Susannah's Garden

by Debbie Macomber

  To Susannah’s astonishment, lovely pink roses and purple lilacs were arranged in a vase by the headstone. She knew her mother had routinely visited the grave that first year, her grief nearly overwhelming. But to the best of her knowledge, Vivian hadn’t been to the cemetery recently and if she had, she would’ve left flowers at her husband’s grave, too.

  Susannah crouched down and fingered the delicate petals. The roses, still buds, hadn’t been cut more than a few hours ago. She stood and glanced around, wondering if whoever brought them was nearby. As far as Susannah could see, she was alone.

  Despite everything she’d told her father, Susannah had little to say to her brother. She smiled down at his grave, blew him a kiss and returned to the car, determined to leave and not come back for a long, long time.

  From the cemetery Susannah drove to Safeway, where she picked up packing boxes. Then, feeling she owed her mother a visit, she decided not to postpone it, after all, and drove to Altamira. Her mother sat in her tiny apartment, waiting for her. The minute Susannah walked in, Vivian stretched out her arms, her eyes pleading.

  “What took you so long?” she asked in a faltering voice. “I was afraid you weren’t going to come.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Susannah assured her. Taking the fragile, bony hand in her own, Susannah knelt so that the two of them were at eye level. “How did you sleep last night?”

  “I didn’t. Not a wink.”

  “Too much noise?”

  “No…yes. I don’t know and the food here is terrible. You don’t expect me to eat cold eggs and dry toast the rest of my life, do you?”

  “Mom, give it a chance.”

  “I hate it already. I know your father thinks I should be here, but I’m telling you right now, Susannah, I want out.”

  “Two weeks,” Susannah reminded her. “You promised me you’d give it your best shot for two weeks.”

  Reluctantly her mother nodded. “Yes, I know, but I can tell you this isn’t going to work.”

  Susannah prayed with all her might that her mother would change her mind and soon. Because there were no other options.

  “Where are my clothes?”

  “Mom, we already brought your clothes, don’t you remember?”

  “What about my purple dress? I need that dress, Jean. You didn’t give it away, did you?”

  “No, Mom.”

  “Jean, oh, Jean, what am I going to do?”

  Susannah had to bite her tongue to keep from correcting her mother. “I brought everything you asked for.”

  “I’d be more comfortable if we brought over your father’s chair, too,” she said next.

  Susannah had been afraid of this. “Mom, there isn’t room for Dad’s chair in here.”

  Her mother gave a quick shake of her head. “There’s plenty of room. I’ll just move a few things around and we can set up my sewing machine in the corner.”

  Her mother hadn’t sewed in years. Decades, even. But all Susannah said was, “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “And bring me my books, too.”

  “I will, Mom.” Apparently she was being sent off to do errands. “Did you meet any of the other tenants this morning?”

  Vivian lowered her voice. “This place is full of old people. I’m telling you, Susannah, I don’t belong here. I swear everyone’s at least eighty.”

  Rather than try to persuade her mother to give the facility a chance, Susannah left to do the errands Vivian had decreed. She was adamant that Susannah find her purple dress, but Susannah couldn’t remember seeing one in her mother’s closet.

  Emotionally drained, she went back to the house. She unlocked the front door and propped open the screen as she dragged in the boxes.

  Halfway into the living room, she paused and looked around. Everything looked exactly as she’d left it, but something didn’t feel right. Except she didn’t know exactly what. Standing in the middle of the living room, she felt a chill creep down her spine. She was imagining things, she told herself. And yet…

  Drawing in a deep breath, she ventured cautiously into the kitchen.

  “Is anyone here?” she cried out.

  No one answered.

  “Hello?”

  Again there was no response.

  Heart pounding, Susannah moved from room to room. As far as she could see, nothing was amiss—until she reached Doug’s bedroom. Her mother had kept it in pristine condition, hanging his high school graduation picture on the wall, along with an array of ribbons from track meets and other sporting events. They were missing, each and every one of them. For some sick reason, someone had broken into the house and stolen her brother’s high school memorabilia.

  No matter what the future held, Susannah knew she could never let her mother find out about this.

  CHAPTER 10

  Susannah didn’t know what to make of this strange theft. The fresh flowers on her brother’s grave added to the mystery. Then to find that someone had gone through Doug’s high school things… It wasn’t only his ribbons that were missing, either. A couple of other things—a souvenir from Disneyland, a Beatles album, seemingly unimportant mementoes of his too-short life—had simply disappeared. Perhaps her mother had given them away, but Susannah doubted that. Anything of Doug’s was precious and treasured by both her parents.

  Years ago, Brian had asked if he could have Doug’s old baseball cards and her father had refused. Susannah had fumed about that for weeks. Now they appeared to be missing, as well.

  Doing her best to ignore the nagging worries, she packed what was left in her mother’s closet, which took most of the afternoon. She put aside a few additional outfits for Vivian, although the purple dress did not come to light. Her one real find was an old journal her mother had started in 1951, shortly after Doug was born. The fake leather front had cracked over the years. It had a tiny lock without a key, but Susannah tested the fastening, and it sprang open as if waiting to share its secrets.

  She held the open book in her hand for the longest time, wondering if she dared read it. Deciding it would be an invasion of her mother’s privacy, she set the palm-size diary on the dresser.

  More than likely her mother didn’t even remember that she’d kept a journal. But then her mother remembered the oddest things.

  By the time she’d finished clearing out the closet, packing clothes and shoes into boxes for Goodwill, Susannah was ready for a break. Her mother hadn’t worn any of this stuff in years, but she’d only scraped the surface—there were two chests of drawers in the bedroom, plus shelves, a dresser…. This wasn’t promising.

  The phone rang just as she was about to make herself some tea.

  “Mom!” her daughter cried. “Where’s the curry powder?”

  “What do you need curry for?”

  “A recipe,” Chrissie said. “I was watching a show on the Food Channel and I decided to make curried chicken but it calls for curry powder and I’m supposed to add it now.”

  Susannah refrained from mentioning that curried chicken obviously needed curry power and she should have gotten it out earlier. “Look on the shelf next to the refrigerator.”

  “I already did. It’s not there. This is important, Mom. Dinner will be ruined without it.”

  Chrissie’s tone suggested that the world would come to an end if she didn’t locate the curry powder within thirty seconds.

  “Try the next shelf up. If I have it at all, it’d be there.”

  “Okay.” The word was smothered as if Chrissie had pressed the receiver against her shoulder.

  Susannah could hear tins and bottles being shuffled around, followed by an exclamation of victory. “Thanks, Mom. See ya.” With that, the phone went dead.

  “Glad to be of service,” Susannah muttered as she set the phone back in place. This was the first display of enthusiasm she’d seen from Chrissie since her return home. Joe hadn’t given a definite answer to their daughter’s request about visiting Colville, but apparently Chrissie had accepted the fact that
she was needed at home. That was fine with Susannah. While she’d welcome help with the house, Chrissie would be a distraction, too.

  As she put on water for a pot of tea, Susannah felt a sense of pride that her husband and children were managing without her. Her kids were maturing, assuming more responsibility.

  Sitting at the kitchen table a few minutes later, with her tea steeping, she remembered the old diary she’d discovered. It’d been buried in a hat box, tucked away years ago and forgotten. Still feeling guilty about her interest, she brought it out of the bedroom and set it on the table next to the ceramic teapot and tiny pitcher of milk.

  Susannah stared at the diary, afraid she might learn things about her parents she’d rather not know—and yet she was intensely curious. It wasn’t hers to read, she reminded herself. This was her mother’s private property. Then Susannah remembered that her mother had read her diary. Shortly afterward, Susannah had been shipped off to boarding school. Turnabout was fair play, she decided, squelching the guilt.

  She opened the book and saw that her mother had used a fountain pen to record her thoughts. It was a five-year diary with only a few lines for each day. Vivian had maintained it faithfully through those years, as if not entering the day’s activities would’ve been wasteful. The blue ink had darkened but remained completely legible. As always, Susannah admired her mother’s penmanship, the beautifully rounded letters sloping gently to the right.

  April 3, 1957

  George took Doug to his Little League practice and then pitched balls to him for an hour afterward. It did my heart good to see how much my husband loves his son and how much Dougie loves his dad.

  Susannah recalled how often her brother and father had practiced together. She’d felt a little left out and…unimportant.

  June 20, 1957

  I talked to George again about going to nursing school, but with the children so young he feels my place is here at home. I tried to tell him that lots of women are working outside the home these days, but he wouldn’t listen. I know I’d be a good nurse. George is right, although I can’t help wishing I’d gone into nursing school instead of marrying so young. But with the war…

  Susannah frowned. Her mother had wanted to be a nurse? This was news to her. In all her years of growing up, Susannah couldn’t recollect one word about her mother having—or wanting—a career, nursing or otherwise. Everything had centered on her father and his role as a judge.

  Now that she thought about it, however, Susannah remembered how tender and caring her mother had been anytime she or Doug was sick. When he was ten, Doug had broken his arm in a tumble from his bicycle. It had been a bad break, but their mother had remained calm and gotten Doug to the hospital, where he’d required immediate surgery to have the bone reset. Her mother was a natural care-giver, and yet this one desire had been denied her.

  Upset by what she’d read, Susannah flipped the pages to another section.

  November 11, 1958

  Both children have tonsillitis. The doctor thinks we should schedule surgery as soon as possible. This seems a somewhat drastic procedure to me. I worry about what might happen. I’ve read everything I could find at the library and was unsettled more than reassured. I talked to George after dinner, but his mind was on a court case. I don’t think he heard a word I said. He says I worry too much. Perhaps I do, but surgery, especially for Susannah, who’s so easily susceptible to ear infections, concerns me.

  As it turned out, Vivian had been right. After the procedure, Susannah had developed an infection and ended up in the hospital for five days. Her memory of that time was cloudy. She did have a vivid image of her mother sitting by her bedside, holding her hand throughout the ordeal.

  Distressed, Susannah put the journal aside and poured her tea. Her hand trembled slightly as she added milk and stirred. After the first sip, she reached for the diary again. The next entries all described mundane events—shopping trips, housecleaning, planting bulbs in her garden.

  Susannah put down the diary and held her teacup in both hands as she considered what she’d read. In retrospect, she felt she shouldn’t have looked at her mother’s journal. Only that morning, she’d been bemoaning the fact that she’d never really known her father and now she was learning that she didn’t really know Vivian, either.

  After a dinner of peanut butter on toast, Susannah drove back to Altamira to see her mother.

  “Good evening,” Rose, who manned the front desk, greeted her as she walked in the door.

  “I’m not arriving in the middle of dinner, am I?”

  “Goodness, no. Dinner is served at five.”

  Susannah knew that, but she’d been so involved with the diary she hadn’t noticed the time. The main meal of the day was at twelve, with a light supper in the afternoon.

  She saw that several of the residents had congregated in the main room off the entry and an older gentleman sat at the piano, playing Broadway tunes. Five women, two in wheelchairs, nodded their heads to the music. Another wheelchair-bound woman had fallen asleep.

  Susannah was sad that her mother wasn’t in the audience. It would help if Vivian made an effort to meet the others, but so far she hadn’t revealed the slightest bit of interest or cooperation.

  Determined to do everything within her means to help Vivian adjust, Susannah walked down the long carpeted hallway to her mother’s suite. The door was closed. She tapped lightly but didn’t wait for a response before stepping inside.

  Vivian sat in her favorite chair in front of the television, her back to Susannah.

  “You can take the tray,” she muttered, apparently assuming that Susannah was an assistant.

  Susannah glanced at the tray, still waiting on a small table near the door. As far as she could tell, Vivian hadn’t touched her dinner.

  “Mom.”

  “Oh, Susannah…” She twisted around in her chair. “I thought it was the girl.”

  “You haven’t eaten.”

  Her mother rose awkwardly to her feet, keeping one hand on the back of the chair for balance. “I wasn’t hungry.”

  “Why not?” Susannah eyed the minestrone soup and fruit plate and found them artfully displayed. The meals at Altamira were good, and nothing like the institutional food one would expect.

  “I’m just not,” Vivian grumbled. “Your father told me I should move here, but I don’t like it.”

  “Sit down and I’ll bring your dinner,” Susannah suggested.

  She set up a television tray once Vivian had returned to her chair. As soon as she was settled, Susannah brought her the fruit plate. “I’ll warm up the soup in the microwave,” she said.

  To Susannah’s delight, her mother ate every bit of her meal. Soon afterward the assistant arrived and removed the tray. For the next hour, Susannah and her mother sat side by side and watched two game shows in silence.

  “Mom,” Susannah said when Jeopardy ended, “I didn’t know you wanted to be a nurse.”

  Her mother’s gaze slid to hers. “Who told you that?”

  “I, ah…I came across something you’d written. While I was packing up the rest of your closet,” she explained quickly, gliding over the fact that the “something” had been her mother’s diary.

  “I did consider it at one time,” Vivian admitted, reluctance in her voice.

  “Why didn’t you?” Susannah felt disappointed for her mother but tried not to let it show.

  Vivian considered the question. “Your father didn’t think it was a good idea, and he was right. A few years after that, George was appointed to the bench and our lives changed. He had a civic responsibility and I did, too.”

  “You would’ve been a wonderful nurse,” Susannah said, careful to hide her emotions.

  Vivian gazed at her thoughtfully. “Perhaps I would. Your father and I talked about it more than once, especially before he accepted the appointment. He realized his new role in the community would be almost as demanding on me,” she continued. “He asked me to stay home while you c
hildren were young. I agreed. That wasn’t the time for me to pursue a career, and then later, well…later I made the decision to stand with him, to be his helpmate. Being available to George and supporting his career was more important to me. It meant I was available to you children, too.”

  “Do you have any regrets?”

  Vivian smiled. “Not even one. Everyone makes choices in life, Susannah. Your father earned a good living, and we were fortunate that I didn’t need to work. I saw it as a blessing—and I still do. I volunteered at the blood bank, you know, and I was able to work in my garden.”

  Susannah wasn’t so sure blessing was the appropriate word.

  “Your father and I were partners. You were always so eager to paint him as a villain and, my dear, he was never that. George was a good man, a loving husband, a wonderful father.”

  Susannah swallowed her arguments. The family was fortunate that Vivian could be home for them all. If she’d ever felt cheated about not going into nursing, it had never showed. But Susannah felt cheated for her, and the opportunity she’d lost.

  CHAPTER 11

  The afternoon was cool and breezy as Carolyn arrived back at the mill, parking in her assigned spot. She’d attended a very successful meeting in Spokane with a buyer from a major hardware chain, and all that remained now was finishing up the relevant paperwork.

  Her long single braid stretched halfway down her back, swaying as she walked. She wore an unaccustomed suit, a plain navy one with a straight skirt and classically styled jacket. With her white shirt and flat black pumps, Carolyn’s “go to meeting” outfit was complete. She couldn’t wait to peel off the panty hose. Since she never had any idea what to do with her hair, she’d left it in its usual braid. She could only imagine what her fashionable mother would think if she could see her now. When it came to the feminine arts, Carolyn had failed miserably. The second she got to her office, she changed into jeans, boots and a cotton shirt.