by Rae Walsh
Sheldon’s mother had grown up in a home full of violence, and she had fought a heroin addiction on and off throughout her teen years. “She was clean when we met, and other than one relapse, she stayed clean during our relationship. She did especially well when you were born, Sheldon. She loved you so much.”
Sheldon had sobbed when his father told him this. For years Sheldon had carried around the thought that something he did had caused his mother to burn those houses. He thought he had sent her to prison. He wished he had always known that the burning, the insanity, was the sad end to a long story, rather than his fault.
The short version was that when Sheldon was eight years old, his mother had started using again. Sheldon’s father didn’t know why. She kept it from her husband for a long time, until one day, suspicious; he searched her bags and discovered a used syringe. They fought about it, and Sheldon’s mother promised not to use anymore. Sheldon’s father went as far as to threaten her dealer. One day, though, she injected heroin she had bought from an unknown dealer, a substance that turned out to have been mixed with methamphetamines. This cocktail had a disastrous effect on Sheldon’s mother, leading to a manic spree of insanity and setting fires.
Sheldon’s father used his meager savings to appeal the verdict, based on her need for help. That appeal was overturned, and Sheldon and his father were homeless for many years. They drifted from shelter to shelter while Sheldon’s father fought to overcome the deep depression caused by the conviction— and eventually, the death— of his wife.
A long-ago sad story, Sheldon told himself, pulling his fedora farther down on his head. But it explained a lot about him for anyone who wanted to know. He knew that a person could just disappear and that society would not care about their disappearance, no matter how much that person was loved. He knew that possessions helped to anchor a person, though they were temporary. And he knew that people were more than their disorders. His mother had been one of the loveliest people he knew. To this day, she had told him more truths than anyone else in his life, besides maybe Theresa. He’d had eight beautiful years with her. And then she was taken from him by an illness that most people didn’t want to say aloud. Words that were whispered in alleys.
When he first had come to church with Sam, Francisco had taught on Mary Magdalene. “What kind eyes Jesus had.” Frankie had said. “Eyes that saw past the whispers around her, into the truth of who she was beyond her sickness.” Sheldon had listened with his whole self. And then he had come back the next Sunday.
The pews were mostly empty during play rehearsal, but there were a few spectators. Sheldon didn’t like it. He wanted the actors to have a distraction-free environment. Lewis and Maddie performed the scene where they wandered from motel to park bench to shelter, looking for a place to stay, and Sheldon needed to watch, but instead, he kept glancing back at the people in the pews. Some people needed to be there—actors waiting their turn, choir members—and there were harmless spectators, like the church janitor and a woman Sheldon had never met before. But then there were Lenny, Rich, and Cam.
Sheldon hadn’t exactly liked Cam before the town meeting, but he hadn’t had a real problem with him. Since that night, though, he was looking at him sideways, especially since he was hanging out with Lenny and Rich, who were outspoken about their dislike of Francisco. Was this how hateful ideas spread?
What were they doing here? It was nerve-wracking. Sheldon couldn’t help thinking of Theresa’s warning to keep the rehearsals safe for Maddie. At the time, Sheldon hadn’t understood, but with this crowd lurking around and a vandal still on the loose, he was starting to see.
He stood and walked to the side of the stage, where Francisco stood chatting with Mercy and Dorothy.
“Can we do anything about these guys?” Sheldon asked. They didn’t even need to ask who Sheldon was talking about. Dorothy’s eyes swiveled in the direction of the three men, while Mercy and Francisco looked at Sheldon.
“You want me to kick people out of the church?” Francisco asked, raising an eyebrow.
“You know they’re only here to make us feel uncomfortable,” Sheldon said.
“I don’t know that. They haven’t said anything. Maybe your play is changing Lenny’s mind about these things. That would be good, wouldn’t it?”
“That man,” Dorothy said. “Lenny has never been good for much.”
Francisco choked, and Sheldon grinned. Dorothy always said exactly what she thought, reminding Sheldon of Theresa.
“I don’t know why Cam’s been hanging out with those two,” Mercy added. “He’s always been a decent guy.”
Dorothy glanced at her. “You think?”
“Why, you don’t think so? He was friends with Sam for ages, right?”
Dorothy considered. “He’s polite. But I don’t really know anything about him, and he and Sam haven’t been friends for a long time.”
“Was Lenny friends with Sam?” Mercy asked.
Sheldon was already shaking his head. “Lenny was a bad seed all the way back in high school,” he said. “And Cam and I were never friends. He always avoided me, for some reason, but he’s always been polite. I agree—it’s weird that Cam puts up with Lenny.”
Francisco spoke in a low voice. “Lenny is my top suspect for the graffiti.”
Sheldon considered. Yes, Lenny was the right height and shape.
“So why are you letting him sit in your pew?” Dorothy said.
“Innocent until proven guilty,” Mercy said, though her face was stiff and sad as she spoke.
“I can’t throw them out for sitting there. Or, rather, I won’t. If they cause a disturbance, I’ll do something, okay?”
“Who is the new lady? In the back?” Sheldon asked.
A huge smile transformed Francisco’s face. “That’s Ani. She’s the consultant who’s going to help our refugees make their homes here. She’s getting to know the town so she can be ready to help them.”
“She’s from Syria?”
“No, from Iran.”
“She doesn’t feel uncomfortable in a church?”
All three of them looked at Sheldon like he was stupid. “She’s a Christian, Sheldon,” Dorothy said. “Don’t make assumptions.”
Sheldon held up his hands and shot one curious look at Ani, then went back to watching the actors through the scene, thinking about Lenny and the possibility that he was the vandal. It was disturbing to imagine such hateful thoughts simmering close by. What was Lenny thinking as he sat watching the actors rehearsing their lines, and the choir sing the songs about young Maria?
“All right, everyone!” Sheldon called after the choir’s last song. “That’s it for today. You did great!”
He checked his watch. It was getting late. He would walk Maddie home and hopefully get to talk to Theresa. He packed up the scripts and locked the prop closet. By the time he went outside, Maddie was in front of the church in a little group that included the new woman, Francisco and his daughter, Rosa, Mercy, Lenny, and Cam. Rich was nowhere to be seen. Everyone seemed tense.
Sheldon felt a sudden rush of anger. What was happening to his town? Aveline had been a good place for Sheldon for so many years. A safe place, after the worry of living from day-to-day.
When Sheldon reached the others, he heard Rosa introducing Ani to the different people in the circle.
“And this is Sheldon,” she finished up. “Sheldon, this is Ani.”
“Hi,” Sheldon said, taking her hand and shaking it. “It’s nice to meet you.” Sheldon was surprised by how firm her grip was. Ani was slight of build, with large, dark eyes and a sweet face. She looked young but had a surprising gray streak in her hair.
“Nice to meet you, too,” she said. She had a slight accent. “Rosa has been telling me about you.”
“Oh dear,” Sheldon said, making a face at the little girl, and Ani laughed. Sheldon glanced back and forth between Ani and Francisco, thinking fast. Francisco saw him and gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.
Well, they would be spending a lot of time together, wouldn’t they? And it seemed that Rosa was already a fan of the woman.
“Francisco says you’re from Iran?” Sheldon asked.
Ani nodded. “I am. But I am Armenian-Iranian, so I speak a lot of languages and have a lot of cultures inside me, vying for my attention.” She smiled.
Sheldon didn’t like the way Lenny and Cam were eying Ani. Why didn’t they just leave?
“Been well lately?” Francisco asked Lenny.
“All right,” Lenny said. “Having trouble finding work.” Every word was loaded.
Francisco nodded. “Well, I hope you find something soon.” It was not clear to everyone else who didn’t know Francisco well, but Sheldon could tell that it was a dismissal. Lenny, however, didn’t get the memo. Cam turned to Maddie.
“How’s your mom?” he asked.
“My mom?” Maddie asked.
“Yeah, I knew her in school.”
“Oh,” said Maddie politely. “She’s doing well.”
This was excruciating. Sheldon needed to pull away from this brutal small talk circle.
“Are you ready to go, Maddie?” he asked.
“Are we going somewhere?”
“I told your mom I would walk you home.”
Lenny and Cam turned to look at him. Lenny held an unlit cigarette in one hand and looked at Sheldon with what seemed like hatred. Sheldon felt the impact of it, even while he wondered what he had done to deserve such a look. Yes, this could be a man who had tagged Sheldon’s store with rude words. Cam was looking at Sheldon, too, but his face was smooth, relaxed. Sheldon grabbed for anything.
“Cam,” Sheldon said. “How are you?”
“Can’t complain,” Cam said. “Ready, Lenny?”
“Yes, the reverend says we can’t smoke on the grounds, so we’d better go find a place for our dirty habit.”
“Just not on the stairs,” Francisco said. “Feel free to smoke on the grass.”
The two gave little waves and walked down the stairs. Beside Sheldon, Mercy let out a long breath, and Sheldon felt his shoulders relax. He realized he had been preparing himself for some sort of altercation. In front of Francisco’s church? It felt as though they had all entered a strange alternate world. Surely this wasn’t Aveline.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Should I have asked him about the graffiti?” Sheldon asked Mercy as they watched the men walk away. “Was it wrong to just sit there and chat with him?”
Mercy smiled and patted his arm. “I could have asked him myself if I wanted to. I know you have my back. But it would have been interfering with an investigation. Better to let the police do their work.”
Francisco nodded. His face was thoughtful.
“I just wish I knew why they were baiting us,” he said.
“You know why they’re baiting us, Frankie,” Mercy said. “You know. You challenge them. They’ve clung to some belief that their world wouldn’t change, and they’ve been listening to rhetoric from videos online, and here you are. Pastoring their church, bringing refugees in. It worries them. Either they’ll prove to be good seeds and come around, or this will push them farther into their fear.”
Beside her, Ani was nodding. “This is all part of it,” she said softly. “We need the grace of God to help us.”
Sheldon was deep in thought as he walked Maddie home. He roused himself to pay attention to the girl next to him. Maddie was humming slightly, giving a little skip at every other step. She was still such a kid, though he knew better than to say it to her.
“Maddie, were you uncomfortable when Cam was talking to you?” he asked.
“Not so much,” she said, “but I didn’t understand how he knows my mom.”
Sheldon thought about that. He remembered that Cam was friends with Sam in high school. Had he known Theresa back then?
“I’m not sure,” he said, “but I do know that those are the kind of people that your mom is asking you to steer clear of as we do this rehearsal. I’m not sure why she’s worried about you, but there’s been a lot of hatred in our town lately. I think as we go forward with the investigation, the play, and our new families, we’re going to see more of what it means to try to unravel hatred.”
“Unravel hatred?” Maddie asked, looking over at him. Her face was open, though Sheldon could see anxiety in a slight tightening around her eyes. Worry for her mother, he would guess. For her fragility.
The sun had set. Twilight fell quickly. Dead leaves lay scattered on the ground, crunching under their feet. Sheldon looked up and saw the feathery black tips of a single redwood tree against the violet sky. It stretched almost higher than he could see.
Maddie stopped and looked at it with him.
“It’s so tall,” she said.
Sheldon nodded. How should he put this? “The thing about hatred,” he said, “Is that when you take all the rage away, it mainly resembles fear. But that fear fuels self-pity and self-pity fuels blame. Suddenly people divide over trivial things, and they can’t see from any perspective besides their own.”
“So, what do you do about it?”
“I don’t know. I hate that this kind of division has come to our town. I thought our town would always be free from it.”
Maddie nodded slowly. They started walking again. The moon had already risen, and wispy clouds drifted along in front of it. Sheldon hoped Theresa wouldn’t worry. He pulled out his phone and sent a quick text.
On our way. Almost there.
Absorbed in his phone, it took him a minute to hear what Maddie said.
“Sorry, what?” he asked, slipping his phone into his back pocket.
“I wonder what Faith would say about that?” she said. “Would she think Aveline was free of racism before now?”
Sheldon thought about that, watching the fourteen-year-old in his peripheral vision. Grown or no, she still had the same adorable, stompy walk that he remembered from when she was little. It reminded Sheldon of Theresa.
He thought about Maddie’s words and frowned, watching their feet, never quite in sync, walking through the smatterings of leaves over the sidewalk, under the bright moon. How was it that he had never asked Faith or even Mercy or George what Aveline was like for them? Sheldon had always thought of their life as having a distinct before and after. Before being hard and scary. After being Aveline, with friendly neighbors, police who knew them well, the sun on the lake, the oaks and jacarandas sheltering nearly every street from the burning sun. But that was how Aveline was for Sheldon. Was it stupid to imagine that Aveline was the same place for everyone? His stomach twisted as he realized it was.
He thought about Ani, about what her job would be over the next weeks and months. Her work was not stocking grocery shelves. Her work was helping traumatized people from a war-torn country settle in a place where 29% of the people had voted not to have them come.
Or what life was like for Theresa, for that matter. She lived with a disorder in a place where— as she said—it had been easy to take advantage of her. Something terrible had happened to her here, severe enough that she left. These streets must hold a story of very mixed experiences for her.
And with that, Sheldon was back to thinking about Theresa. Lately, he couldn’t hold himself away from thoughts of her. He thought of her face the other evening, the night he had come to read the poem to her. Flushed with excitement over her work, her coveralls splattered with clay. The way her eyes lit on him, suddenly, focusing so intently on him in that way she had. Sheldon knew the look on Reesey’s face. It was the feverish look of creating something she thought was going to work. Sheldon loved her for that look, for the obsession in the bones of her wrists, the way she trained herself onto the thing in front of her with the eyes of an owl, diving in with every cell. He was starting to see how life was for her. If she could exist in that space forever, she would be fine. Reesey thrived in a clear liminal space where she plucked ideas from the air and transformed her thoughts into shapes that cou
ld be held and seen by people. This she did effortlessly, gracefully, with power that surprised even Sheldon, who knew this part of her well. It was the rest of life that was such an uphill climb for her.
And now the moment he kept flashing back to. Reesey’s face, this one for him, after he had read the Neruda poem. When she had walked to him and touched his face with her hand.
Sheldon had never had the easiest time understanding God through conventional means. Maybe that was why he connected so well with Theresa. She had always expressed something to him that reminded him of the Eternal One, the Creator. Sheldon understood God through the smell of old wood in church, the sheen of tomatoes, and the carving on an antique cabinet a man had made for his wife. And there was something in Theresa’s level gaze that told Sheldon things he wouldn’t be able to know about God if she didn’t exist. That was why it had hurt him so badly when she had gone. She was not the sum total of her difficulty in interacting with people. She was more, so much more. She was beyond words. She was spirit and possibility and a closeness to God as effortless as her art. And it made him want to be closer to her, because with her he felt that it might be possible for him to feel closer to God, too.
Sheldon had marked the poem in his book of poems by Pablo Neruda long ago, knowing it was for Theresa. He wanted to read it to her at their wedding. When she disappeared, he had stored the book out of sight on his highest shelf.
But Theresa had come back, and Sheldon had pulled his Pablo Neruda book off the shelf and dusted it off. He had read the poem and watched as her face changed, a new blazing intensity just for him as she zeroed in on him, walking closer while he held his breath.