house, in Rob’s old den. But for the day-to-day stuff, for the past six months I’ve been training Steve’s mom to answer the phones and set appointments.
It’s likely the training took so long because of that haze I was in, or maybe she doesn’t pick up on things as quickly as her son. Any of the guys could have learned to do those duties themselves, but they may have wanted to keep that maternal influence in the office. For years, I’d been the maternal element.
I miss it now—I’d be lying if I said I didn’t—but I won’t miss being there without Rob and feeling guilty because he’s not. I only worked there to spend time with him. He’s the one who loved the place. He started it so he could quit his IT job in the city, save the commute and avoid the travel he’d had to do, and spend more time with his family.
Being at the office since Rob’s death only served to remind me that he hadn’t been able to live that part of his dream, hadn’t been able to spend more time with us. So I actually feel relief that I sold it. I smile as I let the feeling wash over me like the light rain that’s falling, washing the dust off the Tahoe.
The kids might be mad now, but in time they’ll see it was the right decision, not just for me but for them, too. I’ll have more time to spend with them now, since I’ll be working from home. I’m not sure how they’ll feel about my converting Rob’s den, though. But if they’re going to heal, they have to accept that he’s gone, and they can’t do that if I leave everything the same, as if he’ll walk through the door any minute and break our tense silence with his big, booming laugh.
I pull into one of the diagonal spaces in front of The Tearoom. I’d been much older than my children, in my early thirties, when my dad died, but I’d resented some of the decisions my mom had made. Selling the farm. Buying this place.
I hadn’t understood the stages of grief then. I hadn’t accepted that Dad wasn’t coming back. I’d thought we should keep the farm for him because he’d loved it so much.
At that time, I hadn’t realized that my mom had to do what was right for her, so that she could move on. So that she could find her way past her grief and be there for us again. Hopefully, my kids will understand that someday, as well. Since they’re younger than I was when Dad died, I have to be patient, have to give them more time.
When I step through The Tearoom’s door, I catch a mad flurry of movement behind the counter. My mother is quickly draping napkins over the pastries in the display case.
Despite the crowd, driven in, no doubt, by the hunger for gossip as much as the rain, the room is dead silent, like Rob’s funeral had been when the DJ had played the first few notes of the Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” Rob had loved The Big Chill so much he’d worn out two VHS tapes and a DVD of it.
My mother says to me, her small arms spread wide and protectively across the counter, “Please, don’t hurt them! They can’t defend themselves!”
The room erupts into raucous laughter, just as it had at Rob’s funeral. He was only her son by marriage, but they shared a lot of the same traits, such as knowing how to work a room.
I take an exaggerated bow, and everyone applauds.
I’m still laughing as I join her behind the counter, where she grabs me in a fierce hug. I see the concern darkening her blue eyes to navy, and know that what she did wasn’t a joke but damage control. For me.
“I’m okay,” I tell her.
She arches a golden brow in disbelief. She’s dainty and petite, and my dad, although not as big as Rob, had been really strong from all his hard work on the farm. But she was the one we feared as we were growing up. While Dad was easygoing, Mom never let us get away with anything. Then or now.
“I needed to do that,” I tell her. “I’m really okay. You know.”
Nobody knows like she does.
Less than a decade ago, she stood in my shoes. I’ve found comfort in that, in having her as my little hundred-pound guidebook to widowhood. I tried doing everything she did, moving on like she has, but I couldn’t do it just like she did. I needed to find my own way…in Smiley’s store.
“I know you’re okay now, sweetie,” she says with a smile, and wraps her hand tight around mine.
Not for the first time, I see how similar they are—blue veins running under thin white skin. Initially I noticed at Rob’s funeral, when she’d taken my hand in support. They’re good hands. Strong, capable hands.
“Thanks, Mom,” I say, squeezing hers before releasing it so she can rush off to serve customers.
She needed this place when my dad died. She’d needed to be needed, to wait on people, to take care of them. With us grown and Dad gone, she’d had no one else to satisfy her desire to nurture.
Coffeepot in one hand, hot water in the other, she pauses on the other side of the counter and turns toward me again. “I have a carrot cake in the back that’s been giving me trouble. You want to take care of it?”
Would I ever! With a fork and knife instead of my fists and feet. I’m not a complete militant when it comes to sweets. I have my weaknesses, and my mother knows them. She winks before trotting off.
She’s sixty-seven now, but men’s heads still turn when she walks past. I don’t think it has as much to do with her youthful face and figure or her golden-blond hair and bright eyes as her spirit.
She’s indomitable.
I will be, too. I just need to figure out the rest of it. What happened in Smiley’s yesterday wasn’t planned. As I admitted to my sisters, I just snapped.
I’m sitting at the counter, a pot of fruit-and-almond decaf tea steeping in front of me. Mom always collected tea sets, but the collection had gotten out of control as my dad, my sisters and I had given one to her for every birthday, Mother’s Day, Christmas and anniversary. She’d had very little to buy, other than the building, to start her business. I guess she was right, six years ago, when she tried to convince us that selling the farm and starting this tea shop was meant to be.
The pot that sits before me now is one Rob bought for her, a ceramic one with a face like Groucho Marx with the bushy eyebrows, big nose and cigar. I smile at it as I fork small bites of carrot cake into my mouth. I’m savoring the sweet combination of cream cheese and my mother’s secret spices when Pam plops down next to me.
“Hypocrite,” she mutters as she clutches a mug of coffee between her hands, inhaling the scent of the beans Mom uses.
There’s no use talking to Pam until she’s had an IV of caffeine in the morning. I might have forgotten that from when we were younger if not for those weeks she stayed with me. Then I’d been careful not to talk to her in the morning, especially if Robbie had played one of his father’s pranks on her.
But today I risk it.
“I’m getting a serving of vegetables by eating this. It has carrots in it,” I point out.
She shakes her head, then takes a long drink of coffee. With the amount of steam rising from the mug, it’s a wonder she doesn’t burn her mouth.
I’m in no mood for her silent treatment and try again. “So you tattled on me?” I accuse her with heavy mockery.
