Leaves of Hope

by Catherine Palmer

  “Knock, knock, sweetheart!” Jan’s voice sang out as the door swung open. “Rise and shine!”

  Beth glared at the perky redhead who fairly skipped into the guest bedroom. Stepping into a pair of flip-flops, Beth watched as her mother pulled open the lacy curtains and began to sing. It was a song from Mary Poppins, a movie they had watched together a hundred times. Jan loved to adapt the words to fit her own children.

  As she sang her own version of “Jolly Holiday” about the beautiful weather and feeling good, Jan took the bedsheet and pulled it up to the pillow as if she were the magical British nanny herself.

  Gritting her teeth, Beth shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her shorts. Her mom was giving the down comforter a shake to fluff it before setting it into its place. And now the pillows. One, two, three. Largest to smallest. A tiny embroidered one for the last, set at a jaunty angle just to be cute.

  Now Jan was replacing Mary’s name with her daughter’s in the song that she sang out as she touched up the ruffles on the pillows. “Bethy makes your heart so light!”

  “Shut up, Mother!” Beth shouted. “Just shut up!” Clenching her fists as her face went hot and throbbing, she ran out of the bedroom, through the living room and onto the porch. She pushed open the screen door and sprinted down the road. Her flip-flops slapped the warm pavement, and a sheen of perspiration broke out on her forehead.

  What a sham! Her whole life was just pretend, Beth thought as she raced toward the lake. All these years, her parents had been acting like people they weren’t. Perfect and happy and honest! It had all been a big lie. Beth was a lie. She was nothing and nobody. An accidental union of sperm and egg, unexpected, unwanted, unloved.

  Reaching the edge of the water, Beth sank down into the grass and buried her face in her hands. Her daddy had only pretended to love the baby girl, because he wanted to be married and escape his alcoholic family. Her mother had been so afraid to face the consequences of her failures that she had accepted the first good offer that came along. And there was Beth, sitting in the middle, a little illegitimate child around whom they had built their Mary Poppins life.

  Something cold and wet pressed against her leg, causing Beth to gasp and look up in surprise. Beside her, a plump white poodle-looking dog lifted its head and gazed at her with soft brown eyes. The dog wagged its tail. Beth reached out and patted the fluffy head.

  “Hey, there!” a voice from behind called out. “Trixie, don’t bother the nice lady. Come here, girl. Get over here right now!”

  Beth turned to find a stocky man with a fishing pole heading toward her and the dog. He lifted a hand. “Sorry about that. Trixie never met a stranger. We’ve been fishing since dawn and haven’t had a nibble.”

  “It’s okay.” Beth managed to force a pleasant expression. “She’s not bothering me.”

  “I’m Jim Blevins,” he said, hunkering down into the long, green grass with some effort. “Are you new to the neighborhood?”

  “My name is Beth Lowell. I’m just here for the weekend.”

  “Beth Lowell? Why, you must be Jan’s daughter! The young lady who lives in New York and travels all over the world! Your mother has told me all about you. She’s proud as punch over you. Talks about all three of you kids like you were royalty. I was hoping I’d get to meet you one of these days. I helped Jan put in her new rose garden. Me and Trixie. We live just up the street, you know, and we pass the house on our walks. Your mother has been coming to our church now and then. I’m hoping she might join us one of these days.”

  Beth pictured the large man and his fluffy dog beside “their” church, and a genuine smile softened her face. “The roses look lovely.”

  “Thank you. She’s got a nice variety that should bloom all summer. I did a lot of research for my late wife’s garden, and so I did what I could to help your mother, too. Do you know she makes the best chicken salad I believe I have ever eaten? And lemonade. The woman can whip up a pitcher of fresh lemonade that rivals anything I’ve ever tasted.”

  “Mom has always had her specialties in the kitchen.”

  “I do believe that. This neighborhood sure has improved since she moved in. She’s fixed up her house so nice, and she painted those sayings on the walls—and have you seen the children she draws with her pastel chalks? Usually we sit out on the screened porch when Trixie and I happen to drop by around lunchtime, but once or twice I’ve gone inside. She got her kitchen sink plugged one day, and we ended up calling the plumber. I can fix those things most of the time, but this job needed a pro. Anyhow, I saw the portraits she had done, and I’d like to have fallen over in a dead faint. Those children look as though they could jump off the page and run out to play in the yard.”

  “I got in late last night,” Beth told him. “I haven’t really had time to look around.”

  “She’s shy about them, but don’t let her get away with hiding them from you. They’re good. Real good.”

  Beth studied the lake. “She used to paint roses.”

  “That’s what she told me. When her husband was living, she had to work at her teaching job and take care of you kids. And then she took care of him, of course. She said painting bouquets of roses helped her relax. But now she doesn’t have so many pressures, and these children just come tumbling out of her imagination. That’s what she told me. They just tumble right out.”

  “Really?” Beth turned to Jim Blevins and took in his pleasant blue eyes and warm grin. This man knew more about Jan Lowell than her own daughter did. Beth had been so consumed with her own emotions that she hadn’t taken time to find out what her mom was thinking and doing these days.

  “Jan told me she figures the children she paints are all the ones she never had. She would have liked more of her own, but her husband said three kids was the perfect number for the perfect family.” Jim winked and nodded. “I have three myself. ’Course they’re all older than you. I’ve got so many grandchildren now I can hardly keep track of them. I know your mother can’t wait to have grandbabies, too.”

  “I’m sure that’s true.”

  “Well, Trixie and I had better head back to the dock and put away our gear. Time to go home, put my feet up and have a cup of coffee and a cinnamon roll. I shouldn’t eat a single one, but your mother brought some over the other morning, and they just sit there on that plate and call out to me, you know?”

  Beth did know. She had eaten her mother’s homemade cinnamon rolls nearly every morning of her childhood. Jan Lowell’s chicken salad and fresh squeezed lemonade had been famous in their neighborhood in Tyler.

  “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Blevins.”

  “Call me Jim.” He shook Beth’s hand. “I know you must be proud to have such a wonderful mother. And she sure is proud of you, young lady. I don’t believe there’s a mother anywhere who could love her daughter as much as she loves you. And those boys? Well, just take a look at the framed photographs she’s got all over the living room. If there was ever a woman who got more happiness out of her family, I don’t know who. You kids have got a real jewel there. Take care, now.”

  Jim whistled to his dog and ambled off with his fishing pole balanced on one shoulder.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I met your friend,” Beth said. She had come back into the house about an hour after shouting at her mother and running down to the lake. “The man with the white dog? Jim Blevins.”

  “Oh, yes, he’s over here bothering me all the time.”

  Jan tried to sound lighthearted, hoping her daughter couldn’t tell how hurt she felt. When Beth had returned to the house that morning, she apologized for her explosion, went into the guest bedroom and shut the door. Jan could hear her making phone calls. Now they were out on the screened porch eating lunch. She had made chicken salad sandwiches, even though she secretly felt her daughter didn’t merit the effort it took to create good chicken salad.

  Still, a mother’s love never ended, did it? While Beth was at the lakeshore pouting or fuming, or whatev
er it was this time, Jan had hopped in her car for a run to the grocery store. She bought everything she would need for the chicken salad, as well as some lemons, lots of fresh vegetables and a loaf of seven-grain bread. So much for her fruit-and-cereal diet. Her hips would head east and west, the way they always did when she ate too much of the wrong things, but what could she do? It wasn’t like she could serve her daughter nothing but cornflakes and strawberries.

  In the Lowell family, the phrase “shut up” was never spoken. That expression of disrespect and anger was forbidden, and for good reason. Nothing could cut a person to the quick faster than those two words. Even now, seated on the porch with roses and barbecue smoke perfuming the air, Jan still stung from the reprimand.

  What had she done wrong? Nothing but sing an old family movie favorite. Nothing but try to start the day on a cheerful note. Nothing but love her daughter and do her best to make the most of their short time together.

  “I think he likes you, Mom,” Beth was saying.

  “Who?”

  “Jim Blevins. He had nothing but wonderful things to say about you. He thinks you’ve really brightened up the neighborhood.”

  “I wish he and that dog would just leave me alone. You watch…The pair of them will stroll by here in a few minutes. Jim will wave and holler out some kind of a question that I’m supposed to answer, like—‘Did you get rid of your aphids?’ or ‘Have you heard the white bass are biting?’ Then he’ll pretend he didn’t hear me answer, so he and Trixie will come walking up my driveway, and the next thing you know, they’ll be right here on the porch with us.”

  “Why don’t you like him? He seems nice.”

  “He’s nice enough. I just wish he wouldn’t hang around so much. It’s because his wife died and he’s lonely.”

  “I think he’s set his cap for you, Mom.”

  “Oh, for pity’s sake. Jim is a good twenty years older than I am.”

  “So what? Are you going to live here by yourself tending roses and making chicken salad until you die?”

  “Now what kind of a question is that, young lady? You talk like I’ve got one foot in the grave already.”

  “Well, you act like it. Mother, you’re forty-five. If Jim Blevins is too old for you, what kind of man would you be looking for?”

  “I’m not looking for any man. I’ll have you know I’ve done all I ever want to do in that department. Marriage to your father was wonderful, and I’m in no hurry to find anyone else.”

  “But say you changed your mind. What sort of person would you choose?”

  Jan looked across the table at her daughter. What on earth was going on? What was Beth getting at? She had come back to Texas and appeared at her mother’s door unannounced. She said she had something to ask. The question seemed to be: Why John Lowell? Jan thought she had answered very well, but then the very next morning, Beth lashed out at her and ran away in a huff.

  Now here they were again. Back to the man question. This fellow in London certainly had caused a wrinkle in Beth’s well-ordered world. Maybe that was good. It was about time she learned that things didn’t always go the way a person planned.

  “I would choose someone who made sense to me,” Jan answered, after giving the question some thought. She wasn’t about to tell the whole honest truth. “I’d look for a man who matched me in temperament and interests, like your father did. We’d have to live in the same area and have the same values and be like-minded. I certainly wouldn’t do anything rash, I can tell you that. I would proceed very, very carefully, because marriage is a lifetime commitment.”

  “Your dream man sounds just like Jim Blevins.”

  “Keep your voice down, Beth!” Jan glanced around. “He’s always lurking, and he certainly is not the kind of man I’d choose to marry.”

  “Same location, same interests, same temperament.”

  “And I don’t care for his dog, either.”

  Beth laughed, but then her expression became earnest. “You don’t think you’d want a man who was different from Dad? Someone exciting—maybe a little wild and crazy?”

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  The truth was, Jan would probably jump at the opportunity to be with such a man. But she’d done that once before, and look where it got her.

  No, she had to be wary. In spite of all she’d been through, she was still vulnerable, still liable to do something terribly stupid. But she had lived long enough to know what she wanted out of life. It was this small house beside this lake. It was her roses and her pastel chalk children and her fruit-and-cereal diet.

  “By the way, Thomas Wood is alive,” Beth announced into the silence between them. “He lives in India now.”

  Jan felt as though she’d been shot through the heart. “Beth!” she snapped. “We were not discussing him!”

  “I think you ought to know the truth, Mom. I don’t want to keep any secrets from you.”

  Beth arched her eyebrows to punctuate the last remark. Jan grabbed a napkin and blotted her lips. Okay, fine. So Thomas was alive. That didn’t make any difference. Alive or dead, he was nothing to her except a memory.

  “I don’t want to hear about him,” she informed Beth. “It doesn’t matter to me where Thomas is living or what he’s doing.”

  “He’s the production manager for a tea estate in Darjeeling in the foothills of the Himalayas. He’s married to an Indian woman. I don’t know if they have any children.”

  “Well.” Jan swallowed. She had hardly allowed herself to consider this possibility. To her, Thomas was still the lanky young man who had driven her out to their favorite stream and kissed her tears away. In her mind, he hadn’t changed. He certainly wasn’t married.

  “Miles found out everything about him.” Beth let out a deep breath. “You see, as it turns out, Miles and his brother own Wilson Teas, Ltd. Thomas Wood still works for the company.”

  “That was convenient for you, wasn’t it?” Jan heard herself snap. “I guess you arranged it all while you were in London.”

  “Actually, God arranged it. In Nairobi.”

  Jan shrugged. “Well, that’s fine, Beth. Thomas Wood can work anywhere he wants, as far as I’m concerned. I told him so a long time ago. I’m glad he’s married, and I’m certainly happy to hear he’s not dead. I sure didn’t want him to have drowned in that terrible tsunami.”

  “Miles wants to take me to India to meet him.”

  Jan swung toward her daughter, her heart pounding. “Beth, you can’t be thinking of doing that! Tell me you won’t! Promise me!”

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “Because of your father! It would be awful.”

  “Dad is dead, Mom. I can’t hurt him by meeting my birth father.”

  “It would hurt me! John and I worked very hard to give you a happy childhood, and you can’t betray us by racing off to India at the first opportunity!”

  “Betray you? Who betrayed who?” Beth’s eyes crackled. “I’m the one who’s been deceived my whole life!”

  “I am not going to start this argument again, Bethany Ann Lowell. If you can’t be kind and respectful toward your mother, you’d just better head back to New York. Fly away to India with your new boyfriend, if you want, but don’t think you’re going to get my seal of approval. And don’t expect me to welcome you home with open arms. I don’t approve, and I don’t want you to do it, and I think it would be an enormous mistake. But I can’t stop you, can I? You’ve always done just want you wanted! Just like him! You go wandering off as though—”

  Catching herself, Jan began grabbing things from the table. Enough. Enough of this! She had paid for her mistake a long time ago. She had turned a teenage nightmare into a dream family, and she wasn’t about to let her daughter wreck everything.

  “Excuse me please.” Jan picked up a plate and set it onto her own. She stood, scooting the metal chair backward across the deck. “I’ll clear the dishes, and then I need to do a little weeding in my garden. You’re welcome to join me outsi
de if you want.”

  “Mom, please don’t clam up and walk away from me again.”

  “Again? You’re the one who shouted and ran off this morning. I was only trying to be cheerful and sing our Mary Poppins song.”

  “Okay, sit down and let’s discuss this. I feel like you’ve been living a hidden, secretive life of denial all these years. It’s not only that you and Dad deceived me, but you’re not even being honest with yourself!”

  “And just what is that supposed to mean, young lady?”

  “I’m trying to talk to you. You’re my mother. I need for you to help me figure out what to do.”

  “I’ve told you exactly what I thought. This Miles fellow lives too far away, and he’s obviously an impulsive, thoughtless kind of man. If he would tell you he’s falling in love with you on your first date, he’d tell that to any young woman. And now he wants to take you to India to meet Thomas? Clearly he’s a playboy who sees you as a vulnerable, easy conquest. He knows you’re sad because your father died, and he thinks he can zoom in and swoop you right up in his claws. Worst of all, you’re just about ready to do it!”

  “Mother, I came here to ask your opinion before I do anything.”

  “Well, I can assure you men like that are no good. How could you trust him? How could you be sure where you’d end up or what kind of life you’d have?”

  “I’m sure I’d have a say in it.”

  “You already know what you want most, Beth. Every woman—if she’s honest with herself—desires security and stability. She wants a home and children and a loving husband who can protect her. I’m warning you, if you go off to India with that stranger, there’s no telling what will happen! You shouldn’t do it!”

  Straightening, Jan realized she’d been leaning across the table and yelling at her daughter. Mortified, she turned on her heel and practically ran for the kitchen.

  Beth sat on the porch and waved as Jim Blevins and his dog shuffled past the small house. She had blown it. Totally. Her plan in returning to her mother’s home had been so perfect. She wouldn’t mention her discoveries in London at all. She would simply try to find out why her mother had chosen John Lowell over Thomas Wood. The heaviest concern in Beth’s mind these past few weeks hadn’t been her birth father. It had been Miles Wilson and what to do about her own future.