Water from Stone - a Novel (29 page)

“Where’s home for you?”

“Ohio. I grew up on a farm there.”

“You grew up on a farm? You don’t seem farmer-ish.”

“Oh, I can probably still milk a cow and plow a field.”

“It’s funny how you see someone in one setting and think you know all about them,” Mar wraps her arms around her legs and lays her head on her knees. “I’m not from here. Growing up, I would never have imagined I’d end up here. Or anywhere, really, other than the Keys.”

“A Florida girl.”

“Well, the Keys. The rest of the state is something else.”

“Will you ever go back?”

Mar uncurls herself and reaches for her wine. “I don’t know. A few years ago I’d have said that I’d never go back, but my dad is getting on. He says he wants to move here, to be near me and Lizzie, but I can’t imagine him anywhere but the Keys. I know he would move here, but he’d be miserable.”

Mar picks up the bottle and tops off their glasses. “There,” she says, pointing, “another shooting star.”

Jack nods and toasts the star.

After a while, Mar says, “I know you don’t know me, but is everything OK?”

Jack pulls his eyes from the sky and looks at her. “What do you mean?”

“Upstairs, earlier, you seemed upset. Is there something I can do?”

Jack shakes his head, no, and his eyes break away from hers.

“I’m a real good listener. If you want to talk.”

“No. Thanks, but I’m fine. Anyway, I should go find Sy.” But he doesn’t get up.

“I was married,” Jack finally says. “My wife wanted, no, we wanted, children so badly and Lizzie, she reminds me of her. That dimple, her hair.”

Mar sits quietly so as not to distract him. When he finally speaks again, his voice is raw. “She died. She was killed. In an accident. In a car accident. It’s still…” he shakes his head.

“I know,” Mar smiles sadly. “I know. I’m sorry”

They sit in silence then, watching the fire spark, sipping their wine, their thoughts all their own, but Mar is aware of a connection of sorts that runs like a current between them.

Jack turns to look at Mar. “Sy told me. About your husband.”

“Did he now?” Mar asks, but she doesn’t feel her usual bitterness. “Diane must have told him. It’s a story, you know? I mean, it’s unusual, probably pretty interesting if it didn’t happen to you.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“No, it’s OK.” She shifts in her chair so she is turned to him. “It’s strange, you know? People hear about it and all of a sudden I’m the woman whose husband got eaten by sharks on their honeymoon. It’s almost like I’m not me anymore. I’m this person to be pitied and talked about.”

Jack nods, “As if the tragedy defines you.”

“Exactly,” Mar smiles. “Exactly. See? You understand.”

They fall back into silence, enjoying the stars, the occasional meteor speeding across the heavens, the warmth of the fire.

“He also told me about Max,” Jack tells her.

“Max?”

“God, here I go again. I’m sorry. I just, Sy said. No, I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

Mar’s fingernails dig into her palms. She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “Again.”

“It’s one of those nights, isn’t it?” Mar whispers. “Like at camp? When you’re young and you share your deepest, darkest secrets with these people in your tent because in the moment it seems like the night will go on forever and you have to get it off your chest.”

“You don’t have to say anything.”

“No, I mean, it’s like that. You spill your guts thinking these people understand me and we’ll be best friends forever and then the next morning you hate yourself and you spend the next two weeks avoiding them and being petrified they’ll tell everyone your secrets.”

“It’s not like that. I just…Anyway, Sy shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No. Diane shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Then Sy shouldn’t have. And I shouldn’t have.”

Suddenly, Mar begins to laugh. It is a soft laugh, a sad laugh, but it is a laugh just the same. “Do you know? It really is OK. I think I’d like to talk about Max tonight. And if? In the morning? If you run around and tell everyone? That’ll be OK, too. I think it’s time to let him go.”

“Mar, I’m sorry.”

“No. I mean it. But first? First, more wine.”

Seventy-Three

Jack.

What am I doing here?
Jack asks himself as Mar disappears into the house. He pulls out his phone and looks at it, wills Sy to call him, to give him an excuse to break away. He is supposed to be talking to her, to let her know who he really is, what is really happening, not this, not getting to know her, not getting to like her.

“I hope you liked that wine,” Mar says, shutting the back door softly behind her. “I brought another bottle.”

“It’s great,” Jack tells her.

“Good, here,” she hands him the corkscrew, “ you open while I go grab some cheese and crackers.”

As Jack uncorks the wine, he tries to think of a way to broach the subject to Mar. His mind is blank.

Mar returns and places a plate of cheese, crackers, meats and olives on the small table in front of their chairs. When she is tucked once again into her blanket, she holds out her glass to him.

“To Max,” she smiles.

“To Max,” Jack agrees, enjoying how the light flickers across her features.

“He’s how I first became a foster mother,” Mar begins, turning toward Jack. “He was really cute, funny cute.  He had these huge, brown eyes and long, long lashes. Women would kill for those lashes. Anyway, when he came to me, he was this skinny little thing, just a little kid. I don’t know why I did it, I was pretty much a basket case myself, and new to Boulder and all. I’d met Shirley, I told you, she’s the one who runs the children’s center? Anyway, I’d met her in a supermarket and she invited me over for coffee. Before I knew it, I was spending more and more time there, just playing with the kids, helping out.” Mar closes her eyes, a smile on her lips, and Jack can almost see it in his own head.

“So one day I’m there and Shirley asks me if I’d ever thought of being a foster parent. I told her I never had. Hell, I didn’t think I was much good at taking care of myself and my dog, much less a kid. I mean, what do you even say to a kid? Especially a kid who’s been through whatever to make them a foster kid? But, I started to think about it. I mean, a lot of these kids had been abused or neglected and just needed a safe place to be, you know? Just to be. So what if I fed them pizza three times a day, or let them play in the mud? It’s not like that was going to hurt them.”

Mar’s voice trails off and Jack finds himself wanting to bend down and kiss her, to taste the memory that is playing in her soft smile.

“Anyway,” Mar picks up the story, “I applied, went through the whole investigation thing, came out ‘clean’ and, before I knew it, Shirley was calling me about this little girl, Sandra. Her mother had been caught shoplifting and got a thirty day sentence. Sandra was great. She was terrified because, who was I? But I just treated it like an adventure, an extended sleep-over. Anyway, her mom was out on good behavior in two weeks and Sandra went home. Well, that was easy, I thought. I can do this. And then Shirley called me. About Max.”

Her voice drops to a whisper and Jack finds himself moving in closer. “He was beautiful. I mean, maybe not physically gorgeous, I don’t mean that, though he was cute as hell. I mean, his bearing. Here’s this little kid, his world’s all messed up. He’d been abused, kicked around, punched, beaten. Starved. His mother was a druggie, a real winner. She whored around, stole, whatever. Once, she was taken to jail and ‘forgot’ to tell anyone she had a kid at home. Left him there by himself for three weeks. He was just four-years-old, drinking out of the toilet, eating whatever he could find in the kitchen, ketchup, that kind of thing, being real quiet so he wouldn’t get caught, get in trouble. That was the first time he went into foster care. When the mother got out, she did rehab and got him back. About a month later, the boyfriend showed up again and beats the crap out of her because she doesn’t have any drugs for him. They come up with this idea that they can sell Max for drug money. And, they do. They sell him to some guy who rapes him for a week until he needs money and so he sells Max to another abuser. And so it goes, at least another couple of times, until finally someone leaves him outside an emergency room. Max spent time in the hospital and then went to Shirley’s for placement. And she called me. I got there and there’s this little kid, sitting there so straight, refusing to look up at me, but holding himself there so quiet. I’m trying not to cry and grab him into my arms, and he’s just trying to be composed, scared out of his little mind.

“I took him home, and it was so amazing. At first, he was just so good, yes ma’am, no ma’am, not daring to ask for anything, afraid to do anything that would draw attention to himself. I’d take him for ice cream and he’d only eat a few bites, like he was afraid he’d get in trouble for wanting something. Or, we’d go to a movie and all the other kids would be laughing like crazy and he’d just stare at the screen, not letting himself enjoy it. After a couple of months, I was feeling like such a failure. I was ready to call Shirley and tell her to find him another home, someone who could get through to him, and I’m sitting on the floor of my studio, crying my eyes out. I thought he was in bed, when suddenly I feel this little hand patting me on the back and saying, ‘
shhhhh, it’s alright Mar, it’s gonna be OK
.’”

Mar looks up at Jack, her eyes pooled with unshed tears. “Can you believe it? This little kid trying to comfort me, after all he’d been through? I just lost it, grabbed him, and hugged him, and cried, and told him how much I loved him, and how scared I was I wasn’t taking good care of him. And pretty soon, while I’m rocking him and holding him, he puts his arms around my neck and tells me he loves me. This beautiful little boy loved me.”

As the tears begin to flow, Mar’s words quicken, as if she has to get the rest of the story out before she loses her nerve. “By that time, Max’s mother was dead. She’d been killed by her pimp, not that she’d ever have gotten custody of him again. I talked to Shirley about adopting him, and had started on the process, and then one day, Shirley called me. There was an aunt that no one had been able to find before. Suddenly, she shows up and wants him. But she’s got no real job, lives in a dump, had problems with drugs in the past. It was obvious she just saw him as a meal ticket, but she’s blood, so it has to go before a judge.

“We get there, and I’m so sure it’s going to go well for Max and me. I make a good living, the social worker was on my side, Max was doing so well with me. But, do you know what that fucking judge did? He decided that since Max was black, living with me could ‘confuse his racial self-image.’ Can you believe it? He gave Max to that freak because we had different skin colors? The day they took him away, he was traumatized, he wouldn’t let me go, and this nasty woman comes and drags him off of me, actually slaps him on the head and tells him to stop sniveling while she’s dragging him down to her beat-up car. And the social worker’s there, telling me that I can’t do anything but file an appeal.”

Mar sits up, tears flowing down her face, her eyes glazed, seeing a different time and space. “A week later, he was dead. She’d locked him in a closet while she ‘entertained’ some pusher. After he left, she passed out with a lit crack pipe in her hands. It lit a bunch of trash on the floor, started a fire. Somehow, she got out, but she was too fucked up to tell the firemen about the little kid in the closet. He burned to death because our skin was different colors.”

Jack gathers her in his arms and rocks Mar until her tears finally ease. What else can he do? As he holds her and listens to the sounds of her sorrow, he pushes the damp hair from her forehead, gently kisses her eyes, tastes the salt of her tears, smells the scents of Mar. And hates himself for it, even as he can’t help himself.

Seventy-Four

Mar.

Mar leaves her curtains open and they undress one another by moonlight. This is not the rushed madness she felt with Kevin, or the sweet inevitability of Joaquin. This coming together feels almost hallowed, as if, finally, two halves are coming together as one.

Seventy-Five

Jack.

Jack turns to the soft noise, opens his eyes and startles. A face, a very small face, is inches from his own and is scrutinizing him intently. “Lizzie,” he whispers.

“Hello,” she says.

Jack glances over at Mar. She is sound asleep, head buried under a pillow, her arms flung above her head. He turns back to Lizzie. “Uh, hello,” he whispers.

“Are you gonna get up now?” she asks. “I’m hungry.”

“Uh, sure,” he says. He has no idea where his clothes are or how he is going to manage to get into them. He looks around her and down at the floor. Thank god. His clothes are there. “Um, why don’t you go downstairs and I’ll meet you in the kitchen?” he suggests.

“I’m not allowed to go down by myself.”

“Right.” Jack reaches down and grabs his boxers. He pulls them under the covers and fumbles them on.

“What are you doing?” Lizzie asks.

“Nothing,” Jack says and then, because he can think of no other way, he points to his shirt and asks her to hand it to him.

“Picasso has to pee,” Lizzie informs him as he sits up and pulls the shirt over his head.

“Do you have to pee?” Jack asks her.

Lizzie considers this a moment and then says, “OK. I’ll be right back.”

As soon as she is out of the door, Jack swings out of bed and grabs his pants off the floor. He pulls them on in record time and is just slipping on his shoes when he hears the toilet down the hall flush. He meets Lizzie in the hallway.

“Did you wash your hands?” he asks.

“Yep. They’re still wet. See?” she slips one hand into his and pulls him toward the stairs.

When they enter the kitchen, Lizzie points to the painting of Joaquin. “That’s my daddy,” she tells him. “He’s dead.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack says.

Lizzie shrugs. “It’s OK. I didn’t know him. Do you know how to make pancakes? I like pancakes.”

***

Twenty minutes later, just as Jack eases the first pancake from the pan, Mar walks into the kitchen.

“Mommy!” Lizzie yells. “Jack’s making me pancakes.”

“She was hungry,” Jack tells Mar.

“Thank you,” Mar says, clearly embarrassed. “I didn’t hear her get up.”

Mar is wearing gray fleece pajama bottoms, an oversize t-shirt and slippers. Somehow, it works for her. “I’m sorry,” Jack says. “I meant to be gone...”

“No, that’s OK,” she answers, though it is clear that it is not, that she wishes Lizzie hadn’t found him in her bed.

“Now that you’re up,” Jack tells her, “I should go.”

“No, stay. Really,” she emphasizes. “Have breakfast with us.”