A Rose by the Door Page 13

  Often, in the wee hours of the morning, he would counsel those who faced tragedy. He would remind husbands and wives that they needed to have faith in God as much as they needed to have faith in one another. He would pray fervently for Ash Hollow citizens with depression and doubts. All this, while occasionally he also had the opportunity to water the periwinkles beside the rear sanctuary door and take out the trash from the church kitchen and administer bandages to scraped knees.

  This is how it came to be that, on this morning of vacation Bible school when Paisley Franklin was dragged in by the activity director from a rousing game of Duck-Duck-Goose in the church parking lot with a bloody scrape on her shin and a runny nose, the child was handed off to the pastor himself for prompt doctoring.

  “Come on in here, young lady.” He took her by the hand and led her into the church secretary’s office. “I’ve got a first-aid kit I use whenever anything like this happens.”

  No answer, only a sniff to tell him she was listening.

  “Let’s set you up here.” He perched her on the edge of a counter where Sheila kept the fax machine and collated copies. “Now. What first?” He dug around in the bag and came up with a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. “How about this?”

  “Will it hurt?” a pitiful little voice asked him.

  “Don’t think so. It makes bubbles instead. You can sit and watch it killing all the germs.”

  That earned a little smile. “Can not.”

  “You just watch.” He uncapped the bottle and dribbled a little on her bloody knee. “Ah!” He clutched at his neck. “I’m dying. I’m a germ and I’m dying. Help me. Help me!”

  “That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen,” Paisley said matter-of-factly, swinging her legs, her heels kicking the counter.

  “Okay. How about this? How about I get you a Band-Aid?”

  This time she nodded.

  “Big or little? Big ones always make it look like you’ve hurt yourself more.”

  He stepped aside to reach for the box of bandages. He heard the little gasp, the sharp intake of breath the moment he moved out of the way.

  “What is it, Paisley? What’s wrong?”

  She pointed to the bulletin board across the room where Sheila kept photographs posted of church members.

  “Do you know,” the little girl asked as she puffed out her chest and lifted her gaze dramatically to the ceiling, “that she is Nathan’s mama?”

  George felt his breath catch in his chest. “How do you know about Nathan? Did she tell you about him?” If Bea Bartling was telling these strangers about her son, then perhaps she was beginning to heal.

  But the little girl shook her head this time. “We already knew about Nathan when we came here. Nathan lived with us. He married us.”

  “You knew him?”

  The tiny curls bobbed up and down as the little girl nodded harder. “Yep. He loved me.”

  “He did?”

  “Yep. And he loved my mama, too.”

  “Oh, dearest.” George applied the Band-Aid with great zeal, then picked Paisley up and swung her around, the hope for his friend Bea Bartling catching someplace deep in his belly. He loved that odd, quirky feeling he got when he discovered that God might be working. He wanted to sing out to his heavenly Father who was Master over all things, including the happenings in Ash Hollow, Nebraska. “Good for Bea. Oh, good for Bea.”

  Because he didn’t know how to explain it so a little girl could understand it, George did what he always did when caught in a bind.

  He quoted Scripture.

  ” ‘All things work together for the good of those who love the Lord.’”

  “What?”

  “’All things—’”

  “I know what you’re saying,” she interrupted him. “You’re saying stuff from the Bible. I just don’t know why you’re saying that.”

  “Romans 8:28. It’s such a good Scripture to fall back on, no matter what happens. Does Mrs. Bartling know who you are?”

  For the third time, Paisley Franklin nodded. Only this time, the child’s gesture wasn’t quite so certain. “She knows. But she won’t let me play with anything in Nathan’s room. Whenever she thinks about us, it only makes her sad.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  This morning began for Bea like all the others. Not for one moment could she forget that, although she was lonely, she wasn’t alone. She measured ground coffee into the filter and slid it into its place. She poured a carafe of water into her coffeemaker and flipped it on. She dribbled the small amount of water left in the decanter into Paisley’s little pot with the bean. She listened for sounds of her guests awakening as she stood staring out the window.

  How many mornings had she stood at this window, praying for the safe return of her son. Lord, keep Nathan safe. Lord, please bring my son home.

  “Good morning,” Gemma murmured, poking her head around the door as the coffee pot began to gurgle and spurt steam. Right behind her came Paisley, tousle-headed from the bed, face still slack and rosy from sleep. The little girl climbed up into a kitchen chair, the shredded blanket with the Herefords bunched against her chest, her eyes only halfway open.

  Three of them together in one small area, moving around each other with fearful, polite care, leaving huge spaces between one another as they went about their routine. Bea stood at the stove with her back to the room, her robe cinched tight around her middle, her elbows jutting at a protective angle while she scrambled eggs.

  “Would you like me to pour you some coffee?” Gemma asked in a timid voice. “I think it’s ready.”

  “No need. I’ll get it myself. You’ll be doing enough coffee pouring at the Cramalot Inn.”

  “Well.” A long pause while Bea knew Gemma was waiting behind her, only she didn’t know what for. “Can I pour some for me?”

  “Oh, yes. Yes, of course. Sorry.” Bea pulled out a bowl and began scraping eggs out of the pan. “No need to even ask. Help yourself. Pretend you live here.”

  “Is there a cup you’d like me to use?”

  “Mugs are right there. Second cabinet to the left.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Sugar’s in the canister over here. Milk’s in the refrigerator. Spoon’s in the drawer right below you.”

  “Thank you.”

  After they ate breakfast, there were showers to take, more spaces to be shared, more wary, courteous assurances given.

  “Are you going to need the bathroom?”

  “For a little while. Do you mind if I shower before I go to the museum?”

  “Yes. Fine. I’ll take a tub bath.”

  “Well, I can wait, if you’d rather shower. I don’t have to do it now.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’ll be fast. I won’t use too much hot water.”

  “Use as much as you’d like. There’s plenty. You want me to drive you over to the museum?”

  “No. That’s okay. It isn’t too far. I’ll walk over.”

  “Do you want me to pick you up at the Cramalot after you’re done? Don’t mind driving you, Gemma, if you’d like.”

  “You’ve done so much already, letting us stay here. I don’t want you to worry about chauffeuring us around.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “If that’s what you want. . .”

  “I don’t want to overstay our welcome, Mrs. Bartling. As soon as I get the money to fix the car, we’ll be on our way. Until then, I’ll figure out a way to get around town without imposing on you.”

  “If you ever need me—”

  “We won’t.” Gemma jumped in quickly, as if she thought she needed to reassure their hostess. “I’ll make sure of it.”

  How long will it take to fix their car? Bea wondered. How long will it take before they decide to move along? Now that I’ve taken them in, how long will I have to learn something of Nathan’s history?

  Bea held up Paisley’s pot from the windowsill. “Your plant’s growing. Someth
ing’s breaking out of the soil.”

  “Can I see?” Paisley stood on her tiptoes and peered over the edge. In the flowerpot, a new living thing had broken through the crust of dirt. A fat curl of green bowed beneath the weight of a bean, still two-thirds buried, once hard and brown, now succulent and yellow, splitting into two halves. “It’s growing!”

  “By next week, it’ll be sticking straight up. You just wait and see.”

  While Bea returned the flowerpot to the windowsill, Paisley clambered up into her mother’s lap and snuggled close. “Mama,” she said very quietly. “There’s a show we’re doing at vacation Bible school today. Can you come?”

  Gemma brushed her daughter’s hair back out of her eyes with one hopeless sweep of fingers. “What time?” she asked, the apology already thick in her voice.

  “At lunch. There’s pizza and everything. And then we’re going to sing.”

  “I can’t get away, honey bananas. I’ve got to spend an hour or so serving my time at the museum. After that I’m due at The Cramalot Inn for lunch. That’s when my new job is the busiest of all.”

  “Can’t you just ask? Maybe they would let you.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, Paisley Rose. When you grow up, you can’t just ask for things the way you do when you’re a kid. People don’t take it right.”

  Disappointment flooded the little girl’s face. “You’re working all the time again, Mama, just like you used to.”

  Gemma took that pixie, sad face and held it between two cupped hands. “I’m sorry, little one. You know there’s nothing I can do. The judge said I have to work at the museum. And you know I’ve got to make enough money to get us back home.”

  “But we don’t—” Bea turned back at that moment and saw Gemma shushing Paisley. She didn’t know what it meant.

  “You’ll just have to sing in the show by yourself, honey bananas. You sing real pretty, and Mama will be real proud.”

  Bea spritzed glass cleaner on the windowpane over the sink and rubbed it hard with a paper towel, buffing off spots. She stepped to the left, peered through the glass with the sun at a different angle, checking to make sure she hadn’t missed any more smudges. Her heart pummeled in her chest.

  I’ve taken them in, she said to no one. I’m feeding them and giving them a place to stay and trying to open my heart. Surely they can’t expect any more from me than that.

  Bea stepped to the right, surveyed the window again, found three spots she’d missed. Glass cleaner ran down the pane.

  Why should I be faithful, if I serve a God who isn’t?

  She started scrubbing. Hard. Harder than she ever knew she could scrub.

  I could offer to go to the show. I could offer to stand in the audience and applaud her. I could.

  Bea stepped back, eyed her work critically, and pronounced it acceptable. She tossed the damp paper towel into the trash and stared at it for a long time before she shut the pantry door.

  But I’m not the one she wants. She wants to be with her mother. Or Nathan. But of course it’s too late for that.

  Piece by piece, Bea began to dismantle the cook-stove, letting the old, rattling stove parts stand in for everything broken and rattling inside of her. She dismembered each burner, yanking the prongs from the electrical elements. She pried up each drip pan, screwing up her chin in distaste when she saw the grease and charred drippings below. She squirted cleaner on a rag and went after the mess, the heel of her hand bearing the brunt of her anger.

  What were these two girls doing, hanging around in her kitchen? They had places to go. “You’d better get on in there and take your shower,” Bea chided Gemma, her voice sounding harsh. “Won’t have any money to pay for that car if Alva fires you because you’re late for work.”

  “Oh.” Like a frightened animal, Gemma skittered halfway across the kitchen, coffee sloshing out of the mug she still carried. “You’re right. I’d better go.” She hurried off down the hall.

  All that, though, and Paisley didn’t move. Bea sensed rather than saw the four-year-old still sitting in the kitchen chair, still waiting for something, behind her.

  You are a tired, worn-out old woman who’s never amounted to a thing in anybody’s life. Why would you think you could change that now?

  Bea projected her chin in Paisley’s direction. “You, too. What are you still waiting there for? Don’t think I’m driving you to church if you miss your ride. Doesn’t your mother have to help you get dressed? Sissels aren’t going to wait around for you if you aren’t ready.”

  Of course I can’t do it, she said to no one but herself. There’s no reason for me to go to any show.

  Bea cast one furtive glace sideways in time to see Paisley slide out of her chair. The little girl only looked back once. She padded with bare toes across the floor, never saying another word.

  It seemed like everywhere Gemma went today, people were busy washing windows. First, there was Mrs. Bartling washing windows in her kitchen. Then Mabel Perkins assigned Gemma an hour of window washing out in the yard at the Garden County Museum. “Here’s your bucket of vinegar water.” Mabel plopped it down so hard in the grass that it splashed all over Gemma’s feet. “Here’s a pile of newspapers. Wad these up and use them to polish after you’ve scrubbed off all the spots. Screens come off like this. See here?” Mabel wheeled around and caught her staring at the stack of papers like she’d never seen newsprint before. “You do know how to wash windows, don’t you? Don’t tell me Judge Solomon

  Veeder assigned me fifty-four hours with somebody who doesn’t wash windows.”

  “I know how.” Everybody knew how to wash a window. It’s just that Gemma had never done it. There hadn’t been any need to see out, not in a trailer with only two tiny windows, some five inches square. Not with a view of a littered empty lot and a row of Dumpsters and the hulking, remote back passage of the meat packing plant. Gemma didn’t even know that screens could come off.

  She picked up the rag and smeared the smelly solution across the first windowpane of the eight that lined the southern side of the museum. She wadded a page of newspaper, an old editorial from The Garden County News, and used it to burnish the glass.

  “No. Not that way.” Mabel took her arm and scrubbed for her. “You’ve got to rub hard in a circle or it won’t do any good at all. And don’t miss the corners. If you do, I’m going to make you go back and do them all again.”

  An hour and eight gleaming windows later, Gemma carried the bucket and a sack of used newspapers back inside, her shoulders aching, her nose scorched red from the sun. She squinted her eyes, unable to adjust to the cool, dim light inside the building. The bucket clattered as she set it on the floor. Her vision began to clear and she saw Mabel and an elderly man she didn’t recognize setting up a barrel in one corner of the exhibit room. “You finished out there?” Mabel twisted the barrel to her liking and situated a square of plywood on the top. “I’m planning on working you another hour. You got the time?”

  “I do.”

  “This is Orvin Kornruff. I’ve got to run to the bank but, while I’m gone, Orvin’s going to start setting up our new reenactment exhibit. Thought since you were here to help, it would be an excellent time to do this.”

  “I’ll help.”

  “Good.”

  Mabel had no more disappeared out the door before Mr. Kornruff spread out a checkerboard on top of the barrel table and began arranging checkers on the black squares. “Red or black, Miss Franklin?”

  “What?”

  “Red or black? Which checkers would you like to play with?”

  “I can’t play games,” she told him. “I have to work.”

  “Nonsense. I’m in charge now, young lady. I’ll get this exhibit arranged in record time before Mabel gets back. I saw how hard you were working out there. And I know you’ve got an eight-hour day ahead of you at the Cramalot. Besides, just look at this as a part of the exhibit. We’re going to add more to this display of the Lewellen Country Store. A who
le group of fellows from the senior center in Oshkosh have volunteered to come over here and dress in old timey clothes and play checkers whenever a tour bus comes through. I want you to sit down and play me a game now.”

  “But I’ve never played checkers before.”

  “I’ll teach you. Come on.”

  “But maybe that means my work time today won’t count toward my sentence. What if the judge finds out?”

  “Oh, Veeder wouldn’t care, even if he did know. I’ve lived around this town long enough to know people’s history. I’ve been around this place long enough to know people’s secrets. Veeder isn’t nearly as tough to satisfy as Mabel Perkins.”

  Gemma pulled up a stool and banged her knees against the metal rim of the barrel. Mr. Kornruff turned the board so she’d be playing with the red checkers and he’d be playing with the black. He began to explain to her the basics of checker playing. Black always starts. .. move diagonally . . . men can only go forward and never go back. The object is to capture your opponent’s men by jumping them . . . a checker that makes it all the way is crowned a king . . . a king can move backward or forward.

  Try as she might, Gemma couldn’t concentrate on the instructions Orvin Kornruff was giving her. She could only replay his boasting in her mind. I’ve lived around this town long enough to know people’s history. I’ve been around this place long enough to know people’s secrets.

  “Your turn. I’ve made my move, Gemma. Now you have to decide what you want to do.”

  She pushed one checker forward with one finger.

  “No, you weren’t listening to me, young lady. You can’t move that way. It has to be diagonally. Onto another black square.”

  Embarrassed, she moved her red checker sideways to the black square. “I was listening to you. I was just thinking about something else.”

  Ever since she’d moved into the house on Pattison Drive, the house with the roses, Gemma couldn’t stop thinking about Nathan’s defection from his mother. She couldn’t stop thinking about why he would have left a home he loved—a mother who cared about him—and never share the reason with his wife.