Chapter Five
Kayla came into her practical world view gradually over time and her sass later in life when faced with some realities that could not be dealt with in any other way. She loved her father and was angry with how the world, her mother, and almost every stranger who passed them by treated him. She and Maurice were newly homeless, which it turned out was not especially unique, despite her expecting that everyone else on the street or in a tent camp would be long-term residents. Her story of a bad situation spiraling out of control was, in fact, typical, and this made her even more angry. So, she screamed. Sometimes loudly and where others could hear and sometimes quietly into a pillow late at night or a coat sleeve while sitting against a cold wall in the park. It helped. She was adjusting and now, finally, after weeks of uncertainty, they’d landed on a small patch of normal in the Southeast quadrant of Washington, DC. Sally’s Place was a twig on the edge of the cliff she could hang onto. It gave them a base of operations, something they hadn’t had since their belongings were hauled out onto the sidewalk, where she’d found them, and her dazed looking father, after school one day. It hadn’t always been this way.
Sixteen years ago, Maurice was seventy percent certain he was in love with a woman named Azriel who he’d met in a local bar a month before and got along well with, but he was one hundred percent certain he wasn’t going to walk away like his father had. How he felt about the baby he’d been unquestionably involved in making was yet to be determined, but he was going to be there to find out. As it happened, it was love at first sight and the bond of true love he never quite felt with Azriel was sealed with Kayla. He was not going anywhere. Home was where Kayla was and there was nothing that was going to change that. However, his preference for fatherhood over husbandhood did not go unnoticed by the adult woman in the house who became increasingly certain that she picked the wrong guy at the bar to chat up a year ago. Seventy percent in love eventually slipped through fifty and finally to a point where the loss of Maurice’s job was not so much a last straw as a welcome excuse for her to run out the door and never look back.
That what came next was a pile of clothes and furniture on the sidewalk was never the plan, but it wasn’t a complete surprise either. Maurice was the consummate handyman, always ready to help, a jack of all trades and none, and without any kind of long-term plan or security. He, and as a result his family, had lived on the edge of financial disaster for so long it was normal, until it wasn’t. And no amount of weekend work or odd painting jobs was going to dig them out.
The problem was there was no cushion. There was no money in the savings account or hidden in the mattress or buried in the backyard. There wasn’t any jewelry to sell or college fund to raid. When one week of no jobs lead to two weeks and then three, the bills that were due last month became due again, but were double the size, plus interest. And the rent that had always been the first thing paid, suddenly became the last, and then an unreachable goal. Were there charities that could have helped? Probably. Did Kayla suggest they take advantage of those charities? Yes. But if Maurice had a flaw it was his pride, and taking charity was not something he was prepared to do, until it was too late and the burden too great for the kindness of strangers to bear.
Kayla had been mostly oblivious to it all, until it smacked her in the face that day after school. She stared at a favorite t-shirt draped over the edge of the curb, one sleeve slowly soaking up a small puddle of dirty rainwater. Then she cried. Then she punched Maurice in the chest. Then she screamed into his chest. Then she got her shit together, talked Maurice into getting his shit together, and they headed north. She with some new clothes and toiletries from a local charity and he with his jeans and flannel shirt. By the time her school realized she’d been absent for two weeks and sent a truancy officer to the house, they were under an overpass one hundred miles to the north in Richmond arguing over sleeping arrangements and wondering if it might rain.
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