Tending Roses (31 page)

To my amazement, no one argued. Aunt Jeane put Joshua in his carrier, then sat down. Somehow over the past weeks, I had become the supreme authority on Grandma Vongortler.

We had finished eating and washing the dishes before Grandma finally made it to the kitchen.

“We left you a plate on the table, Mother,” Aunt Jeane said as she entered the room. “You feeling all right this morning?”

Grandma ignored the food and the question and went to the window to look out. “Oh, it’s a white Christmas!” she breathed. “I’ve half a mind to call that weatherman at Channel Five. It must be two inches of snow. I told you young people it was coming.”

“From your lips to God’s ears,” Ben joked as he set a stack of plates in the cabinet, then gave Grandma a kiss on the cheek. “When you talk, Grandma Rose, everyone listens.”

Grandma flushed like a schoolgirl. “Oh, Benjamin. For heaven’s sake. You stop that.”

I smiled, watching them. It was good to see some color back in Grandma’s face. She had looked so pale sleeping in her chair.

Putting the last pan in the drying rack, Aunt Jeane wiped her hands and pronounced the kitchen work done. “Time to open gifts,” she said, rubbing her hands together.

“Let’s get on with this Christmas! I can’t wait any longer.” With a schoolteacher’s air of command, she ushered Dad, Ben, and Uncle Robert out the door. She glanced over her shoulder at me and Grandma as she followed them. “Come on, you two. You’re going to get left behind.”

“We’re coming,” I called after her, then stacked the last of the plates.

Grandma stood looking out the window as if she hadn’t heard Aunt Jeane. “My goodness, what a morning!” she said, in awe of the world outside. “A body could not ask for a more perfect Christmas.”

Standing beside her, I looked out, and a brief memory flew through my mind. “I remember sledding down that hill with Mom. I wonder when that was. I had a new pink snowsuit.”

Grandma laid her hand on my arm. “Oh, you were little then. I bought you that snowsuit at the dry goods store when they cleared them out in the summer, and I saved it until you came for Christmas. It was only five dollars, and there was just one, and oh, my, was your sister jealous over it! I never did that again. From then on, two of everything, or none at all.”

I chuckled, remembering some of what she was talking about. Mom and I were sledding alone that day because Karen was sitting by the tree pouting. “I had forgotten all about that.”

“You could probably find a lot of lost memories here, if you took the time to look,” Grandma said quietly. “Of course, if the family has its way, none of you will ever have the chance.”

I stood with her for a moment, listening as she let out a long, somber sigh. “No sign of my little neighbor girl this morning.”

“No,” I said. “Did you find out anything from Larry Leddy last night?”

“No.” Grandma turned away from the window, looking sad. “I’ve called everyone I can think of, but no one seems to know where they’ve gone.” Her lips started to tremble. “I hope she comes today. I have her gifts all wrapped and under the tree. It’s an awful thing for a child to spend Christmas morning with nothing.” A tear slipped from her eye and traced the lines of her cheek, and I knew she was talking about herself. “Christmas is the hardest day of the year when you have nothing.”

Her hand fell from my arm, and she turned and left the room.

I stood a moment longer, thinking of Dell and wondering where she was this Christmas morning. Wherever she was, I hoped she was warm and happy, and waking to a Christmas tree with surprises underneath. . . .

Then suddenly, there she was, slipping through the back gate like the answer to a prayer with Rowdy yipping and jumping behind her. Smiling, I watched her dash across the flawless blanket of snow, a little Christmas angel. I opened the door as she clattered onto the porch.

“Come on in. We were wondering about you. We missed you yesterday.” I fought the urge to grab her and give her a big hug, because I knew it would make her uncomfortable.

She held up a crumpled grocery bag, smiling from beneath her curtain of bangs. “The lady come to take us to Springfield Hospital for my granny’s medicine. They got her medicine messed up, and she didn’t feel good. But she’s O.K. now. She’s home sleepin’.” She spoke as if it were nothing unusual to spend Christmas Eve in a hospital. “I brung some Christmas presents.” She jittered with excitement. “Did ya’ll open presents yet?”

“Not yet,” I said. “We were starting to think you weren’t going to make it in time.” I held the gift bag so that she could take off her coat.

Underneath was a red sundress, hopelessly wrinkled and two sizes too small, a pair of soiled white tights with a big hole in the knee, and two soaked Mary Janes with the patent leather scuffed off the toes. Dell smoothed the front of the dress and smiled at me, clearly proud of herself for dressing up for Christmas.

“I have a feeling there might be some things waiting for you under the Christmas tree.” I ushered her toward the door, handing her bag of gifts back to her. “We’d better get in there before Joshua opens everything.”

Ben was just warming up his Santa act when we entered the living room. Glancing at us, he registered a moment of surprise at Dell’s dress, then quickly turned to the pile of gifts that had been moved from under the tree in the dogtrot. Grandma paused in the middle of picking at the bow on her first package and surveyed Dell with a critical eye.

Please, God, don’t let her say anything,
I prayed. Trying to guess what would come out of Grandma’s mouth was like trying to predict the path of a tornado.

She seemed to stare at Dell forever, moving her lips as if she were chewing the words before spitting them out. “Well, hang!” she said finally. “Dell already has a new Christmas dress. I guess that means she won’t be wearing the one that’s hanging in the laundry room.” She let out a huge sigh, looking terribly hurt and pitiful; then she waved a backward finger at Dell’s soggy dress shoes. “Of course, the little shoes that go with
my
dress are dry.”

For just an instant, I thought Dell was going to say something, which would have been surprising considering how many people were watching her. Then she just shoved the grocery bag into my hands, broke into a sheepish grin, spun around, and dashed into the hall.

Grandma huffed a mouthful of air and crossed her arms over her chest, looking completely put out. “That old woman! Letting the child go out like that on Christmas morning!”

“Oh, Grandma, be nice,” Karen scolded, chuckling as Joshua turned around in her lap and began fiercely trying to strangle her with the string of gold beads she was wearing. Laughing, she wrestled the beads from his fingers and tossed them over her shoulder where he couldn’t reach them. “I think we’ve got a little wrestler here. He’s got quite a grip.”

I think we’ve got . . .
I replayed it in my mind.
We’ve got.
It made me feel warm and connected. It was the first time I’d heard her refer to our family as a unit.

Grandma caught my eye and gave just a hint of a smile, as if she were thinking the same thing. Her grin widened as Dell appeared in the doorway wearing a green velvet dress with a wide white-lace collar and a sash bow at the back. It made her look as precious as she was.

“Now, doesn’t that look nice?” Grandma said. “Do you know that Iris Craig was going to sell that dress in her yard sale because it was too little for her granddaughter?” She motioned Dell closer and leaned forward to fix the bow in the back of the sash. “I told her, no, ma’am. I know a little girl who would look just right in that dress.” Scooting over in the big chair, she patted the seat beside herself. “Now sit down here beside Grandma and help me open these gifts. My fingers don’t work well enough to untie these ribbons. I don’t know why everyone bothered to buy me so many things anyway. I don’t need anything, and I’m too old to get any use out of them. No one should have wasted their money on . . . Oh! Look, a new wristwatch! Oh, now won’t this look fine at church. I think this might be the one Doris Crumpler was looking at in Wal-Mart the other day. Won’t she be . . .”

And so the morning went on. Grandma kept up a running commentary on the gifts—hers and everyone else’s, and what they might have cost, and what store they might have come from. Her favorite, she said, was a flat, round piece of river slate on which Dell had painted a picture of our farmhouse. Both she and Dell were beaming as Dell opened some jeans, shirts, and tennis shoes from Santa Claus, and a new bicycle basket from Aunt Jeane and Uncle Robert. Aunt Jeane had bought that and sneaked it under the tree herself, which just showed how sweet and kind and truly good she was. Nobody’s needs escaped her attention. When I finally grew up, I hoped I would be just like her.

Joshua’s pile remained in the middle of the floor unopened after everyone else was finished. He was preoccupied with shredding the loose wrapping paper and had no interest in finding out what was in the boxes.

“Open your presents, Joshee,” Dell said, scooting out of Grandma’s chair and into the middle of the floor. “Here, look, open this one. It’s got a . . . Look, a big yella truck!”

Leaning against the hearth with the fire crackling softly behind me, I watched as she and Joshua opened the packages one by one, becoming lost in a sea of wrapping paper and ribbons. I watched Aunt Jeane snapping pictures and James shooting videotape, Karen directing him to make sure to get some footage of the kids and Dad saying that Joshua was unusually bright for a baby his age and Ben throwing a sheet of wrapping paper over Josh’s head. I looked at Uncle Robert almost asleep in his chair with a stack of new shirts in his lap, and Grandma with her head propped against her favorite crocheted pillow, slowly nodding off, smiling at the sounds around her.

My heart swelled until I felt as vast and as light as the air in the room. This Christmas morning was everything I had hoped for and yearned for and thought we would never have. The expressions on the faces of those around me told me they had been yearning too. I understood now that all of us have that place inside that wants to be part of something, that needs the comfort and companionship of loved ones. Within each of us, there is an empty room, and when we open the door, light flows in. The wider we open it, and the longer we leave it open, the brighter our souls become.

I tried to put my feelings into words later that day, after we had eaten Christmas dinner and Ben had left to take Dell home with her Christmas gifts and a plate of food for her granny. Karen and I stood washing the dinner dishes, alone in the kitchen. Aunt Jeane had taken Joshua up to bed and the men had retired to the living room to watch football on TV.

“This has been a great day.” I didn’t know exactly what to say or how to thank her for trying to make Grandma’s Christmas wonderful, and for supporting me in my plan to let Grandma stay at the farm. “Thanks for being so good about it.”

Karen gave me a rueful sideways glance, and for a moment I regretted saying anything. “Did you think I was going to come in here like the Grinch and steal Christmas?”

“No . . . Well, I didn’t know how you felt about coming.”

“Me neither.” It was an honest admission, for Karen. “I just felt like it was important that I come . . . and maybe I felt a little jealous that you were here at the farm spending so much time with Grandma and Aunt Jeane when I never get to see them.”

Holding a wet pan dripping above the dishwater, I stared at her openmouthed. “Are you serious?”

Chuckling, she took the pan from my hands and rinsed it. “Yes, but one butt-chewing yesterday from Grandma got me over it, believe me. Honestly, Kate, you must be some kind of a saint, wanting to stay here with her for weeks. I could never stand it day in and day out. She’s always lecturing or griping or worrying.”

“Pretty much,” I agreed, to my surprise not offended by her less-than-flattering assessment of my daily life. It didn’t feel like an insult, just Karen telling what she thought, as usual. It struck me that she and Grandma were alike, and the idea made me laugh. “Anyway, as long as she’s lecturing, griping, or worrying, I know there’s nothing wrong with her. When she quits all that, I’ll know I need to call an ambulance.”

We grinned at each other, and I had another flashback to when we were girls, standing at the sink washing dishes and making plans to sneak out our window at night.

“You remember the time we sneaked out and went skinny-dipping in the middle of the night?” I asked, the memory as clear as if it had happened yesterday.

Karen nodded, her eyes bright, so much like my mother’s. “That was so much fun. And then, remember, a bobcat screamed in the trees, and we were just sure somebody had been murdered over on Mulberry Road?”

I nodded, having almost forgotten that part of the story. “You called Sheriff Carlton the next day to see if anything had happened, but you wouldn’t tell him who you were.”

She set a pan in the rack with a loud clank and pointed a finger at me. “And you caved in when the grown-ups asked us about it—remember that? You never could keep your mouth shut. We got grounded for the rest of the visit.”

I rolled my eyes at her berating, not wounded as I would have been in younger years when I lived for her approval and never got it. “We ought to come to the farm and do it again next summer. Go down to the river, I mean. Just us girls.” The words came out of my mouth before I had time to think about whether I should invite her, or what she would say, or how I would feel if she said she wasn’t coming back.

She gave me an odd look, as if she were also wondering if I meant it, then gave a noncommittal shrug. “We’ll see what next summer brings.” After a long pause, she seemed to reconsider. “Maybe I can fly here between jobs sometime instead of going home. A lot of weekends, James isn’t there anyway.”

“That would be great,” I said, and I meant it. “Let me know when you can make it. If we’re not still here, I’ll plan to fly in too. Maybe we can meet at the airport and rent a car to drive out together.”