Free Shelter Us: A Novel by Laura Nicole Diamond Page B

one of the oldest law firms in Los Angeles. He let me decide if I was ready to go back to school or not.
    Not, I decided. Bibi and I stayed in the house, crying, snacking, and talking. We took my mom’s Judaism books off her shelves, and paid close attention to the handwritten notes in the margins. We handled them like illuminated treasures from the Dark Ages. We talked about the passages she had underlined, and what she might have thought about God. Bibi, a pragmatist who hadn’t stepped into a church since she’d come to America, was intrigued by her daughter’s interest in religion. The chapter on death described rituals we followed as well as we could. They gave us something to do. On the seventh day, we opened the front door to an unfairly lovely afternoon, stepped outside with arms locked, and walked ourselves around the block. It was time to rejoin the living.
    There was no Mr. Mom routine for my Dad. It was Bibi who made sure I ate dinner, had clean clothes, and felt life in our house. It wasn’t until I became a mother that I realized she had done that for herself as well as for me.
    A year and a day after the accident, I kissed Bibi and my dad goodbye and drove to Mills College in Oakland. Bibi had wanted to help me move in, but I thought I’d feel my mom’s absence more if she came with me. I saw college as my fresh start, where I was free from the Death Kid label. I poured myself into studying and achieving with one clear goal in mind: after I graduated I would never ask my dad for anything.
    My father got his fresh start, too. A colleague invited him to work at the International Court of Justice in the Hague. With my blessing, he was gone. I (mistakenly) thought there was little difference between him being an hour’s flight away or ten, but he should have known better. What helped him most of all was the young Italian lawyer he met there. They married, moved to Rome, and had two daughters. He never came home.
    Robert and I visited them once, on our honeymoon. It was unnerving to see him living an alternate life. I could not get it in my head thathis two little girls skipping around and speaking Italian were my siblings. I felt no connection. Not to them, not to my father. We left Rome two days earlier than we’d planned. Everything around us was ruins.
    The D UTY F REE bag yields two remote control trucks and a set of airport vehicles. Oliver begs to stay home and play with them instead of going to school. I don’t want my father to witness me quarreling with my kids, so I say yes. He helps them open the packages, and then sits with me at the kitchen table.
    “I have to say, Dad, I didn’t expect to see you standing on my doorstep.”
    “I’m sorry for the surprise. I’m here for work, and I wasn’t sure if I’d have time to come by this morning. One of my meetings was cancelled, so I thought—”
    “You thought you could squeeze us in at the last minute?”
    “Well, when you say it like that it sounds bad.”
    “If the shoe fits, Dad . . .”
    “Actually”—he uncrosses and re-crosses his legs, a move I recognize from when he was trying to maintain patience with my adolescent self—“I was going to say, I didn’t know if I’d have time this morning
or
later this evening.”
    “Oh. That explains why you didn’t call to say you’d be in LA.”
    “I didn’t call in advance because I didn’t want you to say no.” He looks at me pointedly.
    Fair enough. I pick at my fingernails. “Well, so, how long are you in town?” Sitting across from my Dad here in my house feels so bizarre, and also inexplicably normal.
    “A week,” he says. “But I’ll be back again on and off for a few months for work. The girls wanted to come, but they couldn’t miss school. They’re in high school already.” He shakes his head. “I can’t believe how big the boys are getting. They’re beautiful, Sarah. You’re doing a great job.”
    Hearing my dad compliment my parenting revs up my