Warm Wuinter's Garden (36 page)

“Sure you do, honey. The leaves looks like
marijuana and the flowers look like orchids and smell like skunk.
Remember now?”

“With that description, yeah. Sure. It gets
huge, right? And has thorns?”

“Yes. Cleome sends us a mixed message.”

“Like life, Mom?”

Bett put the purple cleome down on the
scarred counter and reached back into the box.

“Zinnia. Candy Cane.”

She shook another small jar that once might
have held jam. She licked her lips and leered at Nita.

“Tomatoes. Romas, but real Romas from seeds
the Antellis brought back from Italy.”

“My God, Mom, how long ago was that? It must
be ten years. I don’t think I was even in law school yet.”

“At least ten years.”

“You’ve saved the seeds of those seeds for
ten years?”

“Sure.”

“You’re incredible.”

“I like what I like. These are wonderful
tomatoes. They’re so much better than any plum I can get here. They
remind me of the ones Opa used to grow.”

“Why would a German jeweler grow Italian
tomatoes?”

Bett stood still for a moment with the jar in
her hand.

“I don’t really know. I can’t remember them
ever being used in a tomato sauce. Oma never made anything like
that. Mainly, we just cut them in half and salt and peppered them
and ate them. I always liked them because they weren’t too seedy.
Since we’ve been in Rhode Island, now I know what to do with them.
Anyway, I like having them; it’s worth a little effort.”

Bett held up more jars and several creased
envelopes.

“Morning glories. Beggar’s lice. Spanish
broom. More zinnias. Pumpkins. Luffa squash.”

Nita’s sense of wonderment at her mother’s
hoard of seeds mutated into revulsion as her mother began
displaying other seeds—basil, cicoria, fennel—that were contained
in brown plastic pill vials. She held tight to her feelings and
continued to nod and speak her approval.

“What’s first?’

“That’s probably a moot issue. It’s already
late to be starting a lot of this. For the tomatoes, eggplant,
snaps and peppers, I’m at least a couple of weeks behind.
Especially after such a warm winter. I’m not too bad for basil or
zinnias.”

“Is it really that late?”

“Normally, I wouldn’t have planted my starts
until maybe early last week, but it’s been so warm I think
everything will go in early this year.”

“What if it gets cold?”

“Cold would be very nice. I’ve learned to
love the cold. If it does turn cold, then pinch, pinch, pinch. I’ll
end up with some very pot-bound, eager-to-grow seedlings.

Later, after hundreds of seeds had been
hidden inside the moist richness of Bett’s potting compost, Nita
asked, “Where are you going to put all of this stuff?”

“A lot goes into the gardens.”

“But there’s so much here. What about the
rest?”

“Well, I always grow a few flats for friends.
Some more for the church plant sale. And some for the Historical
Society sale. Obviously, I won’t be making much of a contribution
to them this year. And, then, I usually take a few flats and plant
them around.”

“Like where?”

“The veterans’ memorial and a couple of old
untended graves I like in that little cemetery back behind
Howsers.”

“And no change this year?”

Irritation, the quick scowl of a tired mother
with an insistent child, flicked across Bett’s face.

“Nita, after what I’ve just been
through.”

Bett stopped and corrected herself.

“After what I’ve just done, I think it’s more
important I do it this year than ever before.”

“Why?”

“Why? Well, one, just for the strength of
habit. So much of my life is in chaos I need to hold on to what
isn’t. It’s affirming. Plants—flowers and food—are life-affirming.
And I need to remember that. “Gratitude. Things aren’t right. They
certainly aren’t as I would have them, but I’m not dying in the
sand in some strange war far away from home. I’m not abandoned or
forgotten.

Bett paused for a moment.

“And, then, Ellen.”

“Ellen?”

“My friend. The woman I met in the
hospital.”

“Oh, I remember. The woman with the
colostomy.”

“Yes. She insists.”

“Insists?”

“That I try to maintain my habits. She’s very
positive. She’s very solid. We’ve visited a lot lately, and when we
do, a lot of my confusion disappears. For a time, anyway. Obviously
from the dithering you heard earlier, not all of it. I’m not sure
why all of that came out.”

A tenderness which Nita could never remember
feeling before sweep over her.

“Probably because it was in there and wanted
out.”

“Ellen gets a lot of it.”

“I’m glad.”

“Are you?”

“Yes, of course. Why do you say that?”

“It upsets Dilly.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It bothers Dilly both that I’ve had all this
confusion and, maybe worse, that I take most of it to Ellen.”

“Rather than to Dilly?”

“Yes.”

“Forget it, Mom. Dilly always wants to own
everything and mother everybody. You talk to whomever you feel like
talking to.”

“People get possessive about some very
peculiar things.”

“They do. Most of the lawyers I know, even
ones with huge practices, practices that are absolutely out of
control, don’t make many referrals. They’d rather stagger through
on a case dealing with some aspect of the law about which they know
nothing rather than pass it on. And fathers who have ignored their
kids for years don’t want their wives to have custody.”

Bett used the edges of her hands to gather
the potting soil that remained on the bench. As her mother formed
the spillage into a mound, Nita lifted the nearly empty basin and
held it against the edge of the workbench. When Bett drew her hands
back, the spilled dirt cascaded into the old white enameled
tub.

“Good team, huh?”

“Very good team, honey.”

“Not to emulate my older sister, but is there
something I can do to help with dinner?”

“You could make a salad.”

“That’s it?”

“Everything else got done earlier.”

“Why did I guess that?”

“The power of habit. It can get us through a
lot of bad days.”

Bett leaned against the work bench to take
some weight off her leg.

“I think I’ll lie down for awhile.”

“What about Dad?”

“He should be on time. He knows you’re
coming.”

In the middle of setting the table and baking
the scrod, and shredding carrots and tearing romaine, when there
was so much to do that each was provided with a bolt-hole of
activity, in a voice flat, quiet and calm, Bett asked Nita if she
would help her make out a living will.

After a dinner during which her mother ate
almost nothing, but kept her mouth full of household words and
where her father ate heartily but, unusually, in almost full
silence, Nita took a short walk along the silent, amber-lighted
lanes of Clarke’s Cove. Later, after an hour of desultory
conversation and several hands of rummy, everyone went to bed.

In the morning, after breakfast and after her
mother left for a doctor’s appointment, Nita called an acquaintance
from law school with a practice in Providence.

As yet, Rhode Island didn’t have living
wills, although they might get to it by the end of the present
legislative session—if there were time after all the banking and
ethics and budget issues were taken care of. The state dealt with
its citizens’ ideas of the good life with a durable power of
attorney for health care. The client instructed a friend, the
friend instructed the doctors. He could mail her the form, or if
she were in a hurry the easiest thing would be for her to pick up
the form from the nearest fire chief. No, he had no idea why the
state had chosen the fire chiefs as conduits. Just Rhode Island
logic. Rhode Island politics.

Half-way out the door to the fire station, a
thought stopped Nita. She made her way to the plant room. The green
and black cartons that were arranged all around the sunlight-soaked
room looked exactly as they had the afternoon before. There was no
sound beyond her breathing; there was no movement except her own;
there was no smell except for the mushroom smell of the soil
itself, yet, Nita knew, inside each carton’s incubative cells,
water and warmth were making miracles. In a moment, or a day or
two, dehiscent seeds would spill their marrow. Following a plan
programmed into them over a thousand generations, the hardest of
materials would soften. Cells would double and double and double
again. Hard brown seed would twist itself into translucent tender
flesh. The most delicate of strands would heave through a mound of
dirt to lead itself to light. Silver would turn green. A pointed
sprout would unfurl a set of tiny leaves. More leaves. More leaves.
Flower. Fruit. The most mundane act—billions and billions of seeds
turned into millions of acres of wheat—and the most exotic—in less
than ninety days, a hard black dot, smaller than a poppy seed, turn
into a five foot cleome with dangling pods, ten inch blossoms of
wands and petals, thorns, a strange smell—were miracles that had
been too small or too big ever to have been much noticed by her.
Gripping the edge of the worn work bench Nita lowered herself to
her knees.

After a few seconds of being without thought
and without prayer and feeling mortified, Nita pulled herself back
up on her feet and half ran to her car.

* * *

“Hi, how was it?”

Bett shrugged.

“I picked up the forms while you were
gone.”

“The living will?”

“Yes. Except that here it’s called a durable
power of attorney for health care. It’s not quite the same. You
need to choose someone and tell them your wishes. I read through
it. It’s pretty simple. If and when, let me know and we’ll go
through it.”

“I can’t just make my wishes known?”

“No, you have to pick someone who acts as
your agent.”

“Oh. I think I’ll rest for a few
minutes.”

“Sure. I’ll start something for lunch. Are
you hungry for anything special?”

“In my mind, I’m always hungry, but nothing
much ever wants to go down when it’s actually in front of me.”

In less than twenty minutes Bett joined Nita
in the kitchen.

“Can we do it now?”

“You sure?”

“I’d like to get it done.”

The flushes surging through Nita felt exactly
the same as the breakers of nausea which always preceded the crest
of her period.

“I’ll go get it.”

Nita hoped her hurried exit looked like
purposefulness rather than flight. The wind she made as she rushed
to her bedroom helped to cool the hot spots that had formed under
her eyes and over her temples.

Sitting next to her mother at the kitchen
table, Nita heard herself explaining things too quickly. She
commanded herself to slow down. She had walked many people through
many pages of dense print meant to change their lives. This was no
different. Her mother was a client.

“Whoever you choose as your agent, as your
attorney in fact, has the right to tell your doctors what to do.
Your agent can deny consent to treat, to maintain, and even to
diagnose. You have the option of spelling out, in as much detail as
you wish, types of treatment you wouldn’t want to go through. For
example, you could say no to more surgery but yes to another round
of chemotherapy, or you could allow yourself to be fed
intravenously, but keep yourself from being put on a respirator, or
on one for more than a week, or a month or a year. Whatever you
want.

“In these paragraphs, here and here, you’re
told you can revoke or override the POA, sorry, power of attorney,
anytime you want, as long as you’re of sound mind.

“Here, you’re given the right to limit the
decisions of the agent.

“The places I’ve marked with checks explain
that attending physicians and employees of health care facilities
can’t act as your agents. All of this, obviously, makes everybody a
little jumpy. You have to have two witnesses. Your agent or an
alternative agent, if you chose to have one, can’t be a witness.
And, here, one of the witnesses has to be disinterested—not related
by blood or marriage and, as far as the person knows, not entitled
to any part of your estate.

“You see, it’s simple. But I’m not too sure
it’s going to be easy. This kind of stuff never is. You may want to
talk to your doctors to find out what’s involved in worst case
scenarios and work back from there.”

In the same distracted manner in which she
had nodded her head while Nita had gone through the form, Bett
said, “Yes, honey, that sounds like a good idea.”

“Have you talked to Dad about, I hate this
phrase, your wishes? Because none of us wish for any of this.”

Bett’s “no” sounded to Nita as if her mother
were upset at the question.

“You haven’t? Why not, Mom?”

“He’s been so busy at work.”

“Oh, Mom, c’mon. One of the best things about
Dad is he’s always been there when anyone needed him.”

“This is different.”

“How?”

“He’s never had this many problems. He’s very
worried about what people will think about him after the hearings
were on TV. The bank has never had this many problems. He’s very
distracted.”

“I guess you’re right. Last night was weird.
I’ve never seen him so quiet. This has been a hell of a year, but I
still think it must be something else. If you wanted to talk about
this, I can’t imagine his response being anything but encouragement
and support.”

“You think it’s my fault?”

“No, you know, I don’t mean that. My God,
none of this is easy. I know that. And you know that I know that.
You’re not used to being a patient. No one’s used to you being
sick. On almost anyone’s list, you’d be the last person anyone
would ever imagine being sick. So there are lots of reasons for
everyone to be miscommunicating. I’ve seen a lot of divorces where
one or both parties could never have imagined themselves divorced.
Those are usually some of the worst ones because the disbeliever
keeps sliding out of the situation. They keep shutting their eyes
and, then, opening them expecting to find themselves back in
Kansas. But Kansas and Toto and Auntie Em are long gone.”