Winter Garden (8 page)

“You think your photographs can do that?”

Nina felt the sting of that remark and the insult. “War is a terrible thing, Mom. It’s easy to sit here in your nice, safe home and judge my work. But if you’d seen what I’ve seen, you’d feel differently. What I do can make a difference. You can’t imagine how some people suffer in the world, and if no one sees it—”

“We’ll scatter your father’s ashes on his birthday. With or without you.”

“Okay,” Nina said evenly, thinking, Dad understood, and hurting all over again.

“Good-bye, then. Happy Christmas to you.”

On that note, Nina left Belye Nochi. At the porch she paused, looking up the valley, watching the snow fall. Her practiced eye took it all in, cataloging and remembering every detail. In thirty-nine hours, it would be dust that rained down on her shoulders and swirled around her boots, and the images of this place would bleach out like bones beneath a punishing sun, until, in no time at all, they’d be too pale to see at all. Her family—and especially her mother—would become shadowy memory beings whom Nina could love . . . from a distance.

In the weeks following her father’s death, Meredith held herself together by strength of will alone. That, and a schedule as tight and busy as a boot camp recruit’s.

Grief had become her silent sidekick. She felt its shadow beside her all the time. She knew that if she turned toward that darkness just once, embraced it as she longed to, she’d be lost.

So she kept moving. Doing.

Christmas and New Year’s had been disastrous, of course, and her insistence on following tradition hadn’t helped. The turkey-and-all-the fixings dinner had only highlighted the empty place at the table.

And Jeff didn’t understand. He kept saying that if she’d just cry she’d be okay. As if a few tears could help her.

It was ridiculous. She knew crying wouldn’t help, because she cried in her sleep. Night after night she woke with tears on her cheeks, and none of it helped one bit. In fact, the opposite was true. The expression of grief didn’t help. Only its suppression would get her through these hard times.

So she went on, smiling brightly at work and moving from one chore to the next with a desperate zeal. It wasn’t until the girls went back to school that she realized how exhausted she was by the pretense of ordinary life. It didn’t help, of course, that she hadn’t slept through the night since the funeral, or that she and Jeff were having trouble finding anything to talk about.

She’d tried to explain it to him, how cold she felt, how numb, but he refused to understand. He thought she should “let it out.” Whatever the hell that meant.

Still, she wasn’t trying very hard to talk to him, that much was true. Sometimes they went whole days with little more than a nod in passing. She really needed to try harder.

She rinsed out her coffee cup, put it in the strainer, and went to the downstairs office he used for writing. Knocking quietly, she opened the door.

Jeff sat at his desk—the one they’d bought at least a decade ago, dubbed his writer’s space, and christened by making love on it.

You’ll be famous someday. The new Raymond Chandler.

She smiled at the memory, even as it saddened her to think that somewhere along the way their dreams had untangled, gone on separate paths.

“How’s the book going?” she asked, leaning against the doorframe.

“Wow. You haven’t asked me that in weeks.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Meredith frowned at that. She’d always loved her husband’s writing. In the early days of their marriage, when he’d been a struggling journalist, she’d read every word he wrote. Even a few years ago, when he’d first dared to try his hand at fiction, she’d been his first, best critic. At least that was what he’d claimed. That book hadn’t sold to a publisher, but she’d believed in it, in him, heart and soul. And she was glad that he’d finally started another book. Had she told him that? “I’m sorry, Jeff,” she said. “I’ve been a mess lately. Can I read what you have so far?”

“Of course.”

She saw how easy it was to make him smile and felt a pang of guilt. She wanted to lean down and kiss him. It used to be as easy as breathing, kissing him, but now it felt strangely bold, and she couldn’t quite make herself move toward him. She mentally added Read Jeff’s Book to her To-Do list.

He leaned back in his chair. The smile he gave her was a good effort; only their twenty years together allowed her to see the vulnerable underside to it. “Let’s go to dinner and a movie tonight. You need a break.”

“Maybe tomorrow. Tonight I need to pay Mom’s bills.”

“You’re burning the candle at both ends.”

Meredith hated it when he said ridiculous things like that. What exactly was she supposed to stop doing? Her job? Caring for her mother? The chores at home? “It’s only been a few weeks. Cut me some slack.”

“Only if you cut yourself some.”

She had no idea what he meant by that, and right now she didn’t care. “I gotta go. See you tonight.” She bent down, patted his shoulder, and left the house. She put the dogs in the fenced part of their yard and then drove down to her parents’ house.

Her mother’s house.

The reminder came with a pinch of grief that she pushed aside.

Inside, she closed the door behind her and called out for her mother.

There was no answer, which was hardly a surprise.

She found her mother in the rarely used formal dining room, muttering to herself in Russian. On the table, spread out in front of her, were all the pieces of jewelry Dad had bought her over the years, as well as the ornately decorated jewelry box that had been a long-ago Christmas gift from her daughters.

Meredith saw the mess grief had made of her mother’s beautiful face: it had sucked in her cheeks and made her bones appear more prominent; it had drawn the color from her skin until her flesh nearly matched her hair. Only her eyes—startlingly blue against all that pallor—held any semblance of who she’d been a month ago.

“Hey, Mom,” Meredith said, coming up to her. “What are you doing?”

“We have these jewels. And the butterfly is somewhere.”

“Are you getting dressed up for something?”

Her mother looked up sharply. Only then, when their gazes really met, did Meredith see the confusion in those electric-blue eyes. “We can sell them.”

“We don’t need to sell your jewelry, Mom.”

“They’ll stop handing out money soon. You’ll see.”

Meredith leaned over and gently scooped up the costume jewelry. There was nothing of real value here: Dad’s gifts had always been more heartfelt than expensive. “Don’t worry about the bills, Mom. I’ll be paying them for you.”

“You?”

Meredith nodded and helped her mother to her feet, surprised at the easy acquiescence. Mom let herself be led up the stairs easily.

“Is the butterfly safe?”

Meredith nodded. “Everything is safe, Mom,” she said, helping her mother into bed.

“Thank God,” Mom said with a sigh. She closed her eyes.

Meredith stood there a long time, staring down at her sleeping mother. She reached out finally and felt her brow (it wasn’t hot), and gently brushed the hair from her eyes.

When she was confident that Mom was sleeping deeply, she went downstairs and called the office.

Daisy answered on the first ring. “Meredith Whitson Cooper’s office.”

“Hey, Daisy,” Meredith said, still frowning. “I’m going to work from Belye Nochi today. My mom’s acting a little strange.”

“Grief will do that to a person.”

“Yeah,” Meredith said, thinking of the tears that were always on her cheeks when she woke. Yesterday she’d been so exhausted she’d added orange juice to her coffee instead of soy milk. She’d drunk half the cup before she even noticed. “It will.”

If Meredith had been burning the candle at both ends then, by the end of January, there was nothing left but the flame. She knew Jeff had grown impatient with her, even angry. Time and again, he told her to hire someone to help take care of her mother, or to let him help her, or—worst of all—to make time for them. But how was she supposed to accomplish that amid all her other chores? She’d tried to get Mom a housekeeper, but that had been a disaster. The poor woman had worked at Belye Nochi a week and quit without giving notice, saying that she couldn’t stand the way Mom watched her all the time and told her to quit touching things.

So, with Nina gone off God knew where and Mom growing stranger and colder every day, Meredith had no choice but to pick up the slack. She’d made a promise to her father to care for Mom and she would never let him down. So she kept moving, doing everything that needed to be done. As long as she was moving, she could contain her grief.

Her routine had become her salvation.

Every morning she woke early, ran four miles, made her husband and her mother breakfast, and left for work. By eight o’clock, she was at her desk, working. At noon, she returned to Belye Nochi to check on Mom, pay a few bills, or do a little cleaning. Then it was back to work until six, grocery shopping on her way home, stop at Mom’s until seven or eight, and—if Mom wasn’t acting too weird—home by eight-thirty for whatever dinner she and Jeff could throw together. Without fail, she fell asleep on the sofa by nine and woke up at three in the morning. The only good part about this crazy routine was that she could call Maddy early because of the time-zone difference. Sometimes, just hearing her daughters’ voices could get her through the day.

Now it was barely noon and she was already exhausted as she hit the intercom button and said, “Daisy, I’m going home for lunch. I’ll be back in an hour. Can you get the shed reports to Hector and remind Ed to get me that information on grapes?”

The door to her office opened. “I’m worried about you,” Daisy said, closing the door behind her.

Meredith was touched. “Thank you, Daisy, but I’m fine.”

“You’re working too hard. He wouldn’t like it.”

“I know, Daisy. Thanks.”

Meredith watched Daisy leave the office, then gathered up her purse and keys.

Outside, snow was falling again. The parking lot was a slushy, muddy mess, as were the roads.

She drove slowly out to her mom’s house, parked, and went inside. At the entryway, she took off her coat and hung it up, calling out, “Mom, I’m here.”

There was no answer.

She dug through the refrigerator, found the pierogies she’d defrosted last night and a Tupperware container full of lentil soup. She popped the pierogies in the microwave and warmed them up. She was just about to go upstairs when she caught a glimpse of a dark shape in the winter garden.

This was getting old. . . .

She got her coat and trudged through the falling snow to the garden. “Mom,” she said, hearing the exasperation in her voice and unable to temper it. “You’ve got to quit this. Come on inside. I’ll make some pierogies and soup for you.”

“From the belt?”

Meredith shook her head. Whatever the hell that meant. “Come on.” She helped her mother to her feet—bare again, and blue with cold—and led her into the kitchen, where she wrapped her up in a big blanket and sat her down at the table. “Are you okay?”

“I am not the one to be worrying about, Olga,” Mom said. “Check on our lion.”

“It’s me, Meredith.”

“Meredith,” she said, as if trying to make sense of the name.

Meredith frowned. Her mother seemed more confused than made sense. This wasn’t just ordinary grief. Something was wrong. “Come on, Mom. I think we need to see Dr. Burns.”

“What have we to trade?”

Meredith sighed again and took the plate of pierogies from the microwave. Placing the golden lamb-filled pastries on a cooler plate, she set them in front of her mother. “They’re hot. Be careful. I’m going to get your clothes and call the doctor. Stay here. Okay?”

She went upstairs for some clothes, and while she was there, she called Daisy and asked her to make an emergency appointment with Dr. Burns. Then she came down with the clothes and helped Mom to her feet.

“You ate all of them?” Meredith said, surprised. “Good.” She put a sweater on Mom, then helped her into socks and snow boots. “Put on your coat. I’ll go warm up the car.”

When she came back into the house, Mom was in the entryway, buttoning up her coat incorrectly.

“Here, Mom.” Meredith unbuttoned the coat and rebuttoned it. She had almost finished when she realized that the coat was warm.

She reached into the pockets and found the pierogies, still hot from the oven, wrapped in greasy paper towels. What the hell?

“They’re for Anya,” Mom said.

“I know they’re yours,” Meredith said, frowning. “I’ll leave them right here for you, okay?” she said, putting them in the ceramic bowl on the entry table. “Come on, Mom.”

She led her mother out of the house and into the SUV.

“Just lean back, Mom. Go to sleep. You must be exhausted.” She started up the car and drove to town, parking in one of the angled spots in front of the Cashmere Medical Group’s brick office.

Inside, Georgia Edwards was at the desk, looking as perky and beautiful as she had in her cheerleading days at Cashmere High. “Hey, Mere,” she said, smiling.

“Hi, Georgia. Did Daisy get an appointment for my mom?”

“You know Jim. He’d do anything for you Whitsons. Take her down to Exam A.”

As they approached the exam room, Mom seemed to realize suddenly where they were. “This is ridiculous,” she said, yanking her arm away.

“Disagree all you want,” Meredith said, “but we’re seeing the doctor.”

Her mother straightened, lifted her chin, and walked briskly to the first exam room. There, she took the only seat for herself.

Meredith followed her inside and closed the door.

A few moments later, Dr. James Burns walked into the room, smiling. Bald as a cue ball, with compassionate gray eyes, he made Meredith think of her father. They’d been golf partners for years; Jim’s father had been one of her father’s best friends. He hugged Meredith tightly; in the embrace was their shared grief and a silent I miss him, too.

“So,” he said when he stepped back. “How are you today, Anya?”

“I am fine, James. Thank you. Meredith is jumpy. You know this.”

“Do you mind if I examine you?” he asked.

“Of course it is fine,” Mom said. “But unnecessary.”

Jim conducted an ordinary flu-type examination. When he finished with that, he made a few notes on her chart and then said, “What day is it, Anya?”

“January thirty-first, 2001,” she said, her gaze steady and clear. “Wednesday. We have a new president. George Bush, the younger. And Olympia is the state capital.”

Jim paused. “How are you, Anya? Really?”

“My heart beats. I breathe. I go to sleep and I wake up.”

“Maybe you should see someone,” he said gently.

“Who?”

“A doctor who will help you talk about your loss.”

“Death is not something to talk about. You Americans believe words change a thing. They do not.”

He nodded.

“My daughter needs help, perhaps.”

“Okay,” he said, making a few more notes on the chart. “Why don’t you go to the waiting room while I speak to her?”

Mom left the room immediately.

“There’s something wrong with her,” Meredith said as soon as they were alone. “She’s confused a lot. She’s hardly sleeping. Today she put her lunch in her pockets and talked about herself in the third person. She’s constantly worried about a lion, and she called me Olga. I think she’s confusing the fairy tales with real life. Last night I heard her reciting one of them to herself . . . as if Dad were listening. You know she’s always been depressed in the winter, but this is something else. Something’s wrong. Could she have Alzheimer’s?”