A Rose by the Door Page 18

  He took pictures of Alva in front of the window glass pointing at Charlene’s huge painting of a meat loaf. He took pictures of Alva in the kitchen instructing Harvey how to slice carrots. He took pictures of Alva stretched out along the serving counter with her frizzy hair propped next to a crystal display that housed two-thirds of an apple pie. He took pictures of Alva leaning on one elbow over the hood of her Chrysler New Yorker.

  That particular shot was the one that appeared on the cover of Empire magazine, distributed to everyone in the Post’s multistate circulation area—a full-color depiction of Alva Torrington in her red apron, strings untied and dangling down toward the hubcaps, every wrinkle on her face shadowed as she grinned, with a two-pound plate of meat loaf sitting on the hood.

  Not three days after the Empire article hit the stands, out-of-town business had picked up noticeably at the Cramalot. Business picked up noticeably at The Garden County Museum, too. So much, in fact, that Orvin Kornruff decided he had better convince Mabel Perkins to let Lon Johnson and his checker-playing buddies appear in the country-store exhibit every afternoon and every other morning.

  “Ah,” Gemma said to them one day, leaning against the front door of the museum in exhaustion after she’d closed it behind her. “Alva T. and her meat loaf have turned this town into a zoo.”

  “Come on over here, Gemma,” Orvin gestured. “Lon, get out of her way. Make room for my favorite checker opponent.”

  Gemma quit leaning and walked over to the checker board. She tugged on her skirt, the short one she wore now solely from pride. “That’s just because you beat me all the time.”

  “Well.” He shrugged. “Everybody has to have a favorite pastime or two.”

  “You can’t play checkers right now,” Mabel told Gemma. “We’ve got another group set up for a tour in five minutes. It wouldn’t be historically correct for a woman to be playing checkers in the 1890s. Back in those days, women never played games with men.”

  “Oh,” Orvin winked broadly at his collection of pals. “I don’t know about that, Mabel Perkins. I don’t know about that at all.”

  When the door opened again, they all turned, expecting the next tour. Mrs. Bartling entered instead. “Gemma?” she asked, her eyes resting for a moment too long upon Gemma’s shabby, old skirt. “I was just on my way back to the house. Thought you might need a ride over.”

  “I can’t get away just yet,” Gemma said, tilting her chin, raising a challenge. I’m fine in my own clothes, thank you very much. “There’s a tour coming in. I’ll walk home.”

  “You sure? I could wait for you.”

  “There isn’t any need for you to wait on me.”

  “Are you sure, Gemma?” Orvin stood from the table and headed toward the gun display. “She might enjoy waiting around and seeing how we bring this country store to life. She might enjoy the part where I pick up this gun from the display and tell them how my grand father in Garden County owned one like it.”

  He held up the shotgun for a short moment and surveyed it.

  “Nothing like this Old Model 97 for shooting geese.”

  He pulled the trigger.

  Of course, a gun in a museum would not have a bullet in it. Of course. But some hint of gunpowder must have remained in the chamber. Some hint, while the barrel had long ago gotten clogged with dirt.

  The gun exploded in Orvin’s hand.

  Metal shards ricocheted off the ceiling and imbedded in the walls. He dropped the gun and grabbed his fingers, hollering from both surprise and pain. For a long moment, he hid it between his legs and they couldn’t see the blood.

  “I’ve got a first-aid kit,” Mabel screeched. “I just have to find it.”

  “You want us to call an ambulance, Orvin?” Lon Johnson asked.

  “Goodness, no. I’ll drive myself over to the hospital.

  It’s just a little cut. I’m sure they’ll stitch me up and send me on my way.”

  “You don’t know that,” Gemma said. “You haven’t looked at it yet.”

  “I’ll look soon enough.”

  Mabel had arrived back with the first-aid kit and, very slowly, Orvin held his hand out for everyone to see. Even Orvin flinched when he took stock of the blood oozing between his fingers.

  Mabel put her hand to her chin and looked like she might faint.

  Lon Johnson groaned. “Orvin, that’s some wound, all right.”

  Gemma felt bile rise and fought to swallow it down.

  Mrs. Bartling opened the first-aid kit and laid out the supplies she needed. She was the only one who remained calm as she unraveled a roll of gauze. “They’re not going to stitch you up without cleaning it out first,” she noted in a level voice. “It will be a little more involved than that. I’ll drive you to the hospital, Orvin, once we get this done.”

  “Should I call the ambulance?” Lon asked again.

  But Mrs. Bartling didn’t seem to hear his question. She squeezed disinfectant onto the man’s lacerated fingers. She began to gingerly wind the gauze around his hand. And, as if she needed to talk her way through some trauma as she worked, Mrs. Bartling began to tell them a story. “I’ve had some experience with this, you know. That boy’s hand looked just about this bad the day I wrapped it up and sent him off with the sheriff. Tried to wrestle away his knife from him and it stabbed him in the hand instead. So much blood. It was hard to stay cool headed.”

  “Bea?” Orvin asked, obviously forgetting his own hand. “When was that? What are you talking about?”

  “That boy was fighting mad because Ray had left. Fighting mad because another person had disappeared from his life.”

  Orvin wiggled his fingers. Lon asked, “Bea, how much of that gauze are you going to put on?”

  Mrs. Bartling began to swathe strips of gauze around the man’s wrist. Gemma touched the woman’s arm, compassion surging from some unknown place within her. “Did Nathan do that? Did Nathan pull a knife on you?”

  “Nathan? Oh, my heavens, no. It wasn’t Nathan. Nathan would never do a thing like that.”

  So much love . . . lost. So many hopes . . . come to nothing.

  “Bea,” Lon said. “I’m going to call the hospital and say that Orvin’s coming in. What should I tell them?”

  “Tell them we’re bringing him over right now,” she said. “Tell them he may still have metal in his hand. Tell them it’s pretty bad.”

  Bea had not dreamed, when she’d asked, Nathan, what would you have me to do with your family, that anything would answer her. Yet in some miraculous way, all during the time Orvin Kornruff was healing, it seemed that something did.

  Bea was organizing her sewing box one afternoon when, all of a sudden, she developed a sudden craving for an orange Dreamsicle, the very kind she’d loved in third grade and probably hadn’t eaten for forty years. Not five minutes later, as she arranged thread spools in a row, Bea heard the calliope music of an ice cream truck approaching the house.

  Paisley appeared, her eyes wide. “What’s that?”

  “It’s strange, is what it is. That old ice cream truck hasn’t come down this street for three years. He knows there aren’t any kids on Pattison.”

  “What’s an ice cream truck?”

  “You don’t know?”

  Paisley shook her head.

  “Well, it’s a man who drives around looking for little kids who want Popsicles. He plays music so you’ll come out and chase him.”

  “Does he give them away?”

  “No. You have to dig around as fast as you can and find quarters. Then you have to—” Bea straddled her hands and came to her feet. “What are we doing sitting here talking about this? I’ll show you! Let’s go catch him.”

  Bea scrabbled in her purse for loose coins and away they went, slamming the screen and bounding across the yard, Paisley skipping and shrieking, Beatrice laughing and coming as fast as she could, doing her best to keep up.

  He must have looked in his rearview mirror and seen them running because, just as
they’d decided they’d missed him, the ice cream truck made an illegal u-turn in the middle of Pattison, its music twice as loud and distorted now that the speaker was coming toward them. The ice cream man crooked his elbow out over the door, where he was driving from a steering wheel on the right-hand side. “What’ll it be, ladies?”

  Bea looked at Paisley. Paisley shrugged. Bea was still gasping so hard from running that she could barely speak. “We’ll have . . . two . . . orange Dreamsicles. . . please.”

  The ice creams were so cold that Bea and Paisley could hardly peel off the paper. They situated them selves on the brick steps, their knees lined up like peas in a pod, with Dreamsicle on each of their noses, their teeth and their heads aching from eating the cold things too fast.

  Not two days later, Bea was busy dusting the photo frames in the hallway when she suddenly got the urge to add some color. This hallway is so drab and dark. I’ll bet these walls haven’t been painted in twenty years. Oh, I believe a nice peach would do.

  At that moment, Paisley appeared with a coloring book and a green-and-yellow box of crayons. “I’m in the mood to color,” Paisley announced. “If I do this picture on this side, will you color the picture on the other side?”

  “I don’t know, Paisley. I’m dusting these frames and I’ve never seen so many cobwebs in my life.”

  “Yes,” Paisley said, “but this box of crayons has peach.”

  That’s all it took. Bea put away her dusting rag and sprawled out on the family room floor with a coloring book instead. What followed was a discussion of every page in the book, what things Paisley best liked to color (flowers, monkeys, and houses), what things Bea best liked to color (ladies in beautiful dresses, kittens, and birthday gifts with ribbons), and how to find the nicest page where the two of them could be satisfied to share. For the longest time, after they decided, the only sounds were the scrub of crayons scribbling paper or someone saying, “I like the way you did that” or “Are you finished yet with the green?”

  They watched the bean in the pot grow daily—one strong, slender stem arcing up out of the loam to stand on its own, the kidney-shaped pod splitting into halves to reveal tiny leaves.

  One evening Bea couldn’t resist peeking in at the goings-on for bedtime—the final sleek rinses of bathwater leaving Paisley’s skin little-girl pink, the smell of Ivory soap, the towel gathered in folds beneath her tiny chin. As Paisley tugged on her pajama legs and began to jump on the bed, Gemma waylaid her and cuddled her close, floppy arms and legs akimbo, mother and child nuzzling down into the pillows, their noses together.

  While resting an elbow on the bookshelf, Bea smiled softly. She had not missed this in her own life. Tussling before bed had always been a favorite thing for boys. The sight of these two brought the same yearning to Bea as it brought to every mother who has cherished her children, every mother whose children are growing up or gone.

  Ah! I remember when we used to do such things. Those nights, neverending and wonderful. When did they end? I don’t remember when we stopped.

  With a stab of melancholy Bea realized that, as long as these two remained at her house, she could take part in this vignette every night. She could be available for stuffing wayward limbs into pajamas and sponging down a bathtub ring and turning back the bed linens and scrubbing behind ears.

  Gemma spread the blanket up to Paisley’s chin, handed her the blanket with the cows, and tucked the edges tightly around her like a cocoon. Just as Bea thought she should go, Paisley wriggled free, sat up, and rumpled the covers. “Mama, I wanted Mrs. Bartling to put me to bed.”

  Bea’s elbow came off the shelf in surprise. Gemma’s gaze met hers across the dimly lit room. “She wants you to do this,” Gemma said.

  “Me?” Bea felt like an intruder in her own house even though her lungs tightened with expectation. Paisley raised her arms. Bea glanced again at Gemma, scratched the nape of her neck, and gave a pained, little laugh, feeling clumsy, graceless, out of place.

  “Go ahead,” Gemma encouraged her. “It’s okay.”

  Bea sat on the side of the bed, knowing full well what to expect—another one of those unfettered hugs, another one of those quiet whispers the child so willingly bestowed. “I love you, Mrs. Bartling.”

  I love you, too.

  Well, isn’t that what one said at a time like this?

  Bea didn’t dare say such a thing. “Get down under the covers now. Your mama already had you tucked in.”

  “But I don’t want to be tucked in yet. I want to pray.”

  “You do?”

  “Yep. I want to talk to Him.” Paisley tumbled down off the side of the mattress and knelt beside Bea on the floor. “Because He likes it.” She aligned all ten of her fingers to the tip of her nose, bowed her head, closed her eyes. She waited for a good while before she opened her eyes and turned her head sideways, trying to see what Bea was doing.

  “Aren’t you going to pray?”

  “Well, I—”

  “We can either do it out loud or to ourselves. Which do you want?”

  “I don’t know—” Bea’s chest tightened with regret. “It’s been a long time since I prayed with anybody else.”

  I’ve been saying it all to myself. God certainly hasn’t been listening.

  If Nathan wouldn’t forgive me, I don’t see how God ever would.

  “I’ll do it,” Paisley volunteered. Before Bea had gotten her forehead halfway down, the little girl had begun.

  “Dear Lord, hi. We’re here and we love you. We think about you and hope you’re doing good. God, take care of my mama, would you? She’s been worried about so manythings. Help her to ask you to take care of her because she’s always taking care of herself. Take care of Mrs. Bartling, because she is scared. Tell Nathan that we love him and that we found each other. I think that would make him real glad. And now that we found each other, help us find our home. Thank you for Jesus. Thank you that you sent Him and He could come for His home in my heart. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Bea whispered beside the child, her spirits subdued, as if they’d been trounced over and over again in some desperate battle.

  Why did children always make prayer seem so easy? Didn’t Paisley understand that Nathan was gone? Didn’t Paisley understand that God gave you what you wanted only as long as it suited His purposes—as long as it fit into some part of His master plan?

  “You get yourself into this bed.” Bea gave the formal order as Paisley clambered up onto the mattress again and delved with joy beneath the covers.

  Children made faith seem so easy. They prayed for whatever they wanted.

  You weren’t supposed to pray for what you wanted, were you? You were supposed to pray for what God wanted.

  Not my will, Lord, but thy will be done.

  Selective listening, they called it. Perfected by children, dogs, and God.

  Is it your will, God, that people make so many mistakes by themselves? That people don’t love each other? That people die?

  As the days passed, Gemma tucked away her tip money into Mrs. Bartling’s small wooden cedar box. She collected quarters, nickels, dimes, and a heap of crumpled, faded dollar bills. When she received her first pay check from The Cramalot Inn after two weeks, she cashed it with Alva and put that aside in the cedar box, too.

  “How much?” Paisley asked one evening as they both scrambled up on the bed with the little box and Gemma unfastened the clasp.

  Gemma dumped its contents on the bedspread and made stacks of nickels, dimes, and quarters. She leafed through the dollar bills.

  “Do we have enough? Can we do it, Mama?”

  “Hm-mmm-m.” Gemma rearranged piles of quarters and counted them again, just to make sure. “Twelve . . . Thirteen . . . Fourteen.” She rolled over and grinned at her daughter. “Well, yes. Yes, I think we can.”

  Paisley jumped up and immediately began to dance around. “We can! We can!”

  “Sh-hhhh. If Mrs. Bartling hears you, then it won’t be any surpri
se at all.”

  Gemma counted out several bills and thrust them into her purse. The rest of the money she scooped back into the tiny cedar chest. Oh, she couldn’t help herself! She was every bit as excited as Paisley. “We’d better go and help with supper.”

  Oh, please, oh, please, oh, please. Gemma’s heart hurt just from wishing. Please let her accept this from us.

  They’d only gotten halfway through their meal before a horn sounded outside. Mrs. Bartling raised her head. “Who on earth could that be?”

  “It’s Alva T. honking her horn,” Gemma announced, folding her napkin on the table and scooting back her chair.

  “What’s Alva doing here at this time of night? She ought not be making that racket. The neighbors will complain.”

  The subject in question appeared at the door without twenty seconds lapsing. She pounded on the screen with a fist. “Okay, you three. Hurry up! Me and Charlene can’t stay out here all night waiting.”

  “Waiting for what?” Mrs. Bartling asked.

  Paisley burst forth with the answer as if it were a breath she’d been holding. “A surprise. We’re taking you to—”

  “Hush up, Paisley Rose. It isn’t time to tell.”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  Charlene burst through herself since no one had seen fit to let Alva in. “Hurry up, Gemma. The line’s gonna be too long if we don’t get there soon.”

  Mrs. Bartling sat at the supper table with her eyebrow cocked, her elbows propped at an unladylike angle. “I’m not going to go anywhere with you four. It’s dangerous.” But when she said it, she was laughing.

  “Leave the dishes.” Gemma picked up her own dirty plate and dumped it in the sink. “We’ll do them when we get home.”

  Paisley tore off at a dead run, slamming the screen, yelling, “Hurry up, Mama! I get to sit by Mrs. Bartling.”

  “Do you have your walking shoes?” Gemma asked Mrs. Bartling.

  “I do. I wear my walking shoes all the time.”