And Be My Love

by Joyce C. Ware

  "Dana ran away?"

  "No, no, that wasn't her style—for one thing, she might have soiled the pretty clothes Murry gave her—but she was a master, at the tit-for-tat game."

  Housa blew her nose. "I still don't see—”

  "Think back, Housa. Have you had any arguments recently?"

  "Yeah, sure, but for Daisy, arguments are a way of life. The brand of cereal she'll eat for breakfast, what she can watch on TV, even the color of her socks." She pushed her hair off her forehead and sighed. "There was the business about cooking out, but I can't think.…"

  "What business was that?" Beth prompted.

  "Oh. Well, Daisy's friend, Kim, is seven, and at seven you can be a Brownie. Daisy's only two months short, but—God! Talk about bureaucracy!"

  Beth nodded. "No exceptions."

  "Right. I tried to explain it to Daisy, but she wasn't having any. I couldn't really blame her, considering the way Kim was lording it over her and they're supposed to be best friends!"

  "The cookout, Housa?" Beth's patience was not limitless.

  "Oh yeah. Well, three weeks ago Kim's troop had a hike followed by this cookout. Nothing elaborate. Hot dogs roasted on sticks—charred, probably—stories around the campfire afterwards. They only went as far as that wild five acres back of the Pomperaug School, where Andy and I helped build a nature trail? But Kim talked about it as if they'd been to the back of beyond, so Daisy said she'd show her, and I said she was too young to go on her own, but that Andy and I would take her on a picnic up to the state park in West Cornwall and show her where her grandparents lived in a tipi." She smiled a guilty little smile. "I told her you'd keep Clara and Jamie—it was to be her treat, you see."

  "You promised?"

  "Not exactly, Beth. It was more of a 'we'll see' kind of thing. What with Andy's schedule and Jamie teething—" Housa's voice broke as it rose "—it's only been three weeks!"

  But at six going on seven, three weeks was an eternity. Beth could tell from the slump of Housa's shoulders she didn't need reminding of this.

  "Mommy?" It was Clara. Her special blue blanket, faded and stained, trailed behind her. "Did Daddy find Daisy yet?" She sidled over to her grandmother and rubbed against her arm. Beth, taking the hint, lifted her up into her lap.

  "He will, sweetie."

  "Mommy?"

  "Yes, sweetie."

  "S'pose he doesn't."

  Housa's look at Beth was anguished. "Daddy'11 find her, baby." She reached out to gently cup Clara's sleep-flushed cheeks. "He'll find your big sister and bring her home to you."

  Curls as fragrant and softly coiled as fine wood shavings tickled Beth's throat as Clara twisted in her lap.

  "But if he doesn't, c'n I have Daisy's room?"

  Housa burst into tears. Clara promptly followed suit. Beth sighed and waited for the storm to pass then after carrying Clara back to bed, she made a cup of tea for Housa.

  "How could Clara say something like that?" Housa wailed."I'm a terrible mother."

  "It has nothing to do with either you or Daisy. Jamie's teething, he cries, he wakes Clara up. She's an opportunist. All little kids are, you know that."

  Housa nodded. She looked down at her nails, inspecting them, not really seeing them."I try so hard," she whispered.

  Too hard, maybe, Beth thought, but this wasn't the time to go into that.

  The screen door screeched open."Housa? You have two candidates for cocoa and one for the apple crisp left from last night."

  Andy came in from the hall, beaming, trailed by Daisy. Her wiry arms were crossed over her body and pimpled with gooseflesh; her eyes were downcast. She stole a look at her mother. Seeing her tear-reddened eyes, the sodden tissues clutched in her hand, Daisy's mouth began to tremble."I think I'd like to go to bed now," she whispered.

  To Housa's eternal credit, she responded to Beth's gentle nudge by rising, smiling, from the couch and taking her daughter by the hand."I think that can be arranged—cocoa first, though, h-mm-m?"

  Daisy nodded. Her shoulders' tight hunch succumbed to her mother's warm encircling arm. "Apple crisp, too, please." Her voice was stronger now. They walked together to the kitchen. Andy sat, then rose again. "I'll fill you in shortly, Mom. Got to call the others off. There's a regular posse out there—all that's lacking are the bloodhounds."

  He came back, shaking his head in grateful wonderment. "It's too bad it takes a crisis to bring out the best in people. Jeff Sevrinson, who's normally so unbending his joints squeak, actually offered to go out and spread the good news to those without CB's or beepers. Could take him the rest of the night."

  They heard footsteps creaking up the stairs. "'Night, Daze. Sleep tight—"

  "Don't let the bedbugs bite," her piping voice called back.

  A lump rose in Beth's throat. Don't let the bedbugs bite, Bethy... Her fathers jollying voice, echoing down the years through two, no, three generations. Her mother used to sniff exaggeratedly and say, "Bedbugs! The very idea, Henry!" but Beth knew she wasn't really bothered, not in a way that mattered.

  Beth heard a door close upstairs. "Andy? I'm concerned about Housa," she said, taking advantage of her daughter-in-law's temporary absence. "She seemed so... overwrought."

  "Of course she was, Mom!" Eyes flashing. "Her six year-old daughter was missing. She didn't know where she was. I'd be more concerned if she hadn't been."

  In the face of her son's storm of indignation, Beth had no choice but to back down. Love was powerful stuff. She had, after all, nothing solid to go on, just an uneasy feeling that Housa seemed to be losing herself in her children. No, that wasn't quite right. Losing her sense of herself. Where had she heard that before? Something like it, anyway.

  Beth looked at her watch. Eleven-thirty. Was it too late to call Karim? "Where did you find her, Andy?"

  "Well, after canvassing the obvious places, like the top of the cliff behind the house and the hemlock grove up the road—the one she calls Scary Woods?—we went to the pond in back of the Pidulski farm." He cleared his throat. "It's covered with algae, and when the beam of my flashlight caught this big half-submerged lump.…"

  Beth, knowing the torment that moment must have caused him, reached for her son's hand. He grasped it, hard.

  "It was just an old tractor tire, but so slimed with green goo that until we fished it out.…" He shook his head. "I finally had the sense to visit the Bradleys—Kim's parents. They roused her out of bed, and she told me about this Brownie cookout at the five-acre preserve behind the school."

  Housa hadn't thought to tell him, Beth realized. The time it might have saved.…

  "Daisy hadn't been included, Kim said, because she wasn't old enough. You should have heard her self-satisfied little voice. I could've slugged her. Anyway, that's when I knew.

  "All she had with her was the sleeping bag you gave her last year—she's grown a half a foot since then—and a small paper sack full of dry cereal. There she was, under a big pine next to this swampy place, scrunched into that damp, outgrown bag, and scared to eat because the crackling of the paper might drown out the other noises."

  "Other noises?"

  "You know, the things that go bump in the night? Apparently, Kim's interminably long brag about the cookout included a hushed reference to things out there in the shadows. Kim said she'd never want to go there after dark all by herself, so—"

  "That's exactly what Daisy had to do, of course," Beth finished, shaking her head.

  "Exactly. A tribal coming of age ritual smack in the middle of Eastbury, Connecticut. Six is a little young, though."

  "Almost seven," Beth reminded him. "You weren't much older when you rode your skate board down Blueberry Hill."

  "And I've still got the scars to prove it."

  "That ghastly final curve—"

  "I'll never forget the look on your face when I arrived home limping and bloody."

  They smiled fondly at each other.

  "Thanks for coming. Mom. Where were you, by the way?"
/>
  "I had dinner at Polly's Place."

  "That's nice. Out with the girls, huh?"

  He knew she hated that expression. She knew he was teasing, but still.… Beth frowned. Polly's Place. That's where she'd heard it. Don't let your children define you, Beth. At Polly's, that first night with Karim.

  "Actually, I was out with a man. In fact, I promised to call him about Daisy." She crossed to the phone. "Fix me a cup of tea, will you dear?"

  "Oh. Sure, Mom." He lingered, obviously hoping to eavesdrop. Beth waited, pointedly, until he withdrew to the kitchen. Karim answered on the first ring.

  "This man," Andy said when he returned. "Do I know him?" He handed her the tea, fixed the way she liked it late at night. Mostly milk, lots of sugar.

  "I don't think so. Karim Donovan? Acting president of Peabody? No, president, as of the trustees' meeting this morning."

  Beth stirred the milky mixture. Cambric tea, her grandmother had called it. She watched Andy process the scant information she'd given him.

  "Is he nice?"

  Beth looked at him over the rim of her cup. "Yes, he's nice. Except when he's drinking. And sometimes he gets this funny look in his eyes, but I'm sure the rumors about him beating his—"

  "Hey, cut it out, Mom."

  "Well, what kind of question is that? Of course he's 'nice', whatever that means. I don't know him well enough yet to know what else he is."

  "Look, I'm sorry, it's just... Dad used to say you were one of the last of the innocents."

  Considering what Karim had told her about his wife's life-style at dinner, maybe Ralph wasn't entirely wrong, but she wasn't about to admit it. "It suited your father to think that."

  To her amazement, Andy laughed. "You should see the way you set your jaw. Just like Daisy, and she could teach mules a thing or two." He sobered. "This man's gotten to you, hasn't he?"

  "What man?" Housa said as she entered, smiling and light of foot, her tears and their cause a fast-fading memory.

  "The man in the moon, dear," Beth said, getting to her feet. "Daisy all right?"

  "She's fine; we're fine. Thanks for coming, Beth." She offered her cheek.

  "Any time," Beth replied automatically, kissing it. "Remember, we're celebrating the birthdays next Saturday. Applegate Inn. Five-thirty."

  Housa's lovely brow puckered. "It's not a surprise party, is it?"

  Beth tried to keep a straight face as she recalled the birthday celebration the year of Housa's first pregnancy when, hiding in a closet together with two virtual strangers, her water broke. No wonder Dana was apprehensive about the inclusion of Andy's family.

  "No, Housa," she assured her solemnly. "No surprises this year."

  Beth caught the rise of Andy's eyebrows out of the corner of her eye. Until tonight, she'd never given him much cause for surprise. Good old dependable Mom.

  Maybe, she mused as she drove home, it was about time for a change. She couldn't see any harm in it. If anything, a change might be good for all of them.

  Especially me.

  Chapter Eight

  Beth left the hospice an hour later than planned, feeling drained both physically and emotionally. One of the regular nurses had called in sick, and she had been pressed into service to try to make one of the patients more comfortable. Jane Disbrow suffered from terminal lymphoma. Her initial response to the bone marrow replacement done at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston had been very encouraging; two years later her remission abruptly ended.

  Jane, thirty-seven with two children, had come to terms with her approaching death. Rage had consumed her last shreds of hope, then rage gave way to acceptance, and acceptance to a serenity that Beth found at once inspiring and heartbreaking. She had hoped to make the hospice the cornerstone of her volunteer work, but she had decided that she was temperamentally better suited to counseling than caregiving. If sainthood came back into fashion, the hospice nurses would head the list of eligible candidates. As for herself... In her mind's eye Beth saw a tarnished halo atilt on her head, bent wings trailing in the dust behind her.

  A blaring horn returned her to the reality of the four-way stop she was drifting into. Braking hard to let the angry driver through—she pretended not to see the upraised middle finger thrust in her direction—she automatically clapped a protective hand on the Radio Shack carton on the seat beside her.

  She hoped Theresa would be pleased with her choice of a radio. She hadn't bothered to explain why she didn't require dual speakers or enough control buttons to maintain a satellite in orbit, and the young salesman, who himself postdated the basic model she chose, had clearly thought her mentally deficient.

  "Godalmighty, Beth," Theresa crowed, "look at it, will ya? It's like having my old one back. Whadda I owe ya?"

  The price—forty-eight dollars—had been modest and Beth considered Theresa's delight payment enough, but she knew better than to say so. These women were of the old school: charity began at home. She halved it. "It was a floor model," she lied.

  "Lot cleaner floor'n mine," Theresa muttered, unsnapping the closures of several small purses she took from her large one, extracting from each a portion of the required amount. It was, Beth surmised, a kind of home grown bookkeeping system: portable, cheaper than a computer and, for the purposes of the Miller household, just as efficient.

  Beth wished Nina Balkin's problem could be solved as easily. Nina, a newcomer to the group, was Beth's age, forty-nine, which made her the youngest participant; her ninety-one-year-old mother was the oldest dependent. During her group sessions, Nina parked Mrs. Balkin in the senior day care wing, a verbal description Horace 'Williams took issue with when Beth inquired about the old woman's adjustment.

  Horace was a tall, well-spoken black man famous for the calming effect of his gentle voice and manner. According to Andy Volmar, an hour with Horace was worth more to his elderly clients than a week on chemical tranquilizers.

  "Would you 'park' a hand grenade, Beth? How about a flamethrower?"

  It was the first time she had ever seen Horace testy. "I gather it's not going well."

  "It's not going well for her, for me, or anyone else. I've never seen such a talent for agitation—and mean?" He shook his head. "I don't know how that slip of a daughter of hers manages."

  Somehow Nina did manage, but just barely. A late and unplanned only child, she had been frequently reminded over the years of the debt she owed the mother who barely survived her harrowing birth. It was a classic example of what a fleeting adolescent romantic interest of hers used to call "a really heavy trip."

  "My job saves me," Nina told them during the third session she attended, finally able to trust enough to participate.

  She washed and repaired oriental rugs for a dealer in Woodbury. The painstaking work she described would have driven Beth crazy, but Nina loved it. "I lose myself in matching the wool colors and getting the knots laid in just right." She laughed. "It's very therapeutic, and I'm getting paid for it."

  But her mother was getting worse. She couldn't be left alone anymore, and the woman who used to come in part time had quit.

  "I can't blame her," Nina said. "I won't even repeat the names mother called her."

  It was then Gladys Flexner spoke up. "If I were you, I'd place her in a home."

  Hope and horror warred in Nina's eyes. "I can't do that. She's my mother."

  "My father's the dearest man who ever lived," Gladys said,”but it sure wears a person down.”

  Heads nodded agreement. Alvin Flexner, who spent every other day at the day-care wing, was indeed a dear old man. He was also in need of constant supervision.

  "Like you," Gladys continued, "I'm still working because we need the money I bring in, but I've got two aunts willing to sit with their brother the days he's not here in day care, and a husband and a passel of kids willing to do their share. If it weren't for the support my family gives me..." She paused and sighed. "I don't know how you manage, Nina, and if you ask me you won't be able to much l
onger unless you make some changes."

  Beth held her breath. Gladys was saying the things she wanted to say to Nina, but hadn't earned the right. Beth was a good counselor, she knew that, but personal experience counted for a lot with these women. Given her lack of formal training, rather than propose a course of action at the outset she usually waited for it to emerge from group discussion before picking up the beat. When everything fell into place, as it seemed to be doing now, she found the group dynamic exhilarating.

  Nina leaned forward, her fingers twisting together so hard Beth feared she might wrench them off. "But the house we live in—it's hers."

  Still protesting, but another step along the way.

  "So sell it," Theresa chimed in. "Get yourself one of those nice little apartments like my Cerise got—one of them condos."

  Beth listened quietly, attentively.

  "No one has the right to demand the sacrifice of a another person's life to meet her needs," Magda Foley said. "It should be a gift, freely given."

  Magda's mother lived with her, too, but the resemblance with Nina's situation ended there. The two lived in peace and harmony, enjoying each other's company. Magda had joined the group not for solace, but to learn of ways others had devised of coping with the sadly common arthritic crippling that confined her mother to a wheelchair.

  "We've talked of the alternatives available to us if I become unable to care for Mother." Magda herself was seventy. "There's a very nice place in Southbury. Nothing fancy, but it's church connected—"

  "Mother doesn't think much of churches," Nina broke in. "She interprets the Bible in her own way."

  "Which means she can take it or leave it, as suits her, right?" a voice called from the back. Laughter rippled through the group.

  Nina looked startled. "I—I never thought of it that way, but yes, I guess you're right."

  "The home I'm talking about isn't churchy, Nina," Magda said. "No preaching or anything like that. I'm sure I have an extra brochure—why don't I bring it next session? Better yet, give me your address. I'll send it to you."