Tending Roses (30 page)

I took a final look around as I shooed the dog out and reached for the door. One last glimpse of Dell’s reality—a world where the ceiling was caving in and the floor dipped in the middle, where the windows were opaque with filth, and the covering was rotting off the sofa. A world where Santa wouldn’t visit and Christmas dinner came in Styrofoam containers. A world where the smells were stifling and the sights turned your stomach. Yet somebody had found time and money to build an altar of periodicals in the corner.

My stomach turned over as I closed the door and hurried back to the car. Grandma was waiting with one leg out the door.

“I was just coming after you.” Her words were breathless, and I could tell she was more upset than was healthy.

“Nobody’s home,” I said, trying to hide the sick feeling inside me. “Maybe they were invited somewhere for Christmas.”

Grandma shot me a cynical look. “I doubt that. I’ll call Larry Leddy again when we get back. I’d like to give him a piece of my mind, anyway. This place is shameful.”

I nodded, saying nothing. A lump of tears was forming in my throat, and I knew the slightest utterance would crack it. I didn’t want Grandma to see me cry, especially not on Christmas Eve. Watching the road, I tried not to listen as she rattled on about Larry Leddy, white trash, welfare, garbage collection, and Mulberry Road.

When we got home, Grandma exited the Buick quickly, determined to call Larry Leddy and tell him her opinion of his rental property, Christmas Eve or not. I sat in the car, staring at our house, the windows glowing warm against the darkness, and I was more ashamed of myself than I had ever been in my life. Only a few miles away, people had nothing. No food, no family, no secure shelter, no Christmas. We had everything, and yet we’d failed to fully appreciate it.

Stepping from the car, I stood in the cleansing rush of winter wind, watching through the window as the family gathered by the Christmas tree, Ben holding Joshua, Karen rearranging a few decorations, Aunt Jeane watching from a nearby chair with her feet propped on a footstool. Above the windows, red lights glittered from the eaves, and around the porch posts, white twinkle lights were wrapped with pine garlands. The tree, impressive in its stature, shone through the beveled glass window in the front door, and hickory smoke billowed from the chimney. It was a perfect scene of home, hearth, and Christmas—what many people wished for, but only some received.

I realized how truly fortunate we were, and how wrong to be petty and cruel with one another. Standing alone in the winter cold, I closed my eyes and asked God to show us the way to forgiveness and peace, and to protect little Dell, wherever she was. I opened my eyes again and just stood there for a long time, watching as the family wandered away and only the tree remained.

Finally, the winter chill and the icy wind forced me inside, and I hurried through the starless night into the house.

 

I went to bed that night beginning to understand who we were, who we could become, and what wonderful gifts we had been given in life. Cradling the old photo album in my lap, I looked into the eyes of my mother, holding me when she was close to my age. I realized that she had been the same as I—feeling her way through life without all the answers. If she had lived, we might have become close. As it was, I felt her near the family that Christmas Eve, drawing up the quilts and kissing our cheeks as we lay down, listening to the prayers of our hearts and trying to answer.

The clock on the mantel chimed midnight, and the wind ceased howling through the maples. A light snow drifted to the ground like flour falling from Grandma’s sifter, covering the old leaves and dressing the barren trees in white lace. The world became clean and new, born as the Christ child on Christmas night.

In the dark hours of the morning, I heard Grandma get a glass of water in the kitchen, then slowly shuffle past our bedroom. Drowsily, I looked at the alarm clock, then rolled over and drifted back to sleep. The sound of Joshua fussing pulled me to consciousness some time later, but he quickly settled, and I snuggled into Ben’s arms, floating away again.

The first rays of dawn were lighting the new snow like a field of diamond dust when I awoke again. I sat up quickly, and Ben muttered a sleepy complaint, clumsily stretching out an arm to pull me back.

“Go back to sleep,” I whispered. “It’s early.”

Filled with the excitement of Christmas morning, I walked to the window and looked at the sugarcoated world outside. Grandma’s ankles were truly more accurate than the young weatherman on Channel Five. The snow probably measured only an inch or two, but it was a white Christmas.

Shivering from the cold draft near the window, I slipped into my robe and house shoes and walked silently through the house, enjoying the solitude. Filled with a sense of joy and anticipation, I plugged in the Christmas lights so the house stood ready for the family to awaken.

I found Grandma sound asleep in the recliner by the fireplace, undisturbed as the mantel clock chimed six-thirty. On the table beside her lay the wildflower book. Slipping it away, I moved to the window to read by the glow of early-morning light.

For Joshua at Christmas,
it said. I had a sense that this story was not for me, but I could not stop myself from reading on.

Closing my eyes, I hugged the book to my chest, sad for all the things Grandma Rose had lost and happy that we were able to give her one more Christmas with family, and a tree chosen from the field on Christmas Eve, and a baby to rock in her arms in the dark hours of the morning.

I set the book beside her and stood looking at her in the dim light. She seemed so pale, so fragile. Yet she was strong in her determination to make us a family again. Perhaps determination was one thing age could not take away. Pulling the quilt over her shoulders, I left her there to rest and went to the kitchen to make coffee and start breakfast. Everyone would be up soon. A wonderful sense of anticipation came over me, and I knew that, just like the white-cotton landscape outside, this Christmas would be perfect.

T
HE smell of the coffee and the sound of the pans clanking slowly awakened the family, and they wandered into the kitchen until all were present except for Grandma, who was still catching up on sleep in her easy chair, unaware that Christmas morning had come.

I glanced around the table as I set out a stack of dishes. The expressions on our faces were pleasant, and the conversation a harmless and chatty one about the snow outside, and how Dad and Aunt Jeane remembered Grandpa playing with them on their sleds one year on the hill above the river, sliding right onto the ice and falling into the water. After that, he hadn’t cared much for sledding.

Even Karen laughed at the story. “Do you remember when Mom got Grandpa and Grandma on a sled to take a picture that one year we came for Christmas?” she asked. “Remember that, Kate? We were laughing so hard, you wet your pants and Mom told you to go inside and change. You were so mad, you threw a fit and flopped down in the snow, and Mom said that was the first time she’d ever seen someone make a snow angel facedown.” Everyone at the table chuckled, and Karen lost her usual control, laughing with them, and finally gasping with tears in her eyes, “You got so mad at everybody for laughing at your fit that you stomped off to the closet and wouldn’t come out the rest of the day.”

“I did?” I had no memory of it, but laughed anyway. It was good to hear Karen mention my mother without bitterness. “I don’t remember that.”

Karen wiped her eyes on a napkin. “You were probably only four or five.” She sniffed hard, regaining her composure. “Wow, that was funny.”

Joshua let out a cry over the baby monitor, and Dad, Ben, and Aunt Jeane jumped up as if they’d been shot from rocket launchers.

Aunt Jeane prevailed with her usual determination. “It’s
my
turn. I didn’t get one kiss from that baby all day yesterday. Everyone was hogging him.”

“One baby, so many fans,” I joked with the pride of a mother whose child is being adored.

Karen shot me a hard look that went right to the pit of my stomach. She quickly turned back to her coffee as if she hadn’t meant for me to see what she was thinking. Or perhaps she was ashamed of it. I felt like a little girl competing with her over report cards again, then felt guilty for being so petty when I knew she was still hurting over the loss of her baby.

No one else seemed to notice our exchange, and I was glad. I didn’t want anything to spoil the day.

Ben sat down again, waving Aunt Jeane toward the door. “Be my guest. That morning diaper always comes with a nice little present in it.”

Everyone laughed, and I turned back to the stove, letting out a breath. Whatever Karen thought, whatever she felt, it wasn’t up to me to change it. She was doing the best she could to be pleasant and make this a good day. All I could do was try to do the same and stop letting my little-girl self do my thinking. Funny how you never quite outgrow sibling rivalry.

I scooped the scrambled eggs into the bowl, and she was at my shoulder. “Here, let me take those.” Our gazes met for just a second, and she smiled—an apology, I thought. “What else can I help with? Here I am just sitting at the table like a guest while you’re doing all the work.”

“It’s all done.” I pulled the platter of bacon from the oven. “I was up early this morning.”

Ben glanced over his shoulder as Aunt Jeane came in with Joshua. “You think we ought to wake Grandma up?” he asked.

“She’s still sound asleep,” Aunt Jeane said, looking a little worried. “I hope she’s feeling all right.”

I had a nagging worry in the back of my mind too. It just wasn’t like Grandma to sleep through breakfast, especially with everyone here. Usually, she was up with the first signs of life in the morning, marshaling breakfast and directing us around like actors on a stage. “She was up wandering around in the middle of the night.” I sat down and reached for the eggs, hoping Aunt Jeane would sit down also. “I think she’s probably just tired. We’d better let her sleep.”