Monsoon Season (8 page)

I reached for the little plastic wand, looked down at it in my hand and shrugged. ‘It’s positive.’

Donna crouched on the floor and wrapped me in her arms, but I didn’t break down. I just sat there.

I got a flight to Boston the next morning. The urge to go home was even stronger than the urge to flee had been a year before. Logically, I knew this wasn’t a problem geography could solve, but it felt like the safest place to start.

I was sitting on the end of the dock, dangling my bare feet over the edge. It had rained a lot this spring and the water was cool on my ankles and calves. Gracie had grown tired of chasing her tennis ball and left it floating just beyond my reach. She waded back and forth in the shallow water nearby, occasionally jumping at a fish.

I heard the screen door slam and my mother’s footsteps fell softly behind me.

‘I didn’t think sunsets impressed you,’ she said, sitting beside me and swinging her legs over the edge of the dock. She was nearly always barefoot in summer. The soles of her feet were like leather. Mine were so tender I couldn’t cross the lawn without shoes on.

‘Yeah, seen one, seen ’em all,’ I said, quoting myself.

‘There aren’t really enough clouds to make a real pretty one.’ She sighed, squinting into the distance.

We sat there quietly for a moment. I swished my feet back and forth in the water.

‘She ever catch anything?’ I asked, nodding toward Gracie.

‘Nope.’ She chuckled. ‘But it doesn’t stop her trying. She’s an eternal optimist.’

‘Or just a really slow learner,’ I suggested.

‘Or that.’

We were quiet again. I wondered if it was a comfortable silence or not.

‘So, are you planning on telling me what’s really going on?’ she asked finally.

I kept looking at my feet in the water. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Okay.’

I held my breath for a while. I didn’t want to cry. ‘Things just didn’t really work out for me in Tucson.’

‘Okay. I’m sorry about that.’

‘I’m not going back.’ It was a little scary to say it out loud. As if that might make it true. As if it had suddenly been decided.

‘Is it about Ben?’

‘I don’t really want to talk about it.’

‘Okay.’ She had learned from experience that to push me was to risk an attack. It hurt to know that I had done this to her, to us. And yet I was grateful for it. It meant I didn’t have to lie.

‘I don’t really have it all figured out yet. I thought maybe I could stay here for a while.’

‘Of course you can.’ She put her arm around my shoulders. ‘Dad and I are leaving in a couple of days.’ My parents spent two weeks in Hawaii every summer. My mother passed her time on the beach, getting brown, or shopping for trinkets in the touristy shops near the hotel. My father went hiking and snorkelling and off-roading. They came home with photos of sailboats, lush hillsides, rainbows. Occasionally a waiter was enlisted to take their picture at dinner. ‘It would be a big help to have someone here to watch Gracie while we’re away,’ she said.

I knew that she must have already asked someone to watch Gracie. I knew I wasn’t really doing her a favour, but it was just like her to try to make me feel like I was.

I leaned my head on her shoulder and we watched the sun dip into the water.

She locked herself in the upstairs bathroom and watched from the window until Ben got into his car and drove away. In the full-length mirror on the back of the door, she saw a woman cowering in a corner, hugging her ribs as if they needed holding in. Without her glasses, it could have been the younger version of herself, who had spent so many years cowering. More than a decade.

Teresa straightened up and crossed to the linen closet where she found a washcloth. She turned the faucet on, lukewarm water spilling onto the terry, and glanced up. In this mirror, when she looked closely, the years caught up. Her eyeliner was smudged into the fine lines she slathered with cream each night. The beauty industry made careful claims to reduce the
appearance
of wrinkles.

Translation? They’ll help lull you into the fantasy that it’s making a difference. For $19.95.

She buried her face in the cloth, turning the water off, mindful of conservation. She wanted to wipe away the day, along with the ruined makeup, but when she put down the dirty cloth it was still clear on her face.

Ben’s words. What had he said? He
loved
Riley. Teresa remembered that. Gary had always loved her best after. After.

Gary had been textbook. She’d found this out later, in support groups and the self-help aisle at the library. He’d wooed her passionately and swiftly and they’d moved to Phoenix right after the wedding. Those two hours away from her family in Tucson, without a car, might as well have been a fortress wall and a moat full of alligators. Whenever he
lost control –
that was the agreed-upon euphemism – his sorrow would break Teresa’s heart. Her forgiveness was all that could ease his torment.

In the peaceful hush of those library aisles, she’d read about the way abusers are made, how it gets passed from father to son. She’d worried about it with Matt, her alpha boy. He’d been ten when they’d left Gary, already standing up to his father. He was too small to do anything more than create a distraction, too easy to push away. She used to think: One of these days, Gary’s gonna hurt him. That was what had made her call home, despite her father’s warning when she’d announced the engagement. How had he put it? Something about the permanence of marriage. That once she’d gone to her husband’s house, she couldn’t come back. Surely he was just trying to scare his nineteen-year-old daughter into taking it seriously, or calling it off. But what he’d done was scare her out of asking for help.

Until she had. In the end, to Teresa’s relief and amazement, her parents welcomed her back with open arms. They’d all missed each other. Her parents had missed being the kind of grandparents they couldn’t be when Gary was limiting their visits. Teresa had missed being someone’s child, the love and protection that came with it. In the beginning she’d watched Matt’s caution with her father: he’d been slow to warm up. But she’d seen nothing like that in the younger two and reasoned they were simply too young for what had happened to have any lasting effect. Children are so resilient, or so she’d thought. Ben was her sensitive boy. Always more apt to cry than shake a fist. He was a quiet, moody teenager, but never got into trouble. When had he become angry and violent? She had missed it.

How could she have missed it?

Teresa shimmied to the middle of the queen-sized bed, put on her glasses and opened her book. It had taken several years, but she was used to it by now, the luxury of having it all to herself. And that was how she had come to see it: a luxury.

She flipped through the paperback, trying to find her place without a bookmark. Amy knocked lightly and pushed the door open.

She looked above the rims of her glasses to see her daughter. Amy’s skirt was too short, but it wasn’t Teresa’s job any more to tell her.
Or was it?
‘Going out?’

‘Yep.’ Amy’s blonde hair was flat-ironed. Her lips were a deep shade of red. She was beautiful and young and trying too hard.

‘What time is it?’ Teresa asked.

‘Ten.’

‘And you’re just going out now?’

Amy smiled her crooked smile and rolled her eyes at her mother. ‘Yes, Mom. It’s Friday night.’

Teresa nodded.

‘Don’t wait up.’

It was Teresa’s turn to roll her eyes. ‘I’m just going to read my chapter.’

Amy turned to go, then turned back. ‘Are we doing family dinner tomorrow?’

Teresa scrunched up her face and pretended to think about it. ‘Just Matt, I think.’

Amy ventured closer and sat on the edge of the bed. She smelt like her plumeria body spray. ‘Did you talk to Ben?’

Teresa nodded again.

‘About Riley?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Do you think they’ll get back together?’

Teresa swallowed hard. ‘I don’t think so, babe.’

‘I liked her.’ Amy pouted.

‘I know.’ Teresa placed a hand over her daughter’s on the bedspread. ‘So did I.’

Teresa remembered Riley as such a sweet, sweet girl. She had a great, unselfconscious laugh. She and Ben were always holding hands, no over-the-top displays of affection. Just simple. Teresa had thought it was love.

Amy’s smooth brow furrowed. ‘You okay, Mom?’

Teresa blinked. ‘Yep. Just tired.’

Amy smiled broadly, then shook her head. ‘I hope you make it through your chapter.’ She leaned in for a quick hug.

Teresa held her, brushing the girl’s huge dangly earrings with her fingertips. ‘You don’t need any of this stuff.’

Amy pulled away and made a face. ‘I know.’ She got to her feet, tugging her skirt down. ‘I just like it.’

‘Okay,’ Teresa said, giving in. It didn’t seem fair that she couldn’t transfer her life lessons directly into her daughter’s head, that Amy would have to figure it all out on her own schedule. She would, though. She was a smart girl. Smarter than Teresa remembered being at that age.

Teresa watched her go, listened to the
clickety-click
of her fancy shoes on the tiles, the
clang
of the security door, the
zush
of her car driving away. Then she set her book on the nightstand, took off her glasses and turned out the light.

Teresa had been working toward her nursing degree when she’d met Gary, and dropped out when they moved to Phoenix. When she arrived on her parents’ doorstep, three kids in tow, she was thirty years old and had never had a real job in her life.

For months, the six of them crowded the dinner table. Teresa did her best to keep their presence as inconspicuous as possible. She’d hush the boys, chase Amy around the yard and try to keep toys out from underfoot. She got a part-time job working at a grocery store. Her mother looked after Amy, and Teresa was always home before school got out.

After her first week, she tried to sign her paycheck over to her father, but he refused. ‘It’s not enough,’ he said.

Teresa’s face grew hot and she struggled to breathe. Did he want her working full-time? What about the boys? Her head swam.

He looked up from his desk to see her standing, deflated, holding her insignificant earnings. ‘No, no, no,’ he said, realizing what she thought he’d meant. He pushed his chair back from his desk. ‘You’ve got three kids. A grocery-store bagger won’t cut it.’

Teresa wanted to argue that she wasn’t a bagger, but she suspected that wasn’t his point.

He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I was paying for nursing school and I’m happy to pay for you to finish.’

Teresa was too desperate to refuse. She was learning that pride was a luxury. So, instead, she dissolved into a weepy mess. Her father stammered and fidgeted until her mother came to rescue them from the discomfort of an overt emotional display.

There was no way to
finish
nursing school: Teresa’s credits no longer counted. But she qualified as a licensed practical nurse and started working at the Whispering Pines Nursing Home. When Amy started kindergarten, Teresa went back for her registered nurse’s licence. The nursing home helped pay for that and she was able to buy the house, without help from anyone, when Matt was a junior in high school. Whenever they met her parents for dinner, her father would reach for the bill and she’d snatch it away. ‘
Psh
,’ she’d say.

The house was a bit of a fixer-upper; that was why she’d been able to afford the down-payment. But Teresa wasn’t daunted. She took some classes at Home Depot, became an expert with a caulk gun and made the boys earn their allowance. She retiled the upstairs bathroom with minimal help from Eddie the plumber.

Before Eddie had left that day, he asked Teresa to dinner. He asked all casual-like, as if it didn’t really matter if she said no, as if this was just something people did. Teresa was thirty-six and hadn’t shaved her legs above the knee in six years. Eddie was thinning on top but he had nice eyes and he hadn’t talked to her like she was an idiot woman, the way a lot of those construction types were fond of doing. Teresa smeared her grouty fingers on her blue jeans and shrugged.
Why not?

They met at a hole-in-the-wall Mexican place Teresa had never heard of. He showed her a picture of his son, who’d just joined the air force. It was one of those wallet-sized photos with the flag in the background. Teresa retold a joke of Amy’s and didn’t botch the punch line. It was going well. Then Eddie slapped the table to emphasize a point. Something about the election. The silverware jumped and Teresa burst into tears. He was perplexed and deeply apologetic, which only made it worse. She was glad they had taken separate cars.

She found another plumber. He was older than her father and hardly spoke English. He reminded her of the old men she took care of at work. They got along great.

When Riley was younger, she’d always made friends with the strays. The fat girl. The girl who never brushed her hair. The smelly kid. Her teachers always sat her next to the one who needed a little extra help. In first grade, she spent recess in the coat closet, teaching Matthew Conner to read. When one of the popular girls told her to choose between playing with them or the chubby girl, Riley was disgusted. She refused and went over to Trudy who was by herself at the jungle gym. She played with Trudy without another thought to the girls who thought she should rather play with them. She didn’t even think she had made a sacrifice.

When Riley told Carol these things, she was proud the way a mother should be. Still, she worried sometimes that it might hurt Riley one day. Girls could be so cruel. And popularity seemed to get more important with every passing year. She’d seen it with Riley’s brother. The compromises he made, the risks he took to impress. He’d been in a fistfight on a dare. Came home with a bloody nose and no good reason. Girls were different. They could ruin you with a whisper, a glance. It comforted her when Riley befriended a boy in second grade. That friendship stuck. They took care of each other.