Shelter Us: A Novel (2 page)

The next time the question came up, I said a silent prayer to Ella, and answered simply, “I have Oliver.” Now that we have Izzy, I answer, “I have two sons.”

I try to think about other things. I try not to meet new people. I don’t want to talk about it.

“M
ama?
Wheel? Again? Mama!”

It has been a week since we rode the Ferris wheel, and Izzy has not stopped talking about going back.

“Maybe later, Izzy.” I don’t want to disappoint him, but I feel a swell of panic at the mere thought of it. I don’t do well in crowds anymore. Robert gets back later today; maybe he can take them.

How many First Amendment conferences can one country hold each year? I know it’s important that Robert attend—for his career, for tenure, for our financial security. But since Ella’s death, caring for our boys alone for three days feels like summiting Mt. Everest back-to-back-to-back without a break. Each time Robert travels I tell him that I’m better, but the truth is I’m still reeling. I cannot get my bearings. Whenever he returns from a trip, we pounce on him like Labradors, desperate for his stroke, for his stabilizing presence to balance our wobbly three-legged stance. His flight arrives at 1:05 p.m. Four hours and five minutes to go.

Saturday cartoons have been on for hours already.
SpongeBob
’s theme song has wormed its way into my brain. Half-eaten bowls of Cheerios bloated with milk sit abandoned at the table. Warm air hovers outside the open window. It’s going to be another scorcher, the third day in a row. There’s something unnerving about January heat waves. It ought to be gray.

“Please, Mama?” Izzy asks again. I wish I could manufacture the
courage to do this. As a consolation, I agree to take them to the beach. I can handle sea level.

But I call for reinforcements.

“Hello, this is Bibiana,” my grandmother’s outgoing message singsongs. Her Guatemalan accent is still discernible, through layers of warmth that cushion her rock-hard fortitude. “
Please
leave me a message, and I will call you
very
soon,” she reassures. Bibi, my mom’s mom, helped raise me after my mom died. She’s feisty, fearless, and a sprightly eighty, although she doesn’t freely share that information.

I used to be more like her: undaunted. When she was seventeen, scandalously pregnant and unmarried, she left her ashamed mother and violent father and brothers in their village and headed north. After arriving in the United States, she hid her pregnancy long enough to join the ranks of live-in maids in southern California. When her
patrones
realized their new maid was pregnant, they agreed to let her raise her baby—Elena, my mom—in their spacious house. As little Elena got older, she tried to help with the cleaning, but Bibi refused. Instead, she asked the lady of the house if her daughter could watch the lady’s daughter’s piano lessons and practice when she was finished. (“Of course, Bibi, what a lovely idea.”) She stalked school counselors and guided her daughter into college. As essential as the citizenship conferred on my mom at birth was Bibi’s unwavering conviction that her daughter would not learn to be a maid.

“Hi, Bibi, it’s me,” I tell her voice mail. “I’m taking the boys to the beach and hoped you might come.” I pause, let the silence carry my unspoken message:
I need you
. “Bye.”

I gather our supplies, lingering in case Bibi calls back. Three stuffed beach bags sit by the front door, waiting to be loaded into the car: towels, snacks, sand toys.

The phone rings, and I jump to answer it.

“
Cariño
, I just got your message. I was out walking Pepper, my neighbor’s dog.”

“What neighbor?” Bibi is the self-appointed Welcoming Committee
of her apartment building. She knows everyone, and everyone knows her.

“
Yessica.”
Jessica. “I don’t think you’ve met her. She reminds me of you. Very pretty. She’s away, and I told her I’d watch the dog. I don’t know why I did such a crazy thing.”

“Can you come with us to the beach?”

“
Pepito
, no! Ay, I would love to, but I can’t leave this little thing alone in my apartment. He chews things.”

“Maybe you can bring him?”

“I don’t want him to get sandy, because I don’t know if he likes baths and I don’t care to find out. I’m so sorry. I would have loved to be with you and my little boys.”

I swallow the lump in my throat. “Okay.”

“You’ll be fine,” she reassures me. “How are the boys? Everyone is wonderful?”

“Sure. Everyone is wonderful.”

“Robert, too?”

“Yep, he’s out of town, but he’ll be back this afternoon.”

“Good. You have a great day with those beautiful boys. Call me when you get home.”

“Okay.”

“I love you,
cariño
.”

“I love you, too, Bibi.”

I hang up and the second-guessing begins. This could be a sign that we should stay home. I mean, when has she ever dog-sat before? No—I promised them. I can do this. It’s just the beach, Sarah.

I search for the sunscreen for my pale-skinned offspring (Robert’s mini-me’s) and find it in the kitchen drawer under rumpled takeout menus and a Ziploc stuffed with old batteries I keep meaning to recycle. I find a lone piece of gum with no wrapper and pop it in my mouth. Minty. It takes a few extra chews to soften it. The gathering saliva gives me a sweet boost of courage.

“Oliver, Izzy! It’s time to go to the beach!” I walk to the bottom of the stairs and call up. “Let’s go, guys!”

“I’m playing!” Oliver calls, which fans the flames of my ambivalence. In the midst of my wavering, I hear: “No, Izzy!” followed immediately by the sound of Izzy’s loud wail.

I hustle upstairs, almost tripping in my black flip-flops, and enter their room.

“Hey! Don’t hurt him!” I leap over a dozen small cars to grab Oliver’s arm before he hurls another car at Izzy’s head. I take stock and see two naked boys, swim trunks discarded on the floor, and Izzy crying in the center of several overturned toy cars.

Oliver looks up at me. His eyes reveal a mix of emotion: anger that Izzy messed up his Hot Wheels race, regret that he hurt his brother, worry that his mother is going to come undone. Izzy has stopped crying, but droplets of tears hover under each eye, ready to spill over. I want to cry, too. I want to lock myself in a dark room. I want to not want that. I want to do the right thing.

They are watching me, waiting to see what’s going to happen. I command myself to keep it together. I slowly bend down, pick up their bathing suits, and rise to look at them. I see cherubs with round bellies and expectant eyes, deserving so much more than I can give. I don’t know what to do, what to say.

I try to channel Robert. What would he do?

I put their swimsuits on my head. “Is this where these go?” I ask, trying for a Happy Mom voice, or something close to it.

“No!” they giggle. I sink to the floor, exhausted from the effort to be regular, and they crawl toward me. I gather them into my arms, smell their skin, kiss their heads.

“Let’s go, my angels.”

They let me help them into their bathing suits. When I walk down the stairs, I am relieved to hear their footsteps following me. “Hold my hand, Izzy,” Oliver instructs his little brother, and I turn around to see my boys connected at the fingers, concentrating on their descent.

I recall how Bibi used to whisk me to the beach when I was a little girl, her lightness, her ease, her flair. I tell myself to imagine I’m her,
to paint over the anxiety that threatens to keep us from this one small outing. Her voice resonates in my head:
That’s my girl, Sarah. You can do it. You can do anything you set your mind to.

W
e arrive
at the beach with sunscreen applied, bathing suits on, towels and food and beach toys in hand. Rejoice.

We trudge across the hot white sand to the ocean’s edge. I drop our bags in a heap, massage my shoulders, then go about setting up our umbrella. When I finally sit down on a towel under its shade, I am glad we came. It is beautiful here.

Izzy doesn’t hesitate to enjoy himself. He rolls in the wet sand like a puppy. He puts his face close enough to touch the sand, then sticks out his tongue to taste it.

“Eeeewwww,” Oliver says. “Mommy, Izzy’s eating sand!”

I make a face and say, “Patooey, patooey!” I take a stab at wiping off his tongue, but he wriggles away and runs headlong toward the water.

“Wait, Izzy!” I hurry after him. He doesn’t know that he can’t swim. Before a wave catches him, he runs away from the foam and lets the ocean chase him. I watch him play this game again and again and try to suppress the high-pitched pinging in my heart each time a wave looks too big. I inch into the water. After the initial shock of cold, it feels healing. A calm washes over me with each incoming surge, and my feet sink deeper into the sand with every retreating wave. The sand swallowing my feet makes me feel that I am still connected to this earth.

“Build a castle with me, Mommy,” Oliver says. I walk backward toward him, keeping my eyes on Izzy and the waves, and take my
place on the cool, wet sand. We fill our yellow bucket, pat it down, flip it over, repeat. We build our fortress.

Izzy sees us working and comes over. “Izzy, don’t break it!” Oliver shouts before Izzy is even within touching distance.

Izzy plops down, picks up a shovel, and sucks on the handle. “Look at the sailboat, Izzy,” I say to distract him from Oliver’s castle. He twists to face the ocean. It works. He is captivated.

“So big!” he proclaims, pointing toward the horizon.

“Yes, so big,” I agree.

He notices a seagull and gets up to chase it. Oliver runs after his brother and the bird. It flies away, and their feet slap the wet sand as they give chase. Their footsteps make shallow impressions that fill up with water and disappear. They turn to each other, laughing. “Again!” Izzy calls to Oliver, and the two of them speed after the next seagull in their sights.

My face breaks into a smile and the feeling travels to my chest. I hold up my hands, frame the scene between my index fingers and thumbs. “Click.”

I
zzy falls asleep
in the car on the short drive home. We are all spent. I’m proud that we did this, and happy that Robert will be home soon and will get to see me doing a normal mom thing.

As we turn onto our block, a green-and-white Prius taxi pulls away from the curb in front of our house. Perfect timing. Robert stands on the sidewalk wearing khaki pants and a wrinkled white shirt, no tie, a travel bag draped over one arm. I feel a measure of tension leave my body at the sight of him standing in front of the rosebushes and lavender that grow along our white wooden fence. The flowers and the fence preceded us here, as did the gate that swings back and forth on two-way hinges, like saloon doors in Western movies. Oliver used to burst through that gate, fingers blazing like guns. He has outgrown his cowboy phase, but he still likes to run back and forth through them. He caught his fingers once, so now he runs with his arms up and lets his belly whack them open.

We bought this house soon after we returned from our two years in DC. Those were heady times—Robert clerking for Justice Breyer on the Supreme Court, and me enforcing the Clean Water Act at the Environmental Protection Agency. We felt like our futures could be anything we wanted them to be. Robert liked this neighborhood because it was a reasonable commute to our new jobs, it was close to great running trails, and, most importantly, because it was perfect for families and he was ready to start one. Right on time—on
our six-month anniversary here—we learned I was pregnant with Oliver.

The neighborhood
is
perfect. The lawns shimmer. The people glitter. The cars gleam. Even its name alliterates: Pacific Palisades. I “pass” because of my fair-skinned kids and my mixed breeding—my Guatemalan mom married a Jewish lawyer. But at times I feel more at ease with the Central American nannies pushing the swings at the park than with the moms kissing their babies good-bye there.

The realtor who sold us the house described it as “traditional,” but that was a euphemism for “plain.” Its stucco exterior is painted white, its wooden faux shutters gleaming black. A lone sycamore graces the front lawn. Robert planted three of them when we moved in, but two withered. We tried to save them, but couldn’t figure out what made one strong and the others sick. Other than this stubborn tree, our contribution to the landscaping is the assemblage of toys littering the path to the front door. Given all the children in the neighborhood, you’d think there would be more messes like ours. But maids and gardeners tidy things up quickly. I like to be reminded there are children here.

I wave and smile at Robert as we pull into the driveway. “Look who’s home,” I whisper to Oliver, so as not to wake Izzy.

Oliver opens his window by pressing the automatic button with his big toe—a new trick. “Daddy, we went to the beach!”

Robert opens Oliver’s door. “Wow, kiddo,” he says. “That’s so fun!” He gives me a look that says
Good job!
and lifts Oliver out of the car and kisses him.

I get out and he opens an arm to me. I lean into him.
I made it
, I think. “Welcome home,” I say.

“I’m so happy to be back. Izzy fall asleep?” he asks, peeking into the backseat.

“The beach did him in. How was the conference?”

“It was good,” he says, setting Oliver down. “I don’t love the travel, but it beats a law firm any day.”

“Better than answering interrogatories?” I ask.

He laughs. Everything is better than answering interrogatories.

Oliver runs to the center of the lawn. “Daddy, watch my cartwheels! Daddy! Daddy! Watch!” It will be impossible to talk about anything now, least of all constitutional law.

“Let’s see your cartwheels, kiddo.” Oliver does some tumbly thing, and Robert goes to pick him up. He turns him upside down, puts him over his shoulder, and spins in circles while Oliver shrieks with delight.

I feel a twinge of jealousy over Oliver and Robert’s close relationship, but mostly happiness for them. Robert wasn’t close to his father, and he is determined to be a different kind of father to his kids. My own dad may as well be gone; he is a nonentity in our lives.