A Time to Mend (12 page)
M
ax touched the leather passenger seat as he climbed into Claire’s car. “Yow! Hot! Why don’t you have the air on?” He saw the key in the ignition, reached over, and turned it.
Seated in the driver’s seat, Claire tsked. “Sarah would disapprove.”
“Sarah?”
“Your ecoflake.” Claire’s face gleamed with perspiration.
“What does Sarah have to do with us sitting in a hot car?”
“She didn’t want to waste gas driving to some coffee shop down the road, so you changed your mind about Starbucks. I thought the same principle might apply here. We can endure a little heat to help save the planet.”
“We’re meeting in the car, Claire. If you came inside, it wouldn’t be an issue.”
She turned away and pressed the automatic buttons to close the windows. As they swished upward, he shut his door and flipped the fan on high.
Claire had phoned him from the parking lot and said she wanted to talk, but she didn’t want to come into the office. After ten days of not hearing from her, he would have agreed to almost anything, unreasonable or not.
In an attempt to play things her way, he hadn’t called her. Not because of any great self-discipline. Who needed to bother with discipline when anger served the same purpose? If she wanted space, he’d give her all the space in the world and then some. He had plenty to keep himself occupied.
But just that morning he’d whiffed one of Phil’s mediocre serves on the tennis court and promptly thwacked his racket against the clay floor. His already overfilled schedule now included trips to the sporting goods store and the chiropractor.
The truth was, he missed her. Yes, he did. And he could be man enough to admit it.
“Sorry, Claire. I could say hello first and complain second.”
She turned to face him, her eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses. Fine lines bunched up around her compressed lips. “Hello.”
“How are you?”
“Okay.”
“Reach any conclusions yet?”
“Max.” She exhaled loudly. “You’re pressing. I can’t handle that.”
He wiped a hand across his mouth, pushing back a smart retort.
“I just wanted to touch base,” she said. “In person.”
“Why?” He caught sight of wrinkles crimping around her lips again. How was it he kept saying the wrong thing? “Sorry. It doesn’t matter why. I’m glad you came. I miss you, honey.”
“Max, do you realize you call Neva ‘hon’ and ‘honey’?”
“I don’t—”
“You do. As well as most females. And you hug everybody.”
“Yes, everybody. Men and women. I’m demonstrative that way. I admit it.”
“Don’t change the subject. I used to get so jealous. But then, you know what? I figured out you’re not even aware of what you’re doing.”
“I’m not. No big deal.”
“Right. No big deal. Except where does that leave me? Hugs and honeys mean diddly-squat from you.”
He stared at her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Right. You would have told me I was being overly sensitive and to forget it.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. Her accusation hit home. He would have said she was being overly sensitive. He told her that often enough because she
was
oversensitive about the most ridiculous things.
“Claire, we’re getting nowhere fast here. This can’t be what you came to talk about.” Frustration was eating a hole in his gut.
“No.” She bit her lip. “I came because I wanted to ask you in per-son to forgive me for putting you through this.”
“Hon—Claire, of course I forgive you. But what are you going to do?”
She didn’t answer right away. “I want to play my violin. I want to play seriously again. And I . . .”
“And you what?”
“Remember the stuffed lion? How I felt safe with it, and then I didn’t need it anymore after we got together because you made me feel safe?”
“Yeah.”
“I want to figure out why it was I stopped feeling safe with you.”
He shook his head. “I don’t get it.”
“You don’t have to, Max. I don’t know if you can. Look at this.” She held out her hand. “I’m shaking like a leaf because I’m actually telling you what I think and feel and I’m not pretending I don’t hurt inside.” She took a deep breath and released it. “I guess while I’m at it, I might as well tell you everything. I bought a stuffed lion at a toy store. His name is Judah.”
The absurdity of her words smacked him like a two-by-four to the head. A stupid stuffed toy? Who did she think she was, to turn their world upside down? To think she could just quit her life and ask forgiveness? To blame him for her fears? To sleep with a stuffed animal instead of him?
He stopped weighing his words. “Well, if you’re only sleeping with a stuffed animal, I guess that’s fine.
Is
he the only one you’re sleep-ing with?”
“I never— Honestly, Max!”
“Evidently I’m letting you down again, like I did thirty-two years ago.” His voice rose. “I was just wondering, that’s all.”
“How dare you bring that up! That’s got nothing to do with—”
“It doesn’t? It’s got everything to do with it. I’m not what you need me to be, so you’re just going to quit.”
“You never forgave me that, did you? And you won’t forgive me this. And I wonder why my hands shake when I’m with you?”
“That’s right. Blame it all on me. Just like the other time.”
“Get out of my car!”
His hand was already pulling on the handle. “Gladly.” He climbed out and slammed the door shut.
The window went down, and Claire leaned toward it. “Oh, by the way . . . happy anniversary.”
He watched her drive off, the white luxury car gliding down the long row. Red brake lights lit up. The car turned right, left. It reached the exit, stopped momentarily, and cruised out onto the busy four-lane.
Anniversary?
A searing heat raced like wildfire through Max, consuming even the anger.
How had he forgotten?
L
ate afternoon sun rays scorched the hills above San Diego. Indio, kneeling in the Hacienda Hideaway’s front yard, wiped her shirtsleeve over her sweaty brow. She grasped a squishy green tendril between her gloved hands and tried to wring the life right out of it.
Beside her, Lexi laughed. “Nana, pull like this.” She swiftly yanked a three-foot section of the ice plant clear out of the dirt, roots and all.
“Child, I swear your scrawny arms don’t have a muscle on them. How do you manage that so effortlessly?”
Lexi jerked another piece loose and plopped it on the growing pile behind her. “I guess you’re just too old.” She raised her chin and made eye contact from beneath a floppy straw hat. A smile tugged at her lips.
Indio leaned back on her heels and chuckled. “You think that lame challenge is going to help?”
“Of course it will.” Lexi giggled. “It’s so easy to get your hackles up.”
Indio cherished the moment. The girl laughed too seldom, even prior to the mayhem her parents had stirred up.
“Nana, I want to cover this whole section with purple alyssum and rosemary.”
Indio surveyed the landscape.
They owned more than three hundred acres, inherited from Ben’s family. Sparse vegetation grew on the hilly, desertlike terrain.
Occasional oaks and eucalyptus provided areas of shade. There was a gravel drive and a parking area.
The pale greens and browns had always bothered Lexi. She’d been planting flowers on the place since she was five years old.
Indio turned to her now. “Lovely as new plants sound, why now? This ice plant is healthy and flowering and holding the terrace in place. And it’s such a dry year. I don’t like the thought of watering.”
Her granddaughter jerked out another section with a violent twist of her body. “Sometimes you just have to
kill
off the old to make way for the new.” Her tone was harsh. She muttered an expletive.
Indio stared at the back of Lexi’s hat. The girl wasn’t talking about flowers. “What’s on your mind, child?”
Lexi remained quiet for a long moment. It was her way. Indio waited.
“Nana.” Lexi paused. “Was Uncle BJ like Dad?”
Something between a sigh and a groan constricted Indio’s throat. Being a grandmother, she thought—and not for the first time—was more difficult than being a mother. Not the “If Mama says no, ask Grandma” part. Spoiling was the easy part. It was the idea that all things being equal, she would die or become incapacitated long before she could pass on to Lexi everything she had learned from life.
Lexi glanced over a shoulder at her and then turned back to her work. “If you don’t feel like talking about him . . .”
“No, it’s all right. What are you thinking of? I’ve told you a lot about your uncle BJ through the years.”
Lexi nodded, still bent over the ground. “Mostly just facts, though. He was taller than Dad and looked more like Papa. He got better grades than Dad. He was an all-star athlete. He never got in trouble when he was a kid. He was a Navy pilot. He’s been MIA for a long . . . long time.” Lexi paused, as did everyone at that point in BJ’s history.
His was a never-ending story.
Lexi said, “And he would be fifty-seven this year.”
“Yes. What is it you don’t know yet?”
Lexi’s hands stilled over the dirt. “Would he have been so hung up on making money that he would reject his family?”
Indio pulled off her gloves and crawled over to Lexi. “Oh, child. Come here.” She enveloped her in a hug, knocking off the big hat.
Lexi cried softly against her shoulder.
“Your daddy hasn’t rejected you, not deep inside his heart. He wouldn’t do that. He just . . . he just got sidetracked along the way.” She smoothed back Lexi’s long, damp hair.
Dying plants lay in piles all about them. The earth lay bare, exposed to the sun’s blistering heat. It looked the way life felt.
What a mess, Lord. What a mess.
She rocked her granddaughter and let her weep in silence.
Lexi didn’t cry for long. Indio let her slide from her arms. With a wordless nod of thanks, she sniffed, jammed her hat back atop her head, and grabbed hold of another section of ice plant. Indio joined her.
Of the four grandchildren, Lexi disquieted Indio the most. There was something broken inside of her. Indio imagined the girl’s struggle had begun in the womb, a space she’d had to share with her twin, Daniel. With his boundless energy and single-mindedness, the boy rivaled Winnie the Pooh’s springy friend Tigger. He could easily have sucked the life right out of Lexi before birth. Not that he didn’t adore his little sister, but he’d emerged fully clothed in confidence and ability. Lexi came out naked as a jaybird.
Indio didn’t think that was it, though. Lexi worked diligently and forged ways around her dyslexia and shyness. She improved all the time, creating beauty in her art and her gardening. No, that wasn’t it. Indio believed “it,” the core issue, was the rejection she felt from her dad.
The old guilt reared its ugly head again.
Indio had become a mother at the age of eighteen. She was too young. It didn’t matter that BJ was the ideal child. Within two years Max was born, and he wasn’t the ideal anything except
s
queaky wheel. He got attention, all right, but not the nurturing sort he needed.
Lexi interrupted Indio’s reverie with a gesture toward the road, a long stretch of dirt. It meandered like a question mark through trees and hills, a full ten-minute drive up from the main highway hidden from view.
She looked that direction and saw dust swirls in the distance. A car was coming.
“It’s Mom,” Lexi said.
Indio recognized the fancy white vehicle. She sat back on her haunches and waited.
“Today’s their anniversary.” Lexi’s voice sank to a whisper.
Apparently Max and Claire were not celebrating together this year.
Indio sighed. She loved her daughter-in-law and considered her a friend. Claire was the best thing that could have happened to Max. Indio thanked God often for her impact on his life.
But now, on the very date she had welcomed Claire into the Beaumont family with open arms, Indio wanted nothing more than to tell the woman to turn that car around, take all the junk she’d stirred up, and head back on down the hill.
C
laire, if you keep churning away like that, I won’t have to buy any butter this week.”
At the sound of Indio’s critical tone, Claire squirmed. She hadn’t moved a muscle, but her mother-in-law saw inside her as though she were some dissected bug under a microscope.
In self-defense, Claire sputtered an apology she didn’t really mean. “Excuse me for coming tonight. I don’t know why I did.”
She should leave, but embarrassment glued her legs to the big wicker chair. She seldom sniped at her mother-in-law, even when Indio was at her most annoying.
Of course, Claire knew why she had come.
The scene before her was like sitting inside a hug. She and Indio had lingered in the dusky courtyard after dinner, drinking iced herbal tea. Water trickled down the fountain’s tiers. Now and then a gentle breeze jiggled a distant wind chime, clunking bamboo in a soft, nat-ural rhythm. Flowering bushes perfumed the night air.
Nearby, light poured out from the living room’s open double doors. Inside, Lexi and Ben played their perpetual game of canasta. Samson, the big old golden retriever, would be nestled under the table, while Willow, the frisky cat, swished her fluffy yellow tail in his face, inviting him to run with her.
At last Indio broke the silence. “We both know why you came. It’s why Lexi comes. The Hacienda Hideaway is a safe harbor for you.”
“The dynamics seem a bit off tonight.”
“Anger can do that, you know. Snuff the peace right out of a place in two seconds flat.”
Guilt landed so heavily, it could have been the dog jumping onto her lap. She thought again how she used to believe wives should not be angry. She did not like feeling anger, but what she liked even less now was denying its existence.
“All right, yes. I am angry. He forgot what day it was. He forgot today is our anniversary.”
“Did you expect him to remember it?”
“I had hoped so.”
“In the middle of what’s going on?”
