Broken Flower

  I looked at Ian. His face was bright red.

  "Did you say anything to Daddy or to her about my Sister Project?" he whispered. I shook my head quickly.

  "Just imagine," Grandmother continued, "what it would be like to have such information, such embarrassing information, revealed in a public courtroom.

  "The child will have to be brought in to testify as well" she added.

  "You would do that?"

  "Once it's in the hands of attorneys..."

  "You're more of a monster than I imagined," Mama said.

  "Don't be melodramatic. All I'm saying is we should avoid all that. I am prepared," she continued, "to give you a confident sense of independence. I will tomorrow go into my attorney's office and set up a very sizable trust fund for the children. I will deposit a quarter of a million dollars in an account solely in your name with no conditions whatsoever."

  "What about Christopher?"

  "Christopher will pledge to end his sexual travels," she said. We heard Mama laugh.

  "Pledge? Promise? Even if he wrote it in his own blood, it would be no more valuable than the paper itself."

  "I have already seen to it that the woman at the supermarket was fired. She is gone from the scene and will never return."

  "You paid her off?"

  "What I did is not of any importance. The dirty episode is over," Grandmother Emma said. "I am also taking a firmer control of Christopher's purse strings."

  "He'll only resent me more," Mama said.

  "Maybe. .maybe he'll finally grow up. In the meantime coexistence is the order of things. Countries that have adversarial positions to each other can do it, why can't a man and a woman?"

  "I don't know," Mama said, but she sounded like she was softening.

  "He's truly a little boy. He came running to me just the way he did when he broke something or got into trouble as a teenager. I was the one he came to when he was asked to leave his first college. Once, you saw something of value in him, some reason to tit your own destiny to his," Grandmother Emma reminded Mama. "Think about that."

  "As you said. I closed my eyes to what I knew he was. I was too young and impressionable to see the truth back then."

  "Well, now you do. I hope. He wants to come back to apologize to you. Listen to me, Caroline. You have problems with your children. You don't want to be out there alone. Jordan needs the best of

  everything, medical, therapeutic, everything. She has new and heavy emotional issues. Why load on the horrors of a broken home, a mean divorce

  proceeding?

  "I realize Ian is a brilliant young man, but he has issues as well that will require stability. As I said, you and I are in the same boat. Let's keep it afloat for the sake of the children," she concluded.

  Once again, there was a heavy silence. I looked at Ian. He lowered his head slowly like a flag of defeat.

  "When is he returning to perform this apology?"

  "The moment I call him," Grandmother Emma said. "I have a suggestion in that regard."

  "What?"

  "A man and a woman sometimes need time alone, time to restore their relationship. Let me take the children back to Bethlehem. I'll have them brought back here in a few days. I did start up the pool. This cabin has possibilities as a romantic retreat," she said.

  "You never used it for that."

  "I never had the opportunity you have," Grandmother Emma responded quickly. "All the money issues I promised will be concluded by the end of the day tomorrow."

  "You enjoy the power of arranging and rearranging people's lives, don't you? It's what you did with your own sister."

  "As I said before. Caroline, you don't know all there is to know about me, my marriage, and my family. It's easy to jump to conclusions about people and make judgments."

  "You did that to me.'

  "What's that saving, 'Do as I teach, not as I do?' So be a better person than I am."

  "That might not be as difficult as you imagine."

  Grandmother Emma laughed. "You're right. I have underestimated you. In an ironic way, this episode might just bring us closer. If you don't mind being closer, that is."

  "Let's just concentrate on doing what's best for my children for now," Mama told her.

  "Yes, let's. Well, let me look around the property and see just how miserably this caretaker has done his job while you get the children ready to leave with me. I'll stop on the way back and take them to dinner."

  "It will be the first time you've ever done that, taken them anywhere alone."

  "Yes. I realize I have my own new challenges and responsibilities to face, thanks to my errant son."

  "Jordan has medicine she must take every morning."

  "I'll see to it myself."

  The silence told us they were finished talking. Ian closed the door softly.

  "What's an errant son?" I asked him

  immediately.

  "A screw-up.," he said. He walked over to his bed and sat thinking.

  "What's going to happen to us?"

  He looked up to answer, but Mama stepped into the room before he could speak.

  "Well, it looks like your father is going to return to apologize for his behavior,'" she began. She had no idea we had eavesdropped on the whole conversation. I was still unclear about some of it, what it meant. "When a husband and a wife have problems like this, it's better if they can spend time alone. It wouldn't be pleasant for the two of you. I'm not sure how it will end or how it will be and I'll only be worrying about you.

  "So," she said, "for the time being. I'd like you to return to Bethlehem with Grandmother Emma. You don't have to pack much because you'll be coming back very soon. Jordan, you should take your new bathing suits, however, because she has opened the pool for you two. I'll call you every day. Jordan, you'll have to be sure you take your medicine in the morning. She knows about it and will see to it as well."

  "You mean she'll come to my room?" I asked.

  "Yes," Mama said, smiling. "She'll cross into no-man's-land. Ian, I'll be depending on you to see that all this occurs and you look after her, okay?"

  "Yes,," he said. "We'd better get started packing anything we want for those days:" he said to me.

  Mama smiled at him, at how efficient and businesslike he could be.

  "I love you both very much and want only what's good for you," she said, hugging me and then him.

  Ian fixed his eves on her. "If it's not good for you. Mother, it won't be for us," he said.

  She pressed her lips together and nodded. "I know, Ian, my little wise man. I know."

  She kissed him again. He looked very content. Then she told me to follow her into my room to get what I would need together. When we stepped into the room, however, she closed the door and took my hands into hers.

  "Jordan. I know how unfair it is to you to ask you to be grown-up at a time when you should have nothing in your head but bubbles and lollipops. It's not the way I wanted it to be for you, but I have to ask you to be as mature and as grown-up as you can be until this storm we're in passes over us.

  "But I'd be a liar to tell you life isn't full of little storms. You have to make the most of them, get stronger because of them, and never let them defeat you. Look at you," she added, and knelt to brush back my hair. "You look so much older to me already. Those eyes are still full of wonder, but I can see a young lady's wisdom beginning to show its first blossoming. You call me anytime if anything isn't right back in Bethlehem and I'll come get you immediately, okay?"

  "Yes, Mama."

  "Okay. Let's get the show on the road. This show anyway. The next one is coming soon after," she said, and started to sort out what she wanted me to take.

  Grandmother Emma was waiting in the rear of her limousine for us and her chauffeur was standing by the open door as Ian. Mama, and I came out. Mama kissed us both again and we stepped into the limousine. Ian and I hadn't been in it that often, and never with just Grandmother Emma. The chauffeur put our bags into the trunk and th
en closed the door.

  "Did you both go to the bathroom?"

  Grandmother Emma asked.

  "Of course," Ian said.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Good. I'd like to get close to Bethlehem before stopping for dinner. What sort of food would you two like tonight?'"

  I waited for Ian to answer. He took a while. The chauffeur got behind the wheel and started the engine. Ian glanced at him and then at her.

  "I think I'd like a hamburger.'"

  "Well., well. And you, Jordan?"

  "Me, too," I said.

  "Well, that will be easy. I'm sure. Felix," she called to the driver, "take us to a good hamburger joint outside of Bethlehem, please."

  Joint? I never heard Grandmother Emma use such a word.

  Ian looked like he was smiling. His eves said he was, but he kept his lips tight.

  We both looked back at the cabin. Mama was standing on the porch with her arms folded watching us turn onto the road. She looked so small to me.

  She looked like someone who was slowly disappearing.

  It made my heart stop and start as though it had a mind of its own and knew things I did not.

  16 Filthy and Disgusting

  . Grandmother Emma tried her best to make conversation with Ian and me. She asked us what we had done so far at the cabin and Ian went into a long lecture on carnivorous plants. He left out the black bear and the butterflies. Even so, he had so much to say. He looked like he was trying to teach her not to ask any questions or this is what would happen, a lengthy lecture full of hard to pronounce things.

  Although Grandmother Emma sat and listened to him patiently. I could see her eyes moving constantly from him to me. It hadn't been that long since she had seen me, but I sensed that she was interested in any changes. Actually, her long, studied looking at me gave me a creepy feeling. I began to wonder about myself. Was my precocious puberty making me grow and mature even faster than any of us thought, even Dr. Dell'Acqua? Would I wake up one morning and look like a fully blossomed teenage Girl even though I was only seven?

  "That's very interesting. Ian," she finally interrupted. "I'm sure you have more to say on the subject, but I'd also like to hear what your sister has been doing."

  "We went horseback riding today," I told her. She looked absolutely shocked. "Today? Your mother took you two today?"

  "Yes," Ian said. "We had reservations. When you make a reservation, you have an obligation to appear. The stable might not be able to replace us."

  "Well, that sense of responsibility is very admirable, Ian, I'm sure, but you weren't exactly sailing on calm waters today," she said.

  Ian smirked and then turned away to look out the window.

  Grandmother Emma returned her attention to me. "How are you feeling, Jordan?"

  "Okay," I said.

  "No problems with appetite, nausea, bowel movements, anything like that?"

  "It's not symptomatic of her condition," Ian muttered, without looking at her.

  "I was referring to the possible side effects of her medication," Grandmother Emma said sternly.

  Ian didn't speak or move. She was right, of course. He had given me the list of possible side effects.

  "No, Grandmother," I said. "None of that has happened to me."

  "Good. Let's hope it all goes smoothly and we put an end to this irregularity," she said. "I would hope you would have a normal spring, summer, fall, and winter in your life," she added.

  That turned Ian around. Her comparison of the stages of human development to the four seasons interested him.

  "Where would you place yourself now. Grandmother?" he asked her.

  She actually laughed or really smiled and shook. "From the way things are going, I'd call it my winter of discontent. Ian, but I expect it will return to just winter soon."

  I had no idea what she meant exactly, but Ian seemed to not only understand her, but appreciate her. He, too, nearly smiled.

  "I must say," she went on, gazing, at the scenery that flew by as we traveled, "it's very lush up here this year. There must have been lots of rain."

  "The average rainfall for the Pocono Mountains is four inches for April and they had nearly ten," Ian said.

  "Is that so?" She stared at him a moment and then, to my surprise and I'm sure Ian's, she smiled. It was a warm, friendly smile. too, something we rarely saw printed on her otherwise firm face. "Your grandfather Blake was a weather fanatic, too. First thing out of his mouth in the morning was 'What's the weather today?' One would have thought he was a farmer. The weather had little or nothing to do with his work, but if we had an unusual amount of rain or snow or the temperatures went too far in one direction or another, he took it to be a betrayal, a broken promise, and ran on and on about it all morning. He absolutely hated it when weathermen got it wrong and he would not be beyond calling the stations to bawl them out. He thought everything in his world should do what it was expected or designed to do."

  I didn't want to interrupt her. I had never heard so much about my grandfather from her before and had a hunger to learn more, but Ian was annoyed.

  "I am not a weather fanatic, Grandmother," Ian said. "I'm merely aware of what goes on around me."

  Her musing came to an abrupt end. The softness in her face dissipated like smoke. "No, you're not. I imagine," she said. "Actually, you're not at all like your grandfather, Ian."

  I wasn't sure if that was a compliment or a complaint and neither was Ian. He turned back to the window and for the next half hour or so, no one spoke. Grandmother Emma closed her eves and rested and while her eyes were closed. I was able to study her because I had rarely, if ever, come upon her sleeping in a chair. She always acted as if being tired was the same as having to go to the bathroom. You didn't sleep in public either. She would immediately excuse herself and go to her bedroom.

  She did say once that she thought Grandfather Blake's falling asleep in a chair watching television and then snoring, was the most vulgar and impolite thing imaginable, especially if there were other than family members present.

  Despite the harshness in her voice and the almost mechanical perfection in her appearance and her manners, there was something soft and feminine just below the surface. I thought as I studied her face. She had to have been very pretty when she was younger or my Grandfather, who we were often told had an eye for the ladies, wouldn't have wanted her to be his wife. From the few occasions I had looked at her photographs and seen pictures of her sister, my great-aunt Francis, I knew that they had both inherited nice features from their parents.

  Even now, her skin was smooth and her complexion, relatively unchanged by makeup, made her appear younger than she was, especially when I saw her with some of her friends, women about her age, who even with their heavy makeup and surgical implants and corrections, still looked like

  degenerating mannequins. Their voices cracked and their posture was poor as well.

  There was nothing feeble about Grandmother Emma, despite her tiny hands and diminutive features. She didn't tremble or warble. She had no problem raising her voice, which always had a firmness. According to Daddy, her grip on anything was steady and true enough to allow her to be a brain surgeon.

  And yet, when I looked at her now, and thought about what she had and what were her challenges and problems. I didn't think of her as a happy person. I thought of her as someone trapped in her own fortress, concerned only with patching the walls and keeping the demons away. Laughter, music, friendship, and even love were more often on the outside of those walls as well.

  Did she love Ian and me at all? Could she? Or even more, did she even want to love us? Were we just a nuisance? Surely, she had these feelings about Ian. I thought, looking from her to him. He wouldn't let her love him anyway. He barely let Mama love him. I never ever saw him run to her and embrace her. It was always she who embraced or kissed him.

  I wanted Grandmother Emma to love me, to care about me. I don't know why it was so important to me, but it was, and
now. I had this illness, this precocious puberty that obviously disgusted her or at a minimum, annoyed her. Instead of growing closer to her. I had been dragged and pushed farther away by forces beyond my control.

  Her eyes opened and she looked at me and the way I was looking at her. Unlike most other times. I didn't immediately shift my gaze. We stared at each other a long moment. She didn't smile, but she didn't look at me angrily either. She looked like she had seen something that, at least for this moment, frightened her.

  "Felix," she called.

  "Yes, Mrs. March?"

  "I'm sure the children are hungry. How close are we to the restaurant?"

  "Five more minutes and we'll be there," he said.

  "Good." She straightened up in the seat. "I must say. I'm somewhat hungry myself, although I do hope they have something other than hamburgers, Felix."

  "Oh, indeed they do, Mrs. March. It's a good menu.. I'm sure you'll be pleased."

  When we arrived at the restaurant, she. Ian, and I were led to a booth. Felix sat at the counter as if he had nothing whatsoever to do with us. Ian ordered a deluxe hamburger, but I saw Mama's favorite lunch on the menu and ordered a Chinese chicken salad. I saw my choice impressed Grandmother Emma. She ordered the same thing.

  "Is my father on his way to the cabin now?" Ian asked after the waitress took our menus.

  His question surprised me almost as much as it did her. I knew we were supposed to behave as if we knew nothing about what was happening between our parents.

  "If he's not there now. he will be shortly." she said.

  "I hope so. I wouldn't want Mother to be left there alone." Ian said sharply.

  "I think your mother is capable of taking care of herself, Ian."

  "So do I. but she's had a shock," he said. "Don't you think she's in great emotional pain?"

  I know my mouth was opened when she glanced at me.

  "I don't think this is a subject for discussion for young people your age."

  "Adult talk?" Ian said, smiling at me.

  "Precisely, adult talk," Grandmother Emma said.

  She smoothed out her place mat on the table, and after a few moments of silence to let the tension weaken and fall away, she folded her hands and looked at Ian again.