Sand in My Eyes, page 8
Time gone by makes it easy to forget the details surrounding why a woman once did what she did, said what she said, and reacted in the ways in which she reacted. It’s why she’s hard on herself looking back. But if she were thrown back in time, given a second chance, she’d do it all the same. Everything is harder when going through it, and I never wanted to start living in a constant state of judgmental hindsight, critical of myself for having walked out on my career, a career I was good at. A woman should forgive, but never forget the details leading up to where she is now. And I knew “best damn publicist in the world” wasn’t something I wanted on my tombstone someday. I wanted:
MOTHER — WOMAN WHO LIVED — CULTIVATOR OF BEAUTY.
I got up from my computer and walked back over to that stack of books, the ones I promoted, this time picking up a highly publicity-driven title, one dealing with sticking by your man after he cheats. I returned to my window and held it tightly in my hand, but Fedelina was down there, holding her hands to her eyes like a visor shielding them from the sun and looking at the sky over my house as if she had spotted a flying object. I didn’t want anyone her age to start believing in UFOs, but I found the activity of throwing books out my window therapeutic and couldn’t stop.
I waited for her to turn her back and, when she did, pulling shears from her apron pocket and using them to snip roses off a bush, I pitched a fast one out my window. “Yeah, right, you so-called relationship guru,” I said, hanging my head out to watch it hit the ground below. “How dare I find out, after scheduling you that ten-city tour, that you were divorced four times?”
My yard, as it filled with the books I once promoted, looked as colorful as Fedelina’s yard next door, but I feared this act of throwing reading material from one’s windows might be sacrilegious, against literary law, or unpatriotic, and that my neighbor might be the type to report me. I should have gone down there and picked up all those books littering my yard, and bagged up and tossed the regrets that were filling my mind, wondering again whether I had done the right thing, quitting my job as I had. I stood there, trancelike, watching Fedelina with her handful of fresh-cut roses as I had the fading copies that last day of work. I was thinking of all the dull conversations with my husband, for they kept coming too, along with my mornings, and I didn’t know how to stop or alter them.
I moved the orchid pot over four inches, making sure the subtle breeze coming through my bedroom window wouldn’t upset it. I felt envious of it, a flower, for it knew what it liked—sturdy tables, sunrises, and environments without stress, how simple! It was a cattleya, but who was I?
“A woman,” I said. “A disgruntled wife, an overwhelmed mother, no longer a publicist extraordinaire.”
“And who are you without all those titles?” I think the orchid stem asked me.
“A woman wanting to delight in her days, relish her life,” I answered, just as I had read in Cora’s letter. “And a mother—a beloved mother.”
I ducked from the window, not wanting Fedelina to see me standing there, watching her. And there were no more books left in my room, which was good. Throwing things out had to stop.
“This has to stop,” I had declared that day at the publishing house as I pressed the “stop” button on the copier. It’s why I squeezed my hand between the wall and the machine and pulled the plug, and why the room went quiet and I felt dizzy, like I was no longer standing in my own two shoes, but floating above them. There had been something wrong with me that day. And there was something wrong with Fedelina, too. I worried as I looked again out my window and saw her wobbling around, wiping her forehead and then bending at the hips, bracing her hands on her knees as if to hold herself up.
I should walk over, ask her if she is okay—tell her to consider hiring a landscaper, I thought. She had been out there toiling long enough, and how much time should one old lady spend working in a garden?
She dropped the snips from her hand, and the roses, too, and I watched as she fell down in the grass like an overheated person. She needed help and I had to go. I took off running in my nightgown, racing across my yard and over the books that were scattered like stepping stones under my feet, hurrying toward my neighbor who was down in the grass.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
FEDELINA,” I SAID WHEN I reached her sitting on the ground, sweat raining from her forehead. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she said, but I knew from personal experience not to believe a person who says they’re fine. I got down on my knees and looked her in the eyes.
“What’s wrong? What’s happening?” I asked, wondering if she had been drinking.
“I’m dizzy, that’s all.”
“How can I help? Do you need me to call someone?”
“No, don’t call anyone,” she said with a slur, her eyes gazing past me. “But your hands are shaking. Your feet, too,” I said. “I need to do something. I’ll call an ambulance.”
“No,” she blurted. “Candy!”
“You mean sugar? Do you have any?”
“In my bag, get me my bag,” she said, her voice trailing off.
“Where is your bag?” I jumped up from the grass and spun in circles, scanning the yard with my eyes. I was ready to rush back to my house, get some of the boys’ candy when she mumbled, “Upstairs.”
I hurried around to the front of the house and up the old, tilting-to-one-side wooden steps, tripping and bruising my shin. When I spotted the straw bag, I wanted to go inside and phone for help, but it was easier in the moment of emergency to do what she told me to do rather than what I thought I should, and I returned to where she was, dumping the contents of her bag into the grass. Out came a meter, a syringe, insulin, alcohol, wipes, and a piece of paper with handwritten emergency names and phone numbers.
“Can … dy,” she mumbled, her voice deteriorating in tone.
“I know,” I said, spotting a roll of hard candies. I tore the wrapper off and, when I saw her hands trembling worse than mine, I pressed a piece to her lips, but they remained closed and her eyes were suspiciously confused.
“Here’s the candy,” I said. “Open your mouth.”
She parted her lips and, one by one, I fed the candies into her mouth and she chewed. I glanced at the handwritten names and phone numbers, fearing that if the sugar didn’t soon stop her slurring and shaking, I would be held responsible, having to explain to Liam, the first name on her list—maybe her son—why I didn’t call him or an ambulance when I first saw his mother collapse in the grass. “One more piece. Come on, Fedelina, keep chewing.”
It was this last piece that started to settle her. I took hold of her hand and held it softly. I would sit in the grass holding her hand as long as was needed, until she stopped shaking. I had nothing better to do with my day.
“Oh, I needed that. Thank you. I’m feeling much better now,” she finally said without slurring, her voice clear again. “See that shrub?”
“That one over there?” I asked, shifting in the grass to see where she was looking.
“Yeah, with the long pointed rose-buds in clear pink—the Prairie Princess. I don’t know if you know anything about roses.”
“I don’t,” I told her.
“It’s excellent as a cut flower.” Her voice was turning calm and conversational, as if nothing had happened.
“Aren’t all flowers good cut?” I asked, feeling ignorant. But I didn’t care. I was still trying to breathe normally after what we had gone through together.
“That one blooms in great mass, and then rests awhile to put on growth before blooming profusely again.”
“Oh,” I said.
“It does this over and over.”
“Does what?”
“Blooms and rests, blooms and rests, speaking of which, it’s my turn now.”
I looked at her like I didn’t understand. “Your turn for what?”
“To rest,” she said. “It’s a good thing.”
“Rest?” I asked, catching on.
“Women,” she said, nodding, “like those Prairie Princesses, need restful periods, too—non-productive times in their lives in order to prepare for their next bloom.”
“That reminds me,” I said. “I enjoyed that letter, the one your mother wrote.”
“I’m glad,” she said. “My mother had a certain wisdom to her. She was always teaching us things.”
“How nice,” I said. “I hardly have time to teach my children anything other than, ‘Don’t jump on the sofa with grapes in your mouth—you can jump on the furniture, just not with grapes!’”
“You’re in that ‘get them through alive’ stage,” she said with a grin, “but the time will come when you want them knowing more about life, things you’ve learned yourself.”
“I don’t know,” I said, and let out a laugh. “I don’t think I’ll have anything good to teach my kids. I hardly know who I am anymore.”
“I had a friend,” Fedelina said. “She spent decades of her life searching for, of all things, herself. And one day she woke up and knew exactly who she was.”
“Who?” I asked.
“An old lady on her deathbed,” said Fedelina, and we both laughed. “I never had time to go searching for myself. But my children, I taught them the basics. They could all cook at least one meal and press slacks by the time they left the house. I threw my son Liam out when he turned eighteen, but told him first, ‘I’m going to teach you how to make beef stew, and then you’re out.’ He’s a vegetarian now, so it never helped him any.”
I shifted on my knees, relaxing in the grass, crawling a bit to gather the items I had dumped out of her bag. She stretched far enough to reach the syringe. “In case you were wondering, I have diabetes,” she said, tossing it into the bag.
“Type one?”
“No, the other,” she said. “Had it for years and didn’t know. But now it’s obvious. My body produces insulin but no longer responds to it, or there’s not enough insulin. My doctor tells me to stay active, keep moving. I try not to sit around all day. I work in the yard every morning.”
“You think you overdid it today?”
“Hypoglycemic attack,” she said. “I usually eat breakfast and lunch at the same time, but this morning the roses were calling. I couldn’t resist. It happens to me in the garden. I lose track of time. My blood sugar dropped.”
“Are you going to be okay?”
“Yeah, but I could use a little rest.”
I got up from the grass and offered her my hand but she got onto all fours, like a cat, and from there stood on her own.
“I hope I haven’t kept you,” she said.
“Not at all,” I told her. “I wasn’t doing anything. That’s bad, I know. I’m unproductive lately. I don’t know why, but I dislike it. I feel ashamed when I’m unproductive.”
“Then I should give you some roses to remind you that they aren’t always in bloom, nor can you be.”
“Nothing in my life is blooming at the moment,” I said.
“Such is life,” she said. “Not everything can be blooming at once and sometimes it feels as if nothing is blooming at all. Why don’t you gather up those Prairie Princesses that I dropped in the grass over there? Take them home with you, will you? See this one here?” she said, tilting her head toward an open flesh pink flower growing on another shrub alongside her house. “The definition of a rose, always my favorite.” She held its branch until I hurried over and touched my nose to it. “We’d see it near the beach when I was young. It’s why I like to grow it now.” She reached into her pocket, pulled shears out, and snipped it off. “Take this one home, too,” she said, handing it to me. “It’s a Susan Louise rose, 1929, and it’s truly recurrent, giving happily and constantly,” she stated, and then paused and added, “like mothers.”
As we meandered further alongside a fence in her yard, I didn’t want to tell her that I disagreed, that as a mother I was constantly giving, yes, but happily? No. It’s hard to give happily when tired, or when there’s never a break from giving, when no one is there to give to you for a change.
“See this one?” she asked. “Iceberg, Climbing, 1968, it blooms so prolifically you can cut large bouquets for the house, yet seldom see where you have cut. I cut tons of them yesterday. If you have time to come in a minute, I’ll give you a few of them to take home, too.”
I followed her around the house and up the steep wooden steps. “If a mother takes care of herself,” she said as she held the screen door open for me to go in, “she can give much of herself and no one will see what has been taken from her.” She put her finger to her lips. “We have to be quiet. I don’t want to wake my son,” she whispered.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
YOUR SON?” I ASKED, confused and upset that she hadn’t sent me running straight into that house to get her son when she was down in the grass.
“He’s visiting for the week.”
“But why didn’t you …”
“I don’t want him to worry,” she whispered. “Now wait here. I’ll be right back. I need to get something in the kitchen.” When she returned she was eating a protein bar. “Now come with me,” she said, “so I can get you those Iceberg, Climbing.” I followed her down a long hallway, my arms already full of the roses she had me gather from her grass. “Remember,” she said more loudly as we went. “The roses should remind you to rest. One needs rest in order to bloom again. I know it sounds hard, but mothers must take care of themselves. They more than anyone need sufficient rest.”
“You’re not writing a book, are you?” I asked. “A book on gardening?”
“No, why? Are you?”
“Oh, everyone, I think, has a novel in their drawer, don’t they?” I said, hesitating, “But yes, I am. I guess I am writing one myself.” I stopped talking when a door in the hallway opened and a man stepped out. He wore boxer shorts, a gray T-shirt, and black-rimmed glasses and all I could think was that somewhere in my life, a dream, maybe, I had seen him before. His hair was the color of northern sand and looked windblown and wild, as if he had been pounding a few waves on the beach the night before, but standing nose-to-nose in the uncomfortably narrow hallway, there was a look on his face—that of a raccoon caught in a headlight—and I felt embarrassed by it, and the silk nightgown I was wearing, and the way I felt my face flushing. Like a self-conscious schoolgirl, I held the roses up to my chest—trying to cover up the laciest part of my gown—then looked at his mother and gave her a raise of my eyebrows, the kind that says, “Okay, escort my nearly naked body away from your strikingly handsome son now.”
“Anna, meet my son, Liam, art history professor. After visiting me, he’s off to England—a sabbatical—so he can get to know better, experience on a deeper level, the places he talks about.”
“Wow,” was all I said, glancing at him and quickly back to his mother. I could only assume he wanted us out of his way and was hoping for a strong cup of coffee, not a conversation with his mother and her neighbor.
“He’s an artist, too,” she went on, squeezing my arm. “Give him a pencil and a piece of paper and my son will draw you a masterpiece. But Oscar and I, we always told our kids artistic endeavors don’t put food on the table. And he listened. It’s why he got into teaching. You can never go wrong with teaching. And Liam, he’s always been a good boy, nothing but a joy.”
“You pretty much summed up my life story in record time, Mom,” he said, clearing his throat and looking at me. “Well, there goes any mystery surrounding me, Anna. It was a pleasure meeting you.”
I wanted to tell him, “No, there is still mystery around you,” but I was finding it hard to touch my teeth to my tongue and talk. I don’t know why he had this effect on me. We had never met before, I don’t think, yet I felt a familiarity toward him, as if he were the blue sky, white clouds, and fresh air I had known and loved all my life.
“England,” I managed to say.
“Stonehenge,” he told me. “I’m starting at Stonehenge, and from there taking a year, visiting the world’s most famous sacred places—ending, hopefully, at Delphi in Greece. As an assistant professor, I need to write a book so I can work toward tenure.”
I could think of nothing more fascinating, and for the first time in my life I felt aware of space, as if all the particles in the space separating us were dancing, making me want to dance, too, and I wondered in that moment whether Fedelina’s hallway where we were standing was sacred in and of itself.
“Anna’s a writer, too,” Fedelina said.
“What do you write?”
“Chaos,” I said, and then wondered why I had said that.
“Is your chaos published?”
“No,” I laughed. “Not yet.”
“Anna’s also the mother of three kids,” my neighbor chimed in.
“Where did you learn to write?” her son asked me.
“I’m an English literature major,” I told him, noticing he was studying my eyes as if he was interested in what I had to say. Timothy never looked at me this way, never heard anything I had to say. “Where did you learn to draw?” I asked, feeling safer with the attention off me and my writing.
“I don’t know,” he said, gazing at me through his dark-rimmed glasses. “Just drawing, I guess.”
“Liam’s hardly taken any art classes,” his mother said.
I looked back at her son, my eyes asking how that could be true, how a person can create a so-called masterpiece having taken few or no relevant classes.
“I don’t know whether I could sit through a class that tells me how to draw, or how not to draw,” he said. “A class like that would put the fear of artistic gods in me and make drawing a form of homework, a task I have to do and dread.”
“I hear you,” I said, not wanting to tell him I was one of those writers who work in fear of breaking rules, who feels the grammar patrols at her heels, waiting to pull her over every time she writes a word. “But drawing, how interesting,” I said. “What do you draw?”
