Tending Roses (13 page)

Ben scoffed as if I were being idiotic. “Let’s not make a federal case out of this. It’s just one day. I’ve already changed my flight and I’ll be back in town tomorrow around noon. I’ve got to go by the office at the church for a while. Then I’ll be home.”

“Before midnight, I hope,” I said, wondering how we were ever going to see eye to eye on raising our son. To me it was everything; to him it ranked behind a Knicks game and stopping at the office.

Josh was growing up without Ben even seeing it. I wondered if it seemed wrong to Ben that he didn’t know how to quiet Josh when he cried or what to feed him when he was hungry. Ben’s own father had always been away from home struggling to build a business, and I wanted more than that for Joshua. I thought Ben did too. He had been every bit the proud, expectant father before Josh was born. But when Josh finally came home from the hospital, tiny and frail, needing special monitoring and extra medical care, Ben backed away, and I let him. I was afraid to let anyone help with Josh’s care, even Ben. Now I was wondering if things were ever going to change.

Ben finally broke the silence on the line. “I don’t know what you’re on my case about. The check from this job is going to make the payments for this month. We needed the money.”

“I know that,” I said quietly, trying to keep the tremor from my voice. I didn’t want him to tell me I was getting overly emotional. My frustration with the realities of our life came spilling out. “I’ve been thinking maybe we should cut down our expenses. Get rid of some”—
boats, memberships, house plans, car payments
—“things. I was thinking of only going back to work part-time. I could probably stay with the foundation part-time and still keep my insurance. I could do a lot of work from home—set up an office in the den, maybe.”

Silence again, and then, “I don’t see how that’s possible financially.” Another pause, during which he covered up the phone receiver and talked to someone else. When he finally came back, I could tell he was ready to end the conversation. “Everybody’s waiting for me in the lobby. I need to go. Stop letting Grandma get you all emotional, all right?”

I exhaled my disappointment and said good-bye because I could tell there was no reason to keep talking. He was probably right, and besides, I should have waited until he was home to bring it up. But time was running out. In a couple of weeks, I was supposed to be back at work.

The screen door slammed outside, and I dried my eyes, then sat at the table with my cup of coffee.

Grandma gave me a suspicious look as she came in the door, nose tipped upward as if she had scented trouble. She looked pale and chilled, and there was dirt on her hands.

“Grandma, you shouldn’t be working in the yard today,” I said as she washed her hands at the sink. “It’s too cold, and you know Dr. Schmidt said light exercise only. Your blood pressure is still too high.”

She batted a hand behind her back, shooing me away like a nagging insect. “Yes, yes. I was only cleaning the leaves out of the flower bed.”

“And you shouldn’t be doing that,” I insisted. She’d been sneaking into the yard for days and doing things she wasn’t supposed to. She was determined that everything would be perfect for the family’s arrival. “Leave it for Ben and me to do.”

Pouring a cup of coffee, she tipped her chin up stubbornly and walked to the table to sit down. We sat silent for a while, and then she asked, “Was that Ben on the phone?”

I glanced up from my coffee cup, wondering how she could have heard the phone ringing from outside. “Yes.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “Did you have a tiff? I heard yelling.”

I stared at the swirling liquid in my coffee cup, getting the mortifying image of her listening at the door while Ben and I argued over life’s realities. “No.”

Grandma made a tsk-tsk sound, and from the corner of my eye I saw her shaking her head as if she knew better.

I put the best light on it I could. “It was nothing major. He wanted to stay another day and go to a Knicks game with his friends and I wanted him to come home.” Then the truth spilled out. “I just get aggravated because he doesn’t make any effort to help with Josh. Everything else is more important.”

Grandma made the tsk-tsk sound again, shaking her head at me. “Give him some time. Men are selfish creatures. Sometimes it takes a little while for them to adjust to the demands of fatherhood.”

A dozen snide replies ran through my mind. I didn’t like her making excuses for him. I had to adjust to the demands of motherhood the moment Joshua was born. Why should Ben be allowed six months to step up to the plate?

“I just don’t feel like talking about this,” I said finally. No sense hollering at Grandma. It wasn’t
her
I was mad at.

“Oh, I could tell you stories about your grandfather,” she went on. “He had been living here alone for twenty years when I married him. Now, there was a man who was hard to break in. And stubborn! Oh, he was stubborn!” She glanced from the corner of her eye to see if I was listening. “Of course, back then, we womenfolk just went on and did the best we could because we didn’t know any other way.”

For a moment I thought I was going to get the lecture about how spoiled young people are, but she fell silent, as if she had lost her train of thought. Her hand slipped from my arm and she folded it in her lap, staring out the window. Finally, she said, “I don’t suppose women do that anymore. I think that is some of what is wrong with families these days. Raising children is an occupation of self-sacrifice, but these days young people don’t want to give anything up.”

I felt the need to defend myself. “I don’t want Josh to grow up feeling like he’s a sideline occupation. I was thinking that we could cut back our expenses, give up some luxuries, and both have more time with him. But the truth is, when I go through all the figures, it doesn’t seem possible. Even if we give up the boat and the idea of a bigger house and get less expensive cars, I’m not sure we can make it.”

Grandma laid her hands on the edge of the table and looked at me for a long time, her eyes clear and sharp. “It sounds like you have a good idea, but you are lacking in faith.”

“It isn’t that simple,” I said, and my vision for the future dimmed until I could barely see the picture. “Even if it were, I don’t think Ben is willing.”

“Oh.” She nodded, as if she had suddenly gained a profound understanding of things. “Well, you won’t make progress by fighting with him on the phone, that much I can tell you. It takes time to turn a heart, and it cannot be done with hard words. I lived nearly forty years with your grandfather, and that was the most important thing I learned.”

I rolled my eyes, feeling like a teenager getting my first dating advice. “I wasn’t trying to pick a fight. He’s just so . . . self-centered sometimes. He only listens to about half of what I say, and I’m just . . . sick of it. It’s just frustrating.”

She smacked her lips, nodding again. “A man has his own way of thinking. Sometimes it is hard for us womenfolk to understand.” She smiled, patting my hand. “Give things a little time. Be patient, Katie. Everything doesn’t have to work itself out today.”

“I’ll try.”

“Good girl.” She stood up abruptly and shuffled to the coat hook, wrapping her coat around her shoulders. “I have some things to do in my little house.”

“All right,” I said, wondering at the infinite changes in her moods. She seldom seemed able to maintain a conversation.

She wrapped her scarf loosely over her silver hair, tucking the corners into her collar, then opened the door. “You know, there is a big house here with no payment due on it,” she said, stepping into the winter chill. “I don’t mind staying in the little one.” And then she walked out the door, leaving me stunned in her wake.

I sat there for a minute waiting for her to come back and recant what she had said, because I knew she couldn’t possibly mean what I thought she meant. The idea of Grandma giving up her house was almost as outrageous as the idea of us moving into it permanently.

But she didn’t come back, and finally, I just shook my head, put my coffee cup away, and then went upstairs to get Josh and take him out for a walk.

The day was brisk, but it felt good to be outside in the fresh air and sunshine. I walked past the field of long winter wheat and watched the cattle moving lazily about, their backs turned to the wind. I pictured my father and grandfather working there, turning up the black earth, planting seed, harvesting, and planting again. I wondered what they had been like together, if they had understood each other, or if they had battled as we were battling now.

I thought about my conversation with Ben again, and that sense of frustration twisted inside me like a rubberband, winding tighter and tighter, until I couldn’t stand to think about it anymore.
Be patient,
Grandma had said. But time was running out. Christmas was almost here, and then it would be over, and we would be back to our old lives, so busy that there wasn’t time to think about changing things. . . .

A cold wind blew across the field, tugging at our coats, chasing away my thoughts. Turning away from the wind, I pulled Joshua’s hood tighter around his red cheeks and walked back to the house.

The kitchen was dark and quiet. Grandma was nowhere to be found, which was odd at lunchtime, but I figured she had exhausted herself working in the yard and had fallen asleep in the little house. As I hung my coat on the hook, something familiar caught my eye beside the row of old blue and white porcelain canisters. Grandma’s book.

I didn’t waste time considering whether or not it was right for me to read it. I went to it like an old friend.

I thought about what she had told me earlier and wondered if the story would be about my grandfather.

Looking through the window, I watched the little house. I wondered if Grandma was thinking about me, or maybe just sleeping away the noon hour in her chair.

Turning to the book, I read the last line again.
Sometimes we cannot raise our chins and see eye to eye, so we must bow our heads and have faith in one another.

It was a good lesson—one I had tried to master before, but it was like a big fish on a thin line. I couldn’t quite get it into my grasp. Maybe I was making life too hard by trying to get Ben to see things my way. Maybe I needed to be a little more accepting of him and have faith that he was getting through the best way he knew how. Josh’s premature birth, the ongoing medical problems, and all the hospital bills weren’t easy to deal with. Maybe I just needed to be patient and have faith that we would somehow find our way.

The screen door slammed on the little house outside, and I jolted from my chair, setting the book on the counter where I had found it and glancing out the window. Grandma was crossing the yard with a gardening apron strapped over her coat and a pair of rose trimmers in her hand.