In Broken Places (14 page)

I didn’t know what to do to stop sobbing, and I think I looked at Trey like,
Help me!
because all the crying was hurting my ribs and my head and my wrist. But Trey just kept on shushing me. And then his shushing got a little jagged. And then he put his face down next to my head, kind of burrowed it into the pillow under my neck, and I could feel his sobbing matching mine.

I couldn’t stop the tears. They had started when I’d gotten into Gus’s car, and they hadn’t abated during the fifteen-minute ride home. He had tried to console me as best he could, but his reassurances had been weightless on the scales by which I judged the good and bad of my life.

“You couldn’t have seen him coming,” Gus said. “It’s a blind intersection and you did everything you should, but he just came around that corner too fast to miss you.”

“He didn’t listen,” I said, swallowing the sobs that tried to overcome my self-control. I would not let them out in front of Gus. “I kept telling him that I don’t speak German and he just kept on yelling at me. I even told him
in German
—but he kept pointing at his car and at me and . . .” I had to pause because the exertion of trying to maintain my dignity was making it hard for me to catch my breath. “And I don’t have a cell phone!” I finally wailed.

“It all worked out,” Gus said in a soothing voice, reaching awkwardly to pat me on the shoulder as he drove. “That store owner let you call Bev, and she got ahold of me.”

I felt another wave of humiliation and horror rushing up from my stomach to my throat. “He just wouldn’t stop yelling, Gus!”

“The damage isn’t bad.” He was trying hard to drag my mind off the yelling, but it had apparently made quite an impression on my conversational skills. “I’ll go over this afternoon with someone else and drive your car home. We’ll have it back in shape in no time. And it probably won’t even cost that much.”

That launched another tears-versus-self-control battle. Money. Money had become more of an issue than it had ever been before. I did have the income from my dad and from my church, but every month still felt like a desperate countdown from one paycheck to the next.

“We can help you pay for the repairs,” Gus said, misinterpreting my increased crying for concern about the bodywork my car’s rear fender would require. He didn’t realize how much deeper and wider my anxiety was. This wasn’t about an accident. This wasn’t about another bill. This was about the utter foundationlessness I felt in every facet of my out-of-control life.

When we got home, Bev was waiting on the doorstep for me. She rushed over and helped me out of the car, while Gus took the keys from me and opened my door.

“Oh, Shelby, honey, I’m so, so sorry,” she said, wrapping me tightly and rubbing my shoulders as we walked. “Is the car badly damaged?”

“Just a scratch and a dent,” Gus said as we passed in front of him and entered my apartment. “I’ll keep your keys so I can get your car later, okay, Shelby? And I’ll pick Shayla up from kindergarten in an hour, so don’t you worry about that.”

“We’ll be okay,” Bev said, walking with me to the couch. Gus told her to call him if we needed anything, then left.

Now that I was in my own home and in the comfortable presence
of my friend, I had no command left over the torrent of emotions that had been months in building up. Bev went to my bedroom and came back with my pillow. “Here,” she said, “hang on to this. It’s no good to cry without something to hold on to.” And she sat down beside me on the couch and patted my back while I hugged the pillow to my stomach and let the torrent rage. The force of my crying was terrifying, so powerful that I pitched slowly sideways as I sobbed, my head finding the armrest and my legs curling up under me. Bev’s hand never ceased its movement on my back and shoulder. She just sat there quietly and let my anxiety flow.

“I don’t know why I’m doing this,” I sobbed, minutes later, when I couldn’t seem to get a grip on my emotions. “I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

Bev’s voice was gentle and laced with understanding. “It’s been a long time in coming, hasn’t it.”

I nodded, powerless to gain control.

“And it’s not just about your accident,” she said. “But you know that, too.”

“He wouldn’t understand me,” I cried. “I kept saying it over and over—‘I don’t speak German.’ But he kept on ranting. And when the cops came—” I buried my face in my pillow to stifle the sounds coming out of my throat—“they laughed, Bev.” I turned my head to look at her. “They laughed and said something about Americans.”

“Well, that was uncalled for.”

“I can’t do this,” I said, and the resolve of that statement relieved me somewhat. It also made me angry enough to sit up. “I can’t live here. I can’t keep trying to convince myself that everything’s fine. I can’t keep putting Shayla through this.”

“Don’t make any decisions now, Shelby, not while you’re in this state.”

“But I can’t do it, Bev! I’m sick of this. I’m sick of being a foreigner. I’m sick of not being able to read any labels at the grocery store. I’m sick of being scared on the roads and of getting mail that doesn’t mean anything to me even though I know it’s important. I’m sick of having to beg people for help and being treated like a dimwit!”

“Shelby . . .”

“I can’t take it!” Another crying jag threatened to overwhelm me, so I got off the couch and began to pace, anger adding an edge to my tears. “I thought I was doing okay. I kept telling myself that this is normal, that it’s going to get easier. I keep telling Shayla that too, but how can I convince her when I can’t cope either? I knew it was going to be hard, but nothing like this. Nothing like this, Bev!

“I haven’t even made friends with anyone aside from you and Gus. It’s like every moment I’m awake is consumed with trying to keep Shayla happy, and trying to be a good teacher, and figuring out how to direct a play, and cooking with foods I’ve never seen before, and feeling like an absolute idiot because I still can’t speak German, and . . . and I’m tired of it!”

“Give it time.”

I stopped my pacing long enough to give her a disbelieving look. “How much? I was expecting some tough stuff, but nothing like this—and I feel it all the time. On the outside
and
the inside. Like my organs aren’t even in the same place anymore. I can’t handle it, Bev. I thought I’d be able to, but I can’t!”

“This is
normal
, Shelby,” Bev said from the couch, her own eyes bright with tears.

“Well, it’s too much,” I said wearily, my sobs subsiding but my lungs still heaving. I sat at the dining room table and looked at my friend in utter despair. “It’s all too hard. The Germans are always staring at me and correcting me and acting like I’m an imbecile.
Nothing is easy here—nothing! I mean, it takes an hour and a half to do a load of laundry! I can’t find a donut to save my life, I can’t buy clothes because none of them fit right, I feel guilty driving because gas costs so much, I only get to talk to Trey once a week . . .”

Bev came to the table and pulled a chair up close to mine. “You’re transitioning. It’s supposed to feel this way.”

“And then,” I added in desperation, “I go to the doctor this morning for a sore throat and he makes me strip to my waist—to my waist!—and he doesn’t give me anything to cover up with. Nothing. No paper robe, no sheet . . . I can’t do it,” I said again, shaking my head in resignation. “And I can’t do this to Shayla.”

“She’ll recover too.”

“Have you
seen
her since she started kindergarten?” I asked angrily, motherly protectiveness hardening my tone. “She’s come back every day
so
unhappy, Bev. The other kids won’t talk to her, the teachers refuse to listen to her if she speaks English. How is she supposed to learn when no one cares about her?”

“I’ve seen her when she comes home,” Bev said with the kind of firmness in her voice that told me it was time to become rational again. “She comes straight to my house, remember? So I’ve seen it firsthand, and you know what?”

I shook my head and swiped at my nose with the Kleenex she’d brought me from the box next to the couch.

“The two of you are suffering from exactly the same adjustment pangs. Too much newness and weirdness all at the same time. Too many things that feel like you somehow need to survive them.”

“I need to pull Shay out of kindergarten. It’s killing her.”

“Give her another couple of weeks.”

“Bev! She cries herself to sleep at night and begs me every morning not to send her back. It’s been like that for two weeks! How can I force her to do something she hates so much?”

“You’re not forcing her. You’re allowing her enough time to get used to it before pulling her out of the one thing in her life that gives her contact with others.”

My lungs spasmed a little and I swallowed hard. My eyes were pulsing with the intensity of my emotions, and my chest felt hollowed out. Nausea came and went like a veil across my eyes.

“And I can’t stand the rain,” I said, every ounce of my rebellion in the words.

Bev laughed and reached across to pat my hand. “Well that, my dear, is the one thing you
really
can’t do anything about!”

I allowed a smile, but it didn’t feel very hopeful.

“None of this is easy, Shelby. That much you’ve got absolutely right. And combined with everything else you’re coping with, it’s got to feel so overwhelming that you can’t see straight right now. But give it time. Just like Shayla needs a little more time before you decide whether to leave her in kindergarten or not, you need more time to see just how strong you really can be. You’ve only been here a few weeks, and I don’t want to depress you, but culture shock like this can sometimes take a couple years to put behind you.”

I rolled my eyes. “Great. That’s encouraging.”

“Except that you’re doing it right. You’re trying as hard as you can and giving it all you’ve got, which is exhausting considering you’re juggling motherhood and teaching and learning to direct a play. You’ve been through monumental changes in the past few months, and you’ve somehow maintained your sanity.”

I raised a dubious eyebrow.

“You have,” Bev persisted. “This—” she pointed at my swollen eyes and salt-abraded cheeks—“this is sanity. It’s acknowledging that it hurts and that none of it makes sense. And once this passes, once you get your car back and Shayla starts to do better, once you master a few more easy meals to make and get a few more German
phrases under your belt, it’ll start to feel better. Just don’t expect it to happen overnight.”

She patted my hand. “What feels overwhelming now won’t be quite so confusing in a month and even less in a year. Every challenge is part of the process. Give the changes the time to become familiar, and give yourself permission to be scared or frustrated or confused. Just like you give permission to Shayla.”

“Hans and Regina went to the pool,” I said in German.

“Come again?”

“That’s the one German sentence I know really well, and I’ll probably never get to say it.” The last words turned into a wail, and I launched into chapter two of Shelby’s Epic Meltdown.

“Hey, consider yourself lucky,” Bev said. “The only sentence I know in French is
Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir
?
”

I put my wailing on pause long enough to give her a
Huh?
look.

“From ‘Lady Marmalade,’” she explained. “You know what it means?”

I shook my head. I had heard the song all my life without ever wondering about the French.

“Well, it’s a surefire way of meeting the natives,” Bev said. “It means, ‘Do you want to sleep with me tonight?’”

I laughed so hard I snorted.

“Your nose is red,” I said to Trey. He was lying on the floor next to the couch, his bag of frozen peas still pressed against the livid traces of my father’s shame around his neck.

“I’ve been sneaking out and doing a clown act after dark every night,” he croaked, his eyes closed. “Can’t seem to get all the makeup off, though.”

“Oh, good,” I said, “’cause I thought maybe you’d been crying or something.”

He opened an eye and glared at me. We’d never been very good at crying together.