Tending Roses (9 page)

“It was just a pet name, I guess.” The words ended in a wistful exhaled breath. “I’d better get my things for church.” Without looking at me, she stood up and shuffled toward the side door off the porch.

I watched her go. I didn’t know what to say when she became melancholy and reminiscent. I was never sure whether she was talking to me or just remembering out loud, and whether she wanted me to answer. Maybe it was enough that I was there to listen. After so many years of being alone, perhaps she was glad someone would hear what she was saying.

I went inside as the neighbors pulled into the drive to take Grandma to church. In spite of my conviction that it was my prerogative not to go, I found myself embarrassed to be seen sitting on the porch sipping coffee in my old jeans on Sunday morning.

Joshua was cooing in his bed, so I got him up and fed him, then answered a phone call from Aunt Jeane. We talked about how Grandma was doing and how our visit was going. I told her about the vegetable salvage operation and the cottontail in the yard, and she laughed until she gasped for breath and sputtered like an old car. I didn’t tell her about Grandma leaving the propane on. It seemed as if I would be betraying Grandma if I told—as if I would be putting her one step closer to the nursing home.

“I’m glad she’s not driving you too crazy,” she said with a note of sympathy. “So you and Ben are doing all right with her, then?”

I answered yes, because I knew that was what Aunt Jeane wanted to hear.

“Well, that’s great.” She sounded genuinely surprised. “I don’t know what we’d do without you, Kate. I found a wonderful facility only a few miles from here called Oakhaven Village. It has lots of activities for those who are able, and indigent care if they need it as time goes on. I talked it over with your dad and he wants me to come get Grandma next weekend and bring her up now so you and Ben won’t have to stay off work through Christmas.”

A note of panic went though me. I was not sure why, because Aunt Jeane was offering to let me off the hook. “It’s not a problem for us to stay,” I said quickly, wondering why my father didn’t want us anyplace where we might be forced to see one another. “Grandma is all excited about a family Christmas, and if you try to come get her now, you’re going to have to drag her out of here kicking and screaming.” I wondered if they had the power to do that. “Ben and I are fine here through the holiday. I don’t go back to work until January sixth.” I couldn’t help adding, “Tell Dad to mind his own business unless he has a better idea.”

“Now, Kate, don’t get your feelings hurt.” Aunt Jeane went into her usual peacemaking mode. “Your Dad just hated to see you two mess up your work schedules and you have to take extra leave to stay there.”

“I’m sure he did.”

“You know, in his mind there isn’t much worse than having to spend three weeks on the farm. He’s just trying to spare you and Ben some trouble.”

“Um-hum. I guess I should go. Joshua’s crying.” Which wasn’t true, but I didn’t want to get into a conversation about Dad or Karen. Aunt Jeane had been trying to smooth us back together ever since Mom’s death—ever since that awful night after the funeral when cruel things were said and my sister accused my father of being responsible for my mother’s death.

Aunt Jeane was unwilling to quit on a sour note. “I can’t wait to see that baby. Tell Grandma I’m still planning to come that week before Christmas. We have teacher in-service for one day after the kids get out, and then Robert and I will drive down. But if you have any problems or you need me before then, I’ll take some time off and come. Let me know if you need me.”

“We will.” What I wanted to tell her was to get in the car and come
now
, but she’d ask what was the matter, and I wouldn’t know what to tell her.
Nothing. Everything. Grandma almost blew us up this morning.
“We’ll be fine,” I said instead, then good-bye, and I hung up the phone. I knew if I said anything more, they’d only be more determined to haul Grandma off right away. If they were with her now, if they could see the look in her eye, they would know that the family coming home this Christmas was important to her. She was building a chest of hopes for all of us, and I knew we were going to let her down. I didn’t know how to stop it from happening.

The house seemed too quiet and too empty. I called the office and checked my voice mail to see if anyone had tried to call me, but there were no messages. Even that was a disappointment. In the past, there would never have been a day when no calls came in, when no one called with an idea of somewhere new to solicit donations, or an invitation to speak at a public event, or an invitation to some high-profile party where the foundation might find friends with deep pockets. Now it seemed as if all those contacts had simply melted away, as if everyone had forgotten me, and ten years of hard work had evaporated like smoke. It felt as if I had dropped off the edge of the known world.

Finally I gave up torturing myself and put Joshua in the belly sling to take him for a walk down the old river path. The trail looked as clear and well-traveled as it had when Karen and I were kids, which seemed strange since there was no one there to walk it anymore. I wondered if the children across the river on Mulberry Road used it. Grandma complained that they raided her blackberry patch regularly in the summer.

Skirting the overgrown blackberry patch, I stepped onto the path and started walking back in time. In my mind, I heard the laughter of little girls and the patter of hurried footsteps on the path. I heard my mother calling after us, telling us not to jump into the water until she got there.

The riverbank opened before me, and I saw my mother there, picking daisies from the grass at the edge of the rocky shore and weaving them into a chain. I saw myself running through the shallows, long dark hair streaming behind me, and Karen sitting in the ripples watching the water wash over her sun-browned legs. I saw my mother putting daisy chains around our necks and smiling, then just sitting on the bank and watching us with a wistful look in her eye. I wondered what she was thinking.

I remembered stopping my play and asking my mother about the glittering bits of sun on the water. I wanted to know where the sunlit patches came from and where they would go. Strange, now I couldn’t remember her reply—just the question and the sensation of wondering. And the sense of confidence that she would have all the answers.

Standing at the edge of the water, I saw the vision fade—green leaves turn to dead branches, wildflowers to brown grass, summer to winter, a dream into reality.

I realized again how precious those times at the farm were, and how much I missed them when we went home to Boston, where I grew up. Boston was all about busy schedules and baby-sitters, and days when I came home upset about something at school and there was no one to tell. All I wanted on those days was for my mother to be there when the school bus dropped me off. But, of course, she wasn’t. She was an M.D. when few women aspired to such a height, and that consumed her time like a ravenous dragon. There wasn’t much left except the two weeks a year we went to the farm, and there she tried to make up for all the rest. Dad just brought his work with him and continued on with business as usual.

I wondered if they considered their lives successful. Certainly, we had all the trappings—expensive cars and homes, good schools, nice clothes. But is life a success when it doesn’t include time for after-school talks, and curling up to read books on winter nights, and weaving daisy chains in the summer? Is it a success when you have all the big things but none of the small ones? Is it as it should be when everybody grows up and moves to opposite coasts and doesn’t care if they ever see each other?

I thought of Grandma’s story about the roses—something grand that seemed important at the time, when in reality all the important things were passing by unnoticed. I could hear the last words in my mind,

I didn’t want my life to be like that. I didn’t want Joshua’s childhood to pass by while I was working sixty hours a week. I didn’t want him to look at me one day and see a stranger, someone he only met two weeks a year on vacation. I wanted to give him a family that spent time together and really knew one another.

But I didn’t know how to get from where we were to where I wanted to be. As things stood, I had to keep my job, but there were things we could give up—the vacations, the country-club golf membership, the boat, the house plans.

Maybe Grandma Rose was right.

Staring into the water, I thought about what our lives would be like if I changed to part-time work or didn’t work at all. So many of the things we enjoyed and wanted would no longer be a possibility. Still, I knew the bigger house with the white-fenced yard could be postponed, but Joshua could not. He was only a baby for now. We would open our eyes one day and he would be gone, and we would be sitting alone in a house somewhere, missing him.

What would it matter then how big the house was?

Tiny fingers opened and closed against my chest, and I looked into Joshua’s wide eyes, blue as the morning sky and filled with contentment. In that moment, it didn’t matter where we were or what was around us. There was only he and I in the world, and I was filled with a devotion so consuming, its intensity was painful. Never had I felt that for another person—not for my parents, not even for Ben. Nothing in my former life had shown that within me I had such a deep and profound ability to love.

The clatter of a rock in the water shattered the moment, and I looked up to see the Jordan girl hopping from rock to rock across the shallows like a wood sprite. She stopped midstride when I looked at her, watching the way deer will just before they bolt for cover.

“Hello there,” I said.

She didn’t answer, but lowered her other foot to the rock on which she was perched. Peering at Joshua from beneath too-long bangs, she finally said, “I didn’t know you have a baby. I heard him laughin’.”

I pulled him out of the carrier and held him up so she could see. “This is Joshua.” Holding his wrist, I waved his tiny hand at her. “Say hi, Josh.”

A yellow blur darted from the bushes at the sound of my voice and splashed across the river, stationing itself between the girl and me. The dog didn’t growl at me as it had the day before, but stood watching with the hair raised on its back. Fleetingly, I contemplated how I would defend myself and Joshua if it decided to attack. “He won’t bite, will he?”

Jumping the rest of the way to the bank, she hollered, “Rowdy, go on,” and kicked halfheartedly at the dog, who dodged the attack without taking offense. Flopping down on the bank, he went to work routing fleas, but kept watching me out of one eye.

The girl and I stood there for a minute like two shy toddlers, both just watching Joshua watch us.

“You stayin’ up at the Vongortler house?” she asked finally, a hint of pretty dark eyes peeping suspiciously from beneath long raven lashes.

I sat on a boulder and propped Joshua in my lap. “Um-hum. We’re here for a few weeks until Christmas.”

“I heard she was sick with a stroke like my granny.” Leaning down, she tickled Joshua’s palm until his tiny hand closed around her sun-browned finger. Her lips held a solemn line, but there was a sparkle of delight in her eye as Josh gurgled and gave her a baby smile.

“Well, she had a stroke several months ago, but she’s better now,” I said, thinking about the little house on the other side of the river and what Grandma had said about the girl’s grandmother. “Is your grandma sick?”

She stiffened noticeably, breaking the link between herself and Josh. “No, ma’am.”

“It’s Kate,” I offered. “Kate Bowman.” I could tell I was treading on fragile ice, so I didn’t ask anything more about her situation at home. “What’s your name?”

She seemed surprised by the question, and for the first time looked me straight in the eye. I was struck by what a pretty girl she was underneath all the tangled hair and dirt. She had a hint of a Native American look about her, with wide almond-shaped eyes and full copper lips, the lower one pursing out in a permanent pout.

“It’s Dell,” she told me with an air of importance. “Dell Jordan.”

Smiling at her grown-up demeanor, I stuck out a hand for our formal introduction. “Very nice to meet you, Dell Jordan. I guess we’re going to be neighbors for a few weeks.”

She shook my hand in a hurry, then pulled back and wrapped her arms nervously around her stomach. “Yes, ma’am,” she said, but she didn’t seem very excited about the idea.

“You should come over some time and play with Joshua,” I suggested, though I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to get to know her better. She seemed to need a friend. Perhaps Josh and I seemed the same way to her.

The invitation made her uncomfortable, and she glanced over her shoulder toward home. “I gotta go.”

Pushing off the rock, I stood up. “Me too.” But I was wishing we could sit there a while longer—just a little while so I could win her trust. “Well, I guess we’ll be seeing each other around. I’m sorry we almost ran you over on the road to town the other day. That’s not a very safe road for bike riding, no shoulders and all those blind curves. If you need a ride to town while we’re here, have your grandmother call me. I’d be happy to take you.”

Her narrow-eyed look told me I was pushing too hard. “Granny wants me to ride my bike.” She ended the conversation abruptly, turning and bounding across the rocks to the other bank. The dog hurried after her, sliding into her legs when she stopped suddenly and turned back to me. “I come here almost every day. Maybe I’ll see ya’.”

“O.K.,” was all I had time to say before she grabbed a hanging tree root, climbed up the steep bank like Tarzan, and disappeared into the underbrush.