Chapter 20
July
David and Meg must have contacted Galway County Foster Services right after our emergency meeting at the restaurant. Maisie and Sam are only with me for a couple of days before we load their stuff back into Joe’s truck for the drive up to Meg and David’s rambling new house high in the hills on the far side of the lake, where there’s plenty of room for even more kids, in case Meg has quintuplets or she and David decide to foster half the kids in the county.
Two days after the move, the DNA results come back, confirming that the unidentified woman who died in the bus crash was Maisie’s mom. Maisie is at work when Ginny Lewis brings the news.
We all crowd around, Donna hugging her especially tightly, Tina handing Maisie tissues and helping Sam hold her as she cries, Sonya’s and my eyes welling up as we join the swaying, clutching huddle.
“I hate knowing she’s really gone,” Maisie forces out on a sob, before gathering herself and standing straighter. “But I knew she wouldn’t have left me.”
Not a dry eye in that kitchen for the rest of the shift.
***
It’s a perfect day at the lake, the sky deep blue overhead, the greens of the forest and hills layered around the gentle ripples of the water. Somewhere nearby something is flowering, its sweet scent mingling with the smell of rich earth. A light breeze tugs at my skirt and musses Joe’s hair. I grip my hands together tighter to keep from smoothing it back down with my fingers.
It’s a Sunday, and I closed the restaurant a couple of hours early so we could all spend the afternoon up here at the cabin. This memorial was Meg and David’s idea, and although there have been tears, there have also been laughter and good memories and hope. We’re telling stories about Maisie’s mom. Well, Maisie is, because none of the rest of us knew her mom, although I do contribute the tale of the day I met them and they tried to make me say whose driver’s license photo was worse. That seems like a lifetime ago.
Maisie is still having to wipe an occasional teardrop from her cheek, but some of them are catching in the corners of her smile. Every time she finishes a story and falls silent, Sam or one of Meg and David’s kids prods her with, “Tell them what you told me about when your mom…”
Sam, of course, is right there beside her, like a good brother should be.
God, I’m crying myself. I dip my head and shove a hand into my pocket for a tissue. I feel Joe’s hand hovering at my back, not quite touching me, just a trace of warmth.
He must see me as weak now that he knows about my breakdown. Poor July, liable to snap at any moment. My stomach drops at the thought. He doesn’t even know the whole story.
Movement nearby brings me out of my thoughts. David is murmuring something to Ruby, the second-youngest of the foster kids. Joe whispers something to Rose. A couple of the restaurant night crew members head inside the cabin, probably to start laying out food. Birds chirp and rustle overhead as the rest of us shift, at Meg’s direction, over to a spot under an enormous loblolly pine where someone has placed a small concrete statue of a serious-looking child with angel wings. Meg, one hand deep in a canvas bag, turns to her newest foster daughter. “Maisie, we wanted to do something to help you remember your mom. The kids and I picked out this statue, and Joe and Rose have brought some flowers to plant around it.”
The group parts with a murmur to allow Rose and Joe to step through with a flat of rich, velvety pansies and a bag of potting soil. David and Ruby are right behind them with a guitar. Meg pulls hand trowels and garden kneeling pads from the bag and passes them to Sam, Maisie, Joe, and Rose. Meg’s voice is softer when she continues. “Ruby told David you’ve been singing her a good-night song your mom used to sing you. She wanted David to help her sing it to you today.”
I’ve heard David sing before—he’s a songwriter and a member of Galway’s favorite hometown band, the Blue Shoes—but I’ve never heard him do anything like this. As the four flower planters kneel around the statue and Rose shows them how to gently loosen the pansies from their plastic containers, how to gently separate and spread the roots so the little plants will be able to absorb nutrition from the soil, how to dig just deep enough to have them level with the surrounding earth, David begins to pick out a slow, simple tune on his guitar. Three rising notes, repeated and lazy.
It takes me a minute to recognize the song. Years ago, Andi and I went through a Dixie Chicks phase, where we learned every word to every one of their songs. They’re the Chicks now, and David’s low voice is a lot different from Natalie Maines’s sweet tones, but the song is “Lullaby,” and it’s beautiful. My heart and my throat clench as little Ruby joins David, her voice as pure and sweet as only a child’s can be.
It’s not clear whether the song is for a baby or a lover, but whoever it’s addressing, the singer is full of wonder at this amazing, cherished person they’re singing to, asking them how long they want to be loved. And whether forever would be long enough.
Ruby takes over the melody, and David drops back to an almost-whispered harmony and echo. Melly, Meg and David’s youngest, edges forward to stand beside Maisie as she works. Julian, the older brother of the two little girls, places himself between Sam and Maisie, standing straight and vigilant, awkwardly, vulnerably protective of his new older siblings.
How did these wonderful people come up with such perfect, heart-stretching ideas for this day? When did they plan this? I hear a soft sigh from Tina beside me, see her hand tighten on Donna’s, as Ruby and David sing the last verse, which seems like a parent stepping back, assuming a guardian angel role, watching her beloved child venture into the world alone to discover new things. Reminding that child that she’s always loved. Always.
The music rises around us as the gardeners finish their work. Maisie is crying softly, tears dripping into the soil she gently presses down around the little flowers.
The Chicks’ lyrics become a different question in my mind. Instead of How long…? I’m hearing What do you want for yourself? and I’m back under that overhang with Joe in the rain, lust and honesty rising in me, almost forcing me into a mistake that would have only broken my heart. Because you can break things that seemed like forever if you hurt someone enough. If you selfishly destroy their trust.
But god help me, as I watch Maisie sit back on her heels and reach for Ruby and Melly to wrap them in a hug so tight I think we all feel it, I see Joe, quiet in the background, a few salty droplets of his own on the dirty hands he’s wiping on his jeans, and I think if only I could undo what I’ve done to hurt him, forever might just be enough.
Maybe.
***
Joe
I don’t know where the hell they got that song, but goddamn, it’s still ringing through me long after we’ve finished the planting. Long after we’ve carefully watered the new little flowers and gone inside to wash up and fill plates from the potluck feast that covers the kitchen counters.
Ruby’s high, sweet little voice and David’s soft harmony singing those words had me right back in the high school cafeteria the first day I saw July. Right back in the steakhouse my very first day of work, watching July ring up a little old lady whose lipstick mouth was drawn way outside her real lips and who visibly brightened when July lifted her tray and carried it for her, talking and laughing the whole way, to a prime little table by the salad bar. I was right back in the middle of our first date here at the lake, when July didn’t laugh at my ratty old truck or turn her nose up at warm pop and a can of mostly broken chips.
She was a miracle to me. A rare, impossibly good, magical creature willing to beam that warm smile on anybody who needed it, just because. And I had never in my life seen anyone or had anything like that, and goddamn, I needed it. I soaked it up, every drop, as if my whole life up to that point was a desert and July was my first rain shower.
Forever was—is—exactly what I want from her.
The whole restaurant crew is here, night shift and day shift, along with Rose and Angus, David and Meg, and a buttload of kids. Several people brought folding tables and chairs, and we’ve settled at them outside so the kids can run around and play after they eat.
Ruby and Melly and Julian, though, stick close by their new foster sister and brother, asking them questions we adults could never get away with. We duck our heads, focus on our plates, and listen for all we’re worth as the little ones ferret out more of Sam and Maisie’s story.
“Did you really live here all by yourself?” Melly cranes her neck to look around the clearing.
When Maisie and Sam nod, Ruby says, “But you didn’t have the same mommy?”
“Nope,” the older kids answer together.
The serious-eyed boy, Julian, speaks up. “How did you start living together?”
“Well, first we had kind of a fight…” Maisie laughs a little, looking at Sam.
He explains. “We were kind of friends before, but not really. We just sat together at lunch. Sometimes we rode the school bus together.”
“What’d you fight about?” Melly again.
“We figured out each other’s secrets”—Maisie gestures with a carrot stick—“but we were both afraid the other one would tell on us.”
Ruby frowns. “Were you doing something bad?”
Maisie shakes her head. “No, but we didn’t want grown-ups to know we were living by ourselves because we were afraid they’d make us go live with a bad family.”
The younger kids eat quietly for a few minutes, then Julian asks, “But why did you fight?”
Sam fields this one. “Maisie figured out I didn’t have any place to live. But when she asked me about it, I was afraid she was going to tell somebody, so I said, ‘Oh, yeah? Well, I know you’re living all alone in that cabin without any grown-ups.’ I wanted her to think that if she told anybody my secret, I’d tell hers. I thought that would make her not want to tell on me.”
Maisie must see Melly’s confused expression. “Sam wasn’t really mad at me. But he was scared so it sounded like he was.”
Sam nods. “But then we started talking and told each other our stories, and then Maisie asked me if I’d come live with her.”
Maisie laughs. “At first he didn’t want to. He made up all these reasons why he couldn’t.”
“Why?” Julian’s brow is furrowed.
Maisie looks at Sam, who answers quietly. He’s so patient; he must have been a great brother to his biological siblings. “I’d been living outside. Everything I had was in two plastic garbage bags and it was all dirty. I didn’t have any way to do laundry.” He toys with the crust from his turkey sandwich. “I was embarrassed to bring my dirty stuff into Maisie’s cabin. I was afraid I’d make everything smell bad and she’d be sorry she asked me in. I could take a shower in the gym on school days, but then I’d have to put my dirty clothes back on. I didn’t want to mess up Maisie’s place. And I didn’t want to be a charity case.”
“What’s that?” Melly, of course.
“It’s when somebody gives you something, but you don’t have anything to give them back.” He glances sideways at Maisie.
She nods. “Sam’s very nice and very stubborn. I had to really talk him into moving in. I had to tell him how lonely I’d been, living alone with nobody to talk to. And how scared I got sometimes, especially at night. I had to convince him that he did have something to give me. He’d be making me feel safer and less lonely. He’d be somebody I could talk to without worrying about giving away my secret.”
Julian’s still frowning. Boy’s a thinker. “How did you figure out each other’s secrets?”
Beside me, July’s knuckles are white, she’s clenching her fist so tightly. I know just how she feels. When I nudge her hand with one finger, she glances at it and then holds on.
Maisie and Sam exchange glances. Maisie speaks first. “Sam had been sleeping up here under a different cabin. He didn’t want to get caught, so he paid real close attention to who was nearby. These are mostly summer vacation cabins, and it was winter, so I was the only person around besides him. There weren’t any grown-ups. He didn’t know why I was alone, but he could tell I was.”
Sam takes over. “Maisie didn’t know where I was sleeping, but she noticed I was always dirty. She knew I didn’t eat lunch… I’d just sit and draw. And then one day, she came back into the cafeteria after lunch to get something she’d forgotten and”—Sam draws in a big breath—“she caught me eating pizza from a trash can.”
It’s a miracle none of us adults gasp.
Leave it to the littlest one to speak with honesty. “Ew, why were you doing that?”
Sam looks at her, his blue eyes serious. “It was the only way I could get food.”
July squeezes my hand so tight I can tell we’re going to have to draw straws for the honor of killing Sam’s worthless-ass parents.
“I didn’t have any money. There are places that will give meals to homeless people”—Sam flicks a warm glance at July—“but I was afraid to go. They might think I was too young to be on my own and try to make me go…live with a bad family. So every day I’d wait till the other kids left the cafeteria, and then I’d go to one of the fuller trash cans and take out as much food as I could, real fast. I’d eat some of it right there and put some in my backpack for later. I could only take stuff that wouldn’t spoil right away. On Fridays I’d try to take more, but I usually couldn’t get enough to last through a weekend, and unless it was really cold out, it went bad or got all full of bugs before Monday anyway. So on Mondays I was always really hungry.”
Sam sets the crust back on his plate. “I tried to get a job so I could buy food. I put in applications everywhere I could think of, but nobody was hiring. And then after a week or two, all my clothes were dirty and were starting to smell bad, and people didn’t even want me in their stores. Nobody would even talk to me about hiring me by then. So…I ate out of trash cans.”
There’s absolute silence at the tables. And there it is. Sam’s just given me my life’s mission. All the damn times I’ve heard people say, “Get a job!” as if that’s an easy answer to homelessness. As if homeless people should have to eat garbage if they can’t find work. I’m a goddamn chef on his way into social work, with a building just waiting to be put to good use. I’m going to open some type of shelter for kids in trouble. Feed ’em. Have a shower and a washer and dryer they can use. A safe place to rest and keep up on schoolwork.
July flinches and I realize I’m gripping her hand too tightly.
I let loose and lean forward to whisper, “Want to go see our old rock?” I need to be alone, or alone with her.
Adults have taken up the conversation, and David and Meg’s kids join the others in a game of tag. I know Rose and Angus and Donna and Tina and Sonya see July and me slip away to the trail, but nobody says a word.
No sooner are we out of sight of the clearing than July doubles over, arms hugging her midsection, a gasping sob wrenching out of her. I pull her into my arms, feeling the outrage and sadness vibrating through her. “My god, Joe,” she says into my shoulder, her fingers clenching my T-shirt as I rub her back.
Sometimes it seems like the whole world sucks, like everything is a battle, but this one instant of this one afternoon, with this woman in my arms, turning to me for comfort…this is how it’s supposed to be. July and I together against all the hard, cold things of the world.
The circles I’m rubbing turn into hearts, and I wonder if she notices. I murmur nonsense in her ear. Her harsh breathing calms bit by bit.
“Thanks, Joe.” She laughs a little, shakily, and eases her grip on my shirt.
There are tears on her cheeks, and I raise both hands to wipe them away. Lean in to press her forehead with my own. Open my mouth to offer my undying love and seal it with a kiss… No, to kiss her first and then declare my undying love…
But before I can do either, she’s out of my arms and striding up the path, calling back, “I haven’t been up here since a week after you left. I wonder if it’s changed…”
She’s read my intentions and is rejecting them firmly, kindly, before I can embarrass myself.