I need you guys to go now, please. I can’t talk about it any more.”

  My heart swelled painfully in my chest and I could feel my throat closing. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t talk.

  And before they could argue with me, I walked away, frantically scrubbing at the tears on my cheeks with the back of my hands.

  Consuelo was lighting the stove. “I’ll get a saucepan and some soup,” I said, my voice hoarse with misery. She glanced at me, startled at my tone.

  “It’s okay,” I told her, trying to smile. My problems were my own; they shouldn’t be dumped on her shoulders.

  I watched Dottie and Veronica driving away, leaving me there in the woods, and my heart sank to the bottom of my shoes, a lead balloon that weighed down every weary footstep as I dragged myself up the steps into the kitchen.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  That evening, Slade tried to call so many times that
I finally turned off the phone. I slept on the couch that night, or rather, I lay there sweating in the heat and tried to sleep. I didn’t have any pajamas so I was sleeping in my capris and shirt, and the trailer was stifling. Consuelo and her cousins slept in one bedroom, her grandmother slept in the other bedroom. We slept with the windows open or we would have suffocated, and the creaking chorus of insects and the mournful hoots of owls rippled through the night air.

  I tried not to think about rabid raccoons, or serial killers, or the fact that Slade was probably lying awake in bed two hours away from me, hating me. Maybe drinking again. Maybe he was already in jail again. The thought made me ill with guilt and regret. Would I have been better off never meeting him? I truly didn’t know.

  I know they say it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. But the people who say that…did they feel like I did, like there was a giant aching crater of loneliness and sorrow where their heart used to be?

  It didn’t matter. I didn’t have the luxury of pulling the covers over my head and wallowing in misery. When the sun rose, I got up and made breakfast with canned milk and cereal, and we ate it outside.

  Then I packed Consuelo, the boys, and their grandmother into the car, and drove into town to find out how to turn the electricity back on. It turned out I had to pay four hundred bucks, because they hadn’t paid for electricity in months; even with all the tips I’d earned at The Greasy Spoon, that was a huge dent in my finances.

  We went back to the house and I helped Consuelo do laundry in their tiny old washer, and then we strung it up outside on a clothesline. She barely spoke to me, and when I asked her questions, she answered in monosyllables. The boys followed her lead, watching me with a mixture of fascination and caution.

  At 11 a.m., Veronica rolled up in her Porsche, and climbed out, lugging my suitcase. “You didn’t answer your phone,” she informed me.

  “Slade kept trying to call. I had to turn it off. Don’t tell me what he said when you talked to him, or I’ll start crying. I can’t even think about it,” I told her wearily.

  “Okay. I brought you guys lunch.” She had a cardboard box full of takeout sandwiches, with cold milk for the boys and Consuelo’s grandmother, and soda for me, her, and Consuelo, and we all sat down at the picnic table to eat.

  Veronica glanced at the boys. “So, they’re in first grade?” she asked Consuelo.

  Consuelo chewed her sandwich carefully and waited a long time before she finally answered with a grudging “I guess.”

  I had a feeling that none of them were going to school, that all their days were lived hiding out from something that she wouldn’t share with me, in this tiny, sweltering sweatbox in the middle of nowhere, with Consuelo trying to be mother and father to two little boys and an old woman in her second childhood.

  Before she left, Veronica pulled out a shopping bag from her front seat and handed it to Consuelo, who dumped the contents onto the rusty metal table. There were magic markers, coloring books, and two Nintendo 3Ds, and some Mario games.

  “Oh my God,” I said, watching the boys go crazy with glee. “It’s like Christmas in July. I owe you for that.”

  “Pay me back by coming back to my house. You know you can bring them with you. It’s creepy out here.” Her face wrinkled with distaste as she looked around the yard.

  “I just need a little more time,” I told her.

  “Consuelo may never open up to you.”

  “I know, but it’s been, like, one day. Just be patient. I’ll call you tomorrow and keep you posted. I swear.”

  After Veronica left, Consuelo and I folded laundry and put it away while the boys played with their new Nintendos and drew on their arms with the magic markers.

  That evening, she cooked soup on the stove and served it to us. Her grandmother sat passively like a toddler, eating what was put in front of her, and then Consuelo led her grandmother to the sink where she washed her hands.

  “There’s medicine for people with dementia,” I told her. “She should see a doctor. So should they. They probably need checkups, and a visit to the dentist.”

  “They don’t need a doctor. They’re not sick. I take good care of them.” She turned abruptly and walked out of the trailer, clomping down the front steps and standing in the yard with her back to me.

  I followed her outside. “Consuelo, we have to find another place to stay. This place is too small.”

  She shook her head frantically, hugging herself and staring at the grass.

  “Okay,” I sighed. “The mosquitos are eating me alive out here. Can we go back inside?”

  “You can go back in,” she said, kicking at the dirt.

  “I’m not going back in without you,” I said. “Ouch. Ouch. They’re biting me. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. I’m in pain. Ouch.”

  She laughed, looking up at me, and then turned and walked back up the steps, with me following.

  With the air conditioning on, I fell into an exhausted, restless sleep. I dreamed that I was standing on the dock of a boat, and Slade was drowning, and I just stood there as the boat drifted farther and farther away from me. In the dream, his eyes never left mine.

  The next morning, I woke up, aching and sad, to the sound of Luis and Roberto playing Nintendo at the kitchen table. I made myself sit up and I made myself smile and say good morning as if everything was all right. Consuelo had poured bowls of cereal for everyone and her grandmother was running her spoon around her empty bowl.

  When she saw that I was awake, she poured milk from a can into a cereal bowl for me.

  “I made coffee for you,” Consuelo said. “Do you drink coffee?”

  “Yes, thank you. Now that the electricity’s on, we can go back into town and get some more groceries.”

  After breakfast, we went into town, and I stocked up on groceries and a cheap cell phone. I was really low on money now, but for my mental health, I had to throw my phone away and get a new one. It was the cell phone that my mother had bought for me, and I was angry at her and throwing it away partly out of spite, but mostly I was afraid that Slade would try to keep calling, and it was taking every last shred of my resolve not to call him.

  I wanted to hear his voice so much I ached. I actually felt like maybe, just maybe, I could emphasize with him and his fight to quit drinking now, because I craved him every bit as much as he’d craved alcohol.

  If only there was a 12 step program for that. Slade withdrawal. Take it one day at a time.

  When we got back to the trailer house, Dottie’s car was parked out front, and Consuelo stiffened with fear.

  “It’s okay! It’s my friend, the one who bought me here the other day. Nobody’s here to take you away, I swear.”

  My heart sank when Dottie and Slade climbed out of the car. Slade still wasn’t driving, because of the DWI. I was hoping that meant that I wouldn’t have to face him any time soon, but I guess that wasn’t to be; how much more could I take?

  “I told you not to say where I was,” I said to Dottie, not even looking at Slade. I couldn’t.

  “Hey! I took your advice! Chuck said he’d give me another chance. And me and Chuck have a dinner date tonight,” she smiled brightly. “You saved my my love life!”

  “Is that your attempt at changing the subject?”

  “Yes. How’d I do?”

  “You suck at it.” I glanced at Consuelo. “Please take the groceries inside. I’ll be right there,” I told her. She and the boys grabbed the sacks of groceries and walked to the trailer, glancing back at us, worry stamped on their little faces.

  I turned to Slade, and my heart swelled painfully in my chest. “I’m sorry,” I said in a low voice. I glanced at Dottie; she turned and walked back to the car.

  “Listen,” I said, holding up my hand to stop him and taking a step back as he tried to approach me. “This girl…she’s my sister, and those are her cousins. They have no-one to take care of them. No one but me.”

  I waited for him to argue with me, to s
ay “That’s ridiculous! It’s not your responsibility! Let the state take care of it! You’re too young!”

  But instead, he said, “Heather, let me help you.”

  “You’re twenty-two. You’d be a step-dad to three kids.”

  He shrugged. “So? I like kids.”

  “Slade!” Hot tears filled my eyes and spilled down my cheeks. I had to make him leave.

  “I will not do that to you. I don’t even want your help. I don’t want you. Just get out of here!” I turned and ran as fast as I could to the trailer, without looking back, and slammed the door.

  Roberto wrapped his arms around my leg. “Is he the police?” he asked.

  “Is that your boyfriend?” Consuelo said quietly. “Is he taking you away?” She was talking to the floor when she said it, her voice trembling ever so slightly.

  “No! He’s not my boyfriend, and I’m staying here.”

  I heard Slade pounding on the door.

  “Heather! Heather! I’m not giving up on us, do you hear me? We can make this work!”

  “Go away!” I yelled through the door, between sobs. “Go away! You’re scaring the kids! I’ll – I’ll call the police, I swear to God! I don’t want you any more, go away!”

  “I’ll be back, Heather! I’m not leaving you to deal with this on your own!” Slade called out, and then a minute later I heard the car pull away. And I went into the bathroom and curled up into a ball and cried until my knees were soaked with my own tears.

  That night I tossed and turned for hours, finally falling asleep as the sun rose. I woke up with somebody slapping my arm and pulling on my shirt. Groggy, I opened my eyes and swatted at the air. “Let me sleep,” I moaned.

  “There’s a fire! Get up! Get up!” Consuelo was screaming.

  Instantly I was wide awake and sitting bolt upright. I could smell smoke. I ran into the bedroom where Consuelo and her brothers slept. There was a fan plugged in to the wall, and smoke was pouring out from around the outlet.

  I grabbed the fan’s cord and yanked it from the wall.

  “Is it okay?” Consuelo said, staring at it. The smoke had stopped drifting out.