Tending Roses

by Wingate, Lisa

  Grandma closed the door, shuddering from the morning chill. “Mercy. It is too cold to have that hanging open. I’ll tell you, it’s starting to feel like snow. I hope it doesn’t come a blizzard before Karen and James can get here. That airport was closed for three days last year. Maybe Karen and James should change their tickets and come earlier.” She glanced at the phone as if contemplating calling my sister and ordering her to come before the blizzard hit.

  “They’ll be fine, Grandma.” I pulled out a chair for her, attempting to distract her from the phone. “They’ll be here on the twenty-third. They can’t change their plans now.” The last thing I needed was a week of Karen and Dad at each other’s throats. Four days would be bad enough.

  Grandma huffed at me, but sat down, motioning Dad to a seat beside her. “I just don’t want anyone trying to come in the snow.”

  I rolled my eyes, moving to the coffeepot. “There isn’t any snow, Grandma. The sun is shining and it’s fifty degrees.” I stood staring at the coffeepot, wondering what I was doing there. “Would anyone like a cup of coffee?”

  “Oh, not me,” Grandma answered quickly. “Jackie and I already had coffee out in my little house.”

  A giggle tickled my throat, and I faked a sneeze to keep from laughing out loud. Dad hated it when she called him Jackie. In years past, he had insisted that she call him Jack, and she had complied.

  This time he let the slip pass. “Coffee would be good. Cream, no sugar.”

  I fixed a cup of black coffee and brought the creamer to the table. Nothing was ever done right unless he did it himself.

  We sat silent, listening to the clink of his spoon against the china cup. Even Grandma seemed unable to think of something to say. The clock in the living room struck the hour, and I counted the chimes hopefully. Only seven o’clock. I wondered how I was going to last through a day, much less a week, of tiptoeing around trying to think of something nonconfrontational to say.

  Dad looked up from his coffee. “Well, how has Hindsville been treating you?”

  “Very well,” I blurted out, not wanting him to have the satisfaction of thinking he was right in saying we shouldn’t have come. “We’re glad we decided to come. It’s been good to get away and have some time with Joshua. We’re enjoying the peace and quiet.” In fact, we were thinking of staying longer. “It makes me hate to think about going back to Chicago.”

  Dad squinted hard, as if he doubted what I was saying. “Well, that’s hard to believe. After all the advantages you girls were accustomed to, growing up, that you would find Hindsville so appealing . . .” He paused, perhaps because blood was flooding into my face. Finally he said, “It’s unfortunate that you’ve had to miss all of this time from work.”

  I stared at him, feeling defensive, my temper hot in my throat. “I have a very capable assistant.” Who was practically taking over my job, and probably would if I didn’t get back soon. “Besides, Ben and I needed some time with Joshua. Family is the most important thing, after all. At least it should be.”

  My father shrugged as if he didn’t get my point. “Yes. Unfortunately, family leave isn’t looked on favorably by employers. That is the reality of the world we live in.” He tapped his spoon crisply against the side of his cup, looking completely nonchalant about the conversation, as if he hadn’t an inkling that he was dancing all over my toes.

  Grandma sensed World War III coming on and stepped in like Switzerland. “Katie, did you see my bread rising this morning?” she said.

  I shook my head, taking a moment to register what she said. “Yes, I did.” Her meaning registered also.

  “Why don’t you put it in the oven?” she suggested.

  “All right.” I put the loaves in the oven, then stood there trying to figure out what to do next. I felt as if I was onstage and my father was waiting for me to mess up my lines. I could feel him watching me, criticizing my choices, thinking what a waste it was that his college-educated daughter found a reason to enjoy time at the farm. I wondered if he suspected we were thinking about staying in Hindsville, or if Grandma had been filling him with her ideas about us moving into the farmhouse. I had a feeling there was more to their earlier coffee conversation than met the eye. Grandma was wearing her wooden-Indian look and Dad was on the attack.

  “I guess I’d better get Joshua,” I said, desperate to escape the kitchen. “He was in bed early last night, so he should be waking up about now.” I hurried from the room, making as much noise as I could along the way, so everyone else would get out of bed, and I wouldn’t be trapped alone with Grandma and Dad.

  As I lingered upstairs with Joshua, I heard Aunt Jeane and Uncle Robert getting up, and I silently thanked God for the reprieve. I knew Aunt Jeane would step into the empty spots in our conversations, and Uncle Robert would provide his usual calming influence. Ben would find something to talk to my father about, as he did with everyone, and things would probably be reasonably tame for the next few days until Karen arrived. Then disaster was sure to follow.

  My father’s demeanor had softened by the time I came down with Joshua. The rest of the family had assembled at the table, and Ben was amusing everyone with a description of the Knicks game.

  My father smiled when I sat Josh in my lap to burp him. “Well, hello there, Joshua. Aren’t you a big boy?”

  Joshua watched him intently for a moment, then smiled back, milk drooling down his chin. By the time he had finished his bottle, he had a face only a mother could love. He and Dad were playing peekaboo over and under my arm. It made me laugh in spite of the fact that my father was sitting just over my shoulder.

  I heard Dad chuckle also, and I felt a twinge of petty jealousy. Some part of me felt as if he did not deserve Joshua’s attention.

  I finished feeding Josh and set him in his carrier as I stood up. “Well, I was planning to drive over to Springfield today to do some Christmas shopping, so I guess I’d better get going.” It was a lie, but I didn’t care. I wanted to take Joshua away, to disappoint my father if I could.

  I heard Grandma sigh as I rinsed my plate in the sink. “Oh, Katie, not today. Can’t you stay home with us?”

  I would sooner have driven pins under my fingernails, but I tried to effect a look of regret as I turned around. “I really need to go ahead and get it done. I have to go to the bank and deposit Ben’s check, too. Our bank has a branch in Springfield.”

  Grandma’s face fell like a basset hound’s. “Well, at least leave Joshua here. We’ve hardly seen him, and it’s no good dragging him around shopping. He won’t get a decent nap.”

  “He sleeps great in the car.” I ignored the annoying pang of guilt in my chest and lifted Joshua out of the carrier just as my father was picking up a napkin to continue the game of peekaboo. “He’ll be fine.”

  Ben dropped his hands into his lap and wrinkled a brow critically at me.

  “I suppose he will.” Grandma stood and shuffled to the oven. “I’d better see about my bread. It should be done. Oh . . . shoot. It’s gone flat on top. I guess I’ve forgotten how to make bread, just like everything else.” She closed the oven, her look of sorrow monumental, her eyes glittering with moisture. I knew it wasn’t the bread she was disappointed in. It was me.

  I looked slowly from her to my father, surprised to see that his expression mirrored hers. Then I gazed into the eyes of my son—laughing, expectant eyes, innocent of the power play going on around him.

  Something inside me turned a corner, and I said, “I’ll get him dressed for you before I leave. Make sure he takes his naps today.”

  “We will,” Grandma replied gleefully, peeking into the oven again. “This bread doesn’t look so bad, after all.”

  Ben jumped up from the table and followed me to the door. “I’ll go get dressed so I can . . . uh . . . ride to Springfield with you.” He rolled his eyes as we walked out the door, letting me know he wasn’t enjoying my father any more than I was. “Amazing how much of an expert he is on the architecture business,”
he muttered close to my ear. “He pointed out that I should be sticking with a firm instead of doing structural designs on my own, and I shouldn’t take in detailing work because that’s a draftsman’s job, and it doesn’t pay what an engineer deserves. He’s pretty much of an expert on the architecture business in general.”

  “I’m sure he is,” I replied under my breath as we parted ways at our bedroom door. “He’s an expert on everything.”

  Ben chuckled, giving me a quick kiss, then kissing Josh on the forehead. “That must be why you’re so smart.” Ben had the most amazing way of seeing the humor in things.

  “Very funny,” I said. “Now is not the time to tell me I take after my father.”

  Wisely, he just grinned, shaking his head, and went into the bedroom to get dressed. I prepared Josh like a sacrificial goat, to be turned over to Grandma and my father. Lying on the bed in the corner of the room, he laughed and cooed and smiled at me as if to tell me he wasn’t the least bit worried. I thought of him playing peekaboo with my father at the table, laughing and smiling at my know-it-all dad as if he were the most wonderful thing in the world. I wished I could be that open-minded.

  I wondered when I had closed the door on my relationship with my father. I had vague memories of trying to win his affection as a child—drawing pictures for him and bringing home school projects or report cards. His reactions were never what I hoped for—just a quick acknowledgment of the good things and a honing-in on the things that needed improvement. Then a dissertation on how to make everything more perfect, including myself. Then he would end with something like, “But that’s the best lopsided flowerpot I’ve seen. Next time try starting with a round ball of clay and perhaps it will be more symmetrical. It’s very nice for a girl your age.”

  It doesn’t take very many lopsided flowerpots before you give up trying and go your own way. It happened first with Karen and then with me. Dad never seemed to notice. He became more and more involved in his research work and maintained a long-term hope of turning Karen and me into medical students. When it became clear that wouldn’t happen, we didn’t have much left to talk about.

  Mom ended up caught in between like a rubber band trying to hold a pack of cards together. No doubt she’d clung to her own sense of self-worth through work since our family life was such a shambles.

  When the rubber band breaks, the cards fall and that’s the end of the deck—unless someone comes along and needs to play cards. Then you have to start picking them up and putting them back in order. Right now, we needed to find some family unity. For Grandma’s sake, and maybe for ours, too.

  “It’s a mess, Josh,” I said quietly, pulling his sweater over his head. “What a mess.”

  Joshua knitted his brows, as if he understood the problem, then laid his hand over mine, met my gaze and gurgled a long sentence of baby talk. I smiled and kissed him and finished getting him dressed. Somehow, it’s hard to feel like much is wrong in the world when you’re looking into the eyes of a happy baby.

  When Josh was dressed, I took him downstairs and handed him over to Aunt Jeane with a few instructions about feedings and naps.

  She listened to the list, then handed him to my father and said, “Did you get that? This is your grandson. You and Mother are baby-sitting. I have some visiting to do around town today.”

  Dad sat there looking shocked, holding Joshua at arm’s length.

  I rushed forward to grab my son before he was scarred for life. “It’s no problem. I can take him with . . .”

  Aunt Jeane stood up and barred my path, then put her arm around my shoulders and guided me toward the door. “Things will be fine, Mommy. Stop worrying. Have a nice day shopping. Grandma and your dad can handle it.”

  “But I . . .” I glanced desperately at Ben, who was standing by the door.

  “Go ahead.” Aunt Jeane shooed me away as if I were a bothersome dog hanging around the porch. “You two have a nice time. Grandma can call me at Wanda Cox’s if she needs me.”

  “Yes, that will be good,” Grandma chimed in, giving me the bum’s rush. “You go ahead. We’ll be fine here with little Jackie.”

  If Dad noticed the slip in the name, he didn’t show it. He sat Joshua on the table in front of himself and began clumsily making goo-goo eyes. I stood there for a minute watching, wondering who was this man who had kidnapped my son.

  Finally, I followed Ben out the door, shaking my head. “Was that my father?” I muttered as we walked to the car.

  Ben raised his hands, palms up. “It looked like him. I guess the ol’ Bowman male charm works on anyone.”

  A tremendous sense of anxiety gripped me as we got in the car and started down the driveway. “I think we’d better stay.” My mind started whizzing through all sorts of terrible scenarios of what might happen while we were away. “What if Josh gets sick or something?”

  Ben shook his head and pulled onto the road. “Kate, your father is a doctor.”

  “But he doesn’t know about babies. He won’t know what to look for.”

  “Kate, Josh is fine.” He glanced at my hand on the door handle. “You’re not going to bail out going fifty miles an hour, are you?”

  Pulling my hand away from the door, I clenched it into a fist and pounded it into my lap, frustrated. “I should have stayed home. I shouldn’t have said I needed to go to Springfield today.”

  Ben grinned as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “Those little white lies just get bigger and bigger, don’t they?”

  “I didn’t know they were going to steal our child!” I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the seat. “I’m acting like a baby, aren’t I?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “You’re cute when you act like a baby.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel any better.”

  “Sorry. How about if I play the radio?”

  “Good idea.” I opened my eyes and stared out the window, watching the miles roll by.

  By the time we reached Springfield, my emotions were no longer at hurricane strength. Ben and I managed to have a pleasant day, even though we learned at the bank that one of Ben’s clients hadn’t wired payment as promised, so our account was in dire straits. Even with the deposit of the new paycheck, there wasn’t much left for Christmas shopping, so we just enjoyed walking around the stores, looking at the decorations and planning what we were going to buy for Christmas when the money wire did come in.

  We called home only twice, and Grandma assured us both times that everyone there was having a wonderful day. I told her not to worry about cooking, that we would bring home something for supper. Among all the other horrible images in my mind was one of her blowing up the house while we were gone.

  On the way home, Ben stopped by the church to send an e-mail about the late payment that had curtailed our Christmas shopping. Then I suggested we write a Christmas message and send it out to our friends, or straighten the office, or finish Ben’s reports. Anything but go home.

  “Can’t put it off forever,” Ben teased. “They have a hostage. We have to go back.”

  “Curses.”

  “If you hadn’t given them our son, we could be in Bora-Bora by now.”

  “Now, there’s an idea.” I slipped into his arms, resting my head on his chest.

  “Oh, it’s not that bad.” He said it as though he believed it. “The rest of the family isn’t even here yet.”

  “Thank you for that helpful observation.” I pushed away from him and reached for my purse, resigned to the idea of going home.

  “Always glad to help.” Grinning, he snatched the car keys off the desk. “Let’s go by the Chuckwagon and pick up some supper. It’s catfish night.”

  “Good idea,” I said, walking down the steps. “My father hates fish.”

  That thought brought back a memory that made me laugh. “I’ll never forget our one and only deep-sea fishing trip. My great uncle, Ruben, invited us on his boat. Dad thought he was a big expert on oce
an fishing because he used to fish on the farm when he was a kid, and he’d read a few books about bay fishing and bought all new tackle. He wouldn’t let Uncle Ruben give him any advice or loan him any tackle, and he kept giving Uncle Ruben advice from the books he’d read. Anyway, my father didn’t catch anything all day, and Uncle Ruben caught a boatload of red snapper.”

  The memory came back with startling clarity. I could see Uncle Ruben grinning over his basket of fish while my father sat empty-handed with a pasted-on smile as Mom took a picture. Laughter tickled my stomach and coughed from my throat until I could hardly finish the story. “That was the . . . last . . . vacation we ever took . . . with Mom’s family.”

  Ben laughed with me. “Well, I’ll make sure to ask your father if he wants to go fishing tomorrow.”

  We laughed together as we drove up to the drive-through at the Chuckwagon and ordered a gigantic basket of fish.

  Dad was sitting in front of the fireplace with Joshua when Ben and I walked into the house. Neither of them noticed us, and I watched for a moment, amazed to see my father splay-legged on the floor with Joshua propped in his lap. Dad was stacking blocks, then making gorilla laughs when Josh knocked them down. I had had no idea he was capable of such folly. I had pictured him teaching my son how to decode DNA.

  “Hi, guys,” I said, announcing our presence. “Where’s Grandma?”

  To my surprise, my father merely glanced at us, then went back to building block towers. “In the kitchen. Oh, oh, noooooooo! It’s King Kong.” Blocks flew everywhere, Dad made monkey sounds, and Josh flailed his arms, laughing hysterically.

  I watched a look of joy pass between them. Apparently Josh could work his magic on anybody. My sophisticated, intelligent, educated father was hypnotized.

  The strength of the spell became clearer as the evening wore on. My father turned into someone I had never seen before. I wondered where all of that love and worship and interest had been hiding when Karen and I were children. If he had ever felt anything but disappointment and disinterest for us, he never showed it.