“I send her home to spend time with her mother, and you just send her right back outside again…”
Carolyn ducked out the door again and ran out to her swing. She saw Oma walking back to the cottage. She looked so sad. Carolyn stayed on the swing until Daddy came home and said she should go in the house and help her mother.
Mom took extra shifts at the VA hospital so they could buy more lumber and supplies for building. Daddy finally finished the master bedroom and added a step-down utility porch off the back of the house, with hookups for a washing machine and dryer. He bought Mom a mangle for Christmas so she could iron the tablecloths, sheets, and pillowcases like his mother had. She also ironed Daddy’s shirts, slacks, and boxer shorts and her nurse’s uniforms. The only clothes she didn’t iron were the brown polyester pants and flower-print blouses she wore after work every day.
As soon as Daddy finished the utility porch, he started work on a larger addition at the front of the house.
Oma came over to take a look around. Daddy proudly laid out the living room plans: fourteen by twenty feet, twelve-foot wood-beamed ceiling, skylights, stone fireplace, wall-to-wall carpeting, and picture windows looking out on the orchard in front. He showed her the plans he had drawn. “We’ll put in a pool with a patio all around and terrace that back hill, plant a garden, have a waterfall over there in the corner.”
Oma looked as though she had swallowed something that didn’t taste good. “Your own private paradise.”
“Something like that.”
“Well, it’s better than building a bomb shelter like most of the people in the neighborhood.”
“Actually, I was thinking about renting a backhoe to dig one in the hill…”
The next time Oma invited Mommy over for afternoon tea, she wouldn’t take “Sorry, maybe another time” for an answer.
“I can’t stay long. I have to start dinner soon.”
“Things won’t fall apart if it’s not on the table at six on the dot, Hildemara.” Oma sounded irritated. She poured tea in a pretty pink rose china cup and offered cream and sugar.
Mommy looked at the platter of spicy chicken sandwiches and egg salad sandwiches with dill and the apple streusel cake. “What is all this? I didn’t forget my birthday, did I?”
“I wanted to treat my daughter to an English afternoon tea, the kind I used to prepare for Lady Daisy in London.”
Mommy gave her an odd smile. “It’s lovely. Thank you.”
Oma took one seat, Carolyn the other. “If you’d like, we can do this every afternoon when you get home from work. It would be nice, wouldn’t it, the three of us sipping tea and taking time to sit and talk awhile?”
“I can’t stay more than half an hour.”
“If you had a Dutch oven, you could start dinner in the morning before you left for work.” Oma sipped her tea. “You’d have an hour to relax when you got home. All you’d have to do is steam some vegetables and set the table. Carolyn could help.”
“You always made a four-course dinner, Mama, and dessert, even after you’d worked all day in town. And you walked there and back.”
“Until I drove.” Oma chuckled as she lifted her teacup. “Papa didn’t think much of that idea at first, did he?”
Mom smiled. “We all thought you’d kill yourself in that Model T. You drove like a maniac.”
“Probably still do. I felt free. And no one was going to take that away from me.” She cut slices of apple streusel and gave Mom a sly smile. “You know, there’s no sin in taking advantage of the conveniences available: a car to drive to work, a washer and dryer in the house, an old-fashioned Dutch oven. It buys you time for other things.”
“There’s always too much to do, Mama. I wish there were more hours in a day.”
“And if there were, what would you and Trip do with them?”
Mommy gave a bleak laugh. “Finish building the house.”
Carolyn finished a last bite of streusel. Oma cleared away her teacup and saucer and plate. “Why don’t you play outside for a while, Carolyn?”
She didn’t want to go outside. She wanted to stay inside and listen. “Can I finish the puzzle?”
“I finished it this morning. There’s a new one on the coffee table. You can bring it out here and start sorting the pieces, if you like.”
Carolyn ran to get the box, dumped the pieces on the table, and began turning them over, sorting colors and searching for edge pieces and corners the way Oma had showed her. Oma and Mommy kept talking.
“You and Trip and the kids ought to take a family vacation.”
“There’s no money for a vacation.”
“There’s money for a bomb shelter.”
“With the way the world is going right now, a bomb shelter would be more practical than wasting money on a vacation.”
“Waste? Let’s talk about being practical, shall we? How long would you have to stay inside a bomb shelter before you could come out into the open again, assuming radiation lasts as long as they say it does? I’d rather die in a split second out here in the open and be in heaven in the twinkling of an eye than live underground like a gopher. No sunlight. No garden. Nothing to do. How do you even get fresh air to breathe without letting in the radiation?”
“Everybody’s building them.”
“People are like lemmings, Hildemara Rose. Yell ‘Fire!’ and they’ll run.” They talked about how everyone these days seemed to be worried about spies lurking everywhere, like moles burrowing into the government and science labs, all looking for a way to bring America down. Koreans could brainwash captives and turn them into Manchurian candidates. Russians were spreading Communism all over Eastern Europe. “Everyone is going a little crazy.” Oma shook her head in disgust.
“The bomb shelter is Trip’s idea, Mama, not mine.”
“Plant another idea in his head. I know; I know! The man’s only happy when he’s working on a project. But I’ve heard him talk about how he used to hike and camp and fish back in Colorado. Think of the fun you could have with a tent, sleeping bags, and a couple of fishing poles.” Oma sipped her tea. “Charlie is thirteen already. He’s always off somewhere with his friends. In another six years, he’ll go away to college. And Carolyn’s going to be nine soon.” Oma lowered her voice. “She needs her mother.”
“Like I needed you, Mama?” A quiet edge of bitterness crept into her mother’s voice.
“Yes. And where was I? Working, always working. If anyone has a right to talk about this, I do!” Oma turned the teacup in its saucer. “Just so you know, I came up here to tear down walls, not help you build them.”
Mom fidgeted. “I don’t know what to make of this.”
“Make of what?”
“Sitting in your kitchen, having tea.”
Oma scowled at her. “I’ve invited you over every day for weeks. You wouldn’t come!”
“I’ve spent most of my life trying to live up to your standards and failing.”
“So you’re going to punish me in my old age. Is that it?”
“I still don’t come up to your standards, do I? I’m not a good mother. Trip’s too busy to be a father. There’s no pleasing you.”
“Now, you listen to me, Hildemara Rose. And you listen good. You never failed me, not once. Nor did I fail you, if it comes to that. You were small and sickly when you were born. Was that your fault? You had the most to overcome. I was afraid you wouldn’t even survive that first winter out there in the frozen wheat fields. I almost lost you again when you had pneumonia. Do you remember? And I could still lose you if you keep on as you are. Yes! I was harder on you than the others. I wanted you to grow up strong so no one would be able to hold you down. So I pushed you. I pushed hard. And, thank God, you pushed back. Now look at you.”
“You sound proud.” Mom sounded surprised.