True Confessions of the Stratford Park PTA. Nancy Robards Thompson
vision.
CHAPTER 2
Barbara
I love putting my hands in the dirt, potting flowers and tending them so they bloom bold and bright. There’s no better way to set my mind right than getting elbow deep in potting soil on a clear, cool January afternoon. No matter what’s bothering me—an argument with my husband, Burt—which seems to be a perpetual state of affairs—or if Mary Grace is having a particularly hard time of it at school—kids can be so cruel…
Mary Grace is a special child. Down syndrome. All that means is she was born with an extra twenty-first chromosome. As far as I’m concerned, that makes her extra-special. But nowadays, it seems as if kids have even less tolerance for those who are different. It takes all I have to ensure my daughter lives a normal life without others adding to the task.
When it’s all crashing down on top of me, I come out here for a little earth therapy.
Today, I’ve hauled my supplies out here so I can work with my begonias—Rose Form Picotes, Ruffled Picotes, Giant Ruffled and my special favorite—plain ol’ Rose Form. There’s nothing plain about ’em. The blossoms look like huge roses, and I’ve grown them so big that they’re almost the size of a dinner plate. Hiding all that green underneath so as alls you see is a beautiful flower.
The secret lies in a bigger, stronger root system. There are two methods you can use to get that big root system, but the more challenging method produces better results than the easier one.
Isn’t that just like life? Nothing worth doing or having ever comes easily.
I remind myself of that all the time. When Burt’s being a snot or the struggles with Mary Grace overwhelm me or the efforts to keep this house feel as if they’re about ready to drop down on my head.
This is where my roots lie. Generations before me struggled to keep this place. I will not fail them.
So I set out flowers. It’s an affordable way to make this old place look better. Lord, it needs a foundation-to-rafter makeover, but begonias are more in line with my pocketbook.
Begonias will shift the focus.
So begonias it will be.
As I’m lifting a bag of potting soil, a hitch in my chest takes my breath away for a few seconds. I drop the bag of dirt and fall to my knees and take some slow deep breaths.
My heartburn’s acting up again. Or maybe I just tried to stand up too fast. Lord have mercy…. I suppose I should get myself into the doctor, but I hate to complain about every little ache and pain. Besides, who has time for doctor appointments? It seems as though once you start, appointments cluster like aphids on a tender leaf. This doctor sending you over here to get this checked; that doctor sending you over there to get that checked. I may be sixty years old, but I’m not ready to give all my free time to the likes of medical monkey business.
And, see here—as always, after a few seconds, the pain passes and I feel just fine.
Probably just gas.
I draw in a deep breath. Pain-free.
There. Now that I’m standing and my dungarees aren’t binding me in two, I can breathe. The doctor would just tell me there was nothing wrong with me that losing a good thirty pounds wouldn’t cure.
The sound of car tires crunching on the gravel drive makes me shade my eyes. I don’t recognize the blue car, but I realize with a start that it’s probably my niece Margaret, my late sister Leila’s girl. I’m expecting her today. But I didn’t think she and her little one would arrive quite so early. I was thinking it would be late afternoon.
I glance at my watch and realize it’s half past two.
For crying out loud, where did the day go? I’m embarrassed to admit that sometimes I lose track of time when I’m working out here.
Oh well, it makes no never mind. In fact, it’s better that they’re arriving now rather than later when Burt’s home. I haven’t told him that we’re having houseguests. Because of certain circumstances that transpired with Leila all those years ago, I figured he wouldn’t be thrilled about me inviting her girl to live in our carriage house until she can get back on her feet.
Bless his heart, Burt doesn’t understand things like this. Mind you, I don’t make a habit of going behind my husband’s back and making plans without involving him. Manipulation was more Leila’s style. Although, living with Burt all these years, there were definitely times when I could’ve benefited from employing a few of my late sister’s techniques.
Like the time I came up with the plan to turn the Villa Magnolia into an elegant bed-and-breakfast. I discussed it with Burt, never fathoming he’d flat out refuse. I mean, with my knack for hospitality, cooking and decorating, I was just sure a B and B was the answer to our financial woes, especially seeing how that male ego of his wouldn’t let me go out and take a job outside the home. I suppose he was afraid people would think he couldn’t support his family. Well, there was that and the problem of Burt not taking kindly to strangers in his home. He pooh-poohed the B and B in no uncertain terms. No discussion. Not even an “I’ll think about it.”
So do you see why sometimes I opt for asking for forgiveness rather than permission?
He won’t turn Margaret out now that she’s here. The poor dear needs to be with her people right now, and other than her girl, Sarah, I’m all the people she’s got. Despite all that’s happened, I owe at least that much to my sister, to take care of her baby when she needs a hand. I shouldn’t have let the silence between Margaret and me go on this long. Lord knows I had good intentions of keeping in touch with her after Leila passed, but with Margaret being all the way up there in North Carolina, it was difficult and then I had Mary Grace and time just flew. And I suppose if I’m honest, the bad blood between Leila and me festered in the back of my mind. It took a long time for me to finally face facts that I was mad at her.
Mad at her for what she did and mad at her for leaving us the way she did.
She always had to have the last word.
But I forgive her for what she did and any kind of a decent human being with a lick of compassion would not hold Margaret responsible for her mother’s actions.
As the blue Toyota slows to a stop, a cool breeze rustles the scarf anchoring down my straw hat. I bat it out of my face with a grimy, gloved hand. Land sakes, I must look a sight. I yank off the gloves, stuff them inside the hat and toss the lot onto the porch step, fluffing up my hair.
I suppose it’s just been too hard for Margaret to come back here to the place where her mama killed herself.
I take a slow, deep breath and muster a big welcoming smile for them. I will not make this any harder on that child and her little girl than it already must be. Poor, poor Margaret, so young to be a widow.
I squint to get a glimpse of Sarah through the smoky glass of the car window. Land, that baby’s a teenager by now. She was born the same year as Mary Grace.
When the door opens, a tall, skinny, blond-headed girl slides out of the car and squints at me as if she’s tumbled out of a cave by accident. The sight of her steals my breath. There in her face is the whisper of Leila. The pale ghost of my sister. Flickers and glints of her in the valleys beneath the apple cheekbones; the curve of her nostril; the rosebud set of that pursed little mouth. Genes have slid down the years, skipping a generation to manifest in this beautiful young woman.
There’s scarcely a hint of Margaret in her own daughter. Instead, it’s as if Leila’s reached out from the grave and claimed the child for her own.
“You must be Sarah.”
The girl stares at her sneakers.
Leila’s granddaughter. It’s hard to reconcile that my sister would be a grandmother. I mean, I’m a grandma. I don’t know why it’s so hard to wrap my mind around the fact that she would be, too. That’s what happens, I suppose, when one