Tea and Primroses (31 page)

“Become a baker,” she answered without hesitation.

“Well, then, that’s what you must do.”

“But don’t you want me to be educated? Academic like you and Declan?”

“I could care less about all that. I just want you to be happy.”

She stopped and turned to gaze into my eyes, perhaps needing to make sure I wasn’t just saying this in the moment. “Really, Mommy?”

“Really. Let’s get you enrolled for the fall semester. You can stay here this summer, maybe take a trip up to see Declan in Seattle.”

She did just that. And the minute she started classes, she was a star at culinary school. As trite as it sounds, I watched her blossom before my eyes.

I started dyeing my hair. I rubbed cream into my face every night in the useless way we do.

Roma aged as well, the years of physical work taking their toll. I noticed she moved slower than she had—I don’t know when it started. When you’re with a person every day you don’t pick up the subtle ways they age until one day you see it, quite evident in the lines etched on their faces and the way they favor a knee or elbow. It was a weekday when I found her sitting at the kitchen table, making a list of some sort. She moved to get up when I came in the room but I insisted she stay put and have a cup of tea with me. For once, she listened. I bustled about, making our tea, while she remained at the table. I stole glances at her. She looked older. She worked too much. No one could sustain the amount of physical activity she’d done all these years. We were both in our middle forties and I hadn’t felt age creep in yet. Physically I felt the same as I always had. But inside I felt the changes. It was when Roma left for the evening and I was alone in an empty house. Then, I felt old. And alone. I missed the days of chatter and shouts of laughter from the deck when Sutton and Declan had brought friends over after school or football games or dances. I wondered, as I often did, what it would have been like to grow old with Patrick.

I didn’t voice these things to Roma, of course. Instead I set a cup of tea in front of her. “I think you should move in here.”

“Here? With you?” She rolled her eyes and chuckled. “Two old lady spinsters, is that the idea?”

I laughed. “I miss the kids.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“I’m lonely. You could have the guest suite. It’s not like I ever have any guests.”

She turned her eyes to the ocean. “Do you ever think about him?”

I was at the stove, pouring my own cup of tea. With my back to her, I moved the teabag from the cup to the sink. “You mean Patrick?”

“Yes.”

“There’s not a day goes by I don’t.”

“I would’ve liked it for us, you know.”

“What’s that?”

“To have love in our lives.”

I went to the table, suddenly cold, holding my tea against my chest. “We did, in a way. We had the kids.”

“True enough. They’ve been good kids, haven’t they?”

“The best.”

“And we’ve had each other.” Roma reached her large, callused hand over to me, placing it on my skinny, pale forearm. “You’ve been awful good to me.” She gave me a squeeze and then moved her hand back to her teacup.

I tapped her shoulder, teasing. “Don’t tell me you’re suddenly getting sentimental in your old age? Plus, you know I’d starve without you here to look after me.”

But she didn’t laugh as I expected. Instead, she sighed and turned to look up at me. “You’ve been sad for almost twenty years now.”

“Oh, no, that’s not true. I have such a good life.”

“I’m not talking about your professional success.”

I was quiet for a moment, moving closer to the window. The sea was there as it always was, the same ebb and flow since the beginning of time. “Just seems there’s more people missing than there should be. And none of the books can make up for that. I didn’t understand that when I was young. But without my parents and Miller, all the people I loved so much, the success pales. I’m scared all the time something’s going to happen to you or the kids or Louise.” I hesitated, my voice strangled at the back of my throat. “And I think of Patrick. Every day. I wonder what it would have been like if we’d made a life together.” The tears came and I brushed them aside with the back of my hand. “I’ve never gotten over it. It seems ridiculous after all this time, but it’s true.”

“I know, and there’s not a day goes by I don’t hate him for it.” She reached up and took my hand in her big one. “Sometimes I still wish for a man’s hands on me. Does that sound foolish at our age?”

My eyes burned. “It’s not too late, you know. There might be a man out there for you. Maybe if you didn’t work so hard you might have some energy to look for one. As a matter of fact, I’m firing you right now.”

“You can’t fire me.” She did a dismissive gesture with her hand, laughing. “You don’t even know how to turn on the stove.”

“Well, that’s true. But we could hire someone else to take care of the house and you could just cook for me. That is, until you find a foxy boyfriend.” I sat across from her at the table.

“I don’t think people say foxy any longer.”

“Really? Well they should.”

“Truth is, I met someone.”

“What?”

“I mean, I like someone. I’ve been out on three dates.”

I looked at her in amazement. “Details, please.”

“We’ve gone to the bar.”

“Roma! You went to a bar?”

She giggled, like a schoolgirl. “I met him at the grocery store one day. He suddenly appeared, his cart full of those frozen dinners, behind me in the checkout line. And he started talking me up. Asking me questions about all the fresh produce and meat in my cart, what did I cook with it and did I use recipes or make them up, that sort of thing. We talked all the way to the parking lot. Then he asked me out. Friday night we’re going out to dinner up in Cannon Beach.” Her face was all dewy and dreamy; I’d never seen her look this way.

“What’s his name?” I was a believer in names, being a writer. They could tell you something about a person.

“Nathan Parker.”

“What does he do?”

“Retired marine. Finally, a man big enough for me.”

I simply stared at her in amazement, shaking my head. “I’m so happy for you,” I said, finally. I meant it, of course, but this news shook me. I’d counted on Roma to keep me company in our old age. Now she was moving on.

“He told me he’s never felt this way about anyone so soon.”

“Well, it’s true, you know, what they say about love at first sight. Sometimes it happens.” That first night at dinner with Patrick, I thought, remembering the way his eyes had flickered in the candlelight. I’d known right away. This is the man I will love all my life.

I smiled at Roma across the little table in the kitchen. “You need a new dress.”

The next day, we took the afternoon off and went shopping in Cannon Beach. I bought her a dress, red to go with her olive complexion, and a new pair of black sandals. Then we had our hair trimmed and colored at my favorite salon. The girls at the shop convinced us we both needed makeovers and the next thing we knew our faces and toes and nails were painted. When they were done, we gazed at ourselves in the mirror. “Not bad for two old broads,” said Roma.

I treated us to a late lunch at a bistro. We ordered fattening entrées and shared a bottle of wine, laughing and whispering like teenagers. After lunch, we walked the beach, stopping to admire Haystack Rock, until Roma was sober enough to drive us home. It remains one of my favorite memories.

At the end all I have are my memories.

Two days later, Roma was dead. A trucker, traveling north on Highway 101 near dawn on Saturday, saw her car wrapped around a tree. She was in the passenger seat and was crushed, dying instantly. The driver’s side of the car was intact, virtually unblemished. But there was no driver. No fingerprints. No evidence that anyone but Roma had ever driven her car.

Tim Ball searched long and hard for the mysterious Nathan Parker but there was no record of him ever existing. For a period of time, both Declan and I became obsessed with finding him. He quit his job and moved in with me. I hired the best private detective money could find but there was nothing. No trace. Nothing but an empty kitchen where Roma used to be. Tim and my private detective, separately, interviewed every worker at every restaurant in Cannon Beach and Manzanita. No one remembered seeing Roma out that night. It was as if the night had never happened. Where they went, why they were in Roma’s car, none of it was answerable. Ultimately, Tim believed he was a grifter, and perhaps, having too much to drink, lost control of Roma’s car and then ran, knowing he would be charged with vehicular homicide. My private detective had no theory at all and ended up refusing any kind of payment from me.

Declan and Sutton helped me spread her ashes into the ocean, both of them stronger than I. But later, I watched from the kitchen window as Declan sobbed in Sutton’s arms. The sight of that strong, good boy grieving his mother broke me. After everything, that was the thing that did it. I stayed present until they left the next day. It felt like I was dying right along with Roma when their cars disappeared down the driveway.

I understood they had to go back to their lives. Sutton had two more semesters of pastry school to finish and Declan was teaching art and history at a small, private high school in Seattle.
They must continue forward,
I told myself.
They are young and have lives to make
.

I crawled into bed.

I went into the first serious depression of my life. In the empty house without Roma, and the kids away, there was nothing to keep me from sinking into despair. For the first time in my adult life, I did not write. I had the local grocery store bring food once a week, canned goods and frozen dinners. I slept most of the time, only getting up to eat or shower when I felt up to it, which was little of the time. Janie, concerned over my deadline for the latest book, called daily but I didn’t answer the phone. Louise called. Sometimes she dropped by but I didn’t answer the door. The kids started calling every day. The messages piled up on the phone. A month went by.

And, then, I’m sure feeling something close to panic, both Sutton and Declan came home. It was summer vacation for both of them anyway, but I knew they came home for me. I could see in their eyes how bad I must look. They got me out of bed. Sutton cooked for me. She made all my favorite baked goods. Declan painted in my office, waiting for me to join him.

I still wasn’t writing but I sat on the porch and watched the ocean.

Slowly, I started to feel a little better.

Then, something miraculous happened—something that renewed my spirit. Declan and Sutton fell in love. I didn’t see it coming. I don’t know why, really. I suppose I assumed they were best friends and considered the other family, as I had Roma and Declan. They’d been close as little children. Declan was always tough and Sutton so delicate that he was fiercely protective of her. But as they entered middle school and then high school they were friendly but did not play together any longer. It was to be expected, Roma and I agreed. Boys and girls aren’t close at this age. Declan and Peter Ball were tight. Sutton and Gigi were practically glued at the hip. And they all “hung out” together as Sutton explained to me once, but none of them liked each other that way. She said this as if it were obvious and also embarrassing.

One day in mid-July, I glanced up from the book I was pretending to read and saw them on the beach. She was lying on her back, staring up at him with her back slightly arched, wearing a white sweater that rose up to reveal her slender, smooth stomach. Bare-chested and facing her, he was propped on his arms over her, his nose near her chin, hovering as if he might do a pushup. She reached up and put her hands in his hair. Slowly, he moved so their mouths touched, kissing softly, the way lovers do. I knew then. They loved one another.

I thought of Patrick.

For all of June and July I let myself continue to sit on the deck and watch the ocean. The kids brought me tea and items to eat and books to read. But I wasn’t all the way there.

I was only eyes that summer. Just watching eyes that observed instead of participated. I watched as the kids walked together hand in hand. I watched them huddle together on a blanket with his arm around her shoulders and her head on his shoulder. And as I watched, I let myself remember. Patrick. Vermont. The leaves. The feeling of falling in love.

All I had was my memories.

One day, Sutton brought me a cinnamon roll and a hot cup of tea. She sat next to me and took my hand. “I love Declan, Mommy.”

Mommy.

She called me Mom now, this grown up woman beside me—but not today as she confessed her heart. Today I was Mommy.

“I know, sweetheart. I’m glad.”

“But he’s too big for me.”

I stared at her. Where had she heard that phrase? Had I used it over the years? Had she heard me say it about myself in regards to Miller?

“Why do you say that?”

“I’m so happy here. I want my life to be small, simple. I’m afraid of so many things.”

I squeezed her hand. “If you love him, find a way to compromise.”

That night, I felt good enough to sit with them at dinner. A week later, I made my way to my desk. I wrote one sentence and then another. I rode my bicycle into town. I bought flowers at the local shop. I returned books to the library. I re-entered life.

Declan came to me with his plan, showing me the small diamond he’d purchased for her. “She needs to finish school first,” I said.

“Yes, of course. But she only has another semester. She’ll be done by Christmas.”

“We can have a summer wedding. Here, if Sutton wants.” Already I was imagining Louise and Sutton planning the wedding. I would defer to them, I thought, smiling to myself.

It was my idea to send them to Europe. “Think of it,” I said to Declan, feeling cheered for the first since Roma died. “Art and food. What could be more perfect for your honeymoon?”

He wanted to ask her the morning she went back to school. I wanted him to do it sooner, so I could celebrate with them, but I kept it to myself. It wasn’t about me, I reminded myself, as I reached for the phone to call Louise.