As soon as decency allowed, she slipped into her bedroom, closed the door, and called Peggy.
“You need to get back here PDQ,” said the older woman.
“What’s going on?”
“Wes is on a rampage. He’s been firing people all day. Calls them into his office in little groups.”
Karen heard Peggy inhale. “Are you smoking?”
“What the hell are they going to do to me? Just a sec.”
Karen heard Peggy stabbing out the cigarette.
“Manuel the security guard had to walk so many people out of the building he started hyper- ventilating. We had to call 9-1-1. Are you still there?”
Karen sat on the bed, head in hand. “Manuel? He’s a rock.”
“Not today. Sorry to be telling you this on top of everything. How are you holding up?”
“The house is full of people. I’m hiding in the bedroom.”
“Get out there and get some hugs, like on your way out the door. I’m not kidding. You and me are all that’s left.”
“I’ll be there at the crack of dawn, day after tomorrow.”
“No sooner?”
“Peggy, I can’t astral-travel.” Karen hung up, pained by the stress in her buddy’s voice. She considered her a friend, even though they never saw each other outside of work, and there was an age gap. But they’d worked together ten years, and they’d had each other’s backs since the beginning.
She stuffed the phone back in her purse. As soon as she got in the air, away from all the grieving and politicking, she would think of something. She always came up with something. By the time the wheels touched down at John Wayne in Newport, she would have a strategy for reining in Wes.
Her flight left in two hours. In the meantime, she needed to get out there and show the flag. Closing the bedroom door behind her, Karen dove into the crowd and moved from group to group, accepting condolences and making small talk, working her way from the front sidewalk to the back porch. By the time she got through the rope line, she was exhausted.
In the living room, Father Engel nibbled a brownie and listened to a woman’s earnest tale. A crowd of women, all about Karen’s age, stood in the center of the room discussing something with great animation. A tall woman with short gray hair spotted Karen and stepped away from the group. “Hey, you. I’m Glenda. I was a grade ahead of you at St. Joseph’s.”
“I thought you looked familiar,” Karen said.
“I knew your mom from the convalescent hospital. We volunteered together. I’m a nurse.” Glenda maneuvered Karen toward the group of women. “Recognize any of these characters?”
Karen’s mouth fell open. “Marlene. I remember you from–”
“Yes, sixth grade.” A zaftig brunette hugged Karen. “We fought over a boy.”
“Paul something. How embarrassing that you remember.”
“I not only remember. I married him. Look over there.” Marlene pointed.
Karen recognized the man, rounder now, his curly dark hair a distant memory, but when he smiled shyly and waved, she saw the boy again. She waved back.
A tiny blonde with a camera pushed forward. “And I’m Denise.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Karen, embracing the woman. “You took pictures at all the high school football games.”
Denise nodded. “It was a great way to meet boys. Now I’m a photographer for the historical society. What about you? You always talked about seeing the world.”
“I got as far as California.”
“You make it sound like nothing much, but your mom was very proud of you,” said Glenda.
“When did you see her last?”
“A few days ago.” Glenda frowned. “She didn’t seem like her usual self, almost as if she’d lost some of her spark.”
“I thought so too, last time I talked to her,” Karen said, “but she said she was fine. I should have dropped everything and come back here.”
“Don’t beat yourself up.” Glenda had a funny, wry smile that seemed to say nothing much rattled her. “It wouldn’t have made any difference. That last afternoon, I have to be honest with you, she told me she was tired and she missed Frank.”
“When you hear that–” Denise shook her head, not finishing the thought.
Karen turned to Glenda. “When you saw her last, did she still seem clearheaded?”
“For the most part. She was a bit more distracted. It’s not that uncommon in elders. People think they’re going to live forever, but we get to a point where we really do wear out.”
“Lena will be sorely missed,” said a woman who joined the group. Karen didn’t recognize her. “She was so good, even to strangers.”
“She helped me serve hot meals at the homeless shelter,” said another woman. “I don’t know who got more out of it, her or the needy folks.”
“She started after Frank died. She said she needed to feel useful,” said Glenda.
While the women offered their memories of Lena, Karen felt a burning sensation in her gut. Maybe if she had stayed in North Dakota, her mother would have been happier. She wouldn’t have had to adopt strangers in order to feel needed.
“Lena jumped right in after Frank died. Got to work and stayed busy, almost like nothing had happened.”
Karen drifted inward. It’s called duty, she thought. Weiler women are good at that.
“She worked so hard. Never slowed down.”
“She worked tirelessly for others.”
Aunt Marie, joining the circle, put her arm around Karen. “You look pale. Come and eat.” She took Karen into the kitchen and loaded a dish with North Dakota grief relief.
Karen sat down at the table, picked up a fork, and studied the mound of food.
“Eat until you feel stronger.” Aunt Marie stood by the edge of the table, waiting for Karen to respond.
“I’m fine. Go and visit.” Karen took a big bite, releasing her aunt. The kitchen was crowded with women. They stood at the sink, hip to hip, washing, drying, and putting away. With their reddened hands and faded aprons, they kept the production line going, a sort of old-fashioned ministry. As they worked, they talked and laughed, elbowed each other playfully, dismissing the occasional tear with the swipe of an arm.
“Lena was such a tiny thing,” said one. “I remember when she came to St. Joe’s, she wore clothes from the poor box. I always had to roll up her sleeves because they were too long.”
Another woman nodded. “I wore a lot of those charity clothes too, and I was happy to have them. We all were. Those were hard times.”
Karen took a bite of hot potato salad, tangy with cider vinegar and dill. She remembered her mother talking of losing the family farm in the Great Depression. Lena had been sent to live with a relative in town who worked her as a maid in exchange for room and board. She was eight years old.
“She may have been tiny but she was a spitfire,” said another. “I remember she played the drums in the high school band, which was unusual for a girl at the time.”
“Lena was independent. She never let anybody boss her.”
Until she got married, Karen thought.
An old auntie approached, cradled Karen’s face in her warm hands, and said something in German. Smelling the familiar gardenia perfume, Karen mumbled an excuse and escaped to the back porch where she sat down on the chipped cement steps. In the distance a tractor chugged across a field, its blades releasing the rich aroma of freshly turned earth.
Karen rested her head on her arms. She was exhausted and her back hurt. The warmth of her family comforted her, but she needed to get back to California. In all the years since fleeing North Dakota, she had found only one place she felt safe, and that was work. Within the structure of a career she had matured and developed an identity, and that identity sustained her. Even if it seemed at times too narrowly drawn, those were the contours of her life, and if she didn’t get back to it as soon as possible, she felt that something bad would happen. It was a superstition, but one that had ser
ved her well.
The screen door squeaked and Lorraine sat down next to her. “I thought I’d find you out here. They can get to be too much.”
“They mean well.” Karen leaned toward the greenery, broke off a piece of dill from a leggy plant, and inhaled the tangy fragrance. She performed this ritual whenever she found fresh dill, and it always brought her back to this garden, this yard.
But this time, I’m really here, she thought, inhaling deeply, her eyes closed. I’ve been gone so long, and I don’t know when I’ll be back.
“Aunt Lena was a hero in this town,” said Lorraine.
“I’ve heard nothing else for the last hour. It’s horrible she’s gone, but at least I got to hear how much everybody loved her. She was happy at the end, and I’m proud of her.” Karen stood and stretched. Her bones were aching from sitting on the hard cement.
“You’re really going to leave?”
“I’m sorry, Cuz. I wish I could stay.”
“I saw you talking with your old friends. You looked like you were having a good time.”
“It was great to see them again. They’re wonderful people.” Karen was surprised at the sudden ache of longing in her chest, but she had meant the comment as a simple platitude and brushed the emotions away.
“Denise is planning a picnic out in the country next week. Why don’t you stay a few more days and hang out with us? It would be good for you. For us, too.”
“No, really. I can’t. But I promise I’ll try to visit more often.”
Lorraine stood up and faced Karen. “Mom misses you. She’s told me a hundred times how much you remind her of Lena. If you run off, she’ll have that much more to grieve. And how many years do you think she has left in her?”
Karen lifted her chin, trying to pretend she wasn’t drowning in guilt. “I really will come back around the holidays.”
“That’s months from now. What difference would a couple days make?”
“With my job? It’s life and death. I mean, I hire doctors and nurses.”
“You’re so dramatic.” Lorraine grasped Karen’s arm. “Every time you visit, you run right home, but this time it has to be different. Now that your mom’s gone, I know we’ll never see you again.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is. Once you leave, you’ll never come back. This is the time, Karen. Don’t have regrets.”
Karen shrugged off Lorraine’s hand. “I need to get back. I really do. I’m sorry.” Head down, she walked to the bedroom and closed the door, leaning against it in relief at the relative privacy. Did Lorraine think she had no feelings? Karen was grieving, too, but she had to stay the course. Real life offered no alternative. Lorraine’s talk of Aunt Marie and Lena and the old relatives didn’t change reality. All her load of guilt produced was another knife-twist in Karen’s heart.
Just being here in this house was tearing her up, so little had it changed since she was a kid. The afternoon light had mellowed, gilding the furnishings in the small room. How was it possible that this room, and in fact the whole house, still felt the same, even smelled the same, as when Karen grew up here? On top of the dresser, her mom and dad grinned at her in black and white. Between them they held up a big watermelon from the garden. She remembered that picture. She had taken it, on a day when her teenage friends called to her from an old Chevy station wagon, waiting at the curb for Karen to finish humiliating herself. Like most teenagers, she disliked her father most of the time and ignored her mother as much as possible, just to make a point. She knew it was nature’s way, but at the moment the memory seemed unbearably cruel.
God, so many years lost. What would she give now to be able to hug either one of them?
Her suitcase yawned open from its spot on the floor, waiting for last-minute items, like her toothbrush and toiletries, and a pair of shoes in the closet. She hung her jacket over a chair and sat on the bed, sighing. The thought of the long flight home practically made her nauseous. First a puddle jumper would take several hours to crab its way out of North Dakota to Denver. After a two-hour layover followed by almost three hours on the California leg, she would collect her luggage, find her car, and drive home. The house would be empty and silent.
Her back ached from hours of standing, and she felt lethargic. How good it would feel to take a power nap, just a half hour–long enough to get her energy back?
Just to be safe, she set the dual alarm on the nightstand clock. Her shoes fell off as she lay back, sighing into the pillow. In spite of the pain of losing her mom, the service had been cathartic. Father Engel had done a good job. The readings were personalized to Lena’s life, something that would only be possible if he knew and cared about her. Karen made a mental note to send a donation to the church as soon as she got home.
Chapter Five
BUT THE NEXT MORNING, she was still in North Dakota.
In the bright light of mid-morning, two boxcars thundered together down at the freight yard, dragging her back from her dreams. In that middle place between awake and asleep, Karen sensed she was wrapped in her designer pantsuit and covered with a quilt.
She writhed out of the shroud and reached for the clock, but its face was dark. The plug had fallen out of the outlet. A bad fit, an unreliable alarm, and disaster in Newport. She could feel it.
She found her watch. It was barely seven in California. Maybe she could still do damage control. In a few minutes, she would call.
The small house was so quiet she could hear the faucet dripping in the bathroom. Karen hung the pantsuit in the closet and put on her mother’s robe. She padded down the hall, looking for her aunt. In the kitchen, Felix the Clock hung over the stove, swinging his metronome tail and laughing silently at her. How soundly she had slept, setting a new record of fourteen hours. Her back and neck felt stiff.
On the chipped grey laminate table, Aunt Marie had left a note, a scrap of paper propped against the salt shaker. “Cereal above sink,” it read. “Dinner at noon.” Nothing on the note about why she had let Karen sleep through yesterday’s flight.
She found her phone and dialed the airline, only to find that Great Lakes had no flights out of Dickinson today. The next flight out wasn’t until Tuesday, unless she caught a cab to Bismarck, one hundred miles east.
And leave a note for Aunt Marie? Something along the lines of, Sorry, had to run! See you in a year!
She glanced at the date on her phone. Wes wouldn’t come in today. On Fridays he sailed out past the jetty and into open waters, a fact Karen knew from his bragging about it every flippin’ Monday morning, how he’d moored at Catalina or headed north toward Santa Barbara. Karen had never taken him up on his offers to skip work and sail with him, and he’d long ago stopped asking.
Maybe Stacey would be in. Karen dialed her assistant, who answered on the first ring and immediately offered to rearrange Karen’s appointments. “Your family needs you and you need them. Take a few extra days,” she said.
“It’s just today and the weekend. I’ll be home Monday.”
“That’s what I’d do.” Stacey yawned. “I hate this place. Last night I went home and told Jason we weren’t eating unless he took me out. We went to Bayside. It was awesome. I’m a little hung over.”
“How’s Peggy?”
“She’s unhappy, same as everybody.” Stacey lowered her voice. “I could be wrong, but I really think I smelled alcohol on her breath this morning.”
“Can you transfer me to her office? I need to talk to her.” Karen examined her nails while listening to Wes’ latest brainstorm, canned commercials for health insurance, while she waited on hold. And then she had an idea.
Peggy picked up. “Why aren’t you here?”
“I missed my flight last night. But listen, isn’t Wes going to be in Chicago all next week?” Karen waited while Peggy flipped a page on her calendar.
“You know what? You’re right.”
“That marketing group, right?”
“Right. He’ll be gone all wee
k. Hallelujah, cue the dancing boys.”
Karen grinned. This might just work. She had her laptop. She could work from anywhere. “I’ll be back a week from Monday.”
“Monday’s a holiday. Fourth of July, remember?”
Karen had forgotten. Holidays didn’t mean that much to her. Usually she worked, but this would give her an extra day. “Okay then. Tuesday.”
“You deserve a break, honey. It’ll be good for your mental health. If I need you I’ll call. See you July 5.”
“What about you?”
“Hell with it. I built this place and I’m going to see it through. They want to get rid of me, they’re going to have to haul me feet first.” Peggy took a drag on a cigarette. “You, though. When you get back, you should look for another job. I’m serious, I don’t care how bad it is out there. Life is too short. Go be happy.”
Karen glanced up at Felix, who laughed at her. “Maybe in a few years.”
“Listen, it gets harder, the older you are. Don’t wait until you’re my age.”
THE BATHROOM FLOOR was covered in gray-and-white hexagonal tile. The stark white sink, its pipes in full view, had a separate faucet for hot and cold. She chose cold, rinsed the sleep out of her eyes and dried her face with a white towel, scratchy and sweet-smelling from yesterday’s clothesline. The bathroom had no shower so she took a bath. Weird to sit in a tub in the morning, a luxury usually reserved for that rare evening when she got home from work early, determined to have a life.
She dried off and found a pair of shorts and a top in her mother’s dresser. In the kitchen, she filled a bowl with cereal and milk and went outside. It was already after ten and she could smell the garden in the warming air. Sitting on the back steps munching corn flakes, Karen watched a jet cut a trail across the deep-blue sky.
She contemplated the garden at her feet, a study in Midwestern Zen. Long wooden planks, their edges rounded from weather and footfall, served as paths between rows. A wider set of boards, lying two by two, formed a walkway from the porch to the alley. Forty years ago, Karen and her friends raced up and down the planks, playing hide-and-seek behind the tomato plants. They picked peas and ate them right off the vines, winced at tart chokecherries, and spit seeds at one another.
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