My Mother's Chamomile

by Finkbeiner, Susie;

  “I wasn’t sure it would work.” She inspected the bunch. “Cal’s good at remembering to water the garden, too.”

  “He’s a good boy.”

  “Isn’t he?” Soil streaked the thighs of her jeans from wiping her hands clean. Standing, she tried to brush it off. “How about we go over to my house and get a glass of iced tea? I think we got most of the weeds.”

  She held my hand and pulled me up onto my feet. The effort of getting off the ground throbbed in my old joints. As soon as I got standing up all the way, I noticed a sour look on her face. Her hand pressed against her stomach.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I think so.” She lowered her hand. “I must have eaten something that my tummy isn’t so happy about.”

  “Well, maybe we’ll just have to take the rest of the day nice and slow.”

  She exhaled into a smile and pushed the sweat off her brow with the back of one hand.

  “Honey, are you sure you’re all right?” I patted her on the shoulder. “You want some antacids?”

  “No, I’m fine, Mom.” She forced another smile.

  She held on to my arm, steadying me as we made our way to her house, just a two-minute walk from the garden. At least that was how long it took my feet to carry me there on a good, clear day.

  Clive had that house built for Gretchen and the kids years before. Goodness, but Charlotte was only a little slip of a thing then. They’d had it rough for a long while. I’d watch over the kids while Gretchen worked in the funeral home with Clive. We liked having her close by so much, even after the difficult days passed. We wanted her to stay put. And she did.

  “I tell you what,” I said, my footsteps working to keep up with Gretchen’s. “It sure was good of Donald to put in this sidewalk.”

  “He’s sweet, isn’t he?”

  Married almost a full year, and at her age, she still got flushed in the face when she talked about Donald. I couldn’t think of a single flower he’d brought home for her. He turned out to be the kind to replace a roof or re-grout the tub rather than send a dozen roses. He showed his affection by doing. Not giving. I wondered if Gretchen understood his way of loving her.

  She’d gotten roses aplenty from her first husband, the kids’ father. Turned out, though, that he bought flowers in bulk. And he was a little too free and easy with who he gave them to.

  And not too bright to get them from the florist that delivered funeral sprays every other day of the week.

  Practical gifts of roofs and tubs and sidewalks beat a cheating husband any day of the week.

  Just as soon as we walked in the front door of Gretchen’s house, the cold from the air conditioner chilled my skin.

  “Mom, do you mind if I sit down for a few minutes?” Gretchen asked. One of her hands lay heavy on her forehead under the red bangs. “I feel awful.”

  “Don’t you worry about a thing, honey. I can get the tea.” I found two tall glasses in the cupboard and filled them with ice and tea. “Maybe you just sat out in the sun too long.”

  “It was bothering me last night, too.” She took the glass, holding it against her cheek. “Don’t worry, Mom.”

  Asking me not to worry was like asking a dog not to bark. No amount of effort could turn that instinct off.

  “Is Charlotte home?” The old rocking chair creaked after I lowered my behind into it. “You know, I don’t think I’ve seen her more than a handful of times all summer.”

  “You and me both.” Gretchen rolled her eyes. “She’s out with a couple of friends. I guess Deirdre just got a new espresso machine at the bakery. Char’s been spending all her time there.”

  “Our social butterfly.”

  “I wish she’d spend a little time looking for a job. Her student loan bills will start in a couple months.”

  “I’m sure your dad could come up with something for her.”

  “It’s a nice thought.” She pushed her lips together and shook her head. “But that job just isn’t for her.”

  “I understand.” I took a sip of tea. “It’s a tough life.”

  “She’s so sensitive. Dad knows that.” Gretchen swept her bangs to one side. “She’s a lot like her grandmother.”

  “Oh, she sure is, poor girl,” I said. “I couldn’t do the work down there for long.”

  Gretchen winced. A tight clenching right between her eyes. Her gasping breath made me grip the arm rests of my chair. I just about jumped up out of the rocker. Curling both shoulders, she put her hand on her stomach like before.

  “Gretchen?” I pushed my backside to the edge of the chair. So far forward, so fast, I thought for sure that old thing would fall over on top of me. “What is it?”

  She let the air back out of her before taking in more.

  “Oh.” She sighed, almost a groan. “That’s not a good feeling.”

  “What can I do?” I darn near panicked, seeing her in that pain. “Should I call a doctor?”

  “No, Mom. I’m fine.” The smile she forced formed around clenched teeth. “I think I’ve just got a bad gas bubble stuck in my gut.”

  “What in heaven’s name did you eat?” Sliding back in my seat, I sighed.

  “Don brought home tacos last night.” The hair around her face stuck on skin moistened by sweat even in the air-conditioned room. “I’m not eating those again.”

  “You think you got food poisoning?”

  She exhaled, her body easing into the back of the couch.

  “Whatever it is, I hope it goes through me soon,” she said. “I don’t want to miss the last of summer.”

  She reached for her tea. A twinge of something still bunched up in that place between her eyes.

  A flash of memory quickened my already thumping heart. My mother, all curled up into herself on a bed. Pain set into her eyes. Lips pulled over teeth grinding together. And me, standing beside her, powerless to do a single thing to help.

  Surging worry pushed the oxygen right out of my lungs.

  Chapter Three

  Evelyn

  My afternoon appointment sat in straight-backed chairs, stiff and uncomfortable. I looked at both of them, Granddad’s desk between us. Mother and daughter stared back at me, dry eyed. I double checked the file in front of me. Wanda and her daughter Jamie, there to arrange the funeral of Wanda’s late husband, Stanley.

  “We went to school together.” Jamie’s long, spiky, hot-pink-nailed finger jabbed in the air toward me. “You were a couple years behind me, weren’t you?”

  I nodded, surprised that anyone from high school had even noticed me, let alone remembered me ten years later.

  “We didn’t hang out, did we?” She flipped her bleached blond hair. “I mean, we weren’t friends or nothing. Just went to school together.”

  Jamie had been a cheerleader, I remembered that much. And she’d been real popular, too. Mostly with the guys. That popularity didn’t afford her the best reputation. She was the kind of girl my mom had warned me not to become.

  “Let’s stay on task.” Wanda flicked her eyes toward the clock on the wall. “Who else should we name in the obituary?”

  “We already listed everybody.” Jamie picked at her pinky nail, chipping off a little bit of the paint. “We got you and me and the boys. There’s nobody else.”

  “What about Art?”

  “Who?” Jamie wrinkled her nose and scowled. “Art?”

  “Your uncle Art.” Wanda straightened her neck and sighed.

  “I know who he is.” Jamie inspected her thumbnail before chewing it. “What about him?”

  “Shouldn’t we put his name in the obituary?” Wanda shrugged one shoulder. Then she looked at me. “We should. Right? We should put his brother’s name in the obituary? It’s only proper.”

  “Ma’am,” I said, pen in hand. “It can say just about whatever you want.”

  “But don’t you think it would be courteous to put his brother’s name in?”

  “What would your husband have wanted?”

 
; “He would have wanted Uncle Art to die first.” Jamie crossed her way-too-skinny legs. “Dad hated him and you know it, Ma.”

  “That’s a terrible thing to say, Jamie.” Wanda shook her head.

  Jamie and I looked right into each other’s eyes. She couldn’t have been much past thirty, but her eyes seemed older. Dull with dark, purple bags of exhaustion.

  “We aren’t putting Art’s name on anything.” She lifted an overly plucked eyebrow. “I don’t care what my mom says.”

  Wanda turned her head and glared at her daughter for a full minute. I counted the ticks of the clock. A full sixty seconds. And I didn’t see her blink once. Jamie just kept gnawing her thumbnail and staring at the flip calendar on the desk. After the sixtieth tick, Wanda turned back to me.

  “I guess that’s it for the obituary, then,” she said. “What’s next?”

  “Well, we need to discuss what you’d like to do with his remains.” I reached to one side of the desk for a brochure. “Do you know if he had a preference?”

  “His what? Remains?” Jamie didn’t break her gaze on the calendar or take the nail from between her teeth.

  “His remains,” Wanda repeated my words. “What’s left of his body, right?”

  “Yes.” I pushed the brochure across the desk. “This explains your options.”

  “He never said anything to me about it. What do you think, Jamie?” Wanda turned her head back to the wide-eyed, far too intense glare at her daughter. “Should we get him a coffin? A nice wood one? A headstone?”

  Jamie shrugged. “Or we could just do the thing with the ashes.”

  “Ashes? What would we do with the ashes?” She kept her eyes fixed on Jamie. I didn’t count that time, but it had to have been at least a few minutes. “Do you want them for the mantel?”

  “Gross. I don’t want them in my house.” Jamie shrugged again. “We could scatter them somewhere. Like, outside.”

  “Can we do that?” Wanda glanced at me out the corner of her eyes. “Is that okay to do?”

  “If that’s what you’d like.” I nodded. “Would you still want to have a memorial service?”

  “Well, we could do something small. Just for the family.” Wanda blinked hard. Her eyebrows twitched up and down. I didn’t think she had any idea that she did that. “Stanley didn’t have a whole lot of friends.”

  “He was shy,” Jamie added.

  Wanda turned toward her again. That time, though, with a softer expression. As if the two had an understanding. “He was shy, yes. Very shy. He mostly kept to himself. Even with the two of us.”

  For the first time since they walked into the office, Jamie looked at her mother. Right in the eyes. She pinched her lips together.

  “He was kind of hard to be around,” she said. “But he was always good to my boys.”

  “He loved his grandsons.” Wanda let a small smile curve on her face. “He’d brag about them wherever we went. He’d pull out his wallet and show off their pictures. He wasn’t so shy when he talked about them.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Jamie let a tear roll from her eye.

  Wanda reached across the arms of their chairs. Jamie raised her hand to hold her mother’s. Widowed mother and fatherless daughter sat, hand in hand. I never would have expected that by the way they started the appointment, sneering at each other.

  “Would you like a minister with you as you scatter his ashes?” I let my eyes turn back to the paper in front of me.

  “I don’t know,” Wanda whispered. “He wasn’t really a church-going kind of person. None of us are. It isn’t that we don’t believe. We just never got ourselves out of bed on Sunday mornings.”

  “Except when Dad wanted to go fishing,” Jamie said.

  The two women shared a laugh.

  “He loved to fish.” Wanda nodded.

  “Why don’t we just tell stories about him? He’d like that more than a sermon.”

  “I think he’d be glad you thought of that.” Wanda leaned over and kissed Jamie’s cheek.

  Jamie tilted her head away from her mother, as if unfamiliar with the touch. I wondered if she felt like wiping the kiss off. Instead, she looked at me.

  “Are we done?” She uncrossed her legs and stretched as she got out of her seat.

  “Yes.” The desk chair rolled out behind me as I stood. “Please let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you. You have my number, right?”

  “I do,” Wanda answered. “Thank you.”

  The two women walked all the way out of my office and to their car, still holding hands. It didn’t seem natural for them, the way their arms stiffened at the elbows and how their hands didn’t swing. But, I thought, they both must have needed the comfort of it. As awkward as it must have been. They had to hold on to someone.

  In a strange, untouchable way, watching them made me lonely.

  Heavy footsteps thudded on the floor behind me. Turning, I saw Granddad’s smile.

  “Death has a way of drawing people together,” he said. “Either that or pushing them completely away from each other. Like a magnet.”

  Granddad put hands on hips and smiled down at me, making me almost forget the loneliness.

  “What did they decide on?” Granddad asked.

  “Cremation. They want to do a small family service to scatter the ashes.”

  “I’ll have Cal take a trip out to the crematorium first of the week.” Granddad patted my back. “You done real good, as usual. I’m proud of you.”

  He turned toward the office, his wide shoulders nearly touching either side of the door frame.

  Watching him, I thought about what he’d said. That death had a way of acting like a magnet. Up to that point in my life, all death did was send everyone scattering away from me, leaving only my family.

  Some days that didn’t offer a whole lot of consolation.

  Chapter Four

  Olga

  I left Gretchen on the couch so she could get a little shut-eye. The poor thing curled up on that couch, no energy to get to her bed. I knew she’d be snoozing by the time I got off the porch.

  Praying away the image of my mother, writhing in her bed, I asked the Almighty if I might have something to make me smile. To make that worry pack up and take a hike.

  The sidewalk path took me under branches that joined together, making a tunnel of green. Cool shade on my head felt good, but I longed to warm myself in the sunshine. The hollow tapping of a woodpecker caught my attention as I went on my way. Seemed no matter what tree I studied, I couldn’t catch a peek at him.

  I did see, though, a car pulling into the driveway. Out of the corner of my eye, I spied a bird flying away. Must have been my woodpecker. I figured I couldn’t be too upset. I had books and books full of bird pictures I could look at any day. But my youngest grandchild had grown up so quick. Soon, she’d be off into the world, and I’d miss her terribly. My Charlotte was worth far more than a forest teeming with woodpeckers.

  She got out of her car and waved when she saw me. Oh, how I envied the way she ran toward me without the fear of falling.

  “Gran,” she called. “Hi.”

  “Am I ever glad to see you.” I reached my arms to her. When she got to me, I pulled her close and ran my hands over her smooth hair. Carrot red like her mama’s. Only she took a straight iron to the curl. If I’d had my druthers, I’d have seen her hair wavy every day of the week.

  “I have good news.” She pulled away from me and clenched her teeth together in a wide smile. Not even the sun could outshine the gladness on her face.

  “Well, what is it, honey?”

  “I was just at the bakery. I talked to Deirdre about some of the pastry classes I took last year at college.”

  “How about that?”

  “I guess she’s been looking for someone to help her out.”

  “Isn’t that something.” I grabbed her hand.

  Her eyes, green as the grass in spring, widened with optimism. I, on the other hand, worried t
o my toes about her working in that bakery. Deirdre could be a hard woman. I never had gotten along with her so well. I wasn’t the only one in town who had gotten into a spat or two with her. But, as sensitive as she was, the Lord also made Charlotte one determined girl. Brimming full of spunk. She never took garbage from nobody, no how.

  My mind told my heart she’d be okay. My heart pretended to believe it.

  “Seriously, this will be so good on my resume. Especially if I ever want to make a real career out of baking.” She bubbled over in excitement. I loved that half-moon smile on her face.

  “I didn’t know that was what you wanted to do for a job.”

  “Ever since the first time we made cookies together.”

  Now, if that girl didn’t know how to make my heart swell. I about lost a few tears over those sweet words of hers.

  “Well, how about you and me go over and get some practice?” I patted her hand. “I was thinking I’d go bake a batch of something yummy for Granddad. Maybe you could teach me a trick or two from your classes.”

  “I don’t know anything you didn’t already teach me.” The way her eyes sparkled reminded me so much of Gretchen’s. And her smile, too. Warm and toothy. With a little crinkle across the nose. She looked so much like her mother, it almost hurt.

  We walked side by side up to my house, stopping for half a second to watch a fat bumble bee dipping and diving among the flowers. Then up the steps and into the kitchen.

  “Have you eaten lunch yet?” I asked. “I still make a mean peanut butter and jelly.”

  “I’m good. Thanks.” She dropped her cloth purse onto one of the chairs in the living room.

  “I guess you’re too grown for a good old PB and J.” I washed my hands under cool water from the tap.

  “Do you have any pop?” She pulled open the refrigerator.

  “I got a couple cans right there on the bottom shelf, honey. Help yourself.” I pointed, even though she didn’t look at me. “You want a glass?”