Needing Somewhere to Stay for the Night
by CLS Sandoval
The long drives to and from San Diego in the midst of my mother’s mental health crisis were wearing on me. Poor infant Evelyn spent more time in the car than I ever intended for her to. I had taken her to the beach, to at least play just a bit before we were to stay the night at our pastor’s house. His wife was the most hostess, and I was relieved to have a place to sleep, while my mother was not allowing me in her front door. I had already spent years disconnected with my father, and losing my mom was excruciating.
It was the kind of warm that made a sweater unnecessary, but I still wanted to wear pants. Evelyn was in her carrier on my chest, rooting, so I filled her bottle and let her eat as I gazed across the Pacific. The horizon looked as far away as my mother felt. Flashes of the moments I had spent right here in Oceanside, when I was 10 and my sister Tiffany was five, pulled tears down my cheeks. I could almost see my mother commanding us to shore as our chins quivered, our lips turned blue, and we rolled with the tide in the icy water. We never wanted to get out, no matter how cold we felt.
The bing of a text message pulled me out of my memory and back to my present moment. It was the pastor’s wife, I am so sorry. Our daughter is coming unexpectedly to town. So you can’t stay. Maybe you could call your dad? I stared at the message for a moment, looked at my happy, feeding baby, then back at my phone.
I scrolled down to my dad’s number, the one I hadn’t dialed in years, trying to decide if I was ready to tell him he had a grandchild.
