The Sheep Walker's Daughter

by Sydney Avey

  19 — Dolores, Rebuilding

  H Dolores I

  19

  Rebuilding

  An enterprising Laura outlines her outrageous plan like a fast-talking used-car salesman.

  “You know Marianne Watson, the one I told you about who owns the art co-op in the village? Well, she lives on an estate in the hills that has a little cottage around back. I know for a fact that no one is using that cottage right now.”

  Her mouth is moving, but I can’t make sense of what she is saying. Is she suggesting I break into this woman’s guesthouse and camp out?

  “After the fire chief declared your house a total loss—before you got here—I went home and called Marianne. I knew you would need a place to stay for several months and Marianne said yes, and she’s getting it ready for you right now. You can move in tonight.”

  “I can’t do that! I don’t even know her!”

  “What does that matter? Trust me, she is a wonderful person. You’ll have a place to stay that will give you privacy while you sort this all out. It’s perfect.”

  I glare at Laura without an ounce of thankfulness in my bones.

  “You have nowhere else to go.” She puts her hands on her hips, narrows her green cat eyes at me, and sets her lips in a firm line.

  She has me there.

  “You have nothing to lose.”

  Right again. I have nothing else in this world to lose. God has stripped me of everything and dropped me down a well. I can’t just huddle up in the darkness and cold and let the Ishmaelites come by and cart me off. How strange that this Bible story is in my head; I must have been paying more attention in church than I realized. But truly, this latest loss is of biblical proportions, at least to me. I make a mental note to look up the story of Joseph and see how it ends.

  After I give my new address to the fire chief, I get in my car and follow Laura’s car as it winds through the hills. We drive over a stone bridge that crosses the creek and through a large iron gate that has been left open. The house isn’t visible from the road. We continue winding through acres of landscape that I can’t fully appreciate in the dark. When we crest the hill, the house is shining in the light of a three-quarter moon. It is a low Spanish Mission-style house with a red tiled roof embracing an expansive courtyard that has an intricately tiled fountain in the center. The fountain burbles in low tones like the steady purr of a sleepy cat. Laura stops her car, gets out, and walks over to my open window.

  “Marianne said she’d leave the key under the door mat of the guest cottage. She’ll come and introduce herself in the morning. Just drive around the back of the house and you’ll see the cottage beyond the rose garden.” Then she opens the back door of my car and puts a small valise on the seat. “Here, I packed a nightgown and some toiletries for tonight, and pants and a sweater for tomorrow. We’re about the same size, I think. I’ll pick you up tomorrow and we’ll go clothes shopping.”

  If I looked up thoughtful in the dictionary, I’m sure the definition would be Laura McMillan. I get out of the car and give her a hug.

  This isn’t a cottage, it’s more like a villa. A small porch light burns next to a painted blue door nestled in the thick stucco walls. I retrieve the key and open the door. The familiar evening cacophony of crickets and frogs comforts me. My body is as weary as if I’d traveled the ocean to get here. Laura is right. What else could I have done? Drag myself over to El Camino Highway to look for a motel?

  Marianne has left a brightly painted bowl full of fresh fruit and a plate of cinnamon cookies on the low Mission-style table. A flowered ceramic pitcher of cold water sits on the table next to a heavy stemmed glass. I am so thirsty I drink several glasses of water. I pop a cookie into my mouth, grab an apple, and wander into the bedroom. There’s a cozy double bed with a white chenille bedspread and several pillows in red, orange, and pink. A high dresser, a wooden desk and chair, and a red leather love seat and ottoman draped with a Mexican blanket furnish the room. I fall on the bed fully clothed and sleep the sleep of the dead.

  The next few days are a blur of activity. I suspect that Laura and Marianne have conspired to keep me so busy that I will not have time to grieve. Marianne is what I would have called a Los Altos matron if it weren’t for her offbeat bohemian manner. She raised four perfect children—the boys are successful in their careers and the girls are happy in their homes in the new suburban communities that dot the foothills, raising beautiful sons and daughters of their own. Marianne’s physician husband has cut his plastic-surgery practice back to three days a week so he can play golf and tend a small vineyard on their property. This leaves Marianne free to nurture the artists who show their work at her art co-op on Main Street. She has collected watercolors, acrylics, mosaics, sculpture, fabric art, jewelry, and pottery—but no collages yet, she says, sneaking a sly look at me from the corners of her perfectly made-up hazel eyes. She has waist-length honey-colored hair pulled into a low hanging ripple that she tied with a bright chiffon scarf. She wears long cotton Mexican skirts, peasant blouses, and espadrilles. She herself is a work of art, untouched by Dr. Watson’s face-sculpting talents. Fine lines frame her knowing smile, adding substance to what may once have been just a pretty face.

  Marianne has an ability to make everyone comfortable. She encourages the odd young novice with natural but unschooled talent and the housewife who creates jewelry while her toddlers nap. Older townspeople who have studied painting for years need only to have an eye for the unusual subject or unique perspective to be invited to join her merry band. She’s even introduced some pieces to her gallery that she calls “modern.” People actually come down all the way from the city to see her collection of Saul Salinsky’s tangled cubes of color.

  Marianne keeps an office above the gallery and rents out studio space. I plan to talk to her about setting up a darkroom there, but I will wait until I get the fire marshal’s report on what caused my house to burn down.

  Father Mike has heard about the fire and tracked me down to my casita in the hills.

  “What will you do?” He’s not employing his usual Socratic method of examination.

  I surprise both of us when I find the answer. “I have insurance. I have to wait for the incident and inspection reports before I file. But I think I will have some options. I can rebuild to suit myself; I can rebuild to sell; or I suppose I could just clean up the lot and sell it.” We sit beside the fountain and I trail my fingers in the water. “I have to decide what I want to do with my life. I have no husband, no job, and now I have no home. I have no moorings, no tethers.”

  “This is good?”

  Ah, there is the Father Mike I know and love, always with the questions. “I have friends. I have interests. I will even say I have talents.”

  We sit shoulder to shoulder, looking out across an expanse of freshly cut grass toward the vineyard with its neatly trimmed vines. The air smells like honeysuckle, unusual for this late in the fall. He picks up my hand and holds it in his own. “What about love?”

  “Believe it or not, I take your point.” I think about Laura, who thrust herself into my life. Laura encouraged me and introduced me to Marianne. She made things happen for me. But she is hiding something and I haven’t taken the time to find out what that is. And Roger; I’m sure he wonders why I cooled towards him, with no explanation, after we got back from Bakersfield. My face burns as I confess that I haven’t been a very good friend.

  Mike places my hand back in my lap. “What do you believe about your talent?”

  “That I need to pursue it. That it’s the hardest work I have ever done or ever will do.”

  “Harder than raising a daughter? Harder than being a daughter?”

  “No.”

  “Pursue your talent Dee, but do not neglect love.” He leans toward me and pats my hand again. “I have another spiritual exercise for you, Dee. Practice the First Corinthians kind of love that Saint Paul tells us is the most excellent way. We’ve been reading about that. It’s the love th
at bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, and never ends. Pray for wisdom to know how to do that with your friends and your family.”

  “My family? You mean Valerie?”

  “No, I mean your family, the living and the dead. Leora is gone from sight, but not from memory. And according to our faith, you will see her again. Let the Holy Spirit soften your heart toward your mother. It will do you good.”

  Father Mike shuffles his feet on the tile and we sit in silence for a moment. Smoke from a pile of leaves someone is burning in the distance wafts by. He sneezes, pulls a handkerchief from his pocket, and blows his nose with a mighty force. Then he raises a finger in the air and turns to address me.

  “Daughter, give your art to the world with love and abandon.” He waggles his finger. “But do not abandon your daughter or the memory of your mother in the process.” He closes his hand. “Painful though the memory may be, bear with it.”

  Hiding behind the veil, another presence makes itself known. I open my mouth to speak, but my words come out in a hoarse whisper. “And Henry?”

  “Could he have used more of your love?” “But it’s too late.”

  “It’s never too late to love.”

  After Father Mike leaves, I make two phone calls. The first call is to Roger. He has been in New York on a business trip, but he got back yesterday. He probably phoned the house and got a busy signal. He might have heard about the fire. It was a front-page story in the Palo Alto Times.

  He had heard. “Dee, sweetheart, are you okay? I called and called and finally I went by your house and saw what happened. My God! I talked to your neighbors. They said you weren’t home when the fire started and that they didn’t know where you were. Dee, honey, why didn’t you call me?”

  He sounded so concerned, and so hurt.

  “Roger, I’m so sorry. I am probably still in shock. But I’m calling you now.”

  “Where are you? Are you okay? Can I come and see you?”

  This man really cares. For the first time he isn’t offering advice or transportation or help. He is offering me himself, a mooring if I want it.

  “Roger, I would love to see you. I’ve got a place to stay that Laura found for me. Can you come for dinner tonight? I could really use your help thinking through what my options are now.”

  My next phone call is to Pilar. I give her my new address and phone number and ask about Uncle Iban.

  “I’m so glad you called,” she says. “I’ve been trying to reach you. Your uncle had a heart attack. He’s been in the hospital, but he’s home now. He wants to see you.”

  Love is patient. Love is kind. Love does not insist on its own way.

  “Tell him I’ll be there tomorrow.”

  20 — Dolores, The Marriage-Go-Round

  H Dolores I

  20

  The Marriage-Go-Round

  By the time Roger taps on the door, I’m packed and ready to leave in the morning. Minestrone soup is bubbling on the stove and bread is warming in the oven. I’ve tossed a salad. I love electric appliances—no pilot lights.

  “You like my casita?” I set two martinis down on a low table in front of a fire I’ve had going all day.

  “It is charming, Dee. It suits you. How long will you be able to stay here?”

  “At least three months. Marianne and Carl are leaving on an extended vacation in Europe. Marianne has asked me to run the co-op for her while she’s away. This is pretty perfect, but I know I have some decisions to make. The incident report came back. It was bad wiring.”

  “You seem to be taking this pretty well.”

  “I’m sure it will hit me at some point.” I lean back into one of the two club chairs that flank the fireplace where cedar and oak logs burn slow and steady. “Honestly, I was pretty stripped to the bone when the house went. I was starting to dig in there, literally— planting gardens and fixing things to suit myself, doing what I’d been doing for the last several years. I fit myself into the house and the neighborhood, but it wasn’t a particularly good fit. It was isolating.”

  I take a sip from my perfectly chilled martini and nestle my shoulders and neck into the chair’s pillow top. “I’m a city girl, for heaven’s sake. As it turns out, I’m also an artist.” That’s the first time I’ve said that out loud.

  I look over at Roger. He approves this assessment with that heart-melting smile of his. Then he shifts forward in his chair, balancing his drink on one knee and drumming his fingers on his other knee. “I have some news too. I’ve sold my house.”

  I stand up and raise my glass. “That’s something to celebrate. Congratulations.”

  “Yes.” He sips his martini. “So we both have some decisions to make here.”

  A chill coming in from under the front door stirs up the fire. I continue to stand, warming my backside with the heat coming off the bricks. I want to seal the warmth into my sit bones so I plant myself on the low hearth, play with the olive in my glass, and then blurt it out. “Roger, why have you never married?”

  He sets his glass down, leans back in the chair, and crosses his legs. The man is ready to talk.

  “I was married. I got married right out of college, but it didn’t last.”

  “What happened?”

  “Cecelia wanted a wedding not a marriage. After about six months—after she’d completed her silver, china, and crystal service for twelve—she looked around our little apartment and realized it would be years before she got the dining-room suite to do it all justice.”

  I’m sipping the last of my martini when he says that. It goes down the wrong way. I sputter and start to cough. He grabs the glass from my hand and hurries to the kitchen to fetch some water for me to drink. When I’ve regained my composure, he gives me an apologetic smile and continues his story.

  “I should have known better. I met her at a sorority party. I knew she liked to party—I guess she thought she’d bring the party home. I was working days at GE and getting my MBA at night, so Cece partied with the guy who was the best man at our wedding.”

  I was not expecting that kind of candor. I raise a hand to indicate he doesn’t need to give me details, but he presses on.

  “I don’t want to make it sound like this was all her fault. We never should have gotten married. We were both too young. Actually, we’re still friends. She married George, the best man, and they have three children. As it turned out, George is away from home way more than I ever was. He’s a salesman.

  “Cece became an interior decorator. She’s really good at it. She helped me get the interior of the Redwood City house in shape for the sale.”

  That’s cozy, I think. How do you stay friends with an ex who cheated on you? Unless, of course, Roger and George just exchanged roles.

  Roger’s not done. “After the divorce, I dated some, but then the war came. I was away in the navy for four years.”

  Now he gets quiet.

  “In 1944 I was attached to a carrier supplying General Clark’s Fifth Army in the invasion in Italy. They were fighting the Nazis alongside General Montgomery’s British Eighth Army and the newly formed Jewish Brigade. The campaign in Italy was slowing down just as the campaign in France was gearing up for the Normandy invasion. Part of the Brigade’s mission was to rescue Jewish children who had been orphaned in the war. I was helping with that. I met a Jewish girl and fell in love. Her name is Dara Burstein.”

  “And you married her?” Roger is beginning to take on the dimensions of a Lothario.

  “We didn’t get married, but we did have a child. I have a son, David.”

  Cue the music. Soap-opera theme songs begin to play in my head. I am a character in one of the stories Leora used to listen to on the radio. I cast myself as the naive and innocent heroine who discovers her lover has a past. I should be alarmed, but instead I’m hooked on the story Roger is telling.

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s in Israel with his mother.”

  “Do you ever see hi
m?”

  “I’ve been to Israel twice to see him. He’s nine years old. Dara and David live on a kibbutz; Dara teaches at the kibbutz school. Her students are the orphans we helped remove from Italy.”

  “Why didn’t you marry her?”

  “I wanted to, but she didn’t want to come to the United States and I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in Israel. Before I met Dara, I knew nothing about Jewish history. Dara’s family escaped a pogrom in Poland and managed to settle in England, where Dara was born. She didn’t consider herself to be English or Polish—she was Jewish. One of the results of the war was that many young Jews discovered their roots in a culture that came from a shared history, not their country of origin.”

  Then he looks at me. “Cecelia and Dara are as different from each other as they could possibly be, but there is one thing they have in common.”

  “You?” I wish I had not said that the moment it pops out of my mouth.

  Roger laughs. “Yes. They are both strong women who survived me relatively unscathed. No. They are women with much more to them than what I saw on the surface. If I had taken the time to get to know them, I would have realized I had no place in their lives. I guess you could say that I’ve been through the wars with women.”

  “And you won’t make that mistake again.” I start for the kitchen to assemble our dinner.

  “I won’t get that involved with a woman I don’t know very well, if that’s what you mean.” He follows me over to the stove and ladles soup into the Mexican bowls while I butter the bread.

  We eat dinner at a glass-topped table with a wrought- iron base that sits between the kitchenette and the living room. I tell Roger that I’m driving to Bakersfield tomorrow to see Iban and that I’m looking forward to the time the drive will give me to think about my next move. He helps me clear the table and we do the dishes. As I walk him to the door, he has yet another surprise for me. He takes me in his arms and kisses me in a relaxed, familiar way. Then he whispers in my ear. “Let’s get to know each other.”