Tea and Primroses (27 page)

I thanked him as he waved to Myrna, indicating she should bring our check. She was a plump young woman wearing a purple hairnet over bright red hair and had remained politely away from our table, seeming sensitive enough to know from my frequent tears that we wanted to be left alone.

We walked out of Mrynas hand in hand like when I was a little girl. He helped me into the truck. He stood there with the door open, shaking his head. “A daughter of this dummy is a published author. It’s something, Sweets. Really something.”

“You’re not a dummy, Daddy. You’re my hero.”

This time it was my father who had tears in his eyes. “You’re a good girl.”

M
OTHER
AND
C
LARA

Several days later, Roma called and we arranged for her to come to Legley Bay on the bus. I picked her up at the bus depot in Cannon Beach in my mother’s station wagon. She looked worn out and little Declan was fussy until I gave him a cookie I’d brought from my mother’s cookie jar. She still insisted on making a batch of cookies that no one ate now that my father had “gone missing.”

“I have a plan,” I told Roma in the car.

“Good, because I’m planless.”

Over the last week, as I was wallowing in self-pity and observing my mother’s rage over my father’s leaving, it had occurred to me that my mother needed someone to take care of. And she needed a job.

“While you’re working,” I said. “My mother’s going to take care of Declan.”

Roma and Declan stayed with us for a few days until we found her a small apartment in town. I made some calls to my high school friends’ mothers and found her several cleaning jobs. After only weeks, word of mouth spread and soon she was busier than she wanted to be.

***

Two days later, I went to Clara’s home for lunch with my father. She lived in the woods overlooking the ocean in a small but beautifully furnished home full of antiques, delicate glassware, and soft furniture in pastels. My father had fetched me from Legley Bay and we’d driven the fifteen or so miles in silence, his knuckles white around the steering wheel.

Clara greeted us at the door. She was as my father described, small like me but with dark hair and eyes. Although my father’s age, she looked much younger, possessing few wrinkles and smelling of a perfume with a hint of gardenias. I immediately felt like curling up next to her on the couch.

“Hello, Constance,” she said. Her voice was sweet and melodic, as it had been on the phone.

I told her it was nice to meet her, and my father, hovering just behind me, put his hand on the small of my back as we entered her home. We passed through her living room—the large windows overlooked the cliff, the ocean gray between the trees—and into the kitchen. A round table was set for lunch, complete with lace napkins and dishes with pastel pink flowers. “Your father tells me you enjoy tea,” she said. “Shall I pour you a cup?” She was dressed in an attractive but simple yellow cotton dress. Her shoes were a pair of black flats.

I followed her with my eyes as she went to the counter. There was a complete old-fashioned tea set on a tray with the same pattern of pink flowers as the dishes.

“Thanks, yes,” I said.

She poured me a cup and asked us both to sit at the table. “I have finger sandwiches for lunch.” She glanced at my father, her mouth twitching into a smile. “I made a dozen for your dad.”

He grinned and patted his flat stomach. “Can’t seem to get full.”

Clara looked over at me. “It’s nice to have a man to look after again. It’s hard to make the effort to cook when you’re alone.”

I nodded, thinking of my crackers and cans of tuna before Patrick.

After lunch, Clara and I took a stroll through her garden. She pointed out the different flowers and shrubs she had planted. In the corner of the garden was a white gazebo with two white Adirondack chairs, next to one another and facing the view of the ocean. “Your father built that for me.”

“He did?”

“Yes, he wanted us to have a place to read. And he remembered my mother and father had one when I was growing up.”

After our walk we said our goodbyes and my father and I got in the truck. “Sweets, I want to marry her. Will it be all right with you?”

I slipped my hand in his rough one. “It’s your choice, Daddy. And I want you to be happy.”

“I feel a little foolish, being so old and all.”

“You’re only forty-seven. You and Clara have so many more years.”

“Will you help me find a ring?”

“Of course, Daddy. Something old-fashioned and delicate, like Clara.”

His eyes glistened. “Thank you, Sweets, for understanding.”

“I’m happy. I really am.” I glanced back at Clara’s house as we drove away, thinking of how she conveyed warmth and love. My father would be happy, finally.

We were almost home when my father said, “I’ll tell your mother myself.”

I looked at him, surprised. “Why?”

“Well, she’ll find out and it’s better if it comes from me.”

“I suppose.”

He pulled into the driveway of my mother’s house. The curtain in the front room moved and I caught a glimpse of her standing there, watching us.

“Do you want to come live with Clara and me?” he asked. “We’ve talked about it and there’s room for you.”

“Daddy, that’s so sweet, but no, I’m going to get a place of my own, I think.” I paused, thinking of my six months of bliss with Patrick. We wouldn’t have wanted anyone there with us. “And you don’t want me there getting in the way of things.”

“Well, think about it, anyway.”

I kissed his cheek and hopped out of the truck, waving as he backed out of the driveway. Then I went inside to face my mother’s wrath.

***

She was in the living room when I came in, sitting on the couch, watching the door. I stopped. In all the years of my life I’d never seen her sit in the middle of the afternoon. Her face was pinched and the color of a blanched turnip. There was a fire in the fireplace; the room smelled of burning wood and sap. It smelled of Vermont, of Patrick’s house. My heart burned like the flames.

“Are you all right?” I came fully into the room, slipping out of my coat. There was a box of chocolates on the coffee table. Two were missing.

She waved a hand at the box. “Salesman came by, selling these. They’re terrible. Waste of two dollars if there ever was one.”

“I’ve never seen you eat chocolate.”

“Well, your father never thought to buy any for me, that’s for sure. Or flowers or any of the other things a woman might like.” She lurched forward, slamming the candy cover on the box of chocolates and tossing the entire thing into the fireplace. Flames engulfed the box. The burning chocolate sizzled. “Where were you?”

“I was with Daddy.” I sat across from her, looking at her carefully. “Are you feeling sick?”

“I don’t get sick.”

“Can I feel your forehead?”

Her mouth went into a straight line. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

I stood. “How about a cup of tea?”

“Did you meet her?”

I stopped at the doorway and turned back to look at her. “Who?”

“Your father’s mistress.”

“She’s not his mistress, Mother. He’s no longer married. She’s his girlfriend.” I paused, playing with a bit of chipped paint in the doorway. “He hasn’t lived here since I left. How come you didn’t tell me?”

“Well, you ran off to Maine and left me all alone.”

“Vermont.”

She sniffed. “He never got over her, you know. Clara.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I knew her, too. We all went to high school together. I was just second choice for your father. Leftovers.” Her voice cracked. She took in a deep breath, picking something off the skirt of her dress. “No matter what I did I could never be Clara. I was never good enough or pretty enough or charming enough to get him to love me like he did her. Now I suppose you’ll fall for her too.” She looked at her hands. There were red spots in the middle of her cheeks now, like blood on white tile. “My life’s been nothing but a waste.”

“Mother, we’re the ones who were never good enough for you.”

She looked up from her lap, her eyes piercing into me. “That’s simply not true. How do you think it felt always being the outsider with you two? You were daddy’s little girl from the moment you were born. I never mattered to either one of you, just dismissed to the kitchen.”

I came back into the room and knelt at her feet. “Mother, I would’ve given anything to think you ever thought one thing I did was good enough. You just could never give me anything. And I learned to lean away from you. You taught me that.”

Her eyes flickered away from me. “I never understood you. From the beginning.”

“I know.”

“But that doesn’t mean I didn’t notice things about you. Special things.” She stood and then wavered, like she might faint. I reached for her but she put up her hand. “No, I’m fine. I’m going to take a rest.” At the doorway, she turned back to me. “If I’d been able to go to college, my life might’ve been different. But there was no money for that kind of thing so I went off to secretarial school with the money my mother saved making rich women’s clothes. And I was supposed to be grateful for the sacrifice, the chance to have training of some kind that didn’t require sitting over a factory sewing machine or cleaning fish, but I wasn’t grateful. I was bitter because a girl like Clara got sent off to some college in the northeast while I learned to type some man’s work instead of using my mind for something interesting. So when your father asked, I said yes, even though I knew he didn’t love me. At least with him I’d be able to have a home of my own and maybe a child. But as it turns out, you were never really mine, just his.”

“Mother, that’s not true.”

She interrupted me. “I was jealous of my own child for getting to go to college while I had to stay in this awful place and make your father’s supper and wash his clothes. Jealous of my own daughter. Not envy, but the seething, awful jealousy that eats away at you in the middle of the night. What kind of person does that make me?”

She left me then, alone and feeling strange and unsettled. I paced for a while near the front window. The doorbell rang. It was the postman with a small package. It was from Kingston Press. I opened it, my hands damp from perspiration. It was the galley of my book. I ran my fingers over the cover. I opened it to the title page and then the next.

“For Patrick.”

I sank into the couch, holding the book in my hands, and let the hot tears run from my eyes. How differently I’d imagined this moment.

There was the sound of shuffling from the doorway. I looked up. It was Mother, hovering. I dried my eyes in haste with the sleeve of my sweater, hoping she hadn’t seen me crying.

“Was it a package?” She stepped into the room. Her face was streaked with tears too; streaked mascara looked like clown makeup.

I held up the galley. “My book came.”

“Can I see?”

I placed it in her outstretched hand.

She was quiet for a time, just staring at the cover. She traced my name with her finger before opening it. “Who’s Patrick?”

“A friend. He helped me with the manuscript and used his contacts to get it into Kingston.”

Her eyes had the same piercing look as earlier. “He the reason you came home?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Well, if he’s too much a fool to let you go then he can’t be worth much.” She marched toward the doorway with the book still in her hand. “I’ll rummage us up some supper.”

“Mother, wait. Let me take you out to dinner. I feel like celebrating.”

She hesitated, holding up the book like a trophy. “I suppose. It is something to celebrate, after all. But we can’t be out too late. I want to read your book tonight.”

***

The next morning, I awoke to the smell of scorched food. I rushed downstairs to the kitchen. Mother was crumpled face down on the kitchen table. She had on her flannel nightgown and her worn, powder blue slippers. Next to her was a cup of coffee, half full. There was a pan of oatmeal on the stove, smoking, the obvious source of the smell. I flipped off the burner and went to her, falling to my knees and pulling her into my arms. “Mother,” I whispered. “Wake up.” But her slight frame was heavy. There was no life left in her. Still I clung to hope. “Mother, please, wake up.” I dragged her onto the floor, searching the room frantically for something to put under her head. I found a dishcloth and lifted her, gently, murmuring to her that it would be all right, and slipped the towel under her head. I sat for a long moment, staring at her, unable to think what to do next. Her face was slack and peaceful. I held her hand.

The clock ticked on the wall above the table. Tick, tick, tick. My heart pounded between the ticks. I heard the sound of my own sobs. Finally, I called my father at Clara’s. I don’t remember much of what happened after that except for one thing. While I waited for my father to come, I sat on the floor next to Mother, continuing to hold her hand as it grew colder and colder. And as I did this, my eyes happened upon the table. There, next to the cold coffee, was my book. I hadn’t seen it at first because she’d been crumpled over it. It was open to the second to the last page.

***

The coroner was not able to give a cause for her death. Her heart simply stopped, he told me. But I had another theory. I believed her death had begun years before. She’d held onto bitterness and hatred all her life, until it made its way into her body, festering there until her poor, battered heart had no choice but to stop.

I thought of Patrick almost constantly in the weeks following my mother’s death. How I longed for him. I chanted his name in silence during the long nights in my attic room.

But throughout the funeral and the settling of affairs, I came to understand that I must let go, must accept things as they were, to mourn and grieve both the loss of my great love and my mother. I understood I must accept the sadness that came with loss but that I must not let it change me. If I were to break the pattern of my mother’s anger, it had to be my conscious choice. And so I did. I leaned into the life and the love that was all around, that was offered me. I arrived home then in a way I hadn’t yet—with my arms open and my bruised and battered heart porous so that the love all around me might be absorbed.