Leaves Of Hope

“I came home.”

“How often? In his last year, you were home maybe twice.”

“Mother, it was hard to deal with. It was hard to see what was happening to him.”

“Hard to deal with? He didn’t find it hard to deal with the fact that you were another man’s birth child. He didn’t find it hard to deal with his pregnant bride. He accepted all that—just the way he accepted that his disease was going to rob him of every ounce of strength…the ability to talk…even his eyes, at the end. He couldn’t move his eyes, Beth. Did you know that? Because of it, he couldn’t even communicate with me. That brilliant man—silenced by a disease! But he kept on. John pushed forward, never feeling sorry for himself, never looking back. That was your father. That’s who raised you and loved you and gave you everything he had.”

Beth sniffled as she looked down at the teapot in her arms. Why did she feel guilty about even holding the thing? She had been a terrible daughter. And she was even more despicable now that she had opened the box, seen the tea set and read the note.

But she couldn’t help how she felt. She needed to know. Who was the man her mother had named in that cryptic message? What sort of person had given her an ivory, rose-strewn tea set…along with an unexpected baby…?

“Just tell me one thing,” Beth said. “Did he know about me? Thomas Wood?”

“It wouldn’t have made any difference to him. He had his own plans.”

“So you never told him.”

“I hinted. He probably knew. He left anyway.”

“Where did he go?”

“That’s enough, Beth. You don’t need all these details. Let’s go into the kitchen and get some cocoa. Here, give me the teapot.”

Beth clutched it tighter. “It’s mine. You put it in my box.”

“Thomas gave it to me.”

“And you gave it to his daughter. A childhood memento, you said. My childhood. And I’m keeping it.”

“Fine, then.” She flicked her hand in a gesture of disregard as she walked past her daughter. “I don’t care if you keep it. Take the whole box when you leave. Put it into that tiny little roomette you call an apartment.”

“It’s a studio.”

“Whatever.”

Jan could hardly blink back the tears that kept filling her eyes. As she filled the kettle with tap water, she wanted to shout at her daughter. Go away! Just leave me alone! What do you know about anything? You had life handed to you on a silver platter, and it was all thanks to John Lowell.

Oh, John! If only he were here right now. But that would be awful. Thankfully he had died before Beth found the teapot. He would have been crushed to see her reaction—so demanding and curious and stubborn. Hugging that teapot as though it were her own unborn baby. Clinging to it!

Jan sniffled and dug in her robe pocket for a tissue. Why had she even kept that stupid tea set? She should have thrown it out the moment Thomas turned his back on her and walked away. Thomas had professed to love her, but he had no idea what that really meant.

John, with his blond hair and gentle smile…he was the king of true love. He had heard about her predicament in a Sunday school class at church. Jan’s older brother had brought up his pregnant, unwed sister as a “prayer request.” Right. Perfect fodder for the holy gossip mill. But then John had come knocking on her parents’ door, asking if Jan would enjoy going out for ice cream, wondering how she liked her college history class, volunteering to lend her his books for a research paper.

At the time, he had a job as a college teaching assistant while working toward his master’s degree in history at Tyler’s branch of the University of Texas. It wasn’t exactly proper etiquette for John Lowell and Jan Calhoun to date, seeing as he was a teacher and she was a student at the same school. But she hadn’t been in his history class, after all, and he was a friend of her brother’s. In the end, no one from the college seemed to mind, and their awkward first dates quickly turned to love. At least John had fallen in love with Jan. She was still a wreck over Thomas when she agreed to marry.

But time took care of that. Did it ever! John became everything to Jan. Her lover, her supporter, her encourager, her best friend. Father to her daughter, and then to their sons. Those were happy days, for the most part. Jan could look back on her marriage with satisfaction. She had done the right thing. The smart, sensible, level-headed thing. All except for that tea set.

She set a mug on the counter and dumped in an envelope of instant cocoa powder and tiny, dried-up marshmallows. Well, she wasn’t about to give in to her daughter’s curiosity. Beth now had all the information she needed about Thomas Wood. He had given her his DNA but nothing more. He had vanished. And he was dead.

At least, Jan was pretty sure Thomas had died. So that was that. Que sera sera.

“I thought we might drive to Tyler and visit the rose garden in the morning.” Jan forced a lightness to her voice as she poured steaming water into the mug and began to stir. “It’s a little early in the season for the best display of flowers, of course, but there will still be a lot to see. I’m thinking of putting in a bed of roses here at the new house, and I’d like to get some ideas for which variety would work best. Maybe you could help me choose. I may plant some climbers up the south side, too.”

Her daughter regarded her coolly. “How did Thomas Wood die?”

“Stop this, Beth.” Jan slid the mug across the counter, sloshing hot chocolate over the rim and down the side. She stomped to the sink for a rag. “That subject is closed. Now, do you want to go to Tyler tomorrow or not? We could stop at the cemetery and visit your father’s grave.”

“Do you think I actually want to look at some stone stuck in the ground where my father’s body was buried? Dad isn’t there. He’s in heaven, Mom, and that’s how I want to think of him.”

“Well, you ought to at least see the marker. It’s very nice. Mine is right beside it.”

“Oh, Mother!”

“What?” Jan wiped up the spilled chocolate. “I’m planning ahead. I have a plot right next to your father’s. It’s not far from Nanny’s grave—near an oak tree.”

“So you and Dad can listen to the acorns fall while you’re lying side by side in your caskets?”

“That’s it.” Jan flung the rag into the sink. “I’m going to bed. If you want to stand there and say one ugly thing after another, you can just say them to yourself. I have better things to do.”

“Mom, don’t walk away. You cannot leave in the middle of this discussion.”

As Jan started toward her room, she could hear Beth following. “We’re not having a discussion,” she informed her daughter. “I was trying to make plans for tomorrow. Trying to say something nice. Hoping you might want to visit your father’s grave and remember what a wonderful, perfect man he was.”

“Dad was not perfect. He was funny and smart and kind and lots of good things. But he wasn’t perfect.” Two paces behind her mother, Beth stepped back into the bedroom. “I’m not living in some fairy-tale world, Mom. I remember Dad’s flaws, just like I see my own. And I’m not mortified that you’re imperfect, either. So, you got pregnant by your boyfriend before you were married. We’re humans. We do some stupid, wrong things. I forgive you.”

“I don’t need your forgiveness. I need you to stop making such a big deal out of the whole thing.” Jan pulled off her robe and sat on the bed. “It’s so far in the past. Let it go. Do what your daddy did and move ahead.”

“It’s in your past, but not in mine. I just found out about it, remember? Thomas Wood is news to me.”

“He wouldn’t have been if you had kept your nose out of my things. Now go to bed, Beth. I’m exhausted.”

Her daughter stood near the door, staring at her. Hating her. Reviling her. Jan had always known this was how it would be. If Beth ever found out the truth, she would despise her mother for making the decision to keep Thomas Wood a secret.

But that had been the best way. The right way. John was able to raise Beth without any interference from a shadowy, mythical father figure his daughter might throw at him in her anger. The family had been able to be normal. To behave as a family ought—no skeletons in the closet stepping out to bother them.

Of course, there was a skeleton in the closet. John and Jan knew it. But Beth and the boys…they hadn’t needed to be made aware of that potentially harmful information. Jan and John had made a choice, and they never once second-guessed it.

The only problem had been that tea set. Jan had considered getting rid of it, but the fact was…she couldn’t. Somewhere in her heart, she needed her daughter to know the truth. And she needed to preserve that tiny spark of memory that had been Thomas Wood.

So she had wrapped the set of china in layers of bubbly plastic and hidden it at the bottom of a box. No one was to open it until after her death. Then, if the box happened to get lost somewhere or was put into the trash or given to charity, fine. Or, if Beth actually opened it, she could deal with the truth then. When she was older. Wiser. Less prone to outbursts.

Her daughter’s dark brown eyes accused Jan from across the room. “I’m not done with this, Mom,” Beth vowed. Her lips tightening, she turned and left the room, shutting the door a little too hard behind her.

Jan let out a breath and dropped back onto her pillows. She knew Beth too well to think her daughter would drop the subject now…or ever. Beth would bring it up again and again. She would want to look at it the way she used to examine rocks she dug out of the dirt and washed in the kitchen sink. She would turn it one way, then another, asking questions and making speculations, the way she’d done as an inquisitive child. Do you think there’s a diamond inside this rock? If I cut it in half, would it be the same color inside as it is on the outside? What are rocks made of? Are rocks alive? Why do they keep coming up out of the ground?

Rolling over, Jan covered her head with the spare pillow. But nothing would block the image of her daughter’s accusing brown eyes, so like the eyes of Thomas Wood. The floodgates of memory burst open, and suddenly Jan was immersed in the past she had thought was buried forever.

Chapter Three

His eyes like deep pools of chocolate, Thomas sat on the doorstep at the back of the Calhoun house and gazed at Jan. “Why not?” he asked her. “You could at least come and see it.”

Why not? Seated beside him, so close their hips touched, Jan hugged her middle. Thomas had graduated from college a week ago, and two days later, she had learned the awful, wonderful truth. Snuggled down inside her, in the soft folds of a perfect nest, their baby was growing.

So, why didn’t she want to spend next semester’s savings, risk the life of her unborn child, freak out her parents and board an airplane bound for a war-torn island off the coast of India? Why didn’t she want to just go off with Thomas Wood, unmarried and pregnant, like a couple of hippie backpackers with no ties and no morals, living on nothing but love? Who did he think she was, anyway?

“I can’t go with you, that’s all,” she said. Her hair, a waterfall of thick auburn curls, tumbled over her knees as she crouched barefoot on the step. “I’m only nineteen, and we’re not married and besides…I don’t want to go to India.”

“It’s not India, Jan. It’s Sri Lanka.” He picked up a strand of her hair and twirled it around his finger. Thomas had wonderful hands—big, brown, manly fingers with thick nails and calluses that proved he knew hard work. Of all the things about him that made her stomach do flip-flops, his hands were the best. She recalled the first time she had met Thomas—he’d been lifting a rosebush from a flower cart into the trunk of her mom’s car at the nursery his parents owned. She had noticed his hands first, loved them instantly, then looked at his face and realized she had seen him in school.

“Hi,” he had said to her, and hooked his thumbs on the pockets of his jeans. He gave her a crooked smile. “I think we were in biology together last semester.”

She had nearly melted into a puddle in the parking lot. How could any man have fingers like that? And those eyes! And that mouth! And why hadn’t she paid better attention in biology?

Now, almost two years later, she still felt the same. But it was no longer just a physical spark between them. Thomas had walked into her heart, broken down all her restraints, taken her body, given his in return, become her whole world. And now he wanted her to abandon family, friends, stability, security—everything—to follow him halfway around the globe.

How could she say yes?

How could she say no?

“We’ll be in India for less than a day,” he told her, as though that were the most natural thing in the world. “The plane lands in Madras, and then we switch airlines and fly to Colombo. Someone from the tea company will meet us in the city and drive us up to Nuwara Eliya.”

“I can’t go, Thomas.”

“I’ll help pay your way. It’s not as expensive as you think. Besides, you got a scholarship last year, and you’ll get one when you transfer over to UT-Tyler. I know you will. C’mon, It’ll be fun, the two of us together.”

“My parents would have a cow.”

“You’re not a kid anymore, Jan. They like me. So what if we travel together?”

“So what? We’re Christians! They would die of embarrassment if I went off on a vacation with my boyfriend. The whole church would know.”

She swallowed as she thought of the months to come. Everyone would soon know about the baby she was carrying. An abortion was out of the question. Jan was studying to become a teacher, and she loved children. All her life, she had dreamed of having a big family of her own. This was an unplanned beginning, but she wasn’t about to cut short her child’s life just because things had started badly. No, she would simply tell her parents what had happened, and then she would have the baby…and move into an apartment of her own…and try to finish school…and…

Fighting tears, she dipped her head. “Just go, Thomas. Go home. Do whatever you want. This isn’t going to work out.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He turned and caught her by the shoulders, forcing her to face him. “Listen, Jan, I wrote you the whole time I was gone, didn’t I? It’s not like we were apart that long anyway. Three months. We both stayed faithful, and nothing changed between us. Why are you acting this way all of a sudden?”

“Nothing changed? You changed.”

“I did not. I just evolved into who I was already becoming. We’ve been together two years, Jan. You knew what I wanted out of life, and now it’s within my grasp. I got a great internship, I finished up my courses, I graduated, and now Wilson Teas wants me to come back and work there full-time. Management level. This is a great opportunity for me. And Sri Lanka is an amazing place. You’ll love it.”

“I’m not going, okay?” She pushed away from him and stood. Walking across the yard, she tugged her shorts down on her thighs and wondered how long she would even be able to wear them. By the end of summer, she’d be in maternity clothes. Unbelievable.

She could hear Thomas behind her. “What’s the big deal, Jan? Why are you pushing me away? I came all the way back to Texas to see you.”

“You came home to graduate.”

“And to be with you again. I care about you. I love you—you know that. Now come with me to Sri Lanka. Just for the summer. If you hate it, fine. But you won’t.”

She turned and set her hands on her hips. “You got cholera over there!”

“Yeah, and then I got well. I’m fine, now.”

“They’re having a civil war!”

“Not up in the mountains where we’ll be. The country’s an independent republic. It’s mainly just a problem between these two groups, the Tamils and the Sinhalese. The Tamils want an independent homeland, because they’re Hindus. The Sinhalese are Buddhists, and they’re the huge majority, and they’ve got the power.”

“I don’t care!” she sang out. “Tamils, Sinhalese—”

“But the government isn’t going to let the Tamils do anything too bad. Americans aren’t even a target. And the people I worked with on the tea estate are all really nice. I never felt afraid.” He raked his fingers through his long, shaggy brown hair. “You’ll be there with me for the Kandy Esala Perahera in July. It’s this amazing pageant with ten days of torch-bearers, whip-crackers, dancers and drummers. They’ve got elephants all decorated and lit up. Everyone told me it’s spectacular. We’ll see so much other stuff, too. This ancient ruined city called Anuradhapura has a temple that supposedly contains the right collarbone of Buddha.”

“What? Buddha’s collarbone? Come on, Thomas! That’s ridiculous!” Frowning at the very idea of herself in a place where people worshipped things like that, Jan stepped away from Thomas again. She spoke over her shoulder as she walked toward her mother’s flower garden. “That’s stupid! I mean, it’s just not for me, you know? I’m from Texas, Thomas, and I don’t need Buddha’s dumb collarbone to make my life complete. I don’t want to see a temple, and I don’t want to visit a place with malaria and cholera and bullets flying around. Okay? Okay? Can you just drop it?”

He stood by the picket fence, thumbs in his pockets the way she loved, staring at the ground. This conflict had been building between them for weeks. The moment Thomas got back, he’d begun putting subtle pressure on her—dropping hints, talking nonstop about the wonderful island and the amazing tea estate and the fascinating people. She kept her mouth shut, hoping the whole thing would go away.

Finally he mentioned that he might be offered a full-time job in Sri Lanka. Then he actually got a letter from the company offering him a contract. He wavered, talking about it one way and then another every time they were together. She’d tried to change the subject or ignore him. But today, after Jan had spent the morning hanging over the toilet vomiting, he’d told her he wanted her to go with him.

Not married. Nothing permanent. Just a trip. A summer vacation. See the place. Have a look around. Do some touring. Then she could return to Tyler and start her junior year at UT. A wonderful plan.

Right.

“Are you telling me you don’t ever want to go to Sri Lanka?” Thomas asked. “You wouldn’t even be willing to visit me there?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“But I want to work with tea!”

“You majored in agriculture, Thomas. Your parents own a rose company. Why on earth can’t you just stay here in Tyler and grow roses like everybody else? Why does it have to be tea?”

“I told you. I don’t want to be like everybody else. I want to see the world. I want to live in different places. Tea can take me wherever I want to go. They grow it in Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, India, China, all over the globe. It will be an adventure. Don’t you see? A great life.”

“Well, have fun on your big adventure, then.” She turned away, blinking back tears. “Go, Thomas. Just go home. I don’t even want to see you again. You’ve changed so much.”

“I have not, Jan! Why do you keep accusing me of that?” He caught up to her again, setting his hands on her shoulders. “Please, babe, don’t be this way. It’s me you’re talking to, okay? The same guy as ever. Only, I found out the world is a big place, and I want to experience it. I want you with me. I want it to be us…together.”

“What are you saying?” She looked into his brown eyes. Was this a marriage proposal? If so, he wasn’t doing a very good job of it. “You said you wanted me to go to Sri Lanka with you for the summer and then come back here.”

“Right. That makes sense, doesn’t it? I mean, you’d have to leave so you can finish college.” He scratched the back of his neck. “You couldn’t stay there. You wouldn’t have a work visa. Besides, you’re not even twenty yet.”

“But I’m old enough to travel halfway around the world with you? Old enough to flout my parents’ belief system and throw it in their faces? And then what? Come sashaying back to Tyler like nothing happened? Is that what you’re asking me to do, Thomas?”

“Is this about us having sex? Because if you’re going to go into your major guilt trip again—”

“This is about you telling me to act like an adult by going to Sri Lanka with you, and then turning right around and telling me I’m too young to marry you.”

“Marry me? I’m not ready to get married! I’m only twenty-two.”

“Fine, then. I don’t want to marry you, either.”

“Who said anything about getting married?”

“Nobody, because it’s not happening. Ever! Go to your stupid island and see Buddha’s collarbone and grow tea and have a wonderful life. I’m staying here in Tyler where I belong.”

“Come on, Jan. Don’t make such a big deal out of everything. I’m just talking about summer vacation. The two of us together. And maybe in the future…maybe if you like Sri Lanka…and after you get your degree…and I’m more settled…and older—”

“No, Thomas.” She brushed the tears from her cheeks. “No, no, no. If you want us to be together, you’d better stay here in Tyler. Because this is where I live. This is my home, and that’s my family in that house, and I’m going to get a degree and teach school, and have a baby and—” She hiccuped. “I’m going to marry someone who wants the same things I do, and we’ll have babies. Children, lots of them. And I won’t have to worry about my kids being blown up with land mines, or mosquitoes giving them all malaria, or any of that stupid stuff!”

“I love you, Jan! How can you tell me just to walk away from you like this?”

“I have my priorities.” She folded her hands over her stomach. “I know what’s most important in my life. And it’s not Sri Lanka.”

“It’s not me, you mean.”

“I didn’t say that.” She was crying so hard now that her nose had begun to run, and she felt like she might throw up again. “I love you, too, Thomas. I do. But I want the guy I met at Wood’s Nursery and Greenhouse. Not this foreigner you’ve turned into.”

“Jan, please. Try to understand. Try harder.”

“I can’t. No matter how hard I try, I don’t understand where you’re coming from. I want security. Stability. I need it. Nothing’s going to change that about me. You can’t change who I am into someone you want me to be.”

“And you can’t change me, either.”

They stared at each other. He was crying now, too, his eyes red and tears hanging on the fringes of his lower lashes. He swallowed and jammed his hands into his back pockets.

“Okay, then,” he said. “I guess this is it. It’s over between us.”

She nodded as bitter bile began to back up into her throat. “Bye.”

Before he could see her completely lose it, she ran across the yard, flung open the back door, made it to a bathroom and retched in the toilet.

Jan pressed her pillow against her face, blotting her tears. Dumb, dumb, dumb to be crying about Thomas Wood after all these years! She had done the right thing. To protect herself and her baby, she had cut him out of her life. Everything about him. She had thrown away the letters he had written her from Sri Lanka. She had packed the little gifts he had given her over their two years together—a pretty candle, a picture of the Rocky Mountains, a couple of science fiction novels she had forced herself to read, photos of the two of them together. Before he was scheduled to leave town, she had taken the box over to his house and dumped it on the front porch.

Three days later, she had discovered a box on her own front porch. Even now, the memory of Thomas’s handwriting on that brown cardboard made her heart hammer so hard, her pulse rang in her ears. She had knelt on the painted boards and pulled apart the flaps of the box. Expecting to find things she had given him, she was shocked to see a tea set sitting inside a nest of white foam peanuts.

It was beautiful. Covered with pink roses, her favorite flower, the teapot was rimmed in shining gold. Jan had lifted the pot in both hands, holding it to the afternoon sunlight, marveling at the glow of the glaze on the ivory china. Delicate bluebells, green leaves and yellow daisies mingled with the rose blossoms. The pot itself was a strange shape, squared into four corners with four small feet, yet somehow still soft and undulant. She had lifted the lid and peered inside to find a tiny white envelope wedged at the bottom of the pot.