Twenty

by Debra Landwehr Engle

  In a way, I felt relieved to give up the house I’d shared with Joe and Rose. And Mama was more comfortable here. She could still do some gardening when I first moved back, and I’d help her weed and we’d talk and laugh out in the garden.

  “Do you still remember your dad at all?” she asked one day when we were deadheading the flowers.

  “Sure I do,” I said. I could tell that surprised and delighted her.

  “What do you remember? You were so little when he died.”

  “I remember the time I locked myself in the bathroom and couldn’t get out, and he had to come in through the window to get me.”

  Mama laughed.

  “And I remember him taking us all to Henry’s for hamburgers. What did they cost then? A quarter?”

  “Probably,” she said. “You were five years old before you’d eat an entire hamburger.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “I remember him saying, ‘You don’t eat enough to keep a bird alive.’”

  “He was a good man,” Mama said. “He was so proud of his girls.”

  I didn’t want to ask the question, but something compelled me. “Do you ever wonder what your life would be like if he was still alive?”

  “Of course I do,” she said. “Even after all these years. We’d probably still live here, we’d fly out to see Holly and her family once a year, and we’d still have as much sex as ever.”

  I have to admit, I did not see that one coming.

  * * *

  Joe and I never thought Rose would grow up so fast. She expected a lot of herself and didn’t like to make mistakes. She took special pride in spelling, which Mama said was a skill she inherited from her grandpa. When her class held a spelling bee, she came home close to tears and told us in a serious tone of voice that she’d misspelled embarrassed in front of the whole school.

  “I knew better,” she said. Joe sat with her at the kitchen table and looked her in the eye like she was an adult. She didn’t flinch or look away, but held his gaze.

  “You can’t let mistakes stop you,” he told her. “Don’t give them any more than their due.”

  She nodded, taking in his words.

  “Here’s what you do with a mistake,” he said. “You treat it like a mosquito bite. Instead of scratching and making it worse, you treat it, learn from it, and move on. Don’t give it any more space in your life than that.”

  Rose nodded again, riveted.

  “If you keep going back and reliving the mistake or second-guessing yourself, you’ll never have peace,” he said. “Your life will be devoted to mistakes rather than moving forward. And you’re likely to keep making the same ones over and over.”

  He smiled at her. “Make sense?” he said.

  “Yep,” she said. “Thanks, Dad.”

  That was Joe. The rock we could count on. No wonder his offspring was the perfect balance of steadiness and wonder.

  When Rose was four, she asked Joe, “Are your mom and dad dead?”

  “No, Ladybug, my parents are alive,” he said, just as matter-of-fact as she was. “But I haven’t seen them for a long, long time.”

  “Why not?” she said. “Are you mad at them?”

  “No, not really,” Joe said. “But they were mad at each other and themselves, so I left home and never went back.”

  “Don’t you miss them?”

  “Sure I do. But I missed them even while I was living with them. Sometimes people just aren’t themselves.” He looked at her. “That probably doesn’t make much sense, does it?”

  “Yes, it does,” Rose said. “Like how you miss Mommy when she’s mad at you.”

  * * *

  Once someone asked me what I would miss about my life if I died. It struck me as an odd question. It’s a little like asking someone in solitary confinement what they’ll miss when they finally get out into the sunshine. It’s not that life is like solitary confinement, but I think what’s on the other side is so remarkable that the last thing I’ll do is be pining over my life.

  But if you were to ask me what I’ve enjoyed most about my time here, I would say being a mom and a wife. After that, it would be planting flowers. So many times on mild April and May days, I felt a primal urge to get home, change into my gardening pants and shoes, and go dig in the dirt. I’d count the minutes until I could touch the soil, the way Rose used to count the days until we set out cookies for Santa Claus.

  It’s just remarkable to me how much life force there is in a tiny plant. How much it wants to grow. But then when fall comes, it’s time to let go. The flowers know it. No matter how much you water or feed them even in a good year, they start to look peaked.

  That’s why I think this whole idea of keeping us alive until we’re ninety and a hundred is not necessarily nature’s way. I’d rather go before I have years of decline. But maybe I’m just trying to rationalize the fact now that I have no choice. Well, maybe it would be more accurate to say I’ve made my choice. Funny—usually we say, “I’ve made my choice; now I’ll have to live with it.”

  Not this time.

  Fine. I never could tell a joke.

  DAY SIX

  I woke up in the middle of the night last night and heard the howl of coyotes. It sounded like they had congregated right outside my bedroom window—that horrible sound of marauders that have found their prey. I immediately thought of the kittens, four balls of fur that are just old enough to wander away from their mom. I opened the window and screamed at the coyotes, a wellspring of sadness and anger rising up in me.

  I slept fitfully for the rest of the night. I shoved the sheets off me and pulled them back up, got up to turn the ceiling fan on higher and then turn it down.

  Sometimes panic crawls over me, burning through me. I go to sleep without any trouble because I’m so exhausted, and sleep is so welcome. But when I wake up at three in the morning, the fear starts in my stomach and starts spreading through me like venom.

  I wonder if that’s what the pearls are doing. Are they working? What will my blood work show? I’m guessing the pearls were tested on soldiers, strong men who weighed much more than I do. And how did they test them anyway? How did they know the pearls would take twenty days on a human? Who signed up for that experiment?

  But I’m not in a place to judge, am I? I’ve noticed this more and more each day. As soon as I start to judge anything—even the weather for being so hot and dry—I feel the hands of something invisible pulling me back, like a stern but gentle parent sitting me down and saying, “Let’s think this through.” I can’t judge anything anymore, except myself.

  I look younger. My skin actually looks softer, more youthful. Maybe I’ll have the benefits of the pearls without the final result. And every time I hope for that, another part of me thinks of how good it would feel to see Rose and Mama again, and I’m right back there at the kitchen table, stirring the green pearls into my yogurt and thinking I’ve made the right decision.

  * * *

  I spent the afternoon going through more boxes in the basement. I turned on the dehumidifier, put on my shorts and T-shirt, and went down with a broom to sweep away any cobwebs or mouse droppings or bugs as I got back into the corners that I haven’t cleaned out for years.

  Mama and I always kept most of the photo albums and papers in the bedroom closets, where they’d be protected from mold and bugs. But I found one box in a corner of the furnace room. Why it got overlooked, I don’t know. Maybe I never saw it, and Mama wanted to forget it.

  At first I thought I’d pitch it all—tax records from twenty years ago, a ledger Mama kept of the furniture she repaired and sold. Historic, but not very personal. But underneath those was a snapshot. Black and white, like they were in those days, with wavy edges and a date stamp in the margin.

  It’s a picture of Holly and me taken about six months after Daddy died. In the photo, we’re wearing matching dresses with plaid bodices and khaki skirts, and both of us have bangs and curls. We’re holding hands, and Holly is clutching her fi
rst Barbie to her chest. I have two front teeth missing. We look adorable and desperate at the same time. Seeing that photo is like looking at our roots, like the seeds of who we are and were to become.

  It made me sad to see the photo buried, as though it had been in a grave all these years. It deserved to be resurrected. I went upstairs, called Schwan’s Drug to see if they could copy and enlarge it, and added it to my to-do list for tomorrow.

  I know all of these things will be Holly’s in a few days anyway, but the photo made me realize how much I need to see her after all. If I don’t do it before August 28, I’ll carry regrets with me on that final day. And of all the things I want to clean out and let go of, regrets are at the top of the list.

  I want to deliver this photo to her in person. So I texted her before I could talk myself out of it.

  Hope the offer still stands for me to come see you. Booking a flight. Okay to come Thursday?

  Thirty seconds later, she texted back.

  Can’t wait! Your room is ready. Send me your arrival time and I’ll be there.

  I took several deep breaths and leaned against the refrigerator to steady myself. What had I just committed to? And simultaneously, how could I have gone so long without seeing my family?

  * * *

  With my trip to Holly’s, I’ll have to work faster to stay on schedule. But that’s okay. The pile of To Donate bags and boxes by the back door is growing, so I’m making progress.

  And I’ve noticed something unexpected about cleaning things out: The more I let go of, the lighter I become.

  Still, it’s painful to do the deep cleaning. No wonder I’ve put it off. With every box I open, I wonder what memory I’m going to face next. I needed an ultimate deadline to force me over the threshold of fear.

  But I found something today that made me smile. Christmas cards. Grouped together by year and stored in big mailing envelopes, bound by ancient rubber bands that broke when I pulled out the cards.

  I sat back on the chair I always meant to paint and started reading them. Notes from old family friends, from Mama’s one brother who died young. From parents of my classmates and Holly’s, from folks at church. And from my adult life, too. Friends of Joe’s and mine. I forgot how we used to keep these. A bigger community than I remembered. So many people I lost touch with after Mama died and I folded myself inward.

  I also found a stash of blank, mismatched, leftover envelopes that somehow got separated from their greeting cards—a testament to Mama’s thrift. So I have discovered the way to resume communication and say good-bye at the same time.

  I’m finding a card from the people I remember and appreciate most and am sending it back to them with a note of thanks. The middle of August seems like an odd time to send Christmas trees and reindeer through the mail, but there are angels, too. And they belong any time of year.

  * * *

  Rose always seemed like a grown woman in some ways. She sat with her back straight and seemed to get all the little girl giggles out of her by the age of three. After that, she bounced and skipped with delight, but she took life seriously. I wonder sometimes if she knew hers would be short, and she was trying to squeeze in all that she could. At the most unexpected times—waiting in line at the grocery store or vacuuming out the car—memories have popped up out of nowhere, and I’ve wondered what adventures she would have had. How she would have surprised us.

  When I was sixteen, Mama and I went to the store to buy a new dress for Homecoming, and we ran into some friends she hadn’t seen for a long time—ones I’d never met. We were standing outside Miller’s Hardware Store and next to the fabric shop, where we bought the lengths of polyester and cotton for most of my clothes.

  It was a treat to be buying a ready-made dress, especially one for my first real date. I’d hung out with boys in groups before, but my first one-on-one called for something special. I envisioned a dress with a fitted bodice and a flared skirt in light blue—the right color to show off the navy-and-white school colors corsage I was sure Frank Foster would give me.

  I’d never seen Mama look the way she did when she spotted the Evanses. She squared her shoulders and tucked in her chin, like a turtle pulling into her shell.

  “Why, how are you?” she said, shaking hands with them both. Her formality took me by surprise, since she typically greeted old friends with an all-out hug.

  “Real good, real good,” they said, bobbing their heads up and down. Mr. Evans wore a long coat, and Mrs. Evans actually wore white gloves—a throwback to another time, since bell-bottoms and halter tops had long since taken over. It was odd to see both styles on the street, as though we lived on two planets simultaneously.

  “I haven’t seen you for years,” Mama said. Her voice sounded like she wanted to be cordial and warm, but I could tell she forced herself to say the words with any emotion.

  “We’re just back in town for a visit,” Mrs. Evans said. “We’re on our way across the country and thought we’d come see our old stomping grounds.”

  I knew my mother. I could feel her inner conflict. Typically, this was the point when she’d say, “Well, for heaven’s sake, come by our place for a cup of coffee. We need to catch up after all these years.”

  I’d heard Mama do it a hundred times. She invited people into her home and her life like she was bringing new flowers into the garden. And people always came. I never had that skill, being more of a loner. But when I was little, it was not unusual to have two or three people stop by every Sunday, lingering over a piece of coconut cake and a bottomless cup of coffee. Holly and I sat in the living room, playing with dolls and eavesdropping on every conversation.

  But this time, Mama didn’t say those words. I could feel they were stuck in her throat, that she was willing herself not to say them. She didn’t know how to finish a conversation without issuing an invitation, though, so it felt awkward. A pained silence.

  “Well, it’s good to see you, Lillian,” the couple said again. And they walked on down the street, arm in arm.

  “Who were they?” I whispered as we walked away. I took Mama’s arm to steady her.

  “That was Ruth,” she said. “She was my best friend at one time. And her husband is Ralph—the man I almost married.”

  Something in her voice told me not to ask. Part of my mother’s life had been a secret, and she wanted to keep it that way. She’d never mentioned a Ruth or a Ralph. They didn’t exist in her photo albums or scrapbooks, which I’d pored over on rainy afternoons dozens of times.

  That was when I started seeing her as a human being as well as my mom, and it was the first time I realized that we live many lifetimes within one life. Sometimes we pack up events and relationships and put them on the shelf, pushing them toward the back and closing the door on them.

  I wonder if that’s why it’s so hard to sort through old stuff, especially the reminders of life cut short. It means confronting the memories, uncovering something we’ve mercifully forgotten that can wield power over us in an instant.

  * * *

  After Rose died and Joe left, I started volunteering at the children’s hospital to pay penance, I think, as an act of contrition. Maybe if I helped enough kids, I could wake up in the morning without being disappointed I hadn’t died in the night. But how many would be enough? How many kids would it take to atone for losing Rose and Joe?

  Now I can see why the kids in the hospital were always so honest. What else is there when you know pretending doesn’t matter anymore?

  One little boy named Stuart made the most lasting impression on me. He had cancer and had lost his hair. Every day he played with the same toy, a NASCAR matchbox car. He was about seven years old. I asked him if he’d ever been to a NASCAR race.

  “Me and my dad went last year,” he said. I sat on the edge of his bed and leaned over to hear him. Exhausted from the rounds of chemo and radiation, he took deep breaths between sentences. But he rolled that car over his sheets and his pillow, making vroom, vroom sounds to go alon
g with it. He’d do that for several minutes at a time, then he’d lie back with his head on the pillow and hold the car in his hands, spinning the wheels, totally absorbed.

  “I’m sorry I won’t get to go to another race,” he said to me. I had come in to pick up his tray and stayed to talk for a minute. I wanted to say something inane like, “What do you mean? You’ll get to go to loads of races. You’ll be up and around before you know it.” But I’d learned with Rose that you don’t lie to a dying child. They know what’s happening, and they only want you to be honest.

  So I said nothing.

  “I hope my dad goes to the races whenever he wants,” he said, “and I hope he doesn’t feel sad that I’m not there with him. I don’t want him to be lonely.”

  He said it so innocently and with so much compassion, as though he knew exactly how his dad would feel and wanted to spare him that pain. Did Rose know how lonely I’d be without her? Can kids have any idea how much their presence fills up their parents’ heart, and how empty life seems without them?

  I put my hand on his head for a moment, straightened his sheets, and asked if he wanted more ice cream. “No thank you,” he said. Then he closed his eyes and looked so peaceful, like angels filled every corner of that room.

  Two days later, I found out he’d passed on. I never met his parents, but I bet his dad carried that toy car in his pocket for years. And I prayed that he wasn’t lonely.

  Even as I said the prayers, though, I knew full well that this was one request even God couldn’t grant.

  * * *

  I never met any of Joe’s family. Not a one. The youngest of three boys, he grew up in a small town in Illinois, fascinated by building and fixing things. His dad spent most evenings and weekends at the Bon Ton on the corner, getting drunk with his buddies. One brother served time in prison, and the other worked as a mechanic. Unlike their father, he got drunk mostly at home.