A Rose by the Door Page 2

  For each person she hurried to greet on her doorstep, she longed to greet someone different instead. Everyone she welcomed she looked past, to the next and the next and the next. Each face that peered through the screen, she searched and found no resemblance to the child who had runaway from home years before.

  With every visitor who appeared on her lawn, she yearned to greet, not a stranger, but a son.

  And though the townspeople knew of her sadness, they did not know of the hours that she spent on her knees beside her bed, her head bent in supplication, her heart uplifted to God.

  Dear Father. Please, please let Nathan return to me.

  Long ago, as she’d watched her children departing for school each morning, bounding up the steps on the Garden County school bus with their backpacks wagging, she’d never thought that Nathan would be the one to forsake her. Nathan, with his shining green eyes and his small manly fingers curled around her own, who’d once gazed up at her and asked, “Mama, if the sky is the floor of heaven, then wouldn’t we hear God walking around?”

  The years had passed and still she’d stood each morning with her fingers threaded through the Venetian blinds and her nose almost pressed to the glass, watching the bus go, even after she’d realized they wouldn’t turn to wave at her anymore before they embarked on the bus. It wouldn’t do for their friends to see them looking back on their way to school as if they had qualms about leaving home. But she’d stood at the window anyway, knowing if one of them glanced back to find her, he’d be forlorn not to see her there.

  “Enjoy your children while they’re this young,” she’d say to frazzled mothers of toddlers when she overtook them in the aisle at the Oshkosh Superette. “The time goes by so fast.”

  The time goes by so fast. Until one day no more time can be had at any price.

  From the other room, Bea could hear Jane Rounsborg whispering on the phone. Deputy Triplett retrieved his cap from the floor and ushered in the neighbors. From somewhere in another world, the telephone rang. The room overflowed with people. Voices murmured like the sound of gentle water, undistinguishable, indistinct. Nancy Law from across the street placed tea beside her on the table, the china cup set firmly in the center of the pretty shell-shaped saucer. “Can you lift this without spilling?” Nancy asked. “If you can, it will make you feel better.”

  Bea tried and, despite her hand shaking, found herself able to slowly sip the hot brew. It did help. The fragrance tickled her nose and seemed to open her, at last, to breathing. Their eyes met over the rim of the cup.

  “Poor Nathan. We always thought he had so much going for him, until he left home. We’re going to get you through this, Bea.”

  Jane Rounsborg came to Bea’s chair and bent low beside it. “Your pastor called. He’s on his way, but it’s going to be fifteen minutes or so. He’s driving over from Oshkosh.”

  The tea jostled precariously as Bea set the cup and saucer on the end table beside her. She squeezed Jane’s hand in silent, sad gratitude. “Thank you.”

  “Is there anyone else I should call? If you’ve got an address book, I could go through the pages and find the numbers.”

  This would be the perfect time to phone Ray. The perfect time to phone Nathan’s father and tell him to come home, that their son had died.

  Nancy suggested it aloud. “Nathan’s father?”

  Bea sat very, very still for a long while before she shook her head. She wouldn’t know where to find Ray, even if she tried. Her chin lowered against her chest in despair. Why invite someone who had deliberately chosen not to share his son’s life to come share in his death instead?

  “No. No, I don’t think so.”

  Ray left a long time ago. He didn’t care to see his son while Nathan was alive. Why should he care now?

  “Are there other relatives? Or someone I should call at your job?”

  “I have aunts over in Potter. Or my boss at work.” Bea wrapped her arms around herself, below her bosom. “But it’s the middle of the night.” She needed time herself to absorb this. She needed time to work her way through the numb, awful fog of acceptance. “Don’t call anybody else yet. I’m just not ready.” She squeezed her arms tighter around her own ribs. “Please.”

  Outside, the dark shroud of night sky had begun to lift, replaced by the lilac tinge of early dawn. Another sharp rap on the door, then another. Finally Bea heard the squeak of hinges and, amidst all the other talking, Pastor Sissel’s soothing baritone. “I got here as fast as I could. How is she holding up?”

  “Like most people do when they first find out. She hasn’t taken it all in yet.”

  “This is a shock. Such a shock.”

  Someone, she didn’t notice who, led George Sissel to her side. She struggled to push herself up out of the armchair, but he stopped her. Instead he knelt and clasped both of her hands in his own, her sadness reflected in his face.

  “Why, Bea, this is a nasty turn of events, isn’t it?”

  Bea felt tears pooling in her eyes for the first time. She mustn’t let herself cry. For in her soul there waited to spring up an eternity of tears, from a fathomless depth of sorrow. She fought for control even as she spoke. “This isn’t what I expected to happen, Pastor George.” She removed her hand from his and gripped the hanky beside her just in case. The tears slipped down her cheeks anyway, no matter how hard she tried to keep them at bay.

  “Bea,” he said. “I know that the Father must be feeling your pain.”

  She squared her jaw and pursed her lips in reply. Words would no longer come. Tears flooded. They streamed down over her mouth and dripped from her chin. Pastor George gathered her in his arms and held her close against him as she wept, rocking her, sometimes her weight bearing toward his, other times his body leaning into hers. She felt nothing, no other sense, except for the vast desperate goneness of her son. She might as well have been a heavy stone of loss entrapped beneath a single thin layer of flesh.

  “I can’t do this.” She cried the words into the warm tweed wool of his jacket.

  “You must, Bea. You must know that the Lord will lead you through.”

  He repeated it over and over again until, after a good length of time, Deputy Triplett stepped forward, his hat in his hands again, to make his good-byes. Perhaps he thought since the pastor had come he needed to say something especially kind before he took his leave. “I’m so sorry,” he told her once more. His voice was soft, almost a sigh. “It’s terrible, what’s happened. I know how you must feel.”

  On the outside, Bea could only shoot him a sad smile. On the inside, she screamed, You’ve never lost a child. There isn’t anyway to describe this pain, or to imagine it. You don’t know how I feel.

  Indeed, no one could. No one, not even Pastor George Sissel, knew the immeasurable, awful circumstances that had brought her to this place. All she’d ever asked was that Nathan return home again. All she’d ever sought was for her boy to accept what had happened to them. To perhaps give her a second chance. To love her in spite of the choices she’d made, the ones that had torn their lives apart five long years ago.

  How many times had she’d watched Nathan return home in her dreams, taking his place around the table again, with his knobby knees bumping the underside of the wood, jostling everyone’s milk and his Oreo cookies all in a stack on his napkin? He had always been so long-legged and handsome. Maybe he would even say, “We all make mistakes, Mom. Even though you did what you did, I still love you.”

  The Bible said, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find.”

  How many years had she begged the Father for this? How many nights, on her knees at her bedside, had she sought resolution?

  She supposed the Bible must have been written with somebody else in mind besides Beatrice Bartling.

  God, if you ever really listened to me, how could you ignore the cries of my heart?

  Now that the pastor had come, Bea’s neighbors and other friends began to depart.

  “I’ll b
e back over with a casserole in a while.”

  “If you need someone to sleep over tonight, I’ll come.”

  “Don’t you worry about watering the roses today, Bea. Cory can walk over and do that.”

  “Thank you,” she told them all again, as she managed to heft herself up out of Ray’s old chair.

  With most, she accepted their offers of assistance with a careful, sad smile. But when Geneva proposed to send her grandson over to water the roses, Bea solemnly shook her head and nixed the idea.

  “It will do me good to have something to do out in the yard.”

  Those flowers were the only living things that had ever flourished under her tending. Grief or no grief, she wasn’t about to let anyone else take care of her roses.

  Chapter Two

  Potted plants in pleated foil wrappers and rainbow-sprays of flowers edged the chancel at Holechek Funeral Home. Jo Nell Roberts, longtime organist for the Antelope Valley Christian Fellowship, adjusted the fat hymnal to what seemed her liking on the music stand. Bea watched as she flexed her wrists with great drama, sought out a bass pedal with her foot, and began to play “Leaning On The Everlasting Arms.” As the music began, Bea kept her jaw raised, her back straight as a grave stone against the pew, her hands cupped with care—left hand over the right—in her lap. At her side lay her crumpled hanky and three yellow blossoms, snipped from her rosebush only this morning. Already the blossoms were beginning to wilt.

  Bea knew the seats in the little memorial chapel would fill to capacity behind her squared shoulders. After news of Nathan’s death circulated, the townspeople of Ash Hollow had poured out their support and love. Casseroles and deli trays crammed her refrigerator. Cakes, cookies, and plates of sticky buns vied for counter space in her kitchen. Sympathy cards, with all their kindhearted sorrow and their prudent jotted notes, overflowed the mail basket beside the television. Any odd hour of the day or evening the bell would ring again, heralding the arrival of another floral arrangement, another tray of goodies, another coworker from Nebraska Public Power District stopping over to offer human comfort and a hug.

  No matter everyone’s efforts, the anguish in Bea’s soul could not be assuaged. How could you let this happen, Lord? What have I done, that you could let Nathan perish?

  When Jo Nell had quietly requested a list of songs to play at Nathan’s service, the inconsolable pain broke open and, like gall, flooded Bea’s heart. Every aspect of this funeral—the message, the memories, the music— trounced her. Every rite, meant to salve families’ spirits and bring about healing, served only to reveal another layer of wounds instead.

  As the service began, George Sissel, dressed in his green, billowing chasuble, took the lectern and glanced just once, but long and intently, at Bea. He opened his black leather-bound Bible, found his place in his notes, and began to speak.

  “We are gathered today to celebrate the life of Nathan Roger Bartling. Many of us knew him when he was a young boy. We have not seen him during the past five years. But, still, he was a person who was once loved deeply here.”

  The pastor continued on with the particulars of Nathan’s life, those undisputable facts that could be found on county records in any courthouse about anyone. “Nathan Bartling was born on May 27, 1978, at the Garden County Hospital in Oshkosh, Nebraska. He died July 8, 2001, in Omaha, Nebraska.”

  At the mention of Garden County Hospital Bea thought not of death but of the swaddled, snug bundle the doctor had handed her, the white knit cap her baby had worn those first few days, the navy-blue eyes that gazed up at her for the first time as if in her face lay the explanation to every mystery.

  “I’d like to tell personal stories about Nathan at his funeral,” George had said with great heed last night when he’d come to Bea for another visit. “Can you tell me some of your memories of your son?”

  “No.” She’d shaken her head emphatically at him. “I can’t do it. Don’t ask me. It hurts too much.”

  But he hadn’t relented. “For this to be done right, you’re going to have to think past the times when you haven’t known him. You have to go back. You owe your self that much.”

  “I can’t.”

  “I want you to try. You’ll be glad you did, later.”

  From the pulpit now, he began to recount the tales that he had at last been able to coax from her. How Nathan loved the speech team and played baseball and ran track at Lewellen Rural High School. How he took great pride, during his junior year, when his team broke a school record and took District and State in the 440 Relay.

  Others in the audience stood to volunteer their remembrances. Chuck Fairbanks, one of Nathan’s base ball coaches, remembered how he’d been nicknamed “The Grape” after an incident on the school bus traveling to a tournament in Oshkosh. Frank Lubing, owner of Oshkosh Sporting Goods, told how the boy tagged along with Frank’s dad whenever the men went goose hunting. “I let him put his own goose call on layaway at the store. He brought me fistfuls of pennies and nickels until he had his account paid off.” He had a special knack with that goose call, said Lester Smith, who’d been news director at the local AM station for seventeen years. “One night he climbed on the roof to practice his goose call and, I’ll swan, someone called the radio station to say that a whole flock had landed on the north side of town.”

  Bea’s eyes did not rest on the pedestal at the center of the altar. She did not allow herself to glance at the mahogany coffin that, when gently prodded by mortuary staff, she’d chosen to keep closed for the length of the public service.

  If she didn’t look at it, perhaps she could deny her son was there.

  As everyone spoke, Bea reached for the little wilted bouquet beside her and clutched it. She didn’t know which was more horrific—hearing aloud the accounts that she’d shared last night with George or hearing the ones from others that she’d never known. She suddenly loathed all of these tales about Nathan’s childhood. Recounting them made it seem as if Nathan’s life had ended ten years ago instead of only last week. And each story proffered only bare inklings, only hints, of the vast treasure that had been lost to her.

  Pictures began to eddy in her mind.

  Nathan’s lashes against his baby cheeks while he slept.

  Nathan’s arms and legs wrapped around hers like tongs when she held him.

  Nathan’s chubby feet discovering mud puddles for the first time.

  Bea glanced at her hands. She hadn’t realized she’d pricked herself on the rose thorns. She stared, the spot of blood growing. Her heart brimmed with fresh anger, bitterness, disbelief. Nothing remained for her now except emptiness—the slow, cold regret of knowing she would never have the chance to put right the matter that had sundered her child’s life from her own.

  The music began anew. One by one guests began to file out of pews and up the aisle to pay their last respects to the closed hardwood casket. The faint, sweet scent of carnations filled the room.

  After they’d taken silent pause before Nathan’s coffin, everyone trooped past Bea, grasping her hand and clasping it tightly, tendering empty condolences.

  “We’re so sorry.”

  “He was a good boy.”

  “There wasn’t anything you could have done, Bea.”

  Outside, a sleek black limousine awaited her. She would load, Nathan would be loaded, and together they would lead a procession to the cemetery plot. For the past four days she had dreaded this ending—the parade through town, the gathering beneath the tent, the gaping dark hole in the ground that the carpets of turf and the folding chairs and the cascades of flowers could never really hide.

  After the crowd had dissipated, after she had gone, someone nameless would begin the purposeful shoveling of earth, the spadefuls of brown Nebraska dirt thudding against the coffin, the smattering of sand and pebbles tumbling down the sides of slick wood into the chasm below.

  Bea had chosen to have a closed-casket ceremony because she wanted to keep her memory of Nathan hidden next to her heart for
ever. It was a private sight. Those last, longing gazes at Nathan’s face belonged to her and her alone. She hadn’t shared them with anyone except her pastor, who had insisted he be present when she attended the family viewing.

  She had leaned on George at the entrance to the Holechek Funeral Home, trusting him, gripping his shirt sleeve as they stepped past a well-placed floor lamp, a sofa designed to keep the family viewing area from seeming sterile.

  “I’ll hold you up,” George had told her. “I won’t let you take a step without me.”

  She’d whispered, as if the thought evoked childlike wonder, “I’m going to see my boy. I’m going to see him for the first time in five years.”

  He’d touched her hand where it grasped his sleeve. “Yes, you are.”

  The casket she’d purchased had been the nicest one she could afford for her son, with a pressed-doeskin interior and soft folds of taupe satin. From across the room, looking at him laying there, he could have been sleeping. If she watched long enough, she could almost imagine she saw breath. Bea had stepped toward him, apprehension lodging in her throat.

  When she’d looked down at him, his appearance had surprised her. How could there be such quiet and peace in Nathan’s face when he’d been the source of so much turmoil in her life?

  It made her almost angry with him, seeing him appear so serene. Only the skin of his brow was scraped, in one place crosshatched with little cuts.

  How could you do this? she had wanted to scream. How could you leave me with all these scars, and you with only a few scratches on your face?

  George had stood behind her, gripping both her shoulders. When she spoke, her voice had come as an unfamiliar whimper, one she didn’t recognize in her own ears, faint and strange.

  “He looks so grown up, doesn’t he?”

  “He does, Bea.” A pat on her right shoulder, reminding her that George was still there.