Wallpaper with Roses

by Jenny Andersen

  That left Hank. “Well?”

  He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I know I’m not part of this,” he said. “But I was worried about Christine and Hilda Sue.”

  “What a bunch of idiots,” Sarah said. “What makes you think I want you all to leave?”

  “You don’t need us to help with your mother anymore,” Miranda said.

  “So you think I’ve just been using you as slave labor all this time.”

  “Of course not. But don’t you want to go out and have fun?” Violet asked.

  “You can’t want a baby under foot all the time,” Christine said. “After I go to work, I’d be asking you to baby-sit whenever day care was closed.”

  “Oh, Heavens to Betsy. As Mother would have said. I thought we were a family. Yes, you too, Hank. I thought we’d find a way to send Christine to school. I thought we’d stay together—” Sarah bit off the word that finished the sentence in her mind: forever. Of course it wouldn’t be forever. She’d already faced that. That didn’t mean she had to like it. “I thought this was your home. Our home,” she finished, and it came out more like a plea than she’d intended.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” Violet sniffled. “We were so afraid you wouldn’t want us anymore.”

  “Oh, thank you, Sarah,” Christine whispered. “I didn’t know what I was going to do if you didn’t want us.”

  “Yes, thank you,” Beth whispered.

  Hank just grinned, his hand on Christine’s.

  “Hmph,” Miranda said, sounding more like her old self. But Sarah noticed that her shoulders had relaxed. “You’d have come with us, of course.”

  Rob hadn’t said anything. Sarah looked at him. He winked. “Me too?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, I guess that settles it,” he said. “We’re a family. So who wants some ice cream?”

  VI. SARAH

  Noisette, var. Blush Noisette. A repeat-flowering shrubby climber with elegant trusses of delicately colored roses. Rarely out of bloom. Rounded teardrop shaped buds make lovely potpourri. Musky spice-scented flowers. deep green, healthy foliage. Deep green, healthy foliage.

  Chapter 19

  A few months later, Sarah wandered the rose garden, clipping the most perfect flowers. Now that the roses were blooming again, she took some to her mother’s grave every time she visited.

  She didn’t think she’d ever stop grieving.

  “Going to the cemetery?” Rob said as she headed for the car.

  “Mm-hmm. Want me to do any errands while I’m out?”

  “No. Could I come too?”

  Her breath caught. She always went alone. “I-I guess so.”

  The doorbell rang and she scooted to answer it before it rang again and woke the baby. “I’ll be right back,” she called over her shoulder.

  When she opened the door, the Fed-Ex man handed her a package. “Guess you got a present,” he said.

  She took the long, square box, wondering what it could be. She hadn’t ordered anything. “Thanks,” she murmured. She saw the return address and her heart skipped. Roses of Yore, her mother’s favorite place to shop for unusual plant varieties.

  “What is it?” Rob had followed her down the hall.

  “Something Mama ordered, I imagine.”

  Rob looked over her shoulder at the box. “But it’s addressed to you.”

  She stared at the package, her heart thumping. “How strange.”

  “Why don’t you open it?”

  Good idea. She carried it to the utility room behind the kitchen. But when she tried to open the box, her hands were shaking.

  “Here. Let me.” Rob slit the tape.

  “There’s a gift card,” Sarah said, and her voice sounded odd in her own ears.

  Rob gave her a sharp glance which she ignored. He slid the card out of its envelope and handed it to her.

  I’ve waited for years to find just the right rose for you, Sarah, darling, and I believe this is it. It is hardy, just as you are, yet the blossoms look tender and delicate, just as you do. Its elegance, continuous beauty, and adaptability remind me of those qualities in you. You are the best daughter in the world. Love, Mama.

  “She must have ordered it last fall.” Sarah could scarcely force the words past the lump in her throat.

  “Where are you going to put it?”

  “In the bed next to the damask bush that was her favorite.” Resisting the urge to hug the stiff, prickly, bare root plant to her, she carried it to the garden shed and put it to soak, then went back to the kitchen to tell Rob she was ready to go.

  Rob was silent during the short drive and the walk up the hill and along a grassy path to the simple stone that marked Hilda’s grave.

  Sarah always talked to her mother when she visited. She always cried. But she wasn’t sure she wanted Rob to know how much guilt she carried in her heart along with the sorrow, so this time, the conversation was silent.

  The tears couldn’t be hidden.

  Rob handed her his handkerchief and stood there, rocklike and patient until she’d stopped crying. “Grief?” he asked. “Or guilt?”

  How did he always know what she was feeling? “Both.”

  “You don’t have to be guilty. Think about it.” Rob’s voice was tender. “Yes, her last year was awful.” His voice broke, reminding Sarah that he faced his own mother’s decline, and probably in the near future. “But she had you. She was surrounded by love. That had to mean something. Even though you couldn’t keep her from knowing that she was getting fuzzier and fuzzier, couldn’t keep her from being afraid in the middle of the night, you were there for her. She always knew you loved her, and that’s the most important thing one person can give to another.”

  She couldn’t look at him. Her gaze skipped over the too-fresh mound in front of them, with its covering of new grass, to the trees at the edge of the cemetery, to the hills blue in the distance. She’d never been particularly religious, that had been her mother’s thing, but one familiar line rang in her memory: I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my strength. So here were the hills. Maybe she could find the strength.

  She shifted her gaze and looked out over the valley that lay below the graveyard. If she squinted, she could make out the quiet street near the edge of town and her mother’s house. Her house now.

  “Sarah, you did the best anyone ever could.”

  She could also make out the rambling structure on the other side of town, the place she hated so much, however unfairly. Bellonna Gardens. “At least I kept my promise,” she murmured. “She didn’t have to go back there.”

  “You took good care of her.” Something strange in Rob’s voice made her look up. He was staring down at the nursing home with a stony expression.

  “You’re worrying about your mother,” she said. Of course he was.

  He didn’t look at her, but nodded, just a small tilt of his head to show agreement.

  “I thought we agreed. We’re a family. Violet isn’t going to end up in Bellonna Gardens. She’s going to stay home just as my mother did. Miranda too. How could you expect anything less?”

  “Family is one thing. But you derailed your whole life for your mother. I can’t expect you to do the same for mine.”

  Sarah laughed, a watery chuckle as amusement forced its way through grief. “I don’t have to. That life is already derailed.”

  He was silent for a long moment, looking out over the mountain-ringed valley. “Is family all there is? I mean, you said last fall that you didn’t want to get involved. Didn’t have the energy for anything but your mother. I’ve been patient, Sarah, but I love you. I want more.”

  “I do, too. It’s just all the guilt. I don’t know when I’ll feel free of it.”

  “She didn’t expect more of you, and you shouldn’t expect more of yourself. This is part of life, part of the cycle. All we can do is our best. And keep trusting the future.”

  He took her hand in his. His hand, big and warm and comf
orting, felt like an anchor point in a world that had moved too fast for her. The strength that she had sought from the hills flowed through her, and she almost smiled through the tears that blurred her vision.

  “Yes,” she said, and laced her fingers through his.

  A word about the author...

  A neighbor put on Jenny Andersen’s first [and only] play when Jenny was eight. Many years later, she gave up a career in science and returned to fiction—just as demanding, but more fun. Jenny lives in northern California and has discovered that writing on the beach is very hard on laptop computers.

  Please visit Jenny’s website at: http://jennysfiction.com/

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