by Brenda Hill
Why didn’t she call? She knew I was waiting to hear from her. Wanting to end the maddening suspense, I picked up the phone to call a taxi, but I hesitated. In her home, a thousand things could demand her attention and make it difficult for us to talk. Surely, talking here in the quiet hotel room would be better.
By one, I knew she was trying my patience, perhaps making me wait as a sort of punishment. Perhaps she was upset because I couldn’t come when she’d first asked, or maybe it was because I preferred not to stay with them during this visit. Or maybe she just didn’t want to talk to me. Whatever the reason, I’d had enough.
I called the concierge desk to inquire about babysitting, but they didn’t have that service. Just as I was wondering what to do next, my phone rang. It was Shanna, and she was on her way.
“Have you had lunch?” I asked, careful to keep my voice unruffled.
“I haven’t had time for anything,” she said, her voice curt, agitated. “Of all days Sid wasn’t home, so I called Lacy and had to wait for her.”
Lacy was Shanna’s sister-in-law who attended the University of Minnesota and had varied hours.
“Are you all right?” I asked, instantly ashamed that I’d added more stress. Damn, I should’ve been more thoughtful. Why did life have to be so damned complicated at times?
“I’m fine, Mom. I’ll be there in a few moments.”
I called room service and ordered two spinach and feta cheese quiches, salads, and a pitcher of iced tea, all things I knew Shanna loved. I wanted her to sit back, relax with her feet propped up, and have something to eat before we talked.
***
When Shanna arrived, I was alarmed by the dark circles under her eyes, accentuated by her pale skin.
“Oh, honey, I’m so glad to see you.” I embraced her, then, arm still around her, walked her to the chair, refusing to acknowledge she wasn’t hugging me back.
She shrugged out of my embrace. “Really, Mother, I’m not an invalid.” Nevertheless, when I helped her sit on the chair and slid the other chair over so she could prop up her feet, she didn’t protest. I lifted her feet to sit down, then placed her feet in my lap.
“If you’d only have let me know you were coming,” she said, “I could’ve made arrangements. Then you could’ve seen Kyle and Leif.”
I wouldn’t allow her to put me on the defensive. Not this time. “I hope to see both of them before I leave,” I told her. “Maybe tomorrow. But right now, we need to talk.”
“I don’t know what we have to talk about. You said it all in your letter, didn’t you? At least I hope there aren’t going to be any more revelations.”
“Judging from your attitude, I think we have a lot to talk about.”
“What did you expect?”
“I didn’t expect you to call Stan and Maggie instead of me.”
“I knew they would tell me the truth.”
“The truth! They’re the same two people who lied to you and me by keeping your father’s life with another woman and their son hidden for ten years. Listen to me, Shanna. Have I ever lied to you?”
“That’s the problem! You never tell me much of anything!” She swiped away her tears. “You wouldn’t come when I asked because you said you don’t have any money. And then I find out you have a boyfriend. A boyfriend, for God’s sake, and Dad hasn’t been dead six months.”
“I realize it’s soon, but Shanna, honey, I’ve been lonely a long time. Won’t you try to understand?”
“I understand more than you think,” she told me. “You were always so cold to both of us. No wonder Dad turned to someone else. But he was always there for me, and now you’re trying to take away the good memories I have, to turn them into something ugly.”
Sitting across from Shanna, I saw her face portray the emotions behind her words, and I heard the hurt behind the anger. I began to wonder if, perhaps deep inside, she were still a wounded child, needing her mother’s attention.
“You were always so cold,” she said again, her voice accusing. “Why not admit it, Mom. I understand why Dad wanted someone else, but who could I turn to? You wouldn’t even look at me unless I was perfect, just the way you wanted everything around you to be.”
Her words stunned me just as if she’d thrown ice water in my face. I stared at her, replaying our lives in my mind, but this time looking at it from her perspective, and what I saw horrified me. She was right. Oh God, forgive me, but that’s how it must have looked to her. I’d allowed the hurt I’d felt from Mac to turn me into something less than what a caring mother should be.
I wanted to hold my daughter and croon to her, to tell her how much I loved her. I wanted to make up for all the years I didn’t. Or couldn’t.
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.”
“And after Dad died,” she went on, “when I was scared about my pregnancy and I broke down and asked if you’d come, begged, even, you still wouldn’t do it. You didn’t have the money. You were busy. There was always something else you had to take care of first and you had to wait until everything was perfect. Well I’m not perfect, but I needed you.” Tears welled in her beautiful eyes and spilled over. “Damn tears. I’m crying all the time, now. Sometimes pregnancy sucks.”
I went to her then and kneeled beside her chair, wrapping my arms around her, just like Terry had done with me.
“Honey, I’m so sorry. I did it all wrong.” She was stiff, resistant, but she didn’t move. “I love you so much and I never wanted to hurt you. Can you ever forgive me?” On and on I crooned, until I felt her relax. Only then did I allow myself to look at her and do the simple little things I’d always longed to do, like brushing her hair back from her face and kissing her forehead. I hugged her again as if I couldn’t get enough. And I couldn’t. This was my daughter, my only child, whom I’d neglected as surely as if I’d physically abandoned her. Perhaps what I had done was worse: I’d made her feel unloved.
“I made so many mistakes,” I told her, my heart breaking for her and for me, “but will you give me another chance? Please, honey, I love you and want to be part of your life.” I searched her eyes for some glimmer of understanding, of forgiveness, of some possibility that I might have another chance with her. When her eyes softened, I knew something good was happening. I could feel it, sense it in the way she looked at me.
“I’ll try, Mom,” she finally said, but there was still a hint of reserve, of caution in her eyes. “Maybe if we both try, because I want you in my life, and I want you to be a part of Kyle’s life as well.”
She’d give me another chance! My heart sang.
Room service knocked on the door. I pulled myself together enough to open the door while Shanna made a dash for the bathroom. A young Asian man placed the trays on the table and made sure we had everything we needed. After he left, Shanna lifted the chrome lids as eagerly as a child.
“Oh, Mom, this looks great!”
We dug in, devouring everything until even the crumbs were gone.
“Now tell me about your pregnancy,” I said, as we both leaned back in our chairs.
“Dr. Peterson doesn’t seem to be concerned beyond checking with me each week, so I’m not so worried now. She smiled at me, the first genuine smile I’d seen from her in years. “Actually, I’m doing fine. Leif and Kyle are great. I miss you, Mom. I’d like Kyle to have you around as well as Grandma Sid. Now that you have someone in your life, are you still going to move here?”
That was the question I dreaded answering, but I had to be honest. No more lies or half-truths.
I told her about selling the condo and buying the HUD house. Surprisingly, she wasn’t upset about my selling the condo, but buying a house in Forest Falls was another matter.
“You mean you had the chance to move here, but you chose to stay in California?”
Her voice had that tone again, disbelieving and critical, and my heart sank. After all the progress we’d made, the wall was back.
“Honey, there’s still the issue of money.”
“But now you have this man, Terry. Can’t he help?”
“He could, but Shanna, please try to understand. I’d love to live close to you, but I want to be my own woman, making my own way. I have a job in California, contacts at lending institutions that I’ve built over the years, and I’m not secure enough to give all that up. Perhaps sometime in the future, I’ll feel brave enough to make all those changes. I hope so. There’s a lot of things I want to do.” I told her my dreams of making enough to buy a motor home and traveling the country, of seeing all the sights I’d only read about. “Terry wants to do that as well. So you never know.”
Shanna sighed. “You still want everything all sorted out and planned to the last detail. I just can’t see you living a vagabond life, either with this man or by yourself, and I don’t think you’ll ever change.”
Chapter Thirty
The next morning I rented a car for the half-hour’s drive to Shanna’s home in Maple Grove, a bustling Minneapolis suburb. She had offered to pick me up, but I didn’t want to cause her more stress. And I needed the quiet time to brace myself before seeing Leif again.
I couldn’t help but wonder how he’d feel about me. Although quiet, he had always seemed friendly, but now I wondered. I’d heard Norwegian men were very protective of their families, and after all the misunderstandings between Shanna and me, I was concerned that he might not view me as someone he’d welcome in his home. And no matter how Shanna and I worked toward a different relationship, it would never be totally right if her husband and I were at odds. I only hoped he’d realize that no matter what mistakes I’d made, I only wanted the chance to show my daughter and grandson how much I loved them.
After driving a couple of city blocks to get used to the rental car, I hopped onto the freeway and headed northwest. The little red Suzuki was easy to drive, so I tried to relax and enjoy the scenery, so different from the scorched brown in my own area of Southern California.
Even from the freeway in a metropolitan area, I saw trees everywhere. Maples, elms, and others I didn’t recognize shared space with office buildings, strip malls and residential areas. Just seeing them had a calming effect. I took a deep breath and was glad I’d made the trip, thankful I was going to spend the day with my daughter and her family.
Traffic zipped right along. The twin cities, Minneapolis-St Paul, had a combined population of around three-million people, and at nine in the morning the I-494 freeway was crowded but not congested as I’d expected.
But what astonished me was the lack of pollution. No brown clouds, no low-lying brown haze, just a clear blue sky with masses of white clouds. Directly overhead they were huge and puffy, and in the distance, long and streaky. After the scrub vegetation and hazy skies of home, this looked like paradise.
The only thing missing was Terry. When I’d talked to him earlier that morning, he’d sounded busy but glad I was going to Shanna’s.
“Don’t worry about anything here,” he’d told me. “Just relax and have a good time with your daughter. You deserve it.” No wonder I adored that man.
As Shanna and I had prearranged, she met me in the parking lot at Baker’s Square, a family-style restaurant right off the freeway, and led me to her home a few blocks away. With a population of over fifty-thousand and still booming, Maple Grove, or the part I saw of it, looked like newer construction, filled with condos, newer homes, restaurants and shopping. But I still saw plenty of trees and shrubs.
When I pulled in after Shanna in her driveway, the anxiety came back, and I felt glued to my seat. What if I came all this way only to discover Leif wouldn’t forgive me for the harm I’d caused? No matter how strong I felt in my new life, I didn’t know if I was courageous enough to face another rejection, especially from family.
Just as I decided I might as well face him and get it over with, he stepped out of the garage. Ready for work in slacks and an umber sports coat that complemented his red hair, he opened the car door for Shanna, took Kyle from his car seat, then with his son in his arms, walked to my car. He wasn’t smiling.
I braced myself.
“Hi Lisa,” he said, his hair shining like bronze in the morning sun. He opened my door, and with a smile that lit his entire face, he extended a hand to help me out. “Glad to see you.”
I almost cried.
The morning passed quickly. While Shanna attended to Kyle and started lunch, Leif took me on a tour of the house, showing me the changes they’d made since my last visit, pointing out all the trees they’d planted in the back yard so they’d have plenty of shade. He’d even built a patio and screened it in, his pride evident as he explained how he’d done the work himself—with his wife’s help, of course. And his mother’s, and uncle’s, and . . . He went on to name every member in his family who lived within an hour’s drive. “I coaxed, cajoled, and bribed them with favors,” he admitted, laughing. “I’m not the handiest person around, but I try.”
He pointed out new raspberry and blueberries bushes and asparagus plants. “If I don’t manage to kill them, they should produce next year. Shanna’s already rescued the two apple trees, so they should be okay. The maple and flowering crabapple were already here.”
“Don’t feel too bad, Leif. The only time my thumbs are green is when I’m wearing garden gloves.” We both laughed and I loved the new sense of camaraderie we shared.
Gazing at the yard, he grew silent, and I didn’t break the stillness, content to simply be there. But when the silence stretched on, the old insecurities crept up and I hoped he wasn’t working up courage to say something I didn’t want to hear.
“Family’s important to me,” he finally said, his voice thoughtful, “and I want a nice home for my kids and a place where my family can gather. Even though my father died when I was young and it was a struggle for my mother, she managed to fill my childhood with many good memories. I loved my home, and I want my kids to feel the same way.” He turned to me. “I’m so sorry you had to go through what you did, but now that it’s over, at least the worst part, I hope you and Shanna can work out the problems between the two of you and come to a better understanding. I have family near, but you’re Shanna’s mother and she needs you. So does Kyle and the new one, and I want you to be an important part of our lives.”
I felt like hugging him, but still felt a little restraint. “I want that too, Leif, more than anything. I have so much to make up for that I wonder if I’ll ever do it right. I love her so much, but I’ve made so many mistakes, and even on this trip I caused her more stress.”
“Lisa, I may not have that much experience as a parent yet, but I do know we’re all human and we make mistakes. My mother made them with me and I’ll make them with my own children. But if we love each other and we try, it’s never too late to show someone you love them. Some times that simple thing works miracles.”
Listening to his words, I choked up and couldn’t speak. What a wonderful understanding man, and his love for Shanna was evident in everything he said. I felt sure his quiet strength had helped to calm her in times of stress and probably helped soothe her irritation with me during this trip. I’d already made mistakes, but now I knew Leif would support me in my efforts with my daughter. This time I did hug him and was surprised to discover how much easier it was to embrace someone.
Walking into the house for lunch, I wondered if he’d known about Mac, but decided not to ask. One hurdle was enough for now.
* * *
We had a lunch of homemade chicken and wild rice soup with a side of hot rolls. Leif, Shanna explained, traveled north with his siblings to purchase large bags of wild rice that had been harvested from the lakes in the area. He offered to send some to me as well and I knew Terry would love it in his dishes.
I’d always liked Leif, but that morning I grew to appreciate him even more. With his patience and good cheer, he was a contrast to the red-hair myth and a perfect match for Shanna, always seeing to her comfort, patiently waiting out the moods of irritability that her
overworked hormones triggered. She, in turn, doted on him.
After he left for the office, she and I spent the rest of the day doing routine household chores and taking care of Kyle.
I loved being in her home, loved feeling part of the family, and I gloried in the time I spent with Kyle. I crawled on the floor with him, blew bubbles, played hide-and-seek and made funny faces, doing anything silly just to make him laugh. Shanna watched me carefully, saying nothing, but my instincts told me she wasn’t being judgmental, but instead was thoughtful, even puzzled, so I relaxed my guard and let my playful nature spring free.
Most of us do not remember when we were Kyle’s age, so she couldn’t remember that I’d acted much the same with her. It was only after she was older and Mac started his critical jabs at me that I’d retreated inside my wall. And of course, that was what stood out in her memory.
Oh, if only I’d been stronger. All the years I’d wasted, existing inside my protective cold shell, pretending his barbs didn’t matter, feeling I was the failure and not knowing how to overcome my imagined inefficiencies. I should have fought back, should have demanded that he show respect for me, especially in front of Shanna. And if he couldn’t or wouldn’t, I should’ve thrown him out. Never again would I allow anyone to ridicule me for whatever reason.
The rest of the afternoon Shanna and I grew more at ease with each other. For dinner, she suggested a tater tot casserole, a recipe Lacy, her sister-in-law, had picked up from her college roommates. Kyle loved it too, so Shanna browned hamburger and onions and I started a salad, then finished the casserole when Kyle needed her attention.
“I’ll try this recipe at home,” I told her, pouring cream of mushroom soup over her browned hamburger and onions in the casserole dish. I glanced at the recipe, then added the frozen tater tots to the top and stuck it in the oven. “It’s an easy meal to prepare after work when Terry and I want to stay in”