Tending Roses

by Wingate, Lisa

  She stood for a moment, then turned and shuffled away, muttering, probably not to me, about finishing her Sunday school lessons.

  Shifting Josh onto my hip, I called after her as a peace offering, “Do you need me to drive you to town later so you can turn in your article?”

  For just an instant, she stopped, and it looked as if a treaty might be signed. With a humph that was audible across the room, she continued on, calling back to me, “Oliver will come for me.”

  Watching her disappear into the back room, I knew I had no future in diplomacy. I had succeeded in getting her away from the mopping, but I was now lower on her list than old Oliver Mason. And I had, most certainly, not impressed Aunt Jeane.

  Aunt Jeane just sighed and shook her head. “My point exactly, Kate.” She uncrossed her arms and watched Grandma go. “She is just impossible these days. She’s lost her mind. Why in the world would you want to subject yourself to that?”

  Looking at the doorway where Grandma had disappeared, I shook my head, wondering if I was out of my mind, too. “I don’t know,” I said, because I couldn’t possibly explain the way my feelings had changed since I came to the farm. “I just know it’s the right thing to do.” I couldn’t find the words for everything that had happened over the past weeks, and I didn’t want to. “After I feed Joshua, I’m going to town to see what’s keeping Ben,” I told her. But the truth was, I just wanted to get out of the house and clear my head. I was starting to feel as if I was crazy and everyone else in the family was sane.

  I needed a reality check, so I called Liz at work. It was good to hear the receptionist answer. For just an instant, I had the sensation of being back home in Chicago.

  “Hi, Andrea,” I said. “This is Kate. Is Liz in the office today?”

  “Well, hi, Kate!” Unfailingly enthusiastic and perpetually cheerful, Andrea could talk faster than any person I had ever met. It was a running joke around the office. “We haven’t heard from you in a while. How’s everything going out there in the boonies? How’s your grandmother? Is she feeling better? John Ducamp called earlier today and wanted to talk to you. He wouldn’t let me put him through to Dianne. He said he wanted to talk to you. I sent you an e-mail. Did you get it? I hope he’s not going to withdraw his support. You know, that audit thing came out in the paper, and it’s made a mess of things around here, but I don’t know if that’s what Ducamp called about. He said he’d be out of town for a few days, but you could call him next week.”

  Andrea paused for a breath, and I quickly cut in. “I’ll call his office and leave a message that I’m trying to get in touch with him. In the meantime, tell Dianne not to worry about it. I know Mr. Ducamp pretty well. I’m sure I can reassure him that nobody’s mismanaging from his endowment. Great, this is just what we need at the end of the year.” My head started spinning with office business, and I almost forgot why I had called. “So . . . is Liz in the office today?”

  “Oh . . . ummm . . . no, she’s downtown. She’s down working on the stuff for the audit. I can page her for you.”

  “No. Don’t bother.” I suddenly felt like an idiot for calling in the middle of a workday to talk about my grandmother. The past weeks had turned my brain to Jell-O. I always hated it when people interrupted my workday with personal business, and now I was the one interrupting. “I can talk to her later.” But I probably wouldn’t. The fact was that she couldn’t possibly understand, anyway. She didn’t know Grandma, and she didn’t know the farm, and she hadn’t read Grandma’s book. Liz was in another world—one where things were mostly black and white. In my family, there was nothing but gray area. All the normal guidelines were a blur.

  “. . . all went down yesterday and looked at the Christmas trees, and watched everybody skate on State Street . . .” I realized that Andrea was still talking. “The trees are positively gorgeous this year and all the decorations are amazing, better than last year. They must have about a million lights down there on the buildings and in the trees. Too bad you’re not here. Yesterday, the Vienna Boys’ Choir was in town performing, and they were just wonderful. We listened to the concert while we ate lunch, and we were saying that you would have liked it.”

  “Sounds like I would have,” I said, picturing all that she was describing and suddenly feeling as if I were back home, where things were safe and uncomplicated. “So, did Mr. Halsted send everyone free tickets to The Nutcracker again this year?”

  Andrea laughed, and the sound strengthened my memories of home. I could remember that giggle echoing through the office at least a dozen times each day. Everyone said it carried like a bugle. “Yes, he did. We went last Friday, and it was too fun. Dianne, Liz, Kristen, and I shopped at Bloomingdale’s last week for dresses, but you know Liz was the only one who could afford a dress there, so the rest of us just scrounged. I wore last year’s. I figured nobody would know the difference. Besides, I was pretty happy to know it still fit. Anyway, the ballet was great, and Halsted had the whole section again. Paul even went this year.”

  “Wow,” I muttered, trying to picture my boss, a died-in-the-wool analytical type, at the ballet. “I’m sorry I missed that. It would be good to see him loosen up a little bit.”

  Andrea giggled again, then whispered into the receiver, “He claimed he didn’t enjoy it, but he was swaying with the music all the way through. I think he’s a frustrated ballerina.”

  That made me laugh out loud. “Now I’m really sorry I missed it.” A strong twinge of homesickness pinched me unexpectedly. I felt like a kid left out of the playground games.

  “Well, we thought about you. I took some pictures. I’ll send you some . . . Oh, well, I guess no point in that. By the time they get there, you’ll be back from vacation.”

  I didn’t reply, just sat silent, wondering where we would be when Christmas was over, and thinking that my time at the farm seemed more like a life event than a vacation. It was as if I’d been gone from Chicago for months. . . .

  “Oops, the other line’s ringing.” Andrea’s voice cut short the silence. “It was good talking to you, Kate. I’ll let Liz know you called.”

  “Good. Thanks.”

  “We sure miss you around here.”

  “I miss you guys too. It was good talking to you, Andrea.”

  Good didn’t describe it. It was an experience in altered reality, a temporary teleportation back to Chicago. “ ’Bye.”

  I hung up the phone, keeping my eyes closed for just a minute, pretending I was on the other end of the phone shopping at Bloomingdale’s and watching the skaters on State Street. I had a strange sense of missing all the things that a few moments ago I had thought didn’t matter.

  I felt a little like a wishbone in a tug-of-war. Stay or go, town house or farmhouse, executive or stay-at-home mom, glitzy downtown Christmas or Christmas pageant in Hindsville, ballet or dancing on the front porch with Ben and Josh. Go home and let Aunt Jeane move Grandma to St. Louis, or stay and try to help Grandma keep the farm. Forget what I learned about her over the past weeks, forget I read her book, forget about the fragile things and the yellow bonnets and the times when the roses grow wild . . .

  Or listen and try to change.

  Sometimes life moves so fast, the road splits in an instant, and you only have a heartbeat to decide which way to turn.

  Right or left . . . fast or slow . . .

  My head started spinning again, so I gathered up Joshua, told Aunt Jeane good-bye, and headed for town to find Ben—just to talk, I wasn’t sure about what. I wanted somebody to tell me I wasn’t going crazy. That staying with Grandma for months wasn’t an insane plan that would ruin us all. It seemed strange, because I’d been so sure a day ago. One dressing-down from Aunt Jeane, one argument with Grandma, and one phone call to Chicago and I was doubting it all. Maybe I wasn’t as sure as I thought.

  When I walked past the little house, Grandma was sitting on the porch, huddled over a meal of Dinty Moore straight from the can. Undoubtedly, the cold stew was intended to m
ake me feel guilty for driving her from the big house—and it worked.

  “We’re headed to town to see what’s keeping Ben.” I stopped on the path and held Josh up like a peace pipe. “These are the little booties you made for him. Aren’t they cute?”

  “Y-yes.” A feeble voice and one squinty eye rose from the can of Dinty Moore. “Don’t let me trouble you. You go on about your business. I’ll be fine.” She huddled over her lunch and looked at me no more, her aged hands barely able to raise the spoon to her lips.

  Swinging Josh onto my hip, I vacillated in place a minute, then decided to try one more time. “Are you sure you don’t want to go with us?”

  Setting the can on the table next to her, she looked forlornly down the driveway, and I knew I was playing right into her hands. “No.” She gave a terrible sigh. “I’ll ride with Oliver.”

  “We’ll see you later then,” I muttered, giving up. I wasn’t sure what she wanted me to say, anyway. I certainly wasn’t going to apologize for trying to make her follow her doctor’s orders.

  I just walked away and left her there, sitting round-shouldered in the rocking chair, gazing down the driveway looking sad and lost. She was still there, in exactly that position the last time I checked over my shoulder as we drove away.

  I wondered if the expression wasn’t completely contrived.

  Driving the winding road to town, I thought of how it must feel to be unable to do the things you’d done all your life, how frustrating it would be to have to ask for help when you were accustomed to doing for yourself—as if you were a child again, only as a child you know you’ll grow out of your problems. For Grandma, the problems would only grow larger, the list of forbidden activities longer, the need for help greater. She was like a prisoner in a cell with the door slowly being boarded shut.

  Rage against the dying of the light.

  Now I understood those words. Grandma was angry with the passage of time more than she was with us—frustrated with her own body, and the fog in her thoughts, and her doctors telling her what to do, and her children trying to take away what was familiar.

  I thought about her as I wound down the hill into Hindsville. I thought about how many times she must have descended that hill over the years, in the old Buick, in Grandpa’s old farm trucks, in a horse-drawn wagon before that. I thought about how familiar and comforting that view must be to her—the same town, the same gazebo, nearly ninety years of memories. Her feelings for Hindsville and the farm had to be so much stronger than mine for Chicago. Hindsville was the backdrop for her entire life. Chicago was little more than a ten-year career for me, some friends, and a sterile west-side town house that still didn’t have pictures on the walls or furniture in the dining room.

  The two places didn’t compare. If I felt homesick for Chicago, how would Grandma feel when she was taken away from Hindsville—from the house with pictures on all the walls and furniture older than any of us?

  My reasons for wanting to stay started coming back to me as I pulled into the church parking lot and took Joshua, sound asleep, from his car seat. I started feeling grounded again, rooted in family history and the familiarity of the place.

  I touched the church cornerstone with my great-grandfather’s name carved in, as I passed. This place not only held Grandma’s history—it held mine. . . .

  From somewhere inside, I heard Ben’s laugh and Joshua stirred on my shoulder, then sighed and fell asleep again. Opening the door quietly, I saw Ben sitting on one of the benches in the lobby, talking to Brother Baker. I stood in the entry and watched them for a moment, surprised to see them laughing and conversing about basketball like a couple of old friends.

  The sound of the door shutting caught their attention, and Brother Baker stood up, looking guiltily at his watch. “Well, I should have started on my home visits a half hour ago. How are you this afternoon, Kate? Oh, boy, look at that sleeping baby. I’ll tell you, we sure have enjoyed having your husband around here. This church is too quiet most of the time.”

  I nodded, thinking that it would be nice to have Ben at home instead of hanging around town. “I could send Grandma by a little more often to liven things up.”

  Brother Baker laughed, then blushed red. “No, ma’am, that’s all right. A little Grandma Vongortler each day is about all this old building can handle.”

  The three of us laughed.

  “I’ll tell her you said that,” I joked.

  Brother Baker turned another shade of red and shook his head. “I guess I’d better get going on my rounds before she shows up and puts me on the path of the righteous.”

  We told him good-bye, and he headed out the door, in an unusual hurry, I think, because he expected that Grandma Rose was right behind me.

  Ben rolled his head from side to side, yawning. “Where’s Grandma?”

  “At home.” I sat beside him on the bench, thinking that I should explain to him about the fight and why Grandma wasn’t riding to town with me today. I knew she would be telling her side of the story to whoever would listen as soon as she got to town. “I made her mad and she wouldn’t come to town with me.”

  Ben looked as if he’d just bitten into a sour persimmon. “What happened?”

  The accusatory tone of the question put me on the defensive. “I caught her mopping the floors, and I told her to quit.” I threw up my hands in frustration. “We got into a fight right in front of Aunt Jeane. If Grandma doesn’t stop acting like that, they’ll be shipping her off to the nursing home on the next boat. I’m telling you, she could outstubborn a mule!”

  Ben thought that was funny. “You two should be a good match.”

  “Ben Bowman, you’d better wipe off that smile. This is not funny.”

  He cleared his throat and made a pathetic attempt to rid himself of the annoying grin. “Sorry. You’re right. It’s not.” Reaching behind himself, he pulled a folded-up newspaper from his back pocket and dropped it across my knees. “But you might want to read your grandma’s newspaper column before you lock her in the dungeon for being a crotchety old lady.”

  Confused, I picked up the four-page Hindsville Register with one hand while balancing Josh with the other. The paper was neatly folded to the Baptist Buzz, by Bernice Vongortler.

  This year, the Lord has indeed blessed us with the most bountiful harvest I can recall. Looking out upon the wheat fields and the hay meadows, I am often reminded of how much things have changed in my sixty-odd years as a farm wife. I am brought in mind of progress when I see fields planted in the blink of an eye and harvested with the touch of a button. Steel arms and hydraulics have replaced the strong arms of men, and one man can do the work that once required neighbors to come together. Where once we needed one another, now we need no one.

  I think of my first threshing season as a farm wife, of men in plaid shirts and soiled overalls cutting the wheat, of women in flowered cotton dresses and starched white aprons laying billowing red-checked tablecloths over yard tables, and I wonder if this modern way is better. Perhaps the Lord did not wish our harvest to be easy. Perhaps hard work was a gift to gather us together.

  This brings me in mind of something that was recently brought to my attention. While many of us are sitting down to bountiful tables this Christmas day, there will be families and shut-ins in our midst who will not have even the most basic Christmas meal. I remember the young boy on the mount who gave his meager basket of bread and fish and found that it could feed thousands. I have been wondering if perhaps the Lord did not create this challenge so that friends and neighbors might come together to share from our own harvests so we might feed the souls and the bellies of the hungry in our community this Christmas day.

  In this hope, the Senior Baptist Ladies’ Group will be organizing a workday at the Church Annex building on Wednesday, December twenty-third, beginning after the lunch hour. All who would like to gather are welcome and should bring canned corn, cranberries, and dishes of dressing. Shorty’s Grocery has graciously agreed to donate twe
lve turkeys in the hope that many Christmas meals can be cooked, packaged, and delivered by those of us who have been given the ability to do so.

  As we gather on Wednesday, I know we old folks will be blessed with memories of threshings, barn-raisings, hayings-in, and holidays past. I believe it is good for us to share these experiences with the young people who drive today’s tractors through the fields, reaping harvests in solitude, so they might understand what we once knew—that the volume of crops brought in is not the only measure of a harvest.

  I sat staring at the paper for a while, then swallowed hard and cleared the tremors from my throat. “Now I really feel bad for picking on her.”

  Ben patted my knee sympathetically, chuckling under his breath. “You should. She’s a saint and you’re an ogre.”

  “She could turn a saint into an ogre,” I joked, handing him the paper. “I don’t think I’ll ever figure her out. I guess I should smooth things over with her when she gets into town.”

  Ben gave me an evil sideways grin. “Aw, let old Oliver chase her around for a while. It’ll put her in the mood to make up. Just get it all settled before the twenty-third so we can get in on some of that turkey dinner.”

  “Ben, you’re awful,” I said, and shook my head at him, wondering if perhaps he understood Grandma Rose better than I did.

  Chapter 10

  WHEN I found out why Ben had stayed so long in town, I felt doubly like an ogre for complaining about him to Aunt Jeane. Ben had spent most of the morning helping Brother Baker clean out a storage shed behind the church and, in the process, had ferreted out several boxes of Christmas decorations, which Brother Baker said he was welcome to borrow. He sparkled like a child with a new toy when he showed them to me and described his plans to decorate the farm for the upcoming holiday. Apparently, Aunt Jeane wasn’t the only one who had noticed that the farm was lacking in Christmas cheer.