Warm Wuinter's Garden

by Neil Hetzner

  Neil stopped the nodding that he had been doing while Brad had talked.

  “Well, Brad, there’s no doubt it’s not the industry it used to be, but at my bank, we’re still pretty conservative. We still do a lot of things like we’ve always done. How do you think I can help you?”

  “I’m not quite sure, yet…Neil. I need to get in the library, do some reading, hone my ideas. I might end up asking you to use your bank as a case study or as part of a sample, or, maybe, you might be able to introduce me to people I’d like to interview.”

  “Well, everybody knows everybody in this state so the introductions shouldn’t be a problem. Using South Coastal for a case study might not be to my boss’ liking. He tends to be a close-to-the-vest Yankee.”

  “Is your bank FDIC?”

  “No. Kenyon’s like a lot of swamp Yankees. Doesn’t think too highly of the feds. We’re one hundred and eighty-seven years old. We’ve never had a major problem and that’s saying something in a state that’s been in industrial decline for more than a hundred of those years. A lot of our clients are small businesses, farmers and fishermen. That’s a definition of boom and bust incomes, yet we’ve never had a problem. About ten years ago the assembly passed a law that all banks, credit unions, and loan companies had to have depositors’ insurance. We didn’t want it, but there was no way to avoid it. We joined a private insurer that got going at that time.”

  “Is that R.I.S.D.I.C.?” Brad spelled out the letters.

  “You’ve obviously done some reading. We say RISDIC. We belong.”

  “Let me see if I can get it. Rhode Island Share and Deposit Insurance Corporation.”

  “Close. Indemnity.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s been a pretty good organization. Been a lot of help with marketing.”

  As Brad and Neil stood talking to one another, Lise dropped to her haunches to pick and smell the grass and the white blossoms of a rosa rugosa. She insinuated herself under her father’s arm and a minute later under Brad’s. Finally she went back to her father and tugged at his sleeve.

  “Excuse me, Dad, but can we take the SureBett out?”

  Neil smiled at Brad.

  “You must consider yourself lucky to have met such a subtle woman.”

  Lise sang, “Sail in the sun, talk in the night.”

  “It’s very nice to be here…Neil.”

  “We’re glad you’re here. It’s a great place to recreate. I just hope you didn’t think it was going to be restful.”

  “I’m learning.”

  Lise grabbed Brad’s hand and pulled him toward the water.

  * * *

  “Pass the salt, please,” Brad said as he looked up and down the picnic table. Bett and Neil, Nita and Lise’s heads turned in search of the salt. Bill continued to look at the food on his plate. Dilly stared at Brad. Finally, Bill said, “I wouldn’t bet on salt. Everyone, with the exception of Brad who didn’t understand the implication of Bill’s remark, looked at Dilly.

  “Mother, Mother!” said Dilly and, then, she stopped as if that were admonition enough.

  Nita caught Brad’s eye.

  “Dilly’s dream is to preserve the family. Forestall all our deaths. Her love is so great she imagines us gathering here as nonagenarians. Senescent from boredom, but with our salt-free, fat-free systems intact.”

  “Mother, Mother!”

  “Nita.”

  Caught between Bett and Dilly, Lise fell backward off the bench, rolled a backward somersault, leaped to her feet, and raced to the house for salt.

  Brad smiled his widest smile at Dilly.

  “Who’s responsible for a person’s health? That’s definitely a tricky issue. I’m going to get into it this fall in the ethics course I’m teaching. Should corporations screen job candidates on whether they smoke or not? Should firms ban sugared or caffeinated drinks from the premises? Do businesses have the right to compel employees to exercise? Or lose weight? Should an employer have the right to monitor the blood pressure or cholesterol level of workers, especially the highly paid ones? Should firms be able to compel workers to adjust diet or exercise until their levels are within the safety zone? Does the employer have the right to demand good health habits from its employees? What do you think, Delia?”

  Dilly said nothing while she tried to decide if she could accept anyone or anything other than herself giving health orders. Finally, she said, “I think that everyone’s health is everyone’s concern.”

  “Waffle,” laughed Nita.

  Brad nodded his head at Dilly. “Then you would support giving work organizations the power to compel healthy behavior?”

  Neil laughed, “As long as Dilly gets to write the rules.”

  Dilly put an overly large piece of celery in her mouth so that politeness could protect her from talking. She didn’t know what she thought except that she would like to take a comb and scissors to Brad’s hair.

  “Aren’t we using work organizations as a more benign looking, more voluntary seeming, more reasonable sounding version of a totalitarian government?” asked Nita. “The Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the courts keep the government from doing a lot of things that may be in our best interest. That’s what freedom is all about—getting to choose something that someone else thinks is bad for us. But what we’ve done is set up a situation where employers, especially large corporations, are compelled to act as government’s hired hand. The government can’t come into our homes and say, `You have to hang out with women and blacks and vets, and the handicapped; you have to set your thermostat below 70 degrees and you can’t smoke in your living room, and, by the way, stay away from BLT’s.’ They can’t tell us that directly. That would be unconstitutional. But they can tell a business to require those kinds of behaviors because a business is a legal fiction. It’s not protected. So, for thirty or forty hours a week at work, the government can have unconstitutional control over us.”

  “But, if the government is going to be picking up the tab for someone’s health care, shouldn’t it have some control over the person’s behavior? Doesn’t it need to have some leverage over people’s lives so that it can contain costs?” asked Bill. He seemed to have to make an effort to keep his voice calm.

  Brad gestured toward Bill. “Whoever writes the checks gets to call the shots, right? That’s a common argument by some. By many. It seems reasonable on the surface, but once a person starts to think what it means, people get leery. You get some old guy who’s going crazy because tax money is being used for drug rehab, or abortions or to support a sixteen year old with a baby out of wedlock.”

  Brad began to talk in a gravelly voice. `She’s not responsible. We’re encouraging immorality.’ Et cetera. But, he’s sitting reading the paper with a huge gut from too much beer and bacon, arteries clogged down to the size of pinholes, thinking that it makes perfect sense for the government to ante up $200,000 for his quadruple bypass. That’s about ten years’ worth of welfare for someone. He doesn’t make the link. He’s positive the unwed mother should be sterilized, but he’d go insane if someone suggested higher taxes on alcohol and cigarettes and a new tax on high cholesterol foods. He can’t even imagine banning bacon from the grocery store. Freedom. His.”

  There was something about Brad’s last thoughts that made Dilly feel uncomfortable. She couldn’t tell if his words and her family’s eyes really had been directed toward her during Brad’s example, but it felt that way. She decided that she should go on the offensive.

  “People are dropping like flies, and your solution is to tax bacon?”

  “Sure, why not, and mayonnaise and eggs and butter and cheese and Twinkies and the cracker sandwiches with the powdered cheese. And…” as he took the salt shaker from Lise, who had just run up with it, “salt.” Brad sprinkled salt all over his plate. “I love salt. I want the freedom to use it. But, if it contributes to my having high blood pressure, I don’t think that you should have to pay for it.”

  Nita had been nodd
ing at Brad’s words. “It makes a lot of sense, Dilly. Asking someone to `just say no,’ whether it’s to crack or driving drunk or scarfing bacon and egg salad, or a sausage grinder, isn’t a real strong incentive for someone to change behavior. Why not tax the bad food, or subsidize the good.”

  Lise had figured out where the conversation had gone while she was getting the salt. “Lower income families tend to have a lot of many diet-related health problems. You could do a thing with food stamps where certain products could have a symbol on them, like pareve for Jews. If an item had the symbol it would be discounted at the food counter for those paying in food stamps. One dollar in food stamps might buy two dollars’ worth of food, if it were spinach or miller’s bran or fruit. The extra cost would be made up in lower health costs. Right?”

  Lise looked at Brad. She could feel herself on the verge of taking off with the idea. She wished that she were alone with him so that the ideas themselves, rather than the social context, would be the focal point. There were health, primary and tertiary economic, agricultural, family structure, cultural imperialism implications, intoxicating implications that should be worked through. She felt herself bursting with energy. She wished she weren’t squeezed in between Dilly and her mother.

  Neil stretched his neck out so that he could see down his bench to Brad. He smiled. “Passing the salt gets more complicated all the time. Well, Brad, we sure passed the time. I’m guessing that your students will be having an interesting time in that class. If you have a couple of bucks, you better pony them up to the insurance kitty before we make ice cream later. Dilly keeps track of the health effects. Just ask her, she’ll let you know how much you’ll owe.”

  “Da-ad, Da-ad.”

  “Diiiill.”

  * * *

  “So, Mom, what do you think?”

  “Honey, I like him a lot.”

  “He’s very bright.”

  “He certainly seems to be.”

  “He’s not stuffy.”

  “No, he’s not.”

  “He’s kind of wacky.”

  “We used to say, `He has an interesting mind.’”

  “He’s cute.”

  “Lise, I think he may be too old for cute. He’s very good looking, though.”

  “What about the hair?”

  “What about it?”

  “Too long?”

  “I think that we all get to an age after which certain things don’t become us. With his hair, I don’t think that he’s reached that age yet. What do his professors say?”

  “I don’t know. It probably won’t be a problem until he gets to the dissertation stage. That’s the time when faculty really get into cloning themselves. So, Mom, what do you like best about him?”

  “Lise, I haven’t spent much time with him.”

  “C’mon, Mom, first impressions. You’re usually right.”

  “If I am, honey, it’s because I try to avoid first impressions.”

  “Please, jump off the cliff. I have. As usual. Let me know my fate.”

  “Lise, your fate is your fate. You’ve always attracted attractive men. And, I mean much more than looks. You’re very lucky that way. Peter’s had such trouble finding anyone since Gaby. The same is kind of true for Nita, too.”

  “I know. I was thinking about that the other day. I keep ditching nice guys. It’s me. I get bored.”

  “Or, maybe you think that you might get bored.”

  “You’ve never gotten bored? With Dad?”

  “A friend, I won’t say who, once told me that the thing that had sustained her in her marriage was that she had always found her husband amusing. When I heard that I didn’t know how to think about it. The same was true when someone else told me that the foundation of his marriage was that, even after many years, much of what his wife thought and felt remained a mystery to him. Mystery. Amusement. Not being bored. Are these different things or the same thing? I had a hard time thinking about whether I used your father for amusement.”

  “Mom, have you been bored with Dad?”

  “Of course. I’ve had periods where I was bored with him and with you kids and, most often, with myself. The important thing to me isn’t that I’ve had periods of boredom, but, rather, that those periods haven’t lasted. It’s not even your father, really. The thing that I try to remember to pay attention to is not he or I, but, rather, us. Our intertwining is always unfolding. That has not been boring.”

  “But, don’t you think that that’s rare? Don’t you think that Gaby got bored with how the intertwining was unfolding, or maybe not unfolding, but strangling? Do you think that Dilly and Bill feel that they’re in the middle of a wonderful mystery?”

  “Lise, in my opinion, good relationships are founded upon three things. Respect. Trust. Understanding. If those things are in place, then I don’t think that a couple could get bored with one another for very long.”

  “Respect, trust, and understanding?”

  “Yes.”

  “Understanding doesn’t work very well with your friend’s support for mystery and amusement.”

  “Don’t you scientists understand how some things work without knowing all the details?”

  “Yes, Mom, point made. I really miss you. I mean I love being in Boston doing the things I’m doing, but there are times when I wish that you were right there. I get so excited that I forget why I’m doing something. You’d be a good reagent to have nearby. To help in the synthesis.”

  “Honey, I miss you every day. You’re such a joy.”

  Bett wanted to go on, but she was afraid that the thing that she was feeling in her right breast might slide over and confuse those feelings that were filling up her heart. She feared that she might lose control over her tenses. I am going to miss you every day. You have been such a joy.

  “So, Mom, what do you like best about Brad? Not the tattoo, right?”

  “No, Lise. In the short time that he’s been here, what I like best is that when something amuses him he looks to find your eyes. He wants to share those little joys. That’s what I like best.”

  Chapter 7

  Despite not being able to see through the glare of the late afternoon sun reflecting off Dilly’s rear window, Bett waved until the car turned from the lane. Her smile faded with the fading sound of tires scrunching on the gravel that had been dragged out onto Brume Lane. Her hand came down slowly. She crossed her arms and held onto her elbows as if the air had grown colder. She heard herself sigh in the encroaching silence, but she couldn’t decide whether it was a sigh of relief that the children and grandchildren were gone, or a sigh to gather strength for what now must be done.

  It had been a week since she had driven along South County’s country roads thinking of gardens. In those seven days she had put up eggplant and okra, she had served more than one hundred plates of food, including making dough for campfire stick bread for Peter’s boys. She had set up daily encampments on the beach, helped dig moats to fortify sand castles, and, once, around her sleeping husband. She had patted and hugged and kissed and ssshhhed her kin, and she had chopped and shredded and broiled and baked. She had nurtured all those around her in the many ways that they had come to expect from her over the long and short years of their lives. She had accomplished everything that had needed doing except for one task with Neil that she had promised herself a week before she would undertake as soon as the guests were gone. She drew a second sigh before turning forthrightly toward the house.

  Neil was still sleeping in the rattan chaise in the screened-in porch. He had lain down after returning from filling the Point Jude day sailer, the SureBett, with grandchildren for a final summer sail. They had left as early in the morning as a boatload of Brother Jonathans, which Neil had informed them was an old British term for Americans, looking to free their colonial homeland from the tyranny of the redcoats. They had sailed down the cove and out to Spinner’s Island, a half-acre knoll. Under Captain Neil’s enthusiastic command, the grandchildren had assaulted the island,
scrambled up the gravelly hillside to dispatch the entrenched redcoats, planted a scraggly flag made by the light of the campfire the night before, and then sailed triumphantly for home and hotdogs, albeit turkey hotdogs. After lunch their captain had retired to quarters while his troops broke camp.

  Peter’s tent had been folded and refolded under Dilly’s persistent supervision until it fit back inside its bag. At Bett’s suggestion the ashes from the campfire had been scattered on the roses. Toothbrushes had been accounted for, damp bathing suits had been stripped from the line, and leftovers had been distributed. Hugs and kisses had been given and received. Car seats had been argued over. Engines had been started, and, in the midst of the activity, as war had ended and his loyal soldiers and sailors had been mustered out, the captain had slept soundly through it all.

  Neil had napped through so many holiday afternoons, it had become such a tradition, that there was no thought to wake him. Rather, at some odd moment during their preparations for departure, each of his children and grandchildren had looked in on him and smiled. Several of the most loyal had saluted him with the precision which he had carefully taught them.

  Bett was the first person to look in on her husband and not smile. She wandered the downstairs rooms of the house looking at the artifacts of her family’s life. She went to the laundry room to get a large wicker basket. Although she did not have enough hard cheese or walnuts on hand to make fennel pesto, she decided to harvest some of the fennel’s pale green feathery fronds. She could clean and grind the fennel that night, then, after a quick shopping trip, she could finish the project in the morning. Fennel pesto, either alone, or with grilled sweet Italian sausage, or with sautéed sea scallops or with bacon had been one of the quick winter meals for the Kosters for most of the years that they had lived in Rhode Island.