Roof Man

“Have you seen what’s going on at the end of our block?” Glenda, our next door neighbor, said over the phone. “There was a crash just a minute ago.”

“Going to take a look right now,” I said, heading for the front window. I hung up and called to Husband in the other room. He and I stepped outside.

“I thought I heard some screeching tires,” he said, his attention fixed on the wreckage at the end of the block. “I guess this explains it.”

Police tape wrapped the intersection like a giant, forbidden gift. Inside the tape, officers from the sheriff’s department poked around a car, crumpled between a pickup truck and another car. We strolled up to the police tape and waited, hoping to catch the eye of someone on the scene. Husband slid his badge from his pocket—the sun hitting it just right—and an officer sauntered over to us.

“What happened?” Husband said.

“We were chasing a guy—drug-related—and he crashed into one of our undercover vehicles.” The officer nodded at the unmarked pickup truck on the scene. “Then the other car pinned him in. But he bailed.”

“Did you catch him?”

“In a sense. He’s up on the roof of a house right now one block over, and they have the house surrounded.” The officer hooked his thumbs on his belt buckle and rocked back on his heels. “He did the same thing before in Bloomington. Up on someone’s roof there too. Bloomington SWAT team shot him down with bean bags, but he got away. Had the U.S. Marshals looking for him after that.”

“Does the guy live around here?” Husband said.

“Just around the corner.”

The street—blocked in all directions—didn’t deter people from driving up to the police tape to get a good look. The KMOJ Radio station van rolled up too. We spotted Jeff and Mary who were renovating the vacant house two doors down from ours. We strode over to say hello, Husband filling them in on the details of the crash.

“Yeah, we already heard all that from the KMOJ guys,” Jeff said. “They get their info pretty fast.”

“Want to take a peek inside the house? See our progress?” Mary said, shifting a bucket to her hip. “It was in pretty rough shape when we got it.”

They led the way, and inside the house, Husband and I admired the repaired cracks in the plaster, the gutted kitchen, and the refinished cabinets. Fresh paint dressed the walls, and the old 1920s woodwork sang again.

Since we had only met the couple once before—they lived two blocks away—I asked about their life in north Minneapolis. The neighborhood had weathered its ups and downs in the past thirty years since she moved in, Mary said. And much had happened in her life too. She told me about her son who died at the age of twenty-one in 2004. The same year Dicka was born. I sighed and shook my head. While I had gained one that year, she had lost one. 

“It’s not something you ever get over.” Mary’s eyes misted with the truth of her words. Then after a moment, she freshened her smile. “Let’s show you the upstairs now.”

“Come over whenever you want and see our house too,” I told Mary and Jeff when our tour ended. “It might be messy, but you’re always welcome.”

Husband and I returned home, gathered the girls, clipped a leash on Lala, and invited Glenda to join us. We ambled over to the next street where the fugitive was perched on someone’s roof. Police tape cordoned off the entire block. A crowd had gathered and news crews stood in position, their cameras aimed at Roof Man. Just outside the tape, I noticed a woman. She lingered by her car while two police officers questioned her.

Dinner and homework pulled us back indoors, but a couple of hours later, Husband and I ventured out again. The street—normally bustling with traffic—was still taped off. The atmosphere was festive; people meandered around with drinks and snacks, visiting their neighbors.

We spotted Keyondra—one of our basketball kids—with her mother Donna out on the sidewalk in front of their house. We stopped to check in.

“So what’s the update?” I said. “You have a better view than we do.”

“He’s still up there,” Donna said, shaking her head. “The cops are trying to talk him down.”

“He ran through somebody’s house before climbing up on their roof,” Keyondra said. “I guess he freaked them out.”

“No doubt.”  

“The police are talking to his baby mama right over there.” Keyondra nodded toward the same woman I had noticed earlier.

“So that’s who she is.” I hoped none of their kids had witnessed the event from hours before—or Daddy up on the roof now.

“So how are things over here on your street?” Husband said.

“Well, the candy girl is gone,” said Keyondra with a shrug.

“There was a girl who sold candy?” I wondered how we had missed her.

“No. It was a woman. And she sold other food too. Like homemade ribs and pickles. She had a little table she set up every day right over there across the street.”  

“I figured you needed a city permit or something to do that, but I guess not,” Donna said. “The police were okay with it. They stopped there for food all the time.”

“Homemade ribs sound good right about now,” said Husband.

The evening air grew crisp, and I tugged my sweater around me. We chatted as we waited for the grand attraction: Roof Man’s Descent. But as daylight faded, we lost interest.

“You should all come over some night when we have a fire going in our fire pit,” I told Donna.

“And whenever we have the barbecue going, you can all come over here too,” she said.

Back at home, Husband clicked on the TV to watch the local evening news. We saw close-up footage of Roof Man. He strutted across the roof’s peak, stretching his arms out in “come get me” defiance. Then three and a half hours after it had all started, the stand-off ended. This time, law enforcement used words—instead of bean bags—to lure Roof Man to the ground.

What had started with a crash at the end of our block ended in a fizzle. But after the excitement was brushed away, I realized the hidden beauty. We neighbors were drawn from our houses by an unusual spectacle and united by shared territory and humanity’s inborn curiosity to find out the ending of a story.  

We also drummed up plans for more home tours, fire pit time, and barbecues. Summer in the neighborhood couldn’t come soon enough.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Missing

“Ireland’s missing.”

My friend Ann’s words—on the other end of the phone line—dangled in the air.

“Missing? From school?” I said, my thoughts darting to the girl’s semester-long program at Conserve School in Land O’Lakes, Wisconsin, with its 1,200-acre wilderness campus.

“I guess she went out for a walk last night around 5:00 p.m., and no one’s seen her since.”

I snapped a look at the clock. It was Sunday, March 20, 2011, 1:00 p.m. Ireland had been outside in freezing temperatures for twenty hours. Fear formed a fist in my stomach.

After the call from Ann, I paced, remembering snippets of Ireland. Many times, the girl had biked over from her house in north Minneapolis—just six blocks away from ours. She had often cradled our dachshund in her arms. Over the years, I had watched the young free spirit paint, create, and even bake outside of the lines. In 2006, she had regularly played at our house—along with her sister Willow—during the days when Jim, her dad, was losing his life to melanoma.

Anxious, I dialed her mom, Rachelle. “I heard about Ireland,” I said. “What can I do? What do you need?”

“We’re on the road right now.” Rachelle’s voice, though steady, seeped worry. “We’re going to help look for her.”

I thought of Rachelle’s losses. Not Ireland too!

After our call ended, I scanned the news online. Ireland’s story already dotted the internet: “15-year-old high school student missing”, “Minnesota girl missing in the Ottawa National Forest”, “Conserve student on a hike now missing.”  And there was Ireland’s face—plastered everywhere.

I dissolved to my knees on the living room floor and pressed my forehead to the rug.

Save her! Let her live!

But I wouldn’t know the truth for another six hours.

One morning in 2005, the phone rang. It was Husband’s supervisor.

“Is he still at home?” the man said, his tone stiff and professional.

“He left hours ago,” I said, frowning.

“He didn’t show up for work today. And he’s not answering his phone.”

Flicka and Ricka zinged goldfish crackers at each other across the dining room table. But their innocent play chafed me. I shushed them. “Maybe he’s on a flight already.” I gripped the phone tighter.

“I’ve already checked the flight registers, and he’s not there. His vehicle’s not at the airport either. No one’s seen him. His partner took the flight without him.”

The man concluded the phone call and deserted me to my roiling thoughts. Husband was steady. Reliable. He always went to work—even when he was sick. As if I had powers no one else had, I phoned him. No answer. I left a message. After that, I tried again. Then I called the Highway Patrol.

“What’s the make and model of his vehicle, ma’am?” the officer said, his voice edged with compassion after hearing my story.

I gave him the information he needed to comb the routes Husband might have taken to work. While I waited for answers, I phoned my sister, briefing her on the situation. She drove to my house with her girls, and our five little ones dashed off to play, oblivious to the worry simmering within their mothers. An hour passed. The officer called back.

“We haven’t found anything,” he said. “But we’ll keep looking.”

“Okay, thanks.” I curled into myself.

That distracted afternoon, I fed something to the kids and absorbed the blur of my sister’s kindness, her expression stained with concern. I sat numbly at the dining room table, my heart still beating because that’s what it did on its own.

After five hours, I’d receive a phone call and learn the truth.

Vivid tattoos twisted all the way down Moe’s arms to her hands, her right one holding her artist’s tool: a pair of hair-cutting shears. And with those shears she helped shape Flicka’s identity, championing my girl through her early-teen years. As Moe cut my hair too, I trusted her with my stories—the embarrassing, the disgusting, the frightening. Behind those cat-eye glasses, she winced at nothing. Except when I told her about the intruder climbing in through our kitchen window in the night.

“He messed with the wrong family!” she said, incensed, holding her scissors like a weapon.

She told us stories too—hers with a kick of reality and always doused with humor. We had loved Moe for six years. And she had loved her husband Andrew for eleven.

Then on the morning of September 1, 2014, Andrew kissed her soundly, mashing their three-year-old son Bronson between his body and hers in a sandwich-style hug. He told Moe he would go to work—but only for a few hours since it was Labor Day—and then he’d be home to spend time with them.

But Andrew didn’t show up at work. And he didn’t come home again.

Moe didn’t sleep that night. She called hospitals and friends and then posted on Facebook a frantic cry for help. A blend of confusion, anxiety, and anger knotted her nerves; she later told me she feared someone had abducted her man. Crews of searchers rallied for her, all of them unswerving in their mission to find him.

Then someone spotted Andrew’s car parked by a wooded area near the Mississippi River. The search crews—and the police with their dogs—pressed in, scouring the woods, but they found nothing. For hours, their eyes were blinded to the truth of what had happened to Andrew.

Three years earlier at Conserve School, another set of search crews—law enforcement agencies, fire departments, and search and rescue teams—hunted to find Ireland in the vast wilderness of northern Wisconsin. By early evening on March 20, they found her alive. In fact, a local hospital pronounced her in good condition in spite of her twenty-six-hour walk in the woods.

Later, Ireland told us how she had gone for a hike alone after dinner that Saturday night. She stepped off the path for just a moment to enjoy the beauty—the waning light infusing the snow with shimmers—but she was quickly lost. She collected snow in her water bottle and then slipped it inside her coat to melt it for drinking water. Before nightfall the first night, she lined a hollow log with leaves. She nestled inside and slept. By the second day, she improved her sleeping quarters by erecting a crude shelter, in case she had to spend another night outside.

The environmental school had equipped Ireland with the skills to survive, and she had conquered two enemies: exposure to the elements and time. In its October 2012 issue, Seventeen magazine published her survival story, praising her resourcefulness. But we were just happy to have her back, and we celebrated her life.

As I waited with my sister that afternoon in 2005, the phone rang. I snatched the receiver, my thoughts swirling.

“Hi,” Husband said. “I just landed and got your messages. What’s up?”

Weak with relief, I flooded his ear with the events of the day.

“My flight got switched at the last minute,” he said. “I ended up flying to Seattle instead of Washington, D.C. But my supervisor found out the schedule change only a few hours ago.”

My relief ebbed away and anger washed in. “He didn’t call and tell me.”

“I’m sorry. He should have.”

Human error had halted my life that day. Husband hadn’t been missing at all.

“I’m glad you’re alive,” I said, easing out the breath I had been holding.

On September 2, 2014, in the wooded area just across the river from our house, it was Moe’s father and her uncle who at last found Andrew. He had jumped off the edge of his life and died of depression among the trees.

A step off a wintry path. A communication mix-up. A hidden depression. No matter the cause, our lives are shredded by our missing loved ones. But they aren’t lost to the One who knows.

If I go up to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in the depths, You are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me, Your right hand will hold me fast.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Repairs

I noticed water dribbling from a line in the basement one day. After listening to my description of the problem, the gas company sent over a technician to inspect our air conditioner, but the unit was fine. I had simply forgotten one all-important task: to change the furnace filter right after we had sanded our wood floors the previous week. Because of my oversight, the filter had clogged, forming condensation on the line, and water had dripped and pooled on the basement floor. Now I stood outside—the technician next to me—staring at the side of our house.

“See? You’re gonna have to do a patch job right there,” he said with a sniff, pointing at a small area on the stucco near the foundation.

I furrowed my brow. “Does this have anything to do with our air conditioner?”

“Naw. I’m just letting you know what you’ve gotta fix at some point.”

He moved on to the next item—a new furnace—on his for-us-to-do list.

“That thing’s gonna conk out soon,” he said, bobbing his head in a series of nods, maybe hoping his steely eye contact would break me. “Better replace it now.”

“We’ll see,” I said, brushing away his intensity. My mind flitted back to a different technician from just a few months earlier who had checked our furnace and pronounced it good. “They don’t make ‘em like this anymore. Don’t replace it until it totally dies,” he had said.

The current technician’s words pelted me, and before he left, I agreed to a duct cleaning. Even though it had first been my idea, his face grew the smug look of a successful hawker.

Not all of the repair people visiting our home were so crafty. Over the years, I noted the differences in technicians. There were those who got the job done in little time with minimal small talk, and then those who wove stories into their work, their visits leaking into my day.

“You wouldn’t believe the stuff I see in people’s basements,” said one technician as she swapped out our old water meter for an updated one.

“Oh? Like what?” I said, not sure I wanted to know.

“A lady I met had shelves lining her basement walls. Kennels of dogs on those shelves. Sometimes even a couple of dogs per kennel.” She pried off a bolt.

I cringed. “That makes me sick.”

“At least forty of them, I’d guess. Maybe more.” She rigged the new equipment in place and tightened the bolts again. “I told her she’d better let them go. Give them away to good homes and all that.” She swiped her arm across her forehead. “I reported her to Animal Control as soon as I left her house.”

“Oh, good.”

The repair woman finished the job, leaving me with a shiny, new meter. But I also had a bad taste in my mouth. Sometimes it’s better not hearing stories from strangers.

Husband and I had evaded window washing for eight years, and in 2010, we decided to replace the windows altogether. The installation guys were efficient and meticulous. Along the way, they pointed out the miniscule details of their work—the hidden nooks and crannies no one would ever see. And at every turn, they tidied up after themselves.

Spurred on by the call of hospitality, eleven-year-old Flicka whipped up a baked treat for the workmen, since they were doing such a good job. I was out plucking weeds in the garden when she later emerged from the house and delivered a small plate of fresh goodies to one of the men. She stood there—awkwardly fiddling with the edge of her shirt—eyeing him as he chewed.

“Wow,” he said, smacking his lips. “These are good.”

I smiled and ducked into the house to taste one of her treats. The hot, fresh mounds looked like muffins, but they tasted so bland I skimmed through her recipe, wondering if she had forgotten the vanilla, cinnamon, and sugar too.

But all around, it was a job well-done. The windows were beautiful and clean, the fastidious workers were gracious about the baking, and Flicka honed her hostess skills.

Four years after the new windows, we eagerly awaited the installation of a new metal roof. Early-morning pounding on the house—the perfect pairing with my French Roast—had never sounded so sweet. I spoke with the workmen, but my questions were met with only smiles and shrugs. I soon learned the only English-speaker on the job was the supervisor.

My mind skipped back to the roofers of my childhood. Their overly-tanned skin—slick with sweat and oil—melded with the hard rock, Hair Band anthems thrumming from their boom boxes. But the workmen on our roof in 2014 kept their shirts on—a lesson or two learned about the ozone since the 1980s, I suppose—and blasted Vivaldi, Corelli, and Handel.

While I scratched my head at the choice of music, Ricka and Dicka were focused elsewhere and saw the chance for some entertainment. They scrambled upstairs to their bedroom, slid open their window, and peeked out at the workmen tearing off the old roof.

“Yoo hoo!” they called, then ducked under the window when the workmen looked their way. After repeated teasing from the girls, one of the men at last threw a tarp over their window. The girls inched it aside to again chirp at the workers before crumbling to the floor in laughter.

“Oh, girls,” I said, shaking my head. “You might be getting on their nerves.”

But just then, one roofer lifted the tarp and warbled back at the girls.

No one watched any television during that three-day job. And I heard more classical music than I had since my childhood piano recital days.

Interesting people are tucked away everywhere. We venture out and see them in stores or on the streets. We learn from them in different settings. But sometimes fascinating strangers come right into our homes and add spice to our lives. And if we’re lucky, they’ll fix the air conditioner while they’re at it.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Vermin

One day, I noticed a cloying, rotten smell wafting from a vague location in the house. It sent me into sleuthing mode, and I pinpointed its whereabouts to the kitchen. I inspected the trash can for spoiled food that might have missed the garbage bag liner. I cleaned out the fridge. I muscled the appliances away from the walls, mopping hot bleach water under each of them, but none of my efforts reduced the stench.

“This is awful,” I said. “Help me find what’s making that smell.”

Husband and the girls searched with me. The smell emanated from a certain spot by the refrigerator, but we found nothing. Since there was no more we could do, I tried to forget about it.

“This makes no sense,” I said, still enduring the stink two weeks later. “If something died in here, shouldn’t it have decomposed by now?”

“You’d think so,” Husband said.

Then one day, I had an idea. While I had moved the refrigerator in and out numerous times to clean under it, I had never looked underneath. I knelt down and removed the fridge’s front panel that ran along the floor. I switched on a flashlight and peered in. A mouse—suspended in some metal wires—stared at me with bulging, lifeless eyes. Startled, I flipped through my options and then phoned Husband.

“You can get him out when you get home,” I said at the end of my story.

When he returned from work, Husband pulled on a rubber glove. Then he crouched in front of the fridge and extracted the mouse, securing it between his index and middle fingers. He raised it—like a fat cigar—to his face and sniffed.

“Yep, that’s the smell,” he said.

Another day, we discovered a squatter on the property—living behind a hole in the peak of our house—and Husband decided it was as good a reason as any to race out and purchase a pellet gun. While he was preoccupied with how he would snipe down the squirrel, I wondered about the size of the rodent’s living quarters. And I worried about the future of the window located just inches from the roofline.

Curious about the loudness of his new weapon, Husband squeezed off a practice shot into the ground in the back yard. But since it sounded like a cannon going off, he was convinced ShotSpotter—the city’s gunshot locator system—would bring the police over for a visit. And, he decided, the gun might also leave craters in the house’s stucco. So he drove back to the store to exchange his purchase, settling instead for a standard pump-action bb gun with a scope.

That night, Husband took his post in the back yard by the fire pit—his bb gun at his side—and the girls clustered around him, all of them keeping keen eyes on the hole. I hoped the sound of a crashing window wouldn’t be the exclamation point at the end of our day. Husband’s hunt was fruitless that night, but he tried again the next day. The girls, enthralled with his new hobby, settled into a routine with him; each night after dinner, they followed him outside, and the four of them trained their eyes on the peak of the house and waited.

One evening, the squirrel poked its head out of its hole, emerged, and hunkered down on top of the window frame. Husband later told me he had considered—in that moment—the possible consequences. With the inaccuracy of the bb gun and its useless scope, it was a sketchy shot and posed the strong possibility of blasting out the window. But he took the shot anyway, which sent the squirrel skittering down the house. Like a pack of hunting dogs, the girls chased after it, and the rodent zipped around the corner. Husband squeezed off one more round before the animal disappeared for good.

Confident the squirrel wouldn’t return, Husband rented a forty-foot extension ladder from a north side hardware store, so he could patch the hole. The ladder, though, was harder to control than the bb gun. During the repair job, Husband almost smashed the window he had earlier avoided shooting. But the ending of the story was a happy one. The squirrel was no longer a tenant, and no windows were harmed in the making of Husband’s adventures.

Glenda called us one day, her normally relaxed voice taut.

“There’s a bat on my porch. Could you come and get it out right now?”

Husband pulled on gloves and headed over next door, armed with a broom. Glenda, bat-phobic and shaken, had gashed her knee from falling in her attempts to shoo out the creature. She had also sprayed her garden hose inside the enclosed porch—soaking its insides—in the hopes of blasting out the rodent that now cowered in a corner.

In just a few minutes, Husband scooped up the bat in his hands and set it free outside. And peace was restored to Glenda's house.

We homeowners have a tight screening process when it comes to what’s allowed in our homes: domesticated animals, yes; creatures of the field, no. In this world, it’s the perennial struggle of the owner to keep his or her home from succumbing to nature. But we’ll fight for it if we have to. And it doesn’t hurt to have a Husband come along and save the day.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Boundary lines

“I think it’s brave, you living this social experiment with your family,” an acquaintance once told me.

It wasn’t the first time someone from the outside had woven a conclusion about our life in north Minneapolis, and it wouldn’t be our last.

“I see what you’re doing,” said another well-meaning soul. “Raising your girls on the north side is admirable. I just know I couldn’t do it.”

“I’m worried sick about you,” an elderly woman said another time. “I grew up in north Minneapolis, but it was nice back then. Now… well—” And she shuddered.

“You’ve probably got drug deals going down in your back yard at night,” a man once said with a snigger.

“Not every night,” I replied.

I relayed the comments to Husband. He shrugged.

“People don’t know,” he said. “And who cares what they think?”

Shootings, drugs, gang activity, poverty. I could hear the news as well as anyone else, but I knew my neighbors in north Minneapolis. And it trumped everything.

Early one morning, I heard frantic pounding on the front door. A man I didn’t recognize stood on our steps. He saw me peep through the window at him, and he jabbed his finger toward my Honda, parked on the street. I opened the front door.

“You’ve gotta move your car right now, or you’ll get towed. Street cleaning starts at 7:00 a.m.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” I said, grateful.

“I live on the next block and do this for people all the time,” he called over his shoulder as he hustled back to his car. “You’ll probably see me again.”

He wasn’t the only one doing unto others. Between incarcerations, the neighbor across the alley acted as self-appointed watchman for us. He ran a clandestine auto repair business out of his garage, and vigilance was his gift. He alerted us when we forgot to close our garage door or by accident left the lights on inside our vehicle. I could see his heart through his grease-smudged shirt, and I told him so.  

Benevolence rippled out further too. Local church groups raked leaves and picked up garbage around the neighborhood; people rushed to help those who had slipped on icy sidewalks or couldn’t start their cars; and neighbors walked out of their way to return dogs, children, mail, or briefcases to their owners. I once witnessed a man chase down a woman in her vehicle to tell her she had left her cell phone on her car’s trunk. Goodness cropped up all around, but it wasn’t shiny enough to make the evening news.

At the beginning, we made the uninformed decision to move to north Minneapolis. But as the years passed, we made the choice to live there.

“It’s a good place to raise kids,” I said to anyone who asked. And because of the visible needs around us, it was a good place for kids to learn life wasn’t all about them.

Based on our ethnicity and socioeconomic status, some people from outside the neighborhood suggested our family should reside elsewhere. They said they had a house for sale in their cul-de-sac where we would fit in perfectly.

But they didn’t understand we already fit in somewhere.  

Inside the neighborhood, we basked in freedom. We were free to paint our wood front steps red or purple or orange, and over the years, we did all three. Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka poured out their artistic expressions through colored chalk on the sidewalks, doodling all the way down to Veronica and Sergio’s place. They decorated the driveway too, but the weather had its own ideas, and rain pattered away their designs.

“This’ll last longer,” Husband said, handing them cans of spray paint for the cement slab by our garage. Giant eyeballs and neon lips emerged from those aerosol cans and spruced up our basketball court.

Inside the neighborhood, we rested in safety. We couldn’t boast that no one had ever kicked in our door or broken in or stolen from us—those things had already happened—but our sense of security was sound and our peace unshakeable.

You have assigned me my portion and my cup; You have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.

A gentleman in the neighborhood told us about a conversation he once had with his friend.

“I heard about that shooting near you last night,” his friend said, concerned.

“Oh? We were barbecuing and had the sprinklers running,” he replied with a shrug. “There’s nothing I would’ve changed about my day.”

And there was nothing we would’ve changed about our days either. We lived alongside people we chose to love, whether or not it made sense to those peering in from the outside. And goodness pursued us even if it didn’t look like it could.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Four-legged neighbors

One evening at dusk, we spied her waddling around the alley near our garbage can. Concerned she had lost her way, the girls asked Husband if they could let her into the yard. He said yes, and the dog—that we didn’t recognize—scuttled inside. Her looks were not nearly as remarkable as her odor. She had gotten into something stinky in the alley, and we decided if a smell could have a relative, hers would be the first cousin of a skunk’s.

I could tell she was a friendly pit bull—beating her tail back and forth when we talked to her—and had probably never missed a meal in her life. She sniffed our yard, poking her nose into my planters and pots. She was a low rider compared to Lala and twice as thick, and the two romped around the yard. I grabbed ahold of her collar and read the name on the brass tag: Ginger. Her owner had etched a phone number on the other side, but the last digit was illegible.

“We can dial the ten combinations and see,” Flicka offered.

“Let’s just get her on a leash and see if we can find where she lives,” I said.

Clipping a leash to her collar was the easy part. But Ginger had neither the aptitude nor the willingness to walk on a lead. She plopped onto the ground.

“Any idea how to get her to walk?” I said.

The girls hooted in high-pitched voices, trying to coax Ginger to move.

“Let’s go,” Husband said to the animal.

He took the leash from me and managed to get Ginger out of the yard, the girls scampering alongside him. I stayed back in the house, hoping for the best while I cleared away the dinner dishes. Soon, the group returned, but there was Ginger—still at the end of the leash.

“We checked with a bunch of neighbors, but she doesn’t belong to any of them,” Ricka said.

“She must live on the block. Just look at her,” I said, pointing at her girth. “She couldn’t have wandered far.”

This time I took the leash, determined to find her family myself, but maneuvering Ginger was like walking a furry brick wall with its own agenda.

“Let’s try Peace and Freedom’s house,” I said to the girls.

We entered the neighbor boys’ back yard and rapped on the door. Their mother answered.

“Is she yours?” I said. Freedom was suddenly in the doorway too.

“Yeah, thanks,” the woman said. “We didn’t know she got out.”

“She must’ve jumped the fence,” said Freedom.   

Fat chance, I thought.

Another day, a neighbor across the alley came over with his pit bull, Daisy. He introduced himself as T.J.

“Could these two play together?” he said, indicating Lala and Daisy. “She’s good with other dogs.”

“Sure,” Husband said.

Daisy played for a while and came over again the next day for a play date. And the day after that. At first T.J. hung out while the two played. Then he began dropping off his dog, saying he’d be back for her later. We didn’t mind. Aside from her penchant for digging, Daisy had a sweet disposition.

One day, T.J. knocked on our door. He asked if he could leave Daisy to play.

“Just for a half an hour,” I said. “I have to leave the house at 3:00.”

Three o’clock came. No T.J. I let some minutes slide by, but still he didn’t come. I called his cell phone, but the number he had given me had been disconnected. I would have to return Daisy myself.

Since it was just our houseguest—ten-month-old Rashad—and me at home, I formed a plan. First, holding the baby in one arm, I lured Lala back into the house. Then, with my free hand I attempted to wrangle the leash onto Daisy, but she was as easy to lasso as a slippery eel. I decided to leave her in the back yard while I went to T.J.’s to tell him to come and get her. Before I could clasp the gate behind me, though, Daisy scooted out and dashed off.

Worried about being late to pick up my girls from school and now also concerned about Daisy’s whereabouts, I hustled to T.J.’s with Rashad on my hip. I dodged some toys and trikes in his yard before I got to his front door. Music blared from T.J.’s upstairs apartment. I knocked first, then rang the bell, and at last caught the attention of the downstairs tenant. She screamed up to T.J., and he sauntered down to the door, looking disheveled.

“You got a baby?” he said, scratching his chest.

“Daisy got out of the yard. You have to come and get her. I’ve gotta go.”

I buckled Rashad into his car seat and drove off, leaving T.J. scouring the alley for Daisy. Before I turned the corner at the end of the alley, though, I glanced in the rearview mirror just as he caught her.

T.J. and Daisy showed up in our yard later that week. This time, the man also had his kids in tow. He introduced them and rattled off their ages—five, three, and two years old. He asked if the dogs could play again.

“How about an hour this time?” I said.

Daisy zoomed around the yard with Lala, and before I knew it, T.J. disappeared, leaving his three kids behind too. They weren’t surprised like I was. Instead, they were smiley and seemed unconcerned about being left in the impromptu care of strangers.

One day, our family was enjoying ice cream in Uptown when my cell phone rang.

“There’s a dog in your back yard,” Dallas said on the other end of the line. He gave me a description. “Do you want me to call Animal Control?”

“No,” I said. “I know that dog. We’re on our way home.”

Back at the house, Husband went over to have a chat with T.J., but he wasn’t home. Instead, he talked with T.J.’s brother, laying out some parameters. The man apologized and retrieved the dog from our yard.

We never saw T.J. again. But we saw his kids and their uncle—and sometimes Daisy who would come to play on our turf and terms.

They say it takes a village to raise a kid. But maybe it takes a village to raise the furry neighbors too—or at least provide them with a little entertainment before helping them find their way home.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Terrance Donaldson: Part 2

Officer Drake’s words still rang in my mind: The bad news is your purse will be in police evidence for a while.

I recounted the remarkable events of February 28, 2014. By comparison, my purse spending time in evidence seemed insignificant. A phone call from the precinct the day of the break-in had soothed my concerns; my driver’s license, credit cards, car keys, and checkbook were locked away, safe and sound. The police just needed to photograph everything, and then they would release my property.

On day three, I called Sergeant Sloan. I reminded him of the case details and my name.

“Today’s my birthday, so getting my purse back would really make my day,” I said, injecting a light laugh.

“Yeah, they’re not done with it,” he said, his tone brusque. “But you can call the evidence room yourself. Don’t know which one your purse’s at, though.”

“What are my options?”

“There’s one in the Uptown area and one downtown at the Government Center.” He rattled off both phone numbers.

After some searching, I learned my property was staying at option number two, but was still slated for its photoshoot. A few more days passed. Then on day six came the big phone call: I could get my purse back.

I entered the Government Center downtown Minneapolis and wended my way back to the evidence room. I fell in line behind fifteen other unfortunate folks who were all waiting to get their own stuff back.

When it was my turn, I stepped up to the thick plexiglass. The man behind the window took one look at me, and before I could state my name, he disappeared into a back room. He returned with my purse, plopped it into a pan, and shoved it to me under the window—along with a release for me to sign.

“Can I take a minute to check and see if everything’s here?”

“Be my guest,” he said.

“I’ll be a witness for you,” said the male customer at the window next to mine. “You never know about these people.”

“Thanks.”

I rifled through my purse, checking all the inside pockets. A pack of wolves might have left it in similar disarray. Wadded papers, shredded Kleenexes, rumpled checkbook, car keys. A tiny envelope held my driver’s license, but the rest of my cards were gone.

“Where are my credit cards?” I said, panic mounting.

The man behind the window pulled out the inventory sheet. “Says here, ‘driver’s license, keys, checkbook, feminine items.’ No credit cards listed.”

“The police told me they were all here. Even mentioned them by name. Where are they?”

“Better check with Sergeant Sloan. Maybe he’s got ‘em.”

“Sergeant Sloan has my credit cards? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Don’t know what else to tell you, ma’am.”

The man sifted through someone else’s file. I could see he was done talking to me. I flicked my eyes over to the guy who had volunteered to witness my search. He shrugged.

“They told me they were all here,” I said. “I didn’t even cancel my cards.”

“Well, that was stupid,” jeered the woman behind me.

I scooped up my purse and left the place, my steps morphing into a jog as I exited the building. I sat in my parked car and dialed Sergeant Sloan. No answer. After the beep, I gave my name and case number.

“Sergeant Sloan,” I said. “I find it very interesting that you told me all my cards were in my purse. They’re not. Actually, only my driver’s license is here. The guy in evidence said I should call you—that maybe you have them. Why would you have my cards? If you don’t, where are they? I didn’t cancel any of them. Call me back ASAP.”

I attempted to slow my breathing as I drove home. Fear and anger make a bad couple.

I pulled into my driveway and turned off the car. I sat for a minute, closing my eyes. Warm sunshine poured in through the windows. Then a thought pricked my mind. I began checking every last pocket of my purse—something I hadn’t thought of in front of the plexiglass.

I felt something hard in a small outer pocket. I unzipped it. My cards. And not only the credit cards, but all the store membership and club point cards I’d accumulated over the years. Even my library card was in the one-inch-thick stack, which had been wedged into the pocket. After tossing up a prayer of thanks, I dialed the familiar number. No answer.

“Sergeant Sloan?” I said, still miffed. “Please disregard my last phone message. I just found the cards. They were crammed into a very obscure pocket of my purse. No need to call back.”

I really hoped he wouldn’t return the call. For any reason. Embarrassment prefers privacy.

Terrance Donaldson’s apprehension brought us frequent attention from the Hennepin County Attorney’s office. Carla Larson, a Legal Services Specialist, phoned regularly to keep us updated on Terrance’s case.

“We’ve already gotten eleven impact statements from community members who heard about what happened to you,” she said one day.

“Wow. That’s a lot.”

“Would you write a victim impact statement for us? It would help the case. Just say how your family was affected by the break-in.”

Victim. I didn’t feel like a victim.

“No problem,” I said. “I’m happy to help.”

 “How are your girls?” Ms. Larson’s voice was warm, concerned.

“They’re doing really well.”

“Good. I’ll keep you posted on court dates. You take care of those kids.”

“I’ve got one question,” I said. “Was he armed that day?”

“No. Terrance is really good at being bad, but he’s not dangerous.”

I slipped into a seat in the back of the courtroom on September 8, 2014. Terrance—wearing an orange jumpsuit—shuffled in with an escort. The judge—a petite, stern-faced woman—sized him up with narrowed eyes. She asked him where he was in the early morning of February 28, and whether he knew the people whose home he invaded, crawling in through their kitchen window while they slept in their beds in the other rooms. He confessed his guilt to each question in one-syllable grunts.

“You’re just thirty-four years old, and you’re on a bad track,” the judge said. “This is just one of many felonies for you. All the homeowners you’ve done this to want you out of their neighborhoods. You’re not welcome there.” She thumbed through some of the paperwork and then looked up again. “And many of these people own guns. I’m shocked no one’s blown you away yet.”

The man nodded. This process wasn’t new to him. Maybe he felt a streak of remorse—at least for being caught—or maybe drooping his head and mumbling answers was part of his routine. By the end, Terrance pled guilty to first degree burglary and was sentenced to thirty-six months in prison.

Six months later, I contacted Carla Larson.

“Could I get the phone number for Terrance’s case worker?” I said. “We’d like to visit Terrance in prison. Without the girls, of course.”

“This isn’t typically done between a victim and an offender in this kind of case,” she said. “But here’s the phone number.”

As Ms. Larson had suspected, the case worker refused our request.  

Our story was small. We didn’t have to grapple with bodily harm or the loss of a loved one. But we still wanted Terrance to look at us—to show him our names were wrapped in flesh—as a stark reminder that real people lived in our house. We also hoped he would link our faces to clean slates and second chances. But talk of redemption would have to come at a different time from someone else.

While darkness lured Terrance Donaldson into our lives that frigid winter morning, we hoped Light would attract him in the end and help him find his way.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Terrance Donaldson: Part 1

Lala stood bolt upright at the foot of our bed—where she slept each night—and huffed out a few low barks. Husband rolled over.

“Lie down, Lala,” I said, glancing at the clock. 3:54 a.m.

She puffed out another series of soft barks, her body erect. The strip of fur running down her spine stood on end.

“Lala,” Husband said. “Lie down.”

For another minute, we took turns shushing the dog. Then we heard the creak of the wood floor in the dining room followed by footsteps into the kitchen. Must be one of the girls, I thought. Husband got out of bed and left the bedroom. I curled up in the warm cocoon of blankets, hoping to fall asleep again. Still at attention, Lala now pressed her rigid body against mine.  

“Oh, Lala,” I said, annoyed. 

Just then, the security alarm began to beep—triggered by an opened door—and Husband came back into the bedroom, heading straight for the closet. I heard the unlatching clicks of his locked box. He exited the bedroom with his .357 Sig.

“What on earth?” I said, sitting up.

I rushed into the kitchen. Lala finally sprang from the bed, following at my heels.

The kitchen window stood wide open. Even the screen was raised. Wafts of frigid winter air billowed in. Husband stood at the back door, staring out toward the alley. His gun hung at his side.

“There was a guy in here,” he said, going for the phone. “He got away.”

Before its beeping could turn into shrieking and alert the security company, I disabled the alarm.

“A guy just broke into our house,” Husband said to the 911 operator on the other end of the line.

I flew around the house, first checking on the girls, then scanning the place for missing items. I heard Husband describe the intruder. He recounted the events of the morning. “He came in through the kitchen window and left through the back door.”

“Anything missing?” Husband called to me.

“Not that I notice,” I said.

“Nothing was stolen,” he said into the phone. He hung up.

“Wait,” I said, my stomach dropping. “My purse is gone.”

Husband dialed 911 again and added the missing purse and its description to the case details.

I went upstairs to the bedrooms of the two youngest to deliver the news, coating my words with calm. Dicka burst into tears, but then fueled by the excitement, she and Ricka scurried downstairs. I headed to the basement to tell Flicka.

“I thought I heard something,” she said. Unfazed, she plunged her face back into her pillow.

Ricka and Dicka disappeared into their rooms. Within ten minutes, we heard a knock at the front door.

Officers Johnson and Drake searched the house, swiping every corner with their flashlights. Then they returned to the dining room to ask us some questions.

“You have a pit bull, and she didn’t do anything?” Officer Johnson said. He chuckled.

“She woke us,” I said with a shrug.

Just then, Officer Drake got a radio call. He talked into the piece on his shoulder.

“Do you know a Terrance Donaldson?” he asked us.

“No,” Husband said. I shook my head.  

Drake relayed some information into the radio, then turned to us.

“We’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is we got the guy. Terrance Donaldson. And we got your purse.”

“Wow. That’s incredible,” I said.

“The bad news is your purse will be in police evidence for a while.”

Then Officer Drake explained their side of the early morning call.

“We had a lot of patrol cars in the area. We just got done with another arrest. A squad saw a car coming out of an alley, and when they made eye contact with the driver, he looked nervous. When they pulled him over, they saw him trying to cover up a purse. They asked him about it. He said it was his fiancée’s. They asked her name, and he said he didn’t know. They pulled him out of the car, found it was your name on all the cards in the purse, and arrested him. He was on probation, so he’ll probably go away for a long time.”

“Unbelievable,” I said.

Then came a rap at the door. Two technicians from the crime lab—a diminutive female and an imposing male—entered with their suitcases.

“That window’s high off the ground,” the woman said to her partner. “You’ve got a couple of feet on me. You take the outside.”

The man dusted for prints on the window frame outside, while inside, the woman dabbed black powder onto our white kitchen window sill.

“We want to link him to the inside of your house, but we’re not getting any prints,” the man said when they finished. “Must’ve worn gloves.”

Officer Drake handed me a card.

“Here’s the phone number and name of the sergeant assigned to your case: Sergeant Sloan. Give him a call with any questions you have.”

Officers Johnson and Drake and the technicians from the crime lab left.

“You were never going to shoot him, were you?” I said to Husband.

“By the time I got my gun, he was already gone.”

For the rest of the day, I mulled the facts of the morning over in my mind. Our house was one of only a few on our block with a security system, and that system was armed, but it didn’t prevent Terrance from entering through the only unlocked window in the house. Husband was home with us and not away on travel for work. Although Lala was too timid to go after the intruder, she woke us in time. None of our property was damaged—no shattered windows or splintered doors to replace. My purse was stolen, but within minutes, recovered by the police. And Terrance Donaldson was arrested.

The crime lab technicians said they didn’t capture any fingerprints. But while the intruder may not have left his mark in our house, Someone else did. And His prints were everywhere.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The littles

Dicka created her birthday wish list and attached it to the fridge, so I couldn’t miss it. Right after “Converse high tops” and “art supplies,” she had scrawled “baby.”

“We can’t just get a baby whenever we want one,” I said. “Other host families want them too.”

“I know. But just in case,” she said.

Two days before her tenth birthday, I got an email from the Safe Families for Children placement coordinator.

“I know you’ve tried for a baby a couple of times recently. One just came up, and it’s a month-long placement. Do you want him?”

When Dicka emerged from the school’s front doors that afternoon, she waved when she saw me. She ran to the car, and then her eyes lit on the car seat in the back. She screamed and scrambled inside to see the baby. Her friends clustered around the car, peering in at our new addition.

Baby Caden was Dicka’s baby. When she wasn’t at school, she entertained him. At eight months old he still had digestive issues.

“Why does he always spit up on me?” she said, her shirt soaked through again.

“Because you’re the one who’s always holding him,” Ricka said.

We got permission from Caden’s mother to take him with us to a Memorial weekend family camp. Still homeless and struggling, she was grateful. The first night at camp, he was unsettled and ran a fever.

“Maybe he’s teething,” I said.

Husband stayed up with him so I could sleep. The next day, Baby Caden perked up.

A few weeks into the placement, Caden’s mother found housing for the two of them. Before Dicka handed the baby back the day we said goodbye, she clutched him one more time and kissed his cheek.

“Is it too hard?” I asked her in the car on the way home. “Because if it is, we don’t have to do this anymore.”

“No, I want to,” she said. But she turned away from me, so I wouldn’t see her tears.

Our first little one—four-year-old Jamal—left his mark on us. The girls delighted in him. He called Flicka “Jo-Jo” and ketchup “barbecue sauce.” He loved yogurt and basketball—sometimes even trying to combine the two—but he ate too much one day which ended in him "spitting" in the back yard. We read to him each night while he breathed in his nebulizer treatment. And every day, a bus came to pick him up at the end of our block for preschool.

One morning, the girls and I walked Jamal to the bus stop. While we waited, he danced his fastest to make us laugh. But just then, the bus pulled up with a hiss, and the door screeched open. Jamal’s smile vanished.

“No, no, no,” he hollered, his feet stuck to the pavement.

“C’mon, buddy,” I said, lifting him up to the bus steps. “You had a good time yesterday.”

“No!” He kicked one foot up on each side of the opened bus door and locked his knees.

“It’ll be fun, Jamal,” I said. “You’ll come back to me very soon.”

He still braced himself against the door, while I held him under his arms.

“I gotta go, ma’am,” the bus driver said. “We can’t wait any longer.”

I stepped back and set the little boy down. “Okay, Jamal. You can stay with me today.”

The bus driver closed the door and drove off. The girls had witnessed the meltdown, wide-eyed. We all walked back to the house.

“You mean you can do that?” Ricka said to me.

“What?”

“Refuse to go to school like that?” said Flicka, incredulous.

“Don’t even think about trying it, girls.”

Three-year-old Tyrone loved his toy cars. Our living room floor was his parking lot, and he lined them up with precision. One day, our dog trainer and friend, Mimi, came over before school. Her dog, Pocket, zipped into the house, and got sick just then, leaving a puddle of diarrhea dangerously close to the rug where Tyrone had parked his special vehicles. I ran for the paper towels and disinfectant.

“Girls, get your lunches packed,” I called over my shoulder as I ran back into the living room with cleaning supplies. Our dog, Lala, chased Pocket through the kitchen and out the back door. The phone rang. Husband stepped over the activity on the floor as he made a beeline for the door to escape for work. Across the chaos, he raised his travel mug of coffee to me. Mimi and I laughed. Tyrone wailed.

“It’s gonna touch my cars,” the little boy said.

“No, it’ll be fine,” I said. “See? Mimi’s cleaning it up.”

Mimi whisked the mess away, the girls pulled together their lunches, and Tyrone calmed enough to play with his cars again. And just in time, we left the house for school.

As a surprise, I had kept the news of the five-month-old twins under wraps. When the girls returned from school, they dropped their backpacks and clambered to relieve my arms of the wiggly house guests. But with three girls and only two babies, we had to set a timer to settle the holding disputes.

The babies came to us the day of their mother’s court date. The placement was written for the duration of her three-month incarceration, but the judge reduced her sentence to simply probation. We had them only one night—and it was a blur. Husband and I took turns getting up. By morning, I wondered which one I had fed in the night and which one he had tended. I asked him.

“I don’t know,” he said. “The crying one?”

When the girls woke up for school, they took the babies from us, so Husband and I could sleep for a few minutes.

The memories of our Safe Families for Children kids warmed us, and we often talked about them. One of the four-year-old boys was skittish around our dog, but another one wanted to sleep with her. We hosted “The Screamer”; one who said, “Kiss me” for “Excuse me”; and one who requested pancakes or chicken nuggets at every meal. And we tucked one in at night with a photo of his mom and sister, because he couldn’t sleep without it.

All the little ones who came into our home quickly attached to us. Like they’d done it before. It made it easier for us, but it saddened me. A little two-year-old girl—as she was carried away at the end—clawed the air to have me back, screaming, “Mama! Mama!”  I felt my heart squeeze. But that was life: by the second day, the toddlers called me “Mama.” We hoped our help imprinted their lives with stability, even if they wouldn’t remember us. And we prayed our love made things brighter and not harder.

Our house was small, but safety and love don’t require a lot of square footage. And they don’t require a perfect performance. Messes, missed preschool, fevers, and spitting up make life real. Throw in a dog or two and some flawed humans, and the adventures become gold.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Byron

“Here you go,” he said. “It was delivered to my house by mistake.”

“I really appreciate it,” I said. “That was nice of you.”

“I’d want someone to do it for me. Have a great day.”

As he left, I opened the envelope and caught the cash that slid from my birthday card.

The man—no one I knew—had driven a few blocks to our house to ensure I got my mail. He could have kept the card—along with the cash—and I’d have been none the wiser. I was moved by the effort. But what other mail had we missed?

Husband and I noticed how often mail that wasn’t ours was delivered to us. We ran it wherever it needed to go. So did Veronica when she found welfare checks scattered in the middle of the sidewalk right before the Fourth of July weekend. She spent the afternoon delivering the important pieces of mail to the people who counted on them.

The mail delivery issues kept us guessing. One day, I discovered a handful of rubber bands—right by our front door—that the postman had spilled from his bag. They trailed down the steps and to the left. Like Hansel and Gretel’s sprinkled bread crumbs, the rubber bands marked his path. Another day, our mail landed in the bushes.

“At least it got to the right house, if not in the right place,” I said to Husband.

Husband’s eyes narrowed as he peered down between the boards of our front steps. He drove to the store and returned with a special tool—two-and-a-half-feet long—with a little grabber on one end. He plucked the rest of our mail from the dark underbelly of the steps as heroically as if he were retrieving a stuffed animal in that claw game at the arcade.

Then a piece of Glenda’s mail ended up in our mailbox. I walked it to her house, and on my way, found a letter for us that had fallen on the sidewalk leading up to her front door. Two birds with one stone.

For twelve years, we received mail from Social Services for Antonio Long. I returned each piece to the postman. But the mail kept coming. I paid a visit to the main post office downtown to inform them the man hadn’t lived at our place for at least sixteen years—if ever. But my visit didn’t change anything. Finally, we settled the matter with Social Services. By the time we said goodbye to the barrage of mail, I had grown attached to our elusive Antonio.

People in the neighborhood complained. I figured I’d get the mail I was supposed to have, and the rest was never meant to be. We humans sometimes frame things that way for ourselves.

Our mail carrier went away. Someone said he was let go. A new one came, and delivery improved for a while. But not long after, another change happened, and again we needed to pitch in to get the mail to the correct addresses.

“No one wants to deliver mail on the north side,” someone on social media said. I frowned. We weren’t afraid to do it, and we knew of others who weren’t held back by fear either.

While the home mail delivery was lacking, things were about to change at our neighborhood post office. One day in 2007, I discovered the mother lode there—a gift to the community.

“Anything liquid, fragile, perishable, or potentially hazardous?” Byron, the postal worker, said to a female customer. “Batteries, perfume, kryptonite?”

I smiled, darting a look around. No one else seemed to have heard Byron. The customers around me stared at invisible places with glazed eyes. Others—glued to their cell phones—seemed to have left their bodies behind to wait in line.

“And I trust you didn’t accidentally package up your cat?” he said to the woman in his low-pitched, monotone drawl. Only his eyes smiled.

Again, I shot a look around me. Did anyone hear Byron? The customers in line still stared at their cell phones—or at nothing.

The female customer at the counter looked at him in confusion and fumbled for cash. Then I noticed another woman acting as interpreter for her. With their business concluded, they left.

Byron helped the next customers—a mother and her little boy.

“So are you heading back to the office after this?” he asked the boy.

The mother looked distracted. Before leaving, she took the coloring book Byron gave her for her son.

The line crept. When it was my turn, I pushed my package across the counter to Byron. He eyed the address label.

“I’m glad to see Jim and Sharon are still together,” he said, nodding. “That’s good. That’s good.”

“All’s well,” I said with a laugh. I handed him a Netflix movie. “Could you mail this too, please?”

“So how was the prequel to Speed 2?” he said, dropping it into the bin.

“Not everyone gets the humor,” I said. “But I do.”

One hot summer day, the post office line stretched out through the door. Like the other customers, I made a dull-eyed assessment of my surroundings and waited. The worker behind the counter was in no rush, and his face registered boredom—tinged with apathy. I shifted my weight, the box in my arms growing heavier by the second. After a while, I glanced up at the large clock on the wall and watched one minute tick by. Just like being in labor, I thought.

Then I heard a familiar baritone voice—a droll tone—coming from the back room. Byron rounded the corner, replacing the employee at the counter.

“Excuse me,” he said, loud enough for us all. “Is anyone here about to miss their bus for day camp? A show of hands, please?”

I laughed. One customer flashed a patronizing smile toward Byron and then dropped her eyes to her cell phone. No one else seemed to have heard.

“The pet rock craft starts at 3:00. I promise we’ll get you out of here in time,” he said.

When I got home, I thought about Byron, dedicated to making the humdrum job of a civil servant zesty, no matter the response. On a sea of monotony, he invited us onto his party boat. The mail delivery in the neighborhood may not have been reliable, but his humor over the years was something I could count on.

And the packages I hauled to the post office felt just a little lighter when Byron was behind the counter.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Garbage

Jars of grain, coins, farming implements, cooking utensils. Archeologists say much can be learned about a people group from what it leaves behind.

We learned early on that part of living in an inner city neighborhood meant dealing with the trash that would blow around when the winds were strong enough to tear into weak bags or overflowing garbage cans. The winter snows covered a multitude of sins, but when they melted away, we spent a chunk of time picking up in our yard. Eyeing the refuse, I’d wonder: Who likes Flamin’ Hot Cheetos? If they ate them right before bed, how well did they sleep? And who eats Zotz or Atomic Fireballs anymore? Stories lurked behind these people who had knowingly or unknowingly let their remnants go on our street, and I wanted to know more.

Although we had our curious moments, we were mostly annoyed by the litter. But those of us with eyes closer to the ground were the most perturbed. The girls noticed the garbage first and expressed their irritation when they were required to pick it up. Lala barked at wayward wrappers, and Veronica’s dog, Frog—of sweet temperament toward all living creatures—came undone when floating plastic bags assaulted her on her walks.

A north Minneapolis Facebook page sometimes devoted whole threads to trash. And people asked: Why all the discarded mattresses? Someone posted a photo of a stack of them—Princess and the Pea style—somewhere in some alley.

“Sure glad we don’t see all those old mattresses over here on our block,” I told Husband. And then a few popped up the same day to keep me humble.

One day, an abandoned pair of men’s boxer shorts appeared in the alley. And not far from them was a positive pregnancy test, snapped in two.

“There’s a story behind that one,” Glenda said.

And I wished I knew it.

One morning in 2014, we awoke to a graffiti artist having left gifts for us in our alley while we slept. The garage across from us got some profanity. But while we missed out on the curse words, Glenda’s tree and our stacks of landscaping blocks and garbage container got their own special treatment.

“Should we report this?” I asked Glenda.

“I think so.”

The City promptly sent someone out to capture photos of the art and issued us stern letters, requiring us to remove it in thirty days or we’d each be fined $260.

“Makes me wish we hadn’t said anything,” I said.

“I know.”

Glenda called the City to ask how to get the markings off her tree.

“You’ll have to paint over them, I guess,” said the woman on the other end of the line.

So Glenda found some brown paint in her basement and did her best to brush over the random numbers on her tree’s trunk.

The artist had painted two hearts on our garbage can. I had mixed feelings. Was it a good or bad sign to be marked by hearts? For a few minutes, it seemed kind of nice. Until I had to scrub them off.

People weren’t the only ones leaving their signs behind. Veronica and Sergio noticed half-eaten baked goods suddenly appear on their garage windowsill one day. Remains of the baked treats were also balanced on the fence posts. The two were mystified—until they spied a squirrel in the act. Before bolting, the rodent tucked a bagel for later into one of their folded camp chairs.

In some cultures, oral tradition is how people bond, explain the world around them, and impart wisdom to their children. On our block, we not only pick up trash—sometimes scrutinizing it with the eyes of an archeologist—but we also practice oral tradition, sharing riveting garbage stories with our neighbors.

Carol Kramer, a writer on ethnoarcheology, declares, “Pots are not people.” But we already knew that.

There’s always more to a story than the trash left behind.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The message: Part 2

“It could be ovarian cancer,” the doctor said to Glenda. “But we have to go in again to be sure. You’ll need another surgery.”

Glenda had five weeks off from work so her body could heal enough from the first surgery to tolerate the second one. For the first time in her life, she prayed directly to God. And although her new church family had only recently adopted her, they prayed like her life depended on it. Because it did.

During those precarious weeks for Glenda, we took in more kids in crisis through Safe Families for Children: five-month-old twins, another four-year-old boy, a two-year-old girl. Our house thrummed with activity, but Glenda’s place next door was quiet. Too quiet. I didn’t want the silence in her house to speak lies, so I urged her to come over whenever she wanted.

“You can stay too,” I told her. “The sheets on the guest bed are clean.”

We wrapped Glenda into the bustle of our lives, and while I focused on dinners and babies, she helped the girls with math homework and practicing piano.

Glenda’s second surgery came right before Thanksgiving. Concerned about her cat Eliot’s declining health, she asked me to pay special attention to his appetite while she was gone. I noticed he ate a little one day, but then nothing after that. I kept Glenda gently informed, hoping not to worry her.

Lynnea, our Zumba instructor and friend, carried the church family’s love to the hospital with her when she went to visit. And after a five-day hospitalization, Glenda was released to come home.

The Monday following Thanksgiving, I drove Glenda to her second oncology appointment to hear the results of her surgery. While we waited for the doctor, softness descended on the room. And Peace suffocated our worries.

The doctor entered the exam room, his tone light. But his words carried weight.

“You have stromal ovarian cancer. It’s very rare. But we were able to remove all the affected tissue—which is very rare too.”

He interpreted the lab work. Glenda asked a few questions.

“There’s something interesting here that we haven’t seen before,” the doctor said.

I leaned forward, my pen poised over the notebook. I sharpened my hearing, waiting for the bad news—anticipating a complicated future for my next door neighbor.

“We see your body is producing cancer cells,” he said. “But somehow they’re dying off right away. This is what we see in patients who have undergone chemo.”

But Glenda hadn’t had chemo.

“We’ll keep an eye on things. But you should know you’re cancer-free.”

Glenda joked about being a good subject for a medical journal, and the doctor agreed. As just the scribe of the event, I listened. But I knew the truth: I had been let in on a miracle that day—one that burned on the page, igniting my heart along with it.

Still marveling at what I had heard in the doctor’s office, I drove Glenda home from the appointment. Her burden had lightened, but now she worried about Eliot. He still wasn’t eating, and she feared he was dehydrated. She asked me for a ride to the vet. I waited in the car while she disappeared into her house, returning minutes later with the cat in his carrier. I sat in the second waiting room of the day. It didn’t take long for Eliot to get an IV.

The next day, I called to check on Glenda.

“Can you drive us back to the vet?” she said, her voice ragged. “Today’s the day.”

This time at the vet’s office, I stayed in the vehicle. The car had been my waiting room the day we let Dexter go too, and just like two years earlier, I watched the minutes tick by on the dashboard’s clock. Glenda returned—after the shortest appointment in the world—with the useless carrier and a teary face.

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

We cradled the emptiness in the car for a minute before driving home again.

In early December, I picked up two little girls—a two-year-old and a six-month-old—who would stay with us for a while. During the car ride home, the baby wailed. I periodically glanced in the rearview mirror as I drove and chirped to her, hoping my funny sounds and songs would soothe her.

“Her hungry,” said Tabitha, the two-year-old sister.

“Okay, we’re almost there.”

I hoped Tabitha wouldn’t run off while I tried to get into the house with the crying baby. I phoned Glenda.

“Could you come over for a minute? Help me get these little ones settled?”

When I pulled up to the curb, Glenda was waiting for us. Inside, she entertained Tabitha in my living room while I made quick work of hauling in the girls’ luggage. Then she read her a book, and the little girl eagerly peered at the pictures. I mixed up a bottle and settled into a chair, nestling the baby in my arms while I fed her.

“Your girls will be excited to see these two when they get home from school,” Glenda said.

“I bet Dicka will want to hold this baby 24/7,” I said with a laugh.

The baby calmed in my arms. Tabitha flipped through the pages of the picture book.

Glenda looked at me, her face serious.

“You’ll take in anyone,” she said. “These kids… and me.”

Her words roused me, and the message from almost two years earlier came back. Suddenly, it made sense.

Give the house away.

We still lived in our 1919 stucco. Our names were on the deed, and we still paid the mortgage. But it didn’t belong to us anymore.

And maybe it never had.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date/

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The message: Part 1

*In this blog installment, I’ve kept the real names of the Sevy quartet members. Follow this link to enjoy the music of Robin and her three daughters, Lynnea, Ivory, and Danielle—just as our family heard them on that warm summer evening in 2012. www.mprnews.org/story/2012/07/30/arts/msv-gospel

One day in early 2011, the Voice whispered into Husband’s heart. He told me what he heard.

Give the house away.

I mulled it over in the days that followed, sitting with the message tucked between my folded hands when I was alone in the living room in the quiet times of the day. In the solitary places, I asked if it was true, and peace floated down to rest on top of my question.

Husband and I consulted with a man of God—who mainly listened—and we talked about it more when we were alone together too.

“So that’s what we do,” Husband said.

We didn’t know where we should go, but we wouldn’t be Abraham just yet. We waited. Who would need our house?

We talked about some of our relatives—missionaries in another country—and when they’d return home, they could have it, we decided. I jotted notes about those days, not wanting to forget.

We kept living in our beloved 1919 stucco—kept doing life in the neighborhood. We didn’t forget the message, but we heard the clatter and jangle of daily life—the dirty dishes, the noise of our bamboozling Volvo, the pressing school commitments—and responded to those because they were louder.

For about a year, nothing happened with our house. At least nothing we could see with our eyes. And then it started.

In early 2012, I noticed a couple at church had a little one—a new person in their family. I asked about him. No, they hadn’t adopted, they said. They were a host family for Safe Families for Children.

“But isn’t it hard to let them go?” I said.

“It’s not about us,” said the woman with a smile, adjusting the toddler on her hip.

I tucked away what I heard and carried it home with me. I mentioned it to the family. It warmed me.

Shortly after, we learned our niece needed a place to stay for the summer. Between years at college, she wanted to live in Minneapolis to be close to her job instead of moving back home to Michigan. We could work that out, we said. So we tidied up a spot in the basement and made a little bedroom, outfitting it with a bed, a dresser, rugs, new bedding from IKEA, and a lamp. In the summer of 2012, our niece moved in.

One warm summer evening, our niece joined us at The Walker Art Museum for a free family night. We sat on the plaza dabbling in art of all kinds, the supplies already set up for us. And then the music started. A quartet of women stood in the fresh air and waning sunlight and sang their hearts out. Their harmony was tight, their passion evident. Gospel songs and Negro spirituals trumpeted through the air. People pressed in to hear, finding seats on the ground.

When the singing ended, I approached the group of women.

“That was amazing,” I said.

I learned they were a family: three sisters—Lynnea, Ivory, and Danielle—and their mother Robin. And they attended a church in north Minneapolis.

“I live in north Minneapolis,” I said. “Your church isn’t far from me.”

“I teach Zumba there on Saturday mornings,” said Lynnea. “You should come.”

I went to Lynnea’s church for her Zumba class the next week, shaking my northern European hips and shoulders in ways they didn’t recognize, and I wiggled my way through a sweaty hour. I wasn’t particularly coordinated, but I returned the next week anyway. And the week after that. Over the chain-link fence one day, I mentioned my Zumba class to Glenda.

“I’ll join you,” she said.

So Glenda came along. And she liked it. She returned the following week with me. And the week after that.

“I think I’ll check out that church on Sunday,” Glenda said in the car on the way home from Zumba one day.

The second Sunday in August, Glenda visited the church. The next day, she visited her doctor.

“We’re detecting something that could be a problem. Maybe a major problem,” he told her. “We’ll need to do surgery to find out.”

The thought of taking children in crisis into our home through Safe Families for Children often flitted through my mind. I had contemplated it for months. In August, I again broached the subject with Husband.

“So let’s start the process,” he said. He lived life with his hands open like that.

We dove in. By late September 2012, we had completed the paperwork, the background investigation, the home inspection, the interview with a social worker, and the online training. We were ready.

The phone rang.

“We don’t normally call host families about our urgent needs,” the placement coordinator said. “It’s usually done by email. But this need is still unfilled. If you’re willing, we could use you now.”

We quickly embraced our new title of host family and plunged into our duties when a four-year-old boy was placed in our home the next day. Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka clustered around him when they returned from school. He grabbed their attention and tugged them outside to play basketball. They laughed at his every antic and surrounded his every waking moment.

I had a lump in my throat the day he returned to his mother. As our first, he had helped himself to the first portion of our hearts. And we gladly let him take it with him when he left us.

Glenda underwent medical tests, and her surgery was slated for the first week in October. While she was away for two days in the hospital, I checked in on her cats. When she returned home, I called her. She burst into tears on the other end of the line.

“The surgeon stopped the surgery because he saw something bad—spots. He thinks it’s cancer,” she said. “Actually, he’s pretty sure it’s cancer.”

“What can I do?” I said. “I’ll do anything.”

“Can you drive me to my first oncology appointment? Be a second set of ears?”

The next week, I perched on a chair in an exam room. A nurse, svelte and efficient, keyed in information on her computer. Then she slipped out the door. I eyed Glenda, sitting near me. From my purse, I pulled a notepad and pen. My heart drummed, and I exhaled a prayer as the doctor entered the room.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date/

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The Volvo

The day we purchased the Volvo station wagon in 2006 was a happy day. I felt it launched me into a more exotic life. It showed I was an invested carpool mom, had an appreciation for Swedish culture, and was apt to stop at thrift stores or farmers markets with my reusable, eco-friendly shopping bag.  

Although pre-owned, our Volvo was still newer than I wanted. I had admired the 1970s wagons, but Husband talked me out of the idea; those could be a nightmare, he said. What we purchased was luxurious. Heated leather seats, a sun roof, and a gauge that kept us informed of the temperature on the road’s surface, topped off with an utterly superfluous feature: those little wipers on the headlights.

Our ownership of the Volvo started out innocently enough with the car only needing oil changes. But then things took a turn. The O rings and heater core needed to be replaced. After that, we went to a picnic, and to our disappointment, a man alerted us to fluid pooled under our parked vehicle. We had the fuel leak repaired, and then moved on to replacing the front brake pads, the rear pads, and the rear rotors. The radiator hose betrayed us a few months later, spraying fluid everywhere—including inside the car. The tie rods failed at the same time, so at least our mechanic, Joe, could take care of several items of business in one visit. Then the tail lights and the motor blower became inoperable a few short months later.

With all my frequent visits to Joe’s, we had time to visit. I learned about his family and his dogs. Maybe I wouldn’t see him again until the next oil change, I thought. But shortly after, the car wouldn’t start. Joe gave us a tow, and we learned the starter needed to be replaced. Later, the brakes went out again—this time while I was driving—and I feared for our lives. Miraculously, I steered the car home from the western suburbs without hitting anyone. Another flatbed truck tow was sprinkled in. I now considered Joe a friend. We had been through it together.

The ball joints were swapped out next and then the transmission mount. Over four years of ownership, my hope was battered, and I began to see the Volvo for what she had become: a fickle, backstabbing friend.

“This car might just break us,” I told Husband one day.

“Let’s just repair it again and see what happens.”

Next, the propeller shaft double-crossed us. Now we were getting into parts we had never heard of before. When it was fixed, I drove the car to an event. I saw a friend in the parking lot, rolled down my window to talk to her in February temperatures, and when we were done chatting, we parted ways. But the window wouldn’t roll up. It was a frigid drive home.

After the window repair came the new headlamp assembly. Because of owning a foreign vehicle, none of the work was in a normal, affordable price range. Joe and his employees did what they could to search out the best deals for parts, but the exorbitant prices were unavoidable. And what had first attracted me to a foreign car now turned my stomach bitter.

After one of our summer meetings of “The Rosebuddies and Trent,” the Volvo wouldn’t start. I hopped out and walked back to my friend Robin’s door.

“Do you have a hammer handy?” I said.

I raised the hood of the car, tapped on the starter, and the Volvo fired to life.

“Thanks,” I said, handing the tool back to her. “See you next time.”

Joe’s service station was in our neighborhood—just five blocks away. We had first learned about him in 2002 from the Isenbergs next door. They raved about his service, his reasonable prices, his generosity. He had even sold them a vehicle, letting them make payments to him as they could over many months. What they said was true: he was a man of integrity. He had even towed us a couple of times at no charge.

While I’m one to seize almost any opportunity to make a new friend, developing a friendship with Joe, the mechanic—to the tune of $500 almost every other week toward the end—wasn’t my idea of a grand time. I preferred my relationship with him to run me the cost of an oil change every 3,000 miles.

I imagine Joe saw the dollar signs as distinctly as we did. And he was kind.

“You can just write a check, and I’ll hold it until whenever you say,” he said.

“That’s nice of you, but we can swing it,” I said, propping up my pride.

In early 2011, I was driving on Highway 100 when the thumping and grinding began. I exited and careened onto a residential street just in time. The car died. I quelled the urge to vomit and instead called for a tow.

While the Volvo was in the shop for the third time that month, the unthinkable happened: Husband’s F150, Blanche, wouldn’t start. I burst into tears, and Husband looked like he had something in his eye too.

“Are we ridiculous for keeping this up?” I said. “Now it’s Blanche. When is it enough?”

“Just one more repair on the Volvo and then we’ll see,” said Husband. “The truck’ll be fine.”

Finally one day, Joe had the talk with me—the talk I feared and dreaded, but desired too.

“You might want to look at getting a different vehicle,” he said.

“I’ll admit,” I said, “this has been tough for us.”

“It’s been hard on all of us.”

Because of my denial, I had thrown away the service receipts. Later, out of curiosity, I asked one of Joe’s employees for a printout of all the Volvo’s repairs.

“Sure. I’ll just load a ream of paper into the printer first,” he said.

The day we put down the Volvo station wagon in 2011 was a happy day. But I held tightly to the golden lessons. I had learned I could be stretched further than my limits, character can be built on a couple of radiator hose jobs, and failing brakes are directly proportional to a stronger faith and prayer life.

And I learned I could live through discomfort and drive out on the other side—in a Honda Pilot.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date/

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Close

The brick commercial building—lodged between the corner store and our house—was lackluster, and only its changing name captured my eye over the years. In the early days in the neighborhood, the sign indicated the building was home to Islamic gatherings. Then it went vacant. A year later, it sprang from obscurity, snagging attention in the big news outlets. The building had been used as an illegal after-hours club, we learned, and at 3:00 a.m. on March 7, 2013, almost a hundred people were gathered at the establishment when an argument sparked, turning into a scuffle. By the time it was over, two men were dead—one inside, one outside. And the two shooters had fled. The usual course of action followed: law enforcement marked off the place as a crime scene, investigations ensued, and the police issued the landlord a notice of nuisance—the legal form of a slap on the wrist—and he boarded up the building.

The morning after the shootings, we rubbed our eyes and wondered what had gone down a half block away at the brick building while we slept in our warm beds. The streets—for many blocks around—were barricaded, and exiting the neighborhood was as tricky as in the tornado’s aftermath. When the situation cooled, we noticed mourners had slipped in behind the yellow tape to build a memorial on the sidewalk. They left behind teddy bears, flowers, signs, photos of the deceased, and remnants of meals consumed right there on the pavement. The only things that touched us from the tragedy were the fast food wrappers that blew on March winds into our yard.

The double homicide was close. But no bullets ripped through our lives. And fear didn’t find a way in.

My brother, a New York City dweller, called me one day.

“So I’ve been streaming Joe Soucheray’s ‘Garage Logic’ out of Saint Paul,” he said. “Anyway, a local news story came up. Notice any unusual police activity at the end of your block?”

“No,” I said. “But I haven’t been looking.”

“Sounds like a guy is holding his girlfriend hostage,” he said. “They’ve got the place surrounded.”

I poked my head out the front door and flicked my eyes down the street.

“Well, sure enough,” I said.

The place hummed with activity. Police cars lined the streets and a SWAT team was in position. Officers surrounded the house in question, guns drawn.

“Since it’s a domestic, you’ve got nothing to worry about,” my brother said.

“I’m not worried.”

The hostage situation was close. But I wasn’t barred in my home by an abusive boyfriend. Or by fear.

My neighbor Marta had a favorite spot in her back yard—her lounge chair—where she’d bask for a measure of each fleeting summer day. But on a Tuesday in the summer of 2014, obligation beckoned. Marta, a formidable culinary force, arose from her chair to serve the common good: she had a BBQ rib contest to judge.

While she was away, two cars sped through the neighborhood, the drivers working out their grievances through open car windows. But words wouldn’t suffice, so the men tried to settle their differences with lead. One bullet penetrated a neighbor’s fascia, and another one pierced Marta’s fence and skidded to rest in her most cherished place in paradise: right under the seat of her lounge chair.

The drive-by was close. But it didn’t keep Marta from living in freedom. Or laughing when she retold the story about the day she wasn’t hit in the backside by a bullet.

One of the two shooters in the double homicide pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to nearly nine years in prison. The other had a second-degree murder charge against him dropped after serving almost a year. The landlord eventually rented the brick building to a church. The hostage-taker at the end of the block was apprehended, never to return. And the police caught the two drivers and arrested them for gunplay on a residential street.

We knew the past. But we didn’t think it into our future.

All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.

We neighbors wouldn’t be shaken. Unruffled by the exceptions who passed through our streets with guns, our area of the city always settled back into a rhythm. We didn’t look over our shoulders, and we didn’t lose sleep.

But to be safe, we kept our doors shut tight, leaving fear locked outside alone.

*Miss an installment of the blog? Or want to catch the story from the beginning? Visit http://www.tamarajorell.com/blog-entries-by-date/

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.