Her mother wasn’t sick: she was going senile.
That must be why her mother had stopped cooking for herself and had become obsessed with planting pansies.
Come to think of it, her mother had said months ago she and Charley were going to put off the work they had to do for the tourism board. Doris June hadn’t heard a mention of it since. Her mother wasn’t the kind of woman to keep anyone waiting for months for a few pieces of information, especially not an official group like the state tourism board. The woman who raised Doris June would turn that work around in a heartbeat.
Yes, something was wrong.
Even the pansies seemed to be an odd idea now that Doris June thought about it. Her mother hadn’t planted pansies for the past ten years. And, with her arthritis, why start again now? Was her mother having some kind of a flashback to a happier, simpler time?
Doris wondered if her mother had been showing other signs of confusion. Her mother hadn’t been putting together any puzzles lately, either. She used to do dozens of puzzles every winter. Maybe the thousand-piece puzzles were suddenly too hard for her.
Doris June made a mental note to pick up some hundred-piece puzzles while she was out shopping. A few puzzles that weren’t too challenging for her mother were certainly better things to buy her than some chiffon dress. Where would her mother even wear a dress like that?
Doris June decided she would also stop by her doctor’s office and see if they had any information on the signs of early dementia. Maybe there were some mental exercises her mother could do or some special vitamins she could take.
Doris June knew her mother didn’t have severe problems. If she were exhibiting really bizarre behavior, it would be obvious to everyone and someone from Dry Creek would call Doris June and tell her about it.
Doris June took a deep breath and made herself relax. It wasn’t anything earthshaking. Older people often found themselves a little confused. Her mother was probably at the place where she needed to start making adjustments in her life. It was nothing to cause any major alarm. It was simply a part of the aging process. Her mother believed in being practical about such things, and Doris June had no doubt her mother would take her diminished sharpness in stride.
Doris June was just glad she would be able to give her mother some more help during the whole process. It might even bring her and her mother closer together, Doris June decided. Her mother had been the strong one her whole life; it was natural that the positions would reverse themselves and Doris June would become the one who was strong for her mother, instead.
The next week, on the Nelson farm just outside of Dry Creek, Charley pulled a chair up to the old table that stood squarely in the middle of the kitchen. Over the years, the stove in the kitchen had been replaced twice and the refrigerator three times. The cupboards had been refaced and the floor retiled. The one thing that hadn’t changed, though, was the table. He had sat down to breakfast at the same table in the same chair for the past forty years.
For some of those years, Charley had wondered if his life was in a rut. A man ought to see some change over the years, he figured, or there was no point in being alive.
When his son, Curt, moved home to take over the farm duties, Charley thought about relocating to someplace else, like maybe Florida or even just into the town of Dry Creek itself. He got maps and a book on the best places to retire. Then he realized he had everything he wanted in this small piece of Montana farmland and there was no reason to move anywhere else.
He’d had no reason since then to regret his decision to stay.
Watching the haggard look leave Curt’s face and seeing Ben fill out like a normal healthy teenager was something Charley wouldn’t miss for all the beaches in Florida. The big city of Chicago had taken its toll on his son and grandson, and Charley was glad they had returned to their roots.
Breakfast was Charley’s favorite meal because all three Nelson men sat down together just like they were going to do this morning. It was seven o’clock and Ben was just coming in the kitchen door after feeding the horses. Curt was standing in front of the stove getting ready to flip the eggs.
Charley hated to catch Curt in a moment when he needed his concentration, but sometimes a man had to think about the greater good even if it meant a yolk got broken.
“I just wish Ben could have been alive to see you making your traditional Mother’s Day breakfast for his grandmother,” Charley said. “You did it every year. A boy should know what his family’s made of.”
“No big secret there. We’re probably made of fried eggs and pancakes by now,” Curt said as he turned one of six eggs on the same griddle he’d used a little earlier to make pancakes. Fried eggs and pancakes were about as advanced as the cooking got at the farm, although Curt could make a good bowl of chili as well.
“If I remember right you made some fancy French toast one Mother’s Day. What was it you put in it?”
Curt grinned. “I put cinnamon on top of it. I thought I was really the gourmet chef.”
Charley smiled. “And you had some real maple syrup. Your mother talked about that syrup for days. She couldn’t figure out where you’d gotten a bottle of the stuff.”
“Billings,” Curt said as he turned another egg with a flourish. “I bribed Mr. Dennison and he brought it out for me when he did the mail route.”
“How come we never have French toast?” Ben grumbled as he pulled his own chair out. He’d just washed his hands and he wiped some of the dampness on his jeans before he sat down on the chair and pulled it close to the table.
“I only made it that one time for Mom,” Curt said as he reached up into the cupboard and grabbed a platter.
“I wish I’d been there,” Ben said quietly.
Charley had never seen a more wistful boy than Ben. Charley had thought Ben would outgrow it when he was on the farm, but he hadn’t yet. The boy always looked like he was missing something. And he was too quiet. He didn’t yell and shout like most teenagers, not even at basketball games.
“I wish you’d been there too, son,” Curt said as he put the turner under a couple of eggs and slid them onto the platter. The pancakes were keeping warm in the oven. “I wish it more so you could have met your grandmother than because my French toast was anything special.”
“Your grandmother was real tickled when you were born,” Charley added. One of the sad facts of his life was that his wife had died a few months after Ben was born and, due to her sickness, had never seen Ben. If the boy’s grandmother had lived, she would have known what to do to make Ben feel he had whatever it was he was missing.
“I always like to think Grandma would have been something like Mrs. Hargrove,” Ben said.
Curt set the platter of eggs and pancakes in the middle of the table and pulled out his own chair. “Your grandmother was not quite as opinionated as Mrs. Hargrove.”
“There’s nothing wrong with a woman having opinions,” Charley said. He knew Curt still had hard feelings for all of the Hargroves, but he kept hoping someday Curt would soften his views on Mrs. Hargrove. Charley counted the woman as one of his best friends and it rankled that his son didn’t respect her as he should.
Curt grunted. “She can have opinions as long as she keeps them to things she knows about.”
“I can’t imagine that there’s much that Mrs. Hargrove doesn’t know about,” Charley said. She had tended his broken leg and made him a salve that killed the pain better than the pills the doctor had given him. She didn’t just have book learning, either; she was a woman who knew her Bible. That had to count for something.
Curt snorted. “I can think of a thing or two she doesn’t know.” Curt stopped and looked over at his son. Curt swallowed and his voice was milder when he spoke again. “Of course,