Corban felt anger stirring inside him at the hurt Leota must have felt. “Sounds like an old bat to me.”
“I think that’s probably what you thought of me in the beginning.” Leota gave him a pointed look. “Wasn’t it?”
“Now that you mention it,” he conceded with a wry grin.
“Maybe you still do. Didn’t anyone ever teach you to respect your elders?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Now that’s one of the things I like about you, Corban. Your impertinence.” Leota’s eyes were twinkling, and Corban found himself liking her—really liking her—for the first time. She must have been something when she was young.
“So you didn’t have them over for dinner often,” he said, hoping to get her back on track.
“Once a month we suffered one another’s company. I liked Papa right from the beginning, but Mama would sit and watch and not say anything. When she did, she spoke German to Papa, and he would translate.”
“Didn’t she speak English?”
“Not very well. Language was another barrier between us. English isn’t any easier to learn than German, but over the years, we learned to talk to one another. More toward the end.”
“Did Mother learn to speak German?”
“Your mother and Uncle George spoke German at home until their father returned from the war. After that, German was never spoken in the house again.”
Annie’s eyes widened. “Not even by Papa and Mama Reinhardt?”
“Not in Bernard’s presence.”
Corban waited, knowing whatever Leota had to say wouldn’t come easily. He could see the tears welling in her eyes as she sat silent, gathering her thoughts. She blinked, her hands rubbing and rubbing at her thighs. She looked gray and old. Vulnerable. As though she were drowning in painful memories.
“Mama’s loyalties were put to the test when Bernard joined the army,” she said finally. “She and Papa both had brothers and sisters with families still in Germany. I remember both of them saying what a madman Hitler was. They would read the daily newspapers and grieve over every word that was said about Germany. Some editorials called them ‘bloody Huns.’ The Reinhardts had been receiving letters ever since leaving Europe, and the later ones were filled with glowing praise for the Führer. Of course, Mama and Papa wrote right back with the truth. Then the letters stopped coming.”
She leaned back, her hands still. “I was with Bernard when he told them he had enlisted. Mama Reinhardt wept. I’d never heard crying like that before. Wailing like her heart was being torn from her. Papa told Bernard if the war turned in America’s favor and he ended up in Germany, to try to find and save whatever kin he could.”
She fell silent then. Corban bit his lip, giving her the chance to begin again. When she stayed silent, though, he couldn’t hold back the question. “Did he make it into Germany?”
“Yes.”
So much pain in a single word. Corban had never realized it was possible to communicate so much in one word. Annie sat still and silent, eyes flooded with tears, seeming to feel her grandmother’s suffering as though it were her own.
“Bernard made it to the town where Mama and Papa Reinhardt had lived. The unit he was with destroyed it.” She blinked, not looking at either of them. “He awakened one night after a recurring nightmare. He told me the men had gone mad, he among them. They killed everyone they saw. They wanted to wipe that town off the face of the earth.”
Corban couldn’t believe he’d heard right. He leaned forward. “Why?”
She looked at him bleakly. “Just before they came to the town, they had freed a concentration camp. Bernard said the smell was beyond describing, dead bodies stacked up like cordwood. The town was close by, close enough to have known what was happening, close enough to have been supplying the soldiers there. Bernard never got over what he saw and what he did about it.” She closed her eyes. She was trembling.
Annie started to weep. She left the couch, knelt at her grandmother’s feet, and put her head in her lap. Leota stroked her hair slowly. “Your grandfather said when the rage in him died, all that was left was shame. Shame for what he had done, but more shame for the blood that ran in his veins.”
“Did Mama and Papa Reinhardt ever know?” Annie said tearfully.
“Bernard never spoke a word about it to anyone but me, and he only spoke to me about it one time, when it poured out of him against his will. It was like a cancer eating him up inside. Oh, his parents both knew something horrible had happened in Germany, something so terrible their son could never speak of the war. Perhaps if he had talked about it, he wouldn’t have suffered so.”
Corban couldn’t imagine what the man must have felt. “How—how did he cope with what happened?”
“He came home, went back to work, and tried to get on with his life. Papa signed the house over to him, and he and Bernard built the apartment behind the garage. Mama moved in grudgingly, feeling I had stolen her house from her. She was filled to overflowing with resentment. She blamed Bernard’s depression on me, saying in no uncertain terms that a good wife would be able to bring her husband out of it. She just didn’t understand. And neither did I at that time.”
She sighed. “Our squabbling must have made things worse on your grandpa. And your mother and George were afraid of their father. They didn’t remember him, of course, since they were so young when he went away. After he returned, Bernard was given to bursts of anger in the beginning. He was a fine craftsman, but he’d work for a while, then lose his temper and get fired. He lost one job after another the first five years he was home. After word spread, he couldn’t get full-time work. That just made him feel worse because then it had to be me working to pay the bills. He’d lapse into long silences. He always did such wonderful work. He built the lattice in the backyard. And he did those cabinets in the kitchen and that built-in china hutch back there. Beautiful work, but all he could get were odd jobs.”
Eyes moist, Leota went on quietly. “In the evenings he would sit in front of the television and drink until he fell asleep.”
“Oh, Grandma,” Annie murmured, holding her grandmother’s hand between her own and rubbing it gently as though to bring warmth into it.
“He was a good man, but broken up inside.” Leota’s mouth trembled. “And I never knew how to put him back together.” Her lips curved in a humorless smile. “Like Humpty-Dumpty. Shattered.”
Corban didn’t know what to say or do to ease her suffering. The long silence made him uncomfortable, pointing out his ineptitude. The silence of ten minutes was unbearable to him. How had she borne the silence of years, especially knowing the cause of it?
“It’s not just Germans,” Leota said as though he had spoken aloud. “That’s the thing of it. I tried to tell Bernard that, but he’d never listen. Look what the Japanese did to the Chinese during the rape of Nanking and to anyone who ever fell into their hands during the war. Look at what the white man has done to Native Americans. Look what the Africans do to one another. We have the holy wars in the Middle East, jihad against us, the genocide in Southeast Asia, and the Soviets splintering and aiming warheads every which way. Here in our own country right now, you feel the tide turning against Christians. They’re being maligned and blamed for all kinds of things. No. There’s nothing new under the sun. I remember thinking back in the sixties, when the Watts riots were going on, that what happened in Germany could happen here. And then the AIDS epidemic hit. It’d be so easy for the tide to turn against those who’re poor and sick.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s not Germans. It’s mankind. It’s our own sin nature growing and taking control and ravaging the world. But Bernard would never listen. He would never accept God’s grace and mercy. He knew there wasn’t a way on this earth to undo what he’d done, and he wasn’t willing to let God wash it all away with the blood of Christ. Not until the very end. So he suffered. And he made everyone around him suffer right along with him.”
Annie shook her head, he
r expression filled with a sorrow that pierced Corban’s gut. When she spoke, her voice was choked with tears. “I don’t think Mother knows any of this, Grandma.”
“You’re right. She doesn’t. She and George were too young to understand what was going on. They believed what they were told. I always thought to keep to myself what I knew until I died. But lately . . .” She looked at Corban, her eyes clear and bright, pensive. “Sometimes you have to tell the truth, no matter how hard it is. Even when it doesn’t change anything. People seem to make the same mistakes over and over again.”
Corban felt a heaviness in the pit of his stomach. Leota Reinhardt was trying to teach him something, and for the life of him he wasn’t sure what it was.
“It helps me understand Mother a little better, Grandma. There’s so much she doesn’t know. Maybe if she did . . .”
“She has to want to know, sweetheart. The soil has to be softened before planting. Watering has to be done before a seed takes root.” She touched Annie’s cheek tenderly. “My, how an old woman rambles on when she has such a kind audience. Now, how about some of that herbal tea?”
Annie rose, leaned down to kiss her grandmother’s cheek, and went into the kitchen.
Leota looked straight at Corban then, challenging him in some way. He sensed that she was trying to make him see past himself. What is it, old woman? he wanted to cry out. Say it straight out. Tell me! I want to know. I want to see. I want to understand.
She smiled, an irritating little smile that told him she wasn’t going to make things easy for him.
All she said was, “I have hope for you, Corban Solsek.” She waited another moment; then she rose stiffly from her chair, turned the television on to a game show, sat again, and leaned her head back. With that, she closed her eyes and said not another word for the rest of the evening.
Chapter 13
Nora walked the mall. The Christmas store was open, but she walked past, disgusted. It wasn’t even Halloween, Thanksgiving a distant six weeks away, and yet soon the holly and Santas would be cropping up like weeds in every store window. Every year Christmas came earlier, bringing with it an inner sadness. Why was it Christmas always depressed her? No matter how big the tree, how bright the decorations, how frenetic the festivities, she felt alone and lonely.
Pausing by a toy store, Nora remembered the excitement of buying presents for her children when she was younger. Michael had loved LEGO toys from the time he was old enough to stack blocks. Over the years, she had purchased more and more complicated—and expensive—collections of the connecting plastic blocks. Where were they now? Stored in the garage in case a grandchild might someday want them? Or had Michael taken them with him when he moved away? She couldn’t remember.
The dolls in the store window reminded her of shopping for Anne . . . and the frustration that went along with it. One Christmas she had stood in line to buy a Cabbage Patch doll for her precious daughter. When the store announced there was no more stock available, she had forked over two hundred dollars to a lady who had purchased three. Greedy witch. When Annie had opened the pretty package and seen the doll, she had said a quiet thank-you, nestled it back in the box, and placed it under the tree.
“Don’t you like it? Every little girl wants one of these dolls. You have no idea how difficult it was to get one for you.”
“It’s nice, Mommy.”
Nora hated being called Mommy. She had reminded Anne-Lynn over and over to call her Mom or Mother. Mommy was for babies.
Anne had taken the doll to school with her. When she returned without it, Nora had been angry. She had been so certain Anne had lost it and wondered how she could be so careless. “Do you have any idea how much that doll cost me? Two hundred dollars! I should’ve just bought you one of those cheap Raggedy Ann dolls!” Then, to make matters worse, Anne-Lynn had cried and confessed she hadn’t lost it. She had given it away to a little girl who had received only a puzzle for Christmas. Standing at the toy store window now, Nora remembered how furious she had been over that. And why shouldn’t she have been? She had waited for hours, paid a ridiculous price for something every normal little girl wanted . . . and what did her daughter do? She gave the gift away as though it meant nothing to her.
Just as I mean nothing to her. Tears pricked Nora’s eyes as she stood gazing through the glass into the toy store. All the things I’ve done for my children, and do they appreciate it? They don’t care one iota about me or my feelings. All they care about is themselves. When did Michael last call me? On Mother’s Day last year? Oh, Anne calls, but always from Leota’s. Why does she keep asking if I’d like to come over for tea? Just to hurt my feelings? Just to let me know how much time and love she’s expending on my mother? Mother and Anne both know I don’t want to go over there for tea or anything else!
She bit her lip, the tears welling, her throat tight and hot. Her children were both so selfish! Did they know how cruel they were? I should cut them right out of my will. That would wake them up! And it would serve them right, too. They’ve abandoned me. I should abandon them. In fact, I should leave a letter to them and have the attorney read it aloud, telling them why I’ve cut them off. That would make them sorry. . . . That would make them writhe with guilt over how mean they’d been to her. If she had some fatal disease, like cancer, and she suffered for months . . .
Maybe they’d feel sorry then. Maybe Fred would be sorry, too.
She drew in a shaky breath and let it out slowly. Problem was, she was healthy. Physically. She had kept her weight down, exercised, eaten right. And yet she had just been to the doctor, wanting to know about the palpitations and stomachaches and headaches.
She was dying. She knew it. Even her bones ached. She must have cancer or something worse. She had gone through a battery of tests. Medical technicians had taken blood, made her drink barium, and done X-rays. When nothing was found, she insisted the doctor order an MRI. Today she had gotten the results.
“I can find nothing wrong with you, Nora.” His diagnosis: stress, which was causing psychosomatic symptoms. He suggested a psychiatrist. Furious, she told him she had been in counseling for years and it had done no good. Her life was worse now than it had ever been before. She’d burst into tears and said she wished she were dying. She wished she did have cancer. “Then they’d all be sorry for the way they’ve treated me!”
The doctor had talked with her for some time, encouraging her to check herself into some kind of care facility in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where she could rest, talk with a counselor, and reevaluate her life.
He thinks I’m crazy. She pressed a hand to her temple. Well, maybe she was. Maybe she was headed for a nervous breakdown. If she was, it certainly wasn’t her fault. Nobody loved her. Nobody had ever really loved her. Not even her own mother . . .
God, why? I don’t understand. I’ve tried so hard. I’ve done everything right, and it’s all gone wrong. Nothing I do turns out the way I want. Two men I loved ended up hating me. Two children I’ve borne don’t even want to talk to me.
Maybe I’ve always loved others too much. I should’ve been loving myself more instead of pouring time and money into my husbands and children. I should’ve been taking care of myself.
She turned from the store window and walked on, passing other ladies wandering in the mall. Some had children in strollers, some were walking with friends, and others sat on the pretty benches watching people pass. Nora paused again, looking in another window crowded with gift items.
Why shouldn’t she shop for herself? Why shouldn’t she buy something if it would make her feel better? Hadn’t she always purchased little gifts to cheer others up? It was time she cheered herself up. Entering the store, she wandered among the displays, picking things up and setting them down. She spotted something in a distant corner. It made her smile. The item was cute and utterly impractical. It was also expensive, considering what it was, but she liked it and that was all that mattered today. It was time to pamper Nora instead of Nora pampering o
thers. She had plenty of cash, but she decided to put the item on a credit card. Fred always gave her an allowance, but she figured he owed her this much after his reticence of late. She made her purchase and left.
The warm, fuzzy feeling passed quickly. By the time Nora reached the parking lot, she wondered why she had wasted fifty dollars on a stuffed bear. What would Fred say when he saw the bill? Of course, it wouldn’t say bear on the debits. It would just list the store.
Sitting in her car, Nora took the bear from the bag and stared at it, hoping to resurrect the faint pleasure she had felt when she saw it in the first place. Maybe she had been thinking about future grandchildren. Her eyes welled, and tears spilled over. If her children ever did have babies of their own, maybe then they’d understand how she felt. They would know what a good mother she had been. They would know how she’d sacrificed for them. Maybe then—
A sudden picture filled her mind: Leota on her knees in the garden. Leota looking toward the house, tears running down her cheeks.
Where was I? Why didn’t I go out to her?
Nora shut her eyes tightly.
I was helping Grandma Reinhardt. That’s what I was doing. I was always helping Grandma. She said she didn’t know what she’d do without me. Anger stirred again. My mother never helped. All she ever did was take care of her own needs and wants. She never cared about anyone but herself.
Yet the picture remained. Along with it, another memory flickered. She could almost feel Grandma Reinhardt’s hand on her arm. “Nein. Your mama thinks it is fine to waste time planting flowers, but I have work to be done. You be a good girl and help with supper.”
Nora’s anger seeped away, leaving confusion and anguish. Stuffing the teddy bear in the shopping bag, she tossed it into the backseat. Jamming her key in the ignition, she started the car.