“Hey, Mom,” Meredith said, daring to place a hand on her mother’s shoulder. She’d learned lately that she could touch her mother at times like this; sometimes Meredith’s touch could even help ease the confusion. “It’s cold out here. And it will be dark soon. ”
“Don’t make Anya go alone. She’s afraid. ”
Meredith let out a sigh. She was about to say something else when she noticed the new addition to the garden. There was a bright new copper column standing next to the old verdigris-aged one. “When did you order that, Mom?”
“I wish I had some candy to give him. He loves candy. ”
Meredith helped her mother to her feet. She led her back into the bright, warm kitchen, where she made her a cup of hot tea and reheated a bowl of soup for her.
Her mother huddled over the table, shivering almost uncontrollably. It wasn’t until Meredith gave her a slice of bread, slathered with butter and honey, that she finally looked up.
“Your father loves bread and honey. ”
Meredith felt a surprising sadness at that. Her father had been allergic to honey, and the fact that Mom had forgotten something so concrete was somehow worse than the previous confusions. “I wish I could really talk to you about him,” she said, more to herself than to her mother. Meredith needed her father lately, more than ever. He was the one she could have talked to about the trouble in her marriage. He would have taken her hand and walked out in the orchard with her and told her what she needed to hear. “He’d tell me what to do. ”
“You know what to do,” her mother said, tearing off a chunk of bread and putting it in her pocket. “Tell them you love them. That’s what matters. And give them the butterfly. ”
It was perhaps the loneliest moment of Meredith’s life. “That’s right, Mom. Thanks. ”
She busied herself around the kitchen while her mother finished eating. Afterward, she helped Mom up the stairs to her bedroom and brushed her teeth for her, just as she used to do for her daughters when they were small, and like them, her mother did as she was bid. When Meredith began to undress her, the usual battle began.
“Come on, Mom, you need to get ready for bed. These nightgowns are dirty. Let me get you something clean. ”
“No. ”
For once, it was too much for Meredith—she was too tired to fight—so she gave in and let her mother go to bed in a dirty nightgown.
Outside the bedroom door, she waited until her mother fell asleep, began to softly snore, and then she went downstairs and locked up the house for the night.
It wasn’t until she was in the car, driving home, that she really thought about what her mother had said to her.
You know what to do.
Tell them you love them.
The words might have been tossed in a bowl of crazy salad, but it was still good advice.
When had she last said those precious words to Jeff? They used to be commonplace between them; not lately, though.
If reparations had to be started, and a conversation undertaken, those three words had to be the beginning.
At home, she called out for Jeff and got no answer.
He wasn’t home yet. She had time to get ready.
Smiling at that, she went upstairs to shower, not realizing until she reached for her razor how long it had been since she’d shaved. How had she let herself go so much?
She dried and curled her hair and put on makeup and then slipped into a pair of silk pajamas that she hadn’t worn in years. Barefooted, smelling of gardenia body lotion, she opened a bottle of champagne. She poured herself a glass and went into the living room, where she started a fire in the fireplace and sat down to wait for her husband.
Leaning back into the sofa’s soft down cushions, she put her feet up on the coffee table and closed her eyes, trying to think of what else she would say to him, the words he needed to hear.
She was wakened by the dogs barking. They were running down the hallway, falling over each other in their haste to get to the door.
When Jeff walked into the house, he was engulfed by the dogs, their tails thumping on the hardwood floor as they struggled to greet him without jumping up.
“Hey,” Meredith said when he came into the room.
Without looking up from Leia, whose ears he was scratching, he said, “Hey, Mere. ”