Twice in a Lifetime (2 page)

“I wish your father was here,” she said.

For the first time since Clara had seen him sitting in the jail cell, Tommy showed real emotion. “Don’t say that!” he shouted, whipping around in his seat to jab a finger at her. “Every time things don’t go the way you want, you say that. I hate it! He’s dead and he’s never coming back!”

Before Clara could reply, Tommy pushed open the door, jumped out, and slammed it behind him hard enough to shake the truck. She watched as he stalked down the street and right past their house. He never looked back.

As the minutes passed, Clara’s heartbeat began to slow. The sun rose higher, and more of Sunset woke to a new day, but she still made no move to drive the short distance home. Instead, she sat and thought about her life, about how different everything was from how she’d imagined it would be; it was all upside down, backward, and inside out.

Whenever she thought about all that had been lost, a gaping hole that would never be filled, it hurt. But on this particular day more than any other, the memories were sharper, the pain more raw.

Today was the anniversary of Joe’s death.

C
LARA PULLED INTO
the driveway and shut off the engine; the truck shuddered as the motor ticked and hummed. She took another glance at herself in the rearview mirror, breathed deeply to try to steady her still rattled nerves, and got out.

The house had seen better days: its yellow paint was faded and flaking; on the far end of the wraparound porch, one of the eave spouts had come loose and hung precariously; the last time there had been a thunderstorm, the attic had sprung a leak, with water running down the bathroom walls; the flower beds were choked with last autumn’s leaves, weeds poked their way through the cracks in the walk and driveway, and the grass was in dire need of cutting. Everything had decayed since Joe’s death. Clara knew that her husband would have been ashamed; he’d always been so proud of his property, so meticulous in its care, that it would have devastated him to see it in such a state.

But inside was different.

Every week, Clara scrubbed the floors and staircase. Though the furniture was a bit worn and faded, she mended every frayed stitch and straightened every wobbly leg. She dusted the tables until they shone. But she took special care of the fireplace mantel. It was there that she kept her photographs of Joe. They marked every moment of their life together: their courtship, the day they were married, Tommy as a baby, and even Joe smiling proudly in his uniform. Just having them there, seeing him every day, made her feel like he was still around, as if he was watching over them.

The smell of coffee wafted from the kitchen. Inside, Clara found her mother, Christine, staring into the pantry.

“Good morning,” Clara said. “You’re up awfully early.”

Christine nodded absently.

Clara went to the cupboard, grabbed a mug, and filled it with coffee. She sat down at the small kitchen table and looked at her mother.

To her daughter’s eye, Christine Montgomery was still a beautiful woman. Her hair, a silvery white with only a few remaining streaks of black, swept over her shoulders. Though her face became more wrinkled with every passing year, it was as perfectly proportioned as a porcelain doll’s; her green eyes, pert nose, and thin mouth were just where they should be. Even at such an early hour, at almost sixty years of age, she had an air of grace about her.

Still, something was clearly wrong. As Clara watched, Christine took a hesitant step into the pantry, raised her arm as if she was about to grab something, but then quickly moved back, her face a mask of confusion.

“Mom? Is everything all right?”

“Of course it is,” Christine answered with little conviction, offering a smile that never quite managed to reach her eyes. “It’s just that since I was up, I thought I might make breakfast. I put on coffee and then opened the pantry, but that’s as far as I got…” Gesturing at the door, she added, “I kept thinking that if I stood here long enough, it’d come back to me, but I’ll be darned if I can remember what I wanted to make.”

“Why don’t we have pancakes?” Clara suggested, getting up from the table to gather the ingredients she would need.

“Now that sounds like a lovely idea!” her mother enthused.

Christine had always been one of the smartest and strongest women her daughter had ever known. When her husband had unexpectedly died in an automobile accident when Clara was a little girl, Christine had refused to let it keep her from living her life or raising her child as best she could. As Sunset’s librarian, she had an encyclopedic knowledge and was ready and willing to help answer any question. A well-schooled pianist, she played in recitals, at church services, and at the town’s annual Fourth of July picnic. She had plenty of friends, ladies with whom she gossiped, played bridge, and shared recipes. Everyone in town loved her.

But then, a little more than two years ago, something changed.

It began innocently enough; Christine complained that she couldn’t find her house keys, or that she had forgotten the name of her cousin’s youngest daughter. Clara hadn’t paid her mother’s memory troubles any mind. But then, one Sunday morning at church, Christina had repeatedly stumbled over a stanza she had played hundreds of times before. At her daughter’s insistence she had gone to the doctor, but nothing had been found to be wrong. Still, the problems worsened; she blanked on the names of lifelong friends, repeated questions again and again, and forgot to pay her bills. Finally, last year around Christmas, Bob Herring had called Clara to say that Christine had been sitting in her car out in front of his grocery store for more than an hour; when Clara arrived, her mother burst into tears, fearfully admitting that she couldn’t remember how to get home.

Slowly but surely, Christine began to distance herself from her friends, afraid that she would say or do something foolish. She quit her job at the library. She even stopped playing the piano. On the outside, she looked like the same person she had always been. But on the inside, Christine was withering away.

It was painful for Clara to watch. Eventually, with some prodding, she had managed to convince her mother to move in with her, as much for Christine’s safety as her daughter’s peace of mind. While making ends meet became harder than ever, there was simply no other choice.

“Did I hear the truck drive in?” her mother asked after she sat at the table. “I thought you were still in bed.”

“I…had a few errands to run,” Clara lied, thankful that she was getting some eggs out of the refrigerator and her back was turned; that way, Christine couldn’t see her face.

“So early? What was it that couldn’t wait?”

“Something for the bank…”

“Well, I just hope that Theo Fuller appreciates you,” her mother said, taking a sip of coffee. “It’s not often you find an employee so devoted to their job that they’d get up before sunrise on their day off!”

Clara had worked at the Sunset Bank and Trust since the war had conscripted most of the town’s men into the service; after Joe’s death, she’d stayed on. So while what she was telling her mother wasn’t the truth, at least it was believable. But the lie was still distasteful; though Christine had confused Theo for Eddie Fuller, the man’s son, who now ran the bank, Clara felt no need to correct her mother.

“What about Tommy? Is he still sleeping?”

“No, he…He left when I did…”

“That boy! Always up to something! The way he burns the candle at both ends, it’s a wonder he sleeps at all,” his grandmother exclaimed. “It seems like only yesterday he was racing down the steps on Christmas morning, wondering what Santa had brought him. Of course, he’s almost grown up now. It won’t be long before he leaves to start a life of his own.” With obvious pride, she added, “With the job you’ve done raising him, I’m sure he’ll end up right as rain.”

Clara cringed; she had purposefully left her mother in the dark about Tommy’s acts of mischief. Christine had enough problems of her own. For his part, her son behaved differently around his grandmother, more polite, more like the boy he used to be. Clara knew he cared deeply for Christine, that they had always been close, and that he, too, wanted to spare her more headaches, for which Clara was thankful. Still, right now, all she wanted was to talk to her mother about Tommy, to speak of her fears about what he was becoming, of how helpless she felt, unable to do anything to stop it. But she couldn’t say a word.

When it came to Tommy, she was on her own.

Once Clara finished making breakfast, she sat down and ate, talking with her mother about the weather and other innocent topics, feeling both guiltier and more alone with every word. When she finished eating, Clara took her dishes to the sink and began to clean them.

“I’m going to take a bath and get dressed,” she said. “I want to get out to the cemetery before the rain rolls in.”

“The cemetery?” her mother asked, confused. “What for? Is today a holiday? We were just there to put flowers on your father’s grave…”

Clara stopped scrubbing her plate. Her heart pounded and she felt tears rising, trying to overwhelm her already strained resolve. She took a deep breath in an attempt to compose herself. “No, Mom,” she said as calmly as she could. “Today is the anniversary of Joe’s death.”

Christine’s face fell. “Oh, sweetheart,” she said, her voice choking. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve known. It’s just this muddled head of mine…”

Wiping her hands on a towel, Clara sat down beside her mother. She smiled, taking Christine’s hands and giving them a gentle squeeze.

“It’s all right. You shouldn’t be expected to remember everything.”

Her mother wiped away a tear. “How long has it been?”

“Nine years.”

“I can’t believe it. It seems like only yesterday when those men came and…” Her voice trailed away.

Clara forced another smile; she’d had years of practice acting the opposite of how she really felt. “It was a long time ago.”

“It doesn’t matter how much time passes,” Christine said. “Your father’s been gone for decades and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of him. Even if my memory isn’t what it once was, I could never forget all he meant to me. So don’t ever let go of Joe. Treasure your time together, even if it was short. Keep everything, especially Tommy, close to your heart.”

Clara hugged her mother tightly. Over and over, she told herself to calm down, to keep her emotions under control; she fought back tears while quieting the thunderstorm raging in her heart. It had worked, at least for now.

But when she went to visit Joe, all bets were off.

Clara drove through the open gates of Sunset’s cemetery and the truck bumped down the long avenue that divided rows of tombstones. The afternoon sun glinted off stone and weathered iron markers. In the oldest part of the cemetery, rusted fences cordoned off family plots, while a towering obelisk leaned to one side, a memorial to the Walker family, the first to settle there more than a hundred years earlier.

Turning off the main road, Clara meandered along the creek that bordered the cemetery. Sunlight gave way to shade as she passed beneath tall elms and maples. Gravel crunched beneath the truck’s tires. On occasion, she had seen deer grazing here, their heads rising to watch as she drove past. It was a peaceful place, meant to soothe mourners as they came to visit those they’d lost.

But it had never comforted Clara.

In the years just after Joe had died, she had come often; she had stood in the pouring rain, wiped sweat from her brow, pushed away fallen leaves, and brushed snow from his stone. But now she visited only on the anniversary of his passing. Whereas once she’d sought answers to ease her pain and sadness, Clara had come to understand that the only things waiting for her here were more tears.

And she already had plenty of those.

Clara drove on as the road wound along the creek before finally climbing a short hill; when the truck crested it, she stopped.

Ahead, two men were pitching the pieces of a broken tombstone into a wheelbarrow. Immediately, Clara understood that this was the marker Tommy had been accused of knocking over. Fortunately, Joe’s grave was in the opposite direction, so she wouldn’t have to get too close; she imagined that the men would have been able to sense her shame, as if she was responsible.

For almost one hundred years, the men of Sunset had marched off to war. Many had died. In the oldest part of the cemetery, there were plots for soldiers who had fought in the Civil War, their simple stones faded by age and speckled with moss. There were graves for those who had gone off to the Spanish-American War, and for those who, decades later, had taken ships across the Atlantic to battle the kaiser during World War I. Joe was buried among the brave soldiers, sailors, and airmen who had died fighting Hitler and Hirohito. More recently, graves had been dug for Jeff Tjaden and Scott Cavanaugh, men Clara still remembered as boys, soldiers who had given their lives in Korea. She feared that someday soon there would be another war, off in some foreign land, and even more of Sunset’s bravest would be laid to rest.

Clara sat in the truck with her hands on the steering wheel and stared at Joe’s tombstone. His was the third in its row, carved out of dark marble. Even now, after so much time had passed, just looking at it filled her with intense feelings of loss. But still she came. Taking a deep breath, Clara grabbed the small bundle of flowers she’d brought, pushed open her door on squeaky hinges, and got out.

She wiped some leaves from the stone’s base, pulled a dandelion from the ground—the weed just beginning to spread its small yellow petals, hungry for the sun—and placed her own bundle of flowers in its place. Clara put a trembling hand on the marker; the stone was warm, almost hot to the touch, but she didn’t let go.

“Hello, sweetheart,” she said softly, her voice nearly breaking.

In years past, Clara had told Joe all about her life, about her fears for her mother’s ailing health, her money troubles, and especially her problems with Tommy. Unlike with her mother, she’d never held anything back during her graveside chats; Clara figured that Joe saw and knew all anyway, so there was no point in keeping secrets. She’d talked about what was happening in the world, from the dropping of the atomic bombs and the end of the war, to the outbreak of the conflict in Korea, to Eisenhower being elected president. She hummed the tune of “Too Young” by Nat King Cole. She tried to describe what it was like to see Gary Cooper in
High Noon
at the Palace Theater. She even told him about Jackie Robinson’s debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers; Joe had been such a big baseball fan that she knew it would have mattered to him. She spoke as if they were sitting at the kitchen table, poring over the newspaper together or listening to the radio. She had laughed. She had worried. She had been afraid. She had cried.

But not today. Today she didn’t know what to say.

After all the long years she’d spent missing her husband and struggling to care for her family and herself, Clara was tired, exhausted in both body and mind. In her weakest moments, she had even considered giving up, surrendering to her problems, but she knew that if Joe were alive, he’d be furious with her. He hadn’t been a quitter, even during the worst of times. He would tell her to pick herself up and make things right, no matter what it took.