Dress Me in Wildflowers (33 page)

“Why do you hate me so much?” Farrin asked. “Was it because I grew up dirt poor and you still think of me that way? Or is it because you’re ticked off that I didn’t put my dresses in your shop window?” After several moments of no response, Farrin sighed and turned to walk away.

“You reminded me too much of myself,” Jewel said.

“I find that hard to believe.”

“When I met Fred, I couldn’t believe my luck. He was handsome, nice, and I could tell he was going to be successful. He seemed to like me. And I was terrified of having to eventually tell him about my family.”

Jewel still didn’t make eye contact. Farrin wondered if she’d be able to divulge this personal information if she did.

“When we got serious and I thought he might ask me to marry him, I knew I had to tell him and risk losing him. I’d never been so scared in my life.”

Again, Jewel paused, perhaps wondering if she should stop her confession.

“I grew up on a cotton farm near Memphis. Neither of my parents finished high school, and other than farming, my father’s favorite pastime was seeing how many times he could put my mother in the hospital. And instead of taking her children and leaving, Mom spent her time thinking up new stories about how she’d fallen down the stairs or been smacked in the mouth by a door when one of us kids ran out it.

“The day I learned I got a full scholarship to UT was the happiest of my life. As soon as I picked up my high school diploma, I packed everything I owned in my little car and drove to Knoxville without a single glance in the rearview mirror. I lived in my car for three months, eating at the homeless shelter or at the restaurant where I got a job waitressing. Every penny I made went to buying new clothes and nice things for my dorm room so no one would know how poor I’d been.”

“No one can help what family they’re born into,” Farrin said. The similarities to her own story made her uncomfortable.

“No, but they can try to be better than the hand fate dealt them. And I was doing fine until I got pregnant. Fred and I got married the day after I found out. It was a lot different then. Getting pregnant before you were married was unspeakable, and it made me feel like the white trash background I’d left behind.”

“And that’s why Janie’s pregnancy bothered you so much.”

“We’d made sure she never had the opportunity to get pregnant in high school, and we’d lectured her about the dangers before she went to college. But she ended up pregnant without a husband anyway. Worse, she doesn’t even know who the father is.”

“Maybe you tried too hard.”

Jewel sighed, slow and resigned. “Maybe.” She wiped at her eyes. “And now God is punishing me for being too hard on her by taking her away.”

“It’s not a punishment. It’s just one of those things that happens that we’ll never be able to explain.”

“I’d rather God take me.”

Suddenly, it seemed way too tiring to hold in any resentment and anger toward the older woman and Farrin let it go. “Maybe God’s giving you a second chance.”

Finally, Jewel looked up at her. “I won’t ask your forgiveness because I don’t deserve it. But I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for my daughter. She deserves someone who knows how to show her love, and I’ve failed miserably.”

Farrin looked down at Jewel and pitied her. She’d been so scared of her past that she’d run her entire life and ruined her relationship with her only child. How easily Farrin could have followed the same path.

“It’s not too late to show Janie how much you love her.”

Jewel looked back at the apartment, perhaps wondering how a few simple words now could erase a lifetime of mistakes. But to her credit she rose and turned that direction. Her shoes echoed on the pavement as she walked away, the quilt around her shoulders looking like a queen’s patchwork robe.

Farrin turned to look at the same dark line of trees Jewel had gazed at minutes before. It was her own mother’s face that she saw. She hoped Jewel and Faye could somehow heal a lifetime of hurt before it was too late.

****

Farrin looked up from her work when the Hospice nurse walked out of Janie’s room. She didn’t have to say a word for Farrin to know it wasn’t good news. But then, the best news she could hope for at this point was that the painkillers did their job. Janie had resisted them, not wanting them to cloud her mind and take her away from her children before she had to go, but early that morning the pain had become too much for her slight body to bear.

Angel, an appropriate name for a nurse, closed the bedroom door behind her. For a moment, Farrin considered leaving the room so that Angel could talk to the Carlisles alone, but she couldn’t force herself to her feet. She needed to hear the words.

“She’s resting now.”

“How long?” Mr. Carlisle asked.

“Probably within the week.”

Jewel turned into her husband’s arms and began to cry. Now that she’d made peace with her daughter, the losing of her must be even harder.

Farrin stared at the door to Janie’s room, and for some reason she remembered the night Janie had been crowned homecoming queen during their junior year. Even then, before the prom nightmare, Farrin had loathed Janie. But now she remembered the look on Janie’s face. In that one moment, she’d been truly happy. How often had that happened in her life?

A life that was down to days, no longer weeks.

After Angel’s departure, Farrin left Janie’s parents alone. She needed to take a walk in the crisp air to remind her that life still held something other than pain, suffering and eminent death. That someday this long, cold winter would disappear and spring would bring back the wildflowers Dara loved and Janie had captured in hundreds of photos.

She found Dara sitting at the picnic table at the end of the building, her cheeks streaked with tears. Farrin sat beside her and pulled the girl next to her. “Want to talk about it?”

Dara sniffed. “I failed my math test today. I’ve never failed a test. Mom would be so upset.”

“Oh honey, I think your mom would totally understand. School’s important, but sometimes other things in life are more so.”

Dara sagged against her. “Why is God taking my mom away? Why doesn’t he take a mean person instead?”

How many times had that question been asked by mankind?

“I don’t know, sweetie. Sometimes people just get sick and we don’t know why.”

For several seconds, Dara was quiet. Then a huge, wracking sob made her shudder. The child who’d been so strong for so long finally let go of all her sorrow and cried like there was no tomorrow, her little heart breaking in two.

Farrin couldn’t prevent her own tears, part of them shed for the enemy who’d become a dear friend, part for the grief-stricken children Janie was leaving behind.

****

Janie seemed to decline by the hour, and the apartment took on the awful pall of waiting for death. Perhaps the worst part was how the pain medication took Janie’s mind to another place before her body could follow. She’d gotten so used to Janie not responding that when she went in to feed her some ice chips one afternoon, Farrin was surprised to see recognition in Janie’s eyes.

“Hi,” Farrin said.

Janie smiled. “Thank you.” Her voice was thin and raspy from disuse.

“You’re welcome.”

“Not for ice. For . . . ” She stopped, reached for more ice chips. “For giving me back my family.”

Farrin shook her head, not understanding.

Janie gripped her hand with a surprising strength. “My mother, I’ve never been able to talk to her like that. I feel . . . like everything will be . . . okay now.” She winced with the pain the effort to speak cost her.

Farrin reached for the morphine pump and handed it to Janie.

“You.”

Understanding her friend had expended all her strength, Farrin pushed the button for her. She sat on the side of the bed for a long time after Janie succumbed to sleep again. Her skin might be gray, her hair limp, her body so thin it was painful to see, but Farrin remembered the beautiful girl Janie had once been. And it made her happy because she knew her friend was even more beautiful on the inside. She’d make a wonderful angel.

****

The wind whipped across the hillside with a stinging ferocity. Over the sound of the minister’s voice, Farrin listened to the flapping of the tent and long coats. Winter hadn’t paused in respect for Janie Carlisle’s funeral.

After all the tears she’d shed in the weeks leading up to Janie’s death, she’d been unable to shed a single one since. She was numb, afraid if she started crying she might never stop.

The minister closed his Bible, and Dara walked forward to place a bouquet of daisies atop her mother’s coffin. They weren’t the wildflowers she would have liked, but in mid-February it was the best she could offer. She’d insisted her mother wear the pink dress with the wildflowers on the collar, and no one disagreed with the heartbroken little girl.

When she’d wanted to wear both her butterfly necklace and her mother’s dogwood one, her grandmother hadn’t said a word. Maybe there was hope for these children to grow up happy after all.

Farrin was vaguely aware of Drew taking one of her gloved hands and Tammie taking the other as everyone bowed their heads for the final prayer. Farrin didn’t bow, nor close her eyes. Instead, she stared at the coffin and those daisies shivering in the frigid breeze. Then she glanced at Dara and Jason. She already missed them and they were only a few feet away.

The prayer ended, and the mourners began to move away from the gravesite. Farrin was unable to move by herself, relying instead on guidance from Drew as he guided her back to his SUV. They followed the other cars in silence as they traveled the couple of miles to the Carlisles’ home in the Vista Ridge subdivision.

The ladies of the First Baptist Church had filled the kitchen with enough food to feed the town twice over. Drew fixed Farrin a plate, but she only nibbled on a dinner roll. How could these people eat? How was it even possible to force the bites past their tongues and into their throats without choking?

She tossed her full plate in the trash and walked outside. And kept walking despite the bitter cold and the snow flurries flying through the air. By the time she reached Faye’s house and her rental car, her feet ached and her legs were frozen. But rather than going inside to warm herself, she got into the car and drove away.

When she drove the length of the little one-lane road leading back to the Tandy Creek Cemetery and found herself staring out the window at the rows of tombstones, it surprised her. She’d returned to Oak Valley nearly five months before, and this was the first time she’d visited her mother’s grave.

Shame had kept her away. It was a day of endings, so it seemed only right that today should be the day she made amends and put that shame away forever.

She got out of the car and walked through the rows of leaning stones, some of them so old you could no longer read the inscriptions that might have adorned them. Tandy Creek Baptist Church was the oldest in the county, and some of the graves dated back to the late 1700s. In a much newer part of the cemetery, Farrin stopped in front of the stone she hadn’t seen in too many years.

“Hi, Mom.” She paused, almost wishing she’d hear her mother’s voice. “I’m . . . I’m so sorry.”

For not visiting, for running away, for saying those awful things, for being embarrassed of you.

“Please forgive me.” She sank to the ground, heedless of the wet, cold grass, and let the sobs take her.

****

“Farrin! Farrin, wake up.”

She came awake as if lifting to the surface of the ocean from the inky depths below.

“Dear God, you scared me.”

Farrin looked at Drew’s face in the darkness, lit only by the church’s small security light. Her body ached. Perhaps she’d frozen solid. Her eyes itched from the tears with which she’d soaked her mother’s grave. She was totally, utterly spent, but she’d said everything she needed to. And she’d swear that just before she gave in to exhaustion, she’d felt a soft hand caress her head.

Drew picked her up and carried her to his vehicle, buckled her in and turned on the heat full blast. The ride back to his house passed in a haze, his voice on the phone telling Faye he’d found Farrin and she appeared okay barely filtering through.

This man she’d grown to love more than she knew how to express carried her inside, straight to his bedroom, and took off her damp, dirty clothes. He placed her under the covers and after kicking off his shoes and suit jacket, crawled in beside her, pulling her body back against his to give her warmth. She didn’t realize how cold she was until she felt the heat of him. And then she began to shiver.

Farrin didn’t know how many minutes passed before she managed to stop shivering. She lay staring at the window, wondering if Janie was sitting on one of those stars, healthy and whole again, watching her and smiling. The thought gave her comfort. And courage.

“Drew?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

He tightened his arms around her. “I love you, too.” He said the words as if he’d known about her love all along.