Wedding Ring (4 page)

“Gram?”

Helen didn’t turn or speak.

“I need to talk to you.” Tessa stepped inside. This bedroom was surprisingly spacious, with a row of windows at the back where her grandmother sat. The floor here would be cluttered by normal standards, but not by the standards of this house. Fabric was stacked neatly on shelves built of concrete blocks and boards; sewing tools hung from a pegboard. Of course, there were piles here, as well, but at least they were pushed to the side so that the middle of the room was clear.

“I don’t want to talk,” Helen said at last. “Talk is useless.”

“Then I’m afraid you’ll just to have to listen.” Tessa walked to the windows and stood beside her grandmother’s chair, staring out at the pond.

The pond, like the land, was parched and dry. She remembered it in better days, when its surface had lapped at the roots of weeping willows planted along its borders. She estimated that it had shrunk by a third, stranding or crowding fish and making mud flats of the rim.

“It’s been a terrible, dry summer, hasn’t it?” Tessa said.

Helen didn’t answer.

Tessa wondered if her grandmother’s life had been the same. Had she begun her collections for something to do? Had the piles of abandoned objects filled that aching, thirsty place within her brought on by loneliness and aging?

“We have to clear out the rooms,” Tessa said softly. “You know that, I think. The place is a health hazard, a safety hazard. And you need space to live and move around without falling. If you tripped over something, you could break a hip or an arm.”

Again Helen didn’t answer.

“It would be easiest if you let us hire somebody to haul it all away,” Tessa said. “That way it could be done quickly.”

That got the expected rise out of her grandmother. “Nobody’s coming inside! I don’t want you here, either.”

Tessa rested her fingertips on her grandmother’s shoulder. “That’s pretty clear. I thought I was going to have to camp on your doorstep.”

Helen snorted. “You? You’re too soft. What would you know about roughing it?”

“Staying inside this house for the rest of the summer will teach me everything I don’t know already.”

“You’re staying?”

“What did you expect? That we’d see the situation here and leave you to deal with it by yourself?”

“I don’t need your charity.”

Tessa struggled with phrasing. “Maybe not, but you could use the company, couldn’t you? And there’s a lot of work here, Gram. More than one person should have to do alone.”

Helen was silent for so long that Tessa was afraid she wasn’t going to answer. Then the old woman sighed. “I don’t know how this happened.”

Tessa, who had struggled not to feel anything since she arrived, felt sympathy streak right past her defenses. She understood her grandmother’s words too well. Tessa had watched her own life spin out of control, and she, like Helen, still seemed powerless to stop it.

By the time they had made a start on removing the newspapers, magazines and cardboard from the downstairs, the sun had slipped behind the horizon. It was a little easier to move around now, and with all the windows wide open and fans in the cleared areas, the temperature was almost bearable.

Nancy stretched, holding her hands over her head. “I need a shower. More than I need a drink and dinner, although it’s close.”

Tessa needed one, too, but she had a bad feeling about the water supply. If the pond was slowly drying up, what about the well?

A month, more likely two, without air-conditioning or an ample supply of water to bathe in. A summer shared by three women who had little in common except DNA.

“Why don’t you go ahead, and I’ll see what we can do about dinner,” Tessa said. “I think I can get to the stove and at least one of the cupboards.”

Nancy finished her stretch. “I brought some groceries with me and put them on the table. Nothing perishable, thank God, since I’m afraid to look in the refrigerator, but some boxes and cans. Some fruit, too, and a loaf of bread. I didn’t know what we’d run into here.”

Tessa knew her mother to be an interesting mixture of drill sergeant and powderpuff. In her own limited sphere, Nancy was masterful. No one could organize a tea or a banquet better than she could. No one knew how to schmooze Richmond’s elite with more finesse. She was on a first-name basis with most of the state legislature and knew precise details about the Confederate heritage, financial dealings and political ties of every leading family. Practical matters, though, like skinned knees or the location of circuit breakers or how many ounces equaled a pound seemed beyond her. To Tessa’s knowledge, Nancy did not cook. Sarah, their housekeeper, had prepared every meal except the occasional bowl of cereal or sandwich. So it surprised Tessa that her mother had considered this problem and tackled it head-on.

“Peanut butter?” Tessa asked.

“Sarah packed the bag, but I think so. I asked for tuna, too, and a jar of mayonnaise.”

“Good, then I’ll do sandwiches.”

“You’re sure? You could shower first while I tackle the kitchen. I’m still moving, aren’t I? Still on my feet?”

“I’m fine. Go on.” Tessa had already told Nancy about the bedrooms. “Choose a room while you’re at it. You’ll find sheets in the hall. Lots and lots of them.”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve slept here,” Nancy said.

“Which room was yours?”

“The one facing the woods.”

The book room. “Gram has thoughtfully provided you with extra reading material for the summer,” Tessa said, trying not to smile.

Nancy’s eyelids fluttered shut for a moment, as if she was picturing what awaited her. “I’ll get my overnight case.” She started toward the front door, then she turned. “Wine. There’s a bottle of wine, too. I just remembered.”

Helen had a moderate attitude toward alcohol. Tessa knew she would not object, would even, perhaps, join them if they could get her downstairs again.

“Tessa, I…” Nancy stopped. “Well, maybe you’d rather we didn’t drink at all? I didn’t think. I didn’t mean to push it at you that way. I know how you feel—”

“It’s fine.”

Nancy stopped herself from continuing, a measure of how powerful the subject was. She disappeared out the door.

There was a wider path to the kitchen now. Tessa had already divided the mess into two categories, at least in her head. The division was, as far as she could tell, dead even. The first consisted of things that simply needed to be disposed of. The second was going to be harder. Stacks of old correspondence, bills that might or might not have been paid, boxes of photographs, items that might still be useful to someone, even if not to Helen. At first she had hoped it would be as simple as throwing out nearly everything. But after hours of hauling, she had seen that would not be true.

The kitchen was a prime example of the second category. It was no surprise that Helen stored food. In case of national disaster, Fitch Crossing Road and the town of Toms Brook would be well fed. Now Tessa understood Helen’s collection of jars in the living room. She used them for everything. Herbs, grains, pasta, cereal. She made her own jellies and used miscellaneous jars for those, as well. The food she canned—and an eclectic variety was represented here—resided in standard issue canning jars. Since Tessa hadn’t yet come across that particular mountain, she wondered where those extra jars were stored. She was afraid to think what awaited in the root cellar.

Nancy had left the grocery bags on the only available cleared space, Helen’s lone placemat at the small round table by the kitchen window. Tessa’s first job was to clear a counter so she could prepare the meal. The obvious one held ancient cookbooks stacked three feet high. She moved them to the floor beside the back door, leaving just enough room for an emergency escape route.

Once cleared, she scoured the counter with a clean sponge—one of many—then set out bread, tuna fish and mayonnaise. In an overhead cabinet she found a wide choice of bowls, each one nested inside its larger neighbor to save space.

She was reminded of a Russian matroyshka. She’d had a set of the nesting dolls as a little girl, cats of assorted colors that her father had brought home from a business trip. She had given them to Kayley as soon as her daughter was old enough to understand how to put one inside the other. Kayley had given them names and played with them for hours.

She was still staring out the window when she heard a noise behind her. Minutes had passed since she took out the tuna, and she hadn’t even opened the can.

“You’re making supper?”

Tessa was surprised to find Helen in the doorway. “Does tuna fish sound good?”

“I have food, you know. You think I don’t eat?”

“Gram, we didn’t know what you’d have, so Mom brought a few supplies with her.” She paused. “Including a bottle of wine. Would you like a glass?”

Helen shuffled over to the counter. “Haven’t had wine in years.”

“Does that mean you don’t want to try some?”

“I suppose a glass might not hurt.”

“Where will I find glasses?”

Helen chortled. “Just about any place you look.”

Tessa was surprised her grandmother could make something so close to a joke about the situation. She pulled a glass from the drainer, then set it aside. It had a visible crack. Tomorrow, out from under Helen’s watchful eye, it would go into the trash. The second was in better shape, even if it did feature a Flintstones cartoon in fading yellow relief. Circa 1965.

“You threw out all my newspapers. Who told you you could?” Helen said.

“Why were they piled up in there in the first place?” Tessa lifted the wine bottle out of the bag. She was grateful to see that Nancy had brought a corkscrew with her. She had no stomach for rummaging through the drawers tonight.

“I haven’t read them.”

“They’re a fire hazard, Gram. Let’s face it, if you don’t read them the day they come out, you’re never going to read them. Besides, you could start reading tonight and read through next Christmas and you’d still only finish a fraction.”

“I’ve been making headway.”

Nancy spoke from the doorway. “Mother, according to those newspapers, the World Trade Center’s still gracing the Manhattan skyline, President Clinton is busily claiming he never had sex with that woman, and wives in Afghanistan aren’t allowed out of the house unless they’re covered head to toe.”

“People throw out too much. Wasteful, that’s what it is. Nobody knows how to take care of things anymore. And what have you done with my magazines?”

Tessa waited for her mother to throw fuel on that particular fire, too. She wrestled with the corkscrew and pulled out the cork. She poured Helen’s wine, put it in front of her and searched for a glass for herself.

“There were some really interesting magazines in those piles,” Nancy admitted, surprising her daughter into deeper silence. “I can see why it would be hard to part with them.”

“Haven’t even looked at half of them.”

“Tell me which ones interest you most and I’ll find the most recent issues for you,” Tessa said, only trusting her mother’s judgment so far. “You have subscriptions?”

“Subscriptions? Why? Doctor’s offices throw them out once they get too old.”

And Helen saved them from the landfill. The theme at the Old Stoneburner Place was becoming obvious. The aged, the outdated, had to be protected and cared for. It was Helen’s duty, because no one else was doing it.

“Mom, would you like a glass of wine?” Tessa asked Nancy.

“Tomorrow I’ll just bring all those old things back inside, you know,” Helen said. “You see if I don’t. You don’t have the right.” She picked up her glass, squeezed past her daughter and was quickly swallowed up by piles of junk. They listened in silence as she slowly picked her way back upstairs.

“I’ll take a sandwich up to her later,” Tessa said.

“This isn’t going to work, you know,” Nancy said wearily. “I had a two-minute shower before the water dwindled to a drip, then I dried myself with a towel from the Eisenhower era. Mother’s not eating, and I’m not sure she’s bathing. She’s not going to let us do what needs to be done here. We’ll take stuff out, she’ll bring it back in. It’s ninety in here, at least. The screens need patching, and the mosquitoes are looking for a stiff drink and a good time.” She swatted a forearm in emphasis. “She’s gotten crazy as a loon, and reasoning with her is only going to make things worse.”

Tessa handed her mother a glass of wine. “And your suggestion would be?”

They stared at each other. Nancy made a silent toast. Tessa acknowledged it. They drank without another word, slapping mosquitoes lethargically as they listened to the sound of crickets through the gaping holes in the screens.

O
n Wednesday morning Tessa woke up when the first rays of sunshine filtered through her window. The previous morning she had removed the old dust-heavy curtains and cleared most of her bedroom floor of piles and boxes. She and Nancy had agreed over yesterday’s breakfast that if they were going to sleep in the house, they had to start by making their bedrooms habitable.

“When I finally got to sleep,” Nancy had said, “I dreamed I was walking down an unfamiliar street and things started falling out of the sky. I woke up, and there were these piles of books all around my bed. I lay there with my eyes open, waiting for them to fall on me, too.”

Tessa’s dreams hadn’t been any better, except that her personal nightmare was the same every night, no matter where she slept.

Most of Tuesday had been taken up with sorting and carrying out the contents of their rooms. Helen had holed up in her bedroom, refusing to come down for meals. In a way, her absence had been a relief. At least while she stayed upstairs she could not make good on her threat to retrieve the trash they cleared away. She didn’t speak when Tessa delivered food or drinks. She sat and sewed at her window in silence.

This morning Tessa could hear her grandmother moving around in the room beside her. Tessa knew the truce—and calling it a truce was a positive spin—wouldn’t last forever. Eventually her grandmother was going to go outside, see everything that had been discarded and raise the proverbial roof.

She sat up and gripped her knees. The old Stoneburner place was, in some sense, her family home, but she felt like a stranger here. As a little girl she had not visited her grandmother for overnights or summer vacations. When it was required, she had come for brief visits with her parents, but Helen had always frightened her. Her grandmother had a booming voice and a towering presence. If she liked children, she never willingly demonstrated it. There were no overflowing cookie jars in Helen’s house, no picture books to ponder together, no pampered pets to cuddle. Tessa had been encouraged to run and play outside, but the vast, lonely spaces had disconcerted the little girl. By the time she was a teenager, she had usually manufactured excuses not to go when her mother and father made their duty calls.

Now the house felt unfamiliar. Someday, she supposed, it would be hers. When Helen died, the farm might even be passed straight to Tessa instead of her mother, since Nancy was more vocal in her dislike of the land and the Virginia countryside in general. But there would be no emotional struggle for Tessa when the time came to sell it.

Next door, Helen was muttering. Tessa swung her feet to the floor and dressed in the clothes she’d laid out the night before. Unfortunately, she had few choices. She had accidentally left the suitcase containing most of her clothes at home and would need to retrieve it that afternoon unless she wanted to wash the same two outfits by hand every night. Although her house in Fairfax was only an hour and a half away in good traffic, she was sorry she had to make the trip. She and Nancy needed to do as much as they could quickly, before Helen changed her mind and threw them out.

Downstairs, she found her mother staring out the kitchen window as she shined the faucet. Nancy didn’t even turn when Tessa entered the room.

“Do you know how many dishes I’ve done at this sink?” Nancy said.

“Same sink, I bet.”

“It’s probably the original, brought to the wilderness by mule teams.”

“Was there
anything
you liked about living here?” Tessa could hear a lack of sleep in her own voice. A neater room had made very little difference.

“As a matter of fact, no.” Nancy bent over to rinse a cup, fussing over it longer than she needed to. “There’s coffee. It’s still fresh.”

“I’ll take a cup up to Gram. She’s awake.”

“Don’t, Tessa. We’re not here to wait on her. She can come down and get it if she wants it.”

“Look, she’s old, confused, upset. I—”

“You won’t make things any better by treating her like she’s any of those things.” Nancy faced her daughter, her hands twisting in front of her. She had already showered, and her hair and makeup were morning-fresh. Tessa wondered just how early her mother had risen to achieve this state of perfection.

“Look,” Nancy said, “I know her better than you do. She doesn’t want to be taken care of. Okay?”

“Then we ignore her?”

“I doubt we’ll be accused of that. We’re here because of her, aren’t we? We’re spending our whole summer trying to make her life better.”

“My life is just fine.” Helen hobbled into the kitchen. Tessa hadn’t even heard her descend the stairs. For such a large woman, she was surprisingly light on her feet. “I didn’t ask for your help.”

“There’s coffee,” Nancy said. “To go with the approaching argument.”

“No arguments!” Tessa’s voice was sharp. It surprised even her. “Look, you two, I don’t know why you treat each other the way that you do, but I’m not going to be a party to it. We have a job to do here, and it’s going to take at least a month, maybe two—”

Helen interrupted. “I didn’t—”

Tessa held up her hand. “I’m sorry, but it doesn’t matter if you asked us to come or not, Gram. We’re here. We’re staying. When we leave, the house is not going to look the same. That’s inevitable. We can get along or not. That part is optional, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s up to the two of you. But if you have to pick at each other, do it when I’m not around, okay? Because I do
not
like to hear it.”

She abandoned the house by the back door and started around it. Before she knew it, she was jogging, then running faster. Running had never been her tranquilizer of choice. Until Kayley’s death, yoga had helped her deal with the normal stress of a happy life. Afterward, she had not been able to focus, and yoga, like everything else, had seemed worthless.

She was on Fitch Crossing Road, running down the dips and up the slopes, before she wondered what she was doing. But she didn’t wonder long. Running made a great deal of sense to her. As a metaphor, nothing could beat it.

She wasn’t sure how far she had run before the heat and the unaccustomed strain got the better of her. She slowed to a jog, then a fast walk. She was no longer bordering her grandmother’s acres. The fields here were better tended, as if someone had been through recently with a plow, even though the acres of corn stretching back from the road as far as the river probably couldn’t be saved. She realized she must have run as far as the Claiborne farm.

In the distance, on her right, she saw a brick ranch house with a fleet of vehicles parked in front of it. A small mobile home sat well behind the house, and behind that stood orchards.

A man driving a tractor was heading down the driveway in her direction. Tessa waved and waited to utter a few words of greeting. This was not the city. Neighbors here did not ignore each other, not unless they wanted to be ignored when they needed help. The man—Mr. Claiborne himself, she guessed—let the engine idle and got down to speak to her.

“Oh, I didn’t mean for you to stop,” Tessa said. “I was just going to say hello.”

The man, late fifties and whipcord lean, wiped his hand on his denim-clad thigh and held it out. “Ron Claiborne.”

She shook his hand. “Tessa MacRae. Helen’s granddaughter.”

“How’s Helen doing?”

She shrugged. “We’re grateful to you, Mr. Claiborne. She’s hidden her problems from us for a long time, I’m afraid.” She felt something else was expected, some explanation that a family could be so oblivious to the plight of an aging relative. But she didn’t know what to add.

He took charge. “Helen don’t say much to nobody. I can see how it happened.”

“Well, thanks for that, but at least we know now. We’re staying to clear out the house and put everything in order. Then we’ll see where we go from there.”

“You’re going to need help.”

“She won’t let anyone else inside.”

“No wonder.” He removed his cap—an advertisement for a local storage company—and scratched his head. “What do you plan to do with, you know, the things you don’t need.”

For a moment Tessa wondered if hoarding was a way of life on Fitch Crossing; then she realized he was just offering to help. “Actually, I’m not sure. We’re just taking things outside now and covering them with a tarp. But I guess we need to hire somebody to haul it all away.”

“Don’t need to hire nobody. Your grandma’s been my neighbor long as I been living here. I got me a small horse trailer that’ll do the job just fine. I’ll bring it over today and park it in the yard. Then every time it gets full, you just call, and I’ll haul the stuff to the landfill. And if you ever need my pickup for stuff you want to give away, you can give me a holler and I’ll have my boy Zeke bring it right over. It’s the least we can do.” He paused. “I feel bad, you know, that I didn’t call sooner when she stopped going outside. I made excuses to check on her a time or two, but I should have called.”

She had always heard from her mother that the Claibornes were no-account white trash, hard drinkers and fighters. Odd how wrong people could be. This man was obviously a gentleman. She managed a smile. “You did more than most people would, and we really would appreciate the trailer if you can spare it.”

He nodded and jammed his cap back on his head. “I’ll be by later.”

She lifted a hand in farewell and started back the way she’d come. She was halfway back to her grandmother’s when her cell phone rang. She had dropped it in her shorts pocket when she’d dressed, planning to leave a message for Mack after breakfast. She had wanted him to know she would be coming back to pick up her suitcase. He would be gone by then, and she wouldn’t have to talk to him.

There never seemed to be anything to say to her husband anymore.

She dug for it and flipped it open to check caller ID. For a moment she considered not answering, but after the third ring she gave in. Some things couldn’t be avoided.

“Tessa?”

She cleared her throat. “Hello, Mack. On your way to work?”

“Not yet.”

Silence. She wondered if he was searching to find something to say.

He skipped the small talk. “There’s a suitcase beside the bed, and it looks like it’s full. I didn’t notice it until this morning. It’s on your side.”

“I know. I don’t know how I left it there. I guess I was worrying about Gram.”

“How is she?”

“You wouldn’t believe it if you saw it. The house is a disaster.”

“Is she letting you help?”

Mack had always liked Helen Henry, although he wasn’t overly fond of Nancy. As an attorney, his job was to see through to the heart of matters—and people, too. Mack had always seen something in Helen that the rest of them missed. He had enjoyed their family trips here, using them to teach Kayley about farms and crops and animals. He could talk to Helen about the weather or the price of beef on the hoof like a farmer shooting the breeze with his cronies at the local Southern States co-op. Now Tessa heard real concern in his voice. She was vaguely ashamed that she hadn’t called him to report.

“She’s not happy,” Tessa said, “but so far she’s letting us clear out the rooms a little.”

“Clear them out?”

“You wouldn’t believe what she’s collected. It’s a mania, Mack. Nothing as simple as a little dust and a few windows to clean.”

“Sounds like you’re going to have your hands full for a while.”

She wondered if that bothered or pleased him. “I doubt I’ll be home to stay until I have to get ready for classes again in late August.”

“Then you’re going to need that suitcase.”

She hadn’t expected him to be saddened at her absence, but his utter lack of concern stung. She wasn’t sure why it should.

He seemed to realize what he
hadn’t
said. “I’ll be over to visit you whenever I can get away. In fact, I’ll come tonight and bring the suitcase. Anything else you need?”

“You don’t have to do that. I was planning to skip out on Mom this afternoon and retrieve it myself.”

“Are you needed there?”

She couldn’t deny it. “It’s a long trip to Toms Brook, Mack.”

“I’ll skip my meeting, but I may have to work late. I’ll be there after dark.”

His meeting. Compassionate Friends, the support group that had been his crutch since their daughter’s death, but never hers. If he was willing to miss a meeting, he must feel that coming here and checking on Helen and the situation was important.

She gave in. “Well, that would really help. I appreciate it more than you know.”

They were silent again. She spotted her grandmother’s house in the distance. “Well, I’m almost home. I’m out jogging, I—”

“Jogging? In this heat?”

“I might just take it up permanently. It’ll make me strong. I’m going to need help if I’m going to survive their bickering.”

His laugh wasn’t convincing. “Just take care of yourself.”

“You too. I’ll see you tonight.”

She closed her phone and slowed her pace. She hadn’t been looking forward to the day, and now she wasn’t looking forward to the evening, either.

She wondered whether Mack felt this same sad reluctance to see her. If he did, it was one of the few things they shared.