When the Morning Glory Blooms (9781426770777)

by Ruchti, Cynthia

  God had a plan all along to protect Marie from her—and my—attacker. Prison bars. A hefty sentence . . . not for what he did to her, but for what he did to me and to my home. Even in my most desperate hours fighting off the spear-wielding demons of pain, Marie’s freedom from fear soothed me.

  Consciousness was not my friend in the days after the fire. I begged for it to leave. To be alert meant to feel, and I dared not feel. My throat and lungs were raw and soot-clogged. My palms were blistered as if I’d grabbed a roaster from the hot oven with my bare hands. Dr. Noel speculated that as the smoke overcame me, I slapped at the flames on my legs.

  It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes before Puff and Marie arrived. Only my legs were badly burned. My memories of that time are pieced together from snatches of nightmares, bits of conversation, reports I’ve been told, and mangled thoughts that blur the boundaries between truth and hallucination. Josiah said that by the time he arrived, Puff had the fire out. How he kept it from spreading to other rooms of the house is as much a mystery as the rest of him. As Josiah related it, Marie hovered over me as if she were already a mother—mine.

  After Puff pulled me from the room and carried me to an oasis of shade, Marie tenderly picked charred fabric off the burned flesh on my legs. It was all she knew to do. Dr. Noel said that if she hadn’t acted so quickly . . . or if they hadn’t come home when they did . . . well, the scars are reminders that I am still here. Reminders, too, that the Lord was not inattentive, not unaware of the flames or of me in the midst of them.

  Ivy—1951

  “So now you know about the scars, Ivy.”

  Ivy choked out, “Do they still bother you?”

  “Oh, yes. I had my heart set on becoming a Rockette dancer.”

  “Other than Drew, you’re the first person who’s made me laugh in a long time, Anna.”

  “Speaking of your Drew . . . ”

  She checked her wristwatch.

  “Ivy . . . ?”

  “I started a letter to him last night during a break from staring at the ceiling. I couldn’t think.”

  Anna’s chest rose and fell in an exaggerated sigh.

  “I intend to tell him. It’s hard to know what to say.”

  “Lies are complicated, Ivy. The truth is easy. It flows like maple sap on a warm spring day.”

  “Not this truth.”

  “Even this one.”

  It was Ivy’s turn to sigh.

  “Child, listen to me.”

  “I have been, Anna. And I don’t want to stop. Please consider sharing the house my father hopes to get.”

  “Your father ‘hopes to get.’ And then you hope to convince him to share it with me when he’s only just agreed to share it with you! Ivy . . .”

  “Oh!”

  “What?”

  “This baby of mine must want to be a Rockette, too.”

  Anna’s eyes teared up.

  “What is it, Anna? Are you okay?”

  “That’s the first time I’ve heard you call the child ‘baby of mine’ and the first time you’ve talked about the little one with a smile on your face. How beautiful.”

  Ivy felt her cheeks flush, and something like warm syrup spread through her. So this is what it felt like to be a mother.

  19

  Becky—2012

  Downsizing?” The word sounded like a disease that struck other families, not theirs. They’d never upsized, that she could recall.

  Gil—once annoyingly absent, now annoyingly present for discussions like this—stated his case. “Do you see any other solution? I’m grateful for the work driving the school bus, but in a town this small, even if I volunteer for every out-of-town game and music competition, it still won’t be enough. Wouldn’t we rather downsize than face foreclosure?”

  “I could get a job, too. Not back at Ellison, I’m sure, but something. There might be opportunities in Minneapolis or Mankato.”

  “Even if something opened up, Beck, who would Lauren get to babysit, to spend as many hours as you do caring for that little guy? And we certainly can’t fork over money for child care. It would eat up your whole paycheck. Or mine.”

  She slit open another paper grocery bag, pressed it flat on the kitchen island, and stenciled red bells and green Christmas trees on what was once the interior surface. Presents were modest this year. She refused to spend more on wrapping paper than on the gift inside. Good thing the rustic look worked with their decor. “So, by downsizing, you mean . . . ”

  Gil poured himself a cup of coffee. Becky noticed he was drinking it black. Giving up cream and sweetener for the cause? Had it come to that?

  “By that I mean, do you think we could get by with a townhouse or condo?”

  “You love this yard! This neighborhood!”

  His look sobered further. “I love a lot of things that aren’t possible right now.”

  “Already, Gil? Really? We’re that bad off just a few weeks into it?”

  He frowned into his coffee cup. “Trying to plan ahead. Do you know how hard it might be to sell this place? How long it might take us?”

  “Where would we find a condo we could afford that has three bedrooms?”

  “Three?”

  Jackson wailed in the background, resistant to a diaper change or lost toy or some other little-boy crisis.

  “Beck, under the circumstances, isn’t Lauren going to have to work out her own solutions? We have to think of us.”

  Bell, bell, bell. Tree, tree, tree. Slam, slam, slam.

  “I am thinking of us, all of us, the whole family.”

  “So, we’re going to bear all the financial responsibility for Lauren’s choices? Forever? Is that what you expect?”

  Bell. Slam. Tree. Slam.

  “You know I hate it when you go to the extreme, Gil. Forever?”

  He sidled to the fridge and grabbed the half-and-half. Still unresponsive, he snatched two blue packets from the small bowl on the counter. The contents were well into dissolving in his coffee when he finally spoke. “Lauren has to pull her own weight in this. Especially now.”

  “We can’t just abandon her.”

  “Asking her to take responsibility for her actions isn’t the same thing as abandoning. She’s going to have to act like a parent, a real parent, sooner or later.”

  “You’re not thinking this would happen before the end of the school year, are you? I mean, come on.”

  A tiny sneeze brought the conversation to a halt. Lauren leaned against the archway between the family room and the kitchen. Jackson sat on her thrust hip, clinging with balled fists to her sweatshirt.

  “Lauren, honey, we were just discussing—”

  “I know. How much we’re in the way. How much easier it would be for you if we weren’t around. How tough we’ve made it on everyone.”

  Gil abandoned his coffee and rushed to put his arm around both of them. Lauren shrugged him off.

  “No, Dad. I get it. We’re a problem. As if that wasn’t obvious.”

  “Lauren, we love you. And we love Jackson. It’s just that—”

  Gil! Say something brilliant! Say something day-saving, heroic, manly, correct.

  “What, Dad? It’s just that we’re inconvenient? Tell me about it!” Lauren turned, the movement clunking Jackson’s head against the doorjamb. Not hard. Enough to make him cry. She rubbed the spot and said, “Sorry, baby. Mama’s sorry,” as she stormed down the hall to her room.

  Becky stamped a Christmas tree that bled clear through to the countertop.

  Gil’s laptop held his attention, all of it, for the next two days. Becky had to admire his devotion to job hunting, even if it did keep them from ironing out the wrinkles in their perspectives. She would have offered to help update his resúmé, but in the back of her mind lingered a bullet-point list she must have read somewhere: How to Love Your Man through a Job Loss. Writing his resúmé for him was not on the list.

  On day three, Gil called her to the end of the couch where he’d plan
ted himself. “Becky, take a look at this.”

  Bullet-point two: Wait until he asks for help.

  She stared at the photo. “What is it?”

  “A semidetached on Lexington. Looks promising. Priced to sell.”

  Becky gritted her teeth, then thought better of it. They couldn’t afford a dentist bill for a cracked tooth. “A duplex? How many bedrooms?”

  “Two.”

  “Bathrooms?”

  “Just the one. It would be something we’d have to get used to.”

  “How many of us, Gil? How many of us would have to get used to it?”

  “So we’re supposed to go on as we always have, spending without even thinking, meeting everyone else’s needs but our own?”

  The cost of an ER visit for stitches in her tongue stopped her shy of biting down any harder on it. “They are our own, Gil. Lauren and Jackson are our own.”

  He closed the lid of the laptop. “I guess I expected that from you.”

  “You say it as if I disgust you because I care about what happens to our daughter and our grandson.”

  “You know that’s not true.”

  “How would I know that?” She left the room in search of something—anything—to do with her hands. Fold laundry. Dust the top of the refrigerator. Alphabetize spices. Anything other than face the lump that sat on their couch assuming the answer to all their problems lay in miniaturizing the space in which they dwelled.

  Vinegar-and-water-soaked rag in one hand, she held onto the top of the step stool and climbed the two steps that would enable her to see the dark unknown of the fridge’s upper plateau. One swipe. She glanced at the rag. It had been too long since she’d done this. She folded the rag onto itself and took another swipe.

  “Becky.”

  His voice, behind her, held something that faintly resembled an apology.

  “What?”

  “Look at me. Please?” Gil stood in the archway with his jacket on and hers over his arm. “Let’s go for a ride.”

  “I’m in the middle of something.”

  “I can see that. This is important.”

  “Where would we go?”

  “I called the realtor. He’ll let us in to see the place tonight. They’re pretty eager to sell.”

  Is it a crime to throw a vinegar-soaked rag at the face of your beloved? Is that considered domestic abuse in this state? Lord, I need an answer quickly.

  She blew exasperation through her pursed lips in a whoosh. “I can’t believe you called him before we’d had a chance to discuss it.”

  “Will you just look at it? Then we can talk?”

  “Lauren—”

  “—just left with Jackson. They’re going over to hang out at Noah’s for a few hours.”

  Great. Wonderful. Peachy. She tossed the rag in the general direction of the counter and climbed down to ground level. “Give me a minute to clean up.”

  “Sure. I’ll start the car.”

  Married that many years and he still didn’t know what “a minute to clean up” meant. He thought it was a literal minute.

  Her jawed tightened. A duplex?

  She ran a brush through her hair and spritzed a stubborn spot with hair spray. She changed from slippers to shoes, pulled a zippered vest over her turtleneck, and swiped at her mouth with tinted lip gloss. Certainly good enough to look at a duplex.

  As she walked through the house to the back door, everything about their place seemed suddenly elegant and memory rich.

  She found Gil in the driver’s seat, a half gallon of fuel used up while she’d cleaned up, that detail fully visible on his face.

  “On Lexington?” she asked as she buckled in and hunkered down for an excursion far removed from her idea of fun.

  “It’s not far from the bowling alley.”

  “Now, there’s a plus.” She vowed to drop the sarcasm a notch. Point three on the bullet list.

  “And there’s a unit just the reverse of this one on the other side,” the realtor said.

  On heightened sarcasm alert, Becky resisted saying, “Good grief, there are TWO of them?”

  “Potential,” Gil chimed in. “Think of the potential.”

  The realtor, black trench coat flapping as he breezed through the icy rooms, explained, “On foreclosures like this, unfortunately there’s a tendency for the previous owners to . . . to express their dismay.”

  That would account for the cupboard doors hanging off their hinges, the graffiti on the living room wall, and the missing switch plates and baseboards. What would account for the South Sea Islands chain of stains on the bedroom carpet, or the putrid smell of undisciplined pets?

  Becky put on her “I’ve always wanted to be a professional designer and remodel homes” hat. The potential still eluded her. All she could think about were the poor people who’d been foreclosed on and how they could not understand what kitty litter was for. “I’m not seeing it. The potential.”

  Granted, the location wasn’t as bad as she’d thought. And the view from the sliding doors onto the patio must be pleasant enough in the warm months with the forest preserve abutting the backyard. The kitchen was surprisingly spacious, despite the loose-tooth cupboard doors. She tried to envision the smell of fresh paint overriding the current odors. Not a chance.

  “I have time right now,” Gil said, “to invest some elbow grease and carpentry skills. Fix it up nice.”

  The sarcasm clawed at her, begging to be given permission to speak. Captain Oblivious was happy to have time on his hands? And he thought he could turn the mismanaged pet motel into something habitable for humans? Not just humans. For her? Them?

  The realtor rattled his keys and asked, “Would you like to see the other unit?”

  “Sure,” Gil said at the same moment Becky answered, “No need.”

  The three played three-way eye-contact tennis for a few moments, until Gil said, “I think we should look at it while we’re here.”

  Becky considered the fine line between patience and lack of courage, between kindness and wimpiness. She wanted to run screaming to the car, pulling out her hand sanitizer as she ran. Instead, she followed the men to the other unit.

  Mirror image. Except for the filth. This side was decidedly cleaner. No larger. No more homelike. But cleaner.

  Gil clicked on the ceiling fan, then clicked it off. He checked the cupboard under the kitchen sink. He cared about leaks in a duplex she wouldn’t be caught dead living in?

  “How soon could we get in and start working?” he asked.

  Becky swallowed her “I didn’t have time to brush my teeth” gum. Her choking fit halted the conversation temporarily.

  Assured Becky would live, Gil continued. “We’d have to make the purchase contingent on the sale of our house.” He looked at Becky, as if for confirmation of her agreement, as if proud for having thought of that point. Her mind raced back home to her sewing machine and a satin costume with the words Captain Oblivious embroidered on the cape. No more than a three-day project.

  “Gil!”

  “What? Oh, of course, we have to have some time to talk about it.”

  “Of course,” the realtor said. “But as I mentioned earlier, a place like this could go in a snap.” His attempt to snap his fingers for emphasis failed.

  Becky sniffed. Cat smell. But it wasn’t coming from this mirror-image apartment. She sniffed again. The odor clung to her coat!

  “You haven’t said much, Mrs. Trundle. Did you want to see the closets? There’s a stackable laundry pair in each unit, just down the hall here.”

  “Gil, I need some fresh air.” She coughed twice for effect.

  “Okay. I think we’ve seen enough for tonight, Ron. I’ll get back to you as soon as we’ve made a decision.”

  The click of the key in the lock sounded for all the world like, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Gil split his attention between the snow-dusted road and sideways glances at Becky. Her peripheral vision could win awards.

&n
bsp; “Talk to me, Beck, my paragon of patience.”

  What was that pain in her palms? Oh. Her fingernails.

  “Beck, come on. What did you think? It’s our answer, right?”

  Naive? Desperate? Delusional? Depressed? Was he so depressed about losing his job that he saw “answers” in the ridiculous? And what was she supposed to do? Would she push him deeper into Delusionland if she told him how insane his plan sounded? Give up their home and move into half of a duplex that should be condemned for the smell alone? Gil, honey. I think it’s time you saw a doctor. The nice doctor will listen to you and help you, and if he can’t, he’ll prescribe something to make you think more clearly.

  “It’s not ideal, granted.”

  “Gil. Seriously? You think I would seriously entertain the idea of moving into that . . . that . . . ?”

  “Hovel?”

  “You said it. I didn’t. And leave Jackson and Lauren out in the cold?”

  “It has heat.” Was that whining in his voice?

  “What?”

  “The duplex. Heated. Air-conditioning, too. I think. Have to check on that.”

  “All four of us would live in a bedroom and a half? You’d let Jackson crawl around on that disgusting carpet?”

  Gil swung the car to the side of the road and slammed the shift stick into park. He left the motor and the windshield wipers running. “Are you nuts? It’s filthy!”

  “At least we agree on one thing.”

  “What did you think I meant by—? Oh, Becky!” He reached for her.

  She pressed her body against the passenger-side door. His chuckles confirmed her suspicions that he’d lost his ever-loving mind. As if she didn’t have enough on her plate right now. Her husband was mentally deranged.

  Gil raised his gloved hands, palms up. “You didn’t honestly—? Oh, honey. I’m not a complete idiot.”