Tea and Primroses

by Tess Thompson

  I didn’t voice these things to Roma, of course. Instead I set a cup of tea in front of her. “I think you should move in here.”

  “Here? With you?” She rolled her eyes and chuckled. “Two old lady spinsters, is that the idea?”

  I laughed. “I miss the kids.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “I’m lonely. You could have the guest suite. It’s not like I ever have any guests.”

  She turned her eyes to the ocean. “Do you ever think about him?”

  I was at the stove, pouring my own cup of tea. With my back to her, I moved the teabag from the cup to the sink. “You mean Patrick?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s not a day goes by I don’t.”

  “I would’ve liked it for us, you know.”

  “What’s that?”

  “To have love in our lives.”

  I went to the table, suddenly cold, holding my tea against my chest. “We did, in a way. We had the kids.”

  “True enough. They’ve been good kids, haven’t they?”

  “The best.”

  “And we’ve had each other.” Roma reached her large, callused hand over to me, placing it on my skinny, pale forearm. “You’ve been awful good to me.” She gave me a squeeze and then moved her hand back to her teacup.

  I tapped her shoulder, teasing. “Don’t tell me you’re suddenly getting sentimental in your old age? Plus, you know I’d starve without you here to look after me.”

  But she didn’t laugh as I expected. Instead, she sighed and turned to look up at me. “You’ve been sad for almost twenty years now.”

  “Oh, no, that’s not true. I have such a good life.”

  “I’m not talking about your professional success.”

  I was quiet for a moment, moving closer to the window. The sea was there as it always was, the same ebb and flow since the beginning of time. “Just seems there’s more people missing than there should be. And none of the books can make up for that. I didn’t understand that when I was young. But without my parents and Miller, all the people I loved so much, the success pales. I’m scared all the time something’s going to happen to you or the kids or Louise.” I hesitated, my voice strangled at the back of my throat. “And I think of Patrick. Every day. I wonder what it would have been like if we’d made a life together.” The tears came and I brushed them aside with the back of my hand. “I’ve never gotten over it. It seems ridiculous after all this time, but it’s true.”

  “I know, and there’s not a day goes by I don’t hate him for it.” She reached up and took my hand in her big one. “Sometimes I still wish for a man’s hands on me. Does that sound foolish at our age?”

  My eyes burned. “It’s not too late, you know. There might be a man out there for you. Maybe if you didn’t work so hard you might have some energy to look for one. As a matter of fact, I’m firing you right now.”

  “You can’t fire me.” She did a dismissive gesture with her hand, laughing. “You don’t even know how to turn on the stove.”

  “Well, that’s true. But we could hire someone else to take care of the house and you could just cook for me. That is, until you find a foxy boyfriend.” I sat across from her at the table.

  “I don’t think people say foxy any longer.”

  “Really? Well they should.”

  “Truth is, I met someone.”

  “What?”

  “I mean, I like someone. I’ve been out on three dates.”

  I looked at her in amazement. “Details, please.”

  “We’ve gone to the bar.”

  “Roma! You went to a bar?”

  She giggled, like a schoolgirl. “I met him at the grocery store one day. He suddenly appeared, his cart full of those frozen dinners, behind me in the checkout line. And he started talking me up. Asking me questions about all the fresh produce and meat in my cart, what did I cook with it and did I use recipes or make them up, that sort of thing. We talked all the way to the parking lot. Then he asked me out. Friday night we’re going out to dinner up in Cannon Beach.” Her face was all dewy and dreamy; I’d never seen her look this way.

  “What’s his name?” I was a believer in names, being a writer. They could tell you something about a person.

  “Nathan Parker.”

  “What does he do?”

  “Retired marine. Finally, a man big enough for me.”

  I simply stared at her in amazement, shaking my head. “I’m so happy for you,” I said, finally. I meant it, of course, but this news shook me. I’d counted on Roma to keep me company in our old age. Now she was moving on.

  “He told me he’s never felt this way about anyone so soon.”

  “Well, it’s true, you know, what they say about love at first sight. Sometimes it happens.” That first night at dinner with Patrick, I thought, remembering the way his eyes had flickered in the candlelight. I’d known right away. This is the man I will love all my life.

  I smiled at Roma across the little table in the kitchen. “You need a new dress.”

  The next day, we took the afternoon off and went shopping in Cannon Beach. I bought her a dress, red to go with her olive complexion, and a new pair of black sandals. Then we had our hair trimmed and colored at my favorite salon. The girls at the shop convinced us we both needed makeovers and the next thing we knew our faces and toes and nails were painted. When they were done, we gazed at ourselves in the mirror. “Not bad for two old broads,” said Roma.

  I treated us to a late lunch at a bistro. We ordered fattening entrées and shared a bottle of wine, laughing and whispering like teenagers. After lunch, we walked the beach, stopping to admire Haystack Rock, until Roma was sober enough to drive us home. It remains one of my favorite memories.

  At the end all I have are my memories.

  Two days later, Roma was dead. A trucker, traveling north on Highway 101 near dawn on Saturday, saw her car wrapped around a tree. She was in the passenger seat and was crushed, dying instantly. The driver’s side of the car was intact, virtually unblemished. But there was no driver. No fingerprints. No evidence that anyone but Roma had ever driven her car.

  Tim Ball searched long and hard for the mysterious Nathan Parker but there was no record of him ever existing. For a period of time, both Declan and I became obsessed with finding him. He quit his job and moved in with me. I hired the best private detective money could find but there was nothing. No trace. Nothing but an empty kitchen where Roma used to be. Tim and my private detective, separately, interviewed every worker at every restaurant in Cannon Beach and Manzanita. No one remembered seeing Roma out that night. It was as if the night had never happened. Where they went, why they were in Roma’s car, none of it was answerable. Ultimately, Tim believed he was a grifter, and perhaps, having too much to drink, lost control of Roma’s car and then ran, knowing he would be charged with vehicular homicide. My private detective had no theory at all and ended up refusing any kind of payment from me.

  Declan and Sutton helped me spread her ashes into the ocean, both of them stronger than I. But later, I watched from the kitchen window as Declan sobbed in Sutton’s arms. The sight of that strong, good boy grieving his mother broke me. After everything, that was the thing that did it. I stayed present until they left the next day. It felt like I was dying right along with Roma when their cars disappeared down the driveway.

  I understood they had to go back to their lives. Sutton had two more semesters of pastry school to finish and Declan was teaching art and history at a small, private high school in Seattle. They must continue forward, I told myself. They are young and have lives to make.

  I crawled into bed.

  I went into the first serious depression of my life. In the empty house without Roma, and the kids away, there was nothing to keep me from sinking into despair. For the first time in my adult life, I did not write. I had the local grocery store bring food once a week, canned goods and frozen dinners. I slept most of the time, only getting up to eat or shower when I
felt up to it, which was little of the time. Janie, concerned over my deadline for the latest book, called daily but I didn’t answer the phone. Louise called. Sometimes she dropped by but I didn’t answer the door. The kids started calling every day. The messages piled up on the phone. A month went by.

  And, then, I’m sure feeling something close to panic, both Sutton and Declan came home. It was summer vacation for both of them anyway, but I knew they came home for me. I could see in their eyes how bad I must look. They got me out of bed. Sutton cooked for me. She made all my favorite baked goods. Declan painted in my office, waiting for me to join him.

  I still wasn’t writing but I sat on the porch and watched the ocean.

  Slowly, I started to feel a little better.

  Then, something miraculous happened—something that renewed my spirit. Declan and Sutton fell in love. I didn’t see it coming. I don’t know why, really. I suppose I assumed they were best friends and considered the other family, as I had Roma and Declan. They’d been close as little children. Declan was always tough and Sutton so delicate that he was fiercely protective of her. But as they entered middle school and then high school they were friendly but did not play together any longer. It was to be expected, Roma and I agreed. Boys and girls aren’t close at this age. Declan and Peter Ball were tight. Sutton and Gigi were practically glued at the hip. And they all “hung out” together as Sutton explained to me once, but none of them liked each other that way. She said this as if it were obvious and also embarrassing.

  One day in mid-July, I glanced up from the book I was pretending to read and saw them on the beach. She was lying on her back, staring up at him with her back slightly arched, wearing a white sweater that rose up to reveal her slender, smooth stomach. Bare-chested and facing her, he was propped on his arms over her, his nose near her chin, hovering as if he might do a pushup. She reached up and put her hands in his hair. Slowly, he moved so their mouths touched, kissing softly, the way lovers do. I knew then. They loved one another.

  I thought of Patrick.

  For all of June and July I let myself continue to sit on the deck and watch the ocean. The kids brought me tea and items to eat and books to read. But I wasn’t all the way there.

  I was only eyes that summer. Just watching eyes that observed instead of participated. I watched as the kids walked together hand in hand. I watched them huddle together on a blanket with his arm around her shoulders and her head on his shoulder. And as I watched, I let myself remember. Patrick. Vermont. The leaves. The feeling of falling in love.

  All I had was my memories.

  One day, Sutton brought me a cinnamon roll and a hot cup of tea. She sat next to me and took my hand. “I love Declan, Mommy.”

  Mommy.

  She called me Mom now, this grown up woman beside me—but not today as she confessed her heart. Today I was Mommy.

  “I know, sweetheart. I’m glad.”

  “But he’s too big for me.”

  I stared at her. Where had she heard that phrase? Had I used it over the years? Had she heard me say it about myself in regards to Miller?

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I’m so happy here. I want my life to be small, simple. I’m afraid of so many things.”

  I squeezed her hand. “If you love him, find a way to compromise.”

  That night, I felt good enough to sit with them at dinner. A week later, I made my way to my desk. I wrote one sentence and then another. I rode my bicycle into town. I bought flowers at the local shop. I returned books to the library. I re-entered life.

  Declan came to me with his plan, showing me the small diamond he’d purchased for her. “She needs to finish school first,” I said.

  “Yes, of course. But she only has another semester. She’ll be done by Christmas.”

  “We can have a summer wedding. Here, if Sutton wants.” Already I was imagining Louise and Sutton planning the wedding. I would defer to them, I thought, smiling to myself.

  It was my idea to send them to Europe. “Think of it,” I said to Declan, feeling cheered for the first since Roma died. “Art and food. What could be more perfect for your honeymoon?”

  He wanted to ask her the morning she went back to school. I wanted him to do it sooner, so I could celebrate with them, but I kept it to myself. It wasn’t about me, I reminded myself, as I reached for the phone to call Louise.

  I was chatting with her about it all when I heard the kitchen door open and close and then footsteps moving across the front room. I said a hasty goodbye to Louise and poked my head outside my office door, fully expecting to see a radiant Sutton waving her ring around in the light. But instead it was Declan, alone. His face was the color of a storm and his eyes wild and pained.

  “What happened?”

  “She said no.”

  He moved past me toward the stairs. “I’m going today, Constance.”

  “Going?”

  He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, looking back at me. “I’m not one to ask you for money, I hope you know that by now. But I need you to change my ticket and I need some money to get started. Don’t bother with a return flight. Please.”

  “Fine, but—”

  He put up his hand, shaking his head. “Please.” With that, he left me standing there with my mouth open, as his strong, angry frame stomped up the stairs.

  I did as he asked. I changed his flight so that he could leave the next morning. I went into town and took out five thousand dollars’ worth of traveler’s checks. “Can I take you to Portland in the morning?” I asked, hearing the desperation in my voice. I wanted to ask him more; I wanted him to stay; I wanted Roma. But I couldn’t have any of that. I had to watch him walk out the door.

  “No,” he said to my question. “Peter’s going to drive me.”

  Instead, I drove Sutton to Portland that afternoon. It started to dump angry rain from purple thunderclouds as we headed north out of my driveway. Sutton was quiet and looked small and sad. I could see by her puffy eyes and blotched skin that she’d been crying. I turned onto Highway 26, headed to Portland.

  Suddenly, I remembered the drive home from the train station with my mother the day I returned from Vermont and all the weight between us, all the things unsaid, the secrets we both kept. I’d spent Sutton’s lifetime trying not to be my mother but here we were anyway, a heartbroken girl and a broken woman. “Do you want to talk?”

  “No.” This was a whisper. She turned away from me, looking out the window.

  I didn’t say anything further. The windshield wipers swished back and forth. The radio was on, barely discernible, so I turned it up a notch. It was a country station, one Roma liked. Was she the last one of us to drive this car? The pain came, again, like it did now, all the time. All the missing people replaced with this ache in my heart.

  When we arrived at Sutton’s little apartment, I helped her carry her suitcases up to her room. She lived on the second floor of an old Victorian converted into apartments and the stairs were narrow and rickety. Sutton unlocked the door and we went in. The weather was warm and humid, hinting at further thunderstorms. I set the suitcase in the small bedroom; everything was tidy and organized but had the feeling of desertion. She’d been gone for three months. Rescuing me.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been a burden, honey,” I said.

  Her eyes filled and she fell toward me. I caught her, wrapping my arms around her waist. She was six inches taller than I but somehow she folded herself into my chest like she had when she was a little girl. “Mommy, why am I afraid of everything?”

  “You’re not really, sweetheart. You’re like the lion in Wizard of Oz. You’re courageous when it matters.” I led her over to the bed and we sat together. “Did you say no to Declan because you feel afraid?”

  “Yes. And because I need to get my life on the right track first. I’m not ready. But I love him so much.”

  “When he gets back from Europe you can talk, sort through things. You’re both so young. It’ll be all
right in the end.”

  “No, Mom, he’s not coming back. He has wanderlust. Always has. You’ll see.”

  I hated to leave her but I did, returning home that night to the house. There was a light on in Declan’s room but he didn’t come down. I went to my bedroom, sick with worry over both my kids. I went out to the deck and watched the waves, tumultuous and reckless. Roma, I thought. What do I do? But she didn’t answer. It was just the crashing of the waves that came back to me.

  The next morning I hugged Declan goodbye and watched as Peter took him away. For six years I waited for him to return. But he refused, so I had to go to him. The next autumn I left Oregon for the first time in over twenty years. I went first to Greece to visit Reggie. He was well and at peace; it was as if no time had passed as we reminisced about the old times and my father and Clara. His wife, Mia, was delightful, although she spoke little English and was like a small, brown bird darting between us as we talked. After a week there, I traveled to England, the next year to France, then next Ireland, and Spain and so on—a new country every year, sometimes beginning the trip in Greece to see Reggie, depending on where Declan was living. I went all over the world meeting that wayward boy, my wanderlust boy, wishing above all else that he would come home.

  Come home to me, I said silently, a thousand times. Come home to Sutton.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SUTTON STARED INTO HER LAP as Constance’s words echoed about the room for a few minutes. Finally, Declan rose from the couch and went to the window, pulling the shades down to dim the bright sunlight of late afternoon.

  “Dec, my mother raised us like she was afraid something might happen to us. She had this house built like a fortress. Do you know how many times she asked your mother to move you guys in here after my grandfather and Clara died? The way she never wanted us to learn to drive or go out without her. Do you remember how she used to wait up for us? Sometimes I saw her pacing back and forth in the front window when I walked the beach alone. And the basement? She made it so great down there so all of us kids would spend time there instead of out. And it made us the way we are. Me, fearful and contained. You, restless and filled with wanderlust.”