Sugar And Spice (3 page)

All of that changed when her father died of a heart attack in the lobby of the Pentagon on the day after she graduated from college. If her mother had grieved, she hadn’t seen it. Armed with her substantial inheritance, Amy had relocated to Philadelphia where she worked for a PR firm to get her feet wet before she opened her own small agency.

She called home once a week, usually early Sunday morning, to carry on an inane conversation with her mother that never lasted more than five minutes. She returned home for Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas—just day trips, because her mother was too busy to visit. For the past two years, though, she hadn’t returned home at all. Her mother didn’t seem to notice. No matter what, though, Amy kept up with her early Sunday morning phone calls because she wanted to be a good daughter.

And now here she was. Home to do her mother’s bidding. For the first time in her entire life her mother had asked for her help. She couldn’t help but wonder if there was an ulterior motive to this particular command performance.

Amy carried her bags, one at a time, to her old bedroom on the second floor. It all looked the same, neat as always, unlived in, smelling like lemon furniture polish. A cold, unfeeling house. Her mother’s fault?

Her father’s?

Amy hated the house. She thought about her cozy five room townhouse, chockful of doodads, knick-knacks and tons of green plants that she watered faithfully. In the winter she used her fireplace every single evening, not caring if the soot scattered from time to time or if the house smelled like woodsmoke. She had bright-colored, comfortable furniture and she didn’t mind if Cornelia slept on the couch or not. Her garage was full of junk and she loved every square inch of it. There simply was no comparison between her mother’s house and her own. None at all.

Amy stopped in the hallway and opened the door to her father’s old room. It still smelled like him after all these years. How she’d loved her father. She looked around. It was stark, nothing out of place. A man’s room with rustic earthy colors. She opened the closet the way she always did when she returned home. All her father’s suits hung neatly on the double racks, exactly two inches apart. His shoes were still lined up against the wall. This was a room that didn’t include her mother. Amy had always wondered why. She backed out of the room, closing the door behind her.

She had no interest in checking her mother’s room. Instead, she opened the door to her room. A bed, a dresser, a bookshelf and two night tables on each side of the twin bed. The drapes were the same; so was the bedspread. She hated the patchwork design.

Long ago she’d taken everything from this room, even the things she no longer wanted. There was nothing here that said Amy Margaret Baran ever resided in this room. It was a guest room, nothing more. Well, she didn’t do guest rooms. In a fit of something she couldn’t explain, Amy carried her bags back down the hall and opened the door to her father’s room a second time. She would sleep here for the next two months. The bed was king-size, and there was a deep reading chair and a grand bathroom, complete with a Jacuzzi.

As Amy unpacked her bags she wondered if her father’s spirit would visit her. She didn’t know if she believed in such things or not but she had an open mind. If it happened, it happened. If not, her life would go on.

She set her laptop on her father’s desk, her clothes hanging next to her father’s. The picture of her and her father on her sixteenth birthday—taken by the housekeeper whose name she couldn’t remember—went on the night table next to the house phone. She looked around as she tried to decide what she should do next. She walked over to the entertainment center that took up a whole wall. Underneath was a minifridge. She opened it to see beer and Coca-Colas. She wondered when the drinks had been added. She popped a Coke and looked for the expiration date. Whoever the housekeeper was, she was up-to-date.

Amy settled herself in the lounge chair and sipped her drink. All she had to do now was wait for her mother.

Cornelia leaped into her lap and started to purr. Amy stroked her, crooning words a mother would croon to a small child. Eventually her eyes closed and she slept, her sleep invaded by a familiar dream.

…She knew it was late because her room was totally dark and only thin slivers of moonlight showed between the slats of the blinds. She had to go to the bathroom but knew she wouldn’t get up and go out to the hall because she could hear the angry voices. She scrunched herself into a tight ball with her hands over her ears but she could still hear the voices….

Exhausted from his long trip, Cyrus antsy to get out and run, Gus pulled up to the entrance of Moss Farms and looked at the dilapidated sign swinging on one hinge from the carved post. A lump rose in his throat. A few nails, new hinges, some paint, and it would be good as new. The lump stayed in his throat as he put his Porsche Cayenne into gear and drove through the opening.

Gus ascended a steep hill lined with ancient fragrant evergreens, their massive trunks covered in dark green moss. His mother always said it was so fitting because their name was Moss.

At the top of the hill, Gus shifted into park and got out of the car to look down at the valley full of every kind of evergreen imaginable. He saw the Douglas firs; the blue spruce field; and to the left of that, the long-needle Scotch pine. He shaded his eyes from the sun to better see the fields of balsam fir, Fraser firs, and Norway Spruce. To the left as far as the eye could see were the fields of white pines and the white firs. The Austrian pines looked glorious, and the three fields of Virginia pines seemed to go on to infinity. Thousands and thousands of trees. The lump was still in his throat when he tried to whistle for Cyrus, who came on the run.

Gus coasted down the hill to the valley where his old homestead rested. It looked as shabby and dilapidated as the entrance sign. What does my father do all day?

Gus wasn’t disappointed at the lack of a welcoming committee. He really hadn’t expected his father to run out and greet him. Still, it would have been nice. He parked the car at the side of the house and climbed out. He whistled for Cyrus, who was busy smelling everything in sight. “Hey, Pop!” he bellowed.

Cyrus stopped his sniffing long enough to lift his head to see what was going on.

A tall man with a shaggy gray-white beard appeared out of nowhere. He was wearing a red plaid jacket with a matching hunting cap. “No need to shout, son. There’s nothing wrong with my hearing. You on your way to somewhere or are you visiting?”

Gus licked at his lips. What happened to, “Nice to see you, son” or “Good to see you, son”? Maybe a handshake or a hug.

“I came for a visit. I thought I’d help with the trees this year. Looks kind of dead around here. What’s going on, Pop?”

“Like you said, it’s dead around here. I let everyone go. I’m retired now.”

“Just like that, you retired? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Didn’t much think you’d care. Nice looking dog. Not as nice as old Buster, though. Buster was one of a kind.”

Gus jammed his hands into his pockets. “Why would you think I wouldn’t care? If you needed my help all you had to do was ask. Are you just going to let those trees grow wild? That’s just like throwing money down the drain.”

“You’re a little late in coming around, son. When I needed you, you were in California making fancy houses for fancy people. When you left here you said you didn’t want to be a farmer. I took you at your word.”

Gus flinched. The old man had him there. He didn’t want to be a farmer; he wanted to do exactly what he was doing. Well, I’m here now, so I’ll just have to make the best of it.

“I’m here to help. The first thing I’m going to do is fix the steps on the front porch before you kill yourself. Then I’m going to hire some people to thin the fields and then I’m going to set up shop and sell Christmas trees. I’ll find someone to operate the Christmas store and then when you’re back on your feet, you can take over.”

“Don’t need your help, Augustus. If that’s why you came here, you can just climb into that fancy rig of yours and drive back to California and all those fancy people you like so much.”

Gus dug the heels of his sneakers into the soft ground and rocked back. “I kind of figured you’d say that, Pop. So, let me put it another way. I came home to protect my investment, my half of Moss Farms. The half Mom left to me. If you don’t want me staying in the house I can get a room at a hotel in town. It doesn’t matter to me. The farm does matter. So, Pop, like it or not, I’m going to go to work.”

“Won’t do you any good. Some group of women in town will be selling trees this year. A lady all prissy and dressed up came out here to ask me to sell her my trees. She wanted them at cut-rate prices. I said no. You want to go up against her, go ahead. I always said you were a smart aleck,” Sam Moss said as he turned to lumber away. “Stay in the house if you want; I don’t care, just pick up after yourself.”

“Yeah, Pop, you always did say that. And a bunch of other things that were even worse,” Gus called to his father’s retreating back. If the old man heard his son’s words, he didn’t show it. Gus wished he was a kid again so he could cry. Instead, he straightened his shoulders and climbed back into the Porsche, with Cyrus right behind him.

Gus backtracked and headed for town and a used car lot, where he bought a secondhand pickup truck the owner said he could drive off the lot with the promise that one of his workers would drive the Porsche back to Moss Farms by midafternoon.

With Cyrus riding shotgun, Gus drove to Home Depot, where he loaded up the back of the truck with a new chain saw, hammers, nails, lumber, paint and anything else he thought he would possibly need.

When he checked his loading sheet and was satisfied, he drove to the unemployment office and posted a notice for day workers paying five dollars over minium wage. All calls would go to his cell phone so as not to bother his father. The Fairfax Connection took his ad and promised to run it for a week. Again, he asked for day workers to run the Christmas store his mother had made an institution.

Gus made two more stops, one at a florist he remembered his mother liking. There he explained what he needed and was promised wholesale prices. The order, the nice lady said, would be delivered by the end of the week. His last stop was a gourmet shop, where he again explained his needs and was promised delivery in seven days.

On his way home, Gus pulled into a roadside stand where his mother used to buy fresh cider. Within thirty minutes, he signed a contract for a daily delivery of fresh cider, and for an extra hundred dollars the owner agreed to rent him a top-of-the-line cooler. His arms loaded down with vegetables, fresh apples, eggs and some frozen food, along with some dog food, he completed his shopping, and headed back to Moss Farms, feeling like he’d put in a hard morning’s work. He was on a roll and he knew it. It was the same kind of feeling he always got when he presented a finished set of blueprints to a client. He loved the feeling.

As he drove along in his new pickup truck, Gus wondered about the dressed-up prissy woman who wanted to buy trees from his father. Competition was a good thing, a healthy thing. Maybe he needed to come up with a jingle or something to be played on the radio. For sure he was going to need to do some advertising. Well, hell, he had a workforce back in California. He’d give them a call and let them run with it. Creative minds needed to be put to use. He made a mental note to order a fax machine.

“I’m paying my dues again, Mom,” he whispered.

“I know, son, I know,” came back the reply.

Gus almost ran off the road as he looked around, his eyes wild. Cyrus let his ears go flat against his head.

He whined as he tried to get closer to Gus. I must be either overtired or overstimulated. He tried again.

“Did you just talk to me, Mom? Or was I hearing things?”

The tinkling laugh he’d loved so much as a kid filled the car. “In a manner of speaking, Gussie. I told you I’d always be there for you when you needed me.”

“Where…where are you, Mom?”

“Right beside you where I’ve always been. You just haven’t needed me before. I’m so proud of you, coming back like this. Your father is a hard man, Gus. Be patient and things will work out.”

“He gave our tree to the White House. I went there and got a branch. I hated him for that, Mom.”

“I know. I saw you there. I don’t want you to hate your father. He has difficulty showing affection. He loves you.”

“Well, Mom, he has a hell of a way of showing it.” Gus wondered if he was losing his mind. Was he so desperate for family affection he was imagining all this? He asked.

He heard the tinkling laugh again. “No, you aren’t losing your mind. You’re opening your mind. It goes with the upcoming season, Gus. You really need to fix that sign,” Sara Moss said, as Gus pulled into the entrance of Moss Farms.

Gus stopped the truck. “I’m going to do it right now. I have everything in back of the truck. Mom, did you…what I mean is…?”

“I saw the plaque on your office building. That was so wonderful of you, Gus. I felt so proud of you. Go along now. Do what you have to do.”

Gus climbed out of the truck, looked around. Then he shook his head to clear his thoughts. Cyrus was still whining. “Will you come back, Mom?”

“Only if you need me. Remember now, be patient with your father.”

Gus didn’t know if he should laugh or cry. He looked at his watch. High noon. His shoulders straightened and his step was firm as he rummaged in the back of the new pickup for the tools he would need.

By one o’clock, Gus had the sign fixed with a new coat of paint. By two-thirty, he had the front steps fixed, sanded, and painted. He jacked up the front porch with a two-by-four and had it back in place by three-thirty. By five o’clock he had the kitchen cleaned to his satisfaction. At six o’clock he was washing bed linens for his bed and was in bed between the clean sheets and blankets by eight-thirty. And he hadn’t seen his father once since coming back from town. He was asleep the moment his head hit the pillow because he knew he had to get up at four, eat and head out to the fields, because that’s what a farmer did.