“I’m not running, we just picked a place that doesn’t happen to be in Texas.”
“Uh-huh, and have you told Frank and Bernadette about this plan?”
“What am I, twelve? I don’t need their approval.”
No answer.
“Shuddup. I don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“I think after a quarter-century I’ve come to accept their disapproval.”
“God, Ash, not your self-pitying bullshit again.”
“What?”
“The whole mom and dad don’t love me thing, I mean, haven’t we done it to death already?”
Where was all the anger coming from? “Well, excuse me, it’s not like you know where I’m coming from here, is it?”
“Oh, right, I forget, they never criticize me. They wholeheartedly refute everything I do as an adult, but they don’t criticize.”
“I never said they criticize me, I said they don’t approve of me.”
“Well they don’t send you articles about the ways the computerization of our world is destroying the environment, do they? They don’t treat every girlfriend you’ve ever introduced them to like a no-good Martian, do they?”
“They like Rebecca.”
“They treated her well at the funeral. And then they sent me another clipping with a note that said, ‘give our best to Roxana.’ I mean, Roxana? That’s a stretch even for them.”
From somewhere in the part of my psyche not overcome with offense at him and worry about my own life, it occurred to me I’d never heard him rant so much about Frank and Bernadette. I’d heard some snide comments, and we had plenty of anecdotes for the party crowd, but never this wholesale bitterness. “My goodness, Zachary May, you are truly in love!”
He glanced at me. “Come again?”
“You. You’re in love, you’re happy, you’re secure and content.” I slid across the seat to kiss his cheek. “Way to go!”
He shook his head. “Do I even ask where this came from all the sudden?”
“Nah.”
“Right.” Again, he tried the wipers. “Well, anyway, you’re right about the love thing. But don’t tell Frank and Bernadette.”
I grinned, happier than I’d been all day, but it didn’t take. “Yeah, I’ll be too busy convincing Frank I can drive a thousand miles safely and Caleb won’t axe me once I get there. And Bernadette that we won’t starve to death with only our ‘little quilts and snapshots’ for an income.”
“You know, if you need some cash to get you settled ....”
“No, big spender, the point is, I don’t. We don’t. We’ll be fine, we’ll be okay. Two starving artists are easier to keep alive than one starving artist.” I backed off some. “But it’s totally sweet of you to offer, thanks.”
“Sure. And I mean it, so call anytime.”
A half-laugh. “Well, I’m more likely to call you than Bernadette.”
“She really does like your art, you know.”
“Uh-huh. She raves about it.”
“No, seriously, Ash, she told me Chains of Love one was your best yet, it brought tears to her eyes.”
“Beg pardon?”
“God’s honest truth.”
“When?”
“I dunno. Like, two-three days after the party.”
“You never told me.”
He shrugged. “Other stuff happened. I forgot.”
Other stuff. Stuff like, Gran dying. That kind of thing. And then it mattered not how many bugs were smeared on the windshield, ‘cause I couldn’t see a thing.
“Oh, man, Ash, I’m sorry.”
I shook my head, sniffled, “It’s not your fault. It’s just,” a couple of minutes to find a way to phrase it, “how, I mean, what am I going to do? Who do I talk to about stuff? Where do I go at Christmas? I need her. I need my Gran, Zach, and she’s gone.”
He was rubbing my shoulder with his free hand. “Come on, Ash, come on. You’ll be okay.” I found a tissue in his glove box. “You got me, ya know. And Caleb.” I nodded with my face buried. “And Bernadette, and Frank, too. No, you do. You gotta grow up out of this self-pity thing, cause you gotta see you do have them, okay? I don’t want to get harsh on you right now, but it’s important. You need to know it, all right?” I nodded, to shut him up, which worked. Most of the rest of the drive was quiet. I didn’t want to retreat back into my cocoon, but just for a couple of hours, I needed it. Quiet. Bless him, Zach gave it to me. That Rebecca was a lucky woman.
They’d neglected her bushes. In the late spring like this it got dry and if the azaleas were going to bloom they needed to be watered regularly. I turned on the sprinklers on the way in.
It was the first time Zach had been there since the funeral, too. It wasn’t quite ransacked and wasn’t quite tidied up. The dining room was almost empty, just the sideboard left to be taken out. The pictures were, by and large, off the walls. But the hall table was piled high with envelopes and stacks of paper, and the kitchen hadn’t been touched. The beds were stripped and her clothes had been packed up. Only our quilts remained in the linen closet. I turned away from it and closed the door.
“You sure you’re okay to stay here?”
I nodded.
“I’ll stay tonight too if you want.”
“Nah. I think it’s better if I do it on my own. Besides, you have to get back.”
“Not really.”
“Well, if you stay, we’re gonna have to have dinner with Frank and Bernadette, and I’m gonna tell them Rebecca moved in.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.”
“I’ll tell them you’re off to some strange city with a man you hardly know.”
“I’ve known him longer than you have her, plus you can vouch for him. For all we know, this Roxanna of yours is a high-tech bank robber who runs her CPU all night regardless of the energy waste.”
“You are such a brat.”
“Just trying to make sure you won’t miss me too much when I’ve gone.”
“I won’t miss hauling your stuff all over creation, that’s for sure.”
“Okay, special treat. This time I’ll unload the trunk, and you make up my bed for me. Deal?”
“Somehow your deal still has me doing chores.”
“And look how sympathetic I am. Give me your keys.”
I stacked most of my stuff in the dining room, not anticipating I’d use any of it until I got re-settled with Caleb. It was strange to think of not sewing for weeks. Even when my art hadn’t been going well, I still did a few basic stitches every day, piecing, or even turning somebody’s great-grandmother’s antique quilt tops into finished products for a few extra spending dollars. Practically no one realized the tops their bygone ancestors hadn’t bothered to quilt were the ones deemed unworthy. But value is a relative thing; few people today could piece a top half as well as the less adept quilters of a hundred and fifty years ago. Hell, even I didn’t have the patience to work on a patterned quilt by hand unless it was my own pattern, not the way Gran did.
Past tense did.
I put the suitcase and duffle in the utility room. Zach found me there, folding Gran’s clothes from the dryer. Smoothing wrinkles from the apple green housecoat.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked.
“As sure as I am about anything. Will you be okay driving back?”
He shrugged. “I’m always okay to drive. Unlike some people. Hey, can I ask a favor?”
“You know it.”
“Not now, but someday? Can you … make me something with that?”
I was still holding the half-folded robe. I tucked it into quarters and set it squarely on top of the pile. After a bit, I managed, “I can. Thanks for asking.”
He got me in a bear hug. “You be strong, Ashlyn, and call me whenever you need, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I mean it.”
“Of course you do. You’re an anchor.”
I was almost overloaded on
leave-takings for the day, but managed the one more. By the time he left, it was getting on towards dinner, but I couldn’t be moved to go in search of food, so I scrounged. There were rolls in the freezer and cans of soup in the pantry. It lacked panache, but it filled my stomach.
My heart was a different matter. Even curled up in bed talking to Caleb, my heart refused to fill. I gave him credit for enforcing a limit to my time at Gran’s house; the morass was threatening to claim me permanently after only a few hours.
But in the morning, after she’d had time to open the store and see to the early customers and paperwork, Bernadette came by. We took a slow tour of the house together.
The three siblings had divided up the furniture according to their wants and some basic feeling of fairness. Matthew had taken some smaller mementos back to California. Dermot had arranged for his selections—the dining set, the large carpet from the living room, an armoire—to go on a truck headed his way later in the month. Together they’d packed up the clothes and towels to donate to Gran’s parish, and had taken most of the books to the library. The only real sorting jobs for Bernadette and I to finish up were the sewing things, which she left entirely to my discretion, and the paperwork. Her plan for the kitchen was for me to take whatever I needed or wanted, pack up the china for Zach and the crystal to save for me, and donate the rest.
We didn’t do much work before she had to get back to the store for the lunch crowd, and head to my rental to clear all traces of myself from it. I had left most things packed away so the sub-leaser could use the space, but still needed to move it all out and clean it up. The job took a couple of days of solid hauling. Very little of the furniture was mine, but I still didn’t see how I would get everything to Prescott without a trailer. Caleb was looking for an unfurnished house, so I needed whatever I could bring. That meant my bed from Gran’s house, the sideboard Uncle Dermot didn’t have room for, and the dinette set.
On Wednesday I got a trailer hitch installed on my little car. It would have to be a very lightweight trailer, but it should do the trick. We’d talked about renting a van Caleb could drive in convoy to Arizona, but apparently no one wanted me driving long distances on my own, even with Caleb there to honk if he thought I was falling asleep at the wheel. So we’d take only what would fit on the largest trailer my car could manage. Wednesday night Caleb called from Los Angeles, where he was crashing for the night at another of the Zeke’s pads.
“And how are you?”
“Not thinking about anything, and staying sane that way.”
“Are you taking care of yourself? Are you eating?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t tease me, I’m worrying about you. I’m not used to worrying about someone so much.”
“Sweet man, you don’t need to worry, okay? I’m fine. For now. I miss you, that’s a given, but I’m fine.”
“Only ten more days.”
“Wow.”
“Will you be ready? Is that okay?”
“I think so. I’m finally out of the rental. From now on, I’ll be concentrating on this house.”
“Is it going okay with your parents?”
“Yeah. I haven’t seen much of them yet. As a matter of fact, I haven’t seen Frank at all. I’m supposed to have dinner there tomorrow. I’ll tell them about Arizona then.”
“I’ll call you late tomorrow then. I’ll call you from bed.”
Caleb kept my heart open just thinking about him. I smiled. “I’d like that.”
“Not as much as I’m planning on liking it.”
I laughed. “Dirty. Hey. Caleb.”
“Hey, Ash?”
“I wanted a future with you, you know? Before Gran, I mean. Just so you know, this isn’t escapism on my part.”
“Ash.” He cleared his throat. “Me, too.”
“Thanks. Thanks for running away with me.”
“Running towards you.”
“Towards you, too. Towards each other.”
I could hear his smile. “Yeah. Good-night, Ash, love.”
“Sweet dreams, Caleb. I love you.”
“Good-night.”
I learned to sew on Gran’s Singer. The summer before I turned fourteen, Pappa took me on a ‘secret mission’ to the sewing machine shop, to help him pick out a new multi-purpose machine for their anniversary. Then, even though it was months early, they gave it to me for my birthday.
“No, sweetheart, that was always our plan. I’m not giving up my trusty friend here,” she’d said, patting it. “You can have it when I’m dead. Until then, you use this.”
And I did. I loved my machine. But I was taking them both. So after Bernadette left on Thursday with an armload of official-looking documents to sort through while at the store, I found Gran’s case of lint and oil brushes and the tube of lubricant, and set to work. Gran hadn’t cleaned it often once her arthritis got bad, and I’d forgotten when I was in for Bernadette’s birthday. Still, there wasn’t a lot of build up. I just liked doing it, it was satisfying to know I was treating the equipment well, the way Gran had taught me.
But I didn’t start crying again until I opened the fabric closet. The boxes she’d labeled ‘scraps’ and ‘quarters’ and ‘1/2 yd or more’ in red permanent marker did me in. She was always so organized. I was constantly fighting the urge to just toss my leftovers on the top of the pile when I finished a piece, but the Gran-voice in my head made me fold them neatly and jot the remaining yardage on the bias. The partial bolts in Gran’s closet were all lined up straight, with darker fabrics to the left and lighter ones to the right. I screwed up the organization right away by sitting in the middle of the closet and digging through the quarters box to see if anything in particular caught my eye. The only way I could get through it was to dive in and be as ruthless as I could manage, and I had my black garbage bags at the ready. I wasn’t even going to look in the box of scraps. Everything I didn’t want was going to the church auxiliary’s blankets for the homeless project.
After I’d bagged up some desirable textiles, and created a ‘maybe’ pile to look at again in the morning, I moved on to the threads. Most of the spools weren’t colors I needed, but I filled up my thread case and took the colors matching any unusual bobbins she’d made up. And I kept all of Gran’s button jars.
I loved those jars.
Before I could sew a stitch, I used to empty them over her floor to sort and play, delighting when I found a white in the pink/red jar or a fabric frog in with the wood buttons. Gran didn’t often make clothes, but it took years for me to guess she was mis-sorting the buttons just for me.
Big old treasure trove of devastatingly happy memories in one small room. I wandered back into the kitchen and opened a beer. Anesthesia was definitely the way to go. I tuned in the eighties rock station—anything to avoid an oldie or one of Gran’s mockingly loved country songs—and took a deep breath.
They’re just things, Ash. Some cloth, some embroidery floss, a few pairs of scissors. Figure out what could be useful, figure out what’s sentimentally important, and pack up the rest.
I ended up with the buttons, three bags full of cloth, my favorite embroidery hoop, and a collection of beads stashed on a shelf too high for Gran to have reached in a long time. I also found the Singer’s long-absent embroidery disk no. 19, for block stitches. Gran would have gotten a big kick out of seeing that gap finally filled.
Ultimately the phone stopped me from packing more.
“Baby girl, dinner’s on the table. Are you coming?”
“Oh, Frank, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize the time.” Glancing down at myself, I volunteered, “Why don’t you two go ahead and eat, and I’ll clean up and come by for a drink?”
“No, we’ll wait for you. Nothing will spoil. You take your time.”
“Are you sure?”
“We are. See you in an hour or so.”
I rushed. Bernadette wouldn’t appreciate my near-miss of standing her up.
She was treading gently, thou
gh. Even told me I looked nice, which was unique. I had to smile when I saw they were serving gazpacho, Caleb’s favorite, and it made it easier to just come right out with Project: Arizona.
I glanced sidelong at Frank. He was the one who’d give me problems over this. He started with, “But, why there?”
“I can’t stay here. This week,” I spooned a bite and stalled, “this week’s been hard enough. I just can’t stay here right now.”
“So far away, though?”
“It’s the half-way point. Just as easy to get to his family as mine.” Or as hard, I didn’t say.
“What are you going to do there?” This from Bernadette.
“My art. Same as Caleb.”
“But, for rent, for food?”
“We’ve got it under control. We’ve got our commercial sites, too.” I attempted a smile. “Come on, you two taught me so much about living frugal and simple. I don’t need much more than air conditioning and room for some tomato plants.”
“How well do you think you know this Caleb, anyway?”
I patted his hand. “Don’t worry, Frank, I’m getting bigger by the day. I’m not making a mistake, not this time.” It came out steady, but inside I was stammering.
It was all going so damn predictably. He questions my emotional judgment, she questions my practical judgment, I defend and deflect while trying to sound reasoned. Finally I set down my spoon and said, “Look, Frank, would you like to read my cards? Would that help?”
As he dealt, his frame lightened. The past was predictable enough—three of swords for heartbreak. Better then than now. Frank patted my hand and moved to the present. “A new beginning for your heart,” he said, almost triumphantly, laying the ace of cups. Bernadette stopped clearing my bowl and leaned on him to watch, a soft smile spreading when Frank turned the king of cups. “True love,” she read for him, though we all knew already. I’d known for weeks, but it warmed me to see the proof laid out on my parents’ dining table. Considerably more accepting of my new life-course, they turned the conversation to more immediate concerns.
Over chai, we made plans for the rest of my stay. They would walk-through with a realtor on Sunday. Frank would help me load the trailer on Wednesday before Caleb’s flight came in, and he and I would leave early enough to eat dinner with Zach and Rebecca (Bernadette used her correct name) in Austin, aiming for New Mexico by Thursday night and our new home, wherever precisely home was, by Friday.
Retreat to Love Page 26