My bitterness ebbed as I watched my father kiss Josh and lay him, almost asleep, in his crib. I knew what Aunt Jeane had said was true. They had a right to spend time together. Josh did not care if I harbored ill feelings toward my father. He cared only that a funny man was building block towers and making him laugh. As he grew older, he would call that man Grandpa, or Grampy, or Papa, and they would be special to each other.
“That’s quite a boy,” my father whispered as we walked down the stairs.
“Yes, he is,” I said, strangely grateful that we now had something to talk about.
We entered the living room, and I realized that Grandma, Ben, Aunt Jeane, and Uncle Robert had disappeared while we were upstairs. Their absence was undoubtedly contrived, and I was unhappy with Ben for going along with it.
Dad took the fireplace tool to spread the logs on the fire so they would burn out overnight. “I want to thank you for leaving Joshua here today,” he said.
“You’re welcome. It looks like he enjoyed it.” I wanted to finish the conversation and get out of the room. My emotions were unstable, and I wasn’t ready to have a meaningful exchange with my father.
Firelight illuminated the side of his face, making him look old, not like the steadfast image I remembered. He seemed harmless now. “We both enjoyed it. I’m sorry I waited so long to come.”
I knew he was reaching out, but I couldn’t respond. I stood there choking on a lump made of bitterness, disappointment, and all the unhappy years that had passed between us.
He stared into the fire, but he knew I was still there. “Kate, nothing I’ve done in my life was meant to hurt you or your sister. I did what I thought was right at the time.”
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.
“That’s what we’re all doing, Dad.” Pride coiled around my throat like a snake, and I couldn’t say the things I really wanted to. “It’s just a shame we’ve done so much damage to each other in the process.”
He dropped his head into his hand, rubbing his eyes. “I don’t understand your anger. Your mother and I did our best to give the two of you everything.”
Bread, like a good life, can only be created by honest measure. . . .
My emotions broke through the gag and spilled into the room. “You didn’t give us yourselves, Dad. We were four strangers living in a house together—baby-sitters, day camps, summer camps, separate vacations, separate schedules, separate lives. You don’t understand the way I feel because you don’t know me.”
These were the words I had wanted to say to him all my life, and he only looked into the flames and shook his head.
“Maybe you’re right.”
It was the first time he had admitted I was right about anything. It was a victory from which I felt no pleasure.
I didn’t know what else to say, so I left him there and went to bed, feeling as if the chasm between us would never be breached.
In the morning we acted as if the conversation had never taken place. At least we were somewhat more civil to each other. Dad refrained from commenting about Ben and me wasting our lives. That, in itself, was a success. Perhaps it was the best I could hope for.
Ben, for his part, was gracious with my father, as he was with everyone. It was not in his nature to hold grudges.
I suppose he would have been better than me at following Grandma’s bread recipe.
Aunt Jeane and Uncle Robert joined us late for breakfast, and we greeted them as if we were starving refugees and they were the Red Cross. Uncle Robert was quickly overwhelmed and slipped away, looking for a place to hide, but Aunt Jeane stepped into the fray like General Patton. She entertained us with stories about the folly and funny comments of fifth graders. Her anecdotes were a lesson in human nature. As usual, she did well at putting us in our places.
As the days went by, all of us seemed to find our places, and we needed less of Aunt Jeane’s mediation. We were strangers who were finally getting to know one another, defining our ground, learning not to step on one another’s toes. By the fourth day of my father’s visit, we were pretty good at avoiding all of the subjects that stirred up tension. Which didn’t leave much to talk about. Dad spent a lot of time with his laptop computer at the kitchen table, and I began working on my files from the office at Grandma’s old Hoosier cabinet because it was by the phone. The arrangement kept Dad and me in the same room, which seemed to give hope to Grandma and Aunt Jeane.
Dad was working on his computer with rapt interest when I finally got in touch with Mr. Ducamp about his endowment and the reports in the newspaper that the foundation was being audited and the accounting practices questioned. I turned my shoulder to my father, wishing he wasn’t there to hear about the sloppy management of foundation funds. Just one more thing for him to criticize.
The conversation with Mr. Ducamp turned into an exercise in verbal footwork. From the corner of my eye, I could see Dad glance at me, interested but trying not to show it.
His interest bolstered my determination to succeed in keeping the Ducamp endowment. I also felt a strange touch of ego gratification that he was paying attention to what I was doing.
“Well, the fact is, Mr. Ducamp, that the endowment was in no way attached to the coal emissions study. Your funding, as we agreed last year, has been used to support the study on MTBE oxygenate levels in the drinking water supply. The study is still ongoing and is within six months of releasing findings. If you pull your support now, I don’t know if we will be able to conclude the study. I guess I’m asking you personally to stay with me on this one. It’s looking like our findings are going to be vastly different from the EPA’s. We’re finding much higher oxygenate levels in many lakes and underground wells. It’s critical that we finish the study and publish the results.”
Mr. Ducamp sighed on the other end of the line, and I knew I had won the battle. He agreed to continue funding the study, and even increase funding slightly if it would speed up the study results. I thanked him in every way possible, then wished him Merry Christmas before hanging up. A rush of success tingled through my body like a dose of adrenaline.
“Yes!” I cheered, forgetting for a moment that I wasn’t alone.
“I take it you were successful.” I couldn’t see my father’s face, but there was a note of admiration in his voice that made me feel good.
“Yes, I was,” I replied, feeling larger than life, on top of the world, master of my own destiny. “That funding is for an important study on gasoline additive contamination in the drinking water supply. We’re finding high levels of MTBE in—”
“There it is,” he muttered, as if he hadn’t realized I was talking, or didn’t care.
“Anyway, this study is coming up with fascinating findings and—”
“Um-hum. That’s good. Well, I know nothing about all this environmentalism.” Translation: I don’t care and I’m not interested in hearing any more.
“Well, the study is very important anyway.” Why I felt compelled to drive home my point, I couldn’t say. Suddenly I felt like a little girl again, trying to make him notice my report card.
“No doubt.” He reached for his pad and scribbled something on it. “I have a good friend at the American Cancer Society. Here is his number. You could put your fund-raising skills to good use there.” Which translated as: You’re wasting your time on a meaningless cause where you are. Which was how he had always felt about my studying environmental science.
“I already have a cure for cancer,” I snapped, feeling like a wounded little girl again and angry with him for spoiling my triumph.
He glanced up, cocking a brow incredulously.
“Stop gas additives from getting into the drinking water supply,” I shot at him, then turned and left the kitchen without waiting to see whether or not the arrow hit home.
Aunt Jeane met me in the hall. One look at my face, and she deflated like a balloon with t
he air let out. “What now?”
“He got on my nerves, that’s all,” I said, taking a deep breath and counting to ten. “I just salvaged a major endowment, and he made sure to tell me that environmental work is a waste of time, and he can help me get a real job.”
Aunt Jeane winced. “Oh, Kate, you know he doesn’t mean it that way.”
I spat a puff of air, and realized I sounded just like Grandma.
Aunt Jeane looked worried. I knew what she was thinking. Christmas Eve was just two days away and my sister was arriving tomorrow. When she did, our fragile detente might come tumbling down like a house of cards.
Aunt Jeane braced her hands on her hips and took on a look of determination. “Well, the two of you can talk about it on the way to Springfield. Remember, you promised you would go with your father today and help him buy Christmas gifts.”
I stared at her with my mouth open, choking on a lump of pride that wouldn’t let me go back into the kitchen and politely ask him to go shopping. “I . . . but . . . you . . . you go.”
Aunt Jeane laid a hand on my arm and turned me toward the kitchen. “I would, but I promised Mother I would spend some time with her today. There’s a special ladies’ meeting at the church later this afternoon and it’s important that I take her.”
I grimaced, knowing Aunt Jeane wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“Please, Kate,” she urged. “You know he didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. He’s just . . . hopelessly insensitive. Just try to be a little thicker-skinned.”
Sighing, I lowered my face into my hand and rubbed my eyes. “All right, but only for you, Aunt Jeane.”
“Good girl.” She patted my shoulder. “Think of it as a chance to finish your Christmas shopping.” She slipped four one hundred dollar bills into my hand as if I were a teenager going on a date.
“Buy some things and let them be from Santa Claus,” she whispered.
“Aunt Jeane,” I admonished, handing the money back to her. “I don’t need you to give me money.” Which wasn’t exactly true. The money wire still hadn’t come in, and Ben and I had only managed to come up with two hundred dollars of mad money. It wasn’t much to buy Christmas presents for everyone.
Aunt Jeane pressed the money into my jacket pocket and stared me down with Grandma’s blue eyes. “I didn’t say you needed money. I just asked if you would do some shopping for me . . . er, Santa Claus.”
“All right,” I said, knowing that no one but she and I would ever know the identity of Santa’s banker. “Thanks, Aunt Jeane.”
“Santa Claus.” She winked, then shooed me out the door. “Hurry up. The day’s wasting. Take all the time you want. Don’t worry about Joshua. Ben just saw an ad in the paper for a live manger scene at Pearly’s Pecan Farm, and he wants to take Joshua there to see the animals. I think Uncle Robert, Grandma, and I will go along. I haven’t been out to Pearly’s in years.”
I paused in the doorway, wanting to delay the inevitable. “I thought Ben had work to do today,” I protested. I couldn’t imagine my father and me together for so many hours without Joshua to provide an area of neutrality. “I could take Josh with me.”
As usual, she knew what I was up to, and she shook her head resolutely. “Oh, no. Ben wants some daddy time with Josh, and your father needs help with his Christmas shopping. Works out perfectly for everyone.” She shooed me toward the door. “Go on now. Have a nice day shopping.”
So I did. I grudgingly asked my father if he was ready to go Christmas shopping. He agreed pleasantly, as if he had no idea he’d put me in a rotten mood a few minutes before.
He got his coat and we walked to the car in a strange sort of silence.
Watching him from the corner of my eye as he turned the car down the driveway, I was struck by how strange it felt to be alone in the car with him. Searching my memory, I could not recall a time when just the two of us had gone somewhere together.
We drove without speaking until we were well out of Hindsville and almost halfway to Springfield.
“It’s a nice day,” he said finally.
“Very,” I agreed. “Grandma is still sure there’s a snowstorm coming for Christmas.”
He chuckled. “She’ll probably get her way about it. You know your Grandma doesn’t take no for an answer. She used to drive me out of my mind when I was young. I couldn’t wait to grow up and get out from under her thumb. I wanted to get away from that farm so bad I could taste it.”
I looked at him, not knowing what to say. It was hard to imagine him ever young, or under anyone’s thumb, or living on the farm for that matter. “You’re not the farming type, Dad,” I said finally.
Chewing his lip thoughtfully, he gazed at the winter-browned Ozarks. “Actually, I enjoyed the farming to some degree. I was good at tinkering with the tractors and machinery. It was all the rest of it I could not stand—having my mother and father over my shoulder all the time, working and never having anything, never doing anything different. Everything on the farm seemed so small and unimportant. It seemed as though, if I stayed there, my life would be a waste, and then I’d wake up old. I thought if I got away, got an education and an important job, my life would mean something.”
“Well, I guess you were right,” I said bitterly, wondering why his children didn’t figure into the equation of life’s meaning. I wondered if we were one of those small, unimportant things.
He went on as if he hadn’t heard me. “But you see, Kate, that was why I didn’t want you and Ben to come to the farm. I knew Grandma would work her emotional blackmail on you. She is an expert at loading on the family guilt.” He glanced at me, then quickly focused on the road, sensing another fight brewing. “It wasn’t my intention to hurt your feelings. I just wanted to prevent the two of you from getting tied up in all of this. It isn’t your responsibility. Staying here will be a step backward financially for you and ultimately an unhappy experience for you. Both of you have too much going for you to become tied up in Grandma’s web.”
His praise only poured salt in my wounds, and I turned to him with my eyes stinging. “In the first place, Grandma Rose isn’t a responsibility—she’s a person. Her feelings should be considered, not just what is convenient for everyone else. I’m sure Aunt Jeane has told you by now that Ben and I are thinking of staying here for a while longer. If we replace some of the appliances and put in some timers and safety devices, I think she’ll be able to stay on her own again when we have to leave.”
He shook his head, cutting a hard look in my direction.
I rushed on before he could give me all the reasons why that was a bad idea. “Staying here may not be right for you, or Karen, or Aunt Jeane, or anybody else, but maybe it’s right for us, and maybe it’s right for Grandma, and maybe it’s right for Joshua. He’s still so little. I want us to have some time with him, and I want Grandma to have time to fully recover from her stroke.”
“Well, that’s commendable.” His voice was flat and emotionless. “But what happens when you have to go back to the real world?”
“I don’t know. We can deal with that when the time comes.”
“Grandma will still be in the same situation she is in now, and the same decisions will have to be made.” He said it as if it didn’t bother him at all, as if we were talking about getting rid of a used car.
“Maybe not. Maybe she will be better by then.”
“It isn’t likely, Kate.” I could feel him looking at me, but I stared out the window. “Grandma is going downhill, and we all know it. She could have another stroke at any time. You have to face that fact.”
“No, I don’t.” I crossed my arms over my chest, glaring at him. “Right now, she is fine and she’s happy at the farm. You can’t predict the future and neither can Aunt Jeane. Maybe things will work out conveniently for you, and three or four months from now, Grandma won’t be around for you to worry about. Then we’ll all go back to doing what we did before.” It was the worst, the cruelest thing I could say. I wondered what
it was about my father that turned me into someone I didn’t recognize and didn’t like.
He jerked his head back, looking shocked, then stared at the road ahead and clamped his lips into a tight, pale line, ending the conversation.
After that, we stuck to safer subjects, such as tree species and rock formations, Christmas decorations and Joshua’s wish list. Dad made me laugh with a story about the origin of the Red Rider BB gun Christmas ornament, and how the gun and hatchet that came with it had been confiscated the next spring when he snapped Grandma’s clothesline, sending the laundry into the mud where the pack of farm dogs used it for tug-of-war. I could picture Grandma standing over the wringer washer afterward, issuing instructions as my father scrubbed and bleached each item.
And so the day went by, not unpleasant, but not a point of epiphany in our relationship either. Both of us chose to leave the conversation about Grandma unfinished, but I knew the final discussion would come when Karen arrived and the whole family sat down together. So far, no one seemed to be on my side . . . except Grandma. And she didn’t get a vote.
Aunt Jeane probed me for information about the day when we were in the kitchen together fixing supper that night.
“We got the shopping done,” I told her. “Not much else.” I didn’t tell her we had talked about Grandma. I didn’t want to give her any more ammunition.
“That’s good,” she said, loath to admit that she had hoped for more of a reconciliation between me and my father. Maybe she had been hoping he would sway me to their position about Grandma. “You didn’t get time to talk?”
I pretended to concentrate on chopping an onion—convenient because it gave me an excuse to cry. “Not much. He told me how much he hated life on the farm, and he couldn’t believe I liked it. I got aggravated. That was pretty much it. After that, we talked about trees.”
Aunt Jeane bent over the stew pot, gazing in as if she were reading tea leaves. “Well, you have to understand. Your dad had a lot to prove when he left the farm. He was the only son, and Grandpa planned on his taking over the farm someday. When he went away to study medicine and then moved to Boston to live, Grandpa was pretty bitter. They never had gotten along too well, and that just made things worse.”
Tending Roses Page 19