Something familiar caught my eye beneath the lamplight. I stretched out my hand and touched the pressed wildflowers on the cover, just to make sure I wasn’t imagining the book’s presence. Grandma hadn’t forgotten it, after all. A sense of joy filled me, and I picked it up, sitting on the chair beside the bed and opening to the first page.
The Snow Dancers, it said, and I thought of the silent Christmas snow that Grandma Rose had willed into existence. Warmed by the memory, I read the handwriting, now faint and drifting downward across the page.
Winters were long and deep when I was young, a slumber during which I held close to my family, huddled against cold, and darkness, and hunger. With my young brothers and sisters, I slept on a mound of quilts by the old black stove in that ancient white house where the wind howled through like a marauding ghost. At night we sat by the dim hearth and thanked the Lord for the meager blessings of our table.
Ofttimes we had only fried cakes for our supper. Buck flour sold at twenty-five cents each bag, and in those lean days it was the only means by which my father could feed so many mouths. Many nights he stood over the heavy black stove, his shoulders stooped from a long day of selling firewood. He mixed the flour with milk, or water when there was no milk. We watched, hungry for better things, but grateful for what we had. We knew the pain of empty stomachs and were thankful for each night we went to bed with food in our bellies.
My mother seldom took care of the household work. The hardships of birthing so many had left her bitter and frail in her thoughts. She was not born to a life so filled with want. Winter, with its dark, silent storms, made her sullen and quiet. She sat alone in the oak rocking chair saved from a rich man’s rubbish, and sang quietly, nursing the youngest of us in her arms, weeping from the burdens life had brought her.
I often heard her rise with the babe late at night when we were all in our beds. The sounds of the baby nursing, and of the rocker creaking, and of my father sleeping nearby, were sounds of comfort for me.
I remember a night when she called to us so suddenly that we jumped from our beds. We went to her hesitantly, nervous and afraid, for we were often uncertain of her. We found her not in the rocking chair, but standing in the blue spill of moonlight from the eight-paned windows. She did not scold us, but gathered us round her knees and stroked our tangled heads with gentle fingers.
“Look, children,” she whispered so that my father would not hear. “The snow dancers have come out tonight.”
Looking out, we saw them with our own eyes, tiny fairies of ice, no larger than grains of sand, dancing and twirling like diamonds in the moonlight. My mother told us how she often watched the snow dancers from the big house she had lived in as a child—before she came from the old country. Before she became a wife and a mother of so many. She told us how the snow dancers only came at special times, when the moonlight was like spun silver and the snow touched with magic.
Tugging at her hands, we begged to go among the snow fairies. She smiled like an angel, then bade us dress in our warmest clothes, but quietly so our father would not hear, for he did not believe in such foolishness.
When we were dressed, she wrapped our heads in white flour-sack towels to keep the dampness from our hair, and we dashed from the prison of the old white house—away from the scent of coal oil and buck-flour cakes. Stretching our fingers, we ran through the glittering air, catching the snow fairies, passing through them and sending them swirling on the smoke of our breaths. Laughing, we unwrapped our linens and let them billow from our hands as we ran, twirling and dipping, floating on the moonlit breeze, as light and free as the snow fairies themselves.
I looked back at my mother as the dampness fell on my hair, but there was no hint of scolding in her face. She stood by the frosted window glass, the baby asleep in her arms. As I watched, she closed her eyes, and she danced in and out of the window light, swirling and dipping, unaware of the burden in her arms, free and light as the snow dancers.
Setting the book on the table, I sighed and laid my hand over Grandma’s, wondering what I was going to do without her and thinking how sad it was that we had waited until these last months of her life to get to know each other. She had so much to teach me, but time was running out. I could hear it in the raspy sound of her breathing, feel it in the icy coolness of her hand.
Closing my eyes, I thanked God for the time we had been given together, and I prayed for one more thing—the last thing, I felt, she wanted to do in her life.
Please, God, let her live long enough to see her roses bloom once more.
Chapter 17
THE family came home at the end of April to be with Grandma on her ninetieth birthday. She had suffered another small stroke two weeks before, and her pneumonia was ongoing. For the most part, she drifted in and out of sleep, waking sometimes in the present, sometimes in the past. Occasionally, she confused Ben with my grandfather and me with her sister, Maggie, but mostly she was aware of who we were. All of us knew she would not be with us much longer. Dr. Schmidt said she was holding on by will alone.
I knew she was waiting for the roses.
The day of her birthday, the first of May, dawned bright and perfect, with a warm spring breeze and a cloudless blue sky. The irises were bright around the edges of the yard, and the roses were opening their first blooms. Grandma woke feeling well, so we wheeled her out to lie in a big chaise longue, and we held a birthday party in her rose garden. For those few hours, with friends, family, and neighbors around her, she was more alert than she had been in weeks. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkling as we raised glasses of lemonade to toast her.
After the toast, someone in the crowd called out, “Hey, Mrs. Vongortler, tell us the secret to a long life.”
Looking into the crowd, Grandma set her lemonade aside. “I need more time to figure it out.” She laughed at her own joke, and everyone chuckled with her. “I don’t know about a long life, but I can tell you the secret to a happy one, and it isn’t what you young people think.” She raised her lecture finger, and we all fell silent. “The secret to a happy life is not in getting what you want. It is in learning to want what you get. Don’t waste your time crying over what you’re not given. When you have tears in your eyes, you can’t see all the beautiful things around you.” She swept her hands, fingers curled and trembling, to the rose garden, then let them fall into her lap, the pleated line of her lips curving into a quivering smile. “That’s all I know, after ninety years.”
The guests rose into a cheer, and we toasted her wisdom, then cut the birthday cake, a beautiful, three-tiered affair covered with icing roses, courtesy of the Baptist ladies. Before it was gone, Grandma fell asleep in her chair. She protested when my father tried to take her inside, so we left her where she was. The party went on around her, children laughing and chasing among the flower gardens, parents conversing, and old people recounting stories from the past. It was, we decided, exactly the kind of birthday party Grandma Rose wanted.
The family stayed for the rest of the weekend after the party. Their visit and the birthday party seemed to recharge Grandma’s spirits. While we were all together, we had talked about Ben and me staying at the farm, and she was satisfied that the place would remain the heart of our family. I started to hold out hope that she might be experiencing a recovery.
The day after the family left, she sat in the kitchen feeding cracker bits to Josh as I washed and put away the good dishes. The last of the evening light faded from the windows as she told me an old story about Grandpa buying their first electric washing machine. It was almost too dim in the kitchen to work, but neither of us turned on the light. To do so would mean it was time to close up the house and admit the day was over. That transitional time of evening always made me lonely if Ben wasn’t home.
I think it made Grandma miss Grandpa.
“Is the power out?” Ben’s voice surprised both of us.
Grandma started, knocked her cup of water off the table, and uttered a word that w
asn’t usually kosher around the house.
“Grandma!” I laughed. I’d never heard her curse before.
She grinned sheepishly, then grabbed one trembling hand with the other and placed them both in her lap, looking frustrated. “I’ll repent in church on Sunday.”
We laughed as Ben walked in the back door, setting his papers and a jar on the table. The jar twinkled suddenly to life.
Grandma leaned forward to get a better look. “What is that?”
“Lightning bugs,” Ben said. “Dell handed them to me on the porch. She said they were for Joshua. Then she took off for the river path like a bat out of he—”
“Benjamin!” Grandma admonished with a sobering glare. “Don’t curse in front of the baby.”
Chin dropping, he looked at me and pointed at her back.
I couldn’t do anything but shrug my shoulders. Grandma’s rules usually applied to everyone but her.
Picking up the jar, Grandma stared at the twinkling lights inside. “Aren’t they beautiful?” Her voice was as quiet as the air in the kitchen. “I didn’t know there were any left.”
Ben and I exchanged questioning glances. The yard was alive with lightning bugs every evening, and tonight was no exception.
“What time of the year is it?” Grandma was mesmerized by the lights in the bottle. Setting them on Josh’s high chair, she sat beside him, watching.
“It’s only May, Grandma.”
“Oh,” she muttered. “Then I guess there would be. Look at how pretty they are, Jackie.”
Wide-eyed, Joshua reached out and touched the glass, a tiny hand exploring the wonder of tiny things.
Spellbound, I sat down at the table and watched Joshua discover the magic that was beyond the circle of glass. Ben sat beside me, as rapt as I. The air around us was silent, as if the farm were holding its breath as the kitchen grew dark and the sun seeped below the blue-black hills. We didn’t consider turning on the electric light. Each of us was seeing fireflies for the very first time.
I don’t know how long we sat watching. Outside, the night was as black as pitch when Joshua finally grew tired. Cupping his face in trembling hands, Grandma kissed him on the forehead, then told us good night and walked slowly to her bedroom, leaning heavily on her walker, looking sad. I went after her, but she had closed the door, so I left her alone.
Ben sat down to watch the evening news, and I went upstairs to bathe Joshua and put him to bed. I sat rocking him in the chair for a long time, listening to the night insects, feeling his heartbeat against my chest, his tiny hands drowsily patting my shoulder. I thought about Grandma’s hands touching his face and about how much her fingers had trembled. I knew that she wasn’t recovering, just determined to be with us a little longer.
Finally, I left Joshua and went downstairs to finish the dishes. The room was quiet and dark. The uneven rhythm of green light drew my attention to the table. Watching the lightning bugs, I stepped closer. The wildflower book was lying open beside the jar.
In the glow from the yard light outside, I sat down to read the spidery writing.
When Did the Fireflies Stop Dancing? I read the title, then looked at the lightning bugs, twinkling as if to a melody I could not hear. I thought of Grandma’s face as she watched them with Joshua, her eyes bright like his, mesmerized, thoughtful, as if she, like Joshua, were trying to figure out the secrets of the world.
When Did the Fireflies Stop Dancing? I read again, then plunged into the story as the glow flickered against the paper.
I often found moments of silence and solitude as I walked from the barn to the house on that crooked, worn path I had trod a thousand times. In light or in darkness, in the damp hours of morning when my feet went silent through the low mist, I knew each step, each rise and fall of ground, each scent that drifted on the air—apple blossoms in the spring, honeysuckle in the hot months, curing hay in the fall . . .
When my bones were not too weary from work done, and my thoughts not too frazzled from chores left to do, I stopped there and looked over the valley. The breeze combed my hair from my face like my mother’s fingers, whispering of peace, of contentment, of time passing. I looked upon those waving trees, or knobby-legged yearlings in the pasture, or the flowers by the road, and wondered how they grew so tall while my back was to them. Then I turned my back again and hurried on to my tasks. The workings of God are often too painful to face.
I stopped on the path once in the autumn, on a night when the moon was full, like a fresh cake of butter. Below, I saw the farmhouse, saw bits of my life through the windows, heard the faint sounds of my children laughing the way children do—about nothing at all.
I smiled as I gazed at the moon. There, in soft shades of blue and rose, was the celestial face I once knew from my storybooks. One I once shared with my lover. I thought of how many times as a girl I stared into that faraway moon and dreamed impossible dreams—wishing for the same treasures I heard my children ask for when I passed their doors at night. I thought of that part of me that once created bigger worlds and I mourned. . . .
Through the trees, the light from a nearby farm twinkled as the leaves shivered apart like a curtain. The flicker brought me in mind of neighbors, and then of fireflies. I looked for them in the field, but the darkness was complete. It seemed only a day ago when I ran with my children catching the tiny bits of light to make a lantern jar. Now the grass contained only the whisper of the breeze. How long had they been gone? Days or weeks, I could not say. I suppose they flew away one night as I lingered over mending, or soiled tableware, or a child’s lessons. They flew away while my head was bent to task and took no time to bid good-bye.
But I knew they bade farewell to my children. I knew my children saw them fly away like sparks from summer’s waning flame. My children mourned their passing, as I once had, and knew, I was sure, the very hour when the last of them stopped dancing.
I laid the book on the table and carried the jar outside. In the darkness of the yard, I lifted the lid and promised myself I would remember to look for the fireflies tomorrow night.
Dell came a few days later to retrieve her jar. Grandma was worse again and was staying in bed. Dell sat with her a while, telling Grandma about the lightning bugs, how many there were and how they had hatched out early this year because it was so warm. When Grandma grew tired, Dell left with her jar and some books and other keepsakes Grandma had wanted to give her. As they said good-bye, I heard Grandma tell Dell that people get old and go to be with God, and she shouldn’t be sad.
That night, Grandma slipped into a peaceful sleep and she didn’t awaken. Dr. Schmidt came and confirmed that she had suffered another setback and was hanging on through will alone. He suggested that we call the family together and tell her good-bye so she would feel free to finally let go.
The family arrived the next day, but the house remained hushed. None of us knew what to say. For three days Dad, Karen, Aunt Jeane, and I took turns keeping vigil by Grandma Rose’s bedside, first waiting for her to awaken, then believing she would simply slip away in her sleep. Each of us talked to her in private moments, telling her what she meant to us and how much we loved her. We told her that Grandpa was waiting for her in heaven and that we would be all right after she was gone. We told her that she need not hold on for us any longer.
I knew that all of us would somehow find our places in the world without her, or perhaps because of her. But I was worried about Dell, who came by several times and didn’t understand why Grandma couldn’t talk to her.
Grandma must have known, because it was for Dell that she finally brought herself into the world again. Waking, she looked into Dell’s dark, solemn eyes as Dell slowly leaned over and laid her head on the other pillow, their faces only inches apart, Dell’s hand over Grandma Rose’s. For a long time, I sat and watched them lie motionless, looking into each other’s eyes with expressions of understanding, as if something silent and profound were being said between them. Slowly, Dell’s hand moved to intertw
ine with Grandma’s—small, tanned fingers interlacing with long, thin ones as cool and as white as milk. Raising their hands together, they wiped the moisture from Dell’s cheek; then their fingers parted, and Dell rose silently from the bed, leaving the room without a word.
Grandma reached for me as I stood beside the bed. “I’ll go get Dad and Karen,” I whispered.
Shaking her head slowly, she motioned for me to come close, and I sat on the edge of the bed, staring into those stubborn, determined, wise blue eyes for what I knew would be the last time. I saw the little girl with the tawny curls and the summer-sky eyes, the one who led me through the yellow bonnets in my dream.
“In . . . a moment.” Her voice was little louder than the rustle of a bedsheet, and she shook her hand at the glass of water on the nightstand. Raising her head, I put the cup to her lips and she swallowed painfully, closing her eyes again.
“Grandma Rose?” I said, afraid she had slipped away.
“Ssshhhhh,” she whispered, opening her eyes. “It’s all right. I won’t go with them just yet. I still have . . . something to say.”
I smiled, touching her cheek as tears rimmed my vision. “Grandma Rose, you always have something to say.”
Moisture glittered in her eyes as she looked out the window and then at me, taking my hand. “I am in this farm, Katie,” she said quietly, her voice suddenly stronger. “A mother cannot say good-bye to her children completely. I am in this farm. You tend it. Tend my roses. Tend the family.” She looked out the window again, and her expression grew distant. Letting go of my hand, she touched my swollen stomach with fingers trembling like fall leaves caught in the wind. The baby kicked, and she smiled, then sighed and let her hand fall to the bed again. “The roses will need to be dusted soon. The rose dust is in the . . . storage room.”
“I’ll take care of it,” I said. It was like Grandma to be giving instructions to the last.
Tending Roses Page 28