Winter Garden

Meredith dared to reach out and cover her mother’s cold, cold hand with her own, but she couldn’t find any words to go along with the intimate act. “Come on, Mom, you need to eat something. ”

“I ate yesterday. ”

“I know. Come on. ” She held her mother’s hand and helped her to rise. After too much time spent on this metal bench, her mother’s body straightened slowly, popping and creaking at the new movement.

As soon as she was fully upright, Mom pulled away from Meredith and walked up the flagstone path toward the house.

Meredith let her go on ahead.

Meredith followed her into the kitchen, where she called Jeff and told him she wouldn’t be home for breakfast after all. “Mom was in the garden again,” she said. “I think I better work here today. ”

“Big surprise. ”

“Come on, Jeff. Be fair—”

He hung up.

Stung by the sound of the dial tone, she called Jillian instead. They immediately fell into their easy routine, talking about school and Los Angeles and the weather. Meredith listened to her eldest daughter in amazement. As was happening more and more often lately, she heard this confident young woman talking about chemistry and biology and medical schools, and Meredith wondered how it had happened, this growing up and moving on. Only yesterday, Jillie had been a pudgy girl with gaps in her teeth who could spend an entire afternoon staring at an apple bud, waiting for it to blossom. It’s coming, Mommy. The flower will be here any second. Should I go get Grandpa?

And teaching Jillian to drive had taken about ten minutes. I read the manuals, Mom. You don’t have to grit your teeth. Trust me.

“I love you, Jillie,” Meredith said, realizing a second too late that she’d interrupted her daughter. She’d been saying something about enzymes. Or maybe ebola. Meredith laughed; she’d been caught not listening. “And I’m really proud of you. ”

“I’m putting you into a coma, aren’t I?”

“Just a deep sleep. ”

Jillian laughed. “Okay, Mom. I gotta run anyway. Love you. ”

“Love you, too, Beetle. ”

When Meredith hung up, she felt better. Whole again. Talking to her girls was always the best prescription for the blues. Except, of course, when those same conversations caused the blues. . . .

For the rest of the day, she worked from her mother’s kitchen table; in addition to paying taxes and reading crop reports and overseeing warehouse costs, she cajoled her mother into eating and paid her bills and washed her clothes.

Finally, at eight o’clock, when the dinner dishes were done and the food was put away, she went into the living room.

Mom sat in Dad’s favorite chair, knitting. A floor lamp glowed beside her; the light gave her face a softness that was illusory. To her left, the candle on the altar of the Holy Corner sputtered and sent smoke spiraling upward.

Mom’s eyes were closed, even while her fingers wielded the knitting needles. Shadowy lashes fanned down her pale cheeks, giving her an eerily sad look.

“It’s time for bed, Mom,” Meredith said, striving to sound neither impatient nor tired. She flicked on the ceiling light and in an instant the intimacy of the room was gone.

“I can manage my own schedule,” Mom said.

And so it began, the endless grind of getting Mom upstairs into bed. They fought about all of it: brushing teeth, changing clothes, taking off socks.

At just past nine, Meredith finally got her mom settled into bed. She pulled the covers up to her chin, just as she’d once done for Jillian and Maddy. “Sleep well,” Meredith said. “Dream of Dad. ”

“It hurts to dream,” Mom said quietly.

Meredith didn’t know what to say to that. “So dream of your garden. The crocuses will be blooming soon. ”

“Are they edible?”

That was how it happened lately; one moment her mother was there, behind her blue eyes, and then just as suddenly she’d be absent.

Meredith wanted to believe it was grief that was causing these changes in her mother, all of this confusion. With grief, there would be an end to it.