Chapter 23
Gabriella and I got real tipsy together that night.
Slurred speech and all. Empty wineglasses and an open bottle sat between us, the cork rolled somewhere out of reach.
Between sobs for Elijah, I told Gabriella all about what happened with Eric.
“He’s got some nerve, driving all the way here without so much as calling me first. Who does that? ”
“Someone who thinks you’re just going to open the door and let him in,” Gabriella said.
“Hmmm,” I thought out loud. “Well. I did let him in.”
She nodded and swallowed hard. “Of course you did. You’re not rude like him. He knows you’re always going to show up in kindness and love. That’s who you are, Joyce. Don’t let him make you something else.”
“Rrrrright,” I agreed.
“But me? I wouldn’t have let him in,” she said. “He’s lucky I wasn’t here. We could have had one of those—what do you call them?—standoffs. We could have held Elijah hostage!”
“Sounds violent.”
She shrugged. “Don’t start none, won’t be none.”
We both decided Eric was quite a piece of work, to put it mildly. Then Gabriella told me what was on her mind. Turns out, she and Lorenzo broke up. To which I replied, “Good riddance!” because my filter was off.
My ex-husband had basically kidnapped my grandson at my daughter’s command, I was dipping into my nest egg early, and Celestia was gone. What did I have to lose by holding my tongue?
“I know, I know,” Gabriella agreed. “I just don’t want to be lonely. You know?”
I did know. When I was a young woman, being lonely—read, not tied to a man—was almost a sin.
Some women enrolled in college just to find an upwardly bound man, not to actually get a degree.
A woman unbound to a man was problematic.
Even though laws had changed, depending on where you lived you could still run into trouble renting an apartment on your own, financing a car, or getting certain jobs.
Employers couldn’t discriminate blatantly anymore, but they still worried that a single woman would mean scandal in the office.
And it went without saying that a woman would be paid less than a man to perform the exact same job.
That’s how the system worked. A woman without a man faced an uphill battle. Being lonely was only one of her worries.
Gabriella was too young to remember days like that. I didn’t want to invalidate her thoughts by reminiscing on the days before she was born, so I said, “You learn a lot about yourself and about life when you’re lonely.”
“I know mysssselffff,” Gabriella insisted. “Gabriella Santos! And I’m a boss in the kitchen!”
“That, you are!”
The chirping insects agreed loudly as she poured us both another glass of wine.
She’d added a small table and two lawn chairs on her side of the back porch, giving us our own private outdoor living space.
We’d doused ourselves heavily with anti-mosquito spray, so we could stay out all night if we’d wanted to.
“And I’m Joyce Hicks. Retired teacher. I taught hundreds—thousands—of kids to read! And I left my non-loving husband, and now I just love on myself. And I’m gonna fix up this house before that APS woman comes back, if it’s the last thing I do!”
“I wish I could help,” Gabriella said. Then, without warning, she burst into tears, the kind of deep, guttural sobbing that shakes the whole body. Her shoulders heaved violently, as though the weight of the world had just been dropped on her.
My heart clenched in empathy. “Oh no. No, no, no, no. You’re going to be all right, Gabriella,” I comforted her, though my own voice was shaking at that point.
It hit me then that this child had carved a deep place in my heart already.
She loved hard. Cared for people with a fierce loyalty that was rare and beautiful.
This was one of the reasons Elijah was so drawn to her.
The last time I’d been this close to a slobbering young lady was when Mrs. Rivers, one of the kindergarten teachers, had found out she was pregnant with her third child while her second child was only four months old and her first one was barely potty-trained.
Now, why she decided to take a pregnancy test during her teacher-conference period, I’ll never understand.
But there she was, coming out of the restroom in the teachers’ lounge looking like God had just texted her and told her she wasn’t gonna make it in.
“I can’t do this!” she wailed and fell onto me, much the same as Gabriella now.
By the time we’d finished our talk, I’d convinced Mrs. Rivers that her children would be close—best friends.
And they’d have one another for all their lives, practically.
I figured this because families used to have stair-step kids all the time back in the day; it was expected.
Encouraged. What started off as hectic could later yield a beautiful harvest.
So I amplified my empathetic skills. “Gabriella, sweetheart, I know it might not seem like it now, but you’ve got your whole life ahead of you. There will be lot more opportunities to fall in love.”
“No, it’s not just that. When we broke up today, Lorenzo fired me. That’s why I’m home so early.”
“He fired you?” I screeched.
“Mm-hmm. And now Lisa, who’s, like, the last family member I really talk to, is mad at me, since she’s married to Lorenzo’s cousin. It’s wild. Mmm, mmm, mmm.”
Her mumble traveled through me. Made me want to fight somebody, like a mother would for her child. “We’re gonna make it through this, Gabriella. Together.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she cried. “Can we get Elijah back?”
I sighed. Now it was my turn to cry. “I’ve been thinking about it.
We probably could, if Terri ever calls me back.
But maybe that wouldn’t be the best move.
” I blinked the tears away. “We’ve got lots to do around here in very little time.
Having him underfoot could slow us down,” I admitted to myself as much as her.
“I’m gonna…start asking around for help.
With friends—no more eager senior-support organizations. They all need numbers, you know?”
Gabriella sat up again. “Maybe they really do think you’re in danger. You can’t get mad at an underpaid government worker for actually doing their job, you know. We should be grateful, probably.”
I squinted at her. “Whose side are you on?”
“Yours! I’m just saying. Let’s get this house together, get those people out of your hair, get me a job, get Elijah back at least for a little while, and move on.” She’d solved all our problems with one run-on sentence.
“Sounds like a plan.”
She added, “We’re gonna need help. You got friends?”
I fired back, “You got friends?”
“All my friends are Lorenzo’s friends. They’re not gonna betray him by helping me. What about your new friends? The library ladies?”
“We need people with strong backs and knees,” I told her. “All the money’s going into the stove. Professionals will handle that. But the other stuff will take some good old elbow grease. Young folk would be best.”
She knocked her elbow against mine. “If they’re like you, they got this! And what about Richard? He likes you. He’ll help.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not trying to use the man.”
“Just tell him what’s up. Be like, ‘Bro, I’m in a bind with the gub’ment. I need your help. You in?’”
The way she imitated my voice sent me into a fit of giggles. She followed with laughter of her own.
“So just ask him?”
“Yes,” she repeated. “And the ladies at the library, too. I will cook a big meal for everyone when we finish, whatever you all want.”
She should have known by now that I can’t turn down her cooking. I needed the promise of it, actually, to move past my heartbreak over Elijah’s untimely removal.
* * *
Somebody added me to the group text—probably Christine, since her husband had my number—to let me know that that we were all meeting up at Eileen’s tomorrow instead of the library.
She was at home recovering now, and her sister had given us permission to drop by to bring and share dinner with her for only an hour or so; she didn’t want to wear Eileen out with too much company.
It was the perfect opportunity to ask for the group’s help over one of Gabriella’s delicious side dishes. Good food never hurts.
Between morning and evening job interviews, Gabriella prepared something I had never even thought to put together: sweet potato and black bean taquitos. “I’ve heard of it, but never tried it or put my own flavors to it.”
She let me taste one as soon as they cooled off. “Oh my word!” I said with a mouth full of her delicious creation.
She giggled and said, “I put a hint of cinnamon in them for sweetness.”
Whether she’d put cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon pepper, I neither knew nor cared. I finished chewing. “I don’t know how on earth you come up with these recipes, but they are everything.”
“Actually, I got the idea from the Green Book. It said potatoes or beans. I figured, why not use them both? With my Blaxican twist, of course.” She snapped the lid onto my glass container full of taquitos. “Keep them covered until you get there.”
“Can’t guarantee I won’t eat a few on the way.”
“Patience, patience, Ms. Joyce.”
“It’s not only because these taquitos are irresistible. I’m really not a ‘potluck’ person,” I admitted. “Too much going on in people’s houses. No regulation.”
Gabriella put a hand on her hip. “Seriously? I’ve been working in kitchens for almost ten years. You have no idea what people do to your food behind the veil.”
“True,” I had to agree. “Somebody might be mishandling meat at a fast-food place, but the food’s so full of chemicals, the germs don’t stand a chance.” I’d meant it as a joke, but Gabriella’s face said it was not funny to her.
“Joyce, listen to me.” She put her hands on my shoulders and faced off like she was my boxing coach and I was losing the fight. “Preparing food, giving food, is a way that people show love. You reject their food, you reject them.”