Roses

by Leila Meacham

  Alice looked startled, clearly having not expected the question. She reached for her glass and gulped several noisy swallows of tea. “Well, to explain the difference, I’m going to have to drag out some more family skeletons,” she said. “When Aunt Mary’s father died, he left everything to his daughter and not so much as a clod of family soil to his son, Miles, your daddy’s father. That’s why he went to live in France. As a result of your great-granddaddy’s unfairness, Miles—and therefore his offspring—were dismembered from ever being a part of what Aunt Mary holds so dear. It’s possible your daddy might never have run away if his father had been left a stake in Somerset. He would have had a reason to stay because he had a claim to the land. Now do you understand why we don’t owe a tinker’s dam to Somerset and your precious Toliver heritage?”

  Rachel listened, stunned and dismayed. Another story, similar to the one she’d just heard, surfaced from family history. It had to do with the hurt her mother never overcame that her father, a garage owner, willed his business to Alice’s brother when he died. There’d been nothing left for her. Alice had contended that her brother should sell the business and split the proceeds with her. With his share, he could open another shop. He had refused. Rachel wondered how much her mother’s own feeling of injustice colored her view of her father’s.

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said meekly.

  “So the difference, Rachel, is that your father would look upon the proceeds from the sale of Aunt Mary’s property as compensation. He’d consider it charity to share in the profits of what he ran away from. Do you understand that?”

  Rachel nodded numbly, feeling her blood about to pump through her temples. She now could guess what her mother was leading up to. Scalding tears shot to the back of her eyes. “What do you want from me, Mama?”

  Alice sat forward again and looked her daughter in the eye. “I want you to get out of the way of your father inheriting Aunt Mary’s estate. I want you to give up this… improper notion of becoming a farmer. It’s only temporary anyway, honey. You’ll change your mind about what you want to do with your life half a dozen times before you graduate from high school, but in the meantime, you’ll be feeding Aunt Mary’s fantasy that you’re another Mary Toliver.”

  “I am another Mary Toliver—”

  A slap to the table cut her off. “You are not her! Get that out of your head, you hear? You may look like her, act like her, want to be her, but you are you, a product of me and my family as well as of your daddy and the almighty Tolivers. Do you know how it makes me feel for you and your father to believe—be proud of, in fact—that not a drop of my Finch blood is in you?”

  “Oh, Mama, we never meant for you to feel that way….”

  “Well, I do, Rachel. How can I not? And then to add salt to that wound, you’re usurping your father’s just due, a man who’s worked his good hand to the bone for us all these years, whose only chance to escape Zack Mitchell and to have a decent old age is the money from the sale of your aunt’s holdings.”

  It was a sure way to rouse her sympathy—mentioning her father’s “good” hand. The other was deformed by an oilfield accident before she was born. “I can sell some of the land,” she said, “and give the money to Daddy.”

  “He wouldn’t take it. Haven’t I made that clear? Somerset must go to him outright, as your aunt Mary promised.”

  Rachel pressed at her throbbing temples. “When and how do I… get out of the way?”

  Alice drew in close. “You step aside now—before she rewrites her will. You do that by quashing Aunt Mary’s hopes. Tell her you’ve lost interest in farming and you no longer want to get a degree in agriculture.”

  “You mean…” Her mother’s meaning was clear. “Cut out my summer trips to Howbutker? Break off from Aunt Mary and Uncle Ollie? Never see Sassie or Mister Percy or Amos… or Matt again? But they’re my family!”

  Another hard slap to the table. “We are your family, Rachel—your daddy and Jimmy and I. This is your home, not Howbutker. We are the people you should consider before Aunt Mary.”

  Rachel dropped her head. She could hardly breathe. She dug her nails into the legs of her jeans. “I know it’s a sacrifice,” her mother said, pushing her hair away from her face in a typical gesture after giving her a scolding, “but you’ll never regret that you made it, not when you see your daddy enjoying some of the finer things for once in his life. You’ll never be sorry you did the right thing.”

  She lifted her head. “Does this mean I have to give up my garden?”

  Alice gave her a pleading look. “You have to, honey. It’s the only way to convince your daddy that you’ve given up your notion of becoming a farmer. He won’t believe it otherwise. He’ll still insist on taking you to Howbutker.”

  Her heart felt trapped in her throat. Give up her garden? Remove the wire fence and let the rabbits and other desert creatures have at it? Allow the weeds and Bermuda grass to poke up through the soil she’d made fertile, take over the straight, neat rows, destroy her after-school place? But what was worse—much worse—would be to lie to Aunt Mary, make her believe that she didn’t care for her and Uncle Ollie anymore… that she didn’t care about Somerset and Howbutker and her Toliver roots.

  Her mother held her hand and stroked her arm in sympathy. Dumbly, Rachel observed the rhythmic movement and noticed how work-worn her hands had become. For the first time, she realized all those hands did to keep the family fed and healthy, their clothes cleaned and presentable, their little house spotless—all they did to make their poverty less noticeable and without the modern conveniences other mothers enjoyed to make their work easier. Her hands rarely held anything new for herself. Anything purchased beyond the tight budget went to her husband and children.

  “I’m not asking for myself, honey,” Alice said. “I’m begging for your daddy.”

  “I know that, Mama.” Rachel brought her mother’s rough hand to her cheek. It was barely September… a whole school year to live through and then another and another until graduation without a reason to count the days until summer… without a reason to feel alive. She stood while breath was still in her lungs and tried to smile into her mother’s hopeful face. “I’ll write a letter to Aunt Mary and Uncle Ollie tonight and tell them I’ve changed my mind about becoming a farmer and that I won’t be going to Howbutker anymore.”

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Daddy, what are you doing here?” Rachel looked up at her father in surprise. He had materialized by her table in the county library, where she was filling in the form of her acceptance to Texas Tech University on an electric typewriter a week after her graduation from high school. Under ACADEMIC DEGREE DESIRED, she had typed, “To be decided.” It was Thursday and he was usually at home this time of day, having his after-lunch nap.

  “Your mother said you were here,” William said. He was wearing sandals with socks, rather than the lace-up shoes with the arch support inserts that he wore to stand behind a butcher counter all day. “She didn’t think it was necessary for me to stop by, but I couldn’t go off without telling you myself….”

  “Tell me what? Where are you going?”

  “Honey…” William pulled a chair close to hers and took her hand. “It’s your uncle Ollie. He died this morning of a heart attack. I’m on my way to Howbutker now. Zack’s letting me take a couple of days of my vacation time to attend the funeral.”

  Rachel’s jaw dropped and tears surged to her eyes. Uncle Ollie—that dear, sweet man—dead? She hadn’t seen him in three years—three years in which she could have been storing up memories of him. She asked, “How is Aunt Mary?”

  “I’m not sure. It was Amos who called. He said Aunt Mary looked… lost.”

  She ripped the acceptance form from the typewriter and inserted it into her college folder. “I’m going with you,” she said. “It won’t take me a minute to pack. We’ll take my car. It’s more reliable.”

  Panic flashed across William’s face. “I don’t think that’s a
good idea, Bunny-hop. Your mother needs you here—”

  “What for?”

  William gulped, clearly at a loss for an answer. He shrugged. “Well, why not? I’m sure Aunt Mary would love to have you with her at this time, and”—he held up his deformed hand—“I could use help driving. It’s that… your mother never liked to share you with Aunt Mary.”

  “This time I’m sure she won’t mind making an exception.” Her mother owed her that, at least. In the three years she’d separated herself from the people and place she longed for, she’d endured, for her mother’s sake, the mindless high school activities she judged right for a teenage girl. She’d given up all interest in agriculture, including her membership in the FFA (Future Farmers of America) and her intention to enroll in Texas A&M and major in agronomy.

  And she’d faithfully kept her promise not to reveal to her father the reason for her sudden about-face. He’d been puzzled at first, but eventually he came to accept her mother’s explanation that she’d discovered she was a girl, and a noticeable one at that. He never suspected that his wife was responsible for the tears he sometimes found her shedding, believing Alice when she said, “Oh, it’s only developing hormones.”

  “This is a huge mistake, Rachel,” her mother said as she was packing.

  “I won’t be gone long, Mama.”

  “What about our agreement?”

  “For heaven’s sake. I’m only going to Uncle Ollie’s funeral. How is that breaking our agreement?”

  “I can think of thousands of acres’ worth of reasons.”

  On the drive, while her father napped in the passenger seat, Rachel wondered what her welcome would be after her long, vaguely explained absence from Houston Avenue. Aunt Mary and Uncle Ollie had stayed in touch by telephone and letters—at first, theirs outnumbering hers two to one. They wrote of the town and plantation and neighborhood, of Sassie and Mister Percy and Amos. Occasionally they mentioned Matt, every word of which she devoured. He’d graduated from Texas University and had been busy learning the ropes of his grandfather’s many business enterprises. She imagined that he was handsomer than ever, polished and sophisticated, a far cry from the bumpkin boys who had tried to paw her in high school and given her the title “Ice Queen” when she resisted their advances. They sent packages, too, boxes of clothes for her and Jimmy from Uncle Ollie’s gilt-and-crystal department store. But as time went on, the telephone calls became less frequent and correspondence between them dwindled, mainly because she found it impossible to talk or write convincingly of her new interests, and her responses sounded bored and cool. She was sure she’d succeeded in convincing them that she’d outgrown the need for surrogate grandparents and that her enthusiasm for farming, her family name, and Somerset had been only a grade school interest.

  Her eyes shimmered as she drove. Nothing could have been further from the truth. She had missed them with an ache that no substitute in her three years of high school could make go away. And now she’d never have a chance to express to Uncle Ollie what he’d meant to her or her gratitude that he’d not forgotten her. It had been his hand that had selected the car she drove as a graduation present and arranged for it to be delivered to her door, a sleek red 1973 Ford Mustang, fresh off the dealership floor.

  But in spite of the generous gift, she would not be at all surprised if she received a cool reception. Aunt Mary might be forgiving of the shabby way she’d treated her affections, but never Uncle Ollie’s.

  When they arrived before the familiar verandah, her stomach roiled as if she’d swallowed a swarm of moths. Sassie opened the door, her mouth forming a large cavity of surprise. “Why, Miss Rachel, we didn’t know you was comin’!” she cried, grabbing her to her bosom in a breath-squeezing hug. “Lawsey me, how you’ve grown!”

  Her boisterous welcome brought familiar footsteps from the library. “Who is it, Sassie?”

  “Somebody you goin’ to be mighty pleased to see, Miss Mary.”

  She stepped aside and left Rachel’s great-aunt framed in the foyer. She was seventy-three. Her hair had silvered and time had trifled with her face, but she was the svelte, handsome woman Rachel remembered. Coming up behind her were Percy, still commanding at seventy-eight, Matt, now twenty-two, and Amos, looking as mournfully Lincolnesque as ever. They drew alongside her, her family now that Uncle Ollie was gone, but it was to Rachel Mary held out her arms. “Oh, dear child, you’ve come,” she said, tears breaching her red-rimmed eyes. “I’m so glad… so very glad.”

  Rachel paused only long enough to realize that returning had been a mistake. Never again would she be able to call Kermit home. This was her home—this house, this street, this town, these people. She loved her family, but her place was here beside this woman whose blood ran in her veins, whose life-giving passion she shared. “I’m glad I came, too,” she said, and flew past her father into her great-aunt’s embrace.

  THE RING OF THE TELEPHONE in the outer office shook Rachel loose from the memory of that reunion. After the funeral, her father had gone back to Kermit without her in the company plane. That fall, with Aunt Mary pulling a few strings, she was admitted to Texas A&M University in College Station, two hours’ drive from Howbutker, where she returned for weekends and summers to help Aunt Mary introduce vegetable crops to Somerset and to implement the new techniques she’d learned. Four years later, she graduated at the top of her class with a degree in agronomy. Her hope had been to live in Howbutker and run Somerset’s vegetable production while her great-aunt managed her expanding cotton interests. But Aunt Mary had other plans for her. While the sun may have set on Somerset’s cotton-producing days, it had not on the cotton-producing Tolivers. She sent Rachel to learn the business from one of the plantation’s old hands who ran the company’s western division in Lubbock, Texas, and eventually—though Rachel’s heart remained at Somerset—to take over as manager when he retired.

  Her mother did not forgive her for going back on her promise, but Rachel kept the family secrets her mother had divulged, and her father never learned the real reason for their estrangement. He accepted without rancor that it was only right that his daughter, “the one true Toliver,” should inherit the family holdings.

  She got up from her desk, returned the tissue box to the coffee table, and opened her office door. Danielle, her secretary of many years, leaped up to express her condolences, and the ever faithful Ron placed an arm about her shoulders. She would be leaving Toliver Farms West in competent hands. “I won’t be seeing you all for a while,” she said. “I’ll run the business from Howbutker, but you know where to reach me if you have questions.”

  “So you won’t be coming back after today?” Danielle asked.

  “No, Danielle, not unless something unforeseen forces me to return.”

  Chapter Fifty-four

  William Toliver took a glass of iced tea out to his small patio for a few minutes’ reprieve from his wife’s stony silence before returning to work. The plastic seat of his chair scalded his bottom, but it alleviated the chill creeping over him. The day that he’d dreaded for years had finally arrived, dashing his hope that his wife and daughter would reconcile before Aunt Mary’s death. Part of him was happy that Rachel would be stepping into the shoes she was born to fill. As a Toliver, that meant something to him—a lot, in fact—even if the notion drove Alice crazy. He wished she weren’t accompanying him and Jimmy to Howbuker. What a scene there would be when Amos read the will and confirmed to her that Rachel had “stolen” her father’s one chance for a better life.

  He sighed. But a part of him regretted that he’d taken Rachel to Howbutker in the summer of 1966, as Alice had predicted he would. She was entitled now to say “I told you so” because from that summer forward, his family had never been the same. He’d often wondered—even if he hadn’t introduced his daughter to her Toliver roots that year—whether her first garden wouldn’t have eventually led her to Houston Avenue and Somerset.

  Maybe not. God knew the first trip to Howbutker ten
years before to introduce his wife and newborn daughter to his aunt and uncle had not been a success. His little family was received graciously, but with the reserve of strangers. William found that understandable. He had not been home since he’d run away at seventeen. He was then twenty-eight, and there had been little contact with Houston Avenue in the years between. He had lived in Kermit for eleven years. At twenty-one, he had married a drugstore waitress he met when he picked up medication prescribed for a hand he’d injured in an oilfield accident, announcing his marriage to the folks in Howbutker by telegram.

  William understood well enough that it was out of guilt that he’d neglected them and shame that, as a Toliver, he’d settled for so little when his heritage demanded he desire so much.

  “I ran away from all that was expected of me,” he explained to Alice. “I’m sure I hurt my aunt terribly. Aunt Mary and Uncle Ollie’s son and only child died a few years after I came to live with them, and I… left her with no one to carry on the Toliver tradition.”

  Alice took a different view. Aroused by the protective instincts William loved in her and put off by his “snooty” aunt’s reserve, she declared that it was Aunt Mary’s own fault that he had run away. It was she who should be asking for forgiveness. “She tried to make you into something you aren’t to satisfy her own ambitions. You’re no farmer. You’re not even a Toliver—if it means being like her.”

  William had discounted the last remark. Even at fifty-six, Aunt Mary possessed an intimidating beauty, and her elegance and regal manner were not the kind to put at ease a woman who still wore a Betty Grable hairdo and plucked her brows into a thin arch. Furthermore, Alice had a possessive streak in her. William realized his wife feared that Aunt Mary would lure him back to Howbutker by appealing to his sense of obligation. It had unnerved her to see how closely Rachel’s features resembled his aunt’s. “She’s a Toliver all right,” Uncle Ollie had declared, beaming his delight as he lifted her from the bassinet.