Текст книги "On the Island"

Автор книги: Tracey Garvis-Graves

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

Chapter 65 – Anna

Bo and I walked the city streets for hours. His leash came unhooked one warm day in September, and I spent a frantic ten minutes trying to catch up with him as he galloped down the sidewalk, weaving through the crowd. I finally got close enough to grab his collar, and I snapped the leash back on, relieved. A little boy stood a few steps away, watching from an open doorway that faced the street. The sign above his head read Family Shelter.

“Is that your dog?” he asked. He wore a striped T-shirt and needed a haircut. Freckles dotted his nose and cheeks.

I stood up and led Bo over to him. “Yes. His name is Bo. Do you like dogs?”

“Yeah. ‘Specially yellow ones.”

“He’s a golden retriever. He’s five years old.”

“I’m five years old!” he said, his face lighting up.

“What’s your name?”

“Leo.”

“Well, Leo, you can pet Bo if you want to. You have to be gentle with animals, though, okay?”

“Okay.” He stroked Bo’s fur carefully, looking at me out of the corner of his eye to see if I noticed how gentle he was being. “I better go. Henry said not to leave the doorway. Thanks for letting me pet your dog.” He hugged Bo and before I could say goodbye, he darted back inside. Bo strained at his leash, wanting to follow him.

“Come on, Bo,” I said, pulling firmly. Leading him from the doorway, we walked back home.

I went back the next day, alone. Two women, one with a baby on her hip, lingered near the entrance.

“Hey, white girl, Bloomie’s is that way.” She pointed while her friend laughed.

I ignored her and walked through the doorway. Once inside, I scanned the room for Leo. It was Monday, and there weren’t any kids around. Under federal law, all children were guaranteed an education whether they had a permanent residence or not. Thankfully, the parents at the shelter appeared to be taking advantage of that right.

A man walked up to me, wiping his hands on a dishtowel. Mid-fifties, I guessed. He wore jeans, a faded, nondescript polo shirt, and tennis shoes.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“My name is Anna Emerson.”

“Henry Elings,” he said, shaking my outstretched hand.

“There was a little boy yesterday. I met him when he was standing in the doorway. He liked my dog.” Henry smiled and waited patiently for me to get to the point. “I was wondering if you needed any volunteers.”

“We need a lot of things here. Volunteers are definitely one of them.” His eyes were kind and his tone was mild but he’d probably heard this kind of thing before. Housewives and junior leaguers from the suburbs, swooping in intermittently so they could brag to their book clubs about how they were making a difference.

“Our residents’ needs are very basic,” he continued. “Food and shelter. They don’t always smell the best. A bath can be a low priority compared to a hot meal and a bed.”

I wondered if he recognized my name, or my face from the pictures in the newspaper. If he did, he didn’t mention it. “I’ve been dirty, and I don’t really care how anyone smells. I know what it’s like to be hungry and thirsty, and without shelter. I have plenty of time and I’d like to spend some of it here.”

Henry smiled. “Thank you. We’d like that.”

I started arriving at the shelter around 10:00 a.m. every day, joining the other volunteers in preparing and serving lunch. Henry encouraged me to bring Bo.

“Most of the kids here love animals. Not many of them have ever had a pet.”

The younger children who weren’t in school yet spent hours playing with Bo. He never growled when they stroked his fur a little too rough or tried to ride him like a pony. After lunch, I read to the kids. Their exhausted and stressed-out mothers warmed to me as I held their toddlers and babies on my lap. In the late afternoon, the school-aged kids returned, and I helped them with their homework, insisting they complete it before we played any of the board games I bought at Target.

Leo could usually be found at my side, eager to share everything that happened at school. His enthusiasm for kindergarten didn’t surprise me; most kids loved a secure classroom environment, the homeless even more so. Many of them didn’t own books or art supplies and they loved learning songs in music class and running around on the playground at recess.

“I’m learning how to read, Miss Anna!”

“I’m so happy that you’re excited about reading, Leo.” I hugged him. “That’s wonderful.”

He smiled so brightly I thought he would burst, but then his expression turned serious.

“I’m gonna learn real good, Miss Anna. Then I’m gonna teach my dad.”

Dean Lewis, Leo’s dad, was twenty-eight, had been out of work for almost a year, and was one of only two single dads living at the shelter. I sat down next to him after dinner. He eyed me warily. “Hi, Dean.”

He nodded. “Miss Anna.”

“How’s the job search going?”

“I haven’t found one yet.”

“What kind of work did you do before?”

“Line cook. I was at the same restaurant for seven years. Started out washin’ dishes and worked my way up.”

“What happened?”

“Owner fell on hard times. Had to sell. The new boss fired us all.”

We watched Leo play a spirited game of tag with two other children. “Dean?”

“Yeah.”

“I think I might be able to help you.”

It turned out that Dean could read a little bit. He’d memorized common words – and the entire menu at the diner where he worked – but he struggled to fill out job applications and he’d never filed for unemployment after losing his job because he couldn’t decipher the forms. A friend had helped him fill out an application at an Italian restaurant, but they fired him after three days because he couldn’t read the orders.

“Are you dyslexic?’ I asked him.

“What’s that mean?”

“The letters don’t seem like they’re in the right order.”

“No. They’re fine. I just can’t read ’em.”

“Did you graduate high school?”

He shook his head. “Ninth grade.”

“Where’s Leo’s mom?”

“No clue. She was twenty when he was born, and when he turned one, she said she couldn’t handle being a mom anymore, not that she ever acted like one. We couldn’t afford cable, but we had an old T.V. and VCR and she’d watch movies all day long. I’d come home from the restaurant and Leo would be screaming and crying, his diaper soakin’ wet, or worse. She took off one day and never came back. I had to find daycare and we already lived paycheck to paycheck. Once I lost my job, it didn’t take long to fall behind on the rent.” Dean looked down at his feet. “Leo deserves better.”

“I think Leo’s pretty lucky,” I said.

“How can you say that?”

“Because at least one of his parents cares. That’s more than some kids get.”

For the next two months, I worked with Dean every day, from the time lunch ended, until the time Leo and the other kids came home from school. Using phonics workbooks, I taught him the various combinations of letters, and soon I had him reading Goodnight Moon and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See? to the toddlers. He was often frustrated, but I pushed him hard, building his confidence by praising him whenever he mastered a challenging lesson.

When I returned home from the shelter after serving dinner, I went for a long run. September turned to October, and I added more layers and kept going. One day in November, Bo and I stopped to get the mail. I pulled out a few bills and a magazine and there it was. A regular sized envelope with T.J.’s name and address handwritten in the upper left-hand corner.

I hurried upstairs and unlocked the door to my apartment, unclipping Bo from his leash. When I opened it and read what was inside, I started crying.

***

“Open the goddamned door, Anna. I know you’re in there,” Sarah yelled.

I was lying on the couch staring at the ceiling. The last twenty-four hours worth of Sarah’s voice mails and texts had gone unanswered, and it was only a matter of time before she showed up at my apartment.

I opened the door. Sarah charged into the apartment, but I sidestepped her and went back to the couch.

“Well at least I know you’re alive,” she said, standing over me. She took in my appearance, her eyes flicking from my messy hair down to my wrinkled pajamas. “You look like hell. Have you even showered today? Or yesterday?”

“Oh, Sarah, I can go a lot longer than that without a shower.” I pulled a fleece blanket over my legs and Bo rested his head on my lap.

“When’s the last time you went to the shelter?”

“A few days ago,” I mumbled. “I told Henry I was sick.”

Sarah sat down on the couch. “Anna, talk to me. What happened?”

I went into the kitchen and returned with an envelope. Handing it to Sarah I said, “I got this in the mail the other day. It’s from T.J.”

She opened it and pulled out a business card from a sperm bank. Under the phone number it said, I made arrangements.

“I don’t understand,” Sarah said.

“Look on the back.”

She flipped it over. On the back, he’d scrawled in case you never find him.

”Oh Anna,” Sarah said. She pulled me into her arms and held me while I cried.

Sarah convinced me to take a shower while she took care of dinner. I padded back into the living room with my wet hair combed back, wearing a clean pair of flannel pajama pants and a sweatshirt.

“Don’t you feel better now?” Sarah asked.

“Yes.” I sat down on the couch and pulled on thick socks. Sarah handed me a glass of red wine.

“I ordered Chinese,” she said. “It should be here any minute.”

“Okay. Thanks.” I took a sip of wine and set my glass on the table.

She sat down beside me. “That was quite an offer T.J. made.”

“Yes.” Tears welled up in my eyes again and spilled onto my cheeks. I wiped them away with the back of my hand. “But there’s no way I could ever hold a baby in my arms that had his eyes, or his smile, if I couldn’t have him, too.” I picked up my glass and took another drink of my wine. “John would never have done something so selfless.”

Sarah wiped a tear I’d missed. “That’s because John was kind of an asshole.”

“I’ll go back to the shelter in the morning. I just had a rough patch.”

“It’s okay. It happens.”

“I never loved John the way I loved T.J.”

“I know.”

***

I dragged a Christmas tree up the stairs and shoved it through the doorway of my apartment. When I finished decorating it, my first tree in four years sparkled under twinkling lights and shiny ornaments. Bo and I spent hours lying in front of it, listening to Christmas music.

I helped Henry decorate the tree at the shelter, too. The kids pitched in, hanging the snowflake ornaments we made out of construction paper and glitter.

Dean received an early Christmas gift. He’d filled out an application at a nearby restaurant and they’d hired him two weeks ago. Reading the orders the waitresses thrust at him wasn’t a problem anymore, and he turned the food around fast, quickly earning himself a reputation as a hard worker. He used his first paycheck to put down a deposit on a furnished apartment. I co-signed the lease, paying the first year’s rent up front. He didn’t want to accept it, but I convinced him to, for Leo’s sake. “Pay it forward someday, Dean.”

“I will,” he promised, hugging me. “Thank you, Anna.”

I spent Christmas Eve with David, Sarah, and the kids. We watched Joe and Chloe open their gifts, wrapping paper flying, and spent the next hour assembling toys and installing batteries. David played so many video games on the PlayStation I bought for Joe that Sarah threatened to unplug it.

“What is it about video games that turn men back into boys?” she asked.

“I don’t know, but they all love ’em, don’t they?”

Chloe strummed her Barbie guitar, loudly, and after an hour of listening to it, I made a mental note not to buy her any more instruments. I wandered into the kitchen where it was quiet and uncorked a bottle of cabernet.

Sarah joined me a minute later. She opened the oven and checked the turkey. I poured her some wine, and we clinked our glasses together.

“To having you home to celebrate with,” Sarah said. “I remember last Christmas, how hard it was without you, and Mom and Dad. Even with David and the kids I still felt a little bit alone. Then two days later you called. Sometimes I still can’t believe it, Anna.” She set her wine down and hugged me.

I hugged her back. “Merry Christmas, Sarah.”

“Merry Christmas.”

I went to the shelter at noon on Christmas Day, bearing gifts for the kids: hand-held video games for the boys, lip gloss and costume jewelry for the girls, and stuffed animals and books for the younger kids. The babies received soft fleece blankets, diapers, and formula. Henry dressed up like Santa Claus to pass everything out. I fastened reindeer antlers to Bo’s head and tied jingle bells to his collar. He barely tolerated it.

I was reading Frosty the Snowman to a lapful of kids when Henry walked over holding an envelope. When I finished the book, I sent the kids off to play.

“Someone made an anonymous donation a couple days ago,” Henry said. He opened the envelope and showed me a cashier’s check made out for a substantial amount. “I wonder why someone would do that and not give me the opportunity to thank them,” he said.

I shrugged and handed the check back to him. “I don’t know. Maybe they didn’t want anyone to make a big deal out of it.”

That’s why.

Bo and I walked home after I helped serve Christmas dinner. A light snow was falling and the streets were empty. Without warning he bolted, yanking the leash out of my hand. I sprinted after him, stopping short a few seconds later.

T.J. stood on the sidewalk in front of my apartment. When Bo reached him, he bent down and scratched him behind the ears, looping his hand through the end of the leash. I approached, holding my breath, propelled forward by sheer longing.

He stood up and met me halfway.

“I’ve thought about you all day,” he said. “On the island, I promised that if you just held on we would spend this Christmas together, in Chicago. I will always keep my promises to you, Anna.”

I looked into his eyes and burst into tears. He opened his arms and I fell into them, crying so hard I couldn’t speak.

“Shhh, it’s okay,” he said. I buried my face in his chest, breathing in the smell of snow, of wool, of him, as he held me tight. A few minutes later, he put his hand under my chin and lifted it. He wiped my tears, as he had so many times before.

“You were right. I did need to be on my own. But some of the things you wanted me to experience already passed me by, and I can’t go back. I know what I want and it’s you, Anna. I love you, and I miss you. So much.”

“I don’t fit in your world.”

“Neither do I,” he said, his expression tender yet resolute. “So let’s make our own. We’ve done it before.”

I heard my mom’s voice in my head, almost as if she was standing beside me whispering in my ear. The same question she told me to ask myself about John.

Is your life better with him, Anna, or without him?

I decided, right then, standing on that sidewalk, to stop worrying about things that might never go wrong.

”I love you, T.J. I want you to come back.”

He held me tight and my tears flowed until his sweater was wet. I lifted my head off his chest. “I must cry more than anyone you know,” I said.

He brushed the hair back from my face and smiled. “You puke a lot, too.”

I laughed through my tears. His lips brushed mine and we stood on the sidewalk kissing, covered in snowflakes, while Bo waited patiently at our feet.

We went inside and talked for hours, lying on a blanket in front of the Christmas tree.

“I never wanted anyone else, T.J. I just wanted what was best for you.”

“You are what’s best for me,” he said, cradling my head in his arms, his legs intertwined with mine. “I’m not going anywhere, Anna. This is right where I want to be.”

Chapter 66 – T.J.

I glanced at the clock one morning two weeks later. I was still on winter break from school and Anna and I were having a late breakfast.

“I have to go out for a while and then there’s something I want to show you,” I said. “What time will you be home from the shelter?”

“I should be back by three o’clock. What is it?” she asked, setting down the newspaper.

I put on my coat and grabbed my gloves. “You’ll see.”

Later that afternoon, I parked in front of Anna’s building and opened the car door for her. Having her in the passenger seat was something I had been looking forward to.

“Are you a good driver?” she asked, when I slid behind the wheel.

I laughed. “I’m an excellent driver.”

We headed out of the city, Anna growing more curious. Ninety minutes later I said, “We’re almost there.”

I made a left off the highway and drove along the gravel road. I turned again, glad I had four-wheel drive because five inches of snow covered the driveway. Pulling up in front of a small, light blue house, I parked in front of the garage and turned off the engine.

“Come on,” I said.

“Who lives here?”

I didn’t answer her. When we got to the front door, I pulled a key out of my pocket and unlocked it.

“This is yours?” Anna asked.

“I bought it two months ago and closed on it today.” She walked in and I followed her, switching on lights. “The previous owners built it new in the eighties. I don’t think they ever changed a thing,” I said, laughing. “This blue carpeting blows.”

Anna toured every room, opening closets and commenting on the things she liked.

“It’s perfect, T.J. All it needs is a little updating.”

“Then I hope you won’t be too disappointed when I tear it down.”

“What? Why would you tear it down?”

“Come here,” I said, leading her to a window in the kitchen that looked out into the back yard. “What do you see out there?”

“Land,” she said.

“When I would take long drives, I’d pass this place and one day I pulled in and looked around. I knew right then I wanted to buy it, to have land of my own. I want to build a new house here, Anna. For us. What do you think about that?”

She turned around and smiled. “I’d love to live in a house you built T.J. Bo would love it out here, too. It’s beautiful. Peaceful.”

“That’s because we’re out in the sticks. It’ll be a long commute into the city, to the shelter.”

“That’s okay.”

I exhaled, relieved. Reaching for her hand, I wondered if she noticed mine was shaking a little. She looked shocked when I pulled the ring out of my pocket.

“I want you to be my wife. There’s no one else I want to spend the rest of my life with. We can live out here, you, me, our kids, and Bo. But I get it now, Anna. My decisions affect you, too. So now you have one of your own to make. Will you marry me?”

I held my breath, waiting to slide the ring on her finger. Her blue eyes lit up and a smile spread across her face.

She said yes.

Chapter 67 – Anna

Ben and Sarah met us at the Cook County Courthouse in March. A spring snowstorm was bearing down on the Chicago area and T.J. and I – wearing jeans, sweaters and boots – had chosen warmth over fashion.

Getting married in front of a judge might not have been the most romantic choice, but I’d vetoed a church wedding. I couldn’t imagine walking down the aisle if it wasn’t on my dad’s arm. David had offered, but it wouldn’t have been the same. A destination wedding, somewhere tropical – an island perhaps – wasn’t an option either.

“Your mom is not going to be happy about missing this,” I said. Jane Callahan had been surprisingly accepting of our engagement; maybe she decided that opposing it would do no good. She already had two daughters, but she’d done a wonderful job welcoming a third, and I had no desire to upset her.

“She has Alexis and Grace,” T.J. said, waving his hand dismissively. “She can go to their weddings.”

While we waited for them to call our names a man, probably wearing every item of clothing he owned, circulated through the waiting couples trying to sell wilted bouquets of flowers, his boots held together by duct tape. Many shunned him, wrinkling their noses at his long, unwashed beard and straggly hair. T.J. bought every flower he had and took a picture of me holding them in my arms.

When it was our turn, Ben and Sarah stood up with us while we spoke our vows. The brief ceremony took less than five minutes; Sarah dissolved into a puddle of tears anyway. Ben was speechless and, according to T.J., that didn’t happen very often.

T.J. dug our wedding bands out of the front pocket of his Levi’s. He slid the ring on my finger and held out his left hand. When the gold band was in place, I smiled.

The judge said, “By the power vested in me in Cook County, I hereby pronounce Thomas James Callahan and Anna Lynn Emerson legally wed. Congratulations.”

“Is this the part where I kiss her?” T.J. asked.

“Go ahead,” the judge said, scrawling his signature on the marriage license.

T.J. leaned in, and it was a good kiss.

“I love you, Mrs. Callahan.”

“I love you, too.”

T.J. held my hand when we left the courthouse. Big, lazy snowflakes fell from the sky as the four of us piled into a cab, heading to a celebratory lunch at the restaurant where Dean Lewis worked. Ten minutes later, I asked the cab driver to pull over. “It’s just a quick stop. Can you wait?” He agreed, parking in front of a nail salon. “We’ll be right back,” I told Ben and Sarah.

“You want to get your nails done now?” T.J. asked, following me out of the cab.

“No,” I said, pushing open the door. “But there’s someone I want you to meet.

When Lucy saw us she rushed over and hugged me.

“How you doing honey?”

“I’m fine, Lucy. How are you?”

“Oh fine, fine.”

I put my hand on T.J.’s arm and said, “Lucy, I want you to meet my husband.”

“This John?” she asked.

“No, I didn’t marry John. I married T.J.”

“Anna married?” At first she looked confused, but then her face lit up and she threw herself at T.J. and hugged him. “Anna married!”

“Yep,” I said. “Anna is married.”