The Season of Us

by Holly Chamberlin

  “It wasn’t silly, it was nice, Mom. You meant well.”

  “You know what they say about the road to Hell, don’t you? That it’s paved with good intentions.”

  “Language is weird,” Tamsin said, putting the last of the silverware away. Then she sank into her chair at the table. “You know, Mom, like I said, Grandma and I had an okay time at Mrs. Brown’s. Grandma and Mrs. Brown seem to like each other well enough, but I don’t think they’re close at all. I mean, they call each other ‘Mrs.’ And Mrs. Brown is a lot younger than Grandma.”

  “People of varying ages can be good friends,” Gincy said. She dried her hands on a kitchen towel, noting as she did that it was ripped and should be tossed. Her mother had always had a thing about using kitchen towels until they were literally rags.

  “I know that. It’s just that I was thinking. Grandma has always seemed so old. Do you know what I mean? Grandpa didn’t seem old to me at all, even though he was seventy-eight when he died. I think it must be a personality thing.”

  Gincy thought about this for a moment. “You know something,” she said then. “You’re right. It’s like my mother was born an old woman. Maybe it is a personality thing.”

  “And I was thinking about something else,” Tamsin said. “Doesn’t Grandma have any friends? Didn’t she and Grandpa ever hang out with another couple? She seems so alone and isolated. Her phone hasn’t rung once since we’ve been here. Isn’t there anyone in town who cares?”

  Gincy shook her head and joined her daughter at the table. “Honestly, I don’t know the answers to those questions. I vaguely recall a woman my mother used to spend time with, I think her name was Sally, but that was years ago. And as far as a couple, no one comes to mind. I should ask Tommy. He might know of someone I could contact, someone who might be able to check in on her when we’re back in Boston.”

  “Grandma doesn’t like to ask for help,” Tamsin declared. “She’s just like you, or I guess I should say you’re just like her. And if you don’t ask for help, how is anyone going to know that you need it, unless you’re, like, bleeding from the eyes or something else totally obvious?”

  Gincy smiled at her daughter. “You’re one very smart cookie, Tamsin Luongo. I’m glad you’re here for Grandma, and for me. Thank you. But Tamsin, you know you could go home at any time. I could put you on a bus back to Boston, or Dad could come and pick you up. You could be spending your Christmas vacation with your friends, goofing off. After all, you work so hard when school’s in session, I hate to see you whiling away what little free time you have here in Appleville.”

  “It’s okay, Mom,” Tamsin said. “I’ve got almost three weeks off. There’s plenty of time to hang out when we get back home. Besides, I’ve got my iPhone. When Grandma gets too grumpy, I just play a game or something.”

  “Or you read the biography you’re supposed to be reading, right?”

  “That too.”

  “By the way, what did Julie decide about going out with that guy, Steven?”

  Tamsin laughed. “She decided he wasn’t smart enough for her. But she didn’t tell him that. She let him down nicely.”

  “Above all, be kind,” Gincy said. “It’s not a bad way to live. Now, let’s get Grandma to bed.”

  CHAPTER 21

  “Gincy. Hi. So, tell me.”

  “No,” Gincy said. “I’ve been selfish since I’ve been here. I want to know how your day was.”

  “Uneventful,” Rick told her. “Work is fine, the loft is fine, I’ve got a new craft beer to try and I’m hoping it’s more than just fine, and Justin says he’s looking forward to being with his family at Christmas. And yes, I watered the tree.”

  “Great. Okay, now it’s my turn.”

  And Gincy told her husband what Tommy had shared with her about her parents’ relationship, about how her mother depended on her father, about how she missed Ed when he was off in Boston, about the lovely frame he had been carving for his wife when he died.

  “I’m struggling, Rick,” she said. “I’m trying to figure it all out. How can Tommy’s truth square with what I say is true?”

  “One family, multiple truths. That’s always the way it is, Gincy.”

  “Yeah, but . . . The thing is, Dad never said a word against my mother. He wouldn’t. He was a gentleman. But Mom criticized Dad all the time, and to anyone who would listen—the neighbors, the aunts and uncles, even the mailman.”

  Rick laughed. “The mailman?”

  “Okay, maybe not the mailman. But it never stopped, Rick. She complained that Dad couldn’t replace a broken bicycle spoke, which by the way was a lie because he was the one who taught me how to replace a broken bicycle spoke. She complained that he didn’t stand up straight. Well, what did she expect? The man spent a lifetime lifting and hauling stuff in that hardware store, boxes of nails and lawn mowers and huge power saws. Is it surprising he was a little stooped? He didn’t stand up straight because he couldn’t! She complained he always forgot when it was time for a haircut. Why should he have bothered to remember? Mom was the one who told him when to go to the barber. She would even hand him the five dollars or whatever it cost and send him on his way, like he was a little kid. How can you always be criticizing someone you love?”

  “First,” Rick said, “maybe your mother simply wasn’t able to show her love in any other way. Okay, I know that sounds crazy, but not everyone is comfortable expressing their feelings. It makes them feel too vulnerable.”

  “But what about how poor Dad felt?” Gincy insisted.

  “Maybe he blocked all of it out, the chatter, the complaining. A lot of people learn to do that. Men, mostly, but that’s just my opinion. Anyway, I’m not saying it’s the healthiest way to go through life, but if it works . . .”

  “That’s not what you’re doing, is it?” Gincy asked worriedly. “Blocking me out because I’m so annoying?”

  “Gincy. No, it is not at all what I’m doing.”

  Gincy sighed. “I know. Sorry. It’s just that, I always thought Dad was unhappy. I mean, when I started to think about him at all, and that wasn’t until the summer I met you. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was projecting my own dissatisfactions with Mom and life in Appleville onto him. I thought that if I was unhappy here, he must have been, too.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time someone’s been blinded by her own prejudice.”

  “Yikes. When you put it like that, it sounds almost criminal. Rick? Did Dad ever talk to you about Mom?”

  “Never,” Rick said. “But I always got a strong sense that he was devoted to her. If he wasn’t exactly happy, and I’m not saying he wasn’t, then he wasn’t exactly unhappy, either.”

  “All those time he stayed with us in Boston, I never once remember him calling Mom. Or her calling him, for that matter. And we know he refused to have a cell phone, so he wasn’t chatting with her at midnight after we had all gone to bed.”

  “I don’t think that generation of married couples went in much for phone conversations,” Rick said. “For one, they were never apart for that long. I bet your father talked to your mother via the phone fewer than ten times in their life together.”

  “Huh,” Gincy said. “That’s an interesting point. Before Dad started to visit us, they were never apart for even a night, not that I can remember. It’s not like he had to travel for work or she had any relatives she wanted to visit across the country. But wouldn’t that mean they would be so lonely for each other when Dad was in Boston and Mom back home that they would spend hours on the phone?”

  Rick sighed. “Remember, Gincy, no one knows what goes on in a marriage but the two people in it.”

  “I know. Mom asked me how long I was staying.”

  “Good question. What did you say?”

  “I said something like, not too long, don’t worry.”

  “What did she say?” Rick asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “You’ll just have to play it by ear then.”

  “I
’m going to talk to Mom about money tomorrow,” Gincy told him. “I’m going to ask to see her checkbook.”

  Rick whistled. “Good luck,” he said. “That’s going to be unpleasant. Your mother is a proud woman. Remember the fuss she made back when your dad died and we asked to see her financials to be sure she had enough to pay for the funeral and all?”

  “I vaguely remember her calling me a rapacious vulture after her fortune. Well, rapacious is my addition.”

  Rick laughed. “I hate to tell you, but she said a lot more once you’d left the room.”

  “I don’t want to know! Rick? I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Gincy,” he said. “Sleep well.”

  “I’ll try,” she promised. “But it’s not so easy without you.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Gincy was stirring soup on the one working burner on the stove. Tamsin was setting the kitchen table for lunch, folding the napkins into rectangles, not triangles. Ellen, showing a welcome interest in the upkeep of her home, was rubbing at an invisible spot on the edge of the sink with a sponge. Well, it was invisible to Gincy, but Ellen swore it was there and was applying a good deal of elbow grease to it. Tamsin had been glad to know that “elbow grease” was just an expression, though she had told her mother she still couldn’t understand how hair would have gotten into a bucket.

  Tommy was in the living room setting up the artificial Christmas tree. It was the same tree the family had when Gincy and Tommy were small. Gincy was surprised it hadn’t disintegrated long ago. Maybe, she thought, it was made of some super material that would outlast them all, even if that meant spending its final century in a landfill.

  Her brother appeared now in the doorway of the kitchen, holding something spindly, green, and faded. “I’ve got one extra branch,” he said. “I can’t figure out where it goes. Dad never had a branch left over when he put up the tree.”

  “I’m sure it doesn’t matter,” Tamsin said. “Anyway, he had lots of practice.”

  Tommy stared down at the branch in his hand, as if he weren’t quite sure how it had gotten there, and then propped it against the wall in a corner of the kitchen and joined the others, now gathered at the table.

  “Grandma,” Tamsin asked. “What made you marry Grandpa?”

  Ellen frowned. “What a silly question. I was in love with him, of course. Why else would I have married the man?”

  Tamsin turned to her mother. “That’s why you married Dad, right, Mom? Because you loved him.”

  “Yes,” Gincy said. “And because I liked him. You can love someone but not really like them very much.”

  Is that how I feel about Mom, Gincy wondered. I love her, but I don’t very much like her? But how can you like or dislike someone if you don’t really know her? Sometimes, Gincy thought, Ellen Gannon seemed like a complete stranger. She thought of the Bible in her mother’s bedroom. More than sometimes.

  “Don’t talk nonsense, Virginia,” Ellen said in that dismissive, definitive tone Gincy knew so well. “If you love someone, of course you also like them, end of story.”

  Tommy slurped his soup. “Sorry,” he said.

  When the soup bowls and plates had been cleared, Gincy brought tea and cookies to the table.

  “I know the cookies look kind of weird,” Tamsin said. “I guess I’m just not used to your oven, Grandma. But they taste okay, I promise.”

  Tommy, who had already consumed two, nodded and gave his niece a thumbs-up.

  “That oven is whacky,” Tamsin whispered to Gincy. “Did you hear the noise it makes when it’s heating up? It’s like it’s crying or something.”

  Gincy hid a grin and glanced across the table at her mother. Now seemed as good a time as any to bring up a difficult subject. Even more than music, food often soothed the soul of the savage beast, and her mother had eaten all of her lunch, including three of Tamsin’s lopsided sugar cookies. “Mom,” she said, “I’d like to take a look at your financial situation. Just to be sure everything is as it should be.”

  “You saw all that when your father died,” Ellen said sharply.

  “Yes, but that was six months ago. I’d like to be sure nothing’s changed significantly or for the worse. So I’d like to see the bank statements. And your checkbook.”

  Ellen let her spoon drop into her mug of tea. “Are you saying I can’t handle my own life?” she challenged.

  Tommy cleared his throat. “Mom,” he said, “just let her see the stuff, okay? She’s smart.”

  “And I’m not?” Ellen demanded.

  “Come on, Mom.” Tommy’s tone was gentle. “You forgot to pay the electric bill last month. Just let Gincy check up on stuff.”

  Ellen Gannon’s face turned alarmingly red. “You promised you wouldn’t tell your sister about that. Why did you have to go advertising my personal business?”

  Gincy glanced at her brother. Tommy looked decidedly uncomfortable, almost frightened.

  “He wasn’t advertising it, Mom,” she said. “He was worried about you. He did the right thing in telling me.”

  “Everyone forgets to do something important at one time or another, Grandma,” Tamsin said. “It’s normal. Last week I forgot to brush my teeth one night before going to bed!”

  “I forget to brush my teeth at night all the time,” Tommy blurted.

  Hence, the missing tooth, Gincy thought. “Mom, the papers.”

  “What does Richard say about this?” Ellen demanded. “Does he know what you’re doing?”

  “Yes,” Gincy said calmly, “Rick knows what I’m doing and he agrees that it’s right.”

  Ellen pushed away from the table. “All right then. If Richard thinks it’s a good idea, you can see the papers. But I’m not happy about this one little bit.”

  She was back a moment later with a faded manila folder. She dropped it onto the table, narrowly missing upsetting the plastic saltcellar.

  “I’m going to my room to lie down,” she said. “I suddenly don’t feel very well. That tuna salad you made, Virginia, had too much mayonnaise. And the soup was cold.”

  “I don’t think you can get sick from cold soup,” Tommy said, when Ellen had left the kitchen again. He looked concerned. “But maybe you can get sick from eating too much mayonnaise.”

  “Grandma’s just being grumpy,” Tamsin assured him. “She’s not really sick. Can I be excused, Mom?”

  “Sure.”

  Tamsin, already tapping at her iPhone, left the room.

  Gincy turned to her brother. “Thanks, Tommy, for stepping in with Mom. I really appreciate your help.”

  Tommy smiled. “Yeah, sure. Look, Gince, what I said the other day, when you first came home, that Mom hates you. She doesn’t hate you. I don’t know why I said that. She doesn’t really mean all the stuff she says. Like the way she’s always telling you that you did something wrong. She did that with Dad, too, but she totally loved him. It’s just the way she is.”

  Gincy was touched. Her brother was indeed a far more sensitive person than she had ever given him credit for. She remembered all the nasty comments she had made about him in the past, and if she were prone to blushing she would have blushed. “Thanks again, Tommy,” she said. “And just for the record, I meant it when I said that I don’t hate Mom.”

  “You know,” Tommy said, and his tone sounded almost surprised, as if the thought was occurring to him for the first time. “I’ve never hated anyone, not even that guy I knew once from Roy’s Tavern, the guy who broke into my place and stole a bunch of cash. He got caught, that’s how I know it was him.”

  “Tommy,” Gincy said, her hand to her heart, “that’s awful. I’m sorry. I’m so glad you weren’t home at the time. You could have been hurt.”

  Tommy shrugged. “And I didn’t even hate Kate, when she left me. I mean, I kind of deserved that, I guess. Still I didn’t hate her for getting a divorce.” He smiled sadly. “She probably hated me.”

  “If she did, I’m sure she’s long past that now, Tommy,” G
incy said, hoping that it was the truth and that Kate, who was a nice person, had found someone more suitable to marry. “I wouldn’t let it worry you.”

  “I don’t. Not much. Look, how long are you staying?”

  “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “Tommy? Does Mom have any friends? Did she and Dad spend time with a particular couple? It seems that she’s so alone.”

  Tommy toyed with the knife beside his plate. “I don’t think Mom and Dad ever went in much for friends. I mean, I never knew about any.” He looked up at his sister and gave her a rueful smile. “But maybe they just wanted to keep me away from people they liked.”

  Before Gincy could respond with a strong denial of such a thing, Tommy got up from the table. “I gotta go,” he said. “Mr. Barone at the convenience store told me to come by this afternoon. He’s getting a big shipment of something. Diapers, I think he said. Or maybe it was cat food.”

  “Take care, Tommy,” Gincy said. “Do you wear one of those supports for the lower back? The kind Dad wore?”

  Tommy shook his head.

  “Maybe you should consider one, if you do a lot of lifting.”

  Tommy nodded. “Thanks, Gince.”

  And then he was gone.

  Tommy was a lot like their father, Gincy thought, listening to the awful sound of his old truck starting up and pulling away from the house. He didn’t make it a habit of speaking ill of people, even the ones who had hurt him. Maybe it hadn’t always been that way with him, but did that matter? What mattered was Tommy in the here and now.

  Gincy sighed. Poor Tommy. Thinking that his parents had purposely kept him at a distance from their friends, if any friends had indeed existed.

  Seek peace and pursue it. As Rick had pointed out, it would never have crossed Ed Gannon’s mind to be ashamed of his son. Or, Gincy thought, her mother’s mind, either.

  Gincy cleared away the tea things and opened the faded manila file. It didn’t take long to go through its contents. It was all pretty straightforward; her mother had virtually no investments, a small retirement account, and a manageable mortgage. And she found nothing amiss, no bills unpaid and the checking account balanced to within a penny. There was no evidence of money going out to her brother, but that didn’t mean her mother wasn’t giving him small sums in cash from her weekly housekeeping budget. There would be no trace of that sort of thing. Still, what she had found overall was a huge relief. As soon as possible she would talk to Rick about how they could keep an eye on things going forward. And about how they could ensure that Tommy would be okay when Ellen passed. It had never occurred to Gincy to worry about her brother’s future.