The wisdom of the willow, p.14
The Wisdom of the Willow, page 14
Linney, wearing sandals, a long denim skirt, and a sleeveless white linen top, looks up from a full box of discarded paper wrapping. Her long, honey hair gets tangled in the crystals hanging on a chain around her neck. She rises to her feet, and walks to the door, holding out her arms to me.
“You didn’t forget about the Fourth, did you?” I ask.
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
Linney locks onto my face as if I have leftover breakfast on my chin.
“Ma, have you been feeling okay lately?”
“Yes, a little tired, but Charlotte comes around when she can, and . . . has Rose been talking to you? She asked me that same question.”
“We just want to make sure you’re doing okay.”
“I’m fine. Now, I’ve got a birthday bash to plan, and you’ve got a shop to run. I’ll see you in a couple of days.”
I twirl and wave goodbye before shutting the door behind me.
I am forever grateful to Bridget for giving Linney her place to be, for being a role model in owning and running a business and living a best, true life. One might think I would be jealous; on the contrary. Bridget has given Linney permission to have her own identity and to be the person she wants to be, unlike the feeling I think she had at home, where Deb’s demands to be more and to do more were always in Linney’s head. It was difficult for the girls, especially for Linney, to find connections that had meaning. Her vegetarian ways and her organic, simple lifestyle were her way of setting herself apart from her sisters, of being unique.
I get in the car with party preparations on my mind, and I can’t move. I am confused about what to do next. Foot on the gas? Steer? Turn the ignition? But there is no key in it. I shut my eyes and concentrate, breathe deeply . . . one, two, three breaths, like Linney tells Charlotte if she suddenly isn’t feeling well. I need Bridget to take care of my Linney. After a respite, it all comes back, and I’m on my way home.
Before tackling that birthday cake when I get home, I shut my eyes and rest for just a few minutes and don’t notice Joe walk in dressed in khaki pants and a white polo shirt. He startles me out of a slump.
“Margaret, you alright? How long you been back?”
“Not long. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a cake to make.” Joe delays leaving the room to give me a once-over. With effort, I stand and pull an apron from the back of the chair over my head, swing the ties around my waist, and give them a good yank. I turn to the other side of the counter, grab mixing bowls from the upper cupboard, and take out measuring cups from the drawers. After a concentrated effort to focus on what I’m about to do, I begin to make their cake.
Smelling good and chocolaty, I cool the cakes out of the oven on twin racks on the counter and give each top a gentle push with an index finger to test doneness. I sit awhile on the back porch, taking in a life of trees and birds and popping flower buds as my reward where I am reminded of how interconnected we are and dependent on each other to thrive.
“Mind if I join you?” Joe says. He looks as if he’s just awakened from a nap—his eyes are as clear as his complexion.
“Please do.” I wave an open hand to his chair. “We need to stop every now and then and observe, Joe. Time is running fast, and I think we’re missing a whole lot. And I don’t want to miss anything.” I look at him, and I can tell he’s got something on his mind. It’s how he tightens his lips and squints his eyes, as if he’s bitten into a sour grape.
“Margaret, the doctor bills. They’re coming in.” He leans over the armrest, closer to me. “I know something is going on, and I waited for you to tell me when you thought it was the right time, but I’ve been watching you, and I know you’re not right.” Joe swings his chair around and sits in front of me until our knees touch. I drop my head.
“I know I’ve been putting off telling you,” I say, talking to the tops of my thinning thighs, “since I found out about my uninvited brain dweller.” I tap my head—well, give it a good slap is more like it, as if to tell it, “Bad, bad, you’re very bad.”
“It’s my brain, Joe. There’s a growth that shouldn’t be there, and there’s nothing they can do about it.” I shake my head in resignation; my shoulders curl, and I feel so very small.
“But, Margaret, why didn’t you tell me sooner? The doctor appointments . . . Charlotte.” Joe raises his voice.
“Please don’t be upset with me. I just couldn’t.” I begin to cry, and Joe takes my hands in his. “Telling you about it would have made it so . . . real. You’d fuss and treat me so . . . differently, keeping me reined in close, as if I’d shatter when left to going about my usual business.”
“I’m so, so sorry, Margaret.” Tears slip through his blinking eyes. “You’ve taken care of all of us. Now it’s my turn to care for you. I want to make each day the best it can be.” His voice is weak and trails softly.
We find each other with our eyes; his twinkly in tears, mine dry, void. I am unable to blink. He kisses me.
“It’s got to be on my terms, Joe. No coddling, no keeping me from planting out in the yard or making dinner for the girls. I want to be able to do what I can, when I can, for as long as I can.”
“Understood. I’m there for you whenever you need me.”
He wipes his damp face and runny nose on his shirtsleeve, then grabs my shoulders in an embrace. I feel his strong arms around my weakening frame; I’m succumbing to a fight where I must concede. But I know Joe is strong, no matter the task he is up against, and I am reminded of his strength now, the same strength he showed in taking care of our girls when they were little, when I needed a break and felt as if I just couldn’t.
I am resigned to my prognosis; I have accepted the inevitable. Joe and I have always been a team, operating in balance as we’ve shared the good and the bad. And telling Joe of this very bad has lifted my burden as I no longer have to be a team of one.
We say nothing for a moment or two, as if to refocus on the present moment and not what has yet to come.
“The willow is looking good this summer, Joe. How its wispy branches tell us which way a breeze is blowing, or if it isn’t. And there’s no place I’d rather be than right here with you, right now.”
“And this is exactly where I’m supposed to be,” Joe says.
It’s the morning of our party, a time to celebrate, and I am feeling particularly energetic, relieved my illness is out in the open with Joe. He works in the yard with such a sense of urgency to pull weeds, turn soil, and deadhead spent blossoms that I worry he won’t have enough left in him to enjoy our family time. I step outside and greet brightness, a cacophony of birds, and flowers opening their sweetness. The air is still as if in waiting for us to join in.
“Margaret, you just gonna stand there, or will you eventually make yourself useful?” Joe says, sneaking up on me and giving me a squeeze and a kiss.
“Apparently, you don’t see that I’m always making myself useful.” I give his rear an affectionate slap with the kitchen towel.
He moves closer and hugs me in a way that is new—as if he is desperate to steal just one more embrace while he can. I wonder what Joe will do when I’m not around.
Once, when Rose was in her last year of high school, we went into the city, choosing the sunniest of days, when the city was a symphony of sounds in a rhythm that somehow all worked like any good timepiece keeping time. We visited the Art Institute on Michigan Avenue and walked north all the way to Huron, stopping for lunch off Michigan Avenue on St. Clair, then moving on to the Palmer House for late afternoon tea.
Witnessing the vibrancy of the teal lake dotted with triangles of whitecaps and sails, the architectural wonders of skyscrapers, and the smart-looking business folks swiftly weaving through the whirl of local and tourist pedestrian traffic gave me a sense of livelihood and purpose. I spent the day feeling a freedom I hadn’t experienced in a long time. Actually, I didn’t remember ever feeling that way before. I got home well after dinner.
“What a day you two had! You couldn’t have gotten lost because Rose was with you,” Joe said when I walked into the house. “Did you give any thought to dinner?”
I hadn’t planned on fixing a dinner, and I also knew he wasn’t going to fix anything for himself. But I knew Joe expected me to make a meal.
Will Joe be able to take care of himself after I’m gone?
Charlotte
I go to the house earlier in the morning before all the others to help prepare for the day. It’s already a steamer with high humidity. Threatening dark skies are plump with rain clouds, and I am hopeful for clearing and cooler breezes by the afternoon. When I slip through the back gate, Ma is yanking on the garden hose to straighten the rubber pretzel before watering a bed of white and yellow daisy heads and popping fuchsia bee balm growing like fringe around the porch. I notice how the colors in the garden have exploded, and the flash of a smile on Ma’s face at how agreeable it all looks to her. She lives in the moment.
“You’re gonna drown ’em, dear. Not so much water there, okay? Move along with the watering,” Dad yells from the threshold of the sliding doors. “Hello there, Char.” He waves a short-sleeved arm.
Ma puts down the hose and turns off the water by the gate. Together we meander arm-in-arm into the kitchen. Sprinkles of dampness shine on her forehead. Her footing is deliberate.
“C’mon, let’s sit before the others arrive,” Ma tells me, getting comfortable in her chair at the table. I dally around the counter and fix us glasses of iced tea.
“You know, Ma, I always found it suspicious that all my sisters’ birthdays were in the summer until I overheard you talking to Dad about how it was planned that way,” I said, joining her at the table with the teas. Ma wanted our births to be in the summer so we could enjoy watching the budding lilacs, the willow tree’s growth into adulthood, and the popping of rose blooms and asters and lilies. And then there’s me, though not to be left out. I would enjoy my birthday celebration on my actual birthday in March.
I think Ma started this sister birthday party on the Fourth not only to bring us together, but also to relive memories. And that’s what Ma is about. When my sisters and I are together, Ma unravels the memories in a way that provides a lesson to be learned. When we were young, the Fourth of July was a guaranteed eye-roller, as she’d bring out a couple of shoeboxes full of musty-scented photos of me and my sisters and previous Fourth day celebrations, then summon us to gather under the willow tree. We’d sit in a circle and watch Ma pull out carefully selected pictures, some more faded than others, pointing out the tree’s growth in each photo and then likening it to our own. I think it was Ma’s covert way of keeping us together somehow, without us losing the source of our connections that got us to where we are now.
“I was thinking back to when you girls were young . . .” She gazes outside, imagining our youth. “The vacations we took, the years spent nurturing the house, inside and out, making memories and connections that I hoped one day you’d still have. Do you remember when Deb got her job right out of college? Kinsey and Moore told her she had what it took, and she believed them, and that’s why she got the job. She believed in herself and was determined to work there.”
“I think it was the beginning of the end there. That’s how she met Dennis, and she couldn’t boss him around,” I tell her.
Ma counters, “If it wasn’t for Dennis, she wouldn’t have the opportunity to be a mom.”
I feel my face flush with agitation. And then I let it all out, like a popped balloon. I speak loudly, as if Ma is hard of hearing, and I sit up straighter.
“I know where you’re going with this,” I snap. “I’m sorry I’m turning thirty. I’m sorry I don’t have a special someone in my life, let alone a boyfriend. I’m sorry my biological clock is ticking. I’m sorry I can’t give you the grandkids you are hoping for, now and maybe not ever.” In a single exhale, the words spring off my tongue like water from a spout.
Ma’s chin drops, and her eyes widen.
“Charlotte, honey,” she tells me, “you don’t need to apologize . . . for any of it.”
“Hey, kiddo,” Dad says, sliding open the glass doors. “Oh, what a tight face. You alright?” He pulls up a chair next to mine.
I sit back in my seat and fold my arms, grab a loose curl, and wind it around my finger. Jingle looks up at me concerned. I pat his head and he lies down.
“Did you two ever think of not having kids? Did you think of getting a good job, Ma, doing something you were passionate about, and you, Dad, getting with a firm with promotional opportunities?”
“Times were different back then, Char,” Dad explains. His quiet voice calms me. “We were young, and I had met your mother at work. She was the most efficient secretary in the pool—reliable and just good at it.” Dad gives Ma’s arm a squeeze and her eyes a smile. “My secretary got pregnant, and in those days, you left and didn’t come back. Your mother filled in until I could get someone permanent. Only I didn’t want someone else. I wanted your mother. Those days, secretaries dated men in their workplaces, and though everyone turned the other way, everyone knew it. But eventually, she, too, had to leave. And we got married.”
“Mom, you had to leave?”
Ma gives Dad a glare, like he needs to cut himself from the narration. But it doesn’t work.
“I did. Deb made me do it,” Ma says.
“What? You were . . . pregnant with Deb before you got married?”
“I was crazy in love with your dad, and, well, my job didn’t seem that important anymore. What your dad and I were about to have was my sole job.”
“But, Dad, were you ready? I mean, a baby, marriage, a new house. So much, so fast.”
“I don’t know if I was ready, or if your mother was, but these things happen. I couldn’t imagine not having your mother by my side or not having all you perfectly special girls in my life.”
Dad gets up, pulls up his jeans, gives Ma a kiss and me a squeeze of the shoulder before leaving the kitchen.
“I’m going out to the yard and wait for the rest of you,” he tells us.
Ma waits a minute in thought before continuing. “Char, you know your dad’s secretary, the one who had to leave? She was the one he wanted to be with. He didn’t know she was pregnant; she never told him. She was an unhappily married woman, pregnant with her first child, and I think your father thought he could make her happy. But she left the company and didn’t return. He understood it was for the best. For a long time, I thought of myself as second-best. I certainly wasn’t his first choice. We started dating, and I got pregnant. But I have no regrets. Sometimes life happens in unsuspected, unpredictable ways.” Her voice lowers. “And you’ll keep it a secret for another very long time.” She stares at me for a moment. I don’t know whether she still has something to say to me or is waiting for me to respond. I study the flock of wrens and sparrows gathering on the feeder in the yard. “I know keeping my illness a secret was a lot to ask of you and now this one, too. You’re my best confidante.” This disclosure makes me feel special as Ma told me a secret of her past. “C’mon, outside you go. Help your dad with that table and the chairs.” I give Ma a hug before meeting Dad outside in the backyard.
“Where are we going with it?” I call out to Dad. His denim pant hems are water-soaked as he puts down the garden hose, and his gray shirt is already darkened with sweat stains. It’s not unusual for him to look like this after being at odds with hosing down the backyard furniture.
“Don’t ask, just do,” Dad replies.
“Right over there, under the willow tree,” Ma yells from the porch, pointing a finger.
Dad and I take each end of the wood table and move it to a cleared spot under the willow. The table is heavy, filled with stories and memories of previous years. Dad and I grab chairs and assemble them around the table.
“C’mon out, Margaret. Is this how you want it?” Dad shouts.
I have a good look at the empty scene and then envision us kids when we used to play games near that tree, running through thin, weepy branches that brushed our arms and the tops of our heads. We’d bat them away, only for them to return, tickling us. Then Ma would clap her hands, signaling that it was time to start the circle. I’d plop down in her lap, cradled in the middle of her crossed legs, as I was the smallest who could fit. Dad would be near, futzing with the ground, stomping out bumps and filling small divots made by digging squirrels. We always came back to that circle each year, and this time was no exception.
“Everything looks fine, dear,” Ma tells us as she joins us under the willow.
“I remember we used to sit on the ground with you when we were younger,” I tell her, as if she needs the memory and not I.
“Yes, we did, but now that we’re older, it feels more appropriate to sit in chairs at a table.”
I think this is for Ma’s benefit. Getting down on the ground and staying there for any amount of time is too much for her now.
“Like I said, Char, just do,” Dad says, bending to pull a few weeds that have shot up around the table.
I wonder how much Dad knows, if anything, about Ma’s condition. I don’t ask; I just do.
Margaret
I’m puttering in the kitchen, grabbing paper plates, Solo cups, and plastic utensils when I see Linney hurriedly making her way through the side gate of the backyard. I can tell something is on her mind by seeing her heavy steps and bent body as if on a mission. I meet her at the kitchen sliding door.
“I need to talk to you before the others get here,” she whispers, taking a big step over the open door’s threshold, nearly bumping me off balance. Her flaxen hair and cotton blouse are rumpled. She yanks on a sandal to keep it from falling off.
“Of coarse, dear. C’mon, let’s sit. Looks like something serious is on your mind.”
We sit close at the table where I notice shadows under her eyes, where usually there’s nothing but clear serenity, like a starry night.
“Apparently, I have a new friend. A Mr. Leone stopped by Magnolia, well, actually it’s been a while back now, and has also called a couple times. He wants to talk to Bridget because he is interested in buying Magnolia and developing it into an apartment building with retail shops. I stopped listening to him after he said ‘develop.’”
