Wildflowers (8 page)

Genevieve didn’t know what to expect this weekend. For a flitter of a moment, she wondered if Steven had some announcement to make to her and wanted to be away from home when he told her.

There I go, fretting again. Why can’t I be at peace about anything? Where is all this anxiety coming from?

Steven appeared and offered her his hand. They walked quietly through the lobby to the dining room. Their table was next to the floor-to-ceiling windows that faced the ocean. The sun already had gone down, and the rain splattering against the windows smeared their limited view of the outside world. It was cold sitting near the glass. Genevieve studied the menu while wiggling her toes in an effort to prolong the fire’s warming effects.

Dining out was something Genevieve enjoyed. She liked
to evaluate the items listed on the menu and see how chefs used common ingredients with uncommon results.

The soup of the day caught her eye. It was lobster bisque. Both she and Steven started with a cup of soup, followed with a spinach salad garnished with pecans and mandarin orange slices. Their conversation was light, as it had been in the car on the forty-minute drive to the coast.

“I know you told me that Mallory is staying with the Johnsons,” Steven said. “But did I ask you where Anna ended up this weekend?”

He had asked in the car, but Genevieve’s answer must not have stuck with him. “Anna is at a sleepover with some girls from the church. They’re at Brad and Alissa’s house.”

Steven knew Brad and Alissa well because they both had been renters at the duplex next to Steven and Genevieve’s home in Pasadena.

“What is Anna doing tomorrow?” Steven asked.

“She’s going to stay at Brad and Alissa’s and help them get the room ready for the girls.”

“That’s right,” Steven said. “The time is getting pretty close for them, isn’t it? When do they go to Russia to pick up the girls?”

“It’s Romania, actually.” Genevieve pushed the rest of her soup aside. It wasn’t very warm, and the flavors had been a disappointment. She preferred to save room for the salad and the main course of cedar-grilled salmon with a glaze of brown sugar and cilantro. “The adoption of the two sisters was final a few weeks ago, but they’re waiting for all the paperwork from the government to come through.”

“How old will the girls be when they arrive?”

“Two and almost three. There’s only eleven months between them.”

“Almost like having twins,” Steven said. “Brad and Alissa are certainly going to see their lives change.”

Genevieve nodded. “Children do have that effect on you.”

Steven seemed thoughtful a moment. “I don’t think our lives changed much after our girls were born, do you?”

Genevieve clenched her teeth. All her efforts to remain relaxed flew out the window, and before she could hold back her words, she stated, “You would have to have been around to notice.”

Steven put down his fork. Genevieve knew the signal. From the look in his eye, she knew he was weary yet nonetheless willing to meet her on the other side of the line she had just drawn in the sand.

“You knew what my career entailed when you married me.”

“I was nineteen, Steven. I didn’t know anything.”

“You knew plenty, Genevieve. Why is it that we can never resolve this issue? What is it you blame me for?”

“I don’t blame you for anything. You’ve made a wonderful life for the girls and me.”

“That’s not true. You still blame me for losing all that money in the stock market, don’t you?”

Both of them spoke in low, constrained voices. No one in the restaurant would have known they were fighting.

“That’s all in the past, Steven. We can’t keep looking
back.” Genevieve smoothed the stiff linen of the cloth napkin in her lap. The bitterness she had harbored for so long against Steven had become a tangled vine, winding through her heart’s garden. Many times she thought she had hacked away at the source of the problem, only to find that what had been removed was just a branch and not the root.

Without thinking about it, Genevieve let words slip through her lips. “Besides, you had a choice. You could have put all the money in the bank.”

Steven leaned closer. “You
are
still holding it against me, aren’t you? You think I talked you into making the stock market investment.”

“You were the one who did all the research and had the hot lead.”

“You could have disagreed at any point, and I would have dropped the whole idea.”

“I know. It was a mutual decision. We did what we thought was best. I don’t hold the decision against you.” Her words were bloodless, robotic, and void of life.

“Yes, we did what we thought was best. For you. For us. For your dad’s money. Your father would have understood. He would have, Gena. Do you still think he is somehow angry with you?”

Genevieve didn’t answer. She thought back to their wedding day and how her father barely spoke to her because he was angry that she was marrying an American. He had performed his duty, walking her down the aisle the same way he had performed his duty of walking her to school every day. She desperately yearned for him to offer a warm
squeeze of her hand or a kiss on the cheek before he turned her over to Steven at the altar. Instead, her father had given her a stiff half-bow from the waist just as he had done for years at the school yard’s gate.

In her mind that day had pounded his admonition, “Make something of your life that will shine brightly.” By marrying an American and interrupting her university education, her father no longer believed she could make anything bright or promising of her life.

Then her father had turned, sat down beside her mother, and folded his arms. Genevieve stepped up to the altar, put her hand in Steven’s, and somehow transferred all that pain and disappointment into their marriage.

Now Steven reached for Genevieve’s hand across the table and said with steady, even words, “Gena, this needs to get settled. I’m not perfect. Nobody is. Your father wasn’t perfect, either. He’s gone now.”

“And so is his money.”

“Yes, and so is his money. We’ve been over this before. There’s nothing we can do to change that loss, Gena. I’m trying my best here. When will you believe me when I tell you I love you? I’m here for you. I always have been.”

Genevieve’s eyes narrowed as she looked into Steven’s sincere face. “When are you here for me? You’re leaving again Monday. You’re not here, Steven. You’re never here.”

Steven sighed and leaned back, as if her blow had hit its intended mark. “Yes, I am leaving Monday. That’s my job. My job that I love and you hate. I’ve paid my dues for your resentment of my career. We moved to Glenbrooke, like you
wanted. We took another risk with the rest of the inheritance money and bought the café, like you wanted. What more do you want, Genevieve? Tell me, because I really would like to know.”

The waiter stepped up to the table at that moment, clearing their soup bowls and serving their salads. Genevieve had lost her appetite. She stared at one of the mandarin orange slices and tried to breathe slowly.

In a small voice she said, “I don’t want anything from you.”

“You know what?” Steven said. “There’s something I want from you.”

Genevieve looked up. She hadn’t expected his statement.

“I know you didn’t ask me what I wanted from you, but I’ll tell you anyway. I want you to forgive me.”

“Forgive you for what?”

Steven sat back. He pressed his thumb to his cheek and rested his fingers across his mouth as if deep in thought. “Only you can answer that, Genevieve. You say all these mistakes of mine are in the past, and yet I feel as if every single mistake I’ve ever made hangs around my neck like an invisible weight.”

“I don’t hold anything against you, Steven,” she said quickly. “And I don’t think it has anything to do with my father. Both he and Mom loved you like a son before they died. They knew you were a good husband and father. And you are. I don’t hold anything against you. I’m sorry I brought up the money. It doesn’t matter. It’s in the past. I don’t want to ever discuss it again.”

“I wish I could believe that,” Steven said.

They remained silent for a solid three minutes while they ate their salads. Genevieve hated the way she felt right now. Something needed to change. The darkness inside her spirit was smothering her. She had lost all sense of what was true and what was a deception.

Steven cleared his throat and held out a verbal olive branch before Genevieve’s barricaded heart. “We have a whole weekend ahead of us. I don’t want to argue with you. I want both of us to enjoy the time we have together.”

Genevieve forced a weak smile, as she had so many other times when their battle reached this point. “I don’t want to argue with you, either.”

Steven reached across the table and squeezed her hand. Genevieve knew that she would now do what she had done often before. She would retreat deep inside herself and leave only a shadow of the true Genevieve holding Steven’s hand and accompanying him through the rest of the weekend.

Little had changed inside Genevieve, despite their truce. The heaviness of her deepening sadness hung on her spirit like an overgrown vine blocking the light and air. There was no way on this green earth that she could get this darkness off her. She had tried before and nothing worked.

The only thing that helped was when she immersed herself so deeply in a project that no room was left for vine chopping. She survived by doing, not by brooding.

With renewed determination, Genevieve focused on all the good things she could find in Steven and in their marriage. This would be her project during the weekend. She
would think about only positive aspects or their life together and do all she could to make her time with Steven wonderful. Brooding would not be allowed this weekend.

When the sun came out Saturday, the two of them took an afternoon drive down the coast. Genevieve tied a turquoise scarf around her neck and let the wind tie her hair in tangles. She drank in the fresh sea air as if it were an elixir. They drove for miles without speaking. The space and air and time gave Genevieve a chance to downshift.

After a decadently delicious crème brûlee at a French restaurant, Genevieve slipped her hand into her husband’s as they walked out the door to the parking lot. Steven opened the car door for her. Before she got in, she kissed him generously. Her decision to focus on the positive was having a good effect on her.

On the way home Sunday afternoon, Genevieve felt refreshed. She told Steven they should do this more often, and she admitted she needed to get away more than she had realized.

“That’s what the girls told me,” Steven said.

Genevieve asked what he meant.

“Anna and Mallory told me you’ve been working too hard at the café. Anna said she thought the two of us needed to spend some time with each other away from all that.”

“This weekend was Anna’s idea?”

“No, it was my idea. But Anna’s comments prompted me to put the plans all together. I guess I needed to hear from the girls how hard you’ve been working.”

Immediately an old, familiar accusation flew to
Genevieve’s mind.
You wouldn’t need them to report to you about my life if you were actually around to live it with me
.

Genevieve determinedly pushed back the wave of anger that threatened to crash over her. She told herself not to think about the negative. Steven was here with her now. He had been with her all weekend. It had been a restful weekend in which the real Genevieve had almost begun to integrate with the shadow of Genevieve who had started out the weekend with Steven.

The struggle was more intense than she expected. By the time they arrived home, Genevieve had slipped back into the familiar place of darkness and discouragement deep inside her heart. She hid behind her well-rehearsed role of attentive mother and careful homemaker. The girls seemed happy that their mother had glowing reports about the great time she had enjoyed with their father. Anna and Mallory seemed to have no trouble believing all their mother’s words were true.

But this time, Genevieve knew that Steven wasn’t buying it.

G
enevieve arrived early for work Monday and noticed that Leah had installed the awning. It looked exactly as Genevieve had hoped it would. The outside appeal of the Wildflower Café was now as perfect as it could be.

Inside, the brighter lights helped a little. The café was about half full of customers. Leah, who had donned her baseball cap that morning, was making the rounds with a coffeepot.

“Hey,” Leah greeted Genevieve, “how was the romantic weekend getaway?”

“Very nice.” Genevieve was aware that everyone in the café could hear her answer. “After all that rain on Friday, Saturday was beautiful on the coast.”

“We had a high of sixty-eight degrees here,” one of the elderly gentlemen at table number three said.

“Time to get some corn in the ground, now that the rains have let up,” another man said.

Leah began to discuss gardening techniques with the men while Genevieve slipped into the kitchen and pulled a clean apron from the drawer. It felt good to be back. This was her domain, and she was full of plans for improvement. With Steven gone for a week, she could concentrate on the girls and the Wildflower Café with renewed energy.