by Cyndi Myers
He shook his head. “You talk like those things aren’t a lot harder than sitting up and rolling over.” His face had gone slack and he looked tired, and much older. And more like Martin than Karen would have thought possible. “You’d be better off making your peace with the old man, the way I have.”
“You mean giving up.”
“I’m not beating my head against the wall and trying to change somebody who won’t change, if that’s what you mean.”
“People can change.” She’d changed, just in the few weeks she’d been here. She’d started to look at her life and herself differently. To see possibilities she’d never considered before. All these new choices were both scary and exciting.
“Go ahead, then,” Del said as he turned onto the road leading to her father’s house. “It’s your funeral. But stop lying to yourself and pretending you’re only here for him.”
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. “All right, I’ve heard you. You can shut up now.” She didn’t want to listen to him anymore. What if she was here because she wanted something from her father, and not purely out of daughterly devotion? Was that so bad? Considering how many years she’d spent helping her husband, raising children and running a household and a business, maybe it was time she did something that was purely selfish.
Two days later, having given up on Del, Karen asked Casey to mow the lawn for her. He promised he would, then left to go fishing, taking Sadie with him. So Karen found herself one hot afternoon the next week in the shed behind the house, pouring gas into the tank of the riding lawn mower and cursing the men in her life.
Del should have done this. She wasn’t buying any of his excuses. She tossed the empty gas can aside and replaced the tank lid, wrinkling her nose at the sour smell of the gas. This was one more example of the way he slacked off on his responsibilities. Would it have killed him to help her with this one thing?
Her feelings toward Casey were more mixed. She was annoyed with him for not fulfilling his promise before taking off to go fishing. At the same time, she was reluctant to come down too hard on him. How many boys his age would want to spend the summer helping to look after his grandfather and doing chores? He deserved some downtime.
Tom would say she was being too soft on him, that a boy should keep his commitments. And he was right. But Casey was her baby, and he wouldn’t be hers much longer. She didn’t want to be the bad guy all the time with him. Not when he responded to kindness with smiles and hugs—something she didn’t get nearly enough of these days.
She turned the key and breathed a sigh of relief as the motor turned over. Care fully, she backed the mower out of the shed and started toward the house. As she passed the front porch, she waved to her father, who didn’t wave back. Maybe he’d fallen asleep. She’d parked his wheelchair in the deepest shade of the porch, and made sure his binoculars and a bottle of ice water with a straw were within easy reach. He was getting better at maneuvering with one hand, though his left side was still mostly useless. At the suggestion of the nurse’s aide, she’d hung a whistle around his neck that he could blow if he needed her. She wasn’t sure if she could hear it over the roar of the mower, but she figured it was worth a try.
The sun beat down like a hundred-watt bulb in an interrogation room. She could feel it burning the top of her head even through her hat. Within five minutes, sweat soaked through her shirt and ran in rivulets to pool between her breasts. Conditioned by years of warnings to avoid the sun in Denver’s thin atmosphere, she’d dressed for this job in jeans and a long-sleeved denim shirt, broad-brimmed hat and hiking boots. She didn’t have to worry about sunburn, but heat stroke might very well do her in.
When she was a teenager, she’d mowed the lawn wearing a bikini top, cutoff shorts and grass-stained Keds. The object was to work on her tan while doing her chores. It didn’t hurt her feelings any when the local boys drove by and honked their horns and whistled as she buzzed the mower along the front fence line.
Come to think of it, the most vocal argument she and her father had ever had happened when she was sixteen and she’d headed for the lake wearing a minuscule crocheted bikini and a see-through gauze cover-up. He’d ordered her to return to the house and put on real clothes. His face had turned an alarming shade of red and he’d literally sputtered when he talked. At the time, Karen had dismissed him as a clueless old man out to ruin her life. She smiled, remembering. As a parent herself now, she understood his concern. And it touched her to remember how much he’d cared, even if only about her appearance.
The heat and the steady roar of the mower lulled her into a stupor. Each pass across the yard showed a broader expanse of neatly cropped grass. If only everything in her life was so easily put in order. Maybe that was the real appeal of the landscaping business to Tom. The results of hard work were almost immediately visible and satisfying.
She finished the front yard in less than an hour and drove the mower around back. There was twice as much area to cover here, including the sloping banks around the pond. She shut the mower off and stared at the expanse of over grown grass, tips burned brown by the sun. The pond sat like a mirage at the far end of the lot, its muddy surface smooth as a piece of slate.
She climbed off the mower and went inside to check on her father and get a drink of water before tackling the rest of the work. Dad was dozing in his chair, shoulders slumped, chin resting on his chest. The electric fan she’d set up near the steps stirred a few strands of his gray hair, and she curled her fingers against her palm to keep from reaching out and brushing it back from his forehead, afraid she might wake him. Instead, she indulged in the luxury of studying him while he was unaware of her presence.
The stroke had aged him, etching new lines on his forehead, deepening the furrows along side his mouth, which still drooped slightly on the left side. The skin beneath his jaw sagged into jowls, freckled with age spots, testament to the years he’d spent in the sun. His nose was straight and prominent as ever, and his high, domed forehead made her think of the busts of elder states men that ringed the rotunda of the state capital in Austin.
She’d have to see about cutting his hair later today. And maybe a shave, too. She didn’t like to see him looking like some unkempt old man. Though un concerned about keeping up with fashion, he’d always been meticulous about his appearance, and even in the jungle wore pressed khakis and starched shirts.
Funny, that she knew so much about him, even after so many years of scarcely talking. It was as if some part of her had filed away every scrap of information about him, until she’d assembled enough to form this image she’d labeled Father.
Did he know as much about her? Were her characteristics and habits as important to him as those of the hundreds of birds he’d cataloged?
She turned the fan to blow less directly on him, and added ice to his water bottle, then went to complete her mowing.
She was making her first pass by the pond when something exploded up out of the grass, startling her. She squealed and rose half out of her seat, killing the mower engine. A bird flew by her, so near she could hear the rub of feather on feather as it turned to make another pass by her. She had an image of a brownish back and white chest with two black bands. A Killdeer.
As she watched, the bird plum meted to the ground and began dragging itself across the grass, one wing trailing behind it. Horrified, Karen thought it must have somehow been hit by the mower.
Then something she’d read in the field guide her father had given her made her relax a little. Killdeer would feign a broken wing in order to lead predators away from their nest.
A nest! She eased off the mower and took a cautious step forward. There, behind a clump of weeds, she spotted the shallow, dish-shaped nest. The mother bird tilted her head and studied her with one red-ringed eye. Karen was amazed the bird hadn’t abandoned the nest with the mower bearing down on her, but instead had left it to her mate to defend her.
But then, that was the essence of mother love, wasn’t
it—that desperate feeling that you would do anything to keep your young from harm, even exposing yourself to danger for their sake.
Shaken by the thought, she returned to the mower and shoved the gear shift into Reverse. Straining, she pushed the heavy machine away from the nest, waiting until she was some distance away before switching it back on. The rest of the mowing could wait, until she’d made sure there were no other mothers and their young in harm’s way.
Back at the house, she found her father awake. “You…through?” he asked, shifting in his chair.
“Not exactly.” She looked toward the backyard, then at him again. “Can I take you to see something? Something I found near the pond?”
He frowned at her, then nodded. “Okay.” Conversation was limited to one-and two-word answers these days, but it was a step above typing everything on the computer.
It took some maneuvering to get him down the ramp out front ( which Del had finally replaced, after much nagging from her and Mary Elisabeth) and around to the backyard. The wheelchair didn’t roll well over the rough ground and by the time they neared the nest Karen was sweating and panting. She drew as close as she dared, then set the chair’s brake. “It’s a nest. In the grass there. Do you see?” She pointed.
He leaned forward a little, squinting. “Kill…deer.” He shaped the words care fully, halting but clear.
“I almost ran over it with the mower. The male flew up in my face at the last minute. The female sat there, never even moving.”
“Birds…are…good parents. Most of ’em.” He looked at her, his gaze intent. “Better…than some…People.”
It was the longest sentence he’d uttered in months, and the effort visibly drained him. He sagged in his chair, slumped to one side. She hurried to prop him up, her arms around him, hugging tightly as she swallowed tears. Was he talking about the job he’d done as parent to her? Or her efforts to raise Casey and Matt? Whether confession or acknowledgment, his words touched her. “People do the best they can,” she murmured, her lips against the top of his head, where the pink scalp showed through the thin hair. “We all do the best we can.”
12
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all.
—Emily Dickinson, “No. 254”
The summer monsoons descended on Denver in mid-July and Tom decided he could afford to take a long weekend away from the business to visit Texas. Karen met him at the Houston airport on a scorching Saturday morning. They embraced at the baggage claim, holding each other tightly for a long moment, until he finally broke apart and looked down at her. “How in the hell do you stand this heat?” he asked.
She laughed, and he joined in. “That’s a fine way to say hello,” she said.
“I’m sorry. You look great. I’ve missed you. How’s that?”
“Better. I’ve missed you, too.” She’d forgotten how tall and broad shouldered and absolutely masculine he was. Standing here next to him, her body was re minding her of all the wonderful things he could make her feel, and that it had been seven weeks, six days and twenty-two hours since they’d last made love. If it weren’t for the fact that they’d suffocate in this heat, she’d have been tempted to drive to some deserted forest road and start ripping his clothes off.
They collected his suitcase and walked to the parking garage. “Where’s Casey?” he asked.
“He’s back at the house with Dad.” She looked up at him, searching his face. “He thinks you’re still mad at him.”
“I’m not exactly thrilled with him, but I’m pretty much over being angry.” He glanced at her. “Wouldn’t do any good, anyway, would it?”
“Let him know you’re glad to see him. It would mean a lot to him.”
“What do you think I’m going to do—yell at him the minute I see him?”
“No. Yes.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I can never be sure how the two of you are going to act around each other.”
“You worry too much. It’ll be all right.” He stowed his suitcase in the back and took the keys from her hand. “How’s your dad?”
“Good. He’s talking in sentences more now. He’s eating better and he’s starting to put on weight. I’m really encouraged.”
“That’s good.” He started the Jeep, then leaned over and studied the dashboard. “How do you turn the air conditioner up in this thing?”
On the drive to the house, Tom filled her in on his progress with various jobs at work, and happenings around the house. Her roses were blooming. Matthew had collected all the paper work he needed to register for the fall semester at Red Rocks. He and Audra were definitely dating again. The car needed the front end aligned. The temporary worker was making progress with the paper work at the office.
Karen sat back and listened, absorbing these petty details of her normal life like a dry tree soaking its roots in a flood. This was what she’d missed most, without even realizing it, this feeling of being a part of the minutiae of her husband’s and son’s lives. Not knowing the little things that affected them had made her feel too much of an outsider.
At the house, Tom parked the car in the shade and followed her inside. Casey met them at the front door, and took Tom’s suitcase without being asked. “Hey, Dad,” he said. “How was your trip?”
“It was fine.” Tom put his arm around Casey’s shoulder and pulled him close. “How are you doing? You look like you’ve grown another two inches since I saw you last.”
Casey grinned. “Three.”
Karen felt more of the tension ease from her body. All the pieces of her life were slipping back into their familiar grooves once more.
“Who’s this?” Tom asked, directing his attention to Sadie, who inserted her body between Casey and his father, her whole body vibrating.
“This is Sadie.” Casey patted the dog’s head. “Uncle Del gave her to us.”
Tom’s eyes met Karen’s over the top of Casey’s bent head. “I thought you didn’t like dogs.”
She flushed. “I didn’t. I still don’t. But Sa die…Sadie’s okay.”
“She’s a great dog,” Casey said. “And really smart. I taught her to sit and stay and she hasn’t messed in the house once.”
If you didn’t count hair, muddy paw prints and the occasional flea, Karen thought. Still, the dog had turned out better than she’d anticipated.
The creak of her father’s wheelchair on the hardwood floor announced his arrival. He emerged from the hallway and looked up at his son-in-law. “Tom!”
Tom moved forward to take Martin’s hand. “It’s good to see you. I was sorry to hear about your stroke, but Karen tells me you’re doing well with your rehabilitation.”
“Too…slow,” her father said.
Sara arrived soon after that, then Del and Mary Elisabeth, everyone flocking to greet the newcomer. Some times Karen thought her family liked Tom better than they did her. Then again, it was probably easier to like someone with whom you didn’t share so much history.
The rest of the afternoon disappeared in a rush to prepare food for everyone. She and Mary Elisabeth chopped vegetables, marinated chicken, passed out paper plates and fixed glass after glass of iced tea. Normally she enjoyed playing hostess, but today all she really wanted to do was get Tom alone. They ex changed glances over the heads of the others and she could have sworn she saw the same longing in his eyes.
“While you’re here, I should take you fishing,” Del said in between bites of potato salad. “I know some great spots.”
“Maybe some other time.” Tom smiled at Karen. “I’m only going to be here a few days. I want to spend them with Karen and Casey.”
“Isn’t that sweet?” Sara beamed at them over the rim of her coffee cup. “Karen Anne, what did you ever do to land a man like that?”
“Just lucky, I guess.” What but luck could explain how two people who had hardly known each other when they
said vows had stayed together all these years?
Luck, or the power of inertia, A voice whispered in her head.
Finally, the last of the potato salad was eaten, the last piece of chicken con signed to the refrigerator, the last of the tea poured from the pitcher. “All right, everyone.” Sara stood and gathered up her purse. “Time for us to leave these two alone. I’m sure they’ve had enough of us all interfering with their reunion.”
Karen flushed, but gave her mom a grateful smile. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Del said as he and Mary Elisabeth headed for the door.
“Of course, there isn’t much he wouldn’t do,” Mary Elisabeth added with a wink.
“I’ll help Granddad get ready for bed,” Casey said, taking hold of Martin’s chair.
When they were alone at last, Karen felt as awkward as a girl on her first date. She busied herself tidying up the already clean kitchen. “Everyone was really glad to see you,” she said.
“Not half as glad as I am to see you.” He took a glass from her hand and set it aside, then turned her to face him. “Come here. We have some catching up to do.”
His kiss was urgent, telling her in more than words how much he’d missed her. She clung to him, sinking into the luxury of that kiss, yet wanting so much more.
Scarcely moving apart, they fumbled their way to her bedroom and shut the door behind them. He led her to the bed, already removing his shirt as he moved. She lay back, watching him, grinning. Working outdoors had kept him lean and hard, the kind of man who made any woman look twice. More than once she’d visited a job site and found women admiring him, and had the satisfaction of informing them that he was her husband. “Are you going to do a striptease for me?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we should get you out of your clothes first.” He knelt on the bed beside her and reached for the top button of her blouse.
She stifled laughter, and glanced nervously toward the wall behind her that separated her bedroom from Casey’s. “We have to be quiet,” she whispered.