Where Lilacs Still Bloom (22 page)

“So our town will be looking for a new doctor,” I said.

Delia nodded. I noticed a caring look Edmond gave to my daughter—and how his face turned the color of a geranium when he saw that I was watching him, watching her.

“I read a piece in
Woman’s Home Companion
,” Ruth said as we fixed breakfast. “Martha said it would be all right to read the magazine.”

“I’m sure it is. That’s a good periodical for young ladies as well as for older ones.” I sliced bread, and Ruth toasted it, spearing the finished slice from the triangular-shaped tin set over the heat of the wood stove. She buttered each slice as she talked, her voice clear and firm. Quite a change from when she’d first come here.

“She says we need to step out on our own, be good neighbors. I’ve been thinking about that. Maybe … maybe it’s time for me to return home. I could come in with my father a few days a week and still help with watering and such, but that would give you more room, at least this summer. Maybe Miss Delia would come home.”

My heart ached with her words. “Were you listening at the door the other evening?” I shook my finger at her, but not sternly. “That’s not polite, you know.”

“No, oh no. Nelia and I have both talked about this. We’re getting old enough. I’m fourteen, and Nelia is eleven already, and well, things have changed for you and Mr. Frank, Mrs. Hulda. That magazine article just made me think that I might be ready for a change too.”

“I need your help, Ruth.” My heart pounded. “And you need the money and the lessons.”

“If we weren’t here, though, Delia could have our room all to herself. She and her baby.”

I scrambled the eggs, bought time. Finally, “That’s kind of you, Ruth, to make this offer. I … I’ll have to talk with Mr. Klager about this.”

Ruth might be ready, but I wasn’t sure Nelia had a place to go to that wouldn’t send her back into that old sadness. And Delia didn’t want to come anyway. I could end up alone.

The idea came to me while I planned a Fourth of July gathering in the garden. I suggested to my brother and his wife that Tillie could use Nelia’s help with their toddler, and I could pay Ruth extra—as Frank approved—so she could pay them for room and board. I’d still have her help, she’d be saving still for schooling, and my adoptive family would be on the other side of the fence.

I also enlisted more “bucket boys” again. The seven- and eight-year-olds came after school and hauled buckets from
the pump to the hundreds of plants, pouring a ladle of water on them, one by one.

“They get a nickel an afternoon,” I told Frank. “And this way Delia won’t think she has to be out there working the garden. She’ll see we have plenty of help. Nelia and Ruth can keep them in line, Martha too.”

“That could be full-time work, I submit. My dad used to say: ‘one boy’s a boy, two boys are half a boy, and three boys are no boy at all!’ ”

“Oh, Frank, they’ll behave.”

“In between splashing each other with water and flinging mud.”

“All boys aren’t you, Frank.”

He laughed, and Delia moved back home.

On the Fourth of July, everyone came to celebrate. Nelia and Ruth had just finished moving their things to Emil and Tillie’s, and later we planned to go to Woodland to hear Col. J. E. Stone do the annual oration to remind us all of what the occasion stood for. The Kalama lawyer didn’t speak every year but often enough that we could predict the words he would say next. I promised Tom Chatterson, the undertaker, fried salmon eggs, his favorite, if he brought his banjo along and played. He did.

I’d planted a small flag garden that spring, knowing that
Delia’s baby was due around the Fourth. Earlier in the day, I’d picked from those plantings and arranged bouquets of flowers composed of reds, including anthurium—my one exotic flower the catalog called Flamingo. I added carnations, roses, and tulips, and then I stuck into the cluster white roses, daisies, peonies, and a calla lily or two, finally ending up with blues to make the patriotic centerpieces. Hyacinth, veronica, and delphinium brought the sky to mind. I’d hoped for a hydrangea bloom, but none gave up the shade of blue I wanted. I stuck little flags on sticks that Nelia colored for me and Martha glued. They rose up out of the blooms at each of the outdoor tables. Flowers had a way of bringing celebration into an event. Martha told me once that
celebration
meant “to fill up,” and that one had to do it over and over again. That’s what we were doing.

Frank got the children to take turns grinding the handle on the ice cream machine. In the distance, we could hear the band in Woodland playing marching tunes. I was glad to be alive.

I looked across the lawn at the lilacs bearing mostly shiny green leaves. They stepped back for the Fourth of July bouquets to shine, plucked from the flag gardens.

Bobby—the third dog we’d given that name—sniffed and rolled in the tall grasses and then barked at the occasional automobile that puttered by. He was another collie mix. Cars slowed as people gazed at the flatiron garden or stringing abelia with its pink-and-white flowers.

Delia was as big as the water tower, and she sat next to Edmond. He belonged here too, was family. The Drs. Chapman arrived, and I wondered how Alice would find her way with her gift for healing so interrupted. Nelia’s father sat to the side, drinking lemonade Nelia brought him; he looked content. Ruth’s parents came too, which surprised me most of all. They even walked among the lilacs, with Ruth showing them the small tags, explaining what each meant, her mother smiling all the while. I avoided Barney, not wanting any theological discussion to ruin this day.

Frank brought me a glass of lemonade and watched the line of children he’d arranged as each turned the ice cream machine. “I submit you got what you wanted, Huldie, all the Kinder home with you, and a few more right close by.” He tugged me to him.

“Is there any place as lovely as a garden?” I asked.

“So long as it’s one of yours and you’re in it, I think not.”

I turned to peck him on his cheek when, from the corner of my eye, I spied Delia, her face twisted in discomfort. She whispered to Edmond, and the tall young man nearly knocked his chair over as he stood, spoke, and Delia pointed. He strode to Frank, saying, “Delia says”—he swallowed—“it might be time. Says it’s been going on awhile. Says they’re not far apart, the pains, and well …”

Well, why not?
I thought as I gathered up my daughter, who put things off until the last moment, and signaled Bertha and Amelia and Tillie, and we headed to the house. I sent
Edmond to wait with Frank.
That’s one smart child deciding to arrive today
. We helped Delia up the stairs to sit in the bed we’d arranged for this moment, the Drs. Chapman at her side. What better place to begin breathing air than surrounded by family and friends and the fragrance of flowers?

Irvina Guild entered the world on the Fourth of July, early evening, in a home her great-grandfather had built with his own hands. Her arrival came as a John Philip Sousa marching band
oompah-pahed
in the distance. Eventually, Delia asked us to leave, so she could rest. Dr. Chapman took the opportunity to show off his 1906 Harrison Model B touring car and thrill the men and children with a few turns around town, arriving back before dark and the fireworks started. Alice and Lizzie stepped up into the car too, and the Drs. Chapman found they had to stop by Mills Grocery, the first place in Woodland to sell petrol. Roy Mills came out to admire the car, but Lizzie told me later the proprietor looked more at her than the doctors’ auto. It pleased me no end that she had noticed. A new birth reminded us all to let grieving step aside for the day at least. Maybe Lizzie, like a tulip opening slowly to the sun, was coming back to living.

Irvina was adorable from the beginning. I was torn at times between tending my plants and sitting for hours in the rocking chair, baby in my arms, allowing that small being to
press her tiny fingers around just one of mine. Her lips were like rose petals, soft and pink and moist. When she opened her eyes and gazed at me, I thought that she could see into my soul and must be close to God, as close as all of us once were when first we left that womb.

T
he year or two that followed brought new delight and frustration. Our home sighed in fullness with my girls near, and I saw Ruth and Nelia daily. Lizzie began giving me piano lessons. I was not a good student, spending time in the garden rather than practicing, but it was something Lizzie said she liked doing. As only babies can, Irvina made us laugh as we watched her discover her world. Together we women mulched, planted, pollinated, watered, and evaluated blooms and stems and heady scents, mostly of lilacs. Frank and Fritz helped in between milking the cows at the Bottoms, where we still kept them pastured. When we all worked together in the garden, it was like worship. Each day I looked forward to the next bloom, the next subtle change in a cultivar, the next surprise. Each day was an affirmation of the goodness of life. I marveled as I watched my daughters renew hope and saw
my plantings as the best way to tell them that life goes on; we get through each season, finding joy when we can and being grateful for the chance to seek it.