A Rose by the Door Page 15

  Charlene waited his table until he left with two-thirds of his lunch uneaten and had to pay the twenty dollars. She waited all the other tables, too, while Gemma stayed in the kitchen, sopping up her tears with a stained tea towel, trying to regain her composure. “I’m so sorry. I’m so s-sorry,” she wailed every time Alva or Charlene passed her in the aisle.

  “That’s okay, honey. That’s okay.”

  Charlene finally stopped to speak to her when the rush had tapered off and the din in the kitchen had settled to a dull clanking of the big industrial dishwasher. “Alva’s taking you back to Bartling’s in a few minutes so you can get yourself together.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Charlene gave her a tight, sisterly hug. “You don’t have to apologize anymore, Gemma. We’ve all noticed that ring on your finger. And every single one of us has been scared to death to ask.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Paisley Franklin stood where she’d been placed for the vacation Bible school singing program, in the center on the front row so everyone could see her, squeezed in between Sam Wyatt—who had wiggled his right front tooth so much that it made his gums bleed—and Amy Huff, a short seven-year-old who had been bragging ever since Monday because her mama was in charge of refreshments and she got to help.

  Paisley’s heart pounded. She loved to sing. She loved this song.

  The music began. She sidled over as close as she could to Amy; Sam’s loose tooth was sick. She lifted her chin and put on her special sunglasses. She gave a big smile just the way her teacher had told her to and began to sing a song about Jesus.

  The pizza outside had already disappeared from its mountain of boxes—so fast that Paisley wouldn’t have gotten a piece except for Ryan Staley, the sixth grader who towered over her, who’d asked, “Here? Want one?” and before she could answer had handed her a sliver of pepperoni pizza. The sanctuary at Antelope Valley

  Christian Fellowship was filled up with parents and acquaintances and someone had lined extra chairs in the aisles. A group of fathers with video cameras stood just inside the double door, focusing elaborate equipment on the front of the church, red lights blinking, lens covers dangling like Oreos from strings.

  “Come learn God’s stories, come learn the Bible true . . .”

  No matter how many parents filled the sanctuary, Paisley kept scanning the room, looking for one more.

  “Come hear all about Jesus, come find out how much He loves you!”

  She kept thinking that maybe Mama had decided to come anyway. She kept thinking that maybe that lady at work had said, “Doesn’t matter how busy we are today. This is important. Go on and hear your daughter sing.”

  But as Paisley sang and searched with her eyes up one row and down another, down one row and up another, her heart began to sink.

  Mama hadn’t come. She never should have hoped.

  Paisley forced herself to keep singing anyway, her smile pasted on her face even though she didn’t feel like smiling at all.

  After the song ended, Pastor Sissel asked the children to sit quietly on the floor so the teachers could give out special, individual awards. Everybody got an award as their parents and friends stood up and rooted for them. Sam Wyatt got Most Likely To Lose A Tooth. Jake Rucker got Mr. Capture The Flag. Hilary Hern got The Purple Heart Award for falling down and breaking her new eye-glasses. And Paisley Franklin got The Littlest Songbird Award for being the most likely to sing loud during the performance.

  When Paisley’s name was called, the audience applauded politely. But nobody stood up to cheer and clap loud. Nobody videotaped. Nobody took a picture.

  If Nathan had been here, Paisley thought, he would have cheered for me.

  Pastor Sissel stepped up to the microphone and adjusted it to his liking. “Now we come to a serious part of the program. These children have spent all week learning about how much God cares for us. They’ve learned how God sent His only son Jesus to save us from our sins, if we’ll only invite Him into our lives.”

  Paisley started to pick up the new crayon drawings she’d laid on the floor beside her. Only she didn’t. Something stopped her hand.

  “We thank you for letting us share the blessing of your children this week. And now, I can go no further this afternoon without offering the gift of Jesus Christ to you.” Piano music began to play softly. “All you need to do is invite the Lord into your heart at this moment. I’m here to greet you at His altar, to pray with you. If you don’t want to step forward, you can ask the Lord into your heart right where you’re sitting.”

  Paisley glanced around at people putting away their cameras and fidgeting with the hymnals and picking up their belongings in the pews. A gentle whisper of certainty sang through into her spirit. With one gentle touch, one gentle rousing from the depths of her heart, Paisley knew the truth. Wait! she wanted to tell the grownups. Wait and don’t leave before you’ve heard what Jesus can do!

  Paisley couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. She felt something strange and wonderful inside herself. Something warm and true. As if a daddy was holding her in his arms and loving on her.

  Pastor Sissel isn’t just talking to the grownups. He’s talking to me, too.

  “Did you know,” Pastor Sissel asked as he continued the altar call, “that the Lord delights in your singing? Did you know that no one can praise Him exactly the way you can praise Him?”

  Jesus?

  Why would Jesus call her? Paisley wondered. She was almost the littlest one of the bunch. She didn’t even have a mama in the audience. He ought to be talking to Ryan Staley, who had been nice enough to give out pieces of pizza. Or Amy Huff, who could really use Jesus helping her not to brag. Amy and Ryan were bigger. They could do something.

  Why would you want me, Jesus?

  “Jesus is calling you,” Pastor Sissel said, “because God loves you more than you can ever understand. Jesus died for you on the cross. If he could have only saved one person and that person was you, He would have done exactly as He did when He did it. From the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation, God is crying, ‘I will buy you and carry you out and set you free. Where are you? Call my name, beloved, and be with me.’”

  Paisley had heard all week that it was easy, that all you had to do was say a prayer either out loud or in your head—whatever you were in the mood to do. Jesus could hear it all. Just like He could hear her singing.

  Pastor Sissel had said Jesus liked her singing!

  When you prayed, you told Jesus that you needed Him more than anything in the world, that you wouldn’t be happy unless He was living inside you. Then you asked Him to bring all of Himself and move into your heart and live with you all of the time. And when you asked, He would come! A new daddy and a best friend, just as easy as all that.

  When Nathan had been in their family, he had made her feel like she had a daddy. But Paisley knew the truth. No matter how much Nathan had loved her, she had never had a real daddy before.

  Jesus, I want you. I want you. Would you like to come in?

  But Paisley didn’t need to ask that question. Because she already knew His answer.

  Laughing, she stood up and stepped forward with happiness, into the arms of Pastor Sissel.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Three times during Gemma’s ride back to the Bartling’s in Alva T.’s ancient Chrysler New Yorker, the glove compartment door crashed open and smacked Gemma across the knees.

  Each time, Gemma slammed the door shut and rubbed her bare shins. “Ouch.”

  “Sorry about that.” Alva didn’t miss a beat. She checked her vermilion-coated lips in the rearview mirror, making a little kiss at herself. “You just have to slam it real hard so the thing won’t open again. Hy and I decided not to fix it because it’s too sentimental.”

  “What’s sentimental about getting your knees smashed when you least expect it?” Gemma fiddled with the latch, trying to make certain the box wouldn’t spring open again.

  Alva’s red lips
spread across her face in a grin as broad as a melon slice. “That’s how he asked me to marry him. He put the ring in the glove compartment. Drove us clear to Oshkosh to a movie on a little farm-to-market back road, hitting every bump he could along the way. By the time we got there, I was so carsick I was ready to climb out the window. He pulled up into the parking lot, turned off the key while I kept yelling at him about the way he was driving. Then smack, the minute the engine died, the glove compartment whacked open, hit my legs, and there was that little square velvet box.”

  Gemma didn’t say a word to that. She stared out the window, at the wild tangle of sunflowers and goldenrod just beginning to bloom along the side of the road.

  “How about you?” Gemma sensed rather than saw Alva glancing across the front car seat at her, glancing at the simple strand of gold that encircled her left ring finger. She asked a question they all must have been gossiping about over at the Cramalot. “How did your man ask you to marry him?”

  Gemma didn’t turn her face away from the window. She took one long, deep breath and sighed it back out again. “I don’t want to talk about that, Alva.”

  “Oh.”

  Alva T. had obviously learned long ago how to cover up uncomfortable situations. She didn’t wait very long before she turned on the radio and began to hum, tapping her vermilion fingernails against the steering wheel in rhythm to Daytripper by the Beatles. She peered over the top of her tortoise-shell sunglasses and squinted into the sun.

  They drove another block before Gemma finally turned to her employer with regret shining in her eyes. “I’m sorry you had to bring me home. I’m sorry I wasn’t any good waiting tables today.”

  “I get mad about it, I’d have to remember you probably made up for it, waiting all Charlene Grover’s tables this afternoon while she painted my window.”

  “That doesn’t make up for it at all.”

  “You’ve got to get thick skin, waiting on some of these customers. Particularly the flirty ones. Some of them can really get to you.”

  “I’ve worked in a restaurant before, Alva. I know how it is.”

  Alva didn’t signal when she made the last turn onto Pattison Drive. She didn’t slow down, either. “Listen, honey,” she said. “You have a man who left you, it isn’t anything to be ashamed of.”

  “He didn’t leave me. He died.”

  “Oh.”

  They’d pulled up in front of the house now, but Alva started the whole routine all over again. Radio up even louder. Humming the tune. Tapping her nails on the steering wheel with little annoying clicks.

  Gemma fumbled to find the door handle.

  “It’s up there.” Alva nodded. “Reach forward.”

  Gemma reached forward and still couldn’t find the handle.

  Alva moved the gearshift to P for Park and scooted over to do it for her. “You’ll get back on track at the Cramalot, honey. I’ll bet it’s rough, but you just get some rest and pull yourself together.” The door opened. “You aren’t going to be any good to me if you don’t stop blubbering around the pop machine and using all my Sysco napkins to blow your nose.”

  “Oh, Alva, I’m so sorry.”

  “I’ve got to get back before the boys from the Senior Center come in for their coffee. Would you stop apologizing?” Alva shook her head. “I’m trying to make you laugh is all. See you in the morning.” She moved the gearshift back to D for Drive and the Chrysler nudged forward almost before Gemma had the chance to climb out.

  Bea knew something was wrong with Gemma the minute she saw her jump from Alva T.’s car. She stood in the window watching for a moment as the young woman tramped slowly up the walk, her head hanging. When she arrived at the door, Bea saw Gemma hesitate, as if she didn’t know whether to reach for the handle and come on in like she belonged there or to knock and wait like a houseguest.

  Gemma compromised, knocking lightly on the door, then opening it and sticking her head inside just in case no one came. “You don’t have to knock.” Bea unfolded the afghan and draped it over Paisley, who had mercifully drifted off to sleep for a rare nap on the sofa.

  For one brilliant moment, Bea kept looking down, softened by the child’s innocence, her hand poised in mid-air, aching to brush the curls from Paisley’s sweaty little face. Wonder tinged her heart.

  What would it be like if she could pretend this girl was really Nathan’s child? His daughter? Her own granddaughter?

  Would it feel any stranger than this already felt?

  “Didn’t know if I could just walk in, or what.”

  “You’re home early.”

  Gemma touched the little, worn leather purse slung over her shoulder, glancing around the room as if she was looking for some comfortable place to hang it. Apparently she didn’t find it because she kept it on her shoulder. “I got good tips today so I can afford to go to the laundromat. Came home early so I could do our laundry.”

  Bea knew Alva Torrington too well for that. Gemma was lying. “You sure you didn’t get fired or something? Alva never lets people off early.”

  The Flintstones played on the TV across the room. The volume had been turned low so as not to disturb the sleeping child. “I didn’t get fired,” Gemma said. “Don’t worry. I’ll still make wages there. I’ll be able to pay for my car repairs.”

  “You think all I ever worry about is your car.” Bea scowled at her. “That car will get fixed in its own good time, and you know it.”

  Surprise registered in Gemma’s eyes. For a good two beats, maybe three, she looked as if she wasn’t certain what she should say. Finally she gestured toward her daughter, bringing the conversation back to more comfortable ground.

  “Thank you for covering her, Mrs. Bartling,” she whispered. She stepped forward and laid her hand against the little concave of Paisley’s back, covered by the afghan, a gesture not so different from the one Bea had caught herself yearning to make before. “She likes to be covered when she sleeps.”

  On the television, Fred told Barney that they ought to tell Wilma and Betty they had to work late when they were going bowling instead. Canned laughter swelled. Bea took one step toward Gemma and the child, her hands in knotted fists at her side, her frown softening. “You don’t have to go to a laundromat to wash your clothes. You can do that here.”

  “I don’t want to impose, Mrs. Bartling. You’ve been kind enough already, giving us a place to stay.”

  “Kind? No, I haven’t been kind.” Is that what Gemma Franklin thought? Of all things, Bea knew she owed it to this young woman to be truthful. “I’ve only done what I thought I was expected to do.”

  Gemma squared her jaw. She gave a slight, downcast nod of acceptance. “I see.”

  “You go get your clothes. I’ve got a project going out in the utility room, too. This is as good a time as any to show you how to start the washer.”

  While Bea waited for Gemma, she fumbled through one of her cabinets for a tower of little terra-cotta pots.

  “What are those for?” Gemma asked when she returned, a bundle of dirty clothes balanced beneath her chin.

  “Utility room is in the garage. Come with me.” Bea held the pots together high above her head so they wouldn’t topple. Gemma followed her to the laundry room and dumped the little pile of clothes onto the work table, crudely covered with cracked linoleum. She watched while Bea dismantled the tower of pots and set them beside one another, all in a row. With a shiny quarter-cup measuring scoop, she dipped into a half-filled bag of potting soil and meted out some into each pot. She lifted a mason jar from the shelf. In it, leaves and stems floated in water like a cut flower bouquet, their wooden canes submerged, buds tightly furled, rootlets breaking through in new, tender sprouts. “Detergent’s in the cabinet above the washer. There.” Bea pointed.

  “Are those roses?” Gemma asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You’re starting new ones?”

  “They’ve already started. I have to harden them off.”

  “What?�
��

  “Harden them off. Put them in soil. Transplant them in dirt and then wean them from water. So they can put down roots where the ground is dry and bloom.”

  “What do you do with them?” Gemma reached high overhead for the laundry soap and hauled it down. “Give them to people?”

  “No. I never give them away anymore.”

  Gemma began to fiddle with knobs on the washer. “Is this how to turn it on?”

  “No. Turn it. Then push it in. You have to load the clothes first, anyway.”

  Gemma turned a pair of shorts right side out. Then she began to strew Paisley-sized socks and shirts into the tub. Bea noticed, as she watched, how shabby and meager the little assortment.

  “You go right back inside and bring out the rest of your things,” Bea insisted. “I know you’re trying to becareful, but there’s no sense you doing all this work and not getting all your clothes clean.”

  Bea saw Gemma’s hands pause over a pair of her own tea-colored briefs. She saw Gemma’s ears redden. “This is . . . I-I mean . . .” She clutched the frayed cotton underwear and stared at the knobs of the washing machine. “This is all I brought.” Her chin fell. So did the tenor of her voice. “This is all we have.”

  “It is?”

  Gemma clenched her eyes in embarrassment, and nodded. “Yes.”

  Bea didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to do. Had Nathan lived this way? What’s worse, had he let his family live this way?

  “You don’t have any other skirts, do you?”

  Gemma shook her head. “No, I don’t.” She began to throw everything else from the workbench into the washer, piece by piece, as fast as she could, as if she wanted Bea to stop taking stock of her belongings. “We were getting by just fine, Mrs. Bartling.” In went two more pairs of underwear, a frayed nightgown, a shirt. “It’s just that he wanted to start to Creighton so bad. He’d worked a road crew in the summer and the meat plant in the winter, trying to save up enough. They let him go to nights in the meat plant and gave us a place to live after he started classes. We had to sacrifice whenever tuition came due.”