He stooped and pulled out his cell phone, and, with his arm around his trembling dog, he dialed the sheriff’s office.
O
n Tuesday, Elisa pulled into the space beside Adoncia’s trailer and turned off the engine. Last night’s shift at the nursing home had been uneventful, although once again she had not been able to see Martha. She had gotten home at a little past seven this morning and gone straight to bed, waking up about ten. She planned to go to bed early tonight to catch up for the week.
On waking, she had showered and dressed, then gone to find Helen. Instead, she had found a note on the table and bad news. She called the church immediately.
Now, as she got out of the car at Adoncia’s, Maria ran outside to greet her. Elisa swung the little girl to her hip, listening as she chattered in a mixture of Spanish and English about her morning.
Inside, she swung Fernando to the other hip and listened as he babbled in no language she’d ever heard. When the children were satisfied they’d had her devoted attention, they both scrambled down and went back to “Sesame Street” on television.
“Hey, Elisa,” Adoncia said from the kitchen.
“¿Que pasa?”
Elisa slung her purse on the table and took a chair. “Donchita,
La Casa Amarilla
was vandalized last night. Graffiti sprayed on the outside walls and the inside half destroyed.”
Adoncia was sautéing onions and garlic at the stove, her hips swaying as she stirred. “Who would do such a thing?”
“I guess Sam saw a couple of old pickups filled with teenage boys. Too bad he didn’t catch them in the act. He called around this morning to see if he could find volunteers to help him get the outside cleaned and painted. Mrs. Henry went to help. She left me a note.”
Adoncia turned off the burner. “Not everyone is glad the church helps our children?”
“I’m angry he didn’t call
me.
I’m the sexton.”
“Isn’t Tuesday a day off?”
“Sam knows how strongly I would feel about this.”
“Perhaps he also knows how hard you work and how tired you are.”
Helen had not scribbled many of the details. Elisa had discovered most of her information from the call to Gracie Barnhardt.
“He wants the front looking as normal as possible when the children arrive on the bus. It’s too late to get the school to change plans and take them home. Red tape.”
“They put tape on the house?”
“No, I mean the authorities at the school have to follow a plan once it’s put on paper. They can’t adjust it so quickly.”
Adoncia nodded. “So the children have to go to the church.”
“Yes, but once they’re off the bus, Sam and the volunteers are going to take them to the Sunday School wing, then home after tutoring.”
“This is very thoughtful, no? They are trying to protect our babies.”
“Here’s the truth,” Elisa went on. “The only people who are around during the day to help are older or infirm, or at home with small children. Helen is in her eighties. Everyone else is off at work. What can they do? Can they repaint the entire front of a house in a few hours?”
“Probably no.”
“I’d like to see if we can round up some of our friends, and maybe some of the men who aren’t working today.
La Casa
is for our children, isn’t it? Shouldn’t we be doing anything we can?”
Adoncia thought for a moment. “I will take Nando and Maria to Nana Garcia. She will watch them for me. She lives to watch my children.”
“We need to do this quickly. I’ll see who I can round up.”
“The Ortegas have guests. Two young men who just came here and are looking for work. Maybe they would help.”
“Are they family?”
“I don’t think so. I’m not sure why they came here, but they can be trusted. Patia and Manuel are letting them stay until they can find a better place and a job.”
Elisa’s heart sped a little. She told herself not to hope. “I’ll go there while you dress. Patia will help me enlist the others. We can drop the children at your mother-in-law’s on our way to the church.”
Outside, she hurried between mobile homes until she came to the one belonging to Patia Ortega. She rapped on the door, then stepped back to wait. Her breath caught when a young man in his early twenties answered the door. He was medium height, with light brown skin and black hair falling over his ears. But a closer look proved he was a stranger. He was not Ramon.
He was not her brother.
“I…” She took a deep breath and let it go slowly. “Patia? Is she here?”
Patia came to the door in jeans and a huge T-shirt that spilled halfway to her knees. “Elisa. Come in.”
Elisa refused and told the other woman why she had come. “Can you help?” she finished.
“These people at the church, will they really want us there? They want to help our children, but our children aren’t taking their jobs….”
“They’ll be happy for any help we can give them.” As she said the words Elisa wondered how true they were. “If they aren’t glad to see us,” she added, “then perhaps we should not trust them with our children.”
Patia’s homely face was a mirror of Elisa’s own conflicting emotions. “I’ll get ready. Maybe Paco will come if I explain we need a strong man.”
“Was that Paco who answered the door? He’s here with a friend?”
“No, his friend is staying with family in Harrisonburg. Paco plans to join him next week unless he finds a job nearby.”
“I’m going to see who else I can find to help. Thank you, Patia.”
Elisa had known it was unlikely either of Patia’s guests would be the young man for whom she had been searching for three long years. She told herself there was still hope her brother would show up in Toms Brook one day soon. Ramon was a survivor.
She
was a survivor. They would find each other again.
She still had to blink back tears.
Sam was managing, somehow, to be both encouraged and discouraged simultaneously. He was encouraged that the quilters had shown up, along with a deacon, who was home from work recovering from bronchitis, and four young mothers with six children in tow. The mothers were taking turns babysitting and scraping paint off the house; the deacon was inside clearing away what he could with his limited strength; and the younger quilters were slapping a second coat of primer on the sections of the exterior that were dry enough to paint.
Last night Sam had trained a hose on the front of the house for the half hour it had taken the sheriff’s deputy to arrive. The latex spray paint had still been wet, and he had washed away some of it, turning racial slurs into shapeless gray blobs. Sadly, the words had still been legible if anyone looked closely enough, and even the first coat of primer had not been helpful enough to erase them completely. He hoped a second coat would do the trick. If white splotches were all the children saw, he would be grateful.
He turned when he heard Helen Henry’s voice.
“We called everybody we could think of. The place will be humming after five.”
“We can use everybody we get. There’s enough damage inside to keep them busy until midnight.”
“They pulled all our quilts off the walls and poured paint from the supply closet on them. Who would go out of their way to be that hateful? Used to be a little mischief around here, just for fun, but most of the time parents rode herd on their kids.”
“I’m particularly sorry about the quilts.” And he was. So many hours had gone into them, and their bright colors and warmth had made the children feel at home.
Helen sniffed. “Gracie said to tell you the sheriff called. He got a lead on one of those pickups. Somebody seen it burning rubber down the road about the time you got here last night. She might have recognized the driver. Sheriff says he’ll come by later if he has any news.”
Sam wondered if Leon Jenkins had been involved in the vandalism. He doubted it, considering the boy’s sincere and unsolicited apology, although Leon might know who the boys were. One way or the other, Sam doubted Leon would tell the sheriff much.
“It’s nigh lunchtime,” Helen said. “We collected money from everybody. Dovey and me, we’ll make a trip to the store and slap together something simple when we get back. I can’t clean or paint worth a hoot, but I can still make a sandwich.”
Sam thanked her, and a few minutes later Dovey’s car pulled away. The parking spot was claimed immediately by a silver Lexus sedan. An unfamiliar woman got out. She was tall and reed-slender, with curly brown hair that fell to her shoulders. As she came toward him, he noted a freckled face disguised at least partly by a light tan, wide-spaced hazel eyes and a generous mouth. He wasn’t quite sure how she had done it, but somehow, in beautifully cut jeans and a sage green shirt, she projected modesty and urban sophistication at the same time.
“Reverend Kinkade?”
He faced her. “I’m Sam Kinkade.” He held out his hand.
“Kendra Taylor. We had an appointment at eleven.”
He remembered now. She had called to find out more about the church, and he had invited her to come to his office and talk. She lived in Washington, he thought, or one of its suburbs, but she and her husband owned land nearby.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t in the office,” he apologized. “We had an emergency, and to be honest, everything else slipped my mind.”
“Your secretary told me what happened.”
He hated to leave the workers, but this woman had come a long distance to meet with him. Fortunately, she waved her hand when he suggested they go back to his office.
“Not on your life,” she said. “I’m going to help. We can talk another time.”
“That’s very thoughtful.”
“Tell me why the boys did this,” she said. “I write features for the
Washington Post,
and this kind of behavior intrigues me.”
“It’s an isolated incident. I don’t want this blown up into a story for the paper.”
“Is it? An isolated incident? Or is it a part of a wider backlash against immigrants in the area? There’s evidence Latino gangs are forming in the Valley, and I’m sure some people are worried. Is this a reaction?”
Sam wasn’t certain, and he told her so. Kendra seemed to accept this. “I’ll probably do some digging, but whatever I find has nothing to do with helping here today. I’ll do that as a friend.”
“We can always use friends.” He called Anna Mayhew, who was one of the painters, to meet Kendra. Anna suggested that Kendra work inside, cleaning and sorting, and Kendra graciously agreed.
He was about to start tossing bags of trash into the back of his SUV when he heard another car. He looked up and saw his own Honda, packed with women, parking on the side of the lane leading to
La Casa.
Elisa got out, and like circus clowns, five more women wriggled out, all stretching and breathing deeply once they emerged.
“Elisa?” He walked over to greet her. “What are you doing here?”
“So, you don’t even let me know, Sam?” Her dark eyes flashed. “You think this should be kept a secret?”
“I think you should have Tuesdays off, the way we agreed.” He was so glad to see her that he couldn’t look contrite or simply pastoral. He was afraid his eyes said everything. “But I’m glad you’re here.”
Some of the fire went out of her. “Next time, you trust me enough to let
me
decide whether I want to help.
¿Entiendes?”
“If I say yes, what have I agreed to?”
“You need some Spanish lessons.”
For just a moment he envisioned Elisa teaching him. The vision didn’t include a classroom.
She stepped back. “These are my friends. You’ve met Adoncia. This is Patia, and Inez.” She put names to the next two faces. “They are here to help clean the mess those boys made. There is another car coming with some men, as well.”
Sam shook hands with all the women. He tried to convey how pleased he was to have them there. The other car pulled up, and Elisa introduced him to two more women and two men. He said a prayer of thanksgiving for the men, since until that point his had been the only strong back in the place.
He greeted everyone with enthusiasm, but he saw the way their gazes went to the hateful words, still legible on the front of the house.
“I’m sorry,” he said simply. “But cans of spray paint don’t express the real feelings of a community, just the thoughts of some ignorant boys who had nothing better to do on a Monday night.”
“You think we don’t hear these things or see them in other places?” Adoncia asked. “If it were just these boys, the world would be a better place than it is.”
“Everyone is welcome in this church, and all of you are very much appreciated today. I’m glad you’re here.”
Adoncia nodded. “We are glad you want to help our children. Today we’ll help you.” She motioned for the others to follow her. Elisa stayed behind as the painters came to greet the new arrivals and put them to work.
“I guess I was trying to protect you,” he told her, before she could say anything more. “I didn’t want you to see what the boys sprayed on the house.”
“It’s been a long time since anyone wanted to protect me.” Her gaze softened. “But you understand that this is part of daily life, particularly for those whose English isn’t good? We’re wanted for our strong backs and willingness to work, but not for any other reason.”