The Language of Sycamores (23 page)

I sat there watching the minutes tick by on the clock, counting them as the long hand passed eight thirty and started toward nine. Back in Hindsville, the performance, the after party, and the cleanup would be done. The Jumpkids would be heading home.

The clock was nearing nine when the door opened and Mr. Sewell stepped in again. He remained with his hand on the doorknob, even after it was closed. I wondered what that meant. “Things have changed just a bit. After your comment, I put a call in to the DMV, and it does turn out that Bobby Jordan has a record of drunk-driving offenses. And in fact, there is an outstanding warrant for his arrest in Missouri for failure to appear in court, and a parole violation in Oklahoma. The sheriff just came to take him into custody.” He looked down at his notepad, concealing his feelings about the news. “In short, he is in quite a bit of trouble, and certainly in no position to assume custody of a minor child, even for the weekend. Brother Baker has conveyed this
information to Dell’s grandmother, and she has consented under the witness of her doctor.” He glanced up, the corners of his mustache twitching as if he couldn’t maintain his stern countenance any longer. “Now, if you’ll step into the hall, I believe the young lady is more than ready to leave.”

Letting out a gasp of joy, I jumped from my chair, hugged James, then hurried with him into the hall.

Dell was standing with Twana Stevens at the foot of the stairs.

“This girl’s ready to go home and go to bed,” Twana said, fondly laying a hand atop Dell’s head. “She’s a very lucky girl to have people who love her so much.”

“We do.” I opened my arms, hoping.

Twana urged Dell forward, and she came, a tentative step at first, as if she were afraid we would disappear like a mirage. Three quick steps, and she was part of our family. Somewhere inside, I knew it wouldn’t be just for the weekend. It would be forever.

Chapter 22

S
aturday morning dawned bright and clear. I woke in the predawn hush and couldn’t remember where I was. In my dream, I’d been in a boardroom in Boston, the new Geo team on one side of the table, Vandever and the Lansing brass on the other. Tempers were high, and my heart was hammering in my throat.

Looking at Vandever I wanted to strangle him, wrap my hands around his neck and squeeze the pasty flesh. . . .

He turned to me and smiled—not his usual false, detached smile, but a real smile that reached all the way to his eyes. Blue eyes, like Grandma Rose’s. “I heard a whisper in the sycamores,” he said, but the voice wasn’t his; it was Grandma Rose’s. No one else in the room seemed to hear it. I blinked, and she was standing at the head of the table, smiling, her arms stretched out to me.

Jerking awake, I sat up in bed, looking around, trying to establish where I was and what was real. James stirred next to me, looping an arm over my waist, and everything came back, filling me with contentment. I wasn’t in a boardroom in Boston. I was at the farm with James and Dell.

My heart slowed its hurried rhythm, beating in a peaceful hush that matched the morning quiet. I was home. We were home.

Sliding from under James’s arm, I walked to the living room and
checked on Dell lying on the couch, her dark hair cascading against the old quilt. I thought of the three of us visiting her grandmother at the hospital last night after we left Debuke House.

James and I had waited in the corridor while Dell went into her grandmother’s room. Through the glass, I watched her stand a few feet from the bed. Arms crossed, head tilted slightly sideways, she studied the network of wires and tubes. She didn’t speak, just stood staring at the hulking form in the bed, the face obscured by machines.

Finally, she turned and left the room, saying to us, “We should go. It’s late.” I took one last look at the form in the bed, wondering what Dell felt for her and what their life together had been like. Was there love? Cruelty? Neglect? Something in between? Would we ever know? The secrets were locked inside Dell, perhaps forever.

She didn’t want to talk about her grandmother’s condition as we left the hospital and drove home. She just stared out the window, resting her head against the seat, until she fell asleep. Watching her, I wondered how much damage the last few days had done, and how long it would take for her to come out of herself again, or if she ever would.

When we returned to the farm, we sat together on the sofa—Dell, James, and I, talking about the future. Making plans. Planning to be a family.

My eyes filled with tears as I thought about it now. Leaning down, I pulled the quilt over her sleeping form, and happiness welled up inside me, rising to my lips in a sob of pure emotion. Dell stirred beneath the covering, her brows drawing together, her full lips pursing at the sound.

Stifling the noise with my hand, I hurried to the bathroom to dress so I could go outside and clear my head. I didn’t want James or Dell to find me crying on our first morning together.

Slipping into my sweats, I reached into the vanity drawer for a tissue. The box was right where I expected it to be—in the second drawer, where Grandma Rose always kept it. Curlers and hairbrushes in the top drawer, tissues in the middle drawer, towels in the bottom drawer.

I smiled to myself, feeling her in the room like a benevolent spirit.
I wish you were here
, I thought.
I wish you were here to see this
.

The Kleenex clung to the yellowed cellophane, lifting the container out of the drawer. Finally, it pulled loose and landed on the floor, scattering stray hairpins and an envelope that had been stuck to the bottom of the box. Leaning close to the mirror, I dabbed my eyes before picking up the box and then the envelope. The paper felt surprisingly cool in my hand, and I stopped to look at it, reading the name written on the back.
Karen,
it said, and I touched the handwriting, Grandma Rose’s handwriting, running downhill, trembling slightly. Why would she leave something for me here, beneath the tissue box in the vanity drawer of the little house, where I might never find it?

Putting on my sweats and shoes, I slipped silently from the house, carrying the letter, testing the glue on the flap with one finger, opening it carefully. Grandma’s flowers were all around me as I walked along the path. The air was filled with fragrance, clear and pure, heavy with dew not yet scattered by the morning breeze. I imagined Grandma Rose on her knees by the trellis, pulling weeds and singing “Amazing Grace” in a high, off-key voice that crackled with age.

Smiling at the memory, I sat on the iron bench. Hearing her voice in my mind as I drew the letter out of the envelope, I touched the paper but didn’t unfold it. Just marveled at its existence.

A dim shadow fell across me and I glanced up, with the fleeting thought that Grandma Rose would be there, but it was Kate.

“You’re up early,” she said, and sat on the bench next to me.

“You too.” I scooted over to give her some room.

Smiling, Kate rubbed her eyes wearily. “Rose was up early, then back down. Teething again, I think.”

“Just in time for company.”

She yawned, her words coming in a soft sigh. “Yeah, just in time for company. Everyone should be here by about eleven. Ben just called and said he may be a little late, but he’ll arrive by lunchtime, for sure.” She narrowed her eyes, giving me a frustrated look.

“Relax.” I shoulder butted her, wondering if I should bring up the issue of Dell. We’d come home so late last night that we hadn’t talked heart to heart. “It’s going to be a great day . . . just because we’re all here.”

Rescuing a white rose petal from the grass, Kate sat flattening it between her fingers, studying at the intricate spray of pink at the edges. “I’m glad, you know . . . about you and Dell and James. I know I said that last night, but I want you to know I really mean it. I know this is the right thing for her.” A tear slipped beneath her dark lashes and trailed down her cheek. “It’s strange the way things work out.” Sitting up, she wiped her face impatiently and forced a smile. “These are happy tears, I promise.”

I knew the tears were born from both joy and loss. “I love you,” I said, realizing how truly blessed we were to have each other. How could I have been so self-absorbed for so many years that I failed to realize what a gift my sister was?

“I love you, too,” Kate blubbered, and we shared a soppy sister hug.

I forgot about the letter in my hand until I reached up to wipe my eyes.

Kate motioned to it. “What’s that?”

I pointed to my name on the envelope. “It looks like a letter from Grandma Rose, but I found it in the vanity drawer, underneath the tissue box. Why would she put something there if she wanted me to have it?”

Tilting her chin to look at the handwriting, Kate shrugged. “There’s no telling, Karen. Toward the end, Grandma was doing some pretty strange things—forgetting where she put stuff and forgetting things she’d done, leaving her belongings in odd places. . . .” She trailed off, leaning on the arm of the bench and resting her chin on her hand. “But I’ll also tell you that during that time we had a special sort of . . . I don’t know . . . spiritual connection. That time together reminded her of so many things she had forgotten about her life. It caused her to think about what really mattered, after ninety years. She wrote about those things in the little journal I sent you, and she left the book lying around for me to find. I think it was her way of getting beyond all the pride and stubbornness and old resentments that kept us apart. I think she would have wanted you to read it, too.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t read it,” I said, turning the letter over and slipping my finger under the flap. “I just wasn’t ready. It wasn’t time yet.”

Kate nodded like she understood.

“It’s time now.” I breathed the words softly, opening the letter. Four pages, folded neatly around each other. Three from a yellow stationery pad that was crusty with age, and one smaller page in the center, white parchment with watercolor wildflowers along the edge.

I held it open with the small page on top. The writing quivered like Grandma’s hands, running downhill across the page.

A breeze stirred the garden around us, carrying the scent of roses as I read out loud.

Darling Karen,

I cannot say how I know you will find this letter. Sometimes I just know. You’ll come for the tissue box, perhaps while you are here for my funeral, or later when you come to help Kate finally clean out the little house. A memory or a hard moment will strike a tear in your eye, and you’ll come for the tissue box. You will find this letter and know I am here with you.

I feel that the end of my life is coming soon, and there are some things I have not been able to accomplish. I know you will be the one to complete these tasks for me. You are my strong one, my independent, practical girl, and you’ll find a way. You always do.

First, take care of my babies and Kate and my little Dell. When I look at her, I am ever reminded of you as a girl, and I know somehow that you and she will be special to each other. She hears the melody of the breeze and the music of the sycamores, just as you do.

Second, live a good life. Be happy, be content, be silent. Do not waste time. Time is a limited and precious gift. Live in a way that every moment matters. Capture every thought, every scent, every note of music, every glint of sunlight on the water, every chance to help another human soul. Do not yearn, but be content with what God gives you, with who He created you to be. Find your purpose in
life. Use your gifts. Make a life with no place for fear and no room for regret.

You will find that the only thing that will really matter in your life is the love you have for other people and the love they have for you. Money, career, anything else in life is useless without love.

There will be times when you will think “What’s the use? I hate my life. Nothing is turning out the way I want it to be.”

I remember when Skip was a baby and I had to stay indoors with her while Grandpa and the hired help went out into the field to work. One day when they had gone back out after lunch, I went upstairs and stood by the window to see what field they were hoeing. I stood there and actually cried because I couldn’t be out there with them as I wanted to be.

Now I ask you—wasn’t that silly? How thankful I should have been to have a healthy baby, a nice home, and a husband who loved me!

Just the other day, I was driving home, and I somehow looked toward the old farmhouse. I must have stopped the car and sat there for a while, looking at the upstairs window, imagining myself standing there with my baby daughter in my arms. All at once, I realized that was sixty-five years ago, and all those good times were gone in the blinking of an eye, and I’m an old lady now.

If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t shed even a single tear, standing at that window. I would hug my beautiful child, look at my home around me and the fine crop in the fields, and thank God for his wonderful gifts to me.

You have so many gifts, my dear one. Use them all to the fullest, every moment. I will be smiling down from heaven.

There is one last thing I must ask you to do for me, my practical girl. Make amends with your sister. Do not harbor the little grudges of childhood. How I wish I could deliver this message to my own dear sisters: I am sorry. Just that. I
was wrong. I held a grudge when I should have forgiven. I criticized when I should have loved. Most people need love much more than they need critics. Remember that, and you will live a good life.

 

I Love You,
Grandma Rose

Beside me, Kate stretched out a hand and touched the letter, her brown eyes wet with tears, glittering in the amber morning sunlight. “I wish she could be here to see the family coming today.”

“Me too,” I said, folding the letter and putting it back in the envelope as a breeze whispered through the sycamores. “I think she is here.”

Kate gazed into the treetops, standing up. “I think you’re right.” Her lips lifted into a slight smile. “Because I feel the need to get in there and bake apple pies. That
has
to be Grandma.”

Chuckling, I climbed to my feet. “Apple pies sound perfect. I’ll peel apples if you’ll do the crust.”

“Deal,” Kate agreed. We headed inside to bake apple pies—something we had never, ever done together.