FRIDAY
Mia was exhausted. Her dreams had been a jumble of images: The cart plummeting from the walkway. The white bandages circling Manny’s wrist. The anxious face of the dishwasher. The bits of broken glass and plastic marking the spot where Scott’s life had ended.
Last night before she left the office she had called Tracy to let her know about her decision. This morning she found herself in no hurry to get into work. Maybe Frank was right. Maybe she should take some time off. She was tired of trying to figure things out, of running through a million possible permutations until the truth seemed as slippery as a silver bead of mercury.
“Love you,” she said to Gabe as she dropped him off at school. He grunted in reply and jumped out of the car to greet his friends with a complicated series of fist bumps and backslaps. As she walked Brooke into preschool, Mia thought of Gabe’s friends, his choices, his opportunities. Where had Gabe said Eldon was staying again? With Danny?
Gabe and Danny had been tight in grade school. Back in the day, Mia had had a nodding familiarity with Danny’s mom, Sandra. She had been to their house on a couple of occasions, although the last time was four or five years ago now. If she remembered right, it was a small brown house on a corner lot.
Instead of turning onto the street that would take her to the freeway, Mia impulsively turned in the other direction. Toward Danny’s house. Maybe there was some way she could help Eldon’s mom. Loan her a bit of money, bring her something better to eat than chili or mac and cheese, find out what else she needed? By now Eldon would also be at school, so she wouldn’t embarrass the other woman by asking in front of her son.
The house was as she had remembered it, a tiny two-bedroom bungalow that had probably been built right after World War I. Mia pulled into the driveway and parked by an old Honda that sagged on its wheels. The single-car garage was closed. After a moment, she knocked on the metal door. It made a hollow sound.
She was ready to knock again when a woman’s voice said hesitantly, “Mrs. Conroy isn’t home.”
“I’m actually looking for Eldon’s mom.”
“Oh.” She sounded even more wary. “Come around to the side door.”
Mia navigated the narrow strip between the garage and the neighbor’s fence, her heels sinking into the wet grass.
The door opened to reveal a woman who had once been built on the same scale as Eldon. Now her creamy brown skin looked like a deflated balloon. Her head was wrapped in a scarf, and she was dressed in layers of sweaters.
“Hey, I’m sorry to bother you, but are you Eldon’s mom?” she said. “I’m Gabe’s mom. Mia.”
“Oh! Um, come in.” The other woman stepped back.
Inside the garage, it felt just as cold and damp as it did outside. The walls were hung with weed trimmers, rakes, and shovels, the corners taken up by recycling bins and plastic storage containers. To this mix had been added a swaybacked cot covered with a sleeping bag and old blankets, a beanbag chair with more blankets (some of which Mia recognized), and cardboard boxes piled nearly to the ceiling. A card table held a couple of pots and a hot plate. Under it sat a box half filled with boxes and cans of food. The hot plate and a small portable heater were both on long orange extension cords that snaked back through the garage and threaded through a door that was barely ajar to the house.
The other woman broke the awkward silence. “I’m Kali. It’s so good to finally meet you. I can’t thank you enough for all the things you’ve given us.”
“Um, you’re welcome.” Mia’s voice betrayed her, going up on the end like a question mark.
The other woman’s face changed. “You didn’t know anything about it, did you?”
“Not until two nights ago.” Mia laid a hand on Kali’s arm. “But don’t worry. If I had known, I would have given everything Gabe brought you and more.”
Kali bit her lip. “I feel terrible. I didn’t mean to encourage your son to take things from you. I want to pay you back.”
“For what? Some blankets we weren’t using, a few boxes of mac and cheese?” She shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure you would do the same for me if our positions were reversed.”
“And I’m sure you’d feel just as awkward as I do right now,” the other woman said softly. “I’d offer you a place to sit down, but as you can see, there isn’t anyplace.” Her mouth twisted. “You’re probably wondering how we ended up like this.”
“Gabe said you had cancer?”
“Breast cancer. And I’m not tolerating the chemo very well, to put it mildly. I need to sleep all the time, and I can get pretty nauseated. I was working at Foodstuffs, but no one likes a cashier who’s throwing up, so they let me go.”
Foodstuffs was an upscale grocery store that catered to people who liked organic vegetables and free-range chickens.
“What?” Anger straightened Mia’s spine. It was disgusting to think that a store that trumpeted its fair-trade coffee did not treat its own workers fairly. “That’s not my area of legal expertise, but I’m pretty sure they can’t fire you for having cancer!”
Kali shrugged. “They didn’t put it that way. They just said they didn’t see a place for me anymore.”
“Look, I don’t know if Gabe’s told you, but I’m an attorney. I’d be happy to write you a letter pro bono—without any charge—insisting they make accommodations for your illness. Sometimes just a letter signed by a lawyer is enough to make people see the light.”
Kali shook her head. “That’s okay. Right now my job is to fight this cancer, and that’s about the only job I can handle. Besides, by the time I left I had already run through all my sick leave. There are days I barely get out of bed. The other day I was eating breakfast and had to go lie back down again. I ended up falling asleep while I still had a piece of bagel in my mouth. It’s a wonder I didn’t choke to death.” She smiled ruefully. “I wish I could work, because I could use the money. Even though I’m hardly eating, the food stamps we’re getting aren’t enough. You know my son, you know how big he is.”
Mia thought of Gabe, who routinely came back for thirds and fourths. Eldon was twice his size. “And with kids this age,” she said, “it’s like they can’t ever eat enough.” They shared a knowing smile, then Mia turned serious again. “Do you have any relatives who could help you?”
Kali’s voice rose. “Do you think we would be living in a garage if I did?” She winced and pressed her fingers against her mouth. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t shout. But it’s horrible. We’re here on Sandra’s good graces, and I know she likes the money, but I also know it’s getting old for her. She can’t park her car in the garage and she’s got four people using her bathroom instead of just two. She keeps telling me she hopes I’ll have something figured out by Thanksgiving. I don’t say anything. What am I supposed to say?”
Mia was surprised. “Wait—you’re paying to live here?”
“Eldon’s dad pays some child support, so I’m giving Sandra three hundred a month.”
“To sleep in an unheated garage?”
“What else can I do? A one-bedroom apartment in this neighborhood is at least twelve hundred. And it’s important to me that Eldon stay in the same school. It’s a good school. You know that. And he’s happy there. So much is changing for him, I don’t want that to have to change too.”
Mia could only nod. Kali’s words echoed her thoughts after Scott died. It was why she was working so hard to hold on to the house, even though it was a stretch to make the mortgage every month. Sometimes she felt like she was walking on a tightrope. One slip and she would plummet to earth.
And Kali had slipped.
The words were out before Mia could think of whether it was a good idea. “What if I gave you the same deal to live with me? Only we actually have the room. There’s a guest room you could stay in and bunk beds in Gabe’s room.”
Kali just looked at her for a long moment. “Why? Why would you do that for me?”
The words came to her. “ ‘I was sick and you visited me, I was hungry and you fed me.’ ”
“You’re a churchgoer?” The other woman narrowed her eyes warily.
Mia had gone to church with her dad a few times lately, trying to find the same solace in it that he had so recently embraced. “Maybe not like I should be. But this feels like what I’m supposed to be doing.”