Winter in Full Bloom (33 page)

“Shouldn’t you sit down, my dear?” Mother asked. “Camille, the doctor said to take it easy.”

My sister looked over at me, rolled her eyes, and grinned. Then she sat in the wheelchair Mother had rented for her. Camille snuggled under the quilt, looking more content than I ever imagined.

“I’ll have Dragan make you another veggie shake. I’ll have you in excellent working order before you know it.”

“I appreciate the raw juice, Iris, but if I drink one more kale and spinach drink I’m going to turn permanently green.” Camille made a platypus kind of expression with her lower lip.

“Oh, you are so funny. Then how about some hibiscus tea? Even if people can’t make paper out of hibiscus they can surely make tea.” Mother chuckled. Then she plucked one of the biggest hibiscus blooms off the plant and slipped it into Camille’s hair. “There, that looks pretty, doesn’t it?”

Apparently, Mother was going to squeeze four decades of nurturing into a week. But what an exquisite sight, watching my sister and my mother go after it in an almost musical dance of affectionate disagreement. It had to be the sweetest wrangling I’d ever witnessed, and it did my heart good to see it.

Mother swiped at a housefly that buzzed around our heads. “By the way, where is Dragan?” She picked up a swatter, gave the fly a good smack when it landed on the table, and then scooped it off onto the floor. “I asked that woman for some hot tea an hour ago.”

Dragan was suddenly “that woman.” Guess Mother was still making some serious progress.

“Humph. I’ll go and see about it.” Mother hurried out the door with her cane dragging behind her.

When Camille and I were alone in the solarium I asked, “So, how are you and Mother doing together?”

“Not bad actually.”

“Mother is trying hard. I’ve never seen anything like it. Ever. It would give me the creeps if I didn’t love it so much.”

Camille laughed. “Yes, I know. It’s so sweet, sometimes I find myself getting all misty-eyed. And I don’t generally cry, but lately everything seems to bring on the waterworks.”

“You’ve been through a lot.” I made little circles on her back. “If you need to cry, let it out. Take your time. I heard Mother say that she hopes you’ll live here for good.”

“Yes, she’s told me that, but I don’t want to impose.”

“You wouldn’t be. There’s a whole other wing of the house that never gets used for anything. It would be nice to have a little life and laughter back in this huge empty place.”

“Well, when you both put it that way … maybe.” Camille looked up at me. “I called the grocery store where I worked and told them I wasn’t sure when I was coming back, if ever. They were fine with it. I liked the people, but it’s not like I had a big career future there.”

I leaned down and looped my arms around her neck. “We’re all hoping you’ll call America your home. You are a citizen here, after all.”

“Maybe I will.”

“We’ll just hug that nomadic lifestyle right out of you.” I gave her quilt a pat and chuckled. “Say, look at us. We’re both wearing floral blouses. We blend right in with Mother’s solarium.”

“I noticed.”

“And from the looks of it, Mother has some caregiving instincts beyond just taking care of flowers.”

“Although the mossy drinks and bark cookies are really giving my gag reflex a workout.”

I laughed.

Camille pulled the hibiscus from her hair and twirled it in her fingers. “This morning Iris said she only had two flowers that mattered to her now … her Lily and her Camille Violet. Yeah.”

I grinned.

“I missed my mother terribly when she died. I was so young, and you know I didn’t get much of any fathering. So, this does feel good for a change, this intense mothering … even though Iris’s change of heart came at a great cost.”

“Yes, it did.” A great cost indeed.

Camille said nothing for a while, so I milled around the solarium.

I fingered a long-stemmed rose, bent it toward me, and took a whiff of its heady fragrance. The solarium was friendlier, more than I ever remembered it, since now it was being used for pleasure rather than experiments. “I’ll be glad for someone else to be in this house besides that miserable Dragan woman. It’s obvious that she’s no real friend to Mother, and I worry that Mother is being taken advantage of.”

“We’ll just have to convince Iris.”

“By the way, there’s something I wanted to ask you. When you were in the hospital, Mother told a story of her youth, her past, that explained a lot of whys when it came to your—”

“Sorry to interrupt you, but I already know what you’re going to ask me.” Camille gave me a sheepish grin. “I heard the whole thing.”

“So, you weren’t really asleep?”

“I was drifty from the meds, but I heard it all.”

“Well, maybe that helps us both to know. Like Mother said, it doesn’t excuse her actions, but it helps us to understand.”

“It did help, but I had a pretty dreary night when I first came here. I kept playing that scene over and over in my head … the one when Iris shoved open the door and I fell. I know what happened was an accident, but I couldn’t get it out of my head. If I hadn’t fallen, I’d still have my baby. I mean, we don’t know for sure, because of my age and health, but I had a fighting chance. My baby had a chance to live. So, it was hard not to hate her even with the tragic story she told us in the hospital.”

Camille ran her hands along the arms of the wheelchair. “But I knew if I didn’t find a way to forgive her, I’d eventually end up like Iris. That is, the way she’d lived her life until now. Let me tell you, it was enough to scare me into forgiveness.”

“I’m sure.”

“But some of my anger that first night was inspired by Dragan.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” I crossed my arms. “How do you mean?”

“Well, after Iris went to bed, Dragan came in to check on me… to ask me if I needed anything before she went home. It sounds thoughtful, but before Dragan left she said she was sorry that my mother could have done such a thing. Bring about the death of her own grandchild.” Camille set the quilt to the side and stood up. “I don’t need this wheelchair, but it makes Iris happy, so …”

“Dragan actually said that? How awful.”

“Yes, especially since I’d just come home. And Dragan had this strange twinkle in her eyes as she was saying it. That woman wasn’t sorry for me or the baby at all. She just wanted to stir up trouble to make me angry enough at Iris to leave.”

“I’m sure that’s true. But you can’t let her win.” I drummed my fingers on a worktable. “I should find Mother right now and demand she fire Dragan, but I don’t think she’d do it. Dragan has some kind of strange hold on her.”

“But there’s more to my story. About Mother anyway. This morning I felt kind of woozy, so I got up and lost my way a bit, since I’m not used to the house. But I heard someone crying, so I followed the noise to Iris’s bedroom door. I leaned in to listen. It was Iris weeping. I guess she was grieving over what happened. But her tears made me curious. Well, you might as well know … I’m kind of a snoop.” Camille grinned.

“Me too. Julie hates that about me. I was always reading her diary. I just couldn’t help myself.”

“Yeah, well, I can relate. So much so, that I went into Iris’s bedroom while she and Dragan were eating breakfast.”

“Really? That was sneaky.” I took a few steps closer to her so we wouldn’t be overheard. “What did you find?”

“All kinds of stuff for older ladies. Foot powders and arthritis cream. But on her nightstand I saw this book entitled
101 Ways to Mother.
And she was being meticulous about it. Writing the ideas down on a notepad and making little scribbles. Like she was going to be tested on it.” A tear ran down Camille’s cheek. “Look at me.” She swiped the tear away, wincing and laugh-crying. “I’m some kind of human sprinkler head. I can’t even talk about this without boohooing.”

“It’s okay. Believe me. I know how it is to cry over everything. I used to—”

Somewhere in the bowels of the house a door went shut with an echoing slam.

“Must be Dragan. Wow, somebody’s cranky,” I singsonged. “Maybe she didn’t want to bring us our tea after all.”

Then someone hollered.
But it wasn’t Mother’s voice.

“Let’s go see what’s happening,” Camille whispered.

She followed me out of the solarium and into the main part of the house, where the voices of two women arguing became clearer. I certainly didn’t want to get into a verbal tussle with Dragan, so we tiptoed into the back of the entry, which was far enough away not to be seen, but close enough to see and hear what was going on.

“It’s as if you’ve struck me with a rod,” Mother said to Dragan, “the way you’ve treated me after all I’ve done for you. I let you have pretty much free rein of the house, in exchange for a little help here and there. But you threw my generosity and even my friendship back in my face. I can tolerate your slovenly attitude and even that ghastly muumuu of yours, but I will not tolerate your thievery. And on top of that, I don’t like the way you talk to Lily or Camille.”

Dragan cocked her head. “Camille’s not really your daughter. Why do you care so much now?”

“Because I’ve had a heart transplant,” Mother said. “I highly recommend it. Unlike insurance companies, God works just fine with our preexisting conditions. And as far as my daughter, I gave birth to two girls. Camille had a good mom, but now I’ve been given a second chance to make some things right. If both of my daughters will let me, I will spend the rest of my life reminding them how much I love them.”

“What a nice happily-ever-after.” Dragan’s voice came off steeped in acerbity. “But well … I am sorry I stole from you.” She sniffed the air and rocked her head like it was quite the imposition to offer such an act of contrition.

“Uh-huh.” Mother’s voice was steeped in disbelief. “I think you’re mostly sorry you got caught.”

“Yeah, that too.”

Mother held out her hand for the feather duster that Dragan had in her steely grip.

“We had some good laughs, though, didn’t we?” Instead of handing the duster over to Mother, Dragan nervily set the duster on the entry table.

“Yes, we did have a few good laughs.” Mother opened the door for Dragan and made a sweeping gesture for her to leave. “I’m sorry you messed that up.”

“Look, I only took an old set of vases you didn’t need anymore.” Dragan made no move to walk through the open door.

“Actually, they were hand-blown in Italy and worth a small fortune. Family heirlooms, you see, and I planned to give them to my two daughters as gifts for their birthdays.” Mother smiled.

“Oh? I really am sorry then. Forgive and forget?” The woman opened her sleepy eyes and tried on a repentant expression. The contrition on her face fit as well as a size five shoe on a size ten foot. “I’m sure you’re expecting me to say more, but that’s all I’ve got,” Dragan said.

“I forgive you,” Mother said, “but you’re fired. I’ll mail you your last check. I do have a going-away gift though.”

“Oh, really?” Dragan livened up a bit. “What’s that?”

“This silly thing.” Mother lifted the cane over to Dragan as if she were holding a dead rat. “I don’t need it. Can’t even imagine why I let you talk me into buying it. But I know you’ll enjoy taking it to a pawn shop and seeing what you can get for it.”

Dragan gave her a scowl as dirty as her flip-flops.

“Now, please go before I call the police,” Mother said plainly as she opened the front door a little wider. “I’m sure you’re expecting me to say more, but that’s all I’ve got.”

And then that was it—the fire-breathing Dragan Humphreys left the premises and our lives.

Camille murmured to me
, “Guess that wasn’t in the
101 Ways to Mother
book.”

I stifled a chuckle. “No, but it should be.” Hmm. What a great life moment.

To say the scene between my mother and Dragan brought me joy was truly an understatement. Once again, as at the hospital, I still felt like Bob Cratchit seeing the transformation of Scrooge’s heart.

When the door shut, Mother turned around and looked right at us in our little niche. “You girls. You seem to think I’m hard of hearing.”

We laughed as we came out of our hiding spot. “You knew we were here?”

“Absolutely. Everything in here echoes.” Mother chuckled and then pointed toward the front door.
“Níl easpa ann cosúil leis an dith chara.”

When Camille and I both looked clueless, Mother said, “It’s an Irish saying. It means, ‘There’s no need like the lack of a friend.’” She shook her head. “And I have been needing a real friend for a long time. I thought I could buy one. What a fool’s errand, eh?” She waved her hand at the door as if shaking off any remaining Dragan dust and said to Camille, “Say, do you think you could order me another one of those Aussie jammyton things?”

“You mean lamingtons?” Camille asked.

“Yes, that’s it. Lamington.”

“Sure, I’ll order some online.” Camille grinned. “How many did you want?”

“Oh, a few dozen ought to do it.” Mother slapped her hands together. “Now I feel like celebrating the firing of Dragan Humphreys. Who wants to celebrate with me?”