Leaves of Hope

by Catherine Palmer

  “The changes in dye lots are subtle, ma’am, and I assure you that—”

  “This is not fair, and it’s not right. You don’t eliminate something like a color. Colors ought to stay the same. A woman’s hair is important to her, and your company should know that. My hair color is me. It’s who I am, and you cannot…you simply can’t expect me to change. I’ve changed enough…I’ve been through too much…and you can’t think that I’ll be able to…to simply…”

  By that time, she was sobbing in great, loud gulping hiccups, so she hung up the phone and buried her face in her hands. That was it, then. Desert Sunset’s demise was her undoing. But the issue was not hair color, really. It was the loss. The terrible, irredeemable loss of herself.

  As she hunched over on the sofa and wept, all Jan could think about was how Beth had turned and walked away. Just like Desert Sunset and John and even Thomas Wood. Gone. Vanished from Jan’s life.

  Why? The unanswerable question sat atop everything that had tried to destroy Jan. Why had her daughter fled? What had caused this seemingly unbreachable rift between them? Nothing. Nothing except Thomas, who had really been nobody.

  Oh, why had Jan ever let that boy into her life? It had been his fault for holding her and kissing her so passionately that her every reserve had melted away. He had not given a single thought to anything but satisfying his own desire. For that matter, neither had she. The two of them, crazed with nothing more than plain old-fashioned lust, had thrown every ounce of caution right out the window of his car.

  And not just once. That would have been bad enough. But no, they had acted like a couple of squirrels chasing each other around a tree, through the branches, back and forth. Jan went after Thomas. He went after her. They were insatiable, never giving more than a passing consideration to the consequences of their behavior.

  Then look what had happened. Beth.

  Those days with Thomas had been the final rash and heedless period in Jan’s life. From the moment she discovered she was pregnant, her world had changed irrevocably. Each day, each month, each year revolved around the single task of keeping everything under control. Marrying John Lowell. Earning her teaching certificate and graduating from college. Tidying her home and cooking nutritious meals. School and church and the garden club. Order. Security. Stability.

  Change was not a good thing. As Jan had sobbed her way through the loss of Desert Sunset, she knew she had to put the most out-of-control part of her world back in order. She had to fix things with Beth.

  Today, with her hair Auburn Glow—a much darker shade—Jan searched through her purse for her daughter’s cell phone number. “I don’t know where you are, Beth,” Jan whispered as she opened the address book on her knee, “but you had better answer this time. Dear God, please let Beth talk to me. Make her talk to me.”

  Probably, it was not a good idea to order the Lord around, Jan realized as she punched in the number. On the other hand, did He really even listen? There were only a few times in Jan’s life when she had prayed earnestly, from the very bottom of her heart—and God hadn’t answered any of those prayers. She had prayed not to be pregnant, but Beth was already on the way. She had prayed for John to live, but he had died. So what was the point in asking God nicely?

  “Hello? Mom?” The voice on the other end sounded groggy. “What on earth? Why are you calling me at this hour? It’s three in the morning in Nairobi.”

  Beth was to have been in Botswana for three weeks, wasn’t she? “I’m sorry, honey, but I never know where you are or what time it is there. Did I wake you up?”

  “Actually, no. I’m sitting in the Nairobi airport. I’ve been here all night. My flight to London was canceled, and none of the passengers was allowed to leave the terminal.” The sound of Beth sipping something came through the receiver. “It’s so dry here. I’m just exhausted.”

  Her heart aching with the instant urge to protect and comfort her daughter, Jan’s face softened. “I’m sure you are, sweetheart. Isn’t Botswana near a desert?”

  A sigh of impatience. “The Kalahari desert crosses Botswana, but I’m not there anymore. Nairobi is the capital of Kenya.”

  “My goodness, Kenya? What are you doing there? I don’t think you mentioned anything about Kenya in your last e-mail.”

  “I’m passing through. My flight out of Gaborone took me to Nairobi. I should have been able to get right on the plane to London but…wait, hang on a sec…”

  After a pause, Jan heard Beth’s voice say, “Excuse me. Excuse me, sir, but that’s my bag you just put your feet on.”

  Jan could hear a deep male voice in the background. And then Beth spoke again. “I realize I’m not using it at the moment, but it isn’t a footrest. My clothes are in there. Now move them.”

  The man’s voice sounded again, but Jan could not make sense of his words. When her daughter spoke again, she sounded annoyed. “This is so irritating. The airline won’t announce the next flight to London. All the passengers have been sitting here since seven last night, just endlessly waiting. There’s nothing to eat in the terminal, and we can only buy warm soft drinks. I could scream.”

  “Is someone bothering you?” Jan pictured her pretty daughter sitting there in the airport. Beth had turned out to be so beautiful. Tall, thin, sculpted. Her thick, straight brown hair fell in drapes and sheets that slid like maple syrup across her shoulders when she bent over. It would be no surprise if some man was trying to draw her attention.

  “It’s all right,” Beth said. “Mom, why did you call? Is everything okay? Are Bob and Bill okay?”

  “Everyone here is fine. Really, we’re all doing very well. I just…well, I wanted to talk to you. It’s about the problems we were having before. You know…when you were visiting at my house.”

  “Okay, Mom. But I’m not going to apologize for opening the box, if that’s what you want. It had my name on it.”

  This was Beth, her mother realized. Of course she was intense. She had to be—living in New York and working at such a strange job and becoming so successful at an early age. But she had always been that way. Confrontational. Blunt. Ever determined to stick to her guns. She took everything so seriously—unable to move on if she couldn’t have her way. As a toddler, Beth had once chewed up a cardboard puzzle piece that refused to fit into a puzzle depicting Winnie the Pooh with a honey jar on his head. Jan had discovered the wad of damp gray paper, dried it under the pressure of a stack of books and then put it back in the box.

  That was a long time ago, Jan thought. Another time, another place. Yet the essence of her daughter was the same. Never mind that Jan had specifically said to leave the boxes in the bedroom alone. Never mind that no guest should ever go snooping around in someone else’s closet. Beth wouldn’t apologize, and Jan was just going to have to accept that if she wanted to reconcile with her daughter.

  “What I wanted to tell you about was him,” Jan said. “Thomas Wood.”

  “What about him?” Beth’s voice was softer.

  “I know you can’t understand why your father and I made the decisions we did. And you don’t seem to want to accept that even Nanny agreed with us. We all felt it was best to let you believe John was your birth father.”

  “Mom, you were going to tell me something about Thomas Wood.”

  Brash. Cutting right to the quick. Oh, how had such a blunt creature emerged from that pink bedroom with the ruffled lace curtains?

  Jan swallowed, trying to remain calm. “I wanted to talk to you about…to tell you how…or why…” She shook her head, trying to remember the way she had planned the conversation. “The thing is, you see, Thomas Wood is dead. I thought I ought to explain about that, so you would understand. Then you’ll know.”

  “I’ll know how he died?”

  “Well, you’ll understand that he’s not worth searching for. Not that Thomas was worthless. That’s not what I’m saying. He was a good man. But, Beth, he’s gone now, and you need to accept it.”

  “Are yo
u really saying I should just leave it at that? Why should I?”

  “Because you need to go back to being the way you were before. You need to forgive your dad and me, and even Nanny, and get on with your life. I want you to let it all go. Let him go.”

  “Tell me how he died.”

  Jan steeled herself against her daughter’s harsh tone. Taking out her reading glasses, she slipped them on and scanned the sheet of paper she had saved…hidden with Thomas’s old letters at the bottom of her jewelry box beneath ropes of pearls her mother and grandmother had worn.

  “When he left Tyler, Thomas had a job in Sri Lanka,” Jan said. “It’s an island near India. Ceylon is what it used to be called. They grow tea there. Thomas was in the tea business, you see. That’s why he bought me the antique tea set. He thought it was wonderful…tea.”

  “Okay,” Beth said, a long question mark buried in the word. “So he went to Sri Lanka.”

  “Well, doesn’t that ring any bells for you? Something in the news a while back?”

  “No.”

  “That tidal wave!” Jan exclaimed, wondering why her world-traveling daughter hadn’t automatically made the connection. “That tsunami caused by an underwater earthquake. Don’t you remember? It was the world’s worst natural disaster, or one of them. Beth, it hit Sri Lanka.”

  “Thomas Wood died in a tsunami?”

  “Hundreds of thousands of people died. You must remember it. It was right around Christmas in 2004. Every channel carried the news—day after day for at least a week. And then CNN and the talk shows had guests with all those heartbreaking testimonies. People telling how their loved ones were washed away. Babies ripped out of their mothers’ arms. Children sucked into the riptide. It was a terrible event.”

  “Of course I remember, Mom. I can’t believe he was there when it happened. Did he drown?”

  “I’m not sure. I don’t know exactly how Thomas died. To tell you the truth, I hate to even think about it. It must have been awful.”

  “How did you find out he had died in the disaster?”

  Jan moistened her lips, wishing like crazy that she didn’t have to confess this part. If only she could get Beth to accept the truth and let it go. But not Beth. Not that little tiger. She would hang on to the last shred, chewing and tugging and ripping away, until she knew everything.

  “I looked him up,” Jan said quickly. Perhaps if she spoke fast enough, her daughter might not fathom the implications. “I went online, and I searched for lists of the tsunami victims in Sri Lanka, and there was his name. Wood.”

  “Just ‘Wood’? But that could have been anyone, Mom. Maybe it wasn’t him. Wood is a common name.”

  “It was him, Beth. Because I…well, I also found the name of the company he worked for. Wilson Teas. They had a toll-free number. I called it. I shouldn’t have done that, considering the situation with your father. But anyway, I did. I thought, well, Thomas was a part of my life long ago, and I ought to find out if he’s all right. And so I called.”

  “Wilson Teas? What did they tell you?”

  “They said he had been working for them in Sri Lanka for many years.”

  “Mother, that doesn’t mean he died in the tsunami.”

  “Yes, but then the woman told me she couldn’t release personal information about an employee unless I was immediate family. So, that’s how I knew. She said those very words—immediate family—and you never say that unless someone has died. I’m sorry, Beth, but that’s the way it is.”

  “That that is, is.”

  Jan smiled sadly. “Yes, honey. Some things are unchangeable. He was swept away. Or buried under debris. We really don’t want to know. The main thing is that Thomas Wood was doing what he loved in a place he found beautiful and fascinating. He must have been happy. In fact, I’m sure he was. Nanny once told me that she got letters from him now and then, and he was enjoying his work and didn’t miss Texas a bit. So, you see? That’s the whole story right there in a nutshell.”

  Jan held the receiver tightly, waiting for her daughter’s response. She tried to picture Beth sitting in some Third World airport, a stranger’s feet resting on her suitcase, her mouth parched, her body exhausted. Oh, why did the child do this to herself? Couldn’t she understand that life was hard enough? You didn’t need to go to Africa to find beauty or heartache, joy or sorrow. Those things were everywhere, all around. Jan hadn’t escaped her problems by marrying John Lowell. Though their marriage was a good one, it had brought plenty of difficulties. And now, after his death, she had tried to flee to Lake Palestine and live in a cottage by herself. But already she had dogs digging up her roses and leaking plumbing…and a daughter who was so angry she had run away from home….

  “Thank you for telling me, Mom.” Beth’s voice was flat. “I realize you don’t want to talk about him.”

  “It’s hard to have it come up after all these years. But, Beth, I love you. I don’t want you to hate me for keeping a secret I believed was for your own good. Please come home again, sweetie. We’ll talk about your work, and you can tell me about Botswana.”

  “I’ll be in London for a few days. Then I have a lot of work to catch up on in New York. After that, it looks like I’m going to France, but maybe there’ll be time. I could try to shake loose another weekend.”

  “That would be wonderful.”

  “Will you tell me more about him?”

  Jan stiffened. “About Thomas?”

  “Of course.”

  “But Beth, he’s dead. That’s why I called you. It’s over. There’s no more to tell.”

  “Mother, it’s not over. I’m not dead. I’m his legacy, and I want to know who he was.”

  “Oh, Beth!”

  “Did you think you could just say my father died in a tsunami and expect me to forget all about him?”

  “Thomas Wood was not your father! John Lowell was the best and most loving—”

  “Okay, Mom, listen, I’m too tired to argue with you. I appreciate your phone call, and I’ll let you know when I’m back in New York. I’m hanging up now.”

  “Beth, don’t do that. Let me try to explain.”

  “I understand. I really do. It’s just that we’re so different. I don’t sweep things under rugs or hide them on back shelves. I don’t have little sayings that wrap everything up in pretty packages with bows on top. Life is my journey. My quest. I want to run the race with eyes wide open—meeting obstacles head on. I’m not going to hide. I won’t pretend. If you want us to be close, you’ll have to understand who I am.”

  “The race? What do you mean by that?”

  “Mother, I’m quoting from Paul. The Apostle Paul. Hang on just a sec.”

  Jan tried to blink back the tears that filled her eyes. She had given birth to Beth. She had raised the little girl with her own values and according to her own ideals. Why didn’t they connect anymore? Jan could hardly make sense of what her daughter was saying these days. And she certainly didn’t understand the motivation for the strange, disjointed life Beth had chosen.

  In the background, Jan could hear her daughter’s voice. “Sir! Hey, sir. Move your feet please. That’s my bag. I need to get something out.”

  Jan thought about this man who was so recklessly using Beth’s suitcase as a footrest. The mother instinct made her want to give the brute a shove! But he was someplace in Africa. So far away it was difficult to imagine. There was no way Jan could protect her daughter. Nothing she could do to save Beth from pain or discomfort or turmoil.

  “Here it is.” The young, confident voice filled the receiver again. “First Corinthians nine, starting with verse twenty-four. ‘Remember that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize. You also must run in such a way that you will win.’ Then Saint Paul goes on to say that we’re running for an eternal prize. ‘So I run straight to the goal with purpose in every step.’ Does that sound like someone who carries secrets around, Mom? If you’re running a race, you can’t have a bunch of baggage weigh
ing you down and tangling your feet.”

  “The image of the race is a metaphor, Beth. You can’t take the Bible so literally.”

  “Yes, I can. Listen to this passage in Hebrews twelve. Talking about the race again. ‘Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily hinders our progress. And let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from start to finish.’”

  Jan leaned back on the sofa and let out a breath. Her daughter was actually carrying a Bible through Africa. Her daughter could find and quote Scripture faster than Jan ever did. Maybe things weren’t so bad. If Beth had her focus in the right place, nothing could go too terribly wrong, could it?

  “Honey, if you’re saying that keeping the knowledge of your birth father a secret was sinful…I’ll have to disagree with you. It wasn’t wrong. And it won’t tangle your feet or slow you down in the race unless you allow it to. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yes, Mom. I hear you.”

  “Good. Then let’s hang up on a happy note.” Jan brushed a tear from her cheek. “I love you, sweetie.”

  “I love you too, Mom.”

  As the phone clicked off, Jan rested her head on the sofa cushion and closed her eyes.

  Beth worked on filling out her customs declaration form as the jet began its descent toward the airport. She would land at Heathrow in London, take a train into Victoria Station, then ride the tube to Bayswater. Finally, she would settle into her usual room at the Sedgwick Hotel. After a long nap, a cup of tea and a stroll around the nearby square, she ought to be in fine form again.

  The British division of the moving company had scheduled a meeting the following morning, which would give Beth enough time to wash and dry one of her knit travel suits, shampoo and shower, get a good night’s sleep and make herself presentable. The London agents understood her position and responsibilities within the organization fairly well, but this meeting would include franchise owners from Denmark, Germany, France, and Holland. Her presentation needed to be clear, concise and persuasive if she were to garner their business for her group.