The Ring

by Florence Osmund

  Jessivel was surprised at how little time it took to feel hopelessly alone—lost and unwanted—drained of any hope for something better.

  Chapter 5

  Paige entered Tracy’s Backstreet Kitchen, located on the outskirts of Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, for the first time without her father. Two months had passed since his death, and even though she yearned to get back into a comfortable routine, one of the things she’d avoided since his death were the soup kitchens where they had volunteered, expecting that being there would stir up wistful memories of when he was alive and they had worked there together side by side.

  More than just a soup kitchen, Tracy’s offered classroom and hands-on cooking training for participants who wanted to better themselves and one day live independently. Those who wanted to work for their meals could tend the large garden in the back, weather permitting. Most impressively, Tracy’s treated the less fortunate who walked through the door like restaurant patrons—they were greeted, seated, and waited on, the food served on nice dinnerware.

  For some of the physically and spiritually hungry patrons within the community who patronized Tracy’s, it was much like being at a big family gathering, the reunion atmosphere allowing people to chat, reconnect, and share stories. Some of them had been coming here for years.

  This Wednesday started out no differently from others Paige had experienced with her father. She arrived in time to help with the early meal of the day and reviewed her assignment on the work-duty sheet posted in the kitchen. Today, she was one of the serving staff.

  Her first table included two brothers—regular customers for as long as she had been working there—both quiet and reserved, almost shy, never ones to interact with the other patrons. She knew one brother to have been an electrical engineer in better days, the other a wounded Viet Nam veteran.

  “How are you today, my friends?” she asked as she placed plates of meatloaf, corn, and mashed potatoes in front of them. When they didn’t answer, she inquired as to what they wanted to drink. Still no answer.

  “Coffee?”

  She accepted their barely noticeable nods as a “yes.”

  Paige waited on table after table until her shift neared an end. Her last customer, a thirtyish woman whom Paige had not seen before, walked in with her head hung low. The greeter seated her in Paige’s section.

  “Hello. My name is Paige. What’s yours?” she asked the woman.

  Without lifting her head, the woman said, “Could I just get some food, please?”

  “Of course,” Paige said. Being destitute could make a person act in unexpected ways, and it was not unusual for patrons to avoid conversation, to be rude even. “I’ll bring it right away. What would you like to drink?”

  When the woman didn’t respond, Paige told her the drink options.

  “Water,” she mumbled.

  Paige served the woman her food and then busied herself in the kitchen for the next fifteen minutes. When she looked up, she caught sight of the woman talking to another volunteer through the service window.

  “She said it’s for her daughter,” the volunteer said to Paige after fixing the woman a to-go box of food. “But who knows.”

  The week flew by, and before Paige knew it, TRACY’S appeared on her calendar again. She considered not going, as she was in the middle of implementing a new marketing strategy for her company, one that required a large chunk of her time and concentration. Competition in the real estate industry was fierce, and it took a fair amount of insight to even stay afloat, let alone quell the competition. Nonetheless, she put it all aside for the day—a commitment was a commitment.

  When she arrived, the kitchen manager asked Paige if she would help unpack several boxes of donated food that had been delivered by a nearby grocery store that had gone out of business. The hours dragged as Paige emptied numerous cartons of canned and boxed food items, paper goods, and toiletries. Tracy decided to give a toothbrush and tube of toothpaste to each customer on this day until the supply ran out, and Paige welcomed the opportunity to do the handouts.

  “Could you use either of these today?” Paige asked the woman she had served the prior week—the one who wouldn’t look at her—as she held out the toothbrush and tube of toothpaste.

  “No, thanks,” the woman said without making eye contact. She hurried past Paige and out the door, but not before Paige caught a glimpse of a gold chain around her neck—something notable since most of the patrons did not wear nice jewelry. What she couldn’t see was what was on the end of the chain that was heavy enough to pull it down to form a V.

  Paige went back to the prep room after the last toothbrush had been given away and continued to help put away the donated merchandise. Tracy joined her.

  “We miss your father,” she said to Paige.

  “Me too.”

  “I’m so glad you decided to continue here. I know how busy you are with your business.”

  “You couldn’t keep me away. Coming here has actually changed me for the better.” Paige’s soup kitchen experience had stopped her from taking anything she had for granted and made her more self-conscious about wasting any resources. She knew that but for her parents and upbringing, she could be the one coming to Tracy’s for a meal. Her volunteer work gave her a sense of purpose beyond her real estate business.

  “I sent your mother a thank-you letter for the generous donation she made in his name, but I want to say ‘thank you’ to you as well. You know what I was thinking of doing with it?”

  “No, what?”

  “Creating an outdoor eating area, so in nice weather we can accommodate more people.”

  “I think he’d like that.”

  On the drive home, Paige reflected on her self-imposed busy life—her thriving business, prominence in the community, and reaching career goals—all the things she had planned and worked hard for since her divorce, things she associated with success and happiness.

  She considered her married days, back to when she’d first discovered she was pregnant and the moment she’d told Leland about it. Their marriage had been decent, but she’d hoped a baby would make it better. Based on his reaction to her pregnancy, Leland did too.

  But their daughter, Briana, had been born with a congenital heart defect, and even though they had performed surgery on her at fourteen weeks that had saved her life, the doctors said she would not likely live past her first birthday. A stubborn child in every sense of the word, she made it to eighteen months. Paige’s unavoidable postpartum hysterectomy meant no more children, and this added to the heartbreak.

  Paige couldn’t accept the way Leland dealt with their daughter’s death, even after reading many articles on the subject. She had wanted to talk with him about what she had been feeling, wanted his support in her grief. But he kept his emotions bottled up inside, preferring to “get over it and move on.” In time, while her husband’s grief appeared to be decreasing, hers was on the rise.

  The differences in how they grieved wasn’t the only thing that pulled them apart. They had ostensibly become different people after their daughter’s death and were in a marriage that no longer worked—finding it difficult to talk about things, to think things through together, and to come to terms with what had happened. They argued over the most trivial issues—whether to go out to eat or dine in, who left the patio door open, and who was supposed to have made a hotel reservation. Paige saw negatives in Leland that she had never seen before. Adding to their dysfunctional relationship, sex became nonexistent.

  After having been married ten years, they divorced—only ten months following Briana’s death.

  Chapter 6

  Jessivel struggled to stretch out her legs without interfering with the car’s foot pedals, nightmares having disrupted the little sleep she managed to get the first night camped out in her car. A whiff of the previous night’s fast food, whose rancid odor permeated the vehicle, caused her to crack open a window to allow fresh air to drift in.

  Kayla awoke mi
nutes later complaining about the cramped sleeping quarters. Part of the back seat, as well as the trunk and front passenger seat, served as storage space for their belongings, leaving little room for the two of them.

  “Before you go on about our living arrangements, keep in mind this is temporary,” Jessivel told her. “Nana’s going to get us out of this…somehow.”

  “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “So do I,” Jessivel said as she glanced at the gas station in the middle of the parking lot. “I’ll drive closer so we don’t have to walk so far.”

  “Mom.”

  “Just do what I say. We’ll get through this.”

  “Right.”

  “You need to get off your ass and go to work, Mom,” Kayla said on the second day of their living in their car, now parked in a church lot. She swiped at the tangled knots of hair that had formed in her sleep, which immediately fell back into her face.

  “How dare you talk to me like that!”

  “Well, somebody needs to. We can’t keep living like this forever.”

  “I hate your grandfather right now.”

  “Nana seems to have figured out how to live.”

  “I hate her right now too.”

  “What are we going to do, Mom? What about school? Have you even enrolled me for this year?”

  “I have no money for school, Kayla. And it’s not only the registration fee. You need supplies, clothes, and who knows what else. I have no money for anything. Don’t you get that?” Jessivel was aware that keeping Kayla out of school was illegal but clung to the notion that it was just temporary and she could make up the time.

  “Get a job, Mom. Don’t you get that? Nana’s doing it, and she’s got a place to live!”

  “Cleaning up after people is all she knows. And it’s not for me. Besides…”

  “Besides what?”

  “Nothing. I don’t know. Stop grilling me!”

  “Are you gonna go into that soup kitchen we passed by yesterday or what?”

  “I said I would.”

  “When?”

  “When they open.”

  “Well, I’m hungry now.” Kayla opened the car door.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Geez, Mom. I gotta pee.”

  Jessivel watched Kayla march toward the church. When she returned, Jessivel took her turn.

  Once Jessivel was back in the car, she drove past the soup kitchen they’d previously seen, her fingers nervously drumming on the steering wheel. The line outside was long, and she couldn’t picture herself standing in it with all these other people.

  “Let’s wait until the line goes down,” she said to Kayla.

  “Fine.”

  “I know you’re mad at me, mad at the world probably, but I’m not in the best of moods either.”

  “But you can do something about it. I can’t.”

  “You could help me by dropping the attitude.”

  “Right. As soon as we have a place to live and—”

  “Fine. Don’t help me then.”

  A few minutes later, when she had mustered the courage to go in, Jessivel got out of the car and headed toward the building. She knew that inside she’d see pathetic vagrants—people unable or unwilling to fend for themselves, people who up until now she had managed to keep in her peripheral vision.

  Now she was one of them.

  The next morning, Jessivel woke up tired and her daughter cranky. Daylight had just begun when Kayla bolted out of the car.

  “Where are you going?” Jessivel shouted after her.

  “I gotta go!” she said as she ran toward the church. When she emerged from the building, Kayla headed in the opposite direction of their car.

  Jessivel rolled down her window. “Now where are you going?”

  “Anywhere but here,” she shouted.

  Jessivel went after her, and when she caught up to her, she grabbed her by the arm.

  “Get back in the car.”

  “I’m going for help!”

  Kayla shook herself free from her mother’s grip, but Jessivel was quick enough to get ahold of her again, this time by the back of her shirt. Kayla fought to get free, and in their struggle, the two of them fell to the ground.

  “You’re still my daughter, and until you turn eighteen, I can tell you what to do,” Jessivel said as they wrestled. “Now, get up and get back into the fucking car.”

  “Let go of me, and I will!”

  The two of them walked back to the car, where they sat in silence for several seconds.

  Finally, Kayla broke down crying. “This sucks! You have to do something, Mom,” she said, her voice tight with emotion.

  The dense feeling that had been building in Jessivel’s chest worsened. She squeezed her eyes shut and pictured her father’s face—an image she now despised. Jessivel’s fist came down hard on the dashboard, causing Kayla to jump. “Damn him!” Jessivel shrieked.

  The next morning, a painful cramp in her neck roused Jessivel from sleep. She attempted to rub it out with her fingers. “Hey, where’s my necklace?” she yelped. “Where’s my goddamn necklace?”

  Kayla groaned. “Stop yelling, will you?”

  Jessivel clutched her throat. She hadn’t taken it off—her father’s ring that hung on a chain around her neck—since he had given it to her weeks before he died. At the time, she didn’t know why he had given it to her—a gold band with a small diamond mounted on it surrounded by four smaller diamonds, one he had worn every day. Now she understood that maybe when he was sick, knowing he was going to die, he had wanted her to have it to remember him by. Another convenient gesture of his giving her something material instead of his time.

  “Put your seatbelt on,” she screeched at Kayla.

  “Where are we going now?”

  “Never mind, just buckle up.”

  Jessivel drove to the back parking lot of the nearby Walmart, threw the car into park, and turned to face Kayla.

  “Get out. I’m going to empty the car. The ring has got to be in here somewhere.”

  “Mom, get real. I’m not—”

  “Get out of the damn car!” Jessivel shouted. She opened the door and started pulling things out one by one as she searched for the necklace. Clothes, empty food containers, and garbage bags filled with other miscellaneous items came flying out onto the pavement. When she had the front seat emptied, she started on the back seat where Kayla had been sleeping.

  “Stop, Mom,” her daughter said. “Calm down, for God’s sake.”

  “I won’t calm down until I find it. Get over here and help me look.”

  Kayla did as told, mumbling something under her breath that Jessivel didn’t care to comprehend as her sole focus was on finding the ring.

  “Keep looking! It’s here somewhere.”

  Kayla stopped what she was doing. “When did you see it last, Mom? You’re always fiddling with it. When do you remember touching it last?”

  Jessivel stopped long enough to ponder Kayla’s question. “In the church parking lot last night. I remember fingering it when we were parked there.”

  “Maybe it came off when you tackled me like a madwoman.”

  “Put all this stuff back in the car. We’re going back there.”

  “Mom…”

  “Move it!”

  Jessivel drove over the speed limit through two neighborhoods until she reached the church where they had stayed the previous night. She parked the car and then ran to where she and Kayla had scuffled the day before. She paced back and forth, examining every inch of pavement.

  “It’s not here. Fuck!”

  Kayla caught up with her. “Mom, this is a church.”

  “I don’t give a—”

  “Look! Over there.” Kayla pointed to the right of where they stood, toward the bushes. “Is that your chain?”

  Jessivel rushed to the item in question, picked it up, and hugged it to her chest. “Help me find the ring.”

  The two of them com
bed the area. No ring.

  “It has to be here. Keep looking. I’ve got to find it.”

  “Maybe someone else found it and turned it in to the church.”

  “That’s it. I’m going in there. You keep looking.”

  “Let me go. Please?” Kayla scrutinized the length of Jessivel’s body. “You’re a mess.”

  Jessivel gave in. It was hard to admit that lately her daughter had more common sense than she did.

  Ten minutes later, Kayla emerged from the side door of the church with a somber expression on her face. “No one turned anything in, Mom.”

  Jessivel walked toward the car, wishing she could retreat inside herself so as not to have to deal with the loss. Her father had wanted her to have the ring. It was all she had left of him. It was all she had left of anything.

  When they were settled back in the car, Jessivel drove back to Walmart and searched through the dumpster, hoping to find something not too disgusting for them to eat, feeling in the moment as discarded as the two pieces of rotting fruit lying on top of the garbage heap, the slimy residue on them glistening in the sun.

  She returned to the car. The vibration caused by her slamming the car door shut made the dream catcher hanging from the rearview mirror sway back and forth. Jessivel stared at the swinging object, grabbed it, and stuffed it in the glove compartment. The dream catcher clearly wasn’t doing its job.

  The next day, Jessivel positioned herself first in line at Tracy’s, waiting for them to open so she could use their shower facilities. She hadn’t showered since her last day at the shelter, and washing up in Walmart’s restroom wasn’t cutting it.

  Inside the shower room, Jessivel turned on the spigot and waited for the pipes to stop moaning before she found the perfect water pressure and temperature, her toes flinching as they touched the chilly ceramic floor. She closed her eyes and allowed the steady stream of warm water cascade down her body and massage muscles long past cramped, while the steam and heat soaked into her skin, melting away the tension.