My Mother's Chamomile Read online

  “Well, yeah.” He shifted his glasses up his nose. “I wanted you to think I’m cool.”

  “I do think you’re cool.” The humidity had already thickened the air. I wiped a trickle of sweat off my forehead.

  “If I had your job, I’d break down every single day.” He swatted at a fly. “Or pass out. Several times a day.”

  “I can’t imagine the ministry is much easier,” I said. “I’m sure you see your share of hard days.”

  “Yeah. Long hours, lots of complaints about loud music and church budgets.” He grinned. “But I get to hold brand new babies and go to about fifty open houses every summer.”

  “And weddings, too, right?”

  “The best part of a wedding is the cake.” Turning toward me, he leaned his head to one side. “Listen, Evelyn. I feel terrible about not telling you that I’m a pastor. I should have told you right away.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I wasn’t trying to lie to you or anything.”

  “Well, I didn’t tell you that I’m a funeral director,” I said.

  “To be honest, my job tends to scare people off.” Crossing his arms, he shrugged. “I figured if I could get a couple dates with you, I’d charm you so much that you wouldn’t care about my job.”

  “You really think your job scares people off more than mine?”

  He pushed his lips to one side of his face. “Okay. I can see that.”

  “So, is that what happened? Did my job spook you?” I asked. “After Deirdre told you?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” It seemed too pathetic to mention that he hadn’t called me. Instead, I pushed the hair behind my ears, holding my hand against the side of my neck.

  “Evelyn, I’ve been trying to work up the nerve to call and ask you for a second date.” He let his eyes wander over my shoulder. “I’m a ninny. I was sure you’d shoot me down.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. How pitiful is that?”

  “So…are you asking me out now? Because if you are, then I guess I can carve out some time.”

  “In that case, then, yes, I am asking.” He scratched his head. Looking down at his feet, he flinched. “Unless this is a wildly inappropriate thing to be talking about, considering.” He nodded at the Big House.

  “That’s the thing.” I smirked. “If you waited for a time when someone wasn’t in there, we’d never get together again.”

  “Good point,” he said. The way he smiled at me drew my breath away from me. His was a pure, true smile. With no false charm hidden behind it. “Then maybe on Sunday? After youth group.”

  “Great. Meet me at Marshall’s?” I rocked onto my tiptoes and back down again.

  “Unless you want to hang out at youth group. I need a few more volunteers.”

  I cringed. “See, here’s the problem with that. Those kids don’t need to see the funeral director who just buried their friends. You know?”

  “Right.” He squinted at me. “That’s a good way to get out of helping.”

  “I’m good at getting out of volunteering.”

  “We’ll work on that.”

  “Listen, I have to get back inside,” I said. “I’ve got a ton to do before the viewings today.”

  “Right.” He turned toward the building. “I shouldn’t have kept you so long.”

  “Trust me, you made for a good distraction. That’s kind of nice on a day like this.”

  “I’ll be in soon,” he said. “And I promise, I’ll be ready. I won’t freak out again.”

  “No hurry.”

  “It’s nice out here. I like this garden.”

  “My grandma and mom have kept it going for years.” I kicked at the grass with the toe of my shoe. “Gran planted it when my mom was little. She used it as a kind of escape from the funeral stuff.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yeah. A garden is alive.”

  I smiled at him, glad that he smiled back, before turning to the Big House.

  My steps felt lighter.

  I’d never understood Gran more than in that moment.

  Chapter Twenty

  Olga

  The waiting room of the doctor’s office smelled like someone took a long dip in the aftershave. I suspected the man sitting in the corner with hands folded over his big old belly. That man, bless his heart, had about the worst cough I’d ever heard. It sounded like his chest would crack in half whenever he barked from that deep down.

  His coughing made me jump every single time. Not getting any kind of sleep the night before wore on my nerves. To be honest, I couldn’t have been happier when the nurse called him in.

  “How are you holding up, honey?” I asked Gretchen as soon as we had the waiting room to ourselves.

  She looked up from the magazine on her lap. She’d stared at the same full page advertisement for shaving cream for minutes on end.

  “What?” Flashing a smile at me, her eyes stayed distracted by the magazine. “Great. I’m not worried.”

  But the tapping foot and chewing of her lip told me otherwise. This wasn’t a clear result we were coming to find out about. The doctor had some bad news to deliver. My mama’s intuition knew it. And I knew my daughter knew it, too.

  It was all I could do to keep still in that chair, the silence of the waiting room putting me on edge.

  “Gretchen?” the nurse called, holding open a door with her backside.

  Gretchen stood up straight as could be. Crumpling on the carpet, the magazine had slid off her lap. She looked at it as if she’d never seen such a thing before.

  “It’s okay, honey,” I said, bending down to pick it up.

  “You’re coming with me,” she said. “Right, Mom?”

  “Sure.” Getting to my feet, I had to use the arm of the chair to steady myself. “If that’s what you want.”

  “Can she come in with me?” Gretchen asked the nurse. “She’s my mother.”

  “Yes.” The nurse tapped her clipboard with the end of a pen. “This way, please.”

  I followed Gretchen, who followed the nurse through the longest hallway in all the world. At least that’s how it seemed to me. We passed a closed door, the coughing man barking inside, his aftershave wafting into the air to choke us.

  At the end of the hallway, a door stood ajar. Pushing it open with the palm of her hand, the nurse ushered us into the room, pointing at the chairs next to a desk.

  “Go on and have a seat,” she instructed. “The doctor will be right in.”

  With dark eyes, the nurse watched my daughter walk past. I knew the look that passed over her face. In my life, I’d seen it a thousand times. I’d given the same look on a few occasions myself. Right then, in that fleeting expression, I knew the news wasn’t just bad, it would be tragic. The way the nurse let her eyebrows soften, for only a second, told me everything.

  She’d looked at my daughter, my only child, with pity. I’d never known fear like in that moment. Not once in all my years on the earth.

  Only one thought occupied my thoughts. My daughter was dying. Why else would we be in that room?

  Gretchen sat in one of the rich-looking leather seats in front of the biggest monster of a desk I’d seen. Her shoulders moved up and down a tiny bit with each breath she took.

  Lord God, I prayed silently, keeping my eyes on Gretchen. Please. Please. Help me.

  For the first time, I didn’t believe God to be trustworthy with what He’d given me. Job’s ancient words mocked me. He gives and He takes away.

  Why the taking away? Why would He be so cruel?

  I begged for a growth of mercy, but a seed of doubt worked its way into my heart.

  “Come sit down, Mom.” Gretchen patted the chair next to her. “You’re making me nervous.”

  “Sorry, Gretchie.” I took a seat. “Just looking at that desk.”

  “It’s a little much, don’t you think?”
<
br />   I grabbed her hand. Really, though, I wanted to hold her in my arms.

  Put the sickness, whatever it is, on me instead, I prayed.

  “Did you see the garden?” Gretchen pointed out the window. “Can you imagine having something like that in our yard?”

  Out the glass, I saw a courtyard filled with flowers. Proper flowers like irises and lilies. An orchestrated splattering of color. They’d built up tiers lined with wooden beams and rocks with stone paths cutting through the very organized flower beds. A little too perfect for my liking. But nobody asked me.

  One bunch of chamomile spiked up next to a row of daffodils. I figured it grew in that place by accident. It didn’t rightly fit in with the rest. Probably some bird dropped a seed or a squirrel planted it there. Chamomile wasn’t always welcome in gardens like that one.

  “Do you see the fairy flower?” I asked Gretchen.

  She didn’t hear me. Just kept her eyes on that long and wide desk.

  Some young kid walked about the flowers. Tromping his oversized shoes without much care for the life around him. He looked at the chamomile plant and kicked at it with the toe of his shoe. Wrapping his hands around it, he strangled it, tugged it, yanked it right out of the ground. He tossed it aside as if it were nothing.

  Just like that.

  The violence of it turned my stomach.

  “I thought we could get a sandwich on the way home,” Gretchen said. “My stomach feels better today.”

  “That would be nice.”

  “Something quick. I know you’re tired.”

  “Don’t worry about me, honey.”

  The clicking of heels made its way down the hall. A petite woman wearing a long, white jacket walked into the office.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said, voice calm and full of business. She closed the door behind her and walked the long distance around the desk. She never took her eyes from the file in her hands. “One moment and I’ll be present with you.”

  She eased back into her chair and right away scribbled a note in the file. With that small woman behind the desk, it seemed even bigger. Like it separated us from her by a mile.

  “If I don’t write things down right away, I forget them.” Finally, she lifted her face to us. “Thank you for being patient.”

  Gretchen’s hand in mine, I couldn’t tell if the pumping pulse was hers or mine.

  “I’m glad you were able to come in. Especially at such short notice.” She turned to me. “Is this your mother?”

  “Yes.” Gretchen squeezed my hand.

  “Nice to meet you.” She half stood up to reach her tiny hand across the desk. It took all the stretch in me to get to her. “I’m Doctor Ferris.”

  Her dry hand in mine, it felt like her skin would soak up all my moisture. “My name is Olga.”

  “Nice to meet you,” she said again before letting me go. “It’s good to have family at these meetings.”

  She pulled a different file across her desk and opened it flat against the wood. Touching her long, dangling earrings, she read, making a gentle tinkling sound. I looked back out the window, hoping to see the chamomile on the ground one last time. But the kid must have taken it with him.

  “We ran the tests we’d talked about.” Her nose whistled as she inhaled. “After a scan like yours, we wanted to see what we’re dealing with.”

  “Did you find anything?” Gretchen asked.

  “As we discussed before, the tumor we found was of substantial size.”

  Goose pimples rose up on my arms. I turned to Gretchen. Her eyes, big and round, didn’t leave the face of the doctor. She hadn’t told me about a tumor. Not even on the ride over. It wasn’t a small one, either. No wonder she’d been so sick. No wonder she hadn’t eaten in weeks.

  As much as I wanted to listen to the doctor’s words, I couldn’t get myself to focus. Her mouth moved, but I didn’t understand the sounds she uttered. As if, all the sudden, she spoke a different language. The sound of her voice made a garbled, jumbled din in my ears. The swishing sound of my thudding heart added to the confusion.

  “I’m sorry.” Doctor Ferris closed the folder in finality and laced her fingers together on top of it. “I’m very sorry.”

  Silence. All I heard was the whistling of the doctor’s nose. If only the thudding and swishing would come back, I might pretend not to know a lick of what was going on.

  “Is this curable?” Gretchen asked. “I mean, do we need to do surgery or chemo? I’m up for whatever it’s going to take.”

  The doctor swallowed hard, her chin jutted out and the tendons in her neck flexed. “At this point, any treatment will only serve to extend your life. Even then, we don’t know by how much.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Gretchen, your cancer is in the fourth stage. That means it’s spreading.”

  “What’s after the fourth stage?” Gretchen asked.

  My heartbeat slammed through me.

  “Nothing.” The doctor’s voice chilled the room. “Stage four is the final stage.”

  Dead, cold, pain-filled silence.

  “Chemotherapy might shrink the tumor. But the cancer has spread.” Her voice kept going and going. “We’ll monitor how fast it goes.”

  Gretchen hadn’t looked away from the doctor’s face. “How long do I have?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “I can only guess, really. I’d have to say seven to nine months with the treatment. Five to six without. But that’s not a guarantee.”

  Not even a year. Hardly time to breathe. But, in that moment, I didn’t care if I never took in oxygen again.

  “It’s an option to skip the treatment?” Gretchen asked.

  “Treatment is always optional.”

  “But why would anyone decide not to do it?”

  “Because the side effects can be hard to live with.” Doctor Ferris blinked slowly. “Sometimes extending life only means the patient is sick longer.”

  “Mom. I’m sorry.” Gretchen turned to me. Her eyes brimmed over with fear. “I should have told you. But I thought it was nothing.”

  I pulled her to me, holding the back of her head, feeling her body rise and fall when she inhaled. I couldn’t stop the shaking.

  It was both of us, quaking in our seats. Scared beyond our ability to hold still.

  But I trusted You with her, I cried out from that deep place.

  I pulled her even closer.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Evelyn

  I slept most of the weekend after the funeral for Josie and Shelly. During the few moments of wakefulness, I watched reruns of old TV shows and ate ice cream. Truth be told, I ate an entire half gallon of mint chocolate chip in two days. I wasn’t proud of it. But once I got started, I couldn’t make myself stop.

  Sunday afternoon, shaky from the sugar and in need of real food, I scavenged through my cupboards. Gran would have called my food supply “Mother Hubbard cupboards.” Empty. Except for some tea my mom had sent over the week before and a package of rice noodles. Well, and something far past its expiration date in the back of the fridge. But I didn’t even want to think about that fuzzy mess right then.

  “Hey, Char,” I said into my cell phone while changing out of the sweatpants I’d worn the entire weekend. “What do you have going on tonight?”

  “Nothing,” she answered. “My social life is pathetic. Thanks for the reminder.”

  At her age, I worked at the funeral home full time. That meant on call all day, every day. Even Christmas.

  I rolled my eyes. The girl had no idea what a pathetic social life even looked like.

  “Okay. Let me be your social life tonight, okay?” Buttoning my jeans, I had to suck in my gut more than usual. The ice cream had made my clothes a little snug. “Meet me at Marshall’s for dinner.”

  “Um, Ev, did you forget that you already have plans?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Pulling a shirt from the closet, I knocked its hang
er onto the floor. I left it there for later.

  “Don’t you have a date?”

  “I do?” My brain caught up with the conversation. “Oh, I do.”

  “Better get ready.”

  “How did you know? I didn’t tell you.”

  “Did you forget who my boss is?” She laughed. “Hey, call me as soon as you get home, okay? I want to hear all about it.”

  Hanging up the phone, I tugged on the material of the shirt, stretching it away from my midsection. I realized that I couldn’t place all the blame on the ice cream. The doughnuts and lattes had to have done some damage, too.

  Looking in the mirror over my dresser and touching my hair, I realized I hadn’t gotten a shower all weekend. With two hours before I had to meet Will, I’d have time. I hoped I’d have a few spare minutes to stop by a store for a shirt that fit.

  I slipped into the only empty booth at Marshall’s, successfully avoiding eye contact with the other diners. Just to be sure no one talked to me, I pulled a book from my purse, holding it over my face.

  “Hey, there,” Marshall said, standing to the side of my table. “Rough week, huh?”

  Lowering the book, I sighed. I certainly didn’t want to talk about work. Especially not Josie and Shelly’s funeral. How most of the high school kids showed up, holding on to one another and crying. How Jay Bunker had broken down when he met the parents and apologized for not being able to save them. The mother who couldn’t leave her daughters’ gravesides for an hour after everyone else had already left. Her husband had stood at their car, waiting. Giving her time.

  People in my town always got their noses into things, hoping for a little extra information. “Yup. It was a really rough week.” I stared at the menu and tried to discourage any more questions.

  “Shelly worked here, you know,” he said, his voice real deep.

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “She was a good worker. Never gave me an attitude.” Marshall scratched along his jawline. “That’s rare these days.”

  “I’m sorry, Marshall.”

  “Yeah. Me, too. It come as a real shock. I don’t even want to imagine what those parents are feeling right now.” He put his hands on his hips. “You all doing okay? Must have been hard to see.”