Not at all reassured, she decided to make a batch of cookies. She was just taking the last batch of her mother’s favorite maple bars out of the oven when she heard the front door open and close. “Mama? I’m in the kitchen,” she called. She scooped the cookies onto a cooling rack and started the kettle heating. “You were gone a long time.”
“Adele wouldn’t let us go.” Hilda’s voice floated down the hall, sounding tired and discouraged.
“That’s what I figured. Where’s Miranda?”
“She had a doctor’s appointment so she just dropped me off. We stayed much longer with Adele than we intended. She is miserable and alone and frightened and we just couldn’t leave her.” Hilda came into the kitchen and sat heavily at the table. “Oh good. You’ve started the tea. I need a cup.”
“Haven’t Ben and Carolyn been to see her?”
“Not everyone has wonderful children, Sarah. You are an exceptional daughter, I believe. Adele’s children come to see her once a month, according to the nurse. Most months.” There was no mistaking the censure in her mother’s voice.
Sarah turned away and busied herself with the tea. What was wrong with those kids? Even if her mother weren’t her best friend, she wouldn’t be able to simply neglect the woman who had borne her. “Adele is lucky to have a friend like you,” she said, and set the tea tray on the table.
Hilda didn’t appear to see it. She stared at the tablecloth. Or at some unimaginable vision of the future.
“Mama? Here’s your tea.”
“Thank you, dear. Oh, and you made my favorite cookies. How wonderful of you.”
The words were right, but the unhappiness that lingered in her eyes worried Sarah. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.
“Adele isn’t in the same part of Bellonna Gardens that I inhabited. Apparently there’s a whole other side of it for people whom they do not expect to recover. Adele is on some kind of geriatric death row, and it’s more dreadful than you can imagine, Sarah.”
Sarah knew what lurked behind her mother’s words. She wanted to avoid the issue. Instead, she waded in. “You asked me to promise not to ever send you there again.”
“I had no right. I understand that you might have to.” Hilda’s voice broke on the last word. “I understand that my health might require it, and you should know that I will accept whatever is necessary without, I hope, too much whining.” Hilda essayed a smile that nearly broke Sarah’s heart.
“Let’s hope it’s not an issue for a long, long time.”
Defiance replaced Hilda’s brave acceptance. “Goodness, but you’re turning into a worse nag than Dr. Horton. I take care of my health. I’ve quit smoking. What more do you want?”
Sarah hadn’t meant to be critical, but couldn’t let it go. “What about bacon? And butter? And eating nuts when you aren’t supposed to? You don’t eat enough, and you eat all the wrong things. It’s not conducive to good health.”
Hilda’s face set in a mulish expression, and Sarah knew she was helpless to change anything. But she couldn’t stop the fear-goaded rant that poured from her. “You’re just not trying,” she concluded, and then wanted to bite her tongue. Losing your temper and berating a helpless little old lady. Good going, Sarah. Except that the helpless little old lady turned stubborn as a goat at the oddest moments, and Sarah was the one who was helpless.
“I need to have a few pleasures in my life,” Hilda said. “Very little is left to persons of my age, you know. Why can’t you let me enjoy food?” Her voice took on a waspish tone that warned Sarah to drop the subject.
“Okay, okay.” This wasn’t like the rational, logical mother she’d known all her life.
“Remember Mimi?”
Her mother’s stock example. “Of course I remember her. But just because she was so careful of her health and got cancer anyway doesn’t mean you can stop taking care of yourself.”
Hilda jerked to her feet. “Enough, Sarah. I’m tired.” She carried her cup and saucer to the sink. “I am going upstairs to nap for a bit, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course, Mama.”
But Hilda lingered by the window, looking out at her rose garden. A ray of sun slipped through the clouds and touched her, gilding the silver hair and mercilessly exposing each wrinkle.
Sarah stopped gathering the dishes and looked at her mother. She knew Hilda’s age, of course, and to forty-five, eighty-four sounded, well, old. But old had been only a word. The stark presentation in front of her now made her breath catch.
For the first time, she had a visceral understanding of old, of what the word really meant. What changes it would bring to her life. No, she screamed inside her head. She wasn’t ready for her mother to die.
Don’t leave me, she wanted to say. Instead she stared at the white hair, rendered coarse and lifeless in the sun, and wondered how she could bear what was coming. You’re supposed to be here for me. You’re supposed to take care of me.
Her mother turned to look at her, and the illusion vanished. “Did you say something, dear?”
Sarah cleared her throat. “No, Mama. Go and nap. I’ll run to the grocery and pick up some of that flavored creamer. The one you like so much.”
She groped her way out the back door, renewed determination to do everything she could to make this easier for her mother warring with the painful truth she’d just seen.
****
A restless night hadn’t done much to blunt that moment of clarity. Sarah drooped over her lunch.
“You’re very quiet today,” Beth said around a mouthful of sandwich. “Not that I expect much conversation at work, but you can do better than total silence.”
Sarah didn’t want to talk about her epiphany about old age. It wasn’t the sort of thing that anyone could understand if it hadn’t happened to them. And Beth, whose mom was about Sarah’s age, just wasn’t going to get it.
“Are you worrying about your mother again?”
“Of course.” Sarah sighed. “What else do I ever worry about?”
“Money. Your job. Being single. No. Scratch that last one. You worry more about your pets. Whether Downton Abbey will be pre-empted by a baseball game.”
Sarah laughed. “Stop. I give up. I’ve been bad company. What do you want to talk about?”
Beth raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, all right. I just realized how old my mother is.”
“Not exactly headline news, honey.”
“Realized here.” Sarah put a hand on her stomach. “Gut level. Not just intellectually. It really threw me for a loop.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t think you can understand. You’ll go through this someday, but your mom is thirty years younger than mine.”
“So? You’ve known all along how old your mother is. What happened?”
Some things couldn’t be explained, so Sarah made it brief. “Just one of those epiphany moments. I looked at my mother and it was like looking at a skull, and I realized that she’s going to die.”
Beth chewed thoughtfully. “I guess I won’t say I want my mother to die, exactly. If I could just count on her staying out of my life, I’d be happy. I’ve always envied you, having a mother you like. This really sucks.”
“It’s just a fact of life. Everyone has to deal with it sooner or later.” Sarah went to the counter and poured herself some coffee. “But enough of me. Tell me about Saturday night.”
Beth took the hint and chattered on about her date until it was time to go back to work.
Sarah immersed herself in numbers, but a sick feeling of impending loss lurked in the back of her mind.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Her mother had survived the horrendous brain surgery. They were supposed to have years and years left.
She had to get a grip. If she went rushing home like this, she’d just upset her mother. After all, no one knew when they’d lose someone they loved. The only thing to do was to cherish loved ones and live each day to the best of one’s ability.
But she still couldn’t blot out that awful moment in the kitchen.
****
The next weekend, Sarah was in the laundry room folding clean towels when her mother came in from her garden club meeting. One glance at her face had Sarah dropping the laundry and rushing across the room. Disaster images raced through her head even as she grabbed her mother’s hands. “What’s wrong, Mama? Are you all right?”
“Oh, for Heaven’s sakes, Sarah. Calm down.” Hilda snatched her hands away and threw her gloves on the table.
Sarah didn’t want to hear that her mother had gotten the meeting date wrong again, but she had to ask. “Was it garden club this morning?” she asked.
“Yes.” Hilda’s answer was explosive. “I didn’t forget.” Her mouth was a tight line. “This time.”
“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“Of course you did.” Hilda put down the gloves and sighed. “And I don’t blame you. No, the problem, for once, was not my memory. Nor was it the garden club meeting. It’s Miranda Hogbinder, that’s what’s wrong. That woman. That woman!”
Sarah’s breath whooshed out in a long sigh of relief. Petty garden club squabbles made for a lot of drama, but no real disasters. Thank goodness.
“What did she do now?” she asked, fully prepared to hear a blood-curdling tale of purloined seeds or sabotaged blossoms.
Hilda dropped her purse on top of the gloves and glared at her daughter. “She’s the most embarrassing creature on the face of this earth. She makes me ashamed to be seen in her company.” As she spoke, Hilda removed the pins that held her hat in place and pulled it off, clutching and crumpling it.
“If you don’t stop squashing that hat, it’s going to be unwearable. Let me put on some tea and you can tell me all about it.” Sarah removed the tortured hat and set it on top of the refrigerator.
Fred roused himself to inspect the roses around the brim. Not edible, but once roused, he sat up and watched the action. Waiting to see if food was forthcoming, Sarah assumed. “Come on, Mama,” she said. “Sit down. Calm down. I’m sure it’s not good for you to get so upset.”
Hilda allowed herself to be helped to a chair. She picked up the gloves and sat twisting them.
Sarah filled the tea kettle, set it on the stove, and got out the tea pot and cups. Seeing her mother like this, alert and focused, and complaining about her old friend delighted her.
“Really, Sarah, I didn’t know how to behave. If I weren’t so old and stiff, I believe I would simply have crawled under the table, I really would.”
“She was rude?”
“Miranda was her usual charming self all morning.”
“You do sarcasm more elegantly than anyone else in the world.”
A faint smile touched her mother’s mouth. “Thank you, dear.”
The tea kettle whistled and Sarah rose. “So what happened?”
“After the meeting, several of us decided to go to the café for lunch. Miranda joined us, of course.” Hilda made a lady-like face. Fred jumped down from his perch and leaped into her lap, where he curled into a cushion. She began to stroke his soft fur. “Well, we could hardly tell her she wasn’t welcome.”
Sarah suppressed a flicker of amusement. This had been an ongoing problem for years. Talk about tempests in tea pots. “Of course you couldn’t say that. You’ve never been rude to her before.”
“But I was sorely tempted today.” Hilda paused. “Miss Mary Lou has hired two new waiters.”
“What does that have to do—oh. Young waiters?”
Hilda nodded. “Young, handsome waiters.” Fred muttered a warning and she relaxed her grip.
Miranda’s penchant for pretty boys was a staple topic of gossip. How lonely and unloved she must feel to behave like that. Poor woman. “Oh, dear,” Sarah said.
“She was worse than I’ve ever seen her.”
“I can’t even imagine. I didn’t think anything could be any worse than the performance she put on at the church Christmas dinner.”
“Believe it.” Hilda’s expression was grim. “Definitely believe it.”
“Well, that’s awkward, but you can’t be held responsible for her behavior.”
“But I can be tarred by association, if not by the same brush. You can’t imagine how dreadful she was.”
“If she was worse than the church incident, you’re right.” Sarah brought the filled tea pot to the table and sat to wait for the tea to brew, and for the gory details.
“In addition to the winking and posturing and flirtatious smiles,” Hilda said, “she has added graphic suggestions and physical assault to her repertoire.”
Sarah couldn’t believe it. Not even Miranda Hogbinder, renowned for her heavy-handed flirtation with anyone male and over the age of fifteen, would get physical, at least not in public. And Sarah had always figured that Miranda was all bark with nothing to back it up. “Physical assault?”
Hilda nodded. “Oh, yes. It was bad enough when she simpered like a fourteen-year-old, and fluttered her eyelashes until I thought they’d take off like a bird. But then she told the first waiter that she was afraid she was getting tipsy, and accused him of putting extra bourbon in her old-fashioned, and told him that he’d just have to help her get home.”
“Oh, no,” Sarah moaned, torn between secondhand embarrassment and laughter. “Oh, lordy, the poor man.”
“Boy. The poor boy. I’m not sure he understood all of what she said since his English wasn’t all that good, but he got enough. I don’t know if he took a break or talked someone into trading with him, or quit and ran for his life, but after that little exchange, he was history.”
Sarah didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but she couldn’t help getting sucked in, fascinated by the story. Sort of like soap opera in the rough. “So far, so bad. Then what?”
“The waiter who brought our orders unfortunately did understand English. Miranda renewed her request to be taken home after lunch. When he put her off as politely as possible, she grabbed him and pulled him onto her lap.” Hilda stopped and sipped her tea.
A rather large, unladylike sip.
“Pulled him into her lap and called him...” Hilda pursed her mouth, as though the words tasted bitter. “Called him her ‘cutesie-wootsie widdle cuddle-bunny.’”
Laughter triumphed over Sarah’s vicarious embarrassment. She doubled over and guffawed. “Oh, my, God.”
Hilda waited until she’d regained control. “You haven’t asked who it was.”
Somehow that sounded like there was worse to come. Obediently, Sarah asked, “Who was the second waiter?”
“Carl Lindstrom’s son.”
Sarah frowned. “Who?”
“The new bank manager.”
“Well, if he’s new in town, he’s getting quite an introduction. Small town America at its worst.” Sarah saw with relief that her mother was much calmer.
“Yes, but there could be quite a lot of trouble for Miranda over this. His family might not be quite as accepting of Miranda’s little foibles as the rest of us.” Hilda sighed again. “Annoying as she is, I don’t wish that on her.”
Hilda rattled on, exploring all possible ramifications.
Sarah sipped tea and made the appropriate “Mmm” and “Uh-huh” responses while her mother talked on.
Small town gossip. There just wasn’t anything like it. “Yes, Mama, that’s a good idea,” she said when Hilda wound down and said she was going to talk to Violet, who had missed the meeting. The two women would talk the incident to death, and probably, no, certainly they would spread the tale county-wide, and then go take naps so they would be ready to gossip again.
Not the most enviable of occupations, true, but not really too evil-minded. When all was said and done, Hilda and Violet were Miranda’s
staunchest friends, and Sarah knew they really liked her. If only the woman didn’t provide such ludicrous fodder for the gossips. But then they’d be reduced to talking about who wore what to church.
Sarah set the cups in the sink and went back to folding laundry. This was the first time Miranda had actually laid hands on one of her victims. Maybe she’d had too much to drink, which would be a bad sign.
Sounded like the time had come for the Reverend Mr. Dobbs to have a talk with her. Thank goodness Sarah didn’t have to take action. In fact, if she had to choose, she’d never be involved with Miranda Hogbinder.
III. CHRISTINE
Miniature Rose. True roses 6-12 inches tall, with miniature canes, foliage, and flowers. Everblooming. Grow indoors or outdoors. Hardier than hybrid teas. Need regular water, fertilizing, and mulching.
Chapter 7
“Ahh.” Rob leaned back in the porch swing, one hand idly ruffling Casey’s ears. “This is the life. You make the best lemonade in the world, Sarah.”
Sarah settled deeper into her wicker rocker. The warm glow that his compliment produced somewhere behind her ribs wasn’t enough to stave off the bone-deep weariness that was a constant these days. “Thanks. Is it sweet enough for you, Mother?”
“Perfect, dear.”
“I agree,” Violet said. “One of the blessings of living here is your cooking, Sarah. I’m so pleased with the arrangement.”
“And we enjoy it, too,” Hilda said.
Sarah would enjoy it a lot more if she weren’t so tired and worried all the time. She glanced at Rob over the two white heads between them. He looked as lazy and content as he’d sounded, leaving her as the only one with any doubts about the situation.
Rob’s aura of contentment was almost visible. Except when their glances crossed. His gaze held something much hotter and more demanding than contentment. Sarah shivered in spite of the heat.
Her mother and Violet, thank goodness, looked quietly happy. And she was getting to sit for a few minutes. But then the timer dinged and she had to get the cookies out of the oven. And pretty soon she’d have to fix dinner, and then do the dishes. The work never ended.
Wallpaper with Roses Page 10
