Seasons Under Heaven Read online

  “He can get down,” she said, trying to grab his hand again before he could make another escape. “Spencer!”

  As if in response, the neighbor’s dog Buster began to bark, and bounded around the house to the foot of the tree. The cat squalled and climbed higher, the dog barked and stood threateningly on its hind legs, and the kids began to scream. “He’s goin’ higher, Mommy! Get him down.”

  If it hadn’t been for the fact that the blasted cat had been stuck up in that tree so many times before, and that Barry, Tory’s husband, had had to climb the tree to get it down more than once, she could have ignored the crisis and made it to the house. But this one wasn’t going to pass.

  It was nearing noon, and the sun was straight up in the sky, too hot for late May in eastern Tennessee. The little town of Breezewood was named for its cool temperatures in the summer, but today the sun seemed to have forgotten that and beat down on them with further malice. Already, Tory’s dark brown hair, which she’d spent too much time rolling and spraying, was beading with sweat and pasting itself to her forehead. Her kids, who’d been freshly bathed not an hour ago, were beginning to glisten. Spencer already smelled like one of the steel mills in town—that metallic dirt-and-sweat kind of odor that made you want to hose him down. She eyed the little inflatable pool in the yard and thought of stripping him down and dunking him in it. But that would seem too much like fun to him.

  The dog’s barks turned to howls, and the cat scrabbled higher up, still making that skin-crawling noise like a wounded person with laryngitis. She looked around for something, anything, to stop the commotion. The green hose lay curled like a snake ready to strike, and she let go of Brittany, grabbed the head of it, and turned it on full blast. Adjusting the nozzle to shoot in a hard, steady stream, she blasted the dog.

  He danced away from the tree, distracted as he tried to nip at the water stream to get a good gulp. She turned the hose up to the top of the tree, where the cat still clung for dear life. It whopped him without much force, but frightened him enough to make him jump to a lower branch.

  The children laughed and jumped up and down as the cat began to parry the water blows with one fighting paw. He leaped to another, lower bough.

  The cat was low enough now to jump to the ground, so she tried to center the water right over his torso to make him take the plunge.

  In his excitement, Spencer ran to the wet German shepherd and hugged it exuberantly. Tory’s heart deflated further as she realized that now her son smelled like sweat, rust, and wet dog. And she wasn’t smelling much better.

  “He’s down!” Brittany squealed, and took off across the wet grass to chase the soaked, angry cat.

  “Britty, come back here! Now!”

  “But I have to dry him off, Mommy! He hates to be wet.”

  “Brittany, I said now!”

  Brittany stopped and gave her a hangdog look that would have wilted a weaker mother, but Tory ignored it. Instead, she turned her attention to prying her reeking son’s arms from around the wet dog. “Inside, Spencer! Hit the tub. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.”

  “Huh?”

  “The tub, Spencer.”

  “Why? I already took a bath.”

  “You need another one.”

  “But I’m still clean.”

  “Now, Spencer. Brittany, inside.”

  “Do I have to take a bath, too?” Brittany asked. “I didn’t do nothin’ bad. Besides, Joseph’s party is outside, so we’ll just get stinky again.”

  “I don’t want you going to the party stinky. I want you going clean, and getting stinky while you’re there. Head for the tub.”

  “Can I take a bath in my bathing suit?” Spencer asked. “Britty can take it with me.”

  “Fine,” she said. “Britty, yours is hanging over the washing machine.”

  “But we didn’t have lunch yet. I’m hungry.”

  She realized the child was right. The telephone rang as Spencer agreed that he, too, was hungry. Rolling her eyes, she shoved them inside and headed for the phone. She didn’t see the dirty pair of sneakers strategically placed between her and the phone. She tripped over them and caught herself on the table, then swung around and drop-kicked them as far as she could. “Get your shoes out of here, Spencer!” she shouted, then snatched up the phone. “Hello!”

  “Hey, hon.” It was Barry, her husband, and she imagined him sitting in his nice quiet office with his organized desk and his functioning computer and all his metalworks accomplishments photographed and displayed like trophies around him. “What’s up?”

  “Oh, nothing,” she said, her chin stiffening. “My computer has drowned in congealed Kool-Aid, I just rescued Spencer from the Bryans’ corral, then I got the cat down from the tree, and we’re all about to take our second bath of the morning because we’re soaked in sweat and Spencer smells like Buster the dog…and we haven’t even had lunch yet.” She forced a saccharine tone. “And how is your day, honey?”

  “What do you mean the computer drowned? I told you to keep the kids out of there.”

  “I was in the bedroom for maybe five minutes, getting ready for Joseph’s party.”

  “Joseph’s party? It’s not for hours.”

  “That’s not the point, Barry! It won’t type. The keyboard is dead. And all the work I did this morning—four pages during Sesame Street—is gone.”

  “Tory, that computer cost over a thousand dollars.”

  “Tell it to the kids.” She glanced at the pantry, where the kids had gotten too quiet, and saw that they’d gotten into a ziplock bag of gummy worms. “Put those down and head for the tub. I’m not telling you again!”

  “Thank goodness,” she heard Spencer whisper, and Brittany giggled.

  “Barry, tell me what to do about the computer. I have to save it.”

  “Call the company. Ask them what they advise.”

  “All right. As soon as things get quiet.”

  “And Tory, punish them. Don’t let them go to Joseph’s party today. They’ve been looking forward to it, so make them stay home. It’ll teach them.”

  She heard the bath water running, and the cat began scratching at the back door to get in. “Barry, if I do that, I have to stay home. And I was looking forward to some adult companionship. Even if it is with a dozen kids around.” She sighed and realized she sounded like a shrew. “Look, I’ll try to save the computer. And I’ve got to go bathe the kids. Please don’t be late this afternoon. I’ll have turned gray and lost my sanity by then.”

  “Uh, well…that’s kinda why I’m calling. I mean, not about your sanity. About me being late.”

  “No, Barry!” she whined, collapsing into a chair. “Please, not tonight. This is not turning out to be a good day.”

  “I can’t help it. I have to work late.”

  “So what are we talking about? Seven o’clock? Eight?”

  “Maybe eight-thirty. A big client wants to have dinner with some of us. It’s a huge account, for some great stuff we bid on. I can’t say no.”

  “Of course not.” She felt a headache coming on. “Look, I’ve got to go. I wish I had time to chat, but you’ve probably got to skedaddle off to lunch, anyway. Tip the waiter nice for me, will you?”

  “Tory, come on.”

  “Bye, Barry.” She hung up the phone and headed back to the bathroom to see if her kids had drowned each other yet.

  They were both in their bathing suits, sitting in four inches of cold water that didn’t have a prayer of getting them clean, and playing battleship with some plastic sailboats they kept on the tub. Taking the opportunity, she went to the living room and sank down on the couch. Barry was probably nursing his wounds, she thought miserably. It wasn’t his fault that he had a job he liked and got to eat in restaurants and talk to adults all day. He believed her staying at home was a terrific blessing, and she knew it should be.

  But as long as she was here, there was no hope of her ever making anything of herself. No hope at all.
What had happened to the Miss University of Tennessee who’d edited the literary magazine, wowed her professors with papers they’d claimed were publishable, and been chosen “Outstanding Senior English Major” because her professors believed she was the one most likely to publish? Whatever happened to the girl who’d been “Most Beautiful” and “Most Likely to Succeed,” all in the same year?

  If they could see her now, she thought morbidly. Instead of mopping in the money, she was mopping up spills. Instead of nursing celebrity, she was nursing earaches and skinned knees. Instead of winning awards, she was winning free hamburgers from the scrape-off cards at McDonald’s.

  It wasn’t what she’d had in mind when she’d become a mother.

  If only they were older. If only they could entertain themselves and tie their own shoes and fix their own sandwiches and clean up their own messes. If only she had two hours a day—even one hour would do—of uninterrupted time to pursue her own dreams, without someone undoing it all with the flick of a Kool-Aid-stained finger.

  She sat there crying for a long time, until finally she knew that she had to feed her kids lunch or surrender the bag of gummy bears—resulting in a sugar high that would be sure to make the afternoon as challenging as the morning.

  CHAPTER

  Three

  Sywia teetered atop the ladder in her living room and carefully removed the white bow from its place near the ceiling. She’d hung bows all around the room, one every three feet, and draped lace between them. Even from this height, she could still smell the sweet fragrance of the white roses and orchids that sat in huge pots around the room. It had made for a beautiful wedding reception for her daughter. But the biggest hit of the party hadn’t been the lace and ribbons and roses but rather Sarah’s childhood pictures that Sylvia had blown up, placed in gold gilded frames, and hung in an arrangement on one wall of her living room. Jeff, her son, was in many of the pictures as well. Across the room was a similar display of photographs Sylvia had gotten from the groom’s mother. She had finished taking that display down earlier this morning, but it was more difficult removing the ones of her own children.

  Not for the first time that morning, reality hit her, and the vast emptiness of the house after all the madness of the past few weeks caught up with her. The silence seemed to scream mocking cruelties into her ear about her empty nest and her outlived usefulness. Tears came to her eyes, and she sat down on one of the ladder rungs and tried to get hold of herself.

  Longingly, her gaze swept over the photograph of Sarah as a little girl, her brother Jeff hovering over her. Had it been in second or third grade that Sarah had played the Statue of Liberty in the school play? That picture had caused a lot of laughter among their family and friends. The costume party—had that been for Jeff’s sixth or seventh birthday? Had Jeff gone to college yet when they’d taken the youth group to the Alpine Sled in Chattanooga? Half of those kids had come to the wedding, and the stories they’d told…

  “Are you taking those down?”

  She jumped at the sound of her husband’s voice, making the ladder teeter. Harry rushed forward and steadied it. “Harry! I didn’t hear you come in.” Her voice was cracked and choked with emotion, and when he looked up at her, she knew he saw the tears. Quickly, she wiped them away.

  “This is dangerous, Sylvia,” he said gently, indicating the ladder. “You shouldn’t do this unless I’m home. Wait till later and I’ll help you.”

  She sighed and came down. “I wanted to get it done. The sooner the better.”

  “Why don’t you rest? The wedding took a lot out of you. You deserve to do nothing today. You remember how, don’t you? Think way back to before we had kids.”

  “I can’t remember that far back,” she whispered, looking up at those pictures again.

  He gave her a tender look, then moved behind her and set his hands on her shoulders. Kissing her hair, he said, “You know, you don’t have to take them down at all.”

  “They’re not right there,” she said. “I’ll spread them out around the house. I’ll have to patch the holes in the wall, you know, and repaint. There’s so much to do.” Again, those tears came, constricting her throat.

  Harry turned her around and made her look up at him. Though his hair was more gray than black, his face had retained its youthful look, and his eyes still twinkled with mischief. The very sight and feel of him reminded her that she was not completely alone today, that her life’s companion was still here, and that he would not forsake her. “Your children haven’t fired you, you know,” he said. “You’re still their mother.”

  “I don’t know how to be a long-distance mother,” she said. “Why did we let them move to other states? They’re both so far away. Before we know it, they’ll have kids of their own, and we’ll be long-distance grandparents who see them once or twice a year. The grandkids will have to be reminded who we are.”

  “Fat chance,” Harry said. “Honey, when Sarah gets back from her honeymoon, she’ll be calling you every day to find out how to make meat loaf and pumpkin pie, and to cry when she’s homesick or mad at Larry, or just to talk because she misses you. Mark my word. You might just be the one who’s not available.”

  Sylvia wiped her face again. “What do you mean?”

  He started to say something, then seemed to think better of it. “Listen, I had a cancellation for my first patient after lunch, so that’s why I came home. I was hoping to take you to lunch somewhere nice. When’s the last time we went out? I thought maybe that little South American restaurant over on Hilliard Street. We could talk—”

  “Harry, I don’t want to go out. Look at me. I’m a mess. Could I take a rain check?”

  “A mess? You’re beautiful. Slim and young-looking. I heard at least three people at the wedding asking if you were Sarah’s sister.”

  She couldn’t help being amused. “Don’t lie.”

  “Well, okay, just one. But it happened. Scout’s honor.”

  “I’m fifty years old and I feel sixty-five. Forced into mandatory retirement. Totally obsolete.”

  Harry’s grin faded and he frowned down at her. “You really are depressed, aren’t you?”

  “And you aren’t?”

  He slid his hands into his pockets and looked down at his feet. He was thinking, trying to answer honestly, she knew. Harry wasn’t one to just tell her what she wanted to hear.

  “The other night,” he said seriously, “after Sarah and Larry drove off, and the guests started going home, I went in the bathroom and cried. It was tough. My baby, Daddy’s little girl, riding off into the sunset with some guy who’s going to take care of her for the rest of her life.” His eyes misted up even now as he recalled those emotions.

  Sylvia smiled softly. “I should have known. And there I was flitting around, laughing and smiling for the guests, ignoring you completely.”

  “I wanted to be ignored when I felt like that,” he said. “But it passed. This morning, I started thinking differently. I started thinking of this time of our lives as a beginning instead of an ending. We can do whatever we want now. All these years, when we’ve wanted to do things, but couldn’t because we had the kids to think of—well, now we can go anywhere, do anything, and it’s just the two of us. No more excuses. No more reasons to stay in the same old place. I started getting excited, Sylvia.”

  Sylvia looked up at him, frowning, wondering where he was going with this. “So where is it you want to go? What is it you want to do?”

  Again, he looked down at his feet, searching for honest words, and she realized this midday homecoming wasn’t just a whim. He had something specific to say. She tried to brace herself. “Harry?”

  “You sure you don’t want to go eat?” he asked her. “Even just a burger? We could eat in the car, even.”

  She sighed. “This must be really big if you have to say it over food.”

  “I’m just hungry. It’s really nothing. In fact, we can talk about it another time.”

  “Let me run
a brush through my hair, and we can go,” she said.

  Harry grinned, and she knew it was what he’d really wanted. She went into the bathroom, brushed her just-permed hair, and applied some lipstick so she wouldn’t look so pale. She powdered the redness over her nose and decided her eyes were hopeless. It was just as well that Harry wanted to go out, she decided. She did need a diversion today.

  She followed him out to the Explorer and waited while he unlocked it for her. She looked around at the little houses on the cul-de-sac where they’d lived for so long. Near the neck of the little circle, she saw three of Brenda’s kids helping their dad drag picnic tables into the empty lot between their house and the Sullivans. Today was Joseph’s birthday, she remembered. They had invited her to the party, but she’d almost forgotten.

  She remembered when her own were little, before the culde-sac called Cedar Circle had been developed around them. Their own house had been built on a huge, twenty-acre plot at the top of Survey Mountain. It had been much smaller then, until Harry’s surgical practice had gotten off the ground. Almost yearly, they had added something to their house.

  When she and Harry had made the decision to sell some of the land to a builder to develop into a cul-de-sac, they had done it for the kids. The children needed playmates, she’d told Harry, and he agreed. The developer had plotted out Cedar Circle, paved the streets, and three houses had gone up with wisteria and jasmine-covered picket fences, oaks, and elm trees. None of the homes was quite as large as the Bryans’, and none had the stretch of land in the back that the Bryans had kept for their horses. But the neighbors had become close friends, and their children had always had playmates.

  But all those children had grown up, and their families, one by one, had moved away. Now the cul-de-sac was populated with younger mothers with active children who only reminded her how she longed for the former days.

  “Are you planning to get in, or just stand here all day gazing down Memory Lane?” Harry teased.

  She looked up at him. “Sorry. I was just remembering the way it looked before those houses…” She got in, and he closed the door behind her, then slipped in on the other side. “I’m sorry, Harry,” she said. “It’s one of those days when you can’t seem to keep your thoughts going in the right direction. It’s the classic, textbook case of empty-nest syndrome. I read all about it when they went off to college. But they were close by, and I knew they’d be back for meals and laundry…”