Simple Gifts

by Lori Copeland

  It took a few minutes to locate the family plot. It had been what? More years than I cared to admit since I’d last stood here in front of the simple granite markers that lay flat to the ground. Aunt Beth died two years ago, Herman a few years earlier. My eyes skipped over the markers. I hadn’t come back for either Aunt Beth or Herman. In fact, Sara was a toddler the last time I’d visited here.

  The “William Tell Overture” shattered the serenity. Guess who? Sara, what am I going to do with you?

  I set the pail down, dropped the shovel and rake, and fumbled in my jacket pocket for my cell phone, the true curse of the modern generation. Oh, for the days I only had to deal with an occasional interruption when someone could track me down to say that I had a phone call. Now, twenty-four hours a day the thing could ring, jolting me from sleep, interrupting work.

  I hit the answer button. “Yes?”

  “Mom! Did I tell you that I’ve been up since five this morning? This pregnancy is worse than the others. I’m going to be sick twenty-four/seven. I’ve got to have some rest, Mom. I’m so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open. The mono will come back if I don’t get my rest. It’s barely eleven o’clock and I’m exhausted!”

  This had to be the fastest developing case of morning sickness on record.

  “Calm down, honey.” My daughter had the power to make herself sick just by thinking about it.

  “I am so glad God made you my mother.” Pause. “You’re still coming home Monday, right?”

  Yes, but not a moment sooner. I was staying for Joe’s retirement party. Joe had tirelessly served his community and God for over forty years. Morning sickness wasn’t fatal, only uncomfortable. Sara would survive.

  “Honey, calm down. The house needs a new water heater and roof. I’ve talked to a plumber—well, sort of—and he’s coming soon. I have a call in to the roofer. The repairs need to be done before I can put Beth’s house on the market.”

  Why didn’t I mention Joe’s retirement party? Sara knew my deep affection for the minister, and she would understand my need to be here. Wouldn’t she? Then again, understanding wasn’t exactly her long suit.

  Coward. You’re afraid of your daughter.

  I wasn’t afraid, just cautious about choosing my battles. This wasn’t the time or place to upset her. I knew my lack of gusto for her exciting news hurt her, but her quest for a big family was impractical and foolish. She had no concern for what could happen when both sides of the family were impaired. I’d gotten along without a large family just fine.

  “Mom! Can’t you come home before Monday?”

  My jaw firmed. “Monday, Sara.” Maybe longer but I didn’t say it. Not yet. She would have to get by for a few more days. I was staying until after the retirement party.

  I glanced around and spotted Joe getting out of his car and reaching for the pail he kept in the back floorboard. He must be here to visit Melba.

  Sara sighed. “I wish you were here. I’d feel better.”

  “You’d feel the same.”

  What mother didn’t need to hear she was needed? Wanted. I glanced at Joe, who by now had transported his tools and was busy raking debris from his wife’s grave. Melba’s gravesite was three plots over from Aunt Beth’s. I knew the breeze carried our phone conversation. “Honey, I have to go. Try to get some rest.”

  “Mom, call me later?”

  “Sure, hon.”

  I clicked off, giving Joe an apologetic smile. He smiled back.

  “Sara all right?”

  “She’s pregnant.”

  Joe paused, leaning on the rake handle. “Have mercy.”

  My exact sentiments.

  I picked up my rake and started to work. Birds soared overhead; the sky was a bright turquoise blue. Suddenly it was good to be alive, to breathe in the fragrant spring air. I didn’t have an ache anywhere, my feet didn’t hurt, and for once I was complaint free.

  Lilac and spirea bushes lined the cemetery. I caught an occasional whiff of the fragrant early iris growing near Herman’s stone. My dad’s stone.

  My dad.

  The words stuck in my throat as relentlessly as they had so many years ago. The man who showed up at every PTA meeting and sat in the front row at every one of my programs, occasionally standing to wave at me before someone made him sit. The man who when he ate and talked, sprayed spit in your face. He came to every Christmas pageant, wedged between Aunt Beth and Aunt Ingrid. He even came to my prom and danced with all my friends.

  Pride had stood out all over him as he watched me from the sidelines, all the while shelling peanuts and throwing the hulls on the gym floor. The memory still made my skin itch.

  “Iris sure smells good.”

  I glanced to see Joe standing beside me, admiring the deep lavender blooms. He knelt beside my work pails, breathing deeply of the heady fragrance.

  “The scent reminds me of Aunt Beth.” I dropped to my knees to pull weeds away from the granite, stopping to brush my hand over the fading inscription. “I’m not pleased with the stonework. The dates are almost impossible to read.”

  “You should talk to Carl Summers. He’s got a place off Highway 86. Does some fine stonework.”

  “Thanks, I’ll call him.”

  I got up, brushing off the seat of my jeans. Joe removed his ball cap, squinting at the sun. Deep in thought, I had failed to notice the late morning hour.

  “Say—” Joe turned to face me—“how about sharing my peanut butter and jelly sandwich?”

  “Is it lunchtime already?”

  I’d been so engrossed, I’d forgotten the hour. In Parnass Springs time seemed to matter little, if at all. No frenetic pace, no demanding schedules. My stress shriveled like a marshmal-low over a hot fire. I eyed Joe with a serious look. “Peanut butter and jelly, huh?”

  “Made it myself.”

  “What kind of jelly?”

  “Peach preserves.”

  I reached out to shake his hand. “Deal.”

  We found a shady spot and Joe opened his lunch pail, a Wal-Mart sack. He tore the sandwich in two, put half on a napkin and handed it to me. After uncapping the thermos, he poured the cup full of hot coffee and passed it over.

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll sip out of the thermos.”

  I bit into the bread, and creamy peanut butter and peach preserves exploded my taste buds. How nice to share a meal with a good friend under a spreading oak on a mild spring afternoon.

  Joe’s presence was a balm to my spirit. It was so good to see him, this man I loved almost as much as I had his son…

  I swallowed the bite of a sandwich. Did Joe still carry a silent hurt because I’d married Noel? He’d been so sure Vic and I belonged together, but if I’d stayed in Parnass Springs and married Vic, I would have caved in eventually and given him children.

  No, marrying Noel may have been a frantic effort to break all ties with Parnass, but it had been necessary. I loved Vic; I wanted more for him than I could give. That much was the truth.

  And, if one considered my aunts, I’d done Vic a favor. I liked to think I was different from Aunt Ingrid and Aunt Beth, but no one knew better than I, that blood was thick. Sometimes too much so.

  Aunt Ingrid and Aunt Beth were cold. I sometimes wondered if they knew the meaning of love. I still wasn’t sure they even noticed when I left all those years ago. To this day, Ingrid never asked me to come home for holidays, and though I had carefully calculated lies to cover Noel’s constant absence, they were never needed. Neither aunt ever asked or seemed overly curious about the man I’d run away with, nor about the daughter I’d raised. Oh, the folly of youth.

  When I left Parnass on a cold, stormy day, my decision seemed courageous and self-sacrificing for the man I truly loved, Vic Brewster. Now I recognized the flaws in that belief. My impetuosity had reaped a life of regret.

  I’d met Noel my first week in nurse’s training. I was a green trainee, and he was a handsome, suave man well into his second year of med scho
ol. I was attracted by the nurse/doctor scenario, and I so desperately wanted to break free of Parnass. We dated two months, and one night we decided to get married. How nuts. Married at eighteen, and Noel much older.

  Then, when I became pregnant, a season of utter terror.

  I worried myself sick the entire nine months I carried Sara, fearing my parents’ genes would affect my baby. Noel, of course, was convinced I was paranoid about Herman. He wanted children, and my fears were foolish in his sight. When Sara was born, though, God blessed us. We beat the odds. My daughter was bright and talented and showed not a hint of Herman or Lexy’s imperfections.

  “Penny for your thoughts.”

  I took another bite of sandwich, silently chuckling. I hadn’t heard the old colloquial phrase in years.

  “Oh, I was thinking maybe I’d ask you to marry me, Joe. This is the best peanut butter and jelly sandwich I’ve ever eaten.”

  He nodded, as if marriage proposals, even in jest, were an everyday occurrence.

  “You’ll have to get in line. The mere mention of my name is nectar to some of these widow women.”

  He looked up and grinned, and I knew without a doubt where Vic’s orneriness originated.

  “Ah. You’re a hunted animal, huh?”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  He winked and took a bite of his sandwich. It was hard to believe that he was sixty-five, vibrant, healthy, and single. I’d bet the women swarmed him like flies at a picnic. I doubted that he would marry again; Melba had been his life. When a stroke and then paralysis struck Vic’s mom, everyone thought that Joe would die along with her. Aunt Beth had written that he hung in there for five years nursing Melba, lovingly caring for her every need until one morning she failed to wake. Then he’d insisted on preaching her funeral service.

  I wasn’t there, but when I got his letter telling me the preaching hour had been the hardest of his life, I sat down and wept for Joe and Melba and a love so few couples ever find.

  “So. Little Marlene.”

  The familiar nickname almost brought me to tears. Every day when I came home from school with Vic and we raided the Brewster cookie jar, Joe called me that. Melba’s big old kitchen always smelled of flour and sugar. She was a small woman, but she cooked and ate like a lumberjack. I could never understand how she wasn’t as big as a Mack truck, but she retained her slim, youthful body through plates of creamy walnut fudge, five-layer lemon cakes, and the best cherry cobbler this side of heaven.

  “How come you decided to come home? You haven’t been back in what…a very long time?”

  “Way too long.”

  “You don’t like us anymore?”

  “Can’t stand you. You’re wretched.”

  He feigned hurt. “And I gave you half of my sandwich.”

  I polished off the last crumb and wiped my hands on the grass, then answered his question. “I’m home to put Aunt Beth’s house on the market. It’s about time, don’t you think? It’s been two years.”

  “Ah, yes. She and Ingrid still weren’t speaking when she passed away. I sure hate to see the place change hands, but I know a house will deteriorate if it’s not lived in. I’m glad Ingrid’s finally consented to let you settle the estate. By the way, does Ingrid look in your window instead of ringing the doorbell when she comes to visit?”

  I laughed. Aunt Ingrid did peek in windows to see if anyone was home. In most towns the police would have hauled her off to jail, but the reason she gave for the bizarre habit? She didn’t want to bother anyone if they were busy.

  “Odd lady, but good deep down,” Joe admitted.

  “I’m glad you think so.” I grinned.

  “Here to put Beth’s house on the market—that’s what you said?” He lay back, crossing his hands over his stomach. Unlike Melba, he couldn’t eat anything he wanted and keep a thin waistline. Apparently no one had told him. “That’s good. Beth’s house needs occupants, and the estate should be settled. It’s good to have you back, little one. How’s life treated you?”

  “It sucker punches me every once in a while.”

  I leaned back against the tree trunk and filled him in on the years, things I’d told him in letters and Christmas cards—minus Noel, of course. He always asked about Noel, so I got the chance to use my well-devised explanations for his absence: overseas medical conferences, training, fact-finding trips. I had all the answers, and bless Joe, he never dwelled on the subject. I did get the sense, though, that he knew I had loved Vic with all my heart and had settled for less…

  “It appears, Little Marlene, you’ve done a good job making lemonade from life’s little lemons.”

  I was not going to cry. “Ha. Fooled you, haven’t I?”

  “Oh, now—“He sat up, facing me. “You’ve raised a child, have two grandchildren and another on the way, a successful husband. God’s been good.”

  “Yes, he has.” God had been good, but the deceit stuck in my throat like sawdust. I leaned over and put my hand on his arm. “How about you? You doing okay?”

  For the briefest of moments, tears sprang to his eyes, and I realized Melba was uppermost in his mind. The mist cleared. “I’m making it—can’t say I don’t miss what I’ve lost, but life goes on.”

  Life goes on. How many times had I thrown myself that line?

  “I suppose my biggest worry these days is Vic.”

  “Vic?” I sat up straighter, all ears. “What about my buddy? He looks fine.” And then some.

  “He’s working himself to death. Putting in long hours at the clinic, and now he’s taken on this mayor’s job. It’s only temporary, but people are hounding him to death. Every time a barking dog wakes a neighbor, someone thinks they need to call the mayor and get him to do something about it.”

  I laughed. “Well, if I know Vic, he’ll do his best.”

  “I wonder…”

  He stared into the distance. We were the only visitors in the cemetery, just me and Joe in the quiet serenity.

  “What?”

  He sighed. “I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if you had stayed, Marlene, married Vic, and raised a family.”

  “I’ve thought of that.” Every day of my life.

  “Vic would have a wife. I thought he’d remarry after Julie died, but he didn’t. That was just such a shock…”

  I could imagine. To lose your wife in a train-crossing accident…that had to be terrible. The track ran the length of Parnass Springs. Every day a dozen or more trains blew through. Aunt Beth said one afternoon Julie must not have heard the train whistle. Vic had turned reclusive for a while after her death, and who could blame him?

  Joe went on. “In a few more years he’ll be too old to want to raise young’ uns. He’d be an old man by the time they’d graduate high school.”

  I tried to allay a father’s fears. “He can still marry a young woman who could give him lots of children.”

  “No, Vic wouldn’t marry just to have children. He doesn’t give his love that easily.” He looked over and winked. “When you left, you took his heart with you.”

  As much as I loved the thought, I knew it wasn’t true. Vic had made it fine without me. And the good Lord knew that at my age, no matter how crazy I was about the man, I wouldn’t want a baby. Not now. Not ever.

  Three

  Sunday afternoon I took a long nap.

  Monday, I took another nap to recover.

  Shortly after I woke, Vic brought Joe over for a lunch of sandwiches and we caught up on old times. Sara called twice while I was cleaning up. I’d start to do one thing, and the “William Tell” would ring out. I caught Joe and Vic exchanging numerous glances.

  Vic reached for another handful of chips. “Did the roofer ever call back?”

  “He’ll be here end of the week.” Again, I saw the dubious look between the two men, but the roofer had been honest. “He’d said he was very busy but he’d work me in.”

  Vic reached out and took a cookie out of my hand.
>
  “Vic!”

  “You’re not supposed to be eating cookies.” He popped the sweet in his mouth.

  “Thanks a lot.”

  Reaching for a pear, he tossed it to me. “Knock yourself out.”

  “Who appointed you my guardian?”

  Shrugging, he bit another cookie. “Me, I guess. Any problems with that?”

  “A few come to mind.”

  Quite a few.

  Late that afternoon I bumped into Joe as he was exiting the church. “What are you up to so late in the day?”

  He grinned like an unrepentant four-year-old kid. “I’ve just installed an automatic page-turner for Mattie. It’ll make her work easier.”

  “Mattie’s still playing the organ? “Mercy! How old was she? Near ninety? “What if she’s not ready to turn the page?”

  He sobered. “It’s fully automated. All she has to do is press the button before she starts playing, and after a certain time lapse, the device automatically turns the page.”

  “Really.” His newest invention sounded like a disaster waiting to happen. Well, at least this one shouldn’t attack anyone. “I’m surprised Miss Mattie’s still in good health.”

  “Hasn’t missed a Sunday in forty years.”

  I noticed he didn’t sound exactly cheerful about the milestone.

  “How old is she now?”

  “Ninety-four and deaf as a stump. Should have retired years ago, but no one’s had nerve enough to suggest it.”

  Miss Mattie Hensley. Ah, the memories I had of her. The banker’s wife had been meaner than a snake when I was growing up. She’d terrorized generations of young girls who grew into her Sunday school province—what we called her class. It didn’t sound as if her disposition had mellowed with age.

  Joe brightened. “The new minister’s wife plays the piano and the organ. Very proficient—and on key! Mattie can’t carry on forever.”

  I laughed.

  His expression deflated. “Yeah, you’re right. She’ll outlive us all. You been over to the house to see Vic?”

  “No, I’m on my way to run errands.” I scanned the near empty street. “Looks like a lot has changed. New shops, great café.”

  “We’re getting real modern. There’s a new animal shelter too. Have you seen it?”