I had trouble believing that I was about to tell my brother that I’d just become the legal guardian of our father’s child. He must have misread my incredulity for hesitance, because he sighed a little and said, “Do we have to play twenty questions every time something big happens with you?”
He was referring to the day I’d gone shuffling into his bedroom many years ago, my head low and my gaze averted. He’d tried to coax my problem out of me, but my mortification had prevented it. So he’d resorted to twenty questions.
“Are you in trouble?”
“No.”
“Are you sick?”
“No.”
“Is someone we know in trouble or sick?”
“No.”
“Are you covered in hideous warts from the frog you had in your pocket last week?”
I rolled my eyes. “No.”
He looked at me more closely and I blushed. My body language said, I’m so embarrassed I’d be happy if the ground opened up and swallowed me, and it didn’t take long for Trey to figure it out.
“Are you . . . ?” He blushed a little. I had to love him for it. “Are you . . . a woman?”
I hit the floor and pulled the blanket off his bed to cover my head.
“You are?” He wasn’t supposed to sound so perky about it. He was supposed to get all awkward and kick me out of his room, then act weird around me for months and years.
I couldn’t breathe very well under the blanket and I had a bit of a claustrophobia problem too, so I didn’t dillydally any longer. “I don’t know how to buy the . . . stuff,” I said, hoping he could hear me through the knit fabric draped over my bruised pride.
“Go ask Mom.”
“She’s in the den with a box of Kleenex.” Which was code for “She’s curled up in a fetal position on the couch, sobbing into a cushion like we can’t hear her, and jumping out of her skin every time she thinks she hears Dad coming home.” Mom in that state was like a car without tires—it could still kinda move, if it had to, but you knew it really shouldn’t.
Trey had suspended every smidgen of male pride on that day and had walked with me to the Jewel-Osco on Cross and Willow. He’d shielded me with his body so nobody could see me reading the labels on the boxes of girl stuff I’d studiously ignored all my life, and then, seeing my nearly apoplectic shame, had boldly walked to the checkout and paid for my icky things himself.
I realized at that moment that the only way I would ever be able to pay Trey back for being my brother would be to buy an island in the Pacific, build him a palace on it, hire professional soccer players to populate it, and equip it with state-of-the-art Dad repellents. Since I couldn’t quite afford any of that yet, I just kept quiet on the walk home. I knew he appreciated that, too—though not as much as an island. What I really wanted to do was hold his hand and say thank you over and over again until I turned blue.
But it was a much different bit of news I had for Trey on this day, twenty-odd years later, and as we sat at the table in his cozy French bakery, I was once again at a loss for words.
“Question one: Are you in trouble?”
I laughed a little jaggedly. “You don’t have to twenty-questions it, Trey.”
“Oh, good. Just tell me who the guy is and I’ll take a baseball bat to his car.”
“I want you to know that I’ve finally made my decision about Shayla.”
I had his full attention. His gray-green gaze narrowed and he kinda squinted at me, waiting.
I went to the door and found Shayla and Dana playing hopscotch on the sidewalk. When I reentered L’Envie, Shayla was propped on my hip, her legs around my waist. I hadn’t really realized before then how convenient those hip bones were, and I wondered if there wasn’t a bit of genius in God’s design plan after all.
Trey stood as we approached, and his astonishment melted into a lopsided grin.
“This is Shayla, Trey,” I said.
“Shayla,” Trey said, as if testing the name’s flavor. He bent so his eyes were on a level with hers. “I’m Trey. And I’m going to be one of your favorite people. Seriously. You’ll be telling all your friends about me when you grow up.” He pulled back as if suddenly struck by a thought. “I think . . .” He peered at her more closely, assessing what he saw. “I think you may be the most beautiful little thing I’ve ever seen.”
Shayla looked up at me and I shrugged. “Trey goes a little poetic when he gets nervous,” I said.
“Don’t listen to her. I’m always poetic.” He smiled a crooked grin at me that held both approval and support. Then he ran the back side of a finger over Shayla’s rosy cheek and said, “How ’bout a pastry? I’ve got these great chocolate croissants.”
And this little girl who had known him for only a handful of seconds followed Dana’s lead and became instantly smitten. She smiled a little and hid her face in my neck, which was a new experience for me and made my stomach do strange things. Then she peeked at him again, smiled more broadly when he wiggled an eyebrow, and let herself fall forward into his arms as he held them toward her.
Dana looked like she’d have done the same thing had his hands been pointing her way. There were tears in her eyes, and I was grateful for that because I couldn’t seem to muster any of my own right then. I figured I’d borrow hers for a while.
A few minutes later, with Dana and Shayla engaged in a coloring contest at a table near the window, Trey and I huddled in the kitchen at the back of the bakery. He’d been shaking his head a lot since I’d arrived with Shayla, and he was still shaking it now.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“You may be the most courageous woman I’ve ever met.”
“Wait a minute. You were the one telling me I should just take a risk and go for it.”
“Yeah, but I never actually thought you would!”
“Trey!”
“Don’t get your undies in a bunch. You made absolutely the right decision. She’s . . . Is it possible that something that sweet really came from our dad?”
“I figure the mother’s genes were pretty potent.”
He glanced out the door to make sure Shayla was securely out of earshot. “So this is Dad’s idea of a parting gift, huh?” He leaned a hip against the stainless-steel countertop mounted to the wall.
“Beats a potted plant any day. More upkeep, though.” I was sitting on a tall stool with a half-finished plate of mille-feuilles in my hand.
“Can you believe it?”
“What part—the part where I’m a mother or the part where I have a daughter, neither of which is entirely accurate?”
“The part where the woman who vowed she would never have children suddenly has a little girl to take care of.”
“You’re just jealous ’cause all you got was a condo.”
“About that . . .”
“We’re not going back over this, Trey. It’s yours. Deal with it.”
“The fact is, you’re a mom now.”
“A guardian half sister, actually.”
“And your place isn’t really big enough for both of you.”
“Is that a crack about the five mille-feuilles I’ve eaten in ten minutes?”
“It’s a one-bedroom apartment, Shell.”
“Which is why I think we need to move.”
“Exactly my point.”
“But it’s not going to be to your condo.”
“Dad’s condo.”
“Whatever.”
I let the silence lengthen. There was something about my conversations with Trey that made me feel loved, even if he did make veiled comments about my eating habits. There hadn’t been many people in my life who had actually listened to me and worried about me and been willing to make sacrifices for me. Trey was one of those rare ones. He felt like thick, soft slippers and feather comforters and the hollow of a shoulder. I loved my brother. He reminded me of a past I’d never had but could have had, if he’d been in charge.
“So you’re moving,” he said, bringing
my mind back to the bombshell at hand.
“It’s . . . um . . . probably going to surprise you.”
He raised an eyebrow. I think he’d reached his surprise quota for the day, but he let me go on anyway.
“Remember John Burkhart?”
It took him a moment to place the name. “That missionary dude who used to come by the church and guilt us all into moving to Timbuktu?”
“Yup. He lives in Naperville now. Retired. I ran into him at church.”
“Aw, man,” Trey whined melodramatically, “I knew he’d get you to Timbuktu!” He raised his voice in a fairly decent imitation of Burkhart’s impassioned sermons, getting louder with each word he uttered. “‘Don’t waste your lives on materialism and ambition! Bring God to the lost in the jungles and the ghettos, to the outcasts and the hopeless and the poor!’”
John Burkhart was a dynamic speaker with an extraordinary gift for capturing an audience, but he had the bad habit of always ending his talks with a rising crescendo that bordered on comical. I laughed at Trey’s only slight exaggeration.
“Everything okay in there?” came Dana’s voice from the other room.
“We’re fine, Dana! Trey’s just feeling the spirit and channeling Billy Graham.”
“So,” Trey said, his face serious again, “you’re not going to the jungle, are you?”
“Not exactly.”
“Well, as long as whatever it is is within a twenty-mile radius from here, I’ll allow it.”
“That’s the problem. Trey, I think Shayla and I may be moving to Germany.”
Trey’s face looked like the bottom had dropped out of his stomach. I saw him swallow—hard—and take a steadying breath. “Germany, huh?”
“The land of Beck’s beer.”
“You going for the beer?”
“No. To try something new. With Shayla.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. “Did you ask her?”
“Dana told me to wait awhile. See how she adjusts in the next few months.”
“You’ve got a good job here. And now a daughter to raise. You’ve got me, too,” he added, and I could tell there was something fragile bending in his heart. “Why are you going, Shell?”
It was the question I had dreaded, but only because I didn’t really have an answer. Why was I going? Because it felt right. Because I could. Because I needed to. Because . . .
“Because I can’t raise Dad’s daughter on Dad’s turf,” I said.
Trey nodded like it made sense. “What’s in Germany?”
“A school. For missionary kids. In English.”
“So you’ll be teaching?”
“Maybe doing some synchronized swimming on the side.”
“And they’ll pay you well?”
That made me laugh. “They won’t pay me a dime. I’m going to be a modern-day John Burkhart, ministering to the tribes and ghettos of Deutschland.”
“A missionary?” He was having trouble with the concept.
“I blame it on the guy who taught me to say prayers.”
“I had to. You couldn’t sleep if you didn’t.”
“I still can’t. My life is too . . . messed up to sleep without prayers. And it’s not getting any simpler.” I paused. “Is it really the God thing that’s bugging you most?”
“You know, even when we were little, I wondered how you could believe in God with Dad screaming loud enough to scare off the Holy Spirit.”
“That’s just it. Dad screamed and ranted and raved and cursed, but God never left. He stuck around to hear it all.”
“He didn’t spare us.”
“No. And I still don’t get that. But when I think of what it would have been like if I hadn’t known he was there when I said my prayers at night . . .” I didn’t know how to put it into words. “I really want to do this, Trey. I think I need to. For me and Shayla. But if you don’t think we should . . .”
Trey filled the silence with nervous little tics like scratching his ear, rubbing the back of his neck, and shifting from foot to foot. When he spoke again, it was with a sort of reluctant capitulation.
“Don’t you have to raise money or something?”
“My church is helping me. And the rest will come from the Jim Davis Atonement Fund.”
“How long before you go?”
“School starts in August, but they said they’d cover for me if I had to get there a little late. They know the circumstances are . . . unusual.”
“They know about you and Shayla?”
I comforted a sigh with a piece of mille-feuille. “They know. And they’re concerned—think I should probably take more time to adjust before launching into work over there, but . . . two of the English teachers they were counting on just fell through, so they’re a little desperate.”
“They might be right about you needing time to adjust.”
“They might. But they’ve assured me that my commitment is dependent on Shayla doing okay, and if she doesn’t, we’ll pack up and come home.”
“Sounds fair.”
“I’m sure it’s not a normal arrangement, but they’re out of options and I’m willing and eager, so . . .”
“You should take my half of Dad’s money back.”
“I’m not taking it.”
“You should. Shayla’s going to be growing up. She’ll need things.”
“We’ll be fine, Trey. I’ve talked it over with my money guy and we’ve worked it all out.”
Trey smirked. “Your money guy.”
“Yup. I got me a money guy. How un-me is that?”
Another silence settled like static electricity over the kitchen and I wished we’d been able to have this discussion in our Huddle Hut. But we were grown-ups now, and the Huddle Hut had gone the way of most other great childhood inventions. Except that special, indefinable connection that made Trey and me the toughest unit around. There was a twoness to us that had withstood some of the worst life had to offer, and here I was preparing to break it. Remorse choked me. But a giggle from the other room strengthened my resolve.
I speared a piece of mille-feuille with my fork and raised it in salute. “To the brotherhood . . .”
“. . . of Davishood.”
“And to the muddlehood . . .”
“. . . of huddlehood.”
I clinked my bite of mille-feuille with his imaginary fork and tried to swallow past the boulder in my throat.
8
“IS IT GOING TO BE good this time, Shelby?”
I knew Shayla was trying to be as diplomatic as a four-year-old could be, but I found the question mildly insulting. “I’m trying, Shay,” I said, adding something called quark to the ground beef I’d just fried up and praying it would be more edible than the last three meals I’d attempted. It had gotten so bad that Shayla had complained to Bev about my cooking, and Bev, bless her missionary heart, had taken it upon herself to teach this Lean Cuisine and Stouffer’s addict how to cook an edible meal from scratch. She had informed me that preparing Lean Cuisine and Stouffer’s dinners didn’t amount to actual cooking, and I had tried to convince her that they did require some kitchen skills compared to my other best friends: Arby, Wendy, and Mickey-D, which, in Germany, were as scarce as, say, sauerkraut in North America.
So I was trying out one of Bev’s easy recipes, and Shayla was watching closely to make sure I didn’t dump the whole box of salt into the sauce as I’d done on a previous attempt. I hadn’t expected cooking to be among the more challenging aspects of a life abroad, but my first trip to the grocery store had proved me wrong. The Germans weren’t big into prepared meals, and that was an understatement. They apparently liked to waste vast amounts of time on, say, chopping vegetables, browning raw meat, and frying potatoes. And if they wanted something sweet for dessert, they didn’t seem to have any aversion to measuring and stirring multiple ingredients rather than just adding an egg and some water to a Betty Crocker mix.
“What do you think, Shay? You think it’s going to turn
out this time?”
“I don’t know,” she singsonged, trying to look hopeful, though I knew she was anticipating another supper of hard bread and strawberry jam if this last-ditch effort failed.
“Well, Bev gave me very specific instructions, so I think we might have a winner.” I poured a tiny box of gravy spices into the mixture of meat and quark and gave it a stir. The smell was promising.
“Do you think we should invite Bev and Gus for dinner?” We hadn’t had any guests yet, and this seemed like a good occasion for an inaugural meal.
“Yeeeeeees,” Shayla squealed.
I left the meat simmering on the stove and called Bev.
“I’m cooking,” I declared. I hadn’t actually introduced myself, but I knew Bev would figure it out from the sheer pride of my statement.
“You are! Shelby, that’s great.”
Shayla tugged at my sleeve. “Tell her it might be good.”
“Shayla says it might be good this time.”
That made Bev laugh. Bev laughed a lot at Shayla, but in a good—no, wonderful—way. “So we were wondering if you and Gus might want to come over and sample it with us. Take some Pepto-Bismol before you come . . . just in case.”
I heard a muffled conversation on the other end of the line before Bev came back on. “We’d love to, Shelby, but we’ve invited Scott over tonight and . . .” Bev covered the mouthpiece for another conversation with Gus. “Gus says it probably wouldn’t bother Scott if we just dragged him over there instead, though.”
Oh, the agony of trying to say something frantic in a calm, composed way. What I wanted to say was, “What—are you kidding? I’m having enough trouble outrunning him on my way home from school each night without inviting him into my house. Absolutely not. No. Nyet. Nein. Period.” What I said instead was, “You know what? We really don’t need to do this tonight, not if you’ve already made plans. Let’s just postpone it ’til next week. It’ll give me the chance to make sure I’ve got it right.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“All right then. We’ll take a rain check. Let me know how it turns out, okay?”
“I will.”
“And congratulations on cooking a meal from scratch.”
In Broken Places Page 11
