The Storm

by Shelley Thrasher

  Most important, don’t be afraid to love, my dear. So keep Molly and her son safe in your heart until they come to you.

  Your loving aunt,

  Anna

  Warmed by her aunt’s wisdom and optimism, she folded the letter and slipped it into its envelope. She’d let it keep her company as she waited. Maybe Molly and Patrick would become part of her life after all, but was she really ready for that? She knew what she wanted, but she had to be practical.

  How would she provide for Molly and Patrick? She had some money her grandmother had left her, but that would cover only her expenses. She couldn’t expect her parents to take the three of them in. That would be unbearable. She supposed she could get a job working on people’s cars. That was about her only skill, but would anyone trust her to do what they expected a man to?

  Did she want to stay in the South? Being in Europe, especially Paris, had given her a taste of a much freer way of life than she could ever expect to experience here. At least that’s how it seemed. She really wanted to explore that possibility, but could she expect Molly and Patrick to leave everything they’d ever known and pursue some vague notion of freedom halfway around the world in a country devastated by four years of war? Molly and Patrick had both said they wanted to travel, but living somewhere so foreign would be so very different from a pleasure trip.

  Could she live in Paris without Molly and Patrick? Suddenly she wished they were all back on the farm together, with everyone still alive and Mrs. Russell still making their lives miserable. Compared to being alone in Paris, those recent days seemed like a pleasant dream. She needed to talk to Molly. This was too much to decide by herself. She’d waited long enough. Father seemed to have recovered. She’d make the long drive back up to New Hope as soon as she could.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  On St. Valentine’s Day, Molly gazed out the window at the garden. A year ago she and Patrick had spent part of the morning cutting seed potatoes into pieces, each with a sprouting eye. Afterward she’d knelt with the sections piled in a bushel basket beside her and carefully placed a piece, eye up, into the furrows Mr. James had plowed. Then he had come along behind her and covered the potatoes with soft red dirt.

  Each sprout nestled in the ground, slowly pushed its blind way upward, and emerged into sunlight in several weeks. But now Mr. James rested in the same ground as the potatoes. Surely his soul was making a similar journey into a brighter world.

  This year it had rained practically nonstop, and had since last fall. She’d welcomed the gray, wet days. Every day she’d asked herself why Jaq had disappeared without a word. Was she enjoying herself so much with her lover in New Orleans that she’d totally forgotten her?

  A vase of jonquils and hyacinths sat on the dining-room table. She hadn’t realized the flowers were already blooming. She usually filled the house with containers of them, but Mother Russell had evidently gathered this spring bouquet, their blooms so much paler yellow than normal.

  She’d been almost thoughtful since Mr. James died, though she sporadically urged Molly to buck up. But these spring flowers communicated that necessity whereas Mother Russell’s words didn’t.

  Wandering into the living room, she slowly opened the piano, which she hadn’t touched since October, and fingered a few keys. She even picked up the sheet music for “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows” that she’d bought when Jaq drove her and Patrick to town. The tinny tone of the piano sounded strange; the usually smooth ivory felt rough and foreign.

  Suddenly she remembered something Jaq had mentioned last summer, though it seemed a lifetime ago. Talking about the music she had listened to in New Orleans when she was young, she’d said it sounded like the musicians were composing as they played or sang, instead of reading from a page of music.

  Molly hadn’t understood that concept and had tucked it into her mind to ponder. Now its meaning sprang to life.

  She picked out the tune again, without looking at the sheet music. She usually played it in a quick, lively manner, but now she let her sorrow wash through her and well up through her arms and hands onto the keys. She played the same notes as she had earlier but could almost feel Jaq’s presence. She saw her dark hair and eyes, felt the scar on her forehead she tried to keep hidden. She smelled the rose water they’d made together that glorious day and heard her voice as she shared her adventures. But most of all she tasted Jaq’s lips on hers, the most exhilarating sensation she’d ever experienced.

  She played the familiar tune again, and it came out differently—as if it had a life of its own, as if the piano was playing her, adding notes she’d never seen written down but that somehow sounded right, like the field hands’ constantly changing rendition of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” It became in turn a spiritual, a sonata, a symphony, and a simple song for Jaq, as she played it repeatedly.

  She glanced at the paper and pen she used for writing music, lying unused on the back of the piano. She might compose a new song and call it “The Storm,” to commemorate her first lengthy conversation with Jaq last Easter.

  But then she closed the piano’s cover, sighed, and walked to the front porch, where she sat and gazed at the distant trees. Her new music, from her heart instead of her head, relieved a little of the loneliness she’d lived with since Jaq went away. But only the wind in the pines played the kind of music she could hear and lulled the storm that had raged in her since Jaq left.

  *

  Jaq watched her mother stoop over a rosebush in their backyard, one of the rare moments she stooped for anything. Wearing a heavy apron and leather gloves, she pruned the plants to make sure they grew exactly as she wished and that they bloomed their hearts out.

  This was the first day Jaq had felt like getting outside since she’d collapsed at the end of December. She’d been planning her trip back to New Hope when suddenly she developed what the doctor diagnosed as the influenza that had killed so many. With her high fever and resulting weakness, she’d had to stay in bed for more than a month. Now, she seemed to be slowly beginning to return to normal, though her mood and that of New Orleans in general was still somber. She felt exhausted, like everyone she knew seemed to be.

  Now, with winter on its way out and spring trying to make inroads, she sat in a chair on the lawn and watched her mother for a while. Then she ventured out to where she’d accumulated a small pile of thorny limbs. She’d never paid much attention to her mother’s St. Valentine’s Day ritual, but her experience in the rose garden with Molly had sensitized her to the flower.

  “Why do you insist on doing such backbreaking work, Mother? Are you the world’s expert on roses?”

  She glared. “I am the world’s expert on my roses.” She straightened, then stretched her back from side to side. “I have never known you to show any interest in what I do out here. You must be bored and feeling better.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  Her mother slipped her sharp shears into her apron pocket. “Ah, ma petite. I do not mean only your fight against the dreadful influenza. Even before you became ill I noticed how you lay around the house day after day, lost in a dream. He was a fine young man. You loved him very much, no?”

  “No! Yes! I mean I don’t know—”

  “Shh. It is all right. I myself knew a man like him once. In France, before I met your father. He will always be with you, in here.” She took off one glove and put her bare hand over her heart.

  “Mother. You don’t understand—”

  “Your mother understands everything. You have to learn to endure your loss and accept what you cannot change in life.”

  Mother would never understand or accept the real causes for her grief, but for the first time Mother had shown an interest in her feelings.

  “May I help you prune your roses? Can you teach me how you make them so beautiful every year?”

  “Oui. With all my heart.” She smiled so genuinely Jaq hardly recognized her. “At this time of the year, I always cut away all the dead canes and twiggy stems
. For that I must use the sharp shears.” She pulled hers out of her pocket again and snipped them in the air.

  “So you trim them every year?”

  She took off her other leather glove and stood beside one of her favorite bushes. “Yes. But you must be careful with the very young plants. Roses need time to grow before you cut them back. Not until their third year. You should be patient and observe a young bush, especially a variety unfamiliar to you. Decipher her pattern of growth. Does she want to bush, to stand straight and tall, or does she want to arch and lean gracefully? You must not destroy a rose’s natural grace. If you chop an elegantly arching shrub to a stubby plant, you will have butchered it.”

  “Mother, you certainly chopped me to a stubby plant when I was too young. Remember what you said to me at Grandfather’s funeral?”

  She paled. “Do you still remember that horrible day, Jacqueline?”

  “I’ll never forget it.”

  “Ah, you can’t imagine how often I’ve regretted my hasty words. I would cut out my tongue and lop off my fingers before I would say such things to you again. I can’t excuse myself. I thought perhaps you would forget, that you would heal.”

  “I was a serious child, Mother. I took what you said to heart and still blame myself for Grandfather’s death.”

  Her mother dropped her shears and put her hands over her eyes with a sob. “My poor Jacqueline. The Storm killed him. You did not. Never. You were rambunctious but never cruel. I blamed everyone and everything for his death for a long time. But no one was at fault. Only I, for making you believe such a horrible thing about yourself. You are so brave. Always going into the unknown, where your heart leads you. I wish I had your courage.”

  Jaq put her arm around her mother’s shoulder and comforted her as her mother had failed to comfort her as a child. “Don’t cry. You’ll smear your makeup.” She chuckled. “Besides, your words can wound, but they can heal too. I’ll keep them in mind and let them erase the scar your earlier ones left. Now, why don’t you show me how to trim a plant properly?”

  Her mother wiped away her tears and smiled hesitantly. “If you insist. Let us work on this Archduke Charles together.” She picked up her shears then rummaged in another apron pocket. “Here. Take my extra pair. You do not need the gloves, for the bush has almost no thorns.”

  “Isn’t this one of your favorites, a China rose that smells like bananas when it blooms?”

  She nodded in approval. “Oui.”

  “A friend of mine told me almost all our roses in the West came from China. She said before we discovered that type of rose, ours bloomed only once a year, in the spring. Is that right?”

  “That is indeed correct.” Her mother’s eyes had grown large, and now they narrowed. “And who is your friend?”

  She stiffened. “A woman I met in Texas. One of Eric’s neighbors. A farmer’s wife who loves to play the piano. She and her mother-in-law have a beautiful rose garden. She gave me a tour one day.”

  Her mother scrutinized her briefly then shrugged a bit too nonchalantly. “She must be a remarkable woman. Someone who loves music and grows roses in such an uncivilized part of the world.”

  “She is, Mother. Oh, she is!” She couldn’t stop her enthusiasm and was afraid she’d given herself away.

  “Is she your friend Molly, the one you said you gave our telephone number to?”

  “Yes, Mother. She’s a good person, and I’ve worried about her.”

  “Why haven’t you telephoned her?”

  She shook her head. Why hadn’t she? “I want to give her time to get well. Her husband died, so I’m sure she’s upset about that. I don’t want to intrude on her grief.” She didn’t tell her mother how she’d planned to go to see Molly to discuss the possibility of a future together.

  Her mother measured her with her exacting gaze. “If she is your friend, you should call. It’s long past time to do so.”

  “I will. But what about my lesson?”

  She tried to calm herself as her mother showed her where and how to prune the rosebush. As she talked about how this variety was called the chameleon of the roses, Jaq thought about contacting Molly. Did she dare? Would Molly want to hear from her, or had her life already taken a new direction? Her mother was explaining how the sun’s heat changed the chameleon rose from light pink to deep red, and how it could grow in almost any environment and be trained into almost any shape.

  Was she that adaptable? And was Molly? Could they take Patrick from his familiar life on the farm and raise him in a new environment? Didn’t he need someone to teach him how to be a man?

  Finally, her mother said, “I want to confide something in you. I love the Archduke Charles rose best because my grandmother used to grow large hedges of it in France. The man I mentioned and I liked to stroll through Grandmother’s garden and smell them. He was the heart of my heart, but I married your father instead, because my parents wanted me to.”

  So her mother had a secret love but married to please her parents. Maybe that’s why she’d just said she wished she’d had more courage. Should Jaq try to forget her love for Molly, or should she take a chance? Did she really want to? Wouldn’t a child slow them down? Could she still picket in Washington or live in postwar Paris with a woman and a child?

  Her mother’s words strengthened her. She would call Molly. At least that would be a start. Then perhaps she could take the trip up there that she’d planned. Maybe Molly could become more than a sweet memory, a lost love Jaq would regret forever, like her mother did.

  *

  Jaq was disappointed but not surprised when Mrs. Russell, and not Molly, answered the telephone. After exchanging pleasantries about her father’s health and the state of the farm, Mrs. Russell told her that Molly was getting married, that Patrick needed a man in his life. The wedding would take place as soon as Molly’s fiancé came back from overseas. Mrs. Russell certainly sounded happy about that. As for why Molly hadn’t called her, she could almost see Mrs. Russell shrug and scowl as she’d said, “I don’t know why she hasn’t phoned you. Just not in the mood, I suppose. You never can tell about her. I’ll be sure to tell her you called.”

  Jaq dropped the receiver, then slowly picked it up from where it swung back and forth by its black cord. She felt like she was hanging by the neck from the gallows, suffocating. As she stared at the receiver, out of breath, she rolled it between her palms. So cold and hard.

  During all the hours she and Molly had spent talking to each other last year, the telephone had bridged the distance between them and Molly’s voice had breathed warmth into her. But Mrs. Russell’s words had cut the phone lines between her and Molly, left her with nothing but a silent black object. Number, please, said the disembodied voice of the operator.

  She replaced the receiver in its cradle and crumpled into the straight-backed chair next to the telephone. How had she misjudged Molly’s feelings so completely? She had seemed so certain that she wasn’t happy being married to Mr. James. But if she hadn’t had to live with Mrs. Russell would things have been different? And if the man were younger, more willing to live in the city, would Molly have been satisfied?

  But Eric had been younger, with no desire to live with his mother, and he had been willing to live anywhere in the world. Yet she hadn’t been happy married to him. No, Molly didn’t seem to fit with a man any more than Jaq did, just like she didn’t fit on the farm. Something wasn’t right.

  Patrick needs a man in his life. Those words had frozen Jaq’s tongue and her brain. Did Molly think Jaq couldn’t give Patrick the kind of life that a man could? But when the three of them went to town together, she could have sworn Molly would have loved to be with her, wherever they went, and that Patrick would too.

  Who was this man who had been overseas and was due home soon? Molly had never mentioned anyone except Mr. James’s younger brother. What was his name? Clyde? Could this be Mrs. Russell’s idea? She certainly wouldn’t want Molly to stay, but Patrick was another story. He co
uld help on the farm, keep Mrs. Russell’s way of life alive. But would Molly sacrifice herself for Patrick by consenting to marry another Mr. Russell?

  Jaq felt like jumping into her Model T and driving to New Hope right this minute. But what if Molly was marrying of her own free will, without any interference from Mrs. Russell? She’d try one more way to contact her, and if she got no satisfaction she would make the long trip up there and find out exactly what was going on.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Jaq contemplated the two cartridges of exposed film—the one of pictures she’d made in New Hope and one she’d brought back from Europe. In England, she’d had her pictures developed in a shop, but at her parents’ house she could do it in her father’s darkroom.

  He’d taught her how right after he gave her a camera for her sixteenth birthday. After that, every time she could save fifty cents, she bought a cartridge of film and wandered through New Orleans snapping pictures. Especially after her experience with Sister Mary, she’d spent hours alone in the darkroom, savoring the smell of the acid fixing powder and the long, lonely wait time for her creations to emerge.

  She held her newly developed shot of Helen up to the red light. Helen stood in the mud, her outfit as white as possible, a smile brightening her face. What a waste. She could have had a long and useful life.

  And there stood her Model-T ambulance. She’d taken the picture one day after she’d spent two hours cleaning the vomit and blood from the inside and the caked mud from the outside. The sun had beamed down, and she’d had more than her usual three hours’ sleep.

  The one picture she took in Montmartre made her homesick for Paris. If only she and Molly and Patrick could live there.

  And here was one of Willie in her red velvet dress. Her steady green eyes and strong fingers had helped her get ready for Molly. Maybe they’d meet again someday.