“I’m sure Grandma has church members lined up to help,” Karen chimed in.
Aunt Jeane nodded and started to say something, but I beat her to it.
“It is a big deal!” I heard my voice echo down the hall again, even as I wondered why I was getting into a red-faced fit. The fact was that the Christmas meals would get made with or without my family. “It’s a great big door-die deal, and if everyone doesn’t go, she’ll be upset all day, and we’ll hear about it for—”
“Kaaaaaa-teeee?” Grandma’s voice drifted from the kitchen like the shriek of a crow. I realized she’d probably heard me yelling. “Stop that kibitzing and come help me with these pies. It isn’t good to complain about doing the Lord’s work. I don’t hear anyone else in there complaining.”
Mouth hanging open, I coughed indignantly, looking toward the door.
Ben cleared his throat to hide a chuckle, and Karen rubbed her lips to conceal a smile. Even my father raised his newspaper to hide his face. Finally Aunt Jeane burst out laughing, and everyone in the room joined in. Before I knew it, I was laughing with them, and Joshua was bouncing and squealing in Ben’s arms. It felt good, all of it. At least until the general hollered from the kitchen again and spurred the troops into action.
Twenty minutes later, all of us stood in the kitchen like soldiers in the Salvation Army. Grandma inspected the pies and the soldiers and smiled, looking well pleased.
“It’s wonderful what a family can do all together,” she said, a blush coming into her cheeks and her eyes moistening. “And it’s wonderful to have family in the house again.” She moved down the line we made, squeezing our hands and touching our cheeks, saying, “It’s just wonderful, just wonderful,” again and again as she walked out the door.
We smiled at each other, forgetting the football game and the voice-mail messages, the leftover work from the office and the long day of travel, as we followed Grandma out the door to do good in the world.
Sometimes when you’re doing good for other people, good things happen to you, too. A measure of amazing grace came over my family as we entered the old church building and began filling Styrofoam containers with Christmas meals to feed the hungry. As we worked at a long table together, we talked and laughed. Dad and Aunt Jeane, together with old neighbors and childhood friends, recounted events from their years in Hindsville. The rest of us laughed and listened, and started to understand some things we hadn’t before.
Grandma Rose finished straw-bossing in the kitchen and came to check on us when the level of conversation at the meal-packaging table became audible across the room.
“Well, I never thought I’d end up back in Hindsville, either,” Wanda Cox was saying, chuckling, as if at some private joke. “Now, once upon a time Jeane and I were going to join the Baptist Mission and go to Africa. Remember that, Jeane?”
Aunt Jeane shook her head, looking confused.
Wanda slapped her on the shoulder, slinging corn kernels across the table. “Oh, yes, ya’ do. Remember, those handsome young fellas came and spoke about the Baptist Mission at church camp, and we just thought that was the ticket—we’d go off to Africa and live in a tent like modern-day pioneers. Or maybe we just thought we’d get a date with those young fellas. Remember? Your daddy took us over to Dr. Schmidt’s and had him show us the needles he’d have to use to give us our overseas shots, and next thing I knew I fell dead-out on the floor.”
Aunt Jeane threw her head back. “Oh, my goodness, I do remember that now. I ran out of that office so fast, and—”
“And that was the end of our Baptist Mission careers,” Wanda finished, and everyone burst into laughter.
When the laughter finally quieted, Grandma slipped into the conversation, “Well, I remember having big ideas myself.” She elbowed her way to the table and started slicing bread. “When I was fourteen, I went off to live with a well-to-do lady in St. Louis, on the recommendation of our minister at church who knew my family was sorely in need of money and one less mouth to feed. I was to watch this lady’s children and keep house for her. Over time, that lady could see I wanted better, and she helped me move on to a good job at Woolworth’s.” She paused and glanced up at us, smiling. “Oh, I loved that job. All those fancy things, and money coming into my pocket. I started to buy some things that I’d always dreamed about. Lands! I thought I had it made. After a little more than a year, I was set to move into managing a department.”
Shaking her head, she sighed and went back to slicing bread. “But then my father took sick, and I came home. I had to use most of the money I had saved to put a new roof on my parents’ house and buy some things my brothers and sisters needed, but I was glad to do it. My family was welcome to all that I had.” She frowned, looking far away and a little sad. “I took a job here in town at the dry goods store. My brother asked his friend Henry if he would drive me back home from work at night because my family had no car, and of course, Henry and I went to sparkin’ pretty quickly and wound up getting married.
“But, you know, I always thought about what big things I might have done if I’d have stayed in St. Louis.” She laughed, just barely, a soft sound of faintly exhaled breath, like the fading of a dream in the first moments of morning. “But now I think, while I was fretting over missing those wonderful big things, I let a lot of good little things pass by me unappreciated.” She held the knife above the bread and looked at each of us very directly—Aunt Jeane and Uncle Robert, Karen and James, Dad, Ben and me. “That’s the problem with people. We’ll starve to death looking over the fence when we’re knee-deep in grass where we are.”
A pang of regret went through me, and I looked away from Grandma and went back to putting squash into plastic containers. I didn’t know quite what to say. Apparently no one else did either. Everyone worked silently for a while until Wanda Cox finally filled the silence with a story about the time my father led the freshman boys’ basketball team to district victory.
I stared at my father, amazed that he had ever played basketball, or any other sport. I noticed Karen listening with similar amazement, and I wondered if she was having the same sense of otherworldliness that I was—as if the man blushing at the other end of the table could not possibly be the father we had always known.
My father, for his part, looked as if he were being tortured, and when the first batch of meals was ready, he was quick to volunteer to go with Uncle Robert to make deliveries. Ben and James left shortly afterward, taking Dell with them so they could drop her at home with her Christmas meals. Those of us remaining at the table descended into harmless girltalk, which continued until the last of the meals were packaged. As we worked, I listened to Karen’s laughter and thought again of my mother. In the waning light from the ancient stained-glass windows, she could have been my mother . . .
I suddenly felt a strange sense of joy that my sister had come, that all of them had come. Inside me, I kindled a hope that all of these years apart, all the water under the bridge, had worn away our rough edges, smoothed us like pebbles in a streambed.
The last of the evening light faded as we finished carrying the final meals out to cars for delivery. In all, we had prepared Christmas meals for more than fifty people who would otherwise have had none. Grandma looked exhausted but satisfied as she climbed into the Buick with Aunt Jeane and Karen to deliver a few meals and then take Joshua home for his bath and a bottle.
I leaned into the car and kissed him before closing the door.
“We’ll take good care of him, Mom,” Aunt Jeane reassured me. “Ben and James are probably home by now, so I may drop Joshua and Grandma at the house before taking meals out to Mr. and Mrs. Owens.”
Grandma raised her chin. “No, I’m fine. I want to tell Mrs. Owens thank you for the flowers, anyway.” She reached out the door and patted my hand. “Thank you for staying behind and helping Wanda clean up. I hated to see her do it all by herself.”
“That’s all right,” I said. “We’ll probably be done in an hour or so.
I’ll see you at home.” Something funny struck me as I backed away and the odor of turkey and dressing wafted up from the trunk of the car. “You know, after being elbow-deep in turkey all day, Christmas dinner isn’t going to look very appetizing.”
Karen, half asleep in the backseat, muttered, “I think we should have ham for Christmas.”
Aunt Jeane chuckled and put the car into gear, backing away as I walked back into the church to help Wanda finish cleaning the last of the dirty dishes.
Wanda Cox and I worked for over an hour, and when the job was done, she gave me a ride back to the farm. We sat for a few minutes in the driveway as she finished telling me a story about her granddaughter; then she hugged me as if she’d known me forever.
“Now, ya’ll have a merry Christmas,” she said, looking me in the eye and patting my arm. “We certainly are glad to have you and Ben here, Kate . . . and the rest of the family, of course. It sure has been a good thing for your grandmother. I haven’t seen her with so much color in her cheeks in months. I’ll tell you, she had just about dried up to nothin’. It’s a good thing ya’ll came home this Christmas. I think it was just what she needed.”
“I think so, too,” I agreed, wondering at the fact that Wanda seemed to have no inkling that the family had come to move Grandma Rose to a rest home. I wondered what she would say if she knew, but I didn’t have the courage to ask. “Tell your family Merry Christmas for me,” I said finally and opened my door, letting in the winter chill. “Thanks for the ride home and all the stories. I enjoyed it.”
“Me too.” She smiled, and I had the sense of having made a friend. “Ya’ll have a good night. And, Kate . . .” She paused, as if she had something she wanted to say, but she wasn’t quite sure whether to let it out.
“Yes?”
“If there’s . . . well, nothing. Just if there’s ever anything I can do to help you or your grandmother, let me know.”
“I will,” I said, wishing there were something she could do to help. “Thanks.”
“ ’Bye, Kate.”
“ ’Bye.” I closed the car door and stood watching her drive away, wondering if she knew why the family had come, after all. I wondered if everyone in town knew, and how they felt about us. I thought about how lucky Grandma was to live in a place where so many people loved her and cared about what happened to her—where people were willing to go out of the way to take care of her.
I thought about how wrong it was that her family wasn’t willing to do the same. Sometimes it’s easier to have sympathy for strangers than it is to have sympathy for your own family. Which isn’t right. But that’s the damage a long trail of bitterness can do. It dulls the way you look at people—like a wash of watercolor black that makes everything look darker than it is.
The car disappeared onto the road, and I turned and walked into the house. In the kitchen, Ben, Aunt Jeane, Uncle Robert, and Grandma were engrossed in a game of Scrabble that looked as if it had been going on for some time. James was looking over Grandma’s shoulder and whispering ideas in her ear.
I enjoyed watching my family do something so normal, so harmless and peaceful. It was good to hear them laughing together.
Ben glanced up from studying his letters and motioned to me. “You’d better sit down and help me. I’m getting massacred already.”
The competitive look in his eye made me chuckle. He really didn’t want to lose. “Where’s Josh?” It was still about a half hour too early for him to be in bed.
“Upstairs with your dad,” Ben answered hastily, rubbing his hands together and setting his letters on the board. “There, zephyr! How do you like that?”
Shaking my head, I left him to gloat and went upstairs to check on Joshua. I found my baby curled with my father in the rocking chair, his face resting on Dad’s shoulder and his soft blue eyes looking drowsily around the room. Karen was sitting cross-legged on the single bed in the corner. Both of them looked up as I came into the room, the expressions on their faces unreadable.
Seeing them together made me stop, my heart frozen in my chest. Swallowing hard, I broke the silence. “If you two are going to fight, I want to take Josh out of here.”
Josh raised his head at the sound of my voice, and Dad brought a hand up as if to hold me away. “Joshua is fine. Your sister and I are not fighting. I have some things I want to say to you girls.”
Crossing my arms uncomfortably, I came forward and sat on the edge of the bed. All the warm hopes I had kindled throughout the day went cold. The look on Karen’s face told me she was ready for a confrontation. My father’s expression was stiff and emotionless, like a mask.
I sighed, wishing I were somewhere else. “You know, it’s been a pleasant day. Do we have to spoil it now?”
Karen shrugged and said nothing, just sat cross-legged with her elbows resting on her knees and her eyes fixed on my father. She seemed to be waiting for an answer to a question. I wondered how much they had talked before I arrived. I wondered whether it was she or Dad who had started this conversation and why they couldn’t just leave things alone.
Suddenly, I wished we could just pretend our way through Christmas, find a way to keep Grandma on the farm, then go back to our separate lives again, the wounds not healed, but not any deeper either.
Dad paused for a moment, settling Joshua on his shoulder and carefully selecting his words. He looked first at me. “I gave a great deal of thought to what you said the night I arrived, Kate. Karen seems to feel much the same way you do about your upbringing. Somehow, I have been painted the monster in all of this, and I feel it’s time I set things straight.” Another long pause followed before he added, “I feel that your mother and I received very little gratitude for all of the things we gave to you and your sister. However, I do now realize that you are right in saying we were selfish with our time.” His face became less earnest, more stoic.
Beside me, Karen shifted impatiently and started to speak, but Dad raised a hand to silence her.
I hugged my arms around myself and kept silent, waiting for his latest line of defense and wishing we weren’t having the conversation at all.
He paused again, then went on. “I want you to understand, both of you, that it was not because we lacked love for our children.” He looked away from us and out the window, as if the expressions on our faces were too painful to bear. “It is an easy pattern to fall into when you are young. You want so many things, and you want to prove yourself to the world and be successful. Success doesn’t come unless you work hard for it, give your time to it, but children grow up whether you spend time with them or not. It’s easy to look at your children and convince yourself that everything is fine, that you’re giving them enough. Everything looked fine with you two. You were healthy and smart. You earned good grades. You didn’t give your mother and me any trouble. We were proud of the two of you. We thought we’d been good influences, showing you how to achieve, how to be successful. We didn’t really see that there was anything else we needed to do. As time went on and you grew up, we drifted more and more into our own lives.”
He trailed off, staring out the window, perhaps into the past at two brown-eyed girls he never knew. “I don’t know any better way to explain things. A great deal of your life just happens to you. It isn’t a conscious decision at the time, and you end up somewhere you never planned to be.”
We must realize that they are going on the only road they can see. . . .
Grandma’s words played in my mind, and I glanced sideways at Karen.
She shrugged, looking unconvinced. “I want to know why Mother died,” she said flatly, as if we were conducting an investigation. “Aunt Jeane told me Mom called her that morning crying because the two of you had been fighting and she told you she wanted a divorce. I want to know why you left her there in that state of mind to drive herself to the airport.”
Dad closed his eyes and rested his head against the back of the chair. “Your mom had wanted the two of us to fly out and see you. You had j
ust told her you were pregnant and asked if she would come. She was concerned about some of the symptoms you described on the phone, and she wanted to leave that day.” He opened his eyes and looked at Karen, and I felt as if I were disappearing from the room. “I had critical FDA meetings that day about a research project, and I told her it would have to wait until I could clear some time, or else she could go by herself. The discussion got heated and escalated into talk of a separation. We were both frustrated and emotional. In the end, I walked out on the discussion.” He closed his eyes again, lines of pain cracking the mask on his face. “I didn’t want to be late for work.”
I looked from Dad to Karen, my mind racing. My mother had asked my father for a divorce? Karen was pregnant before my mother died? In all these years, I’d never known. What had happened to the baby? I sat silent, invisible, like the air in the room.
Karen’s gaze swept the ceiling like a searchlight, as if the answers might be written there, but her jaw remained in a tight, determined line that said there were no acceptable answers. “I was so angry when she called to tell me she might not be coming that morning,” she said. “I said the worst things I could think of.” The words were a statement, emotionless. “I was in the hospital when James told me Mom died. I had just lost the baby, and the doctor had told me I could never have children. I was so filled with bitterness. I hated her for driving too fast, and I hated you for getting her upset, and I hated both of you for not getting on the plane that morning when I needed you.”
Looking at Joshua, I imagined myself lying in a hospital with emptiness inside me where he had been, facing the idea that I could never have children. Grief and empathy washed over me, and I reached for Karen’s hand without wondering how she would feel about it. “Karen, you should have told me. At Mom’s funeral . . . I had no idea . . .”
Tending Roses Page 21