In Broken Places (6 page)

“‘Daughter’ is fine.” I laid a hand on Bev’s arm, distracted from my embarrassment by concern for the little girl who still stared up at all four of us as if we’d suddenly sprung horns.

“You getting
ma-wied
, Shelby?” she asked, eyebrows drawn.

I rolled my eyes. Then I rolled them again for good measure. I stopped there because I felt a headache coming on. I picked Shayla up and brought our faces nose-to-nose. “Remember when we talked about this before?” My little girl nodded seriously, her knees digging into my midriff. “What did I tell you then?”

“You’re too busy to get ma-wied.”

“Right.”

Shayla pushed away from me, and I set her down on the floor. With eyes riveted on Scott, who’d been observing our exchange in amused silence, arms crossed, the pale little girl in the blue turtleneck took a step toward him and, hands on hips and forehead furrowed, stated, “She’s
not
going to ma-wy you!” She said the words with such conviction that part of me was offended.

Scott hunkered down in front of his pint-size confronter and looked very seriously into her eyes. “Do you know any jokes?” he asked.

Shayla was taken aback by the question. Then again, so was I.

She looked up and around, scanning her memory for a joke, and burst into a smile when one came to her. “Why didn’t the man see the elephants?” she asked.

Scott appeared to think hard and then give up.

“Because they were weawing sunglasses!”

Three of the four adults in the gym frowned in confusion. We
were still racking our minds for a trace of humor in Shayla’s joke when Scott chuckled and said, “See? That’s a joke. And Gus here was just making a joke when he talked about your mom getting married.”

I held my breath. I’m pretty sure Gus and Bev did too. Shayla, on the other hand, was holding nothing back. She leaned in and, in a conspiratorial whisper, said, “Gus’s joke wasn’t vewy funny.”

“Hey!” Gus was mildly insulted and immensely entertained.

“You tell ’im, Shayla!” Bev said.

“You’ll get used to them,” Scott told me, pointing his chin toward my new friends as he stood. “They grow on you.” He paused. “Kind of like a parasite, come to think of it.” He bent low to flick Shayla’s chin. “It was very nice to meet you, little girl.”

“I’m four!”

“Well then, it was very nice to meet you, big girl.”

Shayla found my hand and slunk behind my leg.

“Back to work!” Scott declared, walking toward the door to the bleachers, then turning back to level a pleasant “You two really need to get a hobby” at Gus and Bev.

We exited the building without another word spoken, but once we were well out of earshot, I turned on Gus with an incredulous “What was that?”

Bev took Shayla’s hand, crossed the street, and headed toward home. Gus patted my back as we followed after them and met my wild-eyed disbelief with a long, hearty chuckle. “Oh, Shelby,” he said when it had passed, “if you could have seen your face!”

“Do you introduce all your friends like that?” I tried to keep my voice cheerful, but there was lead spreading in my lungs.

“Only the ones I like!”

Bev said, “Actually, I don’t recall him ever doing that before.”
She smiled at me over her shoulder while Shayla gripped her hand to jump over a puddle.

There was something dirty-brown in my mind as we walked toward home. Gus’s bold introduction had destabilized the part of me I’d so carefully kept calm over the last two days of change—the part that wanted to flinch like a patient in a dentist’s chair every time something new or unexpected came along. I’d done well so far, taking all the newness in stride while I’d stifled my more natural instincts to run and hide with comfort words like “This will pass with time” and “Change never killed anyone.” I’d expected the language barriers and feelings of alienation. I’d expected the jet lag and the pervasive, gnawing lostness. But I hadn’t foreseen being introduced to a perfect stranger as his future wife. It had never crossed my mind. And it had jolted all kinds of fears and insecurities out of their carefully assigned cages.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. Well-meaning people who wanted to introduce me to every available, nonsenile bachelor they knew were old hat to me. Old hat and insulting, although I knew there was a compliment hidden under the strategy of well-planned “chance encounters,” blatant hints, and sudden disappearances that left me face-to-face with unmarried specimens of the masculine persuasion. The subtext of the ploys was positive. It said, “We think you’re too good to be wasted on a collection of stray cats.” Though I appreciated the sentiment, I also found the meddling intrusive and the exhortations belittling. I didn’t want a husband any more than I wanted a festering rash. I had never had a serious boyfriend. I had never made a list of proposal scenarios. I had never designed wedding gowns in my head. Other girls’ dreams were my “nevers,” and I intended to keep it that way. But I
had
sworn off felines years ago in an attempt to outwit the old-maid stereotype.

And here I was in Germany, with just over twenty-four hours of international living under my belt, facing the same brand of matchmaking I’d battled all my life. I wasn’t sure if it was the jet lag or the impending start of a new career or the sight of the little girl galloping like a pony ahead of me, but the overt matchmaking didn’t feel funny at all this time. It felt invasive and insensitive and just a few notches too close to impossible on my sliding scale of life’s probabilities.

SIX AND A HALF MONTHS EARLIER

“DANA’S COMING OVE
R
,”
I said to Trey, pocketing my cell phone, “so I guess you’re finally going to meet her.”

“She’s coming here?” He was arranging pastries in his display window while we talked, stacking golden croissants in a basket and flanking it with twin towers of cream-filled
religieuses
.

“She wants to drive to the lawyer’s together so we can talk on the way.” I reached into his lighted display case and grabbed a coffee éclair.

“Hey! Put that back!”

I took a bite out of one end and went to put it back on the tray.

“You can’t put it back now,” Trey said in exasperation, pulling my hand away and rearranging the remaining éclairs to mask the gap where mine had been. “You owe me a buck twenty.”

I bit off another large chunk of éclair and spoke around it. “I left my purse in the car.”

“Then you can work to pay off your debt. I have another tray of those right over there that need to be filled.”

“I’ll help you with them if you help me figure my life out.” The last piece of pastry disappeared into my mouth.

“Not exactly an even trade,” he said, reaching for the pastry tube.

“Gimme the baggie,” I muttered, grabbing the bag of vanilla pudding from his hand. Filling éclairs just might offer the kind of distraction I’d been craving. I sincerely doubted it, but it was worth a try. Trey placed a tray of baked éclair shells in front of me and I picked one up. I twisted the top of the bag to force the pudding into its metallic tip, then inserted it into the end of the éclair and squeezed until the pudding evenly filled the pastry’s belly.

“So have you seen Shayla again?” Trey appeared next to me with a bowl of frosting. He took the éclair I’d just filled and proceeded to frost it.

I nodded. My eyes felt heavy from thinking, my mind a little raw. “We had a tea party.”

“And?”

“And she’s still an amazing child. And I’m still the furthest thing from a mother.”

Trey said nothing, and we worked in silence for a while.

“He was such a great guy, wasn’t he?” I said.

Trey glanced at me. “Dad?” He’d always been able to identify daddy thought lines on my face.

I nodded.

“You mean
great
as in he-beat-the-tar-out-of-his-wife-and-kids-because-he-couldn’t-stand-a-noisy-house or
great
as in he’s-a-loser-who-should-have-died-a-painful-death-before-he-got-old-enough-to-have-kids-of-his-own?”

“
Great
as in please-God-don’t-ever-let-me-turn-into-my-father.”

“That’s highly unlikely.”

“It could happen, though. You know what they say about the apple and the tree.”

“I know what I know about you. Period. Fear of becoming Dad should have nothing to do with this decision.”

I’d grown accustomed to the heaviness in my chest and the anxiety that came in viscous, lumbering waves anytime I allowed my mind to drift. And standing there beside Trey with images of Shayla superimposing their guilt on everything I saw and touched, I felt my mettle slip again. I was caged in by the dilemma. Trapped between a life that was me-shaped and comfortable and a beautiful child who threatened the predictability that defined my bland existence. I bit my lip to stop it from trembling and looked up into my brother’s compassionate face. “Tell me what I should do, Trey.” My voice was hoarse with urgency and doubt. My fingers clenched around the éclair as my eyes blurred with tears.

Trey wrestled the damaged pastry from my grip and turned me toward him, his hands warm against my arms. “I can’t make this decision for you,” he said.

“But I can’t, either.”

“You’ve got to make it alone.”

I let out a tremulous breath and dabbed at the tears in the corners of my eyes. “But what if—?”

“You’re not Dad,” he interrupted softly, his eyes sincere and strong. Then he smiled and added, “His mustache was way fuller than yours.” He took the pastry tube from my hands and started filling éclairs.

“She looks like you,” I said.

He smiled. “Then how can you say no?”

I shook my head and bit my lip again to stanch my emotions. “Trey . . . I just don’t know.”

Chimes pealed and Dana breezed in, her purple trench coat perfectly matched to her dangly earrings and beaded necklace.

“Hello, Shelby,” she said cheerily as she walked up to the counter, looking from me to the handsome baker with the pastry bag in his hands.

“Dana, this is my brother, Trey.”

She took in the bush of blond hair, the mischievous gray-green eyes, and the general overgrown-teenager appearance and declared her approval with a heartfelt “Where’s Shelby been hiding you all this time?”

“In the back of her closet with that size-two pair of jeans she says she’s going to fit into someday.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Trey Davis,” Dana said, reaching over the counter to shake his hand. “Now if I could just remember where I left that fountain of youth . . .”

Watching the two flirting was a little disconcerting. Dana had at least fifteen years on Trey, which, coupled with a husband and three college-age kids, made flirtation pointless, but she had fallen victim to the debonair charm that had always made my brother popular with women of all ages and persuasions.

“Uh, before I turn the hose on you two, how ’bout we get going, Dana?” I rinsed off my hands and went to grab my coat from the rack near the door.

She tore her eyes from my brother’s face. “Right,” she said, reluctantly backing toward the door. “Much as I’ve enjoyed making your acquaintance, young man, I’m pretty sure it won’t stand up as a valid excuse for wasting Steve Kotz’s time!” She took my arm and walked me toward the exit. “He can only give us a half
hour, Shelby, so you and I need to figure out exactly what to ask him on our way there.”

I met Trey’s eyes as I left L’Envie. They gave me courage.

Steve Kotz was the kind of lawyer who inspired both confidence and comfort. His competence was matched by his people skills, and the framed recognitions on the wall of his office proved that the combination had served him well. He looked like a past-his-prime movie star. His features had been softened by age and weight, but the sharpness of his gaze and his thick mane of graying hair still made him look more Alan Shore than Denny Crane.

This was an unofficial, off-the-books meeting Dana had orchestrated merely to put my mind at ease. Steve invited Dana and me to sit in the two luxuriously upholstered chairs facing his mahogany desk and opened a file that bore Shayla’s name.

“So, Shelby,” he said, folding his hands on top of the file and aiming a warm half smile at me, “your life has certainly taken an unexpected turn.”

I tried to smile back, but the sound of waves in my head was making it hard for me to concentrate. It was a sound that had been coming more frequently of late, particularly when I’d tried to formulate a yes or no answer to the Shayla dilemma.

“With everything that’s happened in the last few weeks,” Dana explained to the family law specialist sitting in front of us, “we thought it might be good to get some explanations from you, Steve. It’s a complicated situation, and Shelby’s . . . well . . . she’s still kind of reeling from it all.”

Kind of reeling? Sure. Like Elizabeth Taylor is kind of beautiful and a tidal wave is kind of powerful. There was no “kind of” to my reeling. It was the full-on variety of reeling, which, coupled with the crashing waves in my head, I found exhausting.

Steve glanced down at the picture paper-clipped to the front of Shayla’s file. “She’s a beautiful little girl,” he said.

“And sharp as a tack,” Dana answered. They sounded like doting grandparents, not like the advisers I needed them to be.

“What are my options?” I asked before they launched into an inventory of Shayla’s most adorable traits. I didn’t need to like her more. I needed to make a decision. Soon.

“Well,” Steve said, glancing at the sheaf of documents in the file, “this is a perfectly valid, well-executed will. Shayla’s father certainly covered all his bases. With the amount he’s left for you in savings and investments, I’d suggest you get a financial adviser. If it’s well managed, this nest egg could make your life a lot easier.”

I didn’t care about the money. Or the condo. Or the three-generations-old cuckoo clock. “What about Shayla?”

I felt Dana glance at me, but she kept quiet, waiting for the lawyer’s response.

“His wishes are clear. He wants you to be her guardian. That doesn’t mean you
have
to be her guardian. It’s just his wish and request.”

“What about her mother?”

Steve shuffled through the papers. “It looks like she formally renounced any rights to the child—” he scanned a sheet of paper for the date—“six weeks after Shayla was born, give or take a couple days.”

“Why would anybody do that?”

“There aren’t many details in the paperwork, but Shayla’s dad added a few notes to his will, which I’m sure have been passed on to you. He just states that Shayla’s mother abandoned her shortly after the birth, that she had never wanted a child to begin with, and that the initiative to rid herself and her family of any future responsibility for the baby came entirely from her. He requested
full custody, and as her sole parent, given the mother’s voluntary termination of rights, he became a single dad.”

“And now I’m inheriting his daughter.” The concept seemed so heartless.

“Not inheriting, per se. He named you as her guardian—”

“Without my consent.”

“Without your consent. Which means you have a right to refuse Shayla.”

“But aren’t there other people—people Shayla actually knows—who should take her instead of me?”

“Not that he listed,” Steve said, his voice soft and encouraging. “A man of his age raising a child alone . . . He left you everything—including his daughter—which tells me that there probably weren’t many other people in his life. And even if there were, you’re named as his primary choice, so we’d need an answer from you before considering other options.”

I looked at Dana.

“I think Shelby needs to know what the other options are, Steve.”

He sighed. “The usual, unfortunately. We’d need to do some research into relatives Shayla’s had contact with, but again, as no one has come forward yet, I suspect we won’t find any. If that failed, she’d become a ward of the state unless something better could be worked out.”

“A foster child?” The term brought Shayla’s face to my mind in a rush of guilt and distress.

“Shelby . . .” Dana must have sensed my affliction. She reached over to pat my knee. “The foster care system isn’t what it used to be—”

“I’ve seen the documentaries, Dana.”

“The bottom line,” Steve said, “is that Shayla’s father made his
wishes clear, as these documents attest. But you are in no way obligated to take on Shayla’s guardianship. It’s up to you, Shelby.”

I felt nausea clawing at my gut. Steve straightened the documents and closed the file. I saw him hesitate before he added, “Off the record?” I nodded. “His will—the savings, the assets, the condo, Shayla—it could be a new beginning for you if you wanted to see it that way. A new life.”

I leaned forward in my chair, resting my elbows on my knees and covering my face with my hands as I expelled a deep, painful breath. Dana’s palm against my back was warm and comforting, and I wished she would make this decision for me.

“Why don’t you take a few more days to think about it,” she suggested gently. “You don’t have to start your new life just yet.”

Play tryouts—the next phase of my new life. I stood before a roomful of eager high school students and questioned my sanity, which wasn’t a very original activity. My sanity had been a frequent subject of concern in recent days. I’d questioned it while I’d unpacked a grand total of four suitcases, which contained every scrap of Shayla’s and my earthly belongings. I’d questioned it when I’d made my first trip to a grocery store and recognized only a handful of items on the shelves. I’d questioned it when I’d driven my new used car to the school for the very first time and nearly gotten broadsided while turning right on red, an illegal move in this country where driving inspired a need for drugs and therapy. I’d questioned it when I’d met my landlady and gotten only as far as
“Guten Tag”
in what would go down in history as my most awkward conversation ever. And I’d come to the absolute certainty that my sanity had migrated to another planet for the season when I’d
walked into the school’s auditorium minutes ago and come face-to-face with thirty-eight students auditioning for only ten roles.

I’d been teaching for two weeks already, and though the newness of the circumstances had posed some challenges, the familiarity of teaching English to juniors and seniors was comforting. I knew what I was doing in a classroom. There were well-tested techniques that yielded predictable results. There were curricula and study guides and mathematical assessments of progress. But in the world of theater, the only certainty I’d reached so far was that I knew nothing. And I didn’t like it.

I briefly considered being flattered by the turnout for auditions. In a school of just over three hundred students, the nervous teenagers in front of me formed a sizable chunk of the population. But there were too many other concerns on my mind to focus for long on self-congratulation. I’d never directed a play before, and the first step in the process held all the clarity and predictability of, say, a drugged sumo wrestler trying to negotiate a high wire on one foot with a piano strapped to his back. It was a metaphor smorgasbord, but it got the point across. In plainer words, I was petrified.