July 1935
Jack buttered the toast and poured the orange juice, handing Rose the tray with a dry, "Don't let her know I touched it."
She kissed his cheek, lingering for a moment to inhale the scent of his skin. "I don't care if she knows."
The walk to the room at the end of the hall seemed to get longer every day. Rose moved slowly, her limbs too long and awkward, her body foreign and unmanageable in a way it hadn't been since one particularly dreadful summer twenty-eight years buried. She stopped just outside the door and listened for movement. "Rose?" her mother called. "Why are you just standing there?" Angry at herself for being noticed—but wasn't she always?—and for blushing, Rose kept her head down.
"What were you hoping to hear?" Ruth asked a hint of mockery in her voice. "I haven't done anything interesting since you were in here last night, if that's what you thought. I haven't died, if that's what you were hoping, though how you would hear it I'm afraid I don't know."
"Oh Mother!" Rose said reproachfully. "How can you even think such things?" She rearranged the flowers on the bedside table, carefully plucking the dropping petals. "You know that isn't how we feel."
"I'm not certain of anything. All I know is what you tell me, and how can I trust it?" Ruth took a delicate sip of the juice, holding the glass between her fingertips.
Rose swallowed her reply. She quickly dusted the mantle and opened the curtains. Soft morning light streamed through the window. "There," she said cheerfully. "That makes things look much better."
…..
Rose rinsed the glass slowly, running her hands over it long after it was clean. Through the kitchen window she watched a group of children playing in the street. Jack wrapped his arms around her from behind. "Are you alright?" he asked quietly.
She nodded. "I'm fine." She shook the glass, sending water droplets flying, and set it next to the sink. "Do you see the girl in the yellow dress?" she asked.
"Out there? Yeah."
"Does she remind you of Angelica? I thought she was something like," Rose said musingly.
Jack gave her a gentle squeeze. "I see what you mean," he said. "We got a letter from her today, you know."
"What does it say?"
"She's fine. She's still in Oklahoma."
"Oh, I wish she wasn't! Of the all the places—" She cut herself off. "No. I won't question her decisions. She's old enough to know….I'll just sit at home knitting and worrying quietly."
"When did you learn how to knit?"
"When you learned to be so clever."
He held her close and buried his face in the nape of her neck. She leaned against him with a sigh. For a moment it was only the two of them. There was no Depression, no daughter determined to photograph the worst of it, no mother's stare reducing her from a woman on the cusp of middle age into a girl on the cusp of adolescence. They had no duties or responsibilities, no-one to care if they slipped away at dawn and never came back. They were just Rose and Jack again.
The chiming of the clock brought her back to the moment. "You have gardening to do," she said.
Jack didn't move. "It can wait," he murmured. "Plants can't tell time."
She laughed. "Perhaps not, but my mother can. She'll be upset if I don't go sit with her."
Jack caught her in a kiss as she moved to pass him. "I love you."
…
"Your hair is mussed," was Ruth's first comment. Rose ran a hand over the loose bun, uncomfortably aware of the ringlets that had escaped. "Oh, don't say anything," Ruth went on. "He enjoys your hair in disarray. I forgot."
Rose brushed back the curls that framed her face. Opening the book on her lap she said briskly, "I don't see why what preferences Jack—" She ignored her mother's deepening frown. "—may or may not have concerning my hair can be of any significance. Shall I read?"
"You may as well," Ruth said sighing heavily.
…..
Before her mother's arrival mornings were Rose's favorite time. She liked to slip out of bed, leaving behind a sleeping Jack, and walk down the beach as the sun rose. She crept back into the house as Jack woke up, going into the small room off the kitchen they called the study. She waited for the smell of coffee to drift in before closing her diary. Now her mornings were spent following her mother's strict routine. She was up when the sun rose, but she rarely saw it. The few hours of quiet during the middle of the day when Ruth napped were the worst part of the day. There was nothing to distract her then.
She sat at the small desk, pen poised above the paper, afraid of what she would write. Her carefully edited accounts of her life, starting at her mother's arrival and not ending until a month after her death, would still be vivid enough to resurrect them both when Jack read them.
Guilt overtook her, as it always did, when she tried to describe time spent with Ruth. She glanced up from the page. Through the window she saw Jack on his knees in the garden. He leaned forward, carefully covering the roots of an orchid. His hair still fell over his eyes. He smiled to himself as he dusted off his hands and stood up. "Hello, miss." Jack leaned against the window sill. "I didn't realize you were free."
A giggle escaped Rose's throat. "I thought you were gardening."
"I just finished. See the new flowers?"
"They're beautiful," she said warmly. "I think you may have a knack for this."
He shrugged. "I just plant them. They grow."
"I'm sure you have nothing to do with the flourishing garden where our backyard once was." She rested her chin on her palms. "And I'm sure if you put your mind to it you couldn't coax a flower to bloom."
"Now you really are overestimating me."
She leaned out the window and brushed his lips with hers. "I don't underestimate you a bit."
…
Rose sailed into the room smiling. "How was your nap, Mother?" She spread a lace cloth over the tea table. The spoons clinked quietly in her pocket. "The water is almost boiling," she explained plucking the silver tea kettle from the mantel. "We're out of sugar though, I'm afraid." Ignoring Ruth's frown she added brightly, "But then again, you never liked sugar in your tea."
"Rose?" Jack called.
Ruth's frown deepened. "I have to get the water anyway," Rose said.
She was surprised to see her mother out of bed and sitting at the table when she returned. "You should have asked for help," she said reproachfully. "You aren't supposed to strain yourself."
Ruth stiffened, lifting her chin. "I am perfectly capable of getting out of bed on my own," she said coolly.
"I only meant that—" Rose sighed. "It isn't important. The tea will be ready in a moment."
"Are you sure he won't interrupt again?"
"Jack's gone for a walk."
"Is that what he told you?" Ruth sniffed.
"If you're feeling well enough you should come and see the garden later," Rose said. "It's lovely in the evening."
"Isn't it Jack's garden?"
"He does most of the work in it—"
"I think I won't have the strength. I'm feeling a bit weak already," Ruth said.
"If that's how you feel. Neither of us would want you doing anything that would jeopardize your health," Rose said calmly.
"I doubt very much he cares one way or another."
"Mother—" Rose burst out. She gripped her teacup tightly. "Please stop talking about Jack as though he isn't my husband, as though he hasn't been for nearly twenty-five years."
"Forgive me if I don't greet your marriage with the kind of joy you feel is appropriate. I'm simply unsure what there is to be pleased about," Ruth said coolly.
"Why can't you—" Rose cut herself off. "You shouldn't stay up much longer if you're already feeling weak," she said.
"Such belated concern for my well-being," Ruth said. "I find it interesting how much you care now that there's no hope of recovery." Rose slowly stirred her tea, the underlying meaning of her mother's words not lost on her.
…..
Rose leaned against the sink, her elbows resting on the cool metal. She pushed her curls away from her face. Angry tears filled her eyes. She clenched her jaw. Leaving meant survival. Jack watched her from the doorway for a moment before scooping her up. She buried her face in his chest, soothed by the steady rhythm of his heart.