My Mother's Chamomile

by Susie Finkbeiner

  “Poor Granddad.”

  “Well, some fellas don’t get the point unless you’re a shrew,” Gran said. “And I guess that man was one of them. He came back the next day and asked me to go get a chocolate Coke with him. And every day after that.”

  “So, when did you feel like you loved him?”

  “I don’t really remember, honey.” She smoothed Mrs. Allen’s hair. “But I do remember when I made that decision. It’s a very different thing, Evelyn. Feeling in love and deciding to be.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know, for all the talk we hear about romance and all the feelings that go along with it, we just don’t understand it so well, do we?” Her forehead scrunched up. “There are too many movies filling our minds with what romance can’t really be.”

  “You’re going to have to explain that one.”

  “Well, so many young ladies these days think that romance is meeting the eyes of a handsome man and just knowing, right in that second, that he’s the only man God created just for her. And that man just happens to be Mr. Somebody Perfect. That romance is the feeling she gets in the place between her stomach and her heart.” She swatted her hand out in front of her face. “Hogwash, I say. Romance is as much of a feeling as a dog is a cat.”

  “Then what is it?” I dropped the lipstick into the drawer.

  “Romance is waking up next to the same old mug, year after year, morning after another, and realizing you’d pick him all over again. Hairy back, bald head, and all.”

  A laugh came up and out of me. “Goodness, Gran.”

  “I mean it.” Gran wrapped her fingers around the top part of my arm. “I knew Granddad was right for me when I stopped caring that there might be other choices.”

  Her gray-green eyes sparkled.

  “And, honey, let me tell you, I had a whole lot of choices. But none of them mattered one bit. Not after I decided to love Granddad.”

  “I can’t wait to find a man like Granddad.”

  I didn’t add, though, that I hoped he wasn’t a funeral director.

  “One thing you’ve got to remember. No man is perfect. Not even Granddad.” She rubbed my arm. “And you need to remember that you can’t change a man. It doesn’t happen. He might change. God might bring that about. But you can’t be the one to force him.”

  “I know, Gran.”

  “You just make sure you’re praying about it. God will make it all happen for you.”

  “That sounds so easy.” It took all my effort not to let my voice break.

  “But it’s true.”

  “Let’s just say, then, that God needs to hurry up. I’m not getting any younger.”

  She used a knuckle to push up her glasses. “From where I stand, you still look like a spring chicken.”

  “Thanks, Gran.” I put the makeup back in the drawer and unplugged the curling iron we hadn’t used. “I’m just hoping that I don’t end up alone.”

  She wrapped her arms around me. “I know, sweetie.”

  After she left, I checked my phone. Still no calls from Will. Our date had been nearly a week before. It felt a whole lot like being brushed off.

  I wondered if it was my job that repulsed people magnetically. I feared it was just me they didn’t want to be around.

  Chapter Six

  Olga

  Dinnertime memories from Aunt Gertie’s house made me cringe. Her table filled up fast with those six boys come meal time. We had to keep all three leaves in so there’d be enough room. Still, pointy elbows jabbed into ribs and clumsy hands knocked over glasses of milk.

  I’d had to learn to gobble up my food, quick as I could. If I didn’t, one of the boys would snatch it right off my plate. Half the time, though, I got plain disgusted by the munching teeth and the belching.

  Even as much as I disliked those barbaric meals, in my older years, I couldn’t take eating all by myself with only my thoughts to keep me company. And I never did abide taking a meal in front of the television.

  Nights when Clive had to work through supper, I said an extra thank You prayer for Rosetta’s friendship. We’d met after her husband passed. Clive had buried him. She needed a family to draw her in, and I needed a good friend. Closer than sisters we’d become over the years. She with her brown skin and black hair. Me pale as buttermilk and with hair to match. But sisters, just the same.

  Now we two sat at our usual table at Marshall’s Diner, right by the front window. We sipped our coffee, tummies full of dinner. The waitress brought over two slices of pie, all golden of crust and red of berry. With, of course, fluffy dollops of whipped cream.

  “Here we made it all the way through our supper and I forgot to tell you about something.” Rosetta shook her head.

  “What’s that, Rosie?” My fork pushed through the crust of my strawberry pie.

  “Well,” Rosetta started. “You remember that old couple that lived down the hall from me?”

  “For heaven’s sake.” I giggled. “Aren’t they all old in that place? They don’t let young people live in an old folk’s home, do they?”

  “No, honey. I mean the really old couple. The Watertons.” She put her fork across her plate. “They just moved over to the nursing home. I guess they needed a little more help.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Well, that’s not what I wanted to tell you, really.”

  I knew she was up to something by the way one of her eyebrows curved.

  “Now, don’t you look at me like that, Rosie,” I said. “What are you thinking?”

  “I don’t mind telling you.”

  The waitress carried the coffeepot over to refresh our cups. Decaf, of course. I would have been up into the next week if I’d had any leaded that time of night. She also dropped off our bill. Her nail polish caught my eye. Green as a frog with a little sparkle to it. She smiled when she caught me eyeing them.

  “It’s my favorite color,” she said before walking away.

  “Such a sweet girl.” Rosetta blew the steam off her fresh coffee. “Anyway. That apartment down the hall is empty now. I hear they’re planning to put in new carpet and paint all the walls. They might even put in a new tub.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Well, I think it would be good for you and Clive.”

  “You do?” I wiped at my mouth with a napkin. “I don’t know, Rosetta. Clive hasn’t talked about retiring in months.”

  Even then, when Clive mentioned it, he said how he dreaded the thought of retirement. That he didn’t want to stop being useful.

  “How old is he, Olga? Seventy-four?”

  “Seventy-six. But he’d be thrilled to know you guessed younger.”

  “Doesn’t he know he’s an old man? He can’t keep going on like that for too much longer.” She took a long sip from her mug. “That’s a hard job. And I’m not just saying so to get you to be my neighbor.”

  The bell over the diner door rang. Bev took slow, shuffling steps right over to our table. Once she got to us, she folded her skinny, tanned arms across her stomach. If somebody had asked me, I would have said that no eighty-something-year-old should have a stomach so flat as Bev’s.

  She scowled at us, squishing her face. I wondered that she could move her face around with all the thick makeup caked on.

  Bev lived on the second floor at the retirement home. When I thought about it, I couldn’t remember how she and I got to be friends. As sweet as Rosetta was, Bev matched it with sour.

  “You girls didn’t want to wait on me?” she groaned.

  Bev never said a blessed thing. She groaned it. Or moaned it. Every now and again, she’d grump it.

  “Well, Beverly, you told me you wanted to eat at the home.” Rosetta put on her very sweetest smile. “You never like to miss out on clam chowder night.”

  “You didn’t even wait for me to come have a piece of pie.” Bev rolled her eyes under lids that only lifted up halfway. She slid into the booth next to Rosetta.

  “I was just
telling Olga about our plan for her to move in.”

  “For goodness sake, Rosetta. Wasn’t my idea. I don’t care if they move in or not.” She yawned. “I think they should do whatever the heck they want to.”

  “Now, what are you talking about?” Rosetta leaned her upper half away from Bev, glaring at her. She pressed her full lips together. “Just yesterday you said it would be nice to have Olga around to play cards with.”

  “How am I supposed to remember what I said yesterday? Maybe I didn’t say that at all. Maybe you need your hearing checked.” Bev blinked at me. “Besides, you’d have to keep an eye on your husband. What’s his face.”

  “Clive,” I said.

  “What kind of name is that? Did his parents name him after an herb or something?” She shook her head. “Anyway, you’ll want to keep that man under lock and key. Stupid name or not. And that’s all I’ve got to say.”

  “Oh, Beverly.” Rosetta tsk-tsked her lips. “Don’t you get going on that again.”

  “On what?” I hated to admit it, but I liked getting the buzz as much as anybody else.

  “Don’t you encourage her, Olga.” Rosie clucked her tongue. “Beverly just wants to gossip.”

  “It ain’t gossip if it’s true.” Bev glanced out the window.

  “It most certainly is.”

  “Well, that’s what the Bible says.” Bev grumbled it this time. “Anyway, you’ll need to watch out for Sophia. That Sophia is a husband stealer.”

  “You don’t know that,” Rosetta said. “You stop spreading trash around. You’re better than that.”

  “Don’t you tell me what I’m better than.” Bev let her head bob up and down. “All I’m saying is what I heard. That old coot Bill hasn’t slept in his own bed for weeks. Or was it Albert? I can’t remember. Old men all look the same to me.”

  “Beverly,” Rosetta scolded.

  “That Sophia’s been tempting them with cake. That’s how she’s getting them into her apartment.”

  “Now, how do you know she’s been doing that?”

  “The housekeeper told me she hasn’t had to make Bill’s bed in a long time.”

  “Maybe he’s making it himself,” I offered.

  “You see, this is why nobody’s calling you Nancy Drew,” Bev mumbled. “No man’s going to make his own bed. Everybody knows that. Besides, there’s a whole lot of monkeying around in that place.”

  “Why’s that?” I raised my last forkful of pie into my mouth.

  “Old folks just got nothing to lose.”

  At Bev’s words, Rosetta nearly doubled over laughing. She smacked her hand on the table. “Oh, Beverly, Beverly,” she squealed between fits of giggles.

  “I don’t see what’s so funny.” Bev crossed her arms again. “The last thing I want to do is be with a stinky old man in my clean bed.”

  “I never have been able to understand all the goings on between elderly people,” Rosetta said, her giggles all worked their way out. “After my Hamilton passed, I didn’t even want to think about another man. Still don’t. It took us so many years to really fall in love all the way. I don’t have enough time left on this earth to get started up with another man.”

  “Well, isn’t that nice for you.” Bev checked her watch. “Not everybody got a good one the first time around like you did, you know. You just got lucky.”

  Rosetta hummed, her voice buzzing between her lips. “The way I see it is, I was blessed by the Lord with my Hamilton. With Him by my side, I don’t have any use for luck.”

  “Right. Right.” Bev’s eyes rolled, slow and lazy, from one side to the other.

  The three of us got up from the table, slower than turtles. Creaking and groaning joints and all.

  “Oh, I sat too long.” Rosetta sighed. “I’m going to need my arthritis cream.”

  “Maybe Bill can help you put it on.” Bev actually let a smirk crack on her face.

  “You’re a bad girl, Beverly.” Rosetta shook her head.

  We paid for our meals and stepped outside. Round and orange, the sun hung in the middle of the sky, still warming the air.

  “I’ve got a really good life.” My voice felt thin coming out.

  My life wasn’t just good. Blessed, more like it. But, in that moment of thanksgiving, I remembered that twinge of pain between Gretchen’s eyes. I remembered how worried I got over every cough and sniffle. Imagined life turning on us. Destroying our joy. Taking our daughter. It took all my will to shake that dreadful fear.

  “Amen, hallelujah.” Rosetta put her hand on my shoulder, pulling me back to her and the sunset and the praise I felt a moment before. “And you’re part of my really good life, my friend.”

  Bev cleared her throat.

  “You, too, my dear Beverly.” Rosetta reached out and pulled Bev near.

  The three of us decided to stretched out our sore legs and walk on over to the park to watch the sun dip all the way down the horizon. And maybe get a little ice cream, too. After all, we old folks had nothing much to lose.

  All the way home, I thought about the goodness of life. How happy being married to Clive had made me. Being a mama to Gretchen and a grandma to the kids only added sweetness to my joy. Everything so good. So wonderful.

  I couldn’t help but worry that it’d all fall apart soon enough. Nothing could ever stay that good for long.

  Nothing ever did.

  Chapter Seven

  Evelyn

  The family arrived all at once for Mrs. Allen’s viewing. Three sons and two daughters, their spouses, and a handful of grandkids stood in the lobby of the Big House. They didn’t talk to one another, but kept hands in pockets or crossed over chests. Their eyes avoided the front of the chapel. Instead, they let them rest on the carpet or the walls. They stood so close together, their elbows touched.

  “Would you like to see her?” Cal asked. “Whenever you’re all ready.”

  “I think we need to get in there.” One of the sons nodded, turning toward the chapel. I wondered if he was the oldest. He had the most gray around the edges of his hair.

  A few of them linked arms. A couple others held hands. The family walked together, as a unit, to view Mrs. Allen.

  When they got to the casket, they took turns getting up close, looking at her face, touching her hands.

  “She looks good.” One of the daughters, the one who’d done most of the arranging, touched Mrs. Allen’s fingers. “So peaceful.”

  Sacred silence shared between them, they paid respect with gentle mourning. Every few minutes, one sought a hug. Another offered a tissue. No words needed. They knew from the way an eyebrow lowered or a chin quivered. The family spoke the language of grief well. They’d become fluent.

  Warm air rushed into the lobby when the outside door opened. Cal moved to stand in the entrance to the chapel, blocking the new arrivals until the family had gotten their time alone with her body. After a moment, one of the sons nodded to my brother.

  “We’re ready,” he said.

  Cal and I stood against the wall, watching half the town gather in the chapel. Their voices buzzed and their bodies heated the building. Granddad would have to turn up the air conditioner.

  “Hey,” Cal said. “When are you going to tell me about your date?”

  “Not anytime soon.” I made my voice quiet.

  “Come on, Ev. All Deirdre could tell me was that the guy had dreadlocks and those big disc things in his ears.”

  “Seriously, you have got to stop getting your information from that woman.”

  “But when I listen to her long enough, she slips an extra doughnut into my bag.” Cal flicked his eyebrows up and down.

  “You’re using her.”

  “Anyway, I was thinking of taking her out for dinner.”

  “Gross, Cal.” My gag reflex triggered. “Deirdre’s old.”

  “Wait. No. Not like that.” He cringed. “I mean so we can figure out who Mr. Dreadlocks is.”

  “You’re kidding me, right?” I shook my he
ad. “He has black hair. No piercings or tattoos.”

  “That you know of.”

  A woman walked across the lobby. “Bathroom?” she mouthed.

  I pointed down the hallway.

  “Deirdre didn’t tell me the dreadlocks thing, by the way,” Cal whispered. “I made it up. But you took the bait.”

  “Wow. You are so very clever.”

  Cal straightened, nodding as a man walked in from outside, the thick odor of cigarette smoke trailing in behind him.

  “So, where did he take you?” he continued. “What did you do?”

  The woman came out of the bathroom, waving me over to her.

  “You’re out of toilet paper,” she huffed.

  When I got back to Cal after stocking the rest rooms with paper products, he smiled at me.

  “I’ve got an idea. You want to hear it?”

  “I really don’t like the sound of that.”

  “Do you have his phone number?”

  “You aren’t going to call him, Cal.” I leaned against the wall.

  “No. That would be ridiculous.” He snorted. “I’d never do something so immature.”

  “Then what are you going to do with his number?”

  “Nothing. You are.” Cal crossed his arms. “You need to call him.”

  One of Mrs. Allen’s sons walked into the lobby. The one with the silver along his hairline. He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. Stepping into the office, I grabbed the box of tissues off the desk, holding it out to him.

  “Thanks,” he said, taking two from the box. “This is a lot harder than I expected.”

  “I’m so sorry.” I used my calm, soothing voice. “Can I get you something?”

  “I’ll be all right.” He nodded at me before turning back to the chapel.

  Standing by Cal, I realized how really pathetic my life had become. Friday nights spent at the funeral home with my younger brother who was dispensing dating advice.

  “So, are you going to call him?” Cal asked.

  “Eventually.” I snuck a look at my brother. “Maybe.”

  I couldn’t decide which was worse. Loneliness or the risk of rejection.