Give, a novel

by Erica Carpenter Witsell

  Len stopped at a gas station for coffee in Leggett, then picked up 101. Here the highway no longer hugged the coast, and the driving was easier. He drank the lukewarm coffee as he drove and let his mind go slack at last.

  It was just after one in the morning when he pulled into their narrow drive. Inside, he resisted the urge to reach for the lamp, but by the pale light seeping in from the porch, he saw that the usual chaos of the living room had been ordered. Jessie’s books were stacked neatly on the coffee table, her toys collected in a bin. He went first to Jessie’s bedroom at the end of the hall, where she slept, as usual, with her bottom raised in the air and her favorite stuffed animal, a yellow duck named Quack, wedged in the crook of her elbow. He kissed her lightly and pulled her purple blanket over her, a rush of tenderness rising in his throat.

  The babysitter was asleep in the master bedroom, where Laurel had insisted she make herself at home. Len tiptoed by her to get to the bathroom, where he rooted for an extra toothbrush beneath the sink. As he left, he paused for a moment by the bed. The young woman’s face was flushed with sleep, her auburn hair loose on the pillow. Quickly, he looked away, but not before a shadow of the same tenderness he had felt for his own sleeping daughter swept over him. Then his mind darted back to Laurel, and he turned away, grimacing.

  He eased the bedroom door shut, then tiptoed back down the hall and through the living room to the kitchen, where he brushed his teeth at the sink. A pale orange film clung to the white porcelain. Len found a can of Ajax under the sink and scrubbed at it with a scouring pad. Only after the kitchen sink was clean did he pull a blanket from the closet and stretch out on the couch, the stacks of Jessie’s books on the coffee table beside him like a battlement against the coming day.

  CHAPTER 3

  Len

  Len was still asleep when Sarah stepped out of the bedroom in the morning. She was wearing light blue pajamas, her hair mussed from sleep. She gave a little cry of surprise when she saw him.

  “Dr. Walters!” she said. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  Len pushed himself up on the couch. “Please, call me Leonard—Len.”

  “But—”

  “There was a change of plans. I didn’t want to wake you to let you know. Laurel—Laurel will be back soon.”

  Sarah crossed her arms against her chest. “Oh. Well, hold on a minute. Jessie is awake, I think.”

  She took a step back down the hall toward the nursery, but Len stopped her.

  “Please. I want to see her.” He pushed himself up to standing, ran his fingers through his hair and rubbed his eyes.

  Sarah nodded. “I’ll just get dressed then.” She turned back into the bedroom and closed the door behind her.

  In the nursery, Jessie was standing at the railing of her crib. She was playing with a toy that he had found at a yard sale. The straps were broken, but he had strung some wires through it and attached it to her crib. There was a little rubber button that rang a bell, and a little wheel, striped red and white like a peppermint drop, which became pink when you spun it. Jessie was spinning it now, with purpose, talking to herself under her breath, and the sight of her filled Len with so much love he felt his chest might burst.

  He stood silently at the door for a moment, watching her, but she sensed his presence and looked over.

  “Da-da! Wook, Da-da. Pink!” She spun the wheel again, watching in amazement as the red and white stripes spun into a blur of pink.

  Len laughed. “Would you look at that,” he said.

  He realized with unexpected relief that Jessie was not at all surprised to see him. He had tried to explain—could it only have been yesterday?—that he and Mommy would be going away for a little while, but that they would come back in two days. “Two days,” he had said, holding up his fingers.

  “Two,” Jessie had parroted, but she couldn’t understand yet, could she? Her whole life so far was lived in the present, the past quickly forgotten but for little snapshot memories of her favorite things—the jays at the park, for instance, or the library. The future was unimaginable.

  “Dessie too,” she had said, and at first he had thought she meant could she come, too, and his heart had given a little leap, as if, with Jessie on his side, he might convince Laurel that their daughter ought to be allowed to come along. But then he had seen her struggling to arrange her hand so that two chubby fingers were raised.

  “Dessie two,” she said again, and at last he had understood.

  Now Len went to stand by the crib. He reached through the bars to swipe his finger across another of the toy’s gizmos, a spinning cylinder with blue barbershop-style stripes.

  “Da-da make boo,” Jessie observed. ‘Dessie make boo?’”

  Len laughed. “You say, ‘Can I make blue?’”

  Jessie spun the cylinder, batting at it with the palm of her hand, ignoring the correction.

  “Okay, Jessie,” Len said at last. “I’ve got to pee. Let’s go.”

  He carried her into the bathroom with him, then put her down so that he could urinate. His piss stank of coffee and Jessie scrunched up her eyes.

  “Da-da pee yucky.”

  He flushed quickly. “Sorry. Do you want to try to sit on the potty?”

  She nodded, and Len stooped down to take off her sodden diaper.

  “Okay,” he said, scooping her up by the underarms and sitting her on the little potty. She was up in an instant.

  “No pee.”

  “That’s okay. Thanks for trying.”

  At the sink, Len helped Jessie to wash her hands and then splashed cool water on his face. It ran down his unshaven chin and neck, soaking the collar of the button-down he had put on for dinner the night before.

  “Come on, Jess,” he said, taking his daughter’s hand. “Let’s go get dressed.”

  In the nursery, he found her a new diaper and some clothes. He wanted to change, too, but his bedroom door was closed when they passed it in the hall, and he wasn’t sure if Sarah was still inside. But when they emerged in the living room, there she was, standing by the door, a small, blue duffel bag by her feet. She had changed into jeans and a green sweater, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She smiled when she saw Jessie.

  “Good morning, sleepy head.”

  Jessie ran to her and she dropped to her knees to hug the little girl.

  Then she stood and turned to Len.

  “Well, I guess I’ll go, since you’re here now,” she said uncertainly.

  She reached for the doorknob slowly, and at once Len understood.

  “Wait. I’m so sorry. We’ll pay you for the whole time, of course.” He patted his back pockets for his wallet, but it was not there. “Just a minute, please.”

  He found his wallet and keys between the stacks of books on the coffee table. “Oh, and thanks for tidying up. How much is it?”

  “Well, Laurel said one hundred,” Sarah said apologetically. “But that was supposed to be until this afternoon.”

  Len swallowed hard against the surge of bitterness that rose in his throat. One hundred dollars! How could he have agreed to such a thing?

  “Just one more sec,” he said, then disappeared down the hall to his office. It was hardly more than a closet, really. A bonus room, the realtor had called it euphemistically when she’d shown them around the house.

  His desk drawer opened with a squeal, and he pulled out the envelope that held their cash for the week. One hundred dollars—what a waste. He counted out the bills, then returned to the living room and handed them to her. She pushed them into her bag without looking at them.

  “Thank you. Bye, Jessie. Be good.” She knelt to hug his daughter again, and Jessie threw her arms around her neck.

  “No Sarah go!”

  Gently, Sarah disentangled herself. “Your daddy’s here now. And I’ll be back to play with you tomorrow.”

  Jessie started to cry, then, and Sarah looked at Len helplessly as she pulled the little girl toward her and stroked her back.

&
nbsp; “Do you like pancakes?” Len asked impulsively. “Jessie and I like to make pancakes on Sundays, don’t we, Jessie? Unless you have somewhere else to be.”

  Sarah shook her head. “Pancakes sound great.”

  Sarah sat at the kitchen table, sipping coffee, while Jessie helped Len make the batter, and then she held Jessie in her lap and helped her do a wooden puzzle while Len made the pancakes at the stove.

  There was no syrup in the cabinets or in the refrigerator. Len clenched his teeth in annoyance, sure he had written it on the list the last time Laurel went shopping. He pulled a jar of strawberry jam from the refrigerator door and put it on the table, muttering apologies.

  “I like pancakes with jam,” Sarah said. “Don’t you, Jessie?”

  “Yes! Pee butter and dam.”

  “Oh no, sweetheart,” Len said. “We don’t put peanut butter on pancakes.”

  “Actually, that’s how they eat them in Wyoming,” Sarah said.

  So Len got out the peanut butter, too, and watched as Sarah made Jessie a pancake sandwich. He was surprised, and a little envious, at the easy familiarity between them. This woman was a stranger to him, yet clearly she mattered to his daughter. He did some quick math and realized with a start that Sarah had been babysitting for them for over a year now, although he had seen her only a handful of times.

  “So,” he said, ladling batter onto the skillet. “You’re from Wyoming?”

  “No,” she said. She leaned forward to wipe jam from Jessie’s cheek with a napkin. “I just drove through it once. We saw a sign for a free church breakfast, so we stopped.”

  Len smiled. “Where then?”

  “Nowhere, really. We moved a lot.”

  “Military?”

  Sarah nodded. “My dad’s in the army.”

  Len passed her a plate of pancakes. “So how did you end up here?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said noncommittally. She moved one pancake off the stack and spread it with a thin glaze of jam. When she took a bite at last, Len found himself watching the subtle motion of her jaw as she chewed. He looked away.

  “Sorry,” he began, “I didn’t mean to pry.”

  “Oh, you weren’t. It wasn’t a monumental decision or anything. My dad was stationed at a base in Redding when I was in high school. He was talking about retiring, and I thought they might stay there. Humboldt State seemed like the right distance away. By then, I felt like I’d already been all over the world. I didn’t feel the need to go far.”

  Len nodded. “So you’re in school.” He wasn’t surprised. With her blue jeans and her ponytail, her slender frame and the splash of freckles across her nose, she looked like she could be a student in one of his classes.

  “Graduate school, yes.”

  He started. “You seem so young.”

  She shrugged. “I think Laurel and I are the same age, actually. Isn’t she twenty-five?”

  “Yes, I think so.” He faltered. “Yes, that’s right.”

  He was flustered now and couldn’t think what else to say. He busied himself with the spatula and skillet.

  “I also liked the trees.”

  “Sorry?”

  “You asked me why here. I think some of it was because of the trees—the redwoods. The summer I was sixteen it was incredibly hot in Redding, and one Saturday my dad told my mom and me to go and get in the car, that we were going to Arcata. He said it would be twenty degrees cooler here, but I didn’t believe him. He was right, though. We went to that little park with the redwoods. You know the one? Up on the hill? Those trees . . . They made quite an impression on me.” She laughed softly, as if mocking herself.

  Len glanced over at her and met her eye. She shrugged. “At eighteen, it seemed as good a reason as any other.”

  Len smiled. “The trees,” he repeated. “That’s . . . nice.”

  Sarah shrugged again. “It’s a pretty stupid reason, I guess.”

  “No, I mean it. So many people are here for reasons . . . Well, reasons that aren’t as nice as that.”

  Another silence fell between them, but this one was easier.

  “So, what are you studying in graduate school?” Len asked, bringing the last of the pancakes to the table.

  “Anthropology.”

  “Margaret Mead?”

  Sarah smiled. “Among others.”

  “I thought you were tired of traveling the world.”

  She shrugged. “There are people here, too.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Anthropology is the study of humanity. Of cultures. We’ve got those here, too.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “What about you two?” Sarah asked. “You three, I mean. What brought you to Arcata?”

  Len colored inexplicably. He wondered whom she had forgotten to include—Laurel or Jessie. He had offered no explanation for Laurel’s absence and was grateful to Sarah that she had not asked. He gestured vaguely with the spatula.

  “Oh, you know. The university. Young professors—we pretty much have to go wherever we can find a job.”

  “But Laurel . . . She’s from around here, isn’t she? I thought she said—”

  “Oh, no. Well, not really. Laurel’s mother was raised in Mendocino. Not the coast. Inland. Bay . . . Bay something. Laurel was born there, but she grew up in LA. She just likes to pretend that she’s a local.”

  Sarah laughed good-naturedly at this. “Well,” she said, standing up and pulling Jessie from her high chair. “I don’t think people who really are from here would consider Mendocino local. Too close to San Francisco, and that’s a whole ’nother planet.” She shifted Jessie on her hip. “Come on, Jessie. Let’s go wash your hands so you don’t get everything sticky, okay?”

  When Sarah returned to the kitchen, his daughter wasn’t with her. She didn’t sit down again. Len looked at her plate; the two remaining pancakes in the stack were untouched.

  “You didn’t—” he began.

  “Jessie’s happy looking at a book in the living room, so I’d better take off now. Thank you for breakfast.”

  “Of course. Thank you for helping me avoid a tantrum.”

  She smiled. “No problem. How was that restaurant, by the way?”

  Len’s heart jumped. “What?”

  “I recommended a restaurant in Fort Bragg to your wife. I just wondered—”

  Len looked away. “Yes,” he said abruptly. “It was fine. It was good.”

  Sarah glanced at him, her expression unreadable. “Well,” she said. “Thanks again.”

  Len gestured toward her plate. “You sure you don’t want—”

  But Sarah just shook her head. “I’m good, thanks. Tell Laurel I said good-bye. I’ll see her Monday. Tomorrow.”

  Len heard the click of the front door as it closed behind her. With Jessie quiet in the other room and Sarah gone, the house felt suddenly empty, and Len’s exhaustion caught up to him at last. He sat down, rested his head on the kitchen table, and closed his eyes.

  “Da-da?” Jessie said, appearing in the doorway. “Da-da sleeping?”

  Len sighed. “I’m just resting my eyes.”

  “Dessie ’side!” she said. “Dessie park!”

  Len shuddered and shook his head. He could still feel yesterday’s chill on his skin, the cold wind that had battered them on the beach. He glanced at the window, expecting the usual square of gray, ready to make up an excuse. But the sky beyond the glass was surprisingly blue.

  “Okay, Dessie,” Len said resignedly. “Let me clean up this mess and we’ll go.”

  He washed the dishes quickly, then retrieved the peanut butter from the cupboard. There was no bread, so he did as Sarah had and used the leftover pancakes to make two sandwiches, which he wrapped in foil. He found an apple in the fridge that he cut into slender slices, then poured juice into a sippy cup for Jessie. As he packed their picnic, he felt his spirits rise. He would spend a beautiful Sunday with his daughter. He would not allow himself to think of Laurel.

  Late
r, Len and Jessie had their picnic on the bench by the park, and then spent several minutes throwing bits of their pancake sandwiches to the jays that hopped around them in the grass. Afterwards, Len pushed Jessie in the swing, and then caught her again and again at the bottom of the slide.

  When it was time to go, Len’s head felt groggy with weariness. Jessie had grown cranky, too.

  “No home!” she wailed, clinging to the rung of the slide’s ladder. “Dessie park!”

  Eventually, Len had to unwrap her fingers himself, then buckle her into the stroller as she screamed. His head pounded with her cries and with his own mounting fatigue. Back at home, she continued to cry while he changed her diaper.

  “No nap!” she screamed, knowing what was coming.

  “I tell you what,” he bargained. “What if you sleep with Daddy in the big bed?”

  She quieted but looked at him skeptically. “Da-da nap?”

  “You got it,” he said.

  They read a book sitting up against the headboard, but when he set the book on the bedside table and lowered himself down on the pillow, Jessie did not complain. She settled in next to him, so that the top of her head was pressed against his underarm. He curled his arm around her and was asleep within seconds.

  CHAPTER 4

  Len

  “Well, isn’t this just great?” Laurel’s voice was shrill with annoyance.

  Len glanced at the clock groggily. It was not quite two-thirty; beside him, Jessie still slept.

  “Shhh!” he said. He nodded down at Jessie.

  “Len, you know how I feel about this. I don’t want her sleeping in here with you. It makes it so much harder. She’ll never want to nap in her own bed if you—”