"Right. After Rachmaninoff. She doesn't talk about him much, but I know she misses him. It's got to be so awful when you get to be that age and your friends are dying off. I think Rocky was a good companion to her."
"I take in foster dogs. If you ever think she's up to having another pup around, let me know and we'll find her one."
"Maybe when she gets stronger," Rachel said. "I had to leave my own dog in San Antonio. My son's watching him, so I know he's all right, but I still miss him."
Rachel Huber missed her dog. This woman was okay. "What kind of dog do you have?"
"Boxer. His name's Phoenix. He's cuddly, though. Not the usual boxer personality."
"All dogs are cuddly at heart." Lily sat her up, dried her off, and walked her back to the station, where she began wrapping Rachel's hair around white and purple rods. Rachel asked her questions about the foster dogs, Lily's favorite topic.
"My landlord thinks I only have two dogs." Lily laughed. "When she comes over, I have to hide the others."
"Well, if you ever need help with that, give me a call," Rachel offered. "You can hide the dogs at my grandmother's, and she and I can get our needs for canine affection met."
Rachel sounded as if she meant it, and Lily liked her better than ever.
She snipped the top off the waving lotion and began saturating the rods. She hoped Rachel was not aware of how blatantly Polly and CeeCee and Marge were watching them, as if they were waiting to see what Lily would do with this perfect opportunity for revenge at her fingertips.
"You're just here till Helen's on her feet again?" Lily asked.
"I'll probably stay till the end of the summer," Rachel answered. "Although I could stay longer if I have to. I'm a teacher, but I'm taking next year off."
She was still teaching? Lily felt a little jolt. For some reason, she hadn't expected that.
"Reflection must be quite a change after San Antonio," she said.
She thought she detected a second's hesitation before Rachel answered. "Yes, but I know Reflection pretty well. I grew up here. On Water Street."
Lily nodded. "I know," she said quietly. "Do you still have some friends here?"
"Well, at least one. A guy named Michael Stoltz, who—"
"Michael!" Lily said. "He's a friend of yours? He's the minister of my church."
Rachel smiled into the mirror. "I hadn't seen him in a long time. It surprised me to discover he'd become a minister."
"Oh, he couldn't be anything else. He's so great. He married my husband and me. And he headed my youth group a billion years ago. He was so cool." It had been her last year in youth group and Michael's first year as a minister. She had adored him, even had a crush on him for a while. She could talk to Michael about anything. He was one of the few adults in her life who hadn't locked horns with her. He'd encouraged her questioning, her belligerence. "I cut his hair," she said. "His wife's, too. Everyone adores Michael—except for a few diehards who don't think he should have been allowed to be a minister, since he wasn't raised in a Mennonite family. Did you go to Reflection Junior-Senior High together?"
"Uh-huh. And college. And we did the Peace Corps together, too."
"No kidding? I'd forgotten he was in the Peace Corps."
"Yes. We were in a little village in Rwanda together." Rachel began talking about the work she and Michael had done overseas, and Lily knew very quickly that Rachel's feelings for Michael went beyond friendship. And Katy was out of town until October. Her mind clicked with the possibilities. She'd bet Rachel could get Michael laughing again. It had been a while since she'd seen a genuine smile on the minister's face.
She'd never understood that marriage. Michael was outgoing, a real people person. Katy was…hard to describe. Nice enough, certainly. Well respected. "She's so damn pleasant," Ian had said after meeting her for the first time, his voice conveying disdain. "Pleasantness" didn't mean much to Ian. Katy would sit in Lily's chair and read a magazine so she didn't have to talk. She was polite, but she maintained a cautious distance. Never divulged a single personal detail. But it didn't matter. Other people did it for her.
Lily was not a gossip by nature, and she took some pride in that fact, but people told her things. People simply sat down in her chair and, as though there were truth serum in the coffee she gave them, began to pour things out to her. That was why she knew something about Katy she had no right to know. She knew something even Michael didn't know.
"How long have you been married?" Rachel asked.
"Five years. I met my husband at a party where he was performing. He's a professional magician."
"You mean that's his job? Full time?"
Lily laughed. "That's exactly what my mother said when I told her about him."
"Sorry."
"It's fun. He loves what he does, and he's really, really good at it." She was suddenly aware of how quiet it was in the salon, although everyone was working. CeeCee, Polly, and Marge were too busy listening in on her conversation with Rachel to do much talking with their own customers.
"Ian's really smart," Lily said. "I mean incredibly smart, especially in math. He got scholarships to college and everything, but he only went a couple of years because he discovered magic. It's what makes him happiest. That and plants. He added a greenhouse onto our rental, and he's always out there with his little green babies." Ian would have liked to have some real babies, but the thought gave Lily a chill. Children were way too fragile.
Rachel sighed. "I need to hear this, I guess. My son, who could have a brilliant future ahead of him as a classical musician, is now talking about dropping out of school to play in a rock band."
"Let him." Lily squeezed Rachel's shoulders. "Everybody's got to find what makes them light up in the world. Ian positively lights up when he does magic. Math never had that effect on him, believe me. Michael Stoltz lights up when he preaches. I light up when I'm around my dogs. What about you?"
"Teaching," Rachel said without hesitation. "I teach kids who have trouble learning. When I reach one of them…well, it makes me realize there's nothing I'd rather do."
For some reason, Rachel's words brought tears to Lily's eyes. She stopped working for a minute to look at her former teacher's face in the mirror. "Okay," she said, recovering quickly. She slipped a plastic cap over Rachel's hair and turned the knob on her timer. "Time to let these set up."
An hour later Rachel's hair was unwrapped, cut, and ready to dry. She sat in front of the mirror and patted her thighs. "I need an aerobics class," she said to Lily. "Do you know where I might find one?"
"Everybody goes to the classes that meet in the basement of the Lutheran church." Lily lifted her hair dryer from the counter." There's a couple of them every day of the week." She wasn't certain, though, how welcoming Rachel would find those classes.
Once it was dry, Rachel's hair looked soft and light. The perm lifted the color, made it shine. Lily was impressed with her own handiwork, and Rachel was clearly pleased.
They walked together to the counter, where Rachel pulled out a charge card. Lily ran it through the scanner, then handed her the form and a pen. She made a quick decision as she watched Rachel sign her name.
"I was in your class," she said.
A startled look crossed Rachel's features. "Oh. Lily. Yes, I remember a Lily. Your last name was…Wright?"
"Yes. It's Jackson now. I was your troublemaker. My twin sister, Jenny, was the quiet, studious one."
Before Rachel could respond, Lily squeezed her hand. "People might be hard on you here," she said. "Be strong."
–9–
Rachel put the last of the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher and turned to see a rueful expression on her grandmother s face.
"I'm so sorry everything's falling on your shoulders," Gram said from her seat at the table. "I hate this helplessness."
"I don't mind at all." Rachel closed the dishwasher and began wiping the countertop with a sponge.
They were waiting for Michael to arrive. This was the morning he
was to prune the trees, and Rachel couldn’t keep her eyes from her watch as she cleaned the kitchen. He had called her twice from Philadelphia during his stay with his son's youth group, and they'd talked for nearly an hour each time, enjoying again the instant, comfortable intimacy they'd shared on the bench by the pond.
He was often on her mind. No, often was too refined a word to describe the persistent nature of those thoughts. She thought of him ceaselessly, and it frightened her. It had not been long enough since she'd lost Phil. She felt weak and needy and vulnerable. Or maybe she simply had too much time on her hands and too little else to think about.
What did she want from him? She asked herself that question as she lay in bed at night, listening to the rhythmic croaking of frogs through her open window. She wanted his friendship for the summer. Someone to talk to, laugh with. And she didn't want to lose contact with him, ever again. She would stay in touch with him for the rest of her life.
She wanted more than that, and she knew it. And she was wrong to want it, just as she had been wrong to want it in Rwanda in 1973. If she could resist it then, when she'd been younger, more impulsive, and deprived of physical love for a year, surely she could resist it now. Besides, it was not being offered to her. She had made a great leap in her mind from a simple trip down memory lane on a park bench to becoming the lover of a man who was married and a minister. Yes, she had entirely too much time on her hands.
Gram rose unsteadily to her feet. "I'm going to pick out some music for the CD player and then do my ankle exercises," she said.
Rachel reached out to help her, but the older woman waved her hand away.
"I'm all right," she said. "The dizziness just lasts a second or two now." She limped into the living room, cussing at her cane.
Rachel smiled. Her grandmother had been a surprise. Somehow, Rachel had expected this summer to be almost a retreat. Time alone, to think and heal. But her grandmother's presence was constant. Gram was a living, breathing, dynamic human being.
And what on earth had Rachel expected? She had not given this trip east much thought. The social worker had called; Rachel had seen the opportunity. Taking care of her grandmother was simply part of the deal. Before this trip, if anyone had asked her whether she loved her grandmother, she would have answered that she did. But love in that context was a flat little word. Her memories of Gram had been too sketchy to elicit much in the way of real emotion. In her mind the older woman had been reduced to little more than a stereotype, an image the social worker had reinforced. She'd expected to find a slightly crotchety and very ill old lady. But Gram was not easily pigeonholed, not the sort of person you could ignore as you went on about your business. Ignoring Gram would be like ignoring herself.
Rachel constantly found herself reflected in her grandmother. Gram's yearning to be surrounded by beautiful music was the same as her own. They could both sit contentedly on the porch for hours doing nothing more than watching the birds flit in and out of the trees. They shared a love of the garden, of watching things sprout from the earth and grow green and strong with promise. Rachel understood her grandmother's frustration at not being able to get
down and dig in the earth with her. The older woman would watch her, though. She'd sit on the porch and watch her pull weeds and pinch back the tops of the basil plants.
That her grandmother felt trapped by her infirmities was all too obvious. When Rachel started bringing flowers into the house, it was as if she'd given her grandmother the stars and the moon. Gram would hobble from room to room just to look at them. That's when Rachel decided to take her out. First they drove, traveling through the farmland, Gram opening her window fully to breathe in the barnyard scent Rachel remembered from her childhood but had not yet adjusted to as an adult. They drove through neighboring villages, Gram telling her about friends from the past who had lived on this street or that. Rachel slowly realized that, although her grandmother had a wealth of acquaintances, her close friends, her intimates, had all died, many of them within the past couple of years.
It wasn't until they were preparing to take their second such drive that Rachel seized upon the idea of a wheelchair. She found a rental place in Lancaster, picked up the wheelchair, tossed it into the trunk, and took it along on their drive. Once they reached the wooded area where she had gathered many of the flowers for the house, she pulled out the chair, helped Gram into it, and wheeled her—with effort—down the packed-earth path through trees and fields and the muted colors of summer wildflowers.
The path was a little bumpy, but Gram insisted she didn't mind. They were very quiet as they moved through the woods, quiet enough that they saw a fox when they rounded one bend, and a deer and her fawn when they rounded another. At one point Gram reached up to squeeze Rachel's hand where it was locked around the handle of the chair.
"This is a gift, Rachel," she said. "Thank you."
And at that moment the flat little word love took on more dimensions than Rachel could count.
She wanted to ask her grandmother about people's reactions to what had happened in her classroom, but there seemed to be an unspoken agreement between them to keep things light. That was probably good. Gram's home could remain her refuge.
The hairdresser, Lily, had shocked her when she'd admitted to having been in her class. Rachel had remembered the little girl instantly, even though her twin sister and the other children in the class remained a blur. She remembered Lily because from day one she'd known that child was going to be her challenge. A little blond devil. If she asked the class to do something, Lily would argue against it or simply set about doing something else. Rachel even recalled discussing her with one of the more seasoned teachers on the staff. How do you deal with a recalcitrant seven-year-old? Now Lily was the lovely, chatty, capable, and kind owner of a hair salon. Rachel had liked her immediately. She was one of those people who offered instant comfort, instant trust.
People might be hard on you here, Lily had said. Rachel had thought of the incident in the bakery and had nearly opened her mouth to tell Lily what had happened. But that would not be fair, she thought. Lily had lost her sister in that classroom. Damn.
Since that day in the bakery, though, no one had said a negative word to her. She'd gone into town three times, twice to the grocery store and once to the music store on Main Street. The grocery store was large, and she'd had a pleasant sense of anonymity there. She'd talked with the cashier about the artichokes she was buying, explaining how to cook them, how to eat them, relishing the everyday nature of the conversation. The cashier had been as friendly as she could be. Of course, she hadn't known Rachel's identity. Maybe that wouldn't have made a difference. Lily had known, and she had not cared.
In the music store she'd bought five CD's of contemporary music she wanted to share with her grandmother. The cashier, a middle-aged woman, had not been particularly warm, but neither had she been rude or told her not to come back. Still, Rachel had felt her face burning with irrational guilt the whole time the sale was being rung up, and she paid with cash rather than her credit card so the woman would not discover who she was.
Gram had loved the music, and from the kitchen Rachel could hear that she had selected one of the new CD's to play this morning.
It was nearly nine-thirty when Michael arrived. Rachel was straightening her bedroom when she heard him call through the front screen door, "Any Huber women here?"
She walked into the living room and opened the door for him. He was wearing that grin, the grin she'd loved as a child and adored as an adult.
"Hey," he said. "How's my favorite heathen?"
"Good." She smiled. "And how was Philadelphia?"
"Excellent." He touched her arm lightly as he stepped past her to buss her grandmother's cheek. The older woman had hobbled into the room on her cane.
"How you doin', Helen?" he asked. "Where's that chair Rachel said she got you?"
"In the car. I'm not going to use it in the house, for heaven's sake. That thing scares
me." Gram shuddered. "Every time I get in it, I have to get myself right out again just to prove to myself I'm not stuck in it for good. Do you know what I mean?"
"Hmm." Michael nodded. "I think so."
"If I ever get to the point where I can't get out, promise me you'll come over and put me out of my misery, all right?"
Rachel started to laugh, but Michael's serious expression stopped her. "I'd do whatever I could for you, Helen," he said.
There was a bond between these two people, Rachel thought. Somewhere over the years their paths had crossed with some meaning she didn’t understand. She felt insignificant at that moment, unconnected to either of them.
Michael turned his attention to her. "If I see one more piece of drywall ever again, it'll be too soon," he said.
"How was it?" Rachel asked.
"Good experience," he said. "The kids are working hard. They're getting to meet the families they're helping, and I think that really makes the difference." He winked at Gram. "But I'm ready for a little outside work now."
Gram raised her cane in a salute. "I'm going to get my hat and sit out on the porch to watch you do it," she said.
Rachel offered to get the hat for her, but Gram shook her head and walked back to her bedroom. Michael followed her with his eyes. "She's getting around better than I expected," he said.
Rachel looked at him curiously. "You two seem to know each other very well," she said.
He nodded. "Yeah, we do."
"How?"
"She hasn't told you?"
She shook her head.
He glanced toward Gram's bedroom. "Well, everyone in Reflection knows everyone else," he said.
Rachel didn’t think that was the complete answer. Michael went outside to set the ladder in place, and Rachel opened all the front windows of the house so they could hear the music as they worked in the yard. The second CD—Patchwork—was playing by the time she got out to the garden. Michael was already standing on the ladder working on one of the higher branches, and Gram supervised them both from her roost on the porch. It was difficult for the three of them to talk with the physical distance between them, but it didn't matter. The music poured over them, and Rachel felt a complete sort of contentment. Her hands in the earth, two people she loved close by, her grandfather's music putting her into a trance.