Lauraine Snelling Read online

  Something told her there was more going on with him than she realized, maybe more than he realized. But what?

  Lord, I feel like I’m on a bumper car, getting banged from all sides, with no way to get off. And I don’t like it!

  “I guess you could say we’re at a standoff. He won’t give up the move to San Francisco, and I won’t give up Lavender Meadows or my home.”

  Shari Griffeth, long-time friend and faithful prayer partner, stared at Andy over the rim of her china teacup, which was filled with Andy’s trademark lavender tea. “I’m glad you’re not moving, but I sure hate to see you and Martin at odds with each other.”

  Andy sighed. “Me too.”

  “You’ve always gotten along so well. I can’t ever remember a time when a problem came along that the two of you couldn’t resolve.”

  “I guess we’ve just never had a problem this big before.”

  “I’ve lost count of the number of times we’ve moved. It’s never been a really big deal for either of us. But it’s different with you. You have roots and issues we never had.”

  “I tried everything I could think of to make him see what was at stake, but he ignored every point I tried to make.” She glanced around her kitchen-cum-family-room, her favorite room in the house. Drying lavender hung from an old clothes rack, giving the house the same heady fragrance as the workshop in the barn. A brushed-steel rack above the center island held her collection of cookware, including several cast-iron skillets that had belonged to her grandmother and matched the teakettle she used as a steamer in the winter. Blue halfgallon jars filled with a variety of dried beans caught the sunlight from the east-facing bay window. Cushions in green and lavender plaid lined the built-in benches, a favorite place for kids doing homework and cats taking naps.

  “I can forgive him for not understanding what Lavender Meadows means to me and why I don’t want to sell a farm that’s been in my family for generations. His parents moved around a lot, so he never lived in one place very long. I can safely say he never formed an attachment to a house or a piece of land, not even to our house or our land. He liked it all well enough, but he didn’t love it like me and the kids. And I suppose, if I dig real deep, I can forgive him for not taking my parents’ financial problem into consideration. His parents were losers, always sponging off other people to get what they wanted. I don’t even know if he knew any of his grandparents; he’s never mentioned them.” She gasped at her own realization. “Isn’t that terrible that I don’t know that? I should know. I wonder if the kids know.” A stab of guilt sliced straight to her gut. Not for the first time in the last few days, she realized she didn’t know her husband as well as she’d thought she did.

  Shari drew circles on the plaid tablecloth, which matched the seat covers. “Speaking of the kids, what do they say about all this?”

  “I haven’t told them yet. No sense getting them all upset until I know more. Everything is kind of up in the air right now, at least as far as I’m concerned.” Andy held up her cup. “Need a refill?” She poured more tea into her cup, topped off Shari’s, then sat and stared off into space. “But I can’t forgive him for acting like my business was nothing,” she said, picking up where she’d left off before the segue into guilt and the kids. “After all our hard work! I am so angry at him that if he were here, I-I’d—” She clenched her fist and huffed. “Arsenic in his tea perhaps, or rather his coffee. He never has liked tea much, especially my lavender tea.”

  “It occurs to me that he doesn’t like anything to do with lavender,” Shari observed. “Could he be jealous?”

  Andy squinched her face. “Of what?”

  “Of you. Of your success. I mean … you are a success, Andy. You turned a hobby into a moneymaking business, and you gave your parents the means to keep their home and support themselves throughout their later years.” She nodded, obviously sure of herself.

  Andy tipped her head back and stared up at the ceiling. “I never thought of that. I suppose he could be, but … ”

  “Look at Meredith Robinson,” Shari said, pointing her index finger. “She started out selling cosmetics at home parties, earning one or two hundred a party. Little by little she worked her way up to regional manager, then district manager, then to general manger of the company. Ted Robinson couldn’t take his wife not always being home to fix dinner or tuck him in bed at night, so he left her and went to live with his brother. And remember Jill Evans? She started out writing romance novels, which her husband thought was very funny and teased her about constantly. But when she got an advance that was more than Ralph made in a year, he asked for a divorce. A lot of men can’t handle it when their wives become successful. It does something to their ego.”

  Andy stared into her tea. She had never looked at herself that way—a success—but she could see where some people might think so. Obviously, Shari thought so. If Martin thought so, he’d never told her. For that matter, he’d never given an indication that he considered her work more than just her “little hobby.” That he had never acknowledged her accomplishments irked her, but she’d never said anything. It wasn’t worth getting upset with him. Blessed are the peacemakers. That had always been her life verse. She wondered now if she’d made a mistake. Maybe if she had gotten upset with him, he would have seen Lavender Meadows for what it was—successful. Not something you just threw away.

  Not much later Shari headed for home, promising to keep praying about Andy’s situation.

  Andy spent the evening writing up orders that had come in from her Web site and answering e-mails from friends and family. Just before ten, she glanced at the clock, then closed by sending her nightly message to her kids. She had no sooner mentioned that she’d spent the morning cleaning closets than Bria instant-messaged her back.

 

 

 

 

 

  Why do I have to have such a perceptive daughter? I should have kept my mouth, er, rather my fingers shut, er, still.

  Camden bleeped in. Daughters were not the only perceptive ones.

  Camden was going for his master’s in geology at Montana State, thanks to Bria’s encouragement.

  Andy blew out a full-cheeked breath and sent the same message to both.

  They both still did it, turned Mom into a three-syllable word, even on the computer screen.

  Bria, her eldest daughter, had always known she was her father’s favorite, even more so now that she was pursuing corporate life on the fast track. She was barely twenty-nine and already an executive in a communications company. Andy often wondered if Martin was vicariously reliving his life through Bria.

  She mentally stopped herself from going there. She glanced at her calendar. Martin would be in St. Louis tonight, and tomorrow morning he would have breakfast with his new client. Should I have asked how his trip was going? Andy pondered the thought. How long had it been since her husband discussed his travels with her? Or more to the point, how long since she’d asked him about them, other than the perfunctory “How was your trip?”

  Bria wrote.

  Knowing that Martin kept in regular e-mail contact with his kids had always cheered Andy. They had more contact with him through the Internet than actual face-to-face talking time, but they didn’t seem to mind. Of the three, Morgan, their youngest, was the only telephone addict.

  Speak of the angels. Ten thirty and the phone rang.

  “Hi sweetie.” Andy tucked the phone between shoulder and ear and typed to the two online.

  “Mom, do y
ou miss me as much as I miss you?”

  Andy could hear the sob behind the words and knew Morgan was still suffering from acute homesickness. It had been three weeks since Andy had taken her youngest to college. Thank God for cell phones and long-distance family-calling plans.

  “Of course I do. Why?” What was happening with her little chick now?

  “I don’t know. I just feel like I’d rather be home. I should have gone to school in Medford.”

  “But you always dreamed of PLU.” She pronounced it as one word. Sometimes Andy felt like they were paying for a new science wing, what with all the money they’d sent north to Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, over the years.

  “You know, Mom, all my life I’ve been the third Taylor, behind an overachiever and a Mensa candidate. Then there is me-of-little-brains.”

  “Sorry, can’t do much about the birth order now,” Andy joked as she clicked Check Mail to see if there was a message from her husband. Nothing. Before this weekend, he had always e-mailed her last thing before heading for bed. And bed was earlier back in St. Louis. She signed off the computer. “What brought on this, um, attack?” she asked into the phone.

  “The profs expect me to do as well as B and C.” Morgan called her sister and brother B and C whenever speaking of the two of them. At one time she’d gone on a short-term revolt to make sure that she wasn’t known as a goody two shoes like they had been. “So?”

  “So, Mother, I want to have a life.”

  “Far as I can tell, you are still breathing.” Andy knew she would receive the long, sighed-out “Mother!” but couldn’t resist. Morgan did not like to be teased. A silence grew louder for its length. “All right, I’m sorry for the smart remarks. What is it?”

  The answer came stiffly. “I’m just warning you in advance not to expect straight As.”

  She’d heard this before, like at the beginning of every school year, with this youngest child. But having said that, Morgan would dig in and work herself into a frenzy to make sure she measured up.

  “I mean it.”

  “Sweetie, I’m sure you do, but now you have to listen to me. I have never required straight As from you. I know what you are capable of, but I also know how hard you work. I want you to enjoy college, to get a great education, but that doesn’t mean you have to be on the dean’s list every semester.”

  “What if I’m never on the dean’s list? What if I am the only Taylor sibling to never make the list?”

  “So?” Andy knew her shrug wouldn’t be heard, but this child always worried needlessly.

  “So what will Dad say?”

  “Perhaps you should ask him.”

  “I can’t wait until Thanksgiving.” Morgan ignored her mother’s remark. “I want to come home so bad. How’re Henny and Chai Lai?”

  Andy glanced over to the rocking chair. “Chai Lai is sound asleep in her chair as usual, and Henny is out on her roost with her head tucked under her wing.” She chanted the latter like an old camp song they used to sing, about some ghoul with his head tucked underneath his arm.

  Morgan didn’t acknowledge her mother’s attempt at humor. “Mom, what if I don’t want to come back here next semester?”

  “I’d say it’s too early to make a judgment call like that yet. Did you know that Bria felt the same as you for the first couple of months she was at college?”

  “No way!” she said, obviously surprised by the news.

  “Yes, she did. All she could think about was missing home and Comet and her family and Comet … ” There, she’d brought a slight giggle to her daughter’s voice. “It’ll be okay, Morgan, really it will.”

  “Thanks, Mom. I gotta go.”

  Andy could now hear what sounded like relief in her daughter’s voice. “God loves you, and so do I.”

  “I know, just you both feel so far away right now.”

  “Good night, little one.” Andy clung to the phone after Morgan hung up until the buzz came on the line. Lord, please go to her in a real way. This is breaking my heart, and yet I know she is where You want her to be. Father, she is the prettiest one, the one who looks most like her father, so why does she have the problem with … with being shy, with not being sure of herself? Is it because the other two are so sure? Please, if it is something I—we—said or did … This sigh came from the very bottom of her heart. “Please, please make up for any mistakes we—I made.” She leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. “God, I don’t want to move to San Francisco. And I don’t want to live my life without my husband at my side.”

  Are you going to trust Me?

  “Yes, of course I trust You.” She caught her breath and thought about what she’d just said. What are You asking of me? No wonder Peter got a bit put out when Jesus asked him three times, “Do you love me?” Tears welled up in her throat, a hot, hard lump of them. The back of her eyes and nose burned, so hot was the moisture. “I am sick and tired of crying too. You know that?”

  Chai Lai, her seven-year-old, cross-eyed Siamese cat, purred from her chair, stood up, and arched her back, stretching every muscle as only felines do. She leaped to the floor and, tail like a question mark, minced her way between the buckets of cut lavender stems. When the cat got close enough, Andy reached out, scooped her up in her arms, and buried a tear-streaked face in the warm fur.

  The week went by, and Andy and Martin communicated only through the Internet. His e-mails came first thing in the morning and never at night before he went to bed as they used to. He never mentioned the new job, moving, or whether or not he’d spoken with the powers-that-be about her circumstances. Instead of the newsy, interesting e-mails he used to send, the morning messages were short and to the point: or

  Only hard work drove the demons from Andy’s mind. But even harvesting lavender—much as she enjoyed gathering in the purple blossoms, stems, and seeds—left too much freedom to think about things, about her and Martin. She kept hearing Are you going to trust Me? in her heart, and a particular scripture kept circling in her head, “For wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge, I will lodge” If she lived by that scripture or the message in the country-western songs, she thought, she should stand by her man and move to San Francisco.

  When the weekend came and went without Martin making an appearance, she called him on his cell phone. She fought to appear unconcerned as to where he was or who he might be with. “Martin, we have to talk. I don’t want to live my life without you. I love you.” Handset to ear, she sat down in the kitchen and spooned honey into her teacup. Maybe the tea would help keep her calm. And maybe the honey would help sweeten her tongue.

  He heaved a sigh that echoed through the phone lines. “Me too. I don’t know what the solution is for all this. I have a week left before I have to give them my answer.”

  “Honey, I know that if we put our heads together, we can figure out a workable solution. Did you talk to them about our, I mean, my situation here?”

  “No. I haven’t had a chance, but it won’t do any good. It’s their way or no way.”

  Andy bit back the retort that popped into her head. Make nice, Andy. Use your motherly coaxing skills. “Come on now, honey. Surely once you explain, they’ll understand. You can tell them we’re working toward the time when I can hire someone.”

  “As if that would ever happen,” he was quick to reply.

  Shari’s words came back to her like a slap in the face. Could he be jealous? “What do you mean by that? I told you before that there isn’t enough cash flow right now to hire someone, but as soon as there is, I will.”

  “You’ll move here, to San Francisco?”

  “Yes. And no. If moving there means giving up our home here, no. But I would certainly consider staying there a few weeks at a time. We could have two homes. Would that work for you?” She put all her love and encouragement into her voice.

&n
bsp; “We can’t afford two homes, Andy. Are you nuts?” Against all the screaming going on in her head, she kept her voice even. “But you said they offered a big raise and big semiannual bonuses. Maybe you should tell me just how big big is.”

  Silence met her outburst. Then, “We’ll talk about this later, when I get home next weekend.”

  “Martin, listen to me—” But all she heard was the dial tone. She pulled the handset away from her head and glared at it, as if it were to blame for his hanging up on her. “Martin J. Taylor, you’re a coward!” she shouted at the inoffensive instrument. “You need to grow up, fella, and learn to deal with the problem, instead of running from it.”

  She gulped at what had burst from her mouth and then sat down at the computer, ready to write him a blistering e-mail. But the tears blurred her eyes so badly she couldn’t see the screen to know what she had typed. If Martin really loves me, why won’t he talk to his boss? Why won’t he try to help me come up with a solution?

  Out of the blue, two answers surfaced in her mind. Maybe he didn’t love her anymore, and maybe the reason he wouldn’t cooperate with her was because he didn’t really want her to move to San Francisco.

  Hurriedly, Andy dried her tears and punched out a hot one-liner:

  Surprisingly, his reply e-mail came back immediately.

  “Then prove it. Tell your boss my circumstances.”

  Looking in the mirror after a night of crying was not a good idea. Her hair looked as though she’d stuck her finger in a light socket—gray caught the light, bright silver against the dark mink strands. When had all those appeared? She moved closer to the mirror and looked at her bloodshot eyes. Martin always said she had laughing eyes. Well, not today. They were so swollen it would be impossible for anyone to discern that they were hazel. Green and red were great Christmas colors, but they did nothing for her eyes and skin. She turned to head back to bed but sat down at the vanity instead. Perhaps if she applied a mask and left it on for a week, it would tighten the drooping under her eyes and the corners of her mouth.