Tending Roses (12 page)

I wondered if Karen was as nervous about the visit as I was. I supposed not. Karen was always confident of her position, seldom rattled by anything.

I called my father that night after Grandma had gone to the little house and Joshua was put to bed. In my mind, I rehearsed what I would say if he answered.
Hello,
I’d say matter-of-factly. I’d make some inquiry about his health or his work. Tell him how much it mattered to Grandma that he come for Christmas. Make sure he knew it didn’t really matter to
me.

Of course, the truth was that it did matter. I thought about Joshua, and the fact that he was nearly four months old and no one in my family, except Grandma, had even seen him.

I was relieved when Dad’s answering machine picked up. I quickly left a message. “Hello, it’s Kate. Grandma has been wondering when you’re coming for Christmas. She says she hasn’t seen you since she was in the hospital in June. She’s really looking forward to this Christmas. Please let us know as soon as you can.” I hung up the phone hurriedly, afraid he would answer. Then I sat at the kitchen table, catching my breath, feeling as if I had been running from something in a nightmare.

The sound of the television in the living room caught my attention, and I walked through the dogtrot, wondering if Grandma had decided to come back into the house. I hoped she hadn’t heard me on the phone. I didn’t want her to know I was having to beg my father to come.

When I entered the living room, it was empty. Shaking my head, I turned off the TV and stood looking around the room for a minute, having the irrational feeling that there were ghosts in the house. The mantel clock chimed, and I jumped, surprised by the noise.

Something white caught my eye near the clock, something fluttering just slightly in the draft from the register. Grandma’s book. Glancing around the room again, I walked to the mantel and picked it up, looking at the words in the dim light from the floor lamp. The story about the roses was gone, replaced by something new.

Fragile Things,
the story was titled. In the back of my mind, I thought of Joshua.

In that moment, I understood so much about Grandma Rose that I had not before. I understood why she was so worried about someone spoiling the things that belonged to her, why she obsessed so over her house and her savings. I understood why she couldn’t stand the sight of Dell Jordan. Dell reminded her of a past she was trying to forget, a girl she used to be. The incident with the boys in town had brought it all back to her, and she lashed out at the people who had long ago broken her own spirit.

After reading her words, I understood how much the safety of that big white house and the security of her land and her belongings meant, and how deeply she feared losing them. I understood why she had never been willing to let even a piece of it go.

Somewhere inside, she was the little girl in the back of a wagon, trying to hold on to something that was heavy, and fragile, and slipping away.

T
HAT night I dreamed of flying. In my dream, I leapt from the bluffs above the river and soared high over the farm. Below, the maple trees were bright with fresh spring leaves, and the fields were filled with yellow bonnet flowers. Dell Jordan was running through them, her feet bare, a long yellow dress flowing around her like sunshine. Two brown-haired girls ran with her, their hands clasped together. Laughing, they fell onto the carpet of yellow bonnets and lay gazing skyward with long dark hair tangled in the grass. The smiles were mine and my sister’s, our faces young and bright with innocence.

A child appeared from the flowers, her hair in tawny curls, her feet and legs bare and brown. Her eyes were blue like the summer sky, my grandmother’s eyes. Smiling silently, she coaxed us to our feet, and we joined hands, darting through the flowers like untamed horses. Then we ran to the bluffs above the river and disappeared into the sky.

My limbs were leaden as I drifted between sleep and consciousness, as if my spirit had been away and had suddenly come back to the shell of my body. I lay listening for the sounds of summer outside, thinking about waking my sister and going out to play in the fields. The rattle of dishes clinking in the kitchen brought to my mind an image of Mom and Grandma cooking breakfast for all of us. For just an instant I hung suspended in the mists of my dream, forgetting who and what I was.

A baby’s cry came from somewhere far away, and the dream rushed away like a genie disappearing into a bottle. Reality struck me with a suddenness that stole my breath, and I sat up, realizing Joshua was crying.

I walked upstairs, feeling like an impostor in my own body.

Joshua was wiggling in his bed with his eyes still closed, so I slipped the pacifier into his mouth, watched him settle into sleep again, and tiptoed to the window. Outside, the first long rays of a winter dawn rose into the sky like outstretched fingers. The hillsides and farmyard remained shrouded in dusky gray, and a pair of deer had come to graze just outside the yard fence. They started suddenly, raising their heads and flicking their tails, then darting into the murky darkness beyond the glow of the yard light.

Grandma appeared in front of the little house and walked slowly along the path toward the main house, her gray wool coat wrapped over her pajamas. Leaving the window, I went downstairs and found her in the kitchen.

“Katie!” She jumped and slapped a hand over her heart when she saw me. “What are you doing up?”

“Josh was crying,” I whispered, as if there were someone else in the house to hear. “Are you O.K.?”

She smiled, starting to fix the coffee. “Oh, yes. Fine. I just couldn’t get back to sleep. Don’t let me keep you up. You go back to bed.”

“All right,” I said, turning to leave.

“I had the most wonderful dream.” Her voice was almost a whisper, her face turned away. I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me or not, but I stopped to listen. “It was all about spring and yellow bonnet flowers. I was young again.” The last words faded into a sigh, and she stood looking out the window. Silent.

Watching her, I thought of the tawny-haired girl in my dream—the girl who had my grandmother’s summer-sky eyes. I wanted to ask if her dream had been like mine—if our souls had truly become young again and galloped together through the fields of yellow bonnets. Words came to my mind, but not to my lips, and finally I turned away and left her there staring out the window.

Still thinking about her, I slipped into bed and fell into a dreamless sleep. When I woke, the sun was bright and the morning mist had already evaporated from the bedroom windows, telling me I had slept late. I lay trying to decide if I had been awake at dawn and seen Grandma, or if it was merely part of my dream. I wondered if she would remember and could tell me.

I didn’t hear anyone in the house, so I dressed, then headed for the coffeepot. No one was in the kitchen.

The phone rang just as I was finishing breakfast. It was a woman from the insurance company calling to tell me they were refusing another claim, but if I wanted to, I could certainly send it in for re-review. But this item was definitely in excess of coverage limits.

“This charge was preapproved,” I protested, thinking of all the years Ben and I had paid for insurance and never used it. Now that we needed it, it wasn’t paying. “I already talked to Cynthia Bell about this last week. She assured me this would go through.”

“Ma’am, I don’t have authorization to . . .” And so we went through the usual drill. I knew it so well that I didn’t even have to listen anymore. When it was over, I hung up the phone with a slam, feeling as if I wanted to rip it out of the wall.

It rang again, just as I turned to walk away. I hovered for a minute, considered not answering it, then finally picked it up.

Ben was on the other end, and I was so glad to hear his voice, I instantly felt better. Then I realized that, if he was calling, he wasn’t coming home that afternoon.

He made small talk for a minute, then got around to the point. “So, I thought I’d stay an extra day here. Bill and Carl are in town, and James has tickets to the Knicks game tonight. I can get a flight home tomorrow.”

I rubbed the bridge of my nose, trying to smooth away the rising screams of protest in my head, but they came out anyway. “Well, you know what, Ben? This is the third time you’ve called to tell me you weren’t coming home yet. Frankly, I’m a little sick of it.”

“Come on, Kate, it’s just one more day.” He sounded self-righteous and offended. “What’s wrong with you?”

A list ran though my mind, but I simplified it down to, “I could just use a little help here. In case you’ve forgotten, Aunt Jeane is coming day after tomorrow. The house isn’t clean, there’s grocery shopping to do, and I still have files I need to go through for work. They called me again today needing those grant applications. The insurance company called with another rejected claim that I’ll have to protest. That means more paperwork. We have no Christmas shopping done, and there’s a four-month-old baby upstairs who has to be fed, burped, diapered, fed, burped, diapered, unless he’s sleeping, and then there’re laundry, dishes, dirty bottles to wash, and food to fix. Josh could use a little more attention, and every time I turn around, you’re either gone or you have your face in a computer.” The truth, too long bottled up, spewed forth like venom.

“What, so now I’m a bad father?” His voice was angry and indignant. “You know, someone has to make a living here. I can’t do that if I’m sitting home baby-sitting. I thought we both agreed the most important thing right now is get the stupid hospital bills paid off.”

Tears crowded into my eyes. It seemed as if we were thinking in two different universes. “No, the most important thing right now is our son. It seems as if you should want to see him more than you want to go to a Knicks game with your friends.”