Bea didn’t have even that much to look forward to.
Other people spoke of a comfortable easy chair in a corner, a faint scent on a favorite shirt, something they could take from a hook in the closet and smell.
It had been so long since Nathan had been present in this house, nothing remained for Bea to cling to.
No smell.
No presence.
No hope.
In the skillet before her, the eggs burned brown around the edges. She dropped her head into one hand and sobbed. “I c-can’t do this. I can’t,” she bawled through swollen lips, wet from her tears of grieving. “I can’t.”
She had been living without Nathan for a long time. But now, because Nathan had died, her hope had died, too.
“It isn’t f-fair. My baby.”
The eggs had gone to stiff rubber in the pan. Bea couldn’t have choked them down anyway, not even in the beginning, not even before they’d fried for ten minutes too long.
She would never know what wild thing Nathan had done for his twenty-first birthday. She would never know whether he preferred furniture arranged in angles or pushed flat against the walls. She wouldn’t know if he still slam-dunked the basketball when he got mad or if he ate too many Ramen noodles or if he’d made the gun cabinet he’d designed in high school shop. She wouldn’t know if he’d died still wanting to be a teacher.
She would never know if he’d wanted to forgive her.
Helplessness engulfed her. Then anger—like a battlement cast in the fortressed stone of all she’d asked for, all she’d been certain God would give her, all she had expected and had been denied—rose up and took possession of her.
She worshiped a God who had let her son die.
She worshiped a God who had shut a door on her lifelong prayer.
“N-nathan.” Bea said his name once and thumped the kitchen counter hard with both fists. She thumped it again. And again. And again. She cried for a long time. Then, as suddenly as they’d started, her tears tapered off.
Lord, you took away the one dream I’ve clung to ever since Ray left and this family fell apart.
She flipped off the stove burner in a fit of practicality and discarded the ruined eggs into the trash.
Lord, you took away the only thing I’ve wanted since the day Nathan set foot out that door.
She found the Kleenex, ripped a tissue from the box, and wiped her eyes hard with it.
I trusted you.
Bea yanked a second tissue from the box and blew her nose with stubborn determination. She turned on the faucet and ran a dishcloth beneath the cold issue of water, rung it out with both hands, and used it to mop her face.
Chapter Four
Mama, I’m hungry.” The little girl craned her chin over the top of the seat. “Can we get something to eat?”
“No, we can’t.” The truth be known, Gemma didn’t have enough money left to buy them lunch. And it terrified her to think of stopping. The Corolla had developed a clank about twenty miles back and as long as she could keep the old car running she figured she’d be better off just to nurse the thing along. If she turned the engine off, she had her doubts whether it would ever start again.
“You have to be quiet, Paisley. I’m concentrating on the driving.”
“Are we there yet?”
She ignored the question and asked one of her own. “Is your seat belt on?”
“You answer mine first.”
“You can’t lean forward like that and have your seat belt on.”
“I’m wearing an invisible seat belt. One that’s magic.”
Gemma glanced in the rearview mirror. “Put it on, Paisley Rose. Now.”
There hadn’t been anything magic about their lives in years, not since Grandma Hardeman had said she couldn’t stay around with a baby. Not since Paisley’s father had written to say he wouldn’t stick around to raise his kid. Not since after the accident when Gemma had come back to the little trailer to find her clothes, her small collection of books, and Paisley’s huge collection of Barbies all set out in a trash heap on the withered grass.
Absently, Gemma fingered the simple gold wedding band on her left hand.
Paisley made a tumbling dive over into the front and landed halfway in the dusty seat beside her mother. With her came her baby blanket, frayed and faded, the quilted black-and-white Holsteins on the fabric vanishing amidst tatters. “I wanna sit in front with you, Mama.”
Hair streamed across Gemma’s face, riding on hot blasts of air from the open window. She tucked it behind her ear so she could see the green highway sign they were passing. “Oshkosh twelve miles. Ash Hollow seventeen.” Then another more rustic billboard. “Goose Hunting Capital. Museum. Antiques. Grass Greens Golf Course. Free Swimming. Exit 43.”
With all the speed she could marshal out of the Corolla, Gemma still had plenty of time to read both signs twice. She checked the gas gauge. A little under a quarter of a tank. “We’re almost there, honey bananas. That sign says ‘Ash Hollow seventeen miles.’” She bent forward over the wheel, gripped it tighter with both hands as if by sheer force of will she could speed them along. “I wish he had told me more about where to stop.”
The only thing he had ever told her was that anybody who needed to find the place could ask around town about the roses. He’d said if folks had a mind to search her out, it would be as easy as finding any landmark, once they got to the right town.
“Will I see her roses, Mama?”
“Sure you will. And if everything he said was right, they’ll be the prettiest things you ever laid eyes on. All yellow. Like little suns.”
“I’m hungry.”
This discussion of roses softened Gemma’s heart. “Let’s see what we can do, okay?” She signaled and took the next exit. They turned into a Kwik Stop parking lot and Gemma got out. With knees on the buckled black top and the engine still running, she ran her fingers beneath the floor mat, searching for stray coins. Good. A quarter and three pennies. She climbed back inside and slipped her fingers as far as they’d reach between the seat cushions. When she’d finished, she’d rummaged up sixty-eight cents. “Come on, Paisley Rose. We’ll go buy you a candy bar.”
When they stepped inside, they saw a gleaming cooler with rows of canned soda and bottled juice transfused in light. Paisley started toward the beverages but Gemma tugged her back. She whispered, “You want something to drink, go find the water fountain. We don’t have that much to spend.”
On the candy aisle, it took a long five minutes to narrow Paisley’s choices to a fistful of Lemonheads and one Hershey Bar. “We’ve got to hurry,” Gemma prompted her. “We’re using up gas out there, keeping the car running.”
The little girl stood beside the colorful bins, her face filled with desperation. “But I’m thirsty, Mama.”
Gemma sighed and glanced around to find the water fountain. “You can get a drink, but hurry up.” She took her daughter by the hand and led her into the innards of the storeroom. Between mop buckets and a pile of stacked boxes stood two glistening stainless steel water fountains—one tall, and the other child-sized. “You need help?”
“I can do it myself.” Paisley pushed the button with her thumb and a gusher of water hit her square in the nose. She pursed her lips into a kiss and began to drink.
While she waited, Gemma found the cash register and stood in line to make her purchases. Beside the register, fanning out with wayward abandon from the wire rack, stood the day’s issue of The Garden County News. Of course! Why hadn’t she thought of checking the newspaper before?
Gemma twisted her jean skirt farther down over her thighs and helped herself to a copy. She unfolded the front page and thumbed her way past the movie listings, letters to the editor, and a blazing Superette ad that announced “Gatorade. Two six-packs for $5.” At last she found what she’d been looking for, buried deep on page nine. The Society and Garden section. Her eyes raced down each column, searching for anything that might give her a clue. No pictures
were printed, only the confetti of headlines about parties, places, names: Armour Donates Seedlings. Prime Timers Offer Program on Herbal Remedies. Golf Tournament Supports Library Auxiliary.
Nothing sounded familiar. She’d have to read all the stories, she supposed. Gemma had just scanned the first column when the fellow in front of her, after adding two packages of beef jerky to his purchase of gas and three donuts, signed his credit slip and stepped aside.
“You gonna buy that paper?” the clerk asked.
Gemma started, guilty as a thief who’d gotten caught.
“Well, no, I—” She flipped back to the front page and found the purchase price. Fifty cents. “No, I am not.”
“You read it, you buy it. Can’t you see the sign?”
Gemma jabbed the newspaper back into the rack. Page corners poked out at every imaginable angle. “A Hershey Bar and four Lemonheads, please.”
She laid Paisley’s candy on the counter. The clerk scowled at the register keys while he rang up the meager items she and Paisley had chosen. “That’ll be seventy cents.”
She’d added wrong. “I don’t have that much. I’ll have to put something back.”
Disgruntled, he pointed to a jar where customers discarded their spare pennies. “How much you need? Take it out of there.”
He wore a nametag that read “Gary.” Gemma fished every bit of change out of her pocket and handed it to him, then added two pennies from the jar. “Thank you.” Then, in hopes she could entice him into being a friend, she clasped the little sack he handed her in both hands and didn’t move. “Do you know people around here?”
“Yeah. Everybody stops in this place at one time or another.”
“I’m looking for a lady who grows roses. She’s got a famous rosebush. An old one that got carried along the Oregon Trail.”
Gary thought for a moment and then shook his head. “Lots of folks grow roses around here. Nobody famous that I know of.” He made a point to glance past her left shoulder, an obvious reminder that she wasn’t the only customer waiting in line. “Never heard of anything like that.”
Here came Paisley with her face dripping water and her shirt so wet that Gemma could’ve wrung water from it. “I drank as much as I could, Mama.”
When they got to the car, they found the donut fellow munching on a glazed and staring at the white smoke billowing from the rusted Corolla tailpipe. “Your car ain’t gonna make it much further, young lady. That’s the smoke of a cracked engine block if I’ve ever seen it. How many miles you got on her?”
“Too many.”
“I could’ve told you that.”
“I guess I’ll have it looked at,” she lied. She didn’t even have money for another tank of gas, much less a repair bill.
“Looks mighty bad.” He pitched the last half of his donut into the trash. “Hope you’re not trying to get much further.”
Gemma stared after the donut, her stomach churning with hunger, thinking that if only he’d offered it to her and hadn’t thrown it away, she would gladly have eaten it.
“I’m not.” Paisley climbed into the front seat and flapped the hem of her T-shirt in the air, trying to dry it. Gemma buckled the seat belt around Paisley’s damp little stomach, knowing that to fasten a child’s seat belt herself was sometimes the only surefire method to get it done. She dusted off her hands in a measured show of determination to the man who told her that her car wouldn’t go, to the four-and-a-half-year-old girl whose belly had been rumbling for miles. “I’ve almost gotten us to where we’re going.”
The Corolla gave out fourteen miles up the road. The engine made one last valiant sputter, the warning lights blinked on, and the wheels ground to a gravelly halt on the shoulder.
“Oh, great.” Gemma whacked the steering wheel with one open palm. “What do we do now?”
“What’s wrong?” Paisley asked, her mouth wreathed with melted chocolate. “Why did the car stop?”
Gemma tried the key, pumped the pedal. The engine gave a dead click and didn’t turn over. “It’s sick.” She set the parking brake and shoved open the driver-side door against the warm wind. “You stay right where you are. I’m going to check this out, okay?”
Traffic rocketed past on the highway, flattening the endless grass and plastering Gemma’s shirt against her frame with every passing squall of hot air. She tugged her skirt down again and struggled to find the latch behind the ancient rusted grill. When she lifted the hood, an acrid burning odor rose from the engine. Gemma stared down at the innards of the car. “Three more miles,” she said aloud to the tangled, filthy jumble. “You only needed to get us three more miles.”
She heard another vehicle pull to the shoulder in front of them. When she raised her head, a trucker had guided his rig off the road. He jumped down out of the cab, touched the brim of his ball cap without actually lifting it, and talked to her without coming too close. “You know what’s wrong?”
“No.” She shook her head from behind the hood.
“Want me to have a look?”
“Don’t know as it’ll do much good. But, yeah. It’d be great if you looked at it.”
With her permission, he sauntered over to check it out and gaped down at the oil-covered belts and hoses. He jiggled one hose and shook his head. “We can try the jumper cables, but I don’t think that’ll do it. This isn’t going to be any quick fix.”
She wiped greasy hands on the denim of her skirt. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
He slammed the hood shut for her. “Just dropped off my load and I’m headed east. Is there someplace I can drop you? You two look like you could use help.”
“Ash Hollow.”
“What’s in Ash Hollow? You on your way home or something?”
“No. Just need to get to a gas station. Some place I can use the phone.”
He gestured with his arm. “Well, hop in.”
She bounded around her old Toyota to open the door for Paisley, then popped the trunk and hauled out their flimsy pink suitcase. She saw him smiling at the bag, its childish caricature of a doll, its jolly words: “Happiness Is A Visit To Grandma’s.” That suitcase held everything she and Paisley owned, not including the clothes on their backs and the two dusty jackets she’d retrieved from the backseat and now carried over the crook of one arm. Gemma pitched the suitcase into the truck first. Next, she pitched in the coats and shoved Paisley up onto the seat. Last, she grabbed hold of the handrail and hoisted herself up, too.
The engine clattered beneath them. The air brakes released with a huge hiss. Their rescuer drove ten feet and shifted, drove ten feet more, shifted again, drove and shifted, using the colossal gearshift that jutted clear from the truck floor to the height of his hand. The world smelled of diesel. Beside Gemma’s knees, a CB radio squawked.
He gestured back over his right shoulder. “Little one’s welcome to sit up on the sleeper if she wants. Kids enjoy that, sitting up there and dangling their legs down.”
“She’ll stay in my lap. Thank you.”
Paisley clung like a possum to Gemma’s neck.
“You two going to grandma’s?” He took a toothpick from the ashtray and wiggled it into the space between his two front teeth.
She didn’t answer. We haven’t had much luck with grandmas. We have yet to find one who wants us anywhere around.
He let them off at the Sandhill Texaco. “Sure I can’t drop you somewhere else?” he insisted. “Hate just leaving you off in the middle of nowhere like this. You could make your phone call and I could take you on further.”
“No. That’s all right. Thanks.” Gemma did her best to make her voice commanding. She grabbed the two coats, clambered backwards from the cab, seized the pink bag from the floor, and held up her arms so Paisley could climb down. With one curt nod, she dismissed him, her stance widespread by the unleaded gas pump, her feet planted in false certainty. As he drove off, she gave him a wave good-bye.
Heat and gasoline fumes rose, skimming the black tarmac i
n waves. The pay phone hung in a cubicle against the curb, bordered by a little patch of mowed green lawn. She laid the suitcase sideways on the grass and thumped it right on the word “Grandma.”
“Sit here, kiddo. It’ll take me a minute, finding what I need to find.”
A thin Ash Hollow directory dangled inside its metal casing below the telephone. She lifted it and thumbed through the dog-eared pages until she found the Bs and ran her index finger down the inventory of names. Bark and Bounce Dog Grooming. Barneses, about eight of them. Bartlett. Bartley.
And then, she found two Bartlings.
Staring down at that name in the phone book made her heart pummel. Which could it be? Adam J. or the other listing with nothing more than initials?
Gemma figured she wanted the one with initials. Everybody knew that a woman living alone used her initials in a phone book. She jotted down both addresses just in case—117 West Pattison Drive and 103 Fairview Street.
She walked over and poked her head inside the service garage. Broken carburetors lay end to end. In one corner the skeleton of a Ford Fairlane stood without its headlights or drive train. A stout boy wearing a dirty jumpsuit appeared from behind a stack of tires. “You need something?” He mopped his hands with an oily rag that he’d yanked from his back pocket.
He seemed a most unlikely person, it seemed a most unlikely place, to ask about flowers. But Gemma didn’t have much choice. “I’m looking for a lady who grows roses at her house. She’s got an old rosebush.”
“Oh, sure. Everybody knows her. You interested in seeing it?”
Gemma nodded, unable to speak.
“Stop by the museum first.” He pointed. “Two blocks down that way. They’ve got a whole printed page of facts that they hand out to tourists before they head over to the house. That’ll save you from having to ask too many questions.”
She trained her eyes on his face to keep herself from springing up and down. They had found her! A lump of bittersweet hope wedged itself deep within Gemma’s chest. “Do you know where she lives?”
A Rose by the Door Page 4
