Wallpaper with Roses

by Jenny Andersen

  “Not a chance. Her mom wrote to her. A couple of times that I know of, and she’s phoned, but Beth has never answered or returned calls. She says she doesn’t ever want to see her mother again, or talk to her or write to her. I think you get the picture.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t understand it. What would make anyone behave like that?”

  Sarah shrugged. “Dunno. She’s never said. I only found out about the phone call because I was there and heard the answering machine. All I know is that there’s a lot of bitterness there. This whole thing with my mother has been hard on her. We used to do stuff together, and now she just watches me care for Mama.”

  Rob grimaced. “Rough. I’ll bet she cares more for her mother than she wants to admit. Whatever their problem is, it must be hard for her to see how loving you and your mother are.”

  “Probably. Something’s sure tearing her up and she needs it fixed.” Sarah turned her gaze from the door to him. “We should count our blessings. We have wonderful mothers.”

  Rob closed his eyes. A mother who was so ditzy he couldn’t tell if she was senile or not was a blessing?

  “Yes, even when Violet’s driving you crazy, she’s sweet and she loves you. That’s a thousand times better than what Beth has,” Sarah insisted.

  “Mind reading? But you’re right. And your mum might be worrying you to death, but she’s always been the classiest lady in town, and one of the nicest.”

  Sarah smiled at him, and he felt an answering warmth spread right through him to the ends of his big, callused fingers.

  “To get back to Casey and Fred,” he said. “I could take them.”

  “Fred’s an indoor cat. And a lap-sitter.”

  “No problem. They’d be fine at my house.” Not to mention the fringe benefit of having her visit them.

  Sarah looked at him uncertainly.

  He smiled, making it the high-wattage grin that showed off his dimple. He hated it but it got results every time. “Do I have to beg?”

  The uncertainty in her eyes dissolved. “That’s really nice of you, Rob. You’re right. It’s truly ridiculous that I’ve boarded them this long and I accept with gratitude. I feel silly, but I just got so caught up in Mama’s problems.”

  “Your lunch hour was over four minutes ago.” Homer Macklin’s outraged voice interrupted the happiest moment Rob had had in he didn’t know how long.

  ****

  Violet hurried down the stairs and across the parking lot to her car. After the fuss he always made about her checkbook, Rob would certainly scold her if he knew she was off to another sale. Too bad. Tuesday Rose didn’t have sales very often, so she was going, no matter what. Not that she needed anything, but if those lovely pink pants and jacket were on sale, what could a woman do? She certainly wasn’t too old to wear pink.

  She hopped—well, eased arthritically, if one were to be honest—into the aged pink Cadillac and started the engine. Tuesday Rose, here I come.

  Traffic was heavier than she liked, and finally she turned off the highway to take back streets. Such a shame that she lived so far from her favorite store. And Rob could fuss all he wanted about her buying most of her clothes from a store that catered to a much younger clientele, but she looked as good as she ever had and no one could tell her that her clothes were unsuitable. It’s not as though she wore miniskirts or those low-waisted hip-hugger things that were so unfortunately back in fashion.

  Hmm. She’d forgotten about all the dead end streets in this part of town. Left, and a couple of blocks later, right, repeat, repeat, repeat. How very annoying. And she was getting so tired. She pulled over to the curb and closed her eyes.

  A few minutes later, she jerked upright. Where was she? Oh, of course. In her car. She’d been on her way...on her way...she looked around to see where she was. That was the best way to deal with moments like this, and it was always such a nice surprise when she remembered. Kept her days interesting.

  Well, of course. There was Hilda’s house. She must have been on her way to tea. She started the car and zoomed up the block to Hilda’s big old house, pulling up under the porte-cochère in case it rained.

  Hilda took forever to answer the door. Poor dear, she was getting so feeble. Violet couldn’t imagine how she had convinced her daughter to move back into her own apartment a couple of weeks ago. Violet thanked her lucky stars every day that she was as spry as she was.

  Eventually Hilda opened the door. “Violet!”

  “Oh, no. You sound so surprised. Weren’t we supposed to have tea today?”

  “No, dear. But I’m pleased you’re here. Come in. Let’s go in the kitchen. I’ve got some lovely little cookies. I think.”

  Hilda mumbled the last two words, but Violet’s hearing was pretty sharp. Strange. Oh well. Violet shrugged off the comment and followed as Hilda crept down the long hall. When they reached the kitchen, she pointed Hilda at a chair. “You’re having a bad day, aren’t you? Why don’t you give the orders and I’ll do the work?” Without waiting for an answer, she picked up the kettle and took it to the sink. “I understand my Rob put in an elevator for you,” she said while she set the kettle on the stove and got out cups. “I’m sure that’s a big help.”

  “Yes, indeed. He’s a very handy boy. And so nice.”

  Violet swelled with pride. “Well, your Sarah’s someone to be proud of, too.”

  Hilda frowned. “Of course.”

  “What’s wrong then?”

  “That’s the trouble with old friends,” Hilda said with a smile. “I can never hide anything from you, can I?”

  “No. So what is it?”

  “I miss Sarah. Now that the elevator is in and I’m used to it, it wasn’t fair to keep Sarah here. Even though I didn’t want her to move in at first, she is wonderful company. But she should have her own life.”

  Violet giggled. “Don’t we sound like a couple of old poops, congratulating ourselves on our children?”

  “Violet, we are a couple of, as you put it, old poops.”

  “Oh, lighten up. You’re only as old as you feel, and I certainly don’t feel eighty something. I have to look in the mirror to believe it. It’s a shock every day.”

  “Hmph. Well, you’re just lucky. I do feel eighty something.”

  “Oh Hilda, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound smug.”

  “You never do.” Hilda’s smile softened the words. “It’s all right, Violet. I don’t begrudge you your health, not for one minute. Envy, yes, but begrudge, no. Now let’s have our tea and talk about something more congenial.”

  “All right. Have you heard what Miranda Hogbinder did at the grocery yesterday?”

  “Not another one of her outrageous flirtations?”

  “No. This time it was even worse. I was in the vegetable section down at that little grocery near my apartment, when she came in, and she didn’t even say hello, just started poking and pinching at the vegetables. And then she started in on Mr. Li.

  “‘I can’t believe you don’t have any decent tomatoes today,’ she said.” Violet mimicked the haughty tone as well as she could. “‘This is supposed to be a grocery store. How can you justify running out of decent tomatoes. What do you expect me to do now?”

  Hilda frowned. “I can just hear her. Poor Mr. Li.”

  “She may be our friend, but I wasn’t about to let her beat up the sweetest grocer in town, not even verbally,” Violet continued. “So I said, ‘Hello, Miranda. Lovely day, isn’t it?’ and that interrupted the rant and poor Mr. Li muttered about more tomatoes in back and scuttled through the Employees Only door. Really, sometimes she’s just a monster.”

  “It’s hard to understand how anyone can be so consistently rude, I must agree,” Hilda said. “I wonder if she isn’t still very unhappy.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that, but I made myself smile at the old dragon. ‘Have you ever tried a salad of diced cucumber, onion, and ranch dressing?’ I asked her.

  “And she threw up her hands and said, ‘Oni
ons,’ as though I had suggested a nice cup of arsenic. Which I was very tempted to do, let me tell you. So I suggested some strawberries. Mr. Li had some really wonderful ones, too. I must go back and pick some up before they’re all gone.”

  “Surely she liked that idea.”

  “Ha. She took in a deep breath, the kind that always precedes one of her endless tirades. ‘Nonsense.’ And her voice was just booming all through the store. ‘I made up my mind to have tomatoes tonight and no silly little grocer is going to change that. After all, I’m a Hogbinder, and my mother’s family was the Crowleys, and you know that the Crowleys founded this town. I deserve better service. You’ll just have to drive me out to the supermarket on the highway, Violet.”

  “Goodness,” Hilda exclaimed. “She’s really getting worse, isn’t she?”

  “Thank goodness my car was in the shop getting the oil changed. So I just made my apologies and started edging away. Mr. Li came back with a whole crate of tomatoes on a cart.

  “And did the old harridan say thank you? Of course she didn’t. She pinched and prodded like he’d offered her rotten turnips. So I scooped up two of the poor, mistreated tomatoes and had them for dinner before they could spoil.

  “I mean, really, Hilda. I don’t like to say bad things about a friend, but what a way to behave. I might be as dotty as Rob says, but I’d never speak to anyone like that.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” Hilda agreed. “You are the sweetest person I know, Violet, even if you do sometimes have the attention span of a carrot.”

  Violet smiled to show that she hadn’t taken offense. “Don’t I just.”

  “It was nice of you to take the tomatoes she’d ruined. Just the sort of thing you always do. That’s why everyone loves you.”

  “This isn’t very sweet, but I have to say I can understand why her children don’t talk to her.”

  Hilda nodded. “Yes, much as it pains me to descend to evil gossip, you’re right.”

  “Well, enough on that subject,” Violet said. “But how anyone could stand living with Miranda Hogbinder, I’ll never understand.”

  Chapter 4

  Well, hell. Rob watched Sarah’s car back out of the driveway. Just bloody hell. Talk about wasted opportunities. He’d had Fred and Casey in his house for almost a month and hadn’t gotten up the nerve to ask Sarah out. And now she’d taken them home.

  The phone interrupted his bitter thoughts. “Hey, Mum,” he said, trying to sound upbeat.

  “Is Sarah still there?”

  Something in her voice brought him to full alert. “She just left. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, dear. Don’t be such a worry wart. I was going to ask her to pick up some things at the grocery for Hilda if she was coming back here this evening.”

  “No idea what her plans are.” Regrettably, this was more true than he would like. “Give me the list. I’ll take care of it.”

  His mother started dictating so promptly that he figured she’d set him up. “You know, Mum,” he said when she’d finished, “All you had to do was ask. I don’t have to be maneuvered into doing things for Sar—for Miss Hilda.”

  “You are a sweet boy,” Violet said, her voice so innocent it made his jaw clench.

  “What are you up to?”

  “Why, nothing, dear.”

  “You want something. What is it?” he asked in his most uncompromising voice.

  Violet sighed. “You always were a suspicious little boy. I’m not up to anything and I don’t want anything. Except the groceries.”

  Okay. She wasn’t going to admit to matchmaking. Maybe she wasn’t matchmaking. He swallowed a growl. He could use a little help here, but it didn’t look like any was forthcoming. He’d have to just keep on being right there every time Sarah needed something.

  He was a patient man. And he’d never had any trouble attracting women before. The problem was that Sarah was important. But eventually, she’d look up and see him, not just a handyman.

  He could wait.

  ****

  Five weeks later, later, Sarah sat by the side of her mother’s bed, holding her hand. The familiar hospital sounds and smells washed over her, along with a sense of helplessness. She tried for humor. “Well, here we are again, Mama. If you’re going to be here every few months, maybe we could do some kind of time share deal, the way people do for vacations. Maybe we’d get a price break,” she said, and then wanted to bite her tongue. No need to worry her mother about money.

  Hilda shifted, inching her arm with its heavy cast to another position. “At least this time, it’s only for a day.” She stopped, a panic-stricken expression on her face. “I will get to go home, won’t I? Not back to that Belladonna place?”

  Sarah gulped. That look just about tore her heart out. I’m the strong one now, and I sure don’t feel strong. I can’t protect Mama from old age. I can’t even protect her from the medical system. “Yes, you’ll get to go home,” she promised, and hoped it was true.

  Hilda relaxed against the pillow, relief replacing the panic. “I’m sorry I’m such a burden.”

  She looked so defenseless that Sarah had to swallow the lump in her throat before she could speak. “You know you’re not a burden, Mama. Don’t ever think that.” A worry, yes. Lord only knew what she’d break next time. “But I do worry about you.”

  “Don’t.”

  Right. But Heaven help her, she couldn’t stop. “We need to talk, Mama.”

  Her mother stiffened and glared at her.

  Sarah tensed, but it had to be said. She took a deep breath and forced the words out. “About your living situation.”

  “Sarah Gault, if you think you’re going to make me move out of my house and back to that nursing home just because I fell once, you’ve got another think coming. I’m perfectly fine at home in spite of this one little accident. It could have happened to anyone.”

  The heart rate monitor spiked, and Sarah’s heart notched up to match. Perfect. In her eagerness to keep her mother safe, she was giving her a heart attack. “Mama, calm down. That’s absolutely the last thing on my mind. I’d never do that to you.”

  “Well, all right.” Hilda frowned. “But you’re trying to manipulate me into something. I can tell. Just save time and come out with it.”

  And have her refuse and dig her heels in? No way. This was too important. And no matter how much she didn’t want to give up her own home and move into her mother’s, it was the only way Hilda could stay in that big house. “I’m not trying to manipulate you.”

  “Give it up, Sarah. I know you too well. You had the same look in your eye when you were determined to go to the prom with that awful boy, the football player, and you were only a freshman. After what happened, you can’t tell me that mother doesn’t know best.”

  Sarah shuddered. The football player had raped his date and handed her over to his buddies for the rest of the evening. Mother certainly had known best that time. “Point taken. But this is different. I’m trying to ask you for a favor here.”

  Hilda looked mollified but wary. “Yes?”

  “I’d like to come stay with you when you go home.”

  Her mother’s mouth set in a mulish line. “Why? Because I’m so old and feeble?”

  Honesty was a fine line here. “Partly because I worry about you, yes.”

  “Well, I’m perfectly fine. I keep telling you.”

  “Mama, please. You’re not perfectly fine. You have a broken arm. You tripped over your own bedspread.”

  “I’ll tailor the corners so that can’t happen again.”

  “What if you fall over something else? It makes me sick to think about you lying there, not able to call for help.”

  “I was perfectly able to get to the phone and call for help. Don’t overdramatize.”

  “I’m not overdramatizing.” Sarah caught herself and smiled. “Well, only a little bit. But it worked well to have me there before, didn’t it?”

  “Oh, yes. Yes, it did.”

  �
��Maybe you missed me. Just a little bit?” Sarah teased.

  Her mother tried to hide a smile. “Maybe just a little bit. All right, Sarah. I’d be pleased to have you stay with me when I go home.”

  Sarah crossed her fingers. “There’s more. I’d like to move back in. Make my stay permanent.”

  “But I’m used to living alone,” Hilda said.

  Sarah took a deep breath and played her trump card. “So am I, but Mama, it would really help me to save on the rent.” That was the truth. Boarding Casey and Fred, not to mention the caregiver and elevator, had put a dent in her budget. Thank goodness Rob had taken the animals and the caregiver wasn’t necessary any more.

  But money just kept getting tighter and tighter, and the situation was only going to get worse. “I’m hoping you wouldn’t charge me as much as I pay now.”

  “Hmph.”

  Sarah smiled. That was her mother’s stock I’m-not-sure-about-this answer. “My lease is up for renewal this month,” she said.

  “That’s very interesting.” Hilda wiggled the cast to a momentarily more comfortable position.

  “Is the cast hurting?”

  “The cast and everything else. At least it’s only an arm that I broke. Breaking a hip at my age would be much worse. I don’t know how I could have been so stupid.”

  “You have to be more careful, Mama.”

  Her mother ignored the comment. “I suppose you’d bring the animals.”

  That was a problem. She couldn’t just throw out her middle-aged pets, even though her mother was more important. She squirmed and nodded. “I want to, but I’d worry about you tripping. You’re not used to having animals underfoot anymore.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Hilda said, sounding impatient. “I’ve always had pets in the house. It’s only been a year since Pluto died.”

  Did she dare trust Hilda’s assessment of her own physical condition? She was so used to having her mother be the authority, the final go-to person, that every time these doubts arose it was a fresh shock. “We could try,” she said slowly, relief and worry mixing into a toxic fizz in her brain.