Leaves of Hope

by Catherine Palmer

  “Mom?” Beth’s voice down the hall sounded troubled. Instantly Jan threw back the quilt. What was it? A bad dream? A spider?

  “Mother, where are you?”

  “I’m coming!” Jan stepped into her slippers and started across the room. “Beth, what is it, honey?”

  The door swung open, and there stood her daughter holding Thomas Wood’s teapot.

  “What is this?” Beth demanded. She could hardly hold back tears. If her mom said the wrong thing…if this was what it seemed…if the note had been true…

  “Where did you find that?”

  “What is it, Mother?”

  “Well, it’s a teapot, of course.” Her mother reached for it. “Give me that, Beth. Where did you get it?”

  “You’d better tell me what it is right now, Mother. And don’t even think about taking it away!”

  “Don’t use that tone of voice with me, young lady.”

  “Mother, where did this teapot come from?” Beth let out a breath, tried to calm herself. “Tell me whose it is.”

  Jan crossed her arms over her chest and turned away. “I’m going to put on my robe,” she announced. “And you had better adjust your attitude by the time I’m done.”

  “Adjust my attitude? What is this, Mom? Do you think I’m fifteen?” Beth followed her mother toward the rocking chair where the robe lay. “I found this teapot and the note inside it. And I want to know what it means.”

  Jan pursed her lips as she pushed her arms into the pink chenille robe, folded the edges over each other and tied the belt into a half-bow at her waist. She walked to the closet, opened the door a hair and shut it again. Then she switched on the lamp beside her bed and adjusted the shade.

  “Mother!” Beth stepped to her side and took hold of her arm. “You can’t fidget your way out of this. You can’t deny it. Now sit down and tell me what is going on here. Why was this teapot in my box? What does this note mean? And who is Thomas Wood?”

  “Nothing and nobody,” Jan said, dropping onto the edge of her bed. “That’s all you need to know. Nothing and nobody.”

  “That’s not true! You wrote this. What does it mean—‘your birth father’?”

  “Where did you find that teapot? I told you not to touch any of the boxes in the guest room!”

  “You wrote my name on it—‘For Beth.’”

  “So what if I did? You were not to open anything in the room! Where did you find that box?”

  “It was in the closet.”

  “In the closet! Were you digging around in my private possessions? Snooping? Is that it?”

  “Mom, that is beside the point.”

  “It certainly is not. The things in this house are mine, and I told you not to touch any of them. I warned you! I said, ‘Hands off.’ But you didn’t listen. You poked and pried, just like you always do. Getting into things that aren’t any of your business. That box was for later. After I’m gone.”

  “You mean dead? You wanted me to wait until you were dead to find this teapot?”

  “I put items from your childhood in the box. You don’t need any of them now. They’re just mementos. I should have thrown them all out when I moved.”

  “And then I wouldn’t have known. You would have preferred it that way.”

  Beth stared at her mother. Jan looked across the room toward the curtained window, her lower lip quivering. “Obviously I did not want you to know anything about it at this time,” she said in a measured tone, as if trying to corral something that was determined to escape. “I put the teapot in the box. I sealed the box. I told you not to get into my things. And you disobeyed me!”

  She whirled on her daughter. “You never do what you’re supposed to do, Beth! You think it’s fine to just go wherever you want to go, do whatever you want, act however you please! You don’t care about privacy and silence and decent, normal behavior! I’m sorry I let you come here this weekend. I wasn’t ready for you yet. And now you’ve gone and done this—this thing.”

  Beth clutched the china teapot to her belly, wounded by her mother’s accusations, in spite of her determination not to care. She was the one who should be angry—not her mother! Beth had found the note. The secret. She deserved to be furious. But her mother had turned her own guilt into fury, as she always did. And soon the anger would transform into cold, bitter silence.

  “Mother, I’m sorry I failed to honor your request not to touch the boxes in the guest room.” Beth sat down in the rocking chair next to the bed. “But you have to tell me what this note means. Is it true?”

  Jan reached for a tissue and blew her nose. “I don’t even remember what it says—and don’t read it to me! Just put it back in the teapot. And give that to me. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Get rid of it, you mean? No way. It’s mine. You put it in my box. I’m not turning it over to you to throw in the trash.” She spread her fingers over the teapot’s smooth, porcelain shape. “You wrote that Thomas Wood gave you the tea set. Who is he?”

  “Someone I knew a long time ago. He’s gone, all right? Dead.”

  “Dead? Was he my father?”

  Her mother’s blue eyes crackled. “John Lowell was your father, Beth, and don’t you ever forget that. He was the best father a girl could ever have. He loved you so much! He did everything for you! He treated you like…like—”

  “Like I was his own?”

  “Like a princess!”

  “Like the queen rose in the rose garden of girls? But that’s not who I was! It’s not who I am! Who am I, Mom?”

  “You are Bethany Ann Lowell, and you know it. Now stop all this nonsense. I’m exhausted, and I’m sure you must be, too. Go back to your room and…” She paused. “Better yet, I’ll make you some hot chocolate. You can drink it while I clean up the mess you made in the guest room.”

  “Then what? We’ll go to bed and pretend this never happened?” Beth’s jaw clenched. Her mother would try to sweep this under the family rug—Beth just knew it. But not this time. She lifted her chin. “How did my father die?”

  “He had ALS. Lou Gerhig’s Disease.”

  “I’m not talking about Dad. I mean him. Thomas Wood. When did he die? What happened to him?”

  “He wasn’t your father. He was just a man I knew. A college acquaintance. A friend.”

  “A boyfriend.”

  “Okay, maybe. We dated in college, and then he moved away, and that was that.”

  “Except that you were pregnant with me.”

  Jan heaved an enormous sigh. “All right, so what if I was? Does that part matter—really? The point is…John and I married, and he raised you as his own precious daughter. He gave you everything you could need, and he loved you dearly. Certainly as much as Billy and Bobby.”

  “But they were his natural children.”

  “By birth. Yes, they were. Yet, you were as much John’s natural child as your brothers, Beth. He loved you every bit as deeply. He never showed any preferences. You were his little pumpkin, remember? His ragamuffin. His Bethy-boo.”

  “Mother, you know I loved Dad. Nothing will change that. Certainly not this teapot. But why didn’t you tell me about Thomas Wood? Why wasn’t I allowed to know?”

  “What for? It made no difference to your daddy and me. Why should you care?”

  “Because!” Beth stood and shook her head. “Because I’m different! I’m not the same as the rest of you.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Every child is unique. Look at your brothers.”

  “Peas in a pod. That’s what Dad used to say. Billy and Bobby, peas in a pod. He never included me.”

  “You were a girl.”

  “I wasn’t his child.”

  Jan exploded up from the bed. “Yes, you were, Beth, and don’t ever let me hear you say such a thing again! You are John’s daughter every bit as much as your brothers are his sons. If you deny that, you deny everything he was!”

  “How can you say that?”

  “Because he was the man who married
me! He did what he didn’t have to do. That’s who John Lowell was—decent, faithful, steady. I could count on him. He never gave me a moment’s doubt about his love for me—or for you, either. The very essence of your father was his willingness to set aside the past and face the future. Did you watch him die?” As she asked the question, Jan’s face hardened. “Oh, I forgot. You were away at college. And then traveling. Colombia and Botswana and places like that. You weren’t here to watch your daddy’s battle.”

  “I came home.”

  “How often? In his last year, you were home maybe twice.”

  “Mother, it was hard to deal with. It was hard to see what was happening to him.”

  “Hard to deal with? He didn’t find it hard to deal with the fact that you were another man’s birth child. He didn’t find it hard to deal with his pregnant bride. He accepted all that—just the way he accepted that his disease was going to rob him of every ounce of strength…the ability to talk…even his eyes, at the end. He couldn’t move his eyes, Beth. Did you know that? Because of it, he couldn’t even communicate with me. That brilliant man—silenced by a disease! But he kept on. John pushed forward, never feeling sorry for himself, never looking back. That was your father. That’s who raised you and loved you and gave you everything he had.”

  Beth sniffled as she looked down at the teapot in her arms. Why did she feel guilty about even holding the thing? She had been a terrible daughter. And she was even more despicable now that she had opened the box, seen the tea set and read the note.

  But she couldn’t help how she felt. She needed to know. Who was the man her mother had named in that cryptic message? What sort of person had given her an ivory, rose-strewn tea set…along with an unexpected baby…?

  “Just tell me one thing,” Beth said. “Did he know about me? Thomas Wood?”

  “It wouldn’t have made any difference to him. He had his own plans.”

  “So you never told him.”

  “I hinted. He probably knew. He left anyway.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “That’s enough, Beth. You don’t need all these details. Let’s go into the kitchen and get some cocoa. Here, give me the teapot.”

  Beth clutched it tighter. “It’s mine. You put it in my box.”

  “Thomas gave it to me.”

  “And you gave it to his daughter. A childhood memento, you said. My childhood. And I’m keeping it.”

  “Fine, then.” She flicked her hand in a gesture of disregard as she walked past her daughter. “I don’t care if you keep it. Take the whole box when you leave. Put it into that tiny little roomette you call an apartment.”

  “It’s a studio.”

  “Whatever.”

  Jan could hardly blink back the tears that kept filling her eyes. As she filled the kettle with tap water, she wanted to shout at her daughter. Go away! Just leave me alone! What do you know about anything? You had life handed to you on a silver platter, and it was all thanks to John Lowell.

  Oh, John! If only he were here right now. But that would be awful. Thankfully he had died before Beth found the teapot. He would have been crushed to see her reaction—so demanding and curious and stubborn. Hugging that teapot as though it were her own unborn baby. Clinging to it!

  Jan sniffled and dug in her robe pocket for a tissue. Why had she even kept that stupid tea set? She should have thrown it out the moment Thomas turned his back on her and walked away. Thomas had professed to love her, but he had no idea what that really meant.

  John, with his blond hair and gentle smile…he was the king of true love. He had heard about her predicament in a Sunday school class at church. Jan’s older brother had brought up his pregnant, unwed sister as a “prayer request.” Right. Perfect fodder for the holy gossip mill. But then John had come knocking on her parents’ door, asking if Jan would enjoy going out for ice cream, wondering how she liked her college history class, volunteering to lend her his books for a research paper.

  At the time, he had a job as a college teaching assistant while working toward his master’s degree in history at Tyler’s branch of the University of Texas. It wasn’t exactly proper etiquette for John Lowell and Jan Calhoun to date, seeing as he was a teacher and she was a student at the same school. But she hadn’t been in his history class, after all, and he was a friend of her brother’s. In the end, no one from the college seemed to mind, and their awkward first dates quickly turned to love. At least John had fallen in love with Jan. She was still a wreck over Thomas when she agreed to marry.

  But time took care of that. Did it ever! John became everything to Jan. Her lover, her supporter, her encourager, her best friend. Father to her daughter, and then to their sons. Those were happy days, for the most part. Jan could look back on her marriage with satisfaction. She had done the right thing. The smart, sensible, level-headed thing. All except for that tea set.

  She set a mug on the counter and dumped in an envelope of instant cocoa powder and tiny, dried-up marshmallows. Well, she wasn’t about to give in to her daughter’s curiosity. Beth now had all the information she needed about Thomas Wood. He had given her his DNA but nothing more. He had vanished. And he was dead.

  At least, Jan was pretty sure Thomas had died. So that was that. Que sera sera.

  “I thought we might drive to Tyler and visit the rose garden in the morning.” Jan forced a lightness to her voice as she poured steaming water into the mug and began to stir. “It’s a little early in the season for the best display of flowers, of course, but there will still be a lot to see. I’m thinking of putting in a bed of roses here at the new house, and I’d like to get some ideas for which variety would work best. Maybe you could help me choose. I may plant some climbers up the south side, too.”

  Her daughter regarded her coolly. “How did Thomas Wood die?”

  “Stop this, Beth.” Jan slid the mug across the counter, sloshing hot chocolate over the rim and down the side. She stomped to the sink for a rag. “That subject is closed. Now, do you want to go to Tyler tomorrow or not? We could stop at the cemetery and visit your father’s grave.”

  “Do you think I actually want to look at some stone stuck in the ground where my father’s body was buried? Dad isn’t there. He’s in heaven, Mom, and that’s how I want to think of him.”

  “Well, you ought to at least see the marker. It’s very nice. Mine is right beside it.”

  “Oh, Mother!”

  “What?” Jan wiped up the spilled chocolate. “I’m planning ahead. I have a plot right next to your father’s. It’s not far from Nanny’s grave—near an oak tree.”

  “So you and Dad can listen to the acorns fall while you’re lying side by side in your caskets?”

  “That’s it.” Jan flung the rag into the sink. “I’m going to bed. If you want to stand there and say one ugly thing after another, you can just say them to yourself. I have better things to do.”

  “Mom, don’t walk away. You cannot leave in the middle of this discussion.”

  As Jan started toward her room, she could hear Beth following. “We’re not having a discussion,” she informed her daughter. “I was trying to make plans for tomorrow. Trying to say something nice. Hoping you might want to visit your father’s grave and remember what a wonderful, perfect man he was.”

  “Dad was not perfect. He was funny and smart and kind and lots of good things. But he wasn’t perfect.” Two paces behind her mother, Beth stepped back into the bedroom. “I’m not living in some fairy-tale world, Mom. I remember Dad’s flaws, just like I see my own. And I’m not mortified that you’re imperfect, either. So, you got pregnant by your boyfriend before you were married. We’re humans. We do some stupid, wrong things. I forgive you.”

  “I don’t need your forgiveness. I need you to stop making such a big deal out of the whole thing.” Jan pulled off her robe and sat on the bed. “It’s so far in the past. Let it go. Do what your daddy did and move ahead.”

  “It’s in your past, but not in mine. I just fo
und out about it, remember? Thomas Wood is news to me.”

  “He wouldn’t have been if you had kept your nose out of my things. Now go to bed, Beth. I’m exhausted.”

  Her daughter stood near the door, staring at her. Hating her. Reviling her. Jan had always known this was how it would be. If Beth ever found out the truth, she would despise her mother for making the decision to keep Thomas Wood a secret.

  But that had been the best way. The right way. John was able to raise Beth without any interference from a shadowy, mythical father figure his daughter might throw at him in her anger. The family had been able to be normal. To behave as a family ought—no skeletons in the closet stepping out to bother them.

  Of course, there was a skeleton in the closet. John and Jan knew it. But Beth and the boys…they hadn’t needed to be made aware of that potentially harmful information. Jan and John had made a choice, and they never once second-guessed it.

  The only problem had been that tea set. Jan had considered getting rid of it, but the fact was…she couldn’t. Somewhere in her heart, she needed her daughter to know the truth. And she needed to preserve that tiny spark of memory that had been Thomas Wood.

  So she had wrapped the set of china in layers of bubbly plastic and hidden it at the bottom of a box. No one was to open it until after her death. Then, if the box happened to get lost somewhere or was put into the trash or given to charity, fine. Or, if Beth actually opened it, she could deal with the truth then. When she was older. Wiser. Less prone to outbursts.

  Her daughter’s dark brown eyes accused Jan from across the room. “I’m not done with this, Mom,” Beth vowed. Her lips tightening, she turned and left the room, shutting the door a little too hard behind her.

  Jan let out a breath and dropped back onto her pillows. She knew Beth too well to think her daughter would drop the subject now…or ever. Beth would bring it up again and again. She would want to look at it the way she used to examine rocks she dug out of the dirt and washed in the kitchen sink. She would turn it one way, then another, asking questions and making speculations, the way she’d done as an inquisitive child. Do you think there’s a diamond inside this rock? If I cut it in half, would it be the same color inside as it is on the outside? What are rocks made of? Are rocks alive? Why do they keep coming up out of the ground?