Joe—a fearless man of seventy—clicks on the front porch light and unlocks the door, wondering who could be knocking so late on such a stormy night.
A pretty young woman—frightened—stands in the light with two small children, a boy six, a girl four. They are all soaking wet, the boy shivering. Joe has seen this woman and her children somewhere before but can’t attach names to them.
“Come in,” he says, opening the door wide. “Wow. What a storm.”
The children hesitate, but their mother herds them in ahead of her, Joe stepping aside as they enter, the embers of the evening’s fire shimmering in the hearth at the far end of the spacious living room.
Agnes—vivacious, tireless, sixty-eight—enters from the kitchen, peers over the top of her reading glasses at the bedraggled children, and says, “Let’s get out of those wet clothes before we catch cold.”
WHEN THE CHILDREN—Kyle and Ashley—are fast asleep on the living room futon, their mother, Susan, sits with Joe and Agnes at the kitchen table and tells her story.
Pregnant and on her own at seventeen in a small town in Tennessee, she moved in with a willing older man—not the father of Kyle—who soon proved to be a vicious drunk. She ran away from him after seven months of his continuous abuse.
Three months later, in Nashville, fearing her baby boy would be taken away by the authorities, she married a smooth-talking alcoholic with whom she had Ashley, only to discover that her new mate was sexually abusing Kyle.
She fled again and spent two terrifying years raising her children in homeless shelters and abandoned buildings.
Exhausted and suicidal, she married a New Orleans policeman who seemed at first to be a knight in shining armor and turned out to be a sadistic psychopath. After being held prisoners for nine months in his fortress-like home, she pulled off an elaborate escape and hitchhiked with her children across America to California.
Since their arrival in the golden state, she and Kyle and Ashley have been sleeping in abandoned cars, gathering cans and bottles to redeem for cash, and going door-to-door offering to wash windows and pull weeds.
Susan and her children know Joe from a chance meeting at the community garden. They had gone there to look for clothes and food in the Free Box, and Joe was weeding and watering the three plots belonging to his household. He gave Susan a bag of zucchini and broccoli, and invited the children to help him harvest the hundreds of ripe cherry tomatoes, most of which he insisted they take with them.
“So a while later we were in this neighborhood picking up cans and bottles,” she explains, “and Kyle saw you come down your driveway on your bike, and he said, ‘Hey, Mama; that’s the cherry tomato man,’ so that’s how we knew where you lived. So today when they towed our car away with all our stuff, and the storm hit, I didn’t know what else to do, so . . .”
She bows her head and weeps. Agnes puts her arms around her and says, “Don’t worry, dear. You’re safe now.”
AT BREAKFAST, SUSAN and Kyle and Ashley make the acquaintance of the two other adults—Seth and Marlene—who share the house with Joe and Agnes. They are a Buddhist household, members of a loose-knit community comprising a dozen homes in the vicinity and several others scattered across the country. The sangha convenes on Thursday evenings at the local Unitarian church for a dharma talk and meditation, and to keep everyone abreast of what’s happening in the community.
Swamping his blueberry pancakes in maple syrup, Seth—a lanky man of sixty—says, “You know, I think there’s a room open at Larue’s house.” He looks directly at Kyle. “You know who lives at Larue’s house?”
“Who?” says Kyle, his mouth full of pancake.
“Danny,” says Marlene—a big, round woman of forty-six. “He’s been dying to live with people his own age.”
“Is he six?” asks Ashley, eating with her fingers despite her mother’s protestations. “Cuz Kyle’s six and I’m four only I’m almost five.”
“Nuh uh.” Kyle glowers at her. “You just turned four.”
“I believe Danny is five,” says Seth, winking at Ashley. “Going on thirty-seven.”
“I’ll call Larue,” says Agnes, resting her hands on Susan’s shoulders. “See if we can come over and take a look at the room.”
“Oh, no,” says Susan, shaking her head. “You’ve done so much already. I’m just gonna get the kids cleaned up and we’ll get out of here.”
“Rained two inches last night,” says Joe, coming in the back door with an armload of firewood. “Gonna rain all day. You want to help me start a fire, Kyle?”
“Yeah!” He jumps down from his chair. “I love fires.”
“I wanna help, too,” says Ashley, wiping her hands on her sweatshirt.
“No!” Kyle folds his arms and glares at the ground. “He asked me.”
“I was hoping you’d help me make cookies,” says Marlene, nodding hopefully at Ashley.
“I’ll help you make cookies, too,” says Kyle, following Joe into the living room. “After we get the fire going.”
“There’s plenty of work for everybody,” says Joe, kneeling by the fireplace and dropping his load of wood. “No need to fight about it.”
Kyle starts to cry. “But you asked me, not her.”
“That’s true,” says Joe, feeling himself about to cry, too. “Thanks for pointing that out. My fault.”
“Larue?” says Agnes, smiling into the phone. “Wonder if you could come over sometime today. I want you to meet a friend of ours. She and her two kids are looking for a room to rent. I just thought . . .” She listens. “Two rooms? Even better. Yeah, we’re making rainy-day cookies. Come on by.”
“I’m gonna miss my bus if I don’t hurry,” says Seth, gulping the last of his coffee. “Marlene, might I prevail upon you to wash my dishes? I will credit your karmic account accordingly.”
“I’ll do the dishes,” says Susan, jumping up. “I’ll clean the kitchen, wash the windows. Heck, I’ll clean the whole house if you’ll let me.”
“Let you?” Seth bows to her. “If anybody tries to stop you, they’ll have to deal with me.”
THREE DAYS LATER at Larue’s house, Danny, who is going to be six, shows Kyle and Ashley around the place and introduces them to the two cats, Felix and Mr. Boo, the three rats, Clyde, Lorna, and Ringo, the four nameless goldfish, and Herman, the enormous golden retriever.
Meanwhile, Susan sits on a big brown sofa in the living room trying to stay calm for this second official meeting with her prospective housemates. Larue is forty-seven, a big, relaxed woman, the single mother of Danny. Roger, forty-eight, is a rakishly handsome ballet dancer turned clothing designer, and Paul, fifty-seven, is a tall, slender man with long, snowy-white hair, a high school Drama teacher. Roger and Paul have been partners for nineteen years.
“Well, we’ve decided we’d like you to move in,” says Larue, looking up from her knitting to smile at Susan. “A unanimous Yes, and Danny voted twice.”
“I know you know this,” says Paul, somewhat sheepishly, “but we’re a drug-free community and in this particular house there’s no liquor allowed. Are you cool with that?”
“Absolutely.” Susan looks anxiously at each of them. “But, um . . . you know I’m so grateful for everything you and Agnes and Joe and everybody has done for us, but . . . why are you doing this for me?”
Roger smiles. “It’s what was done for each of us. It’s how we all came to be here.”
“What do you mean?” Susan opens her arms to receive Ashley sauntering in for a hug.
“It’s why we’re here,” says Paul, pouring out the tea into four waiting cups. “It’s the foundation of our community.”
“The sangha?” says Susan, loving the sound of the word.
“The sangha,” says Roger, handing around the steaming cups. “Buddha said the sangha was more important than any other single aspect of the Buddhist way of life.”
“Each of us was alone in one way or another until we came into the community,” says Larue, inhaling the scent of her tea before sipping. “Of course some people don’t choose to stay. But I think you will.”
“Why do you think that?” Susan steals a glance at Larue. “I mean, you hardly know me.”
“I have great intuition.” Larue smiles, savoring her tea. “And Joe and Agnes think you’re marvelous, and they’re pretty much infallible.”
“Hey Mom,” says Danny, running into the room a step ahead of Kyle. “Guess what?”
“What, honey?” says Larue, giving her boy a hug.
“Me and Kyle,” he says, pausing dramatically, “are gonna be best friends.”
“Kyle and I,” says Larue, kissing his cheek.
“What about me?” asks Ashley, pouting at Danny.
“See?” says Kyle, nodding sagely. “I told you.”
