Still thinking about her, I slipped into bed and fell into a dreamless sleep. When I woke, the sun was bright and the morning mist had already evaporated from the bedroom windows, telling me I had slept late. I lay trying to decide if I had been awake at dawn and seen Grandma, or if it was merely part of my dream. I wondered if she would remember and could tell me.
I didn’t hear anyone in the house, so I dressed, then headed for the coffeepot. No one was in the kitchen.
The phone rang just as I was finishing breakfast. It was a woman from the insurance company calling to tell me they were refusing another claim, but if I wanted to, I could certainly send it in for re-review. But this item was definitely in excess of coverage limits.
“This charge was preapproved,” I protested, thinking of all the years Ben and I had paid for insurance and never used it. Now that we needed it, it wasn’t paying. “I already talked to Cynthia Bell about this last week. She assured me this would go through.”
“Ma’am, I don’t have authorization to . . .” And so we went through the usual drill. I knew it so well that I didn’t even have to listen anymore. When it was over, I hung up the phone with a slam, feeling as if I wanted to rip it out of the wall.
It rang again, just as I turned to walk away. I hovered for a minute, considered not answering it, then finally picked it up.
Ben was on the other end, and I was so glad to hear his voice, I instantly felt better. Then I realized that, if he was calling, he wasn’t coming home that afternoon.
He made small talk for a minute, then got around to the point. “So, I thought I’d stay an extra day here. Bill and Carl are in town, and James has tickets to the Knicks game tonight. I can get a flight home tomorrow.”
I rubbed the bridge of my nose, trying to smooth away the rising screams of protest in my head, but they came out anyway. “Well, you know what, Ben? This is the third time you’ve called to tell me you weren’t coming home yet. Frankly, I’m a little sick of it.”
“Come on, Kate, it’s just one more day.” He sounded self-righteous and offended. “What’s wrong with you?”
A list ran though my mind, but I simplified it down to, “I could just use a little help here. In case you’ve forgotten, Aunt Jeane is coming day after tomorrow. The house isn’t clean, there’s grocery shopping to do, and I still have files I need to go through for work. They called me again today needing those grant applications. The insurance company called with another rejected claim that I’ll have to protest. That means more paperwork. We have no Christmas shopping done, and there’s a four-month-old baby upstairs who has to be fed, burped, diapered, fed, burped, diapered, unless he’s sleeping, and then there’re laundry, dishes, dirty bottles to wash, and food to fix. Josh could use a little more attention, and every time I turn around, you’re either gone or you have your face in a computer.” The truth, too long bottled up, spewed forth like venom.
“What, so now I’m a bad father?” His voice was angry and indignant. “You know, someone has to make a living here. I can’t do that if I’m sitting home baby-sitting. I thought we both agreed the most important thing right now is get the stupid hospital bills paid off.”
Tears crowded into my eyes. It seemed as if we were thinking in two different universes. “No, the most important thing right now is our son. It seems as if you should want to see him more than you want to go to a Knicks game with your friends.”
Ben scoffed as if I were being idiotic. “Let’s not make a federal case out of this. It’s just one day. I’ve already changed my flight and I’ll be back in town tomorrow around noon. I’ve got to go by the office at the church for a while. Then I’ll be home.”
“Before midnight, I hope,” I said, wondering how we were ever going to see eye to eye on raising our son. To me it was everything; to him it ranked behind a Knicks game and stopping at the office.
Josh was growing up without Ben even seeing it. I wondered if it seemed wrong to Ben that he didn’t know how to quiet Josh when he cried or what to feed him when he was hungry. Ben’s own father had always been away from home struggling to build a business, and I wanted more than that for Joshua. I thought Ben did too. He had been every bit the proud, expectant father before Josh was born. But when Josh finally came home from the hospital, tiny and frail, needing special monitoring and extra medical care, Ben backed away, and I let him. I was afraid to let anyone help with Josh’s care, even Ben. Now I was wondering if things were ever going to change.
Ben finally broke the silence on the line. “I don’t know what you’re on my case about. The check from this job is going to make the payments for this month. We needed the money.”
“I know that,” I said quietly, trying to keep the tremor from my voice. I didn’t want him to tell me I was getting overly emotional. My frustration with the realities of our life came spilling out. “I’ve been thinking maybe we should cut down our expenses. Get rid of some”—boats, memberships, house plans, car payments—“things. I was thinking of only going back to work part-time. I could probably stay with the foundation part-time and still keep my insurance. I could do a lot of work from home—set up an office in the den, maybe.”
Silence again, and then, “I don’t see how that’s possible financially.” Another pause, during which he covered up the phone receiver and talked to someone else. When he finally came back, I could tell he was ready to end the conversation. “Everybody’s waiting for me in the lobby. I need to go. Stop letting Grandma get you all emotional, all right?”
I exhaled my disappointment and said good-bye because I could tell there was no reason to keep talking. He was probably right, and besides, I should have waited until he was home to bring it up. But time was running out. In a couple of weeks, I was supposed to be back at work.
The screen door slammed outside, and I dried my eyes, then sat at the table with my cup of coffee.
Grandma gave me a suspicious look as she came in the door, nose tipped upward as if she had scented trouble. She looked pale and chilled, and there was dirt on her hands.
“Grandma, you shouldn’t be working in the yard today,” I said as she washed her hands at the sink. “It’s too cold, and you know Dr. Schmidt said light exercise only. Your blood pressure is still too high.”
She batted a hand behind her back, shooing me away like a nagging insect. “Yes, yes. I was only cleaning the leaves out of the flower bed.”
“And you shouldn’t be doing that,” I insisted. She’d been sneaking into the yard for days and doing things she wasn’t supposed to. She was determined that everything would be perfect for the family’s arrival. “Leave it for Ben and me to do.”
Pouring a cup of coffee, she tipped her chin up stubbornly and walked to the table to sit down. We sat silent for a while, and then she asked, “Was that Ben on the phone?”
I glanced up from my coffee cup, wondering how she could have heard the phone ringing from outside. “Yes.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “Did you have a tiff? I heard yelling.”
I stared at the swirling liquid in my coffee cup, getting the mortifying image of her listening at the door while Ben and I argued over life’s realities. “No.”
Grandma made a tsk-tsk sound, and from the corner of my eye I saw her shaking her head as if she knew better.
I put the best light on it I could. “It was nothing major. He wanted to stay another day and go to a Knicks game with his friends and I wanted him to come home.” Then the truth spilled out. “I just get aggravated because he doesn’t make any effort to help with Josh. Everything else is more important.”
Grandma made the tsk-tsk sound again, shaking her head at me. “Give him some time. Men are selfish creatures. Sometimes it takes a little while for them to adjust to the demands of fatherhood.”
A dozen snide replies ran through my mind. I didn’t like her making excuses for him. I had to adjust to the demands of motherhood the moment Joshua was born. Why should Ben be allowed six months to step up to the plate?<
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“I just don’t feel like talking about this,” I said finally. No sense hollering at Grandma. It wasn’t her I was mad at.
“Oh, I could tell you stories about your grandfather,” she went on. “He had been living here alone for twenty years when I married him. Now, there was a man who was hard to break in. And stubborn! Oh, he was stubborn!” She glanced from the corner of her eye to see if I was listening. “Of course, back then, we womenfolk just went on and did the best we could because we didn’t know any other way.”
For a moment I thought I was going to get the lecture about how spoiled young people are, but she fell silent, as if she had lost her train of thought. Her hand slipped from my arm and she folded it in her lap, staring out the window. Finally, she said, “I don’t suppose women do that anymore. I think that is some of what is wrong with families these days. Raising children is an occupation of self-sacrifice, but these days young people don’t want to give anything up.”
I felt the need to defend myself. “I don’t want Josh to grow up feeling like he’s a sideline occupation. I was thinking that we could cut back our expenses, give up some luxuries, and both have more time with him. But the truth is, when I go through all the figures, it doesn’t seem possible. Even if we give up the boat and the idea of a bigger house and get less expensive cars, I’m not sure we can make it.”
Grandma laid her hands on the edge of the table and looked at me for a long time, her eyes clear and sharp. “It sounds like you have a good idea, but you are lacking in faith.”
“It isn’t that simple,” I said, and my vision for the future dimmed until I could barely see the picture. “Even if it were, I don’t think Ben is willing.”
“Oh.” She nodded, as if she had suddenly gained a profound understanding of things. “Well, you won’t make progress by fighting with him on the phone, that much I can tell you. It takes time to turn a heart, and it cannot be done with hard words. I lived nearly forty years with your grandfather, and that was the most important thing I learned.”
I rolled my eyes, feeling like a teenager getting my first dating advice. “I wasn’t trying to pick a fight. He’s just so . . . self-centered sometimes. He only listens to about half of what I say, and I’m just . . . sick of it. It’s just frustrating.”
She smacked her lips, nodding again. “A man has his own way of thinking. Sometimes it is hard for us womenfolk to understand.” She smiled, patting my hand. “Give things a little time. Be patient, Katie. Everything doesn’t have to work itself out today.”
“I’ll try.”
“Good girl.” She stood up abruptly and shuffled to the coat hook, wrapping her coat around her shoulders. “I have some things to do in my little house.”
“All right,” I said, wondering at the infinite changes in her moods. She seldom seemed able to maintain a conversation.
She wrapped her scarf loosely over her silver hair, tucking the corners into her collar, then opened the door. “You know, there is a big house here with no payment due on it,” she said, stepping into the winter chill. “I don’t mind staying in the little one.” And then she walked out the door, leaving me stunned in her wake.
I sat there for a minute waiting for her to come back and recant what she had said, because I knew she couldn’t possibly mean what I thought she meant. The idea of Grandma giving up her house was almost as outrageous as the idea of us moving into it permanently.
But she didn’t come back, and finally, I just shook my head, put my coffee cup away, and then went upstairs to get Josh and take him out for a walk.
The day was brisk, but it felt good to be outside in the fresh air and sunshine. I walked past the field of long winter wheat and watched the cattle moving lazily about, their backs turned to the wind. I pictured my father and grandfather working there, turning up the black earth, planting seed, harvesting, and planting again. I wondered what they had been like together, if they had understood each other, or if they had battled as we were battling now.
I thought about my conversation with Ben again, and that sense of frustration twisted inside me like a rubberband, winding tighter and tighter, until I couldn’t stand to think about it anymore. Be patient, Grandma had said. But time was running out. Christmas was almost here, and then it would be over, and we would be back to our old lives, so busy that there wasn’t time to think about changing things. . . .
A cold wind blew across the field, tugging at our coats, chasing away my thoughts. Turning away from the wind, I pulled Joshua’s hood tighter around his red cheeks and walked back to the house.
The kitchen was dark and quiet. Grandma was nowhere to be found, which was odd at lunchtime, but I figured she had exhausted herself working in the yard and had fallen asleep in the little house. As I hung my coat on the hook, something familiar caught my eye beside the row of old blue and white porcelain canisters. Grandma’s book.
I didn’t waste time considering whether or not it was right for me to read it. I went to it like an old friend.
Breaking.
I thought about what she had told me earlier and wondered if the story would be about my grandfather.
As a young woman I had a deep and abiding love for all living things. Farm life was joyous for me, as there were so many animals to care for. I was fond of each of them, especially the young ones, and in particular the horses, perhaps because I had so loved the carousel.
When we married, my husband purchased two draft mares and said that we might raise a pair of foals each year to sell. Money was scarce in those Depression years, and the purchase of the mares was a terrible risk. I knew he was pressed by the need to support a wife and the children that would come.
My heart was filled with guilt for the burdens I had brought by coming to our marriage penniless. I sought to do penance by giving special care to the mares and fretting over their stalls and feeding. On the early spring nights, I rose from my bed to watch for signs of foaling and sat with the mares when the time came to bring the young ones into the world. My hands were the first to touch the foals as they struggled, still damp, into life.
Summer found me slipping away from my farm labors, passing time in the company of the horses. In my stolen moments I watched my little Kip and Dutch run through the tall grass or sleep among the Queen Anne’s lace. I was as proud of those foals as if they were my children, and they loved me as much as their own mothers. I coaxed them to it with bits of sugar and melon rinds. My husband thought me foolish and said I would spoil them, but I knew better. I was determined that they would learn to find comfort, not fear, in the touch of a human hand.
Winter came, then spring and new foals. Kip and Dutch were yearlings and ready for harness breaking. I shall never forget how it was begun. I watched, banished to the house, as they were bound with ropes and strapped into the belly harness. Wild with terror, they rose, running and bawling, falling and crashing into the fences. Sweat and foam covered them as my husband mastered them with the pull of the ropes and the slash of the black snake whip. Wildly, they struggled, until they had no more strength to fight.
I hid myself away in the house, but I could not escape the thunder of his voice and the crack of the black snake. My heart was filled with anger. It is there still—a tiny blackened place only I know, like a bruise deep within an apple.
I did not speak of it to him. He never knew what was in my mind. I did not know what was in his. I do not believe that he intended to cause me pain, but that he knew no other way of breaking horses. His thoughts were ruled by the work that needed to be done, while mine were ruled by the feelings of my heart. In the end, the result was the same. The horses were trained and sold, and our lives went on. Each year, our union endured the breaking of the horses. He became as gentle as his work would allow, and I as hardened as my heart could manage. What we cannot change, we must endure without bitterness.
Sometimes we must try to view the actions of those around us with forgiveness. We must realize that they are going on the only road they
can see. Sometimes we cannot raise our chins and see eye to eye, so we must bow our heads and have faith in one another.
Looking through the window, I watched the little house. I wondered if Grandma was thinking about me, or maybe just sleeping away the noon hour in her chair.
Turning to the book, I read the last line again. Sometimes we cannot raise our chins and see eye to eye, so we must bow our heads and have faith in one another.
It was a good lesson—one I had tried to master before, but it was like a big fish on a thin line. I couldn’t quite get it into my grasp. Maybe I was making life too hard by trying to get Ben to see things my way. Maybe I needed to be a little more accepting of him and have faith that he was getting through the best way he knew how. Josh’s premature birth, the ongoing medical problems, and all the hospital bills weren’t easy to deal with. Maybe I just needed to be patient and have faith that we would somehow find our way.
What we cannot change, we must endure without bitterness. . . .
The screen door slammed on the little house outside, and I jolted from my chair, setting the book on the counter where I had found it and glancing out the window. Grandma was crossing the yard with a gardening apron strapped over her coat and a pair of rose trimmers in her hand.
She seemed not to notice as I descended the steps and stood next to her while she pruned the branches from a rosebush. I wondered if she was afraid I’d tell her she should be in the house resting.
“It’s kind of cold out here,” I said finally.
“I just thought I’d give this bush a quick trimming.” She ignored my observation. “Normally, it is best to trim them back in February, but I’m doing this while I can this year. Always trim the small stems away and keep the old wood so the bush will sprout there next year. Like this. That way the new blooms will be larger.”
“All right.” I wondered why she was talking to me as if she didn’t expect to be able to prune the roses herself. “Are you feeling O.K.?”
Tending Roses Page 10