In Broken Places (19 page)

I acted a moment too late. Spurred into motion by sheer panic, the injured bird made one last, desperate attempt at evasion, vainly flapping his defective wings as he tried to run away from me. His claws got caught in the blanket and hampered his escape, but the frenzy of his agitation made me rear back, losing my balance and toppling one of the chairs that supported the Huddle Hut’s roof. The clatter seemed to rip the bird’s claws from the blanket, and he lifted off in a floundering flight that stuttered and pitched and rose directly toward my brother’s scowling face.

Trey reacted without thought as the bird rushed at him. “Hey!” he yelled, slapping it away, flinging it out of the air onto the dusty floor of our protected, sacred space.

“No!” I cried, too late. The bird lay pitiful and broken on the floorboards, its legs twitching. “Trey!” I uttered hoarsely, willing him to do something—anything—to undo his brutal act.

“It came right at me!” Trey yelled, his voice laced with panic. “It
came right at me—you saw it!” He looked around like he wanted to escape, his legs unsteady, his face a rictus of shock and shame.

“But you didn’t have to hurt him!” There was a sob in my voice as I stared with stricken eyes at the brother whose love for animals had always mirrored mine. This person standing across from me couldn’t be him. He looked and sounded and smelled too much like Dad to be the gentle, caring Trey I used to know. “What’s happening to you?” I cried. “How could you do this, Trey?”

“Shut up!”

Incomprehension bled in a steady stream of tears from my eyes. I begged again, “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing!”
he screamed, his weakness hardening into something fierce. His gaze turned flinty. I could almost see the self-abhorrence burrowing into his rigid chest. Every syllable was jagged rock when he half hissed, half snarled, “It’s—just—a—stupid—bird!”

And with those words, maybe to prove his callousness, he took a step and kicked the bird across the room.

“Stop!” I screamed, lurching forward to rescue the small creature. The bird went rolling across the floor in a ghastly twist and turn, and I lunged toward it, desperate to halt its torture. “How could you?” I pleaded as I reached shaking hands toward the mangled form. “How could you, Trey?”

I stared at my brother—my gentle, compassionate brother—outraged by his merciless act, his obscene destruction of fragility. “Trey . . . ,” I wailed, my voice breaking as I took the shattered testament to his own agony into my hands.

I saw horror fissure his steel-masked face before it hardened again into rigid pride. He would not weaken now. He could not show his fear. And as the world that was my brother shattered in a hail of woundedness above our Huddle Hut, I held the bird against my chest and felt it slowly die.

MY LIFE THESE DAYS
was a collage of mothering and teaching and directing that left little space for actual socializing. It also kept me busy enough that there was no time for self-pity and even less for major culture-shock meltdowns like the ones I’d experienced during my first weeks in Germany. I’d come close to mini-meltdowns on several occasions, but Bev’s advice had proven true. The moment I’d told myself that it was all right to be unbalanced by the change of life Shayla and I had undergone, the tough days had gotten more bearable. I’d also started to put considerable effort into focusing on the endearing and quirky aspects of the German culture rather than on its more frustrating traits, and that alone had brightened and opened my attitude. So I’d gone from a love-hate relationship with the country to a love-tolerance relationship, and the change had done wonders for my emotional well-being.

I found teaching at Black Forest Academy to be easier than elsewhere in some ways. It sure beat inner-city schools. But the nature of the student body made for inherent differences I hadn’t noticed at first. The students were walking contradictions. Some of them could speak three languages fluently but consistently botched English idioms. Alyssa once announced that she would have to rewrite an entire research paper by saying, “Well, I guess it’s back to the ironing board!”

And Ahram was prone to declare, “That’s just not my bag of tea” when something wasn’t to her liking. Bag of tea, cup of tea. It was all the same to this Korean young lady whose parents lived in Mongolia and who studied in an American school in Germany.

At the end of each class period, the school hallways turned into a virtual United Nations, with so many languages being spoken and yelled that I sometimes wondered how any of the students were able to study in English. Yet the students awed me with their adaptability and mutual support. Because they were all foreigners, to one degree or another, they could laugh at each other and commiserate with each other and convince each other that the worst times would pass. I loved to watch them together, their shared experiences fueling relationships that were surprising in their intensity and uniqueness. They formed a three-hundred-strong student family, complete with conflicts, growth, and the kind of bonds that I found rare indeed.

To me, of course, one of their greatest appeals was their love for Shayla. She was the unofficial school mascot, often carried aloft by members of the basketball team when she was on campus with me. They called her Lady Shay and taught her their worst jokes and generally did their part to de-angelize her. And she relished the attention, which meant Bev and I had to deal with the consequences at home. But I was learning that children are children, and
the more childlike they act, the more they force adults into grown-up roles. Consequently, every encounter with Bev had become a parenting tutorial. I craved our times together. They felt like tiny steps toward reprogramming those Davis genes I loathed and feared. Bev was a patient teacher and a compassionate listener, and both Shayla and I thanked God for her in our bedtime prayers.

My own prayers had become more frequent in the months since I’d taken Shayla in, and more frequent still since our arrival in Germany. Seldom an hour went by that I didn’t feel the compulsion—urgent and visceral—to seek solace and counsel from God. During my childhood, he’d been a vague entity that had kept me from feeling completely bereft of comfort apart from Trey. God had been the unseen adult who somehow made up for the neglect and abuse of the Davis dysfunctional duo. But now—now he was a presence in every way but tactile. And though I’d learned not to expect immediate responses from him—like a voice or a nudge or the Bible suddenly opening to, say, “Thou shalt not eat the fruit of the deep fryer”—I knew he was there with a certainty that defied logic. I’d sensed his compassion and patient understanding too often to deny it. And though I sincerely questioned the amount of time he wasted on me when there was so much more wrong with the world, I was immeasurably grateful that he did.

I had gone by the Johnsons’ one Saturday afternoon while Shayla was at a birthday party to see if Bev could explain to me the mystery of yeast. She was going to teach me how to make bread, and that bread, in turn, was going to forever hush Shayla’s complaints about hard crust. At least, that was the plan.

I had no idea that bread-making required so much time. It was like watching grass grow—only with more tasty results.

“Shayla told me a secret last week,” Bev said, looking like the Pillsbury Doughboy had exploded in her hands.

I feigned dismay. “She told you she peed red after she had beet salad?”

“Nothing that earth-shattering! But she did mention that you call her your daughter now.”

I could feel myself blushing, a sensation I’d despised since eighth grade when Tony Masolli had made me turn red just by staring at me—right after I’d told him he couldn’t make me do it. I wasn’t sure why I was blushing this time. Perhaps because the information seemed so intimate. “Did she sound okay with it?”

“Are you kidding? She acted like she’d just won the blue ribbon at a mom-earning contest!”

Bev had known from the beginning that Shayla was a recent addition to my life. It was something I’d revealed even before arriving in Germany, as she was going to be spending so much time with my daughter. My
daughter
. The word was a polka-dot rainbow in my mind. We’d talked about the circumstances only vaguely. She knew I’d been named as Shayla’s guardian after a relative had died. The rest was still hard enough for me to make sense of without trying to explain it to someone else.

But on that cloudy afternoon in Bev’s kitchen, with Gus out helping a family with a move, it seemed natural to bring it up.

“Does she ever mention her dad?”

Bev shook her head. “Only with reference to things or memories. A book her dad read to her or her trip to Disneyland. She’s very casual about it.”

“Her dad was my dad.” There. It was out.

Bev stopped kneading for a moment, then resumed. “So she’s your . . . half sister?”

I laughed at that and shook my head at the contortions of my family tree. “My daughter is actually my half sister,” I agreed, still amazed by the strangeness of it all. “My dad left the family when
I was fourteen. My mom died eight years later. And we didn’t find out until my dad died—last December—that Shayla even existed.”

“So your mom never knew.”

I thought back to that conversation we’d had after Dad’s Godzilla imitation. Mom’s reference to Dad’s “other house” had planted seeds of suspicion in my mind. “She didn’t know about Shayla’s mom. But there were probably others before that. Dad was . . .” How could I reduce “a-monster-of-a-man-with-the-parenting-skills-of-a-certified-sociopath” to one word? “Dad was not a nice man.” I took a deep breath and added, “He was actually an incredibly abusive son of a—” I clapped my hand over my mouth like Shayla did when she said
stupid
, ashamed that I’d almost used the term out loud. A fine missionary I was.

This was the point at which I expected Bev to launch into a kindhearted discourse on the fallenness of man, the challenges of parenthood, the sovereignty of God, and the virtue of forgiveness. Oh, and with something about washing my mouth out with soap thrown in. I braced myself for the guilt and slapped a “Repentant” sticker across my brain.
Lay it on me, Bev.

Instead, she shook her head a little, like a mother mildly disappointed in her child, and said, “Well, isn’t it a miracle that the filthy son of a—” she mouthed the word—“managed to hatch a little angel like Shayla and give you the chance to show her how parenting’s done! If that’s not divine irony, I don’t know what is!”

I started to laugh. And then I realized I couldn’t stop. Part of it was Bev’s attempt at cussing—it struck me as funny in a Bambi-goes-R-rated kind of way. Part of it was sheer relief that I’d revealed the dreaded Davis secret and not been shamed or pitied or exhorted. Part of it was that Bev hadn’t looked in the least inclined to call social services and have my daughter removed from the care of someone who was undoubtedly branded by her experiences
and would in turn become a child abuser—the thought had never seemed to cross Bev’s mind. And part of it was that the only alternative to giggling was crying, and I wasn’t sure how well I’d be able to control the tears, given my happiness, my missing Trey, my fear of failure, and Scott. In that order.

So I giggled. I giggled until Bev sat in a chair and raised an eyebrow like she was waiting for me to stop but her patience was running out. When my giggling finally petered out, she said, “Now get off that chair and start kneading. I’m too old to sweat.” As she’d done more for my morale in the last two minutes than anyone else had done in weeks, I took off my rings and dug into the dough.

We were staring at two gorgeous, rounded loaves of bread an hour and a half later when she said, “You should stay for supper. Scott’s coming and he’d probably appreciate the young blood.”

“I need to pick Shayla up from her party.”

“Scott can bring her. He lives right next door.”

The thought of Scott picking Shayla up and bringing her for dinner felt so intimate that I think I blushed again. “We’ve got leftovers at home we need to eat before they go bad.”

“Stick them in the freezer—they’ll be good as new.”

“I need to call Trey tonight. His birthday’s on Sunday and . . .”

Bev turned on me, hands on hips, and gave me an unhappy-mother glare. “What’s with you and Scott?” she demanded.

“Nothing. It’s—”

“Don’t ‘nothing’ me, young lady!” Bev the Battle-Ax was back in business.

Just at that moment, Gus walked in. He saw my face and paused. “What’s going on?”

“Shell’s suffering from something Scott-related, and it’s up to us to cure her. I invited her to stay for dinner and she turned me down.”

Gus smiled. “Nobody turns down a Bev Johnson invitation.”

“Precisely. And I think I feel a twinge of the old Bev coming on, so, honey,” she said to Gus, taking off her apron and hanging it by the door, “this one’s yours.”

And she walked out. I was confused. Okay, and a little peeved. My business was my business and I couldn’t figure out why she was taking it all so personally. And I didn’t like having Gus sicced on me! Gus, on the other hand, didn’t seem in the least put out. He sat down at the kitchen table and patted the chair next to him.

“Come have a chat with Uncle Gus,” he said.

“Ew.”

“Okay, so just Gus.”

I sat. “Look, I’m not sure what Bev’s expecting you to do, but—”

“Scott’s a great guy, Shelby.”

“Good for him.”

“And given the number of times he’s walked you here, I’d wager he’s got something of a thing for you.”

“These things pass.”

“And you’re a beautiful single girl . . .”

“Oh, for pete’s sake, Gus, get to your point.”

“Spend some time with him. Have a few talks. Get to know him.”

“I don’t have time. We’ve had a few talks, and I already know him.”

“And?”

“And . . . what? And he’s a nice guy. And I’m a busy woman. And I’m just learning to get the Shayla thing right. And . . .” I gave a very unladylike harrumph. “Why is this any of your business anyway?”

Gus sat back in his chair, arms crossed, narrowed his eyes, and stared. I didn’t like it. It felt like I was being appraised, and I was neither a show horse nor an antique. Though I felt well on my way to the latter.

“You’re scared,” Gus said.

“Oh, please.”

“It’s written all over you.”

“I’ll admit there are some things in life that scare me—snakes, treadmills, spandex, empty donut boxes, scorpions . . . But Scott Taylor?”

“You’re not scared of him?”

“Of course not!”

“Then prove it. Stay for dinner.”

I really hated it when people saw the smallest crack in my argument and barged right on through it like a platoon of well-meaning nuns on a Shelby crusade.

“No.”

“What do you have to lose?”

“My time.”

“That’s it?”

“I’m a busy woman.”

“So you’ve said.” Gus leaned forward and twinkled at me with his eyes, which I immediately recognized as manipulation but somehow failed to resist. “He’s coming over for dinner. What’s the harm in you and Lady Shay joining us too?”

I had roughly forty-three thousand rejoinders bouncing around in my brain, but none of them seemed to carry much weight against the brutal simplicity of Gus’s “What’s the harm?” We did an eyeball tug-of-war, each daring the other to back down; then I threw my hands up and tossed in the towel.

“Fine.” I sounded as exasperated and unnervous as I could. “Call him up and have him bring Shayla.”

Gus slapped the table and bellowed, “Bev! I’m better at this than you are, honey!”

As it turned out, Scott had come down with the flu and didn’t join us. I spent the meal chitchatting with Shayla about her party, getting caught up on Bev and Gus’s children, and telling myself over and over that I wasn’t disappointed. Which I wasn’t. Really.

The next day, Scott didn’t turn up for church, and I pictured him alone at home with a raging fever and no food to eat. In my picturing, he looked a lot like Trey, and that made me feel even more sorry for him. Scott wasn’t Trey. Of this much I was sure. But he was enough like my brother that he brought out the caregiver in me. I didn’t want him to feel alone and shut out because he was sick.