by Peggy Webb
“I don’t know.” Beth is partial to one embroidered with white rose buds.
“This one is suitable for a boy or a girl. Or do you already know?”
“No.” Though her abdomen is practically flat, she places both hands there in the age-old gesture of mothers around the world who will fight for their child. “And I don’t want to know. Not the sex, not anything. No matter what, this child is mine.”
I want to turn around and say to everybody in the store, See, see there. She’s mine. My daughter. Instead I hug her, hard.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Daniel arrives in a red Jeep Grand Cherokee that sends out signals as it comes up the driveway. Successful. Bold. I might add jaunty except that the young man who steps onto my front porch is anything but lively.
He stands there beside my wicker rocking chairs and pots of red geraniums, head slightly ducked, and if he had a hat he would be twisting it in his hands. It’s only seven o’clock in the morning, and he’s rumpled and in need of a shave. I picture him pacing his big empty house in Texas, turning on the television to catch the six o’clock news then making himself a tuna sandwich all the while telling himself that she’s going to change her mind and come back home where she belongs. Then all of a sudden it hits him, Beth’s not coming back. Not unless he makes the first move.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Hudson,” he says. “I’ve been a fool. I love Beth. I really do.”
I spend a minute wishing he were the kind of son-in-law who would call me Maggie instead of Mrs. Hudson, and then I open the door and nod toward the guest bedroom.
“I’m not the one you should tell. She’s in there. Sleeping. I’ll give you two some time alone.”
Beth is stubborn like Dick, and I expect Daniel will spend the better part of the morning trying to convince her to go back to Texas with him.
I look upon this time as a gift, and I don’t feel the least bit selfish about that, either. When you’ve lived by yourself for a while you get used to freedom, to coming and going as you please without having to consult anybody else or consider their feelings, their plans. You grow accustomed to having anyone you want drop by without having to pick a time when nobody is underfoot.
My thoughts lead naturally to Matt, and how he would drop by even when he wasn’t working on the house or coming for a music lesson. Once he brought a wild rose bush he’d dug up from the back pasture on his farm. I thought you would enjoy this on your fence, he said. Another time he brought seeds from sunflowers he’d found growing wild along the road.
And just last week he brought an Indian arrowhead he’d found in the creek bed behind his barn. Look at that, Maggie, he said. Still perfect. Like you.
He didn’t say, After all these years. He didn’t even imply that, but I thought it anyway, thought about the enormous age gap and how it didn’t seem to matter to either of us.
But I can feel everything changing, as if the earth is shifting beneath my feet and I’m searching around for a solid place to stand. Beth’s unexpected arrival tilted me sideways, her news threw me off balance, and I can’t seem to get myself right side up again.
Though I’m tempted to race to Matt, I don’t make the turn that would take me down the graveled lane to his farm. I won’t use him that way. I won’t be guilty of going to him for a few hours of forgetfulness.
Instead I go to my farm, to my favorite spot under the hundred-year-old oak that overlooks my daddy’s black gravestone. Winds whisper through the leaves, and I sit on the swinging branch with my back against the tree until my thoughts have stopped circling like buzzards and begin a slow downward spiral like hawks on the wing. They land softly, these heavy thoughts of mine, and that surprises me. I expected they would crash and burn, and me with them. Instead I float, borne upward by something so pure it can only be called hope.
In a few months I will hold a child in my arms, a child who will wear the christening dress I bought and take her first steps while I watch then fall asleep in my lap while I read Winnie-The-Pooh stories to her. I will buy her first wagon, a red Radio Flyer that she can fill with roses from my flower garden, and then later drag along behind her as she explores the farm with me, gathering rocks that look interesting and leaves that have changed color and pieces of cobalt blue glass from an old medicine bottle somebody threw away, the edges worn smooth.
I will call her darling and sweetheart and precious and she will call me grandmother.
Grandmother.
And Matt is at the age when a little child should call him Daddy. Right now that doesn’t matter to him, for he has told me so, and Matt Graham would never lie.
But in a few years it will matter. It will matter that I can’t give him children, that when we go into a restaurant together somebody will think he’s with his mother, that when he’s racing around the farm not even winded, I’m stopping to rest on the inclines, struggling to keep up.
It will matter.
There’s a sound a heart makes when it breaks, a muffled sound like a star falling into a virgin forest filled with towering fir trees and deep green moss and fiddlehead fern. I don’t move, I don’t think, I don’t breathe. I just sit and listen to that mournful, muffled sound.
o0o
Beth is back in Texas with Daniel, but still I wait two weeks before calling Matt, two long weeks. I have to give myself time to change my mind. I have to give myself time to say how silly of me, of course I can have it all, a young, young man and the pleasures and compensations of middle age all at the same time.
I practice the art of stillness - in the kitchen standing beside the sink and looking out the window at the bones of my gazebo, in the car driving to the grocery store and listening to the soothing sounds of Ray Charles singing “You Don’t Know Me,” in a tub filled with hot water and lavender bath salts which are supposed to promote tranquility but don’t.
I am practicing the art of stillness now, in the porch swing with Lillian and Jean where we are sipping iced tea and I’m telling them all the reasons I can’t be with Matt.
“That’s perfectly ridiculous, Maggie,” Jean says. “There are many May-December couples.”
“See,” I tell her. “It’s not natural. People put labels on it.”
“I don’t what century you’re thinking about, Maggie.” Lillian shoves off from the front porch with her foot and sets the swing back into lazy motion. “All the rules went out the window when we entered the twenty-first.”
“I guess I’m old-fashioned.”
“Matt likes old things,” Jean says, and Lillian, who is sandwiched in the middle, swats her arm. “What? I’m talking about old radios and antique tractors and stuff. Bill said so.”
“Has Matt ever said he wants children?” Lillian turns to me, her face glowing with health. The anti-rejection drugs she has to take have made her face a bit rounder, but she’s still the most beautiful woman in the room, any room.
“He says he doesn’t, but maybe he’s just being polite.”
“Maybe he’s telling the truth,” Jean says. “I never wanted any.”
“But you adore mine and Lillian’s children!”
“That’s because I can love ‘em and leave ‘em.” Jean, who knows me almost better than I know myself, studies me a while and says, “But guess what? I’m pregnant!”
“Pregnant?” I yell, and Lillian is so shocked she jumps out of the swing and spills tea in my lap.
“Now, look what you’ve made me do, Jean.” Lillian starts swiping at my skirt but I bat her hands away.
“It’s nothing. I needed cooling off anyway. I can’t believe this, Jean. It’s not like to you to keep such a secret without dropping a hint.”
“Just kidding.” Jean doubles over laughing, and both of us swat her with porch pillows.
In the end, we sink back into the swing, clinging to each other with laughter. And in the end, I know what I have to do.
o0o
After they leave, I change clothes then call Matt.
He says he
will come right over, and I wait for him on the front porch swing, wearing purple. I don’t want to miss watching him roll down the window when he pulls into my driveway so he can hang a long arm out and wave at me. I don’t want to miss seeing the way he walks when he crosses my yard and steps onto my front porch. Loose and confident. I don’t want to miss catching that first glimpse of his smile, hearing the first deep note of his laughter.
“You’re wearing the dress that matches your eyes,” he says when he sees me. “I’m glad.”
Too full to speak, I pat the wooden slats and he sits beside me on the porch swing, then sets it into motion with his left foot. Size twelve shoe. Everything about him king sized and wonderful.
“Beth went back to Texas?” This is a question, and it lets me know that Matt has done exactly what he said he would do, wait patiently. One more thing I’m going to miss, going to mourn.
“Yes,” I tell him. “Two weeks ago.” I won’t soft-peddle this, won’t lie.
He sits perfectly still in the way of a man who is close to the land, in the way of a man who uses his hands to turn a bare piece of wood into a work of art - a beveled ceiling or a grooved archway or a curved stairway railing, graceful as the neck of a rare trumpeter swan.
Finally he reaches for my hand, and when that is not enough he folds me in the sweet safe cocoon of his embrace.
“Don’t say anything else,” he says.
“I have to,” I say, and then I tell him about my pilgrimage to the farm, about sitting under the oak tree and listening to the stillness, listening to the wisdom that rises from the trees, the grass, the very earth itself.
“You need to find someone your own age, someone who can run without getting winded and turn cartwheels in your back pasture while you plant wild roses - someone who can give you children.”
He presses a finger on my lips to stop me, but I can’t stop now. If I do, I might not be able to go on. And I must. I can’t bear the thought of him looking at me and wishing I were someone else, someone younger. I can’t bear the thought of having to worry about my age, worrying that he’s saddled with my grown children and soon a grandchild.
I want to enjoy growing old. I want to enjoy the comfort of falling asleep in my chair and knowing that I’ve been wide awake for all the major events in my life, that I haven’t missed a single thing, not one, and now I can sit back and relax and count my blessings.
He’s still holding onto me, and my selfish inner voice says, you can have a few more good years with him. Three, maybe four.
But I don’t listen. Instead I enjoy this contact for a while longer, as long as I can without getting weak and destroying us both.
“Matt, these last few weeks have been the best in my life. I’m happier than I’ve ever been.”
“Maggie. . .” He’s leaning away from me, getting ready to say words that are solid and true.
“Shhh,” I whisper. “Shhh.”
For a moment we rock and sway together, taking comfort from the warmth of each other’s bodies, from the familiar rhythm, the shared heartbeat.
It’s time. It’s time.
“Go,” I say. “Go quickly. And twenty years from now when you think of me - if you think of me at all - remember me this way.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I’ve excavated enough earth to build the wall of China. My flower beds are abloom with annuals of every color and description, and pots of perennials await their turn in the garage. I found a bargain in trees at the local farm and feed supply store - one dollar each - and I bought twelve, five dogwood, four Japanese cherry, and three plum. It takes me more than an hour to plant each tree, dig the deep holes then cover them over again, tree upright in the center. Since I only have enough energy for two trees a day, plus planting the annuals and perennials, I have enough work to keep me occupied until school starts. And I do it all without glancing at the half-finished gazebo.
That accounts for the daylight hours.
It’s the nights that are long and lonely. I sit under the stars for hours, waiting for Cygnus to lift me up in white swan wings, but nothing happens except I feel chilled. On Saturday nights I take my radio outside and turn to public broadcasting, hoping I’ll hear the sound of that familiar voice, but Mr. Fixit is no longer on the air.
When I go to bed I cover myself with two quilts, cold in spite of the ninety-degree weather outside. These days, though, I sleep with the window closed and my feet tucked securely in.
Matt’s love cleansed me of the past.
But I did the rest myself, found a strong inner core that won’t be defeated. I no longer need an escape hatch. I no longer have the feeling that any minute I might have to run.
But, oh, I miss love. I miss turning on my side in the middle of the night and placing my hand in the hollow over Matt’s chest and feeling the rhythm of his heart. I used to hold my breath until I could get my breathing in sync with his, and then I would lie awake listening to our life-sustaining harmony.
I wonder where he is now. The first Sunday after I sent him away I didn’t go to church for fear of running into him. What would I do? What would I say?
I went last Sunday, though, not to catch a glimpse of him, but to live my life head-on, guided by love and truth and honor and that mysterious force called instinct that tells the great migratory birds when it’s time to move on.
I’m thinking all this as I sit back on my heels to admire a bleeding heart I’ve just planted. I wanted to buy six or seven of them because of the name and all it made me think of, but I restrained myself.
Gravel crunches in my driveway and I shade my eyes against a strong sun and strain forward from habit for a glimpse of a familiar Ford truck. It’s Lillian’s thunderbird. She emerges holding onto a little puppy, and Jean is right behind her.
“Surprise,” Lillian says. The puppy is a chocolate Lab, all gangly legged and big footed.
“It’s a girl,” Jean says, and we all watch as the Lab sniffs her new surroundings then squats to mark her territory, right on my bleeding heart. “Think of all the work she’ll save you, Maggie. You’ll never have to water flowers again.”
I gather the puppy up and press my face into her soft fur. She squirms a little in protest then she licks my face, settles against me and falls asleep.
“Look at that,” Lillian says. “Do I know how to pick a great watch dog or what?”
We all move to the front porch where the three of us sit in a circle, me in the swing with the puppy in my lap, and Jean and Lillian in white wicker rocking chairs. Jean starts off the conversation with a story about a man at an antique store who offered to give her a discount on a pot bellied stove if she’d have dinner with him. On the tag end of the laughter, Lillian tells about being stopped in the grocery story six times for directions to the canned peaches and the fresh strawberries and the pickled okra.
“All because I was wearing a hat,” she says.
She’s fond of hats and is wearing one now, a big brimmed Panama with leather thong chin strap that makes her look like somebody who has dropped by on her way to a boat trip down the Amazon.
“This is our last hoorah.” Jean is referring to school, which starts next week. She reaches into her large purse and pulls out a sack of chocolate chip cookies. “I brought some soul food.”
“I have some juice in the fridge.”
“I’ll get it,” Lillian says. “No need to disturb the puppy.”
“I’m going to call her Lily, for you, Lillian.”
They test the name out loud, look at each other, nodding and smiling, and then Lillian goes into the house and comes back with three tall glasses of white grape juice on a cranberry glass platter. On her way to our circle she stoops by the front porch railing and plucks three yellow day lilies with long stems.
We tuck the flowers in our hair and sip our cool drinks and talk. But we don’t talk about Matt. That’s the way it is with good friends. They know when to offer advice and when to keep silent. They know how to let yo
u keep your life private while they absorb your hurt with the comfort of their presence.
“Thank you,” I say, and I don’t have to explain.
o0o
We’re having open house at school. Streamers and balloons are strung across information booths, and parents and children look like colored poppies milling around the gymnasium.
I see Lillian and Jean weaving through the crowd toward the punch bowl and I head that way. It’s slow going, and I find myself behind a very young couple. The girl says a name that stops me in my tracks. Matt Graham.
According to her, Matt’s in Florida on a big construction job that is likely to last two years.
Suddenly I feel too heavy to move. Two years is a dark tunnel and I can’t even see the end of it.
Her husband, or it could be her boyfriend, asks the question that’s burning in my mind.
“Did he sell the farm?”
I hold my breath waiting for her answer. Let it be no, for his sake as well as mine. I can’t bear to be the cause of Matt giving up the land he loves.
“Are you kidding? He won’t ever sell that farm. No, my brother George is care-taking while he’s gone.”
Matt’s gone. It might as well be posted on a giant banner hung from one side of the gymnasium to the other. That’s how big this news feels.
I don’t know how I get to the punch table, but I’m finally there, sharing this heavy load with Jean and Lillian.
“We’ll get you though it, Maggie,” Jean says, and Lillian chimes in, “Starting tonight. Channing Tatum’s at the Malco.”
We end up at the back of the theater sharing a tub of buttered popcorn and the assurance that we don’t ever have to face anything alone.
o0o
My days are tattooed with calls from Lydia, moving port to port, and Beth, describing the baby’s movements from first flutter to full-fledged kicks.
“Daniel says he’s a football player,” my oldest daughter tells me. But I’m dreaming in pink.
Before I can turn around, it is fall and I’m looking out across a yard filled with brown leaves. Some autumns they turn red and gold, but this year they just let go and fell to the ground dead, exhausted from clinging to the trees for so long in the heat.
