Year of the Monsoon Read Free Page B

had taken care of Mariela during that time.
    She found Mariela in the elementary common room, sitting by herself in a small rocking chair she had pulled into a corner. Even after two weeks, she hadn’t made any friends, wouldn’t talk to anyone. With her black hair washed and pulled back in a ponytail and wearing clean clothes, Mariela was a beautiful child. Her face looked fuller with a few good meals inside her.
    Leisa pulled another chair up close and sat. “Hello, Mariela,” she said. “Do you remember I told you they had to do some tests on your mother to be sure how she died? It was drugs.”
    “Never lie to them,” Maddie always insisted. “Most of these kids have never heard anything but lies from adults.”
    Mariela said nothing, just rocked.
    “These are your mother’s ashes,” Leisa said gently, holding out the can.
    Mariela stopped rocking and looked up at Leisa. After a long moment, Mariela reached over and took the can into her lap and began rocking again.
    “You are her family,” Leisa said. “You can decide what to do with the ashes. Sometimes people keep them. Sometimes they have a funeral and bury them. You can think about it and let us know what you want to do.”
    She left Mariela rocking in her chair, hugging the can tightly and humming to herself.

    Leisa hurried home later that day, anxious to get home to Nan. All afternoon, she’d tried unsuccessfully to shake the image of Mariela, sitting in her rocking chair, holding tight to her mother’s ashes. A mother who hadn’t taken care of her, hadn’t protected her. None of that mattered to Mariela. Sitting in her car, stuck in rush-hour traffic, Leisa felt her throat suddenly tighten and tears sting her eyes. She reached for her cell phone and dialed her mother’s house before she remembered she wasn’t home. She and Aunt Jo were in New York all week.
    “Mom, you really need to start doing things for yourself, taking it a little easier,” Leisa had started telling her mother about six months ago.
    Daniel Yeats had fought a brave but brief battle with prostate cancer five years ago. He had tried to keep working in his drugstore during his chemo and radiation, but it hadn’t been long before Leisa’s mother, Rose, had taken over the books. Luckily, Daniel’s assistant, Ed, was able to handle the pharmacy counter by himself. Reluctantly, Daniel and Rose had decided to sell the store to Ed. Bruce Gallagher, Jo Ann’s husband, drafted the legal agreement and the store changed hands, but Rose was the one who knew all the customers, so she stayed on, helping Ed through the transition. After Daniel was gone, she kept working because it gave her something to do, a schedule she had to keep. But this past Christmas, Leisa and Nan had conspired with Bruce to give Rose and Jo a gift of a train trip to New York City so that the two sisters could enjoy a week together, shopping, going to Radio City Music Hall and seeing some Broadway shows. They weren’t due back until late Saturday night.
    Leisa considered calling her mother’s cell, but put her telephone down. “This is stupid. You don’t need to talk to your mother,” she muttered as traffic started to move.
    When she got home, the message light was blinking on the answering machine.
    “Hi, hon,” came Nan’s voice out of the speaker, “I’m sorry, but I had to re-schedule a late client. I should be home by ten. Love you.”
    Sighing, Leisa turned to Bronwyn who wagged her stump of a tail. “Looks like it’s just you and me tonight, then,” she said as she opened the refrigerator. She fed them both, and took Bron for a frosty walk in the winter darkness, remembering when it wasn’t like this.

    “I don’t want to work evenings anymore,” Nan had said ten years ago when Leisa moved in with her. “I want to spend my evenings at home with you.” Despite the advice from her accountant that it would negatively impact her income to lose after-work hours, Nan cut her schedule back