We suck it up. Until we can’t suck it up anymore.
The bell to dismiss class rings. From my classroom come the murmur of voices, the creak of desks releasing bodies, the scuffle of book bags scooped up and slung to shoulders, and slap of shoes against the wooden floor.
Kev needs more help than I can deliver between classes. “Look, I’m going to walk you down to Mr. Bryant’s office. He might know of ways the community can help.”
The look Kev shoots me plainly says I am denser than granite. “Help? Dad’s beyond help. It’s heroin.”
Kev stalks off, every step, every swing of his arms, shedding sparks of anger. Stone-still, I watch, heartsick, my attempts to help a complete fumble, my words, inadequate to deal with such pain.
But at the end of the hallway, Kev turns into the counselor’s office, and I am relieved. I hope Mr. Bryant has the right tools and a strong dose of magic in his bag of counselor tricks. Drug problems in our state have risen to the crisis level. Opioids and fentanyl I knew about from news coverage. But this is the first I’ve heard of heroin abuse here locally. I hope it’s the last.
Down the hallway I see Rebecca’s substitute teacher for the second semester. I call to check on my pal and she has a surprise: her brother owns a carwash and needs another worker immediately. I text Dewey about the opportunity: Not a great job, part time, but could help until something better turns up. You could start today.
He texts back: I didn’t work my ass off to get an MBA so I could wash cars.
Yeah, well, I didn’t work my ass off to get a masters in science education just so I could move back in with my parents either, but we all have to make the best of a bad situation.
After work, I have to call an emergency meeting of AFT. I phone Dewey to let him know.
“It’s about the forbidden S word,” I say, pausing for effect. “Not the first one that popped into your mind.”
He considers this a second. “Strike,” he guesses.
“Strike. I’m supposed to sound out our members and report to the higher-ups.”
“I don’t like it.” Worry hovers in his voice. “You could lose your job. Get arrested. Get hurt. Strikes can be violent.”
“Progress rarely comes without struggle.”
“Our family is struggling enough right now, Ange.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I close the door to my room, before someone overhears the rising tension. “But what we’re facing is nothing compared to what Rebecca and Chad have to deal with. Look, the legislature isn’t going to throw fistfuls of cash at education and healthcare unless we push them, either through negotiation—or through a walkout.”
“You can’t do this.”
My teeth clench, and there is a banging in my chest, an angry beast demanding to be uncaged. I never have taken well to the word can’t. Who is this? Surely not my laid-back Dewey speaking!
“I don’t see as I have much choice.”
“Sure you do. Resign. You didn’t want to be president anyway.”
“I promised Rebecca I’d do this for her. I can’t quit.”
“Yes, you can. Listen, I didn’t want to say anything until I’m further along in the interview process, but I applied for a job with the FBI fingerprint division, their business administration. Your name in the paper as an AFT president might ruin my chances. It’s illegal for public employees to strike.”
I suppose the FBI gig is why he turned down the carwash job. But why is his potential job more important than my career?
“I love you, Dew, and I hope you get this job, I really do, but AFT is about the job I already have. It’s about better wages for me, and don’t forget it affects Trish too. I’m trying to get our health insurance to cover more stuff like Bella’s hearing aids.”
“Someone else can lead AFT.”
“I promised.”
“You want to move to D.C.—is that it? Because that’s what’s gonna happen if I don’t get this FBI gig.”
“You say that like there aren’t other choices, other jobs you could get.”
“Companies aren’t chomping at the bit to hire a fifty-four-year-old man.”
“Something will turn up. I can’t believe there aren’t other jobs out there for an MBA.”
“Believe what you want, but if the FBI falls through, I’m taking the job in D.C.”
How quickly his hand turned into a fist—a my-way-or-the-highway demand! This is the last thing I ever expected from Dewey. “Don’t I have a say in that?”
“No.”
I don’t know who he thinks he’s talking to, but it isn’t me. I signed onto a partnership, not dictatorship.
“I’m not moving and I won’t resign.” As I disconnect, my hands are shaking.
When I get home, Dewey isn’t sitting in front of the television with Poppy. He’s not in the kitchen with Mom.
“Seen Dewey?” I ask Mom.
She says he went out right after I phoned. “Going to see a friend. Said not to hold up dinner for him.”
My stomach lurches as I open our bedroom door. I discover Dewey’s note on the bed. It is written on a notepad designed for grocery lists: I’m going to stay with a friend for a few days while we both think about our situation.
Does he mean my participation in strike talks? My standing up to him? Or the overall situation of living with Mom and Poppy? I sink onto his side of the bed, holding the note. I can’t believe he’s left me. How long is “a few days”?
I check the closet and drawers. Not much missing. A clean shirt, socks, and underwear. We have always maintained separate checking accounts, so I’m not worried about his draining a joint account.
I brush my hand over his pillow. It’s not the first argument we’ve had in twenty-nine years of marriage, but he’s never left before. Then again, we’ve always lived under our own roof. He hasn’t even told me which friend he went to stay with, although I can guess. Probably Phil, an old high school friend who is a thrice-divorced alcoholic. I clench my teeth. I refuse to call him to ask. And I won’t give in.
I put on a cheery smile to face Mom and Trish. “Dewey says he’s staying with a friend for a few days.”
“Okay,” Mom says. She doesn’t say anything more about his absence, but her worry hangs in the silence like a high-pitched buzz.
After dinner, I go in the bathroom to brush my teeth. His toothbrush is missing from the cup. Its absence punches a hole in my chest.
Dewey and I met on an outing to Arden Party Rock with friends at the start of my senior year in college. Arden was a popular spot for drinking and shooting the rapids between two rock formations called Devil’s Den and Hell’s Gate. Over the years, more than one person had imbibed too much and drowned in the strong currents. In early September the water was far too icy to tempt me and I wasn’t a strong enough swimmer to feel comfortable plunging over the small waterfalls, so I spent the afternoon lounging on the dark sandy beach watching those brave—and foolhardy—souls who cascaded down the river. Dewey was one. He had arrived with a different bunch of kids. As my group’s designated driver, I had sucked down only one beer early in the afternoon. When it came time to leave, I discovered my VW had a flat tire. Arnold Schwarzenegger must have tightened the lug nuts, because try as I might, I couldn’t loosen them. More than one expletive passed through my lips and attracted Dewey’s attention. Before I knew it, he had fixed my fl at and secured a date for the following weekend. Over plates of spaghetti, we discovered we both liked hiking, camping, gardening, and pasta. A foster child, he had no real family of his own, and he readily adopted mine. We have been together ever since. Until now.
His side of the bed is empty, but not as empty as I feel without him. I go through the motions. I get up for work, come home, help Mom with dinner, play with Bella, go to bed. I can’t sleep. I feel as if I am stumbling around in two left shoes.
The next evening I break down and call Dewey.
“Yeah?” He doesn’t sound overjoyed to hear from me.
/> “I wondered when you were planning to come home.”
“Not sure. Do you want me to?”
“Of course. I miss you.”
“But not enough to turn down a starring role on the evening news.”
“What was I supposed to do? Refuse to talk to the reporters? They were there covering the meeting.”
“If you were one of hundreds in a crowd of other teachers, it wouldn’t matter to the FBI or any other employer. But when you insist on standing out in front of cameras, pounding a gavel on a podium, you’re kind of hard to miss. You come across as an agitator. Another teacher could take the lead in the strike. It doesn’t have to be you. Doesn’t have to be your face on the TV for everyone to see. I need this FBI gig, Angie. I can’t go eleven months without work again. I just can’t.”
“I hear you. I understand.”
“I wonder if you do.”
He disconnects.
Great. That’s what I get for trying.
~~~
Three days later, I pull out of the school parking lot. Everything happens in slow motion. I hear the crunch of metal. I feel the impact, a jarring of the bones. The airbag slams into my face and my eyes sting. My left ankle twists. A few seconds pass before I comprehend that a truck has tee-boned my little car. Coach Jones pulls me out through the passenger side while Mr. Esposito calls paramedics. They must have been on parking lot patrol.
“No ambulance—that’s not necessary. I’ll be fine.” I say this even though I can’t stand without support. Mr. Esposito cleans my face with his handkerchief. When he finishes, the white cloth is blood stained.
He appears pale and beads of sweat dot his upper lip. I don’t know what to make of this. With his years of experience, he’s seen plenty of football injuries, broken up fights in the halls. Do I look that bad?
“Best to get yourself checked out,” he insists.
A crowd of students and teachers lurk around the smashed vehicles. The truck’s driver is telling anyone who’ll listen that he didn’t see me. He is uninjured but the truck’s front end sustained damage. “It’s a good thing I wasn’t going fast,” he tells Coach Jones.
“Maybe not, but you ran that stop sign,” Coach says.
“I stopped, and I wasn’t speeding in the school zone, I swear I wasn’t.”
“Any faster and that door would have been on top of her, buddy,” Coach says.
With sirens and flashing lights, paramedics arrive. While they secure my ankle in one of those thick support booties, Dewey’s truck skids in behind them.
Our eyes lock as he walks toward me where I am sitting in the back of the paramedics’ van. He hasn’t shaved. His clothes look rumpled, grubby, and he smells like a funky dishcloth.
“How is she?” he asks the fellow pasting one of those little butterfly bandages on my chin.
“You the husband?” the paramedic asks.
Dewey nods.
“She refuses to go to the hospital. Her ankle is sprained, nothing broken as far as we can tell.”
His partner adds, “She’ll be sore. Could have a concussion. Watch for headaches, nausea, vomiting, or numbness. Don’t let her fall asleep for a while and get her to the emergency room right away if her condition deteriorates in any way.”
“You got it,” Dewey says.
The paramedic looks at him suspiciously. “You been drinking?”
Dewey turns his head away. “No, sir.”
Even in my disoriented state, I can smell his lie.
The paramedic accepts Dewey’s answer, and I let him help me hobble into his truck. My car will have to be towed away. Mr. E. says not to worry; he’ll take care of it.
The adrenaline is wearing off and I realize I am bone-weary.
On the way to the farm, we don’t discuss where he’s been or if he’s leaving again. We have always found it easy to talk about our preferred brand of coffee, the best streams for trout fishing, what week to plant potatoes—the trivia of everyday life. Yet broaching our deepest feelings requires a language we never learned. We become as mute as Bella might have been without hearing aids.
Mom and Trish make a ridiculous fuss over me. Poppy admires my ankle boot and asks if I want to dance. I decline. Dewey accepts the offer and swings Poppy around the room in a crazy two-step.
Dewey’s toothbrush is back in the cup on the bathroom sink, but when I get a call from one of the higher-ups in the AFT, he scowls and slams into the bedroom.
Rosella
February 1904
After the meeting at the Kennesons’, I was more determined than ever to be part of the struggle. We women had to force the legislature to accord us equality. They would never give in unless pushed relentlessly. Jack came home the morning after the meeting. He’d turned out to have a bossy streak, a desire to dominate, a trait I found quite commonplace in men. Fear that he’d forbid me to attend future meetings kept me from confiding in him—even though persuading men to vote in favor of women’s right to vote was the only way we would ever gain that privilege. First, I wanted to ferret out his feelings on the issue. I wasn’t sure how to broach the subject. While I brooded over this, he proposed a change which would have an immediate (and completely unwelcome) impact on our lives.
“I suppose,” he said over Nellie’s biscuits and beef stew, “we’d better look for larger accommodations before the new Joyner makes his appearance. We can rent a house while we build our own.
“Oh.” I almost swallowed a carrot chunk whole. Only a few months ago those words would have thrilled me. Now they caused pain. What if Jack was away when the baby arrived? I would have given anything to have my mother beside me. If I couldn’t have my mother, Nellie was the next best thing. Without her, how would I know whether the baby just needed a hot toddy for croup or whether it needed to see a doctor?
Nellie set down her fork. “I was planning to fix up another room for the baby.”
Jack scoffed. “What room? They’re all occupied.”
“My sitting room. It’s on the other side of your bedroom, and when I want to crochet or embroider, I can use the parlor downstairs. I usually do anyway.”
“Oh, Nellie, we couldn’t impose on your privacy.” Inside, I was praying Nellie would insist. The boarding house was far from the grand hacienda Jack dreamed of building, but I didn’t want to go through a birthing without the woman who’d become so much more than landlady. She was a dear friend, a confidante. The sister I never had.
“What do I need with privacy? It’ll be such fun to have a baby in the house. I thought I’d paint the room yellow. What do you think? Make some dotted Swiss curtains. And I have an old chest of drawers in the attic we could drag down and paint.”
“Sounds perfect. What do you say, Jack? We could stay here until our own home is built.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself. At least you’ll have company when I’m away.”
Yes, at least there was that.
Two days later he trained to El Paso.
September 1920
After the planning meeting for my reception, Nellie drove us past the house where Solina had spent the first years of her life and Nellie’s second boarding house so Solina could see them. She had only the vaguest memories of living in San Francisco, understandable since she had been such a wee one then. Everything about the city seemed enormous to her. The buildings, the ocean, the number of people. Watching her expressions reminded me of how I felt when I first arrived here as a fifteen year old, how strange it all was.
Nellie still wore her hair in a slightly disheveled updo, but now it was shot through with gray. Her gait had changed as well, suggesting sore knees, or perhaps hip trouble.
Solina was impressed by Nellie’s new Model T. “You must be rich,” she said. Nellie explained she wasn’t wealthy, that the auto had cost less than $300, but to Solina, the sum seemed enormous. We rarely had extra cash on hand. Val’s patients oft en gifted us with half of a butchered pig or a chicken or whatever else they could spare. He never tu
rned anyone away if they couldn’t pay cash, especially during the war years and the recession that followed. As a doctor, Val had been exempt from serving in the Great War, and Timmy had been exempt as a coal miner. Not all were so fortunate. A construction worker, my brother Josiah was never quite the same after he returned. Shell shock, Val called it. A common ailment of returning soldiers. We were all doing what we could to help Josiah’s family as he was oft en unable to work. Even so, we weren’t poor. We were managing.
“Your Papa says we may have enough saved up to buy a car later this year,” I said.
We parked in front of the hotel again. The reception was still on, though Mindy’s smile had been somewhat strained. She had gone to considerable expense and effort to arrange this exhibit for me. I prayed the newspaper’s lies wouldn’t harm her gallery’s reputation by association with me. The big event would take place two nights from now. Enough time to correct the original story—if anyone would print the truth.
We exited the car into a pleasant evening, no rain this time of year and no need of a coat. I loved the western states in late spring, especially California. I continued with my life story, filling in a few more pieces for my daughter.
“So Nellie, you aren’t really my aunt?” Solina asked.
I hurried to answer. “Not in the blood sense, but she’s been like an older sister to me ever since she took us in, and like an aunt to you ever since . . .”
Solina completed my sentence. “. . . ever since I was born.”
Nellie raised an eyebrow to see if I intended to elaborate, but I wasn’t ready to talk about my daughter’s birth.
Solina smiled. “And Aunt Nellie introduced you to the Kennesons and Underwoods. She has played such an important role in your life. More than most blood sisters, I would guess.”
“She has indeed.” When Nellie came into a room, it was as if a lamp went on and the world became a little brighter, a little happier.
“You are the family I chose for myself, I couldn’t love you any more than I already do.” Nellie headed toward the hotel, swaying side to side, duck-like. Her increased weight had intensified what had been a barely noticeable tendency when she was younger.
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