Solomon's Oak (19 page)

“The person would go back to that store and give them the money or the toy or both. And apologize.”

“Couldn’t the person just send it in the mail, anonymously? Like people do with petrified wood in the Painted Desert? I read online that people who stole those rocks all had bad luck until they mailed them back to the park rangers. They have a whole room of them and letters from the people who took them telling all the bad things that happened to them after.”

“That sounds like guilt to me. Let me ask you something. How would a person learn their lesson without facing the store manager they stole from, and hearing how shoplifting affects their business? Stealing a dog toy—what, a nickel’s worth of fabric?—could get a person charged with a misdemeanor, which goes on a juvenile record. That kind of stuff adds up. Pretty soon everyone will look at you and say, ‘There goes sticky fingers.’ ”

“I wash my hands as much as you do.”

“It’s a figure of speech, Juniper.”

“What does that mean?”

“Look it up.”

They took a time-out while Juniper consulted the computer’s dictionary. “ ‘Departing from a literal use of words, metaphorical.’ And before you ask me what that means, I already looked it up, too. Comparing something to something else that isn’t really like it at all. Like ‘the moon is a silver coin in the sky’ when really it’s a cold, dead, hunk-of-rock satellite that stupid people pretend is romantic.” She feigned gagging.

Glory concentrated on rolling out cookie dough and cutting perfect snowflakes. Juniper made a big point out of washing her hands, then, without being asked, she began to load up the cookie sheets. Such a feeling of incapability washed over Glory that she didn’t know what else to say. She handed Juniper the rolling pin. “One secret to making perfect cookies is to always let the oven heat up for an hour before you bake. I don’t know why, but the cookies turn out better.”

“Who taught you that?”

“My grandmother Denise Smith.”

“Where’s she live?”

“She used to live in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In a house made of adobe bricks. She died when I was a teenager.”

“What’s adobe?”

“Clay, soil, water, straw, and, in the old days, ox blood.”

“Ick. Who’d want to live in a house with the walls made of animal blood?”

“They used it on the floors, not the walls.”

“Oh, my gosh, you could never go barefoot. Wouldn’t it stink? So do you miss your grandmother like you miss your husband?”

Whenever Juniper asked her about death, Glory struggled to phrase her words carefully, because she knew Juniper was really talking about her sister, Casey. “Grandma Denise lived her life with a serenity I wish I’d inherited. She could bake anything. Her
biscochitos
were out of this world. She had a good, long life, though I wish we’d had her around longer.” Glory handed Juniper the spatula. “Take your time when you put the cookies down onto the baking sheet. If you hurry, they fold over on the edges. We don’t want crooked snowflakes.”

Juniper slid more cookies onto another tray. “It’s lame,” she said, after stopping to pop one of the silver dragées into her mouth, “when the people you love are somewhere else.”

“You mean dead?”

Juniper nodded. “I don’t believe in heaven.”

“I’m not sure I do, either. And that makes it even harder, doesn’t it?”

Juniper said nothing, so Glory took a chance. “Is that why you take things? To have something permanent of your own? I’d understand if that was the case, honey, but it would still be wrong.”

Juniper slid the cookie sheets into the oven. She set the timer, then stepped back from the counter and reached into her back pocket, pulling out a wrinkled piece of paper, which she flattened out on the counter. It was a receipt for a clearance-item, ninety-nine-cent dog toy, paid for with cash. Then she turned, patted her leg to call Cadillac, and went to her room, ignoring the apology Glory called after her.

At three
A.M.
Glory woke from a dream in which Juniper was heavily pregnant and in handcuffs.
Tell them I didn’t do it,
she begged her. Juniper was dressed in tattered clothing, looking homeless. Her facial piercings had multiplied until Glory could hardly see her expression. Try as she might, Glory couldn’t fall back to sleep, which was maddening, because she really needed to. She went into the closet, sat down, and pulled the door shut. She pulled her knees up so she could rest her face and arms on them and hugged Dan’s shirt to try to muffle the crying that came out of her as easily as blood spilling from a wound. Edsel scratched on the closet door. “Go back to bed,” she whispered. He whined, and Glory knew he’d wake up Juniper if she didn’t let him in, so she opened the door so he could slip inside. Immediately he began butting his head against the hem of her nightgown, wanting underneath so he could burrow for a warm spot like the one he’d left under the covers. Good to know that while my heart is breaking, my house dog thinks only of his own comfort, Glory thought. She hated the way her heart beat erratically and how the tears were unstoppable. Stupid grief had a system all its own, governed by something larger than her willpower. Some days it was as if the tears needed to be shed only to make room for a fresh supply. Would this ever end? There were days she hated Dan so much she could have socked him in the nose. What kind of loving widow fantasized about such things? She told herself that a pregnant Juniper was a metaphor, a symbol of something, and the dream had come out of the dictionary discussion. Metaphor, the moon … but of what, besides a teenaged mother? Casual sex, as Lorna warned, a future that was on its way, like it or not? She leaned back and felt something against her butt. When she looked behind her, she saw that it was Dan’s boots, polished to a sheen, laces tied, set back exactly where Juniper had found them. Glory wanted to scream. Once again, Juniper had gone into the closet without permission.

That did it for the possibility of sleep. She showered, dressed in work clothes, and went into the kitchen to start cooking.

The couple had a special request: handmade, sweet-cream butter and freshly baked sourdough bread. As soon as the sun was up, Glory called her mom, who had never slept past daybreak in her life.

“Whip heavy cream in a stainless steel bowl over another, larger bowl, filled with crushed ice,” she said. “Then rinse it and gently press out the liquid in a sieve. I used to let you girls make it for holidays. Kept you busy and out of my hair. Failproof.”

“I wish you hadn’t said that. Now I’m jinxed. How long do you beat it? All I have is handheld mixers.”

“Then you are going to get yourself one heck of a workout. I’d drive over and help you, but you know how my hands are,” Ave Smith said, referring to her inflammatory arthritis. The term sounded inconsequential, like pain aspirin should take care of. But because her body was constantly inflammed, her organs functioned under stress, and worse, her joints hurt her so much that she’d had to give up her passions, gardening and knitting, and needed a special card holder when she played bridge.

“What’s the doctor say these days?” Glory asked.

“Oh, he wants me to go on some new kind of medicine. They give it to you in a drip, like chemotherapy, once a month, but one dose costs more than a used car! I told him no way. If I hurt real bad, I take half a Tylenol.”

“Half? Mom, does that really do anything?”

“I don’t intend to get addicted to drugs, Glory.”

Glory knew better than to argue when her mother got huffy. “So what do you think about Christmas? Having a cup of cider here so you can meet Juniper, and then we head over to the Butterfly Creek? There’ll be a bluegrass gospel band. I know how much you love gospel music.”

“Sounds good to me. It’s Halle you have to convince.”

Glory sighed. “I think Bart’ll enjoy it.”

Her mother laughed. “He won’t if Halle tells him not to. How did you two girls turn out so differently?”

“I don’t know, Mom. Maybe my genes got tweaked. We ate a lot of hormone-enhanced beef.”

“Don’t start with that. We bought what was affordable. I don’t see it had much of an effect on your bosom.”

That was it. “I’d better hang up. The florist is here.”

“Good luck, honey. Call me when the dust settles and tell me all about it.”

“Christmas Eve, I can pick you up if you don’t want to drive.”

“Halle just got a new Volvo. If I don’t let her drive me over, I’ll never hear the end of it. Besides, I’m right on their way.”

“Love you, Mom,” Glory said, and hung up just as Beryl Reilly Stokes opened the front door. “Hey,” Glory said, turning. “Ever made twenty pounds of butter by hand?”

Beryl laughed. “Actually, I have. In a convent home for unwed mothers. Easter butter lambs to sell to support the church. Got a second mixer?”

Glory handed hers over and fetched the other one. “I’ll pay you for your time.”

“Not necessary,” Beryl insisted. “This’ll go fast. Then we can concentrate on the flowers. Which came out beautifully. You’re going to be so pleased.”

Juniper skulked by, a peanut butter sandwich in hand.

“That your daughter?” Beryl whispered.

“Yes. My foster daughter.”

“Handful?”

“Oh, she’s a good kid. I just wish she’d develop a relationship with the truth. But her mood’s my fault. I accused her of something she didn’t do. Not even blackberry pancakes with whipped cream can make up for it.”

“You need more ice in your bowl,” Beryl said.

Glory looked at her. “I don’t know. My bowl feels pretty darn icy already.”

Beryl laughed. “Things’ll warm up. When I turned forty, I thought that my love life was long over, but in the last five years I’ve had three boyfriends. Of course, one was a liar and another a bird whisperer with practically no income.”

“A bird whisperer?”

“Handsome, half-Native raptor rehabber, broke, a different drummer, but what a lover.”

“What about the third guy?”

“Retired detective who followed me here from Alaska. He saved my life, so I had to marry him.”

“Tell me if it’s none of my business, but it sounds like you have some regrets?”

Beryl looked out the window at the wintry scene Glory had watched change from dark to dawn to a morning so chilly she’d needed Dan’s down jacket while she broke the ice on the horses’ water trough. Underfoot, the grass crackled. Snow wouldn’t stick, but they might get a dusting in time for Christmas.

“How does a woman answer that question?” Beryl said. “I mean, my first marriage was terrible, but like an idiot I hung in, and I paid for it dearly. When I was single, living with the women on the farm, I don’t think I’ve ever been happier. Yet, like a moron, I left them for the wealthy liar who seemed too good to be true. Guess what? He was. Well, I got to see Alaska, the last frontier. And I met Thomas Jack, who was happy living in a Quonset hut with a single woodstove for heat. I love Mike. He treats me gently, but lets me go my own way when I need to. We never run out of things to talk about. He’s a good cook and he likes my parrot. I’d miss him if he were gone the same way I know you miss your Dan. But truthfully, there’s a part of me that longs for exclusively female company across the kitchen table. We worked beside each other, raised each other’s kids, laughed over old movies, and there were days we ate crème brûlée for breakfast.”

“Crème brûlée? I didn’t know what I was missing.”

Beryl smiled. “Come visit the farm sometime. Help out for an afternoon. It’s hard work, but nonstop fun. Instead of keeping them locked inside, we share our sorrows. That makes it so much easier to go on.”

When the butter was finished, Glory used the melon baller to scoop out curls, setting them on a platter and covering them with waxed parchment. When it was full, Beryl helped her find a spot for it in the fridge. They were just finishing the final tray when Juniper walked back into the kitchen.

“I set the poinsettias up in the chapel and I put the roses and bouquets in the cooler.”

“Thank you, sweetie,” Glory said. “That was awfully nice of you. Juniper, this is Mrs. Stokes.”

Juniper sighed and would not make eye contact with Glory, but couldn’t resist the opportunity to zing her. “I have to
prove
myself,” she said to Beryl. “Mrs. Solomon doesn’t trust me.”

“Juniper, that’s not so,” Glory said. “And please stop calling me that.”

“Life, Mrs. Solomon, as you so often like to point out to me, isn’t fair.”

Glory sighed.

Beryl looked right back at Juniper. “Sounds like you’re in charge of the flowers, so here’s what you need to know. The rosebuds need to rest in the bucket of water in a cool, dark place. That’s called conditioning. When you’re ready to make the centerpieces, be sure to cut them at a forty-five-degree angle and do the cutting
underwater
. Fill the vases with equal amounts of lukewarm water and lemon-lime soda. Don’t worry, I brought some. Make sure the waterline is below any leaves or they’ll rot. If you need to cut them to fit the vase, put them back in the soda immediately so they’ll soak up the solution.”

“That’s a lot to remember,” Juniper said.