by Lisa Wingate
“This? This what?” Kyle’s hands flailed in the air, demanding an answer. “I thought we were doing better. We took the anniversary trip. I came home for family movie night. I skipped golf, went to three of Macey’s gymnastic meets… .”
“You had your face in your PalmPilot the whole time, Kyle. How does that help?” I shot back, even though the arguments about Macey had played out between us a dozen times before. It was easier to stay in familiar territory instead of opening up something new. “Macey needs you to be present, to be focused on her once in a while. She’s growing up, and most of the time, you’re not there.”
He coughed in disbelief. “And you’re so much better? You’re at that stupid boutique six hours a day after you leave the office, and by the way, you never wanted to take over the shop—or have you forgotten? Our whole lives, you’ve been letting your mom reel you in—with her illness, with the shop, with her issues. You want to complain about my letting my job take me away from the family? What about you?”
“This isn’t about me, Kyle. This isn’t about my mother, and it’s not about the shop. It’s about …” I could feel the accusation on the tip of my tongue, so close, ready to rush out and shatter our lives into a million small pieces.
“About what?” he finished, his chin jutting toward me. His eyes flashed a challenge. “About what? Why don’t you just say what you mean, Rebecca? Why don’t you just get it out? There’s been something going on with you ever since you left California.”
“This isn’t the time.” I turned away from him and braced my hands on the edge of the counter, closed my eyes and tried to calm down. Breathe, breathe. You can’t do this now—not with birthday guests in the backyard and Macey close enough to walk in any minute.
“It is the time. It’s past time,” Kyle pressed, fiercely determined, a skillful debater as usual. “You asked me to come here, I came. I try to touch you, you’re hostile. Last night, we’re talking on the phone like everything’s fine, and today you’re all over me. What’s going on?”
Something inside me broke through the restraints, rushed toward daylight. “I saw you, Kyle. The morning I left, I saw you at the café with Susan Sewell, all right?” There it was, the truth, the facts of the case laid out on the table.
Kyle stumbled backward, stunned silent, his eyes blinking rapidly, as if I’d just thrown a punch and he was struggling to recover from it. “I don’t know what you think you saw, but …”
I wheeled toward him. My hand caught the cake knife and sent it skittering onto the floor. “I know what I saw, Kyle. I saw the two of you holding hands. I saw her leaning across the table, gazing into your eyes. I saw you leaning close, like it wasn’t the first time. I’m not stupid, Kyle. I know what a romantic interlude looks like. For heaven’s sake, I had Macey in the car with me. She could have seen! What were you thinking?”
“A what? A romantic interlude?” He had the audacity to punctuate the question with an indignant cough. His mouth dropped open, and he shook his head. “Rebecca, are you serious? What you saw was me meeting with a client. Talking about real estate.”
“Do you always hold hands when you talk about real estate?” I spat out, the anger, the frustration, the weeks of wounded uncertainty spewing from me.
Kyle’s eyebrows shot up. He slapped a hand over them. “That was thirty seconds. Thirty seconds of misguided affection in an hour-long conversation about separation of real estate assets. She’s lonely. That’s all. She’s forty, divorced, and insecure about the future.”
Forty, divorced, and insecure… . The description could apply to me soon enough. Was that what I wanted? What if Kyle was telling the truth? What if I’d misconstrued what I saw, built it up into more than it was?
Don’t be gullible, my mother’s voice whispered in my head. A woman can’t afford to be pie-in-the-sky these days. You think you know somebody. You think you’re a good wife, and you’re doing all the things a good wife should, and then boom… .
“You gave her Macey’s au pair, Kyle. You want me to believe you did that for a business relationship and thirty seconds of flirtation?” A woman has to be practical, watchful. Watch yourself, that’s all I can say… .
Kyle’s hand flew into the air, slammed to the counter in a fist, bouncing the cake platter. “I didn’t give her Macey’s au pair. I found a solution that was best for everyone. I wanted Macey’s au pair out of the house. That’s it. End of story.”
“Interesting how all these women are pursuing you, completely without encouragement on your part.” That was something my mother would have said. He’s far too conversational with other women, Rebecca. Men don’t do that without a reason… .
Kyle’s arms stiffened at his sides. Cursing under his breath, he turned away, paced to the door and came back. “All right, I’ll admit it. I was flattered. Is that what you wanted to hear? The big bad husband goes wrong, just like your mother warned you about? Just like your father did?” He spread his arms wide, as if he were offering an open shot, as if he were through defending himself.
“This has nothing to do with my mother,” I countered, but deep inside, I knew it did. There was a part of me that always heard her voice, that was always defensive, careful to maintain my independence.
“Come on, Rebecca. It has everything to do with your mother,” Kyle insisted, his voice suddenly calm, making the words seem logical. “Haven’t we been working up to this point for years? Ever since the day we got married, it’s been you, your mother, your father, and me. Even when they’re not there, they’re there. Our whole lives have been a holding pattern, waiting for history to repeat itself.”
“I don’t want history to repeat itself,” I protested, searching his face, groping for the truth. “All I want … all I ever wanted was a family, a normal life, the three of us spending time together, but you’re never there, Kyle.”
“I’m never there for whom, Rebecca?” Encompassing the kitchen with a sweeping gesture, he looked around, indicating the absence of anyone else in the room. “Who’s there to come home to—you? Macey? Yes, I’ll admit I’m driven. I work. I love what I do. I love it when a deal pays off. I get caught up in it more than I probably should. But there’s no one to come home to, Rebecca. You’re gone to the shop. Macey’s gone to her activities. You make it home at bedtime, and then you’re so tired, there’s nothing left. We sleep on opposite sides of the same bed. You don’t want me. You don’t need me. You’re so busy trying to make sure you’re not leaning on anybody, that you’re ready to go it alone, I’m on the outside, all the time. So, is it any wonder that when an attractive woman offered to let me in, even for thirty seconds, I was tempted? I’m human, Rebecca.”
Our gazes tangled, held fast. I felt sick inside, hollow. I felt like the twelve-year-old girl deciding whether to stay or go as Teddy ran across the lawn. Open up, take a chance? Get in the car, and hide behind the door?
Was Kyle telling the truth? There was no way to answer the question, except to trust.
Trust. Such a simple word. Such a hard thing to accomplish after a lifetime of self-defense. Was Kyle right? Had I spent our years casting him in my father’s role and myself in my mother’s?
But I was wrong about my mother’s role. She wasn’t the helpless victim of a philandering man. She was the person who purposefully kept my father from his child, who kept me from my brother, who hid the truth, even to her dying breath. All these years, I’d let her maintain a stranglehold on my life. All these years, she’d been trying to edge out my father. She’d used me to punish him, to punish Hanna Beth and Teddy. Even when she lay terminally ill, when she knew she would be leaving us, she had been trying to push Kyle out of my life, out of Macey’s. She’d said she was leaving me the shop, so I would have something of my own, so I could take care of myself and Macey … in case …
Did she realize what she was doing, or was she only trying to protect me from the marital collapse she considered inevitable?
Were her choices acts of misguided
love, or of selfishness?
I would never know for sure. There was no one to ask. There was nothing to do but go on from here, to stop listening to her voice and listen to my own. My heart wanted Kyle, still loved him. In the end, that was truth. It was my truth. Kyle loved me. He always had. All these years, he’d remained patiently on the outside, waiting for me to break free from the damage done the summer I left Blue Sky Hill, to leave the past behind, to stop living my mother’s life and live my own, throw open the door and let him in.
Why would he have done that? Why would he be here now if he didn’t love me?
Outside the window, my father laughed. Squinting through the wavy glass, I watched him strolling across the lawn, hand in hand with Hanna Beth as Teddy pushed the chair. How had they come back together, all those years ago? Who had been the first to believe, to bridge the gap between them, to open up and become vulnerable? How many years would they have missed if they hadn’t mustered the courage to turn away from the past and step into the present?
A lifetime. A long and wonderful lifetime that began with an instant of trust.
Outside, Hanna Beth smiled at my father, placed her free hand over their intertwined fingers. He gazed down at her, his eyes filled with adoration, with need, with happiness, even now, when the road ahead seemed so difficult.
“I want our marriage,” I whispered, turning back to my husband. “I want our family. I want us to spend more time together—do things. Being here, watching my father and Hanna Beth … I realize how fast a life goes by, Kyle. In the end, the only thing that matters is the people you love, the time you spend together. When we look back someday, I don’t want it all to be a blur of meaningless activity. I want our life back. I want us back.”
Kyle sighed, as if he’d been holding the breath inside of himself, waiting. “I was never gone. I’ve always been here. I love you, Rebecca. I love you, and I love Macey. I may not always show it as much as I should, but there was never a time I was looking for anything else. We have everything we need.”
We have everything we need. We had more than he knew. I scraped together my courage, tried to find the right words to tell him about the baby. What would he think? What would he say? Would he wonder? Would he question?
“I’m … I’m pregnant.” The truth shivered into the air and hovered there. Kyle blinked hard, as if he were trying to focus.
“Wha … how?”
“The anniversary trip.”
“But …”
“Vasectomies fail, Kyle. Your father’s did.”
He gaped at me in stunned silence, his body rounding forward, his arms hanging limp. He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, staggered backward a step and sank into a chair. “I don’t know … a baby?” I searched for intonation in the words, some indication. Happiness? Anger? Fear? Disappointment? Doubt? Something.
“I took a test yesterday. For obvious reasons, pregnancy was the furthest thing from my mind.”
“Yeah,” he muttered, swaying sideways, his gaze sweeping the floor. “Are you … well … sure?”
“The tests are pretty accurate,” I answered, still trying to read his reaction. “I’ve been having symptoms.”
He lifted his hands, let them fall to his lap, stared at the floor. I waited for him to take in the idea. Finally, he squinted up at me, his eyebrows knotted in his forehead. “How do you think Mace’s going to feel about this?”
The tension in my chest began to dissipate, growing lighter. “We could wait a while to tell her. I don’t even know how I feel about it yet.”
“Yeah,” Kyle muttered, nodding, his gaze unfocused.
The door to the garden opened, and both of us jerked upright. “We’re ready for the cake,” Mary called.
“Coming,” I answered, wiping the tear trails from my cheeks. I picked up Hanna Beth’s birthday cake and balanced it between my hands, stared down at the icing words, but couldn’t comprehend them. “We’d better go out there.”
“I’ll … I’ll get … the door,” Kyle muttered. He stood and followed me, his steps slow and wooden. “I’ll be in my sixties when the baby graduates from high school,” he muttered as he reached for the doorknob.
“I know,” I said, and in spite of everything, his bemused look made me smile as we went out the door.
On the patio, the celebration was proceeding, the partygoers oblivious to the moment of truth in the kitchen. I placed the cake on a white iron table in front of Hanna Beth. Ifeoma lit the candles and Teddy helped my father into a chair. Together we sang “Happy Birthday,” our voices blending together, young and old. When the song was over, my father leaned across, cupped Hanna Beth’s face in his hand and kissed her, then sang, “May I call you sweetheart, I’m in love with you,” as he handed her one of Macey’s roses.
Hanna Beth smiled and rested her head on his shoulder. Together, they watched the birthday flames sway in the wind.
“Blow da candle, Mama,” Teddy cheered, waving his hands over the cake.
“Let the children,” my father suggested, and laid his cheek atop Hanna Beth’s silver hair.
“Yes, let the children,” Ouita Mae echoed, maneuvering her walker toward the table as she motioned the children in. “Gather round, now. There’s a hungry old man waiting for some cake.” She winked over her shoulder at Claude, and he blushed, then grinned tenderly in reply. “Phillip.” She motioned to her grandson as Brady clasped the edge of the table, tipping it to one side. “Lift up the little guy so he can help.”
Dr. Barnhill awkwardly picked up Mary’s younger son, and, together with Macey, the boys blew out the candles.
“Happy birf-day to Hanna Bet!” Brady cheered, and everyone laughed.
Pastor Al suggested we say a prayer over the food, and we bowed our heads. As his voice resonated in the damp, still air, blessing the food and our gathering, I felt Kyle’s arms slip around me—tentatively at first, then tighter, circling my stomach, cupping the tiny life we’d created and would nurture together as the years went by. He pulled me into him and held me close. I leaned against his chest, turned in his arms and rested my head there, heard his heartbeat beneath my ear, slow and familiar. After weeks of fighting for air, I felt as if I could finally breathe.
My senses filled with the earthy scents of Teddy’s garden, the faint traces of smoke from Hanna Beth’s birthday candles, the radiant glow of light, the slight stirrings of people all around me. A family. As the prayer ended, I listened to the voices—my father presenting the first slice of cake to his birthday girl. Hanna Beth laughing. Macey struggling to lift Brady to the table again so he could watch the cake being cut. The old house yawning and crackling, radiating warmth as the afternoon sun pressed through the canopy of slumbering branches.
The breath of summer stirred the trees overhead, and I opened my eyes, looked up. A leaf pulled free, sailed on invisible currents, swirling and diving, dancing and spinning like the dragonfly lights in my bedroom upstairs. I felt the spirit of the girl who once lived there, now standing close, watching the leaf drift toward earth.
It floated downward.
Circling …
Circling …
Until it touched the ground and rested silent among the grass-green waves of my father’s lawn.
I thought of the Japanese gardener, far away on the waterfront in San Diego, shaded beneath his wide straw hat, carefully combing seas of gravel to reflect the invisible tides that swell from hidden places deep within the soul.
The tides swirled around me, whispered with a completeness that spilled warmth into all the spaces that had been empty, that had searched and wondered, waited and struggled to find peace.
The little-girl spirit left the patio, dashed over the grass on light, silent feet, paused to smile at what had fallen there. And suddenly I understood how the gardener knew that the leaf was meant to stay.
CONVERSATION GUIDE
A MONTH of SUMMER
LISA WINGATE
This Conversation Guide is int
ended to enrich the
individual reading experience, as well as encourage us
to explore these topics together-because books,
and life, are meant for sharing.
A CONVERSATION WITH LISA WINGATE
Q. A Month of Summer is your ninth novel. Has your writing process changed over the years?
A. For me, the writing process has remained much the same. I still begin with characters and an initial situation. From there, the process of writing the novel becomes a journey of discovering the characters from the outside in. Each story is a quest to understand the hearts and minds of several individuals—the ways in which each is a product of a specific set of experiences. As the story develops, the needs of the characters begin to mesh, and the potential for connection becomes more evident. While I’m working on the first part of the novel, the threads seem to be traveling in a dozen different directions. About halfway through, the threads develop a weave, and the larger picture becomes clear. The story grows in a sense of plan and purpose, gaining a personality of its own.
If anything has changed about my writing process over the years it is that it’s easier not to panic when the threads seem to be scattered all over the loom. These days, I can (usually) be more patient in allowing the process to work, in letting the story move at its own pace until the larger canvas takes shape.
Q. The books in your Tending Roses series have largely employed rural settings. What inspired you to create Rebecca and Hanna Beth’s story in an urban setting?
A. Living within proximity of Dallas, I’ve been aware for quite some time of the revitalization of historic areas near downtown. While it is wonderful to see once-abandoned neighborhoods undergoing reclamation and again becoming vital living spaces for families, these changes sometimes take place at the expense of historic structures and longtime residents, who are often priced out of their own neighborhoods by rising property values and higher taxes. Such situations also provide fertile ground for the victimization of disadvantaged families and elderly home owners, such as Edward and Hanna Beth. Often these home owners have few resources available. As neighborhoods change, family members and old friends have sold out and moved away, and the remaining original residents become islands unto themselves as new and old struggle to cohabitate. Such a situation seemed like an ideal location in which to mesh the stories of several characters who need one another to survive.
