A Love for All Seasons

by Bettye Griffin

“Everybody’s good. Tyrone is playing varsity this year, and Melody made the honor roll.” Martha beamed. “Marvin and I couldn’t be prouder.”

  “And deservedly so. That’s wonderful, Martha!” Alicia glanced toward the sweeping staircase. “I’d better get upstairs. We’ll talk later, huh?”

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  Alicia picked up her duffel bag and raced up the stairs. The double doors of the master bedroom were open.

  Fletcher’s desire for the best also included his choice of a spouse. Caroline Pegram was the daughter of a family of undertakers who for generations had served African-American communities in five New England cities: Boston, Springfield, Hartford, New Haven, and Bridgeport. She’d been considered quite a catch, as beautiful as she was nice, with her high cheekbones and dark blue eyes. The up-and-coming Fletcher pursued her with steely determination, and he’d won her hand.

  Alicia placed her bag on the floor and tapped on the door as she entered. “Hi, it’s me.”

  Caroline sat not in her bed, but in the love seat near the window of the huge suite, dressed in a coral-colored nightgown and matching peignoir. Despite her too-thin body and almost grotesquely swollen ankles she looked beautiful, Alicia thought.

  “Hello there!” Caroline exclaimed. “We saw your cab pull up. What took you so long to get upstairs?”

  Alicia bent to kiss the smooth, cool cheek. Her mother’s hair had gone completely silvery gray in recent years, and someone—either Martha or Daphne, or even the nurse—had brushed it back neatly and caught it with a coated rubber band at the rear crown, pinning up the ends against the back of her head. Caroline Timberlake had been blessed with remarkable good looks, but weight loss had made her almost gaunt. Her prominent cheekbones kept her facial skin from sagging. When Alicia placed a hand on her mother’s upper back she felt a prominent shoulder blade sticking through. It pained her to see her mother waste away before her eyes from heart disease.

  “I spent a few minutes chatting with Martha,” she explained.

  “That figures,” Daphne said, speaking for the first time.

  “And what’s that supposed to mean, sister dear?” Alicia asked, not put off by Daphne’s droll tone. Her younger sister always had a complaint about this or that.

  “Martha is our employee, Alicia,” Daphne said. “It’s her job to clean up and look after Mom. It’s not up to you to inquire about her family, but it is up to her to take care of ours.”

  Alicia’s shoulders squared. Daphne had never warmed up to Martha the way she had, but she wasn’t about to be criticized for her good relationship with the woman who had worked for their parents since she was in college. “As far as I’m concerned, Martha is a member of this household who just happens to keep the house clean and organized. She’s practically like a sister to me. Besides,” she added, “I’m no snob.”

  “Meaning I am?”

  Alicia good-naturedly held up a hand and twisted it at the wrist.

  “Say what you want, but I don’t think it’s wrong to know one’s place,” Daphne said defensively. Then she turned to their mother and said, “Don’t you think so too, Mom?”

  Caroline sighed. “I think you both have valid points. But because Martha has worked for us for so long she’s much more than a housekeeper. The nurses who come in, I don’t have too much to say to them, or they to me. They’re just doing a job, and I’m just another patient. There’s no history between us, and besides, the agency keeps sending different ones. But Martha has been a wonderful friend and companion to me, all the while not stepping outside of her role as employee. After all, Daphne, she’s here keeping me company when you’re at home with your husband and baby.”

  Daphne looked at her mother through wounded eyes.

  “Now, I’m not trying to make you feel guilty,” Caroline hastily added. “I just wanted to remind you how things are.”

  “Personally, I think it’s great that her kids are doing so well,” Alicia said. “Martha wants them to do better than she and Marvin did, and it looks like they’re on their way. I’m glad for her.” Their son was a track star who also played basketball, and their daughter a talented gymnast. Both attended the local high school.

  “Both of them will probably get scholarships,” Caroline observed, adding, “Martha is so proud.”

  Alicia sat in one of the twin rocking chairs that faced each other, to the sides and slightly in front of the love seat. “It’s good to be here.”

  “How was the party?” Caroline asked.

  “It went well.”

  Daphne grunted. “Same old faces. I don’t see the big deal.”

  “It isn’t a big deal.” Unless you want to make it one. “I don’t get bored with my friends. Like Mom just said, it means something to have a history together. And it just so happens there was a new face in attendance. Rhonda Robinson brought along someone new. A college buddy of Pete’s.”

  “And?” Caroline prompted, leaning forward eagerly.

  “He seemed very nice, that’s all.”

  “Oh, no dear. That’s definitely not all.”

  Alicia felt grateful that Martha appeared at that moment, balancing a tray that held three mugs. “Hot chocolate,” she announced.

  “How thoughtful of you, Martha,” Caroline said.

  “Yes, Martha, thank you,” Daphne echoed, a little too graciously to be real. Even Martha appeared startled by the praise, which Alicia knew had been motivated by Daphne’s desire to please their mother more than any sense of doing the right thing.

  Martha set the mugs on coasters on the dark cherry wood coffee table. “Can I get you ladies anything else?” When all three women shook their heads, she took the tray and left the room.

  Alicia hoped the conversation wouldn’t return to Jack Devlin. She didn’t even know why she’d brought him up in the first place.

  Probably because you keep thinking about him. Even now, just thinking of him made her want to check her cell phone, make sure it was working properly. Had he forgotten her number? She certainly hoped not. She knew she’d brazenly tempted fate by giving him her number when he had nothing to take it down with. She’d never be so rash if he had no other way to contact her, but all he had to do if he forgot was to call Rhonda and get it from her.

  She noticed an anxious look on her mother’s face and knew what put it there. That doggone Daphne, always having something negative to say. Commenting that her friendliness with Martha was inappropriate had been uncalled for. Why couldn’t she be more considerate? Their mother was dying. She certainly deserved to have her last days filled with peace.

  Therein lay part of the problem. While Alicia had accepted the inevitable, Daphne held on to the belief that their mother would recover. But Caroline’s fate had been sealed when, at the age of seven, she contracted the rheumatic fever that damaged her heart valves. Alicia felt that Caroline feared the two girls would go their separate ways after she was gone. Six years apart, Alicia and Daphne had bickered their whole lives. Their father Fletcher had already passed on, and with both parents gone there would be nothing to hold Alicia and Daphne together.

  Already their lives had gone in different directions. While Alicia still enjoyed her independence in her mid-thirties, Daphne took the traditional route, marrying her college sweetheart, Todd Scott, six months after her graduation. She announced her first pregnancy on her second wedding anniversary. Fletcher Timberlake suffered a fatal stroke shortly afterward, and eight months later Daphne named her infant son Fletcher after the father she adored.

  The adoration had been mutual. Alicia had long since accepted that their father’s youngest child had been his favorite, probably because Daphne was like a carbon copy of the wife he loved so much, while Alicia, if anything, looked more like Fletcher. But he provided for both his daughters equally in his will, and Alicia had the satisfaction of his telling her on his deathbed that he loved her and was proud of her.

  Both Alicia’s parents had been older than the parents of her friends.
At the time of her birth nearly thirty-five years ago their ages were thirty-six and forty-two, respectively, which put them both past forty when Daphne was born six years later. Caroline told them years later that she had difficulty getting pregnant. It seemed so ironic that they could do everything else with success. “We had everything, but yet we had nothing,” she’d said wistfully.

  “Mom, how do you feel today?” Alicia asked now.

  “Oh, I’m all right. Yesterday the nurse brought me outside, but today it’s a little cool for that.” A nurse came in nightly and stayed on duty overnight. A small balcony extended from the master bedroom, allowing Caroline to get fresh air without going downstairs. On the occasions when she did need to get down to the first floor, a chair lift had been installed on the wall by the back stairs that led to the kitchen.

  “You’re doing fine, Mom,” Daphne said encouragingly.

  Alicia’s cell phone began to ring. She quickly reached inside the special compartment in her purse that held her phone. “Hello?” she said, pressing the talk button without even checking the caller’s identity.

  “Feeling better this morning, I hope.”

  She tried not to show her disappointment at hearing Rhonda’s voice. “Excuse me,” she said to her mother and sister, rising and walking outside to the hall so she could talk without disturbing their conversation.

  “I’m better, thanks. The walk last night really helped clear my head, although I did have a bit of a headache this morning.”

  “Alicia, I’ve never seen you so wasted. It would have been easy for someone to take advantage of you. I trust Jack was the gentleman I’ve always known him to be.”

  She smiled at the thought of him. “He was. Tried to see me upstairs, but I said no.”

  “That might not have been a bad idea. You were a little unsteady going down the stairs when we left.”

  “Yes, but I felt a lot better by the time we finished walking.” Alicia left out the fact that while climbing the stairs she stumbled on the second flight, the quick grab of the banister with her right hand saving her face from meeting the steps head-on.

  “How far did you walk?”

  “Down to Seventy-Second. And back.”

  “Wow. Thirteen blocks one way. That made for a heck of a workout. But I’m glad you’re okay.” Rhonda paused. “You are okay, aren’t you, Alicia?”

  “Yes, I’m better.”

  “That’s not what I mean, and you know it.” Rhonda sighed. “But if you want to talk about it, I’m here.”

  “Thanks.” Alicia knew that Rhonda wanted to know why she drank so much last night, but how could she explain to her friend something she didn’t understand herself?

  “Are you at your mother’s?”

  “Yes, I got here about a half hour ago.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Pretty good today, actually.”

  “Give her my best.”

  “I will. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” Alicia clicked the End button and returned to the sitting area of her mother’s bedroom. Her disappointment must have shown on her face.

  “Not the young man you told us about?” Caroline asked.

  “No,” she admitted. “It was Rhonda. She said to tell you hello.”

  “Don’t worry, Alicia. He’ll call.”

  But he didn’t, not for the remainder of the day. She felt puzzled and tense. Could she have blown it?

  Chapter 6

  I Want To Tell You

  She slept uneasily that night in her old room, unable to understand her emotions. No man had ever affected her this way before.

  Alicia arose early Sunday morning, as was her habit. Lucky slept near her feet. She felt quite at home in the room she’d grown up in, surrounded by furniture she’d had since her high school days.

  She slipped out of bed, washed her face in the adjacent private bath and stood at the window as she brushed out her hair. Her room overlooked the quiet street. At this time of year the fall foliage season was at its height, and leaves of yellow, purple, orange and brown covered the trees. The only person in sight was a gardener raking up the leaves that had fallen on the lawn of the large Dutch Colonial across the street. Alicia smiled, remembering how, as children, she and Daphne and other kids from the block went over there to try to grab apples from the tree on the neighbors’ property, always getting shooed away by either the lady of the house or the family’s maid.

  Green’s Farms couldn’t be more different than the Upper West Side of Manhattan, yet she loved both places. It pleased her to know that this wonderful old house would remain in the family after her mother passed away.

  Caroline had sat down with her and Daphne the week after their father’s funeral and explained to them the major points of his will. She told them that after her own death the house would be left to both girls. Daphne promptly asked if she would be the one to live in it, “since I have a husband and a baby on the way.”

  Alicia had merely smiled, expecting nothing different from her sister. Caroline replied that leaving the house to both of them meant precisely that. “Which one of you will live here will have to be decided between the two of you. But your daddy left explicit instructions to help keep peace among you two. There’s no mortgage on the house. The taxes are steep, but most of it comes from the rent Martha and Marvin pay each month. Any out-of-pocket tax payments, plus the cost of any improvements made, will be reimbursed from the profits if the house is ever sold, although I hope the house will be kept in the family. That baby you’re carrying, Daphne, might live here with his or her family thirty years from now. Or maybe one of your children, Alicia.” She tactfully ignored Daphne’s eye rolling. “But every future member of this family will own a share in this property. It’s all been worked out.”

  Alicia assured Daphne that she had no desire to live here. As a single woman with no dependents, she would feel terribly lonely living all alone in a five-bedroom house with four-and-a-half baths, even if it meant she could have Lucky. Daphne, with her allergy to pet hair, would probably want to get rid of him, although little Fletch would probably object. He loved Lucky as much as Alicia did.

  When a fully dressed Alicia emerged from her bedroom the next morning and went to see her mother, she saw a uniformed nurse taking Caroline’s vital signs. She craned her neck for a better look, but she didn’t recognize the face. The health care agency rotated their staff of nurses faster than a chicken roasting on a spit. However did her mother manage to keep up with them all?

  Caroline’s face lit up at the sight of her eldest daughter. “Good morning, Alicia. You might want to buzz Martha. She’s making breakfast. Why don’t you eat with me? Daphne and Todd aren’t up yet, and I like for them to eat with little Fletch, like they would do if they were at home.”

  “Sure, Mom.” She nodded to the nurse, then went to the intercom on the wall. “Good morning, Martha.”

  “Morning, Alicia. Would you like some breakfast? I’m putting something together for Miss Caroline now.”

  “Yes, please. A cheese omelet would be nice, with those great home fries you make on the side.”

  “Coming up.”

  “Thanks.” Alicia removed her finger from the button and turned around. “How is my mother this morning, Nurse?”

  “She’s doing quite well. Her vitals are strong.”

  “Do you think she’s up to going out for a little while?”

  “Nurse Bennett says I can go to church,” Caroline said proudly.

  “But she should keep her walking to a minimum, and no stairs,” the nurse cautioned.

  “That’s fine. The church has a ramp.”

  “Make sure she uses her motorized chair to get downstairs and her wheelchair to get in and out, and she’ll be fine.”

  “Thank you.” Alicia beamed at Caroline. “I guess we’ll have to get you something to wear.”

  “My gray suit. Don’t worry about it now, we have time. I’ve just been given a sponge bath, and all I have to do is get dr
essed.”

  “Mrs. Timberlake, is there anything else you need?” the nurse inquired.

  “No, I’m good. I’ll see you this evening.”

  “Enjoy your afternoon. And remember, you mustn’t overdo it.”

  “We’ll see to that,” Alicia said.

  The nurse put on her coat, picked up her bag, and left.

  Alicia sat on the opposite side of her mother’s bed. “What is Martha making you this morning?”

  “A blueberry muffin and yogurt. I didn’t feel like eggs—I mean, the egg substitute I’m allowed to have.” Caroline smiled. “So tell me, did you receive that call you were waiting for?”

  She cast her eyes downward for a second. “No. But I’m not worried.”

  “Yes, I can tell how not worried you are,” Caroline said knowingly. “Alicia, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this way before.”

  “What way?”

  “You had several calls yesterday on your cell phone. I could see that hopeful look in your eyes and the disappointment that took over when you learned it wasn’t the person you wanted to talk to.” She paused. “He must have left quite an impression on you.”

  “I can never fool you, can I, Mom?”

  “No one knows you better than I. But I think it’s time someone did.” Caroline reached out and patted the back of Alicia’s hand. “I can’t believe that you’ll soon be thirty-five years old. I do hope that eventually you’ll settle down and have children.”

  “Maybe one day. There’s still time.”

  “I know you’ve had your share of boyfriends over the years, but it seems like they never last beyond a few months. What happened to that young man who escorted you to Daphne’s wedding?”

  “Oh, Derek. He’s still around. He came to my party Friday night.”

  “Do you still see each other?”

  “Occasionally. But not lately.”

  “You mean for sex.”

  “Mom!”

  “Surely I don’t need to remind you I was having sex before you were born,” Caroline said, unruffled. “Seriously, I worry about you, dear. Your father—”