Long Road to California Read online

  Chapter 10

  Vera’s Visitors

  Vera Mae tries to stay awake and alert. Though it’s often tempting to drift off, she tells herself maybe there is enough in this life to keep her here for awhile longer.

  She has been getting more phone calls. And her callers have been patient with her. Letting the phone ring until she can ease over and fumble with the handset, carefully identifying themselves. Ginnie and the boys calling at regular intervals. Her brothers’ kids now and then too, whom she still thinks of as youngsters though of course they’re getting into their 50s and 60s by now. Since her older brothers passed, sadly within a few months of each other back some 10 years ago, she is the last of her generation. Mom or Grandma to the whole brood.

  She’s had some visitors too. It strikes her that someone may have organized a round robin of some sort, with Caleb and Nina, who lived closest and came most often, away on their trip. Their girl Lucia has come, and the twins came by, her brother Jed’s oldest granddaughters. Even Jed’s only daughter and her quiet husband came all the way from Oregon and stayed for awhile, though it seemed they were content to sit together with her and watch the television.

  In any case it behooves her to stay alert. Today is Sunday, the day the most visitors come throughout the assisted living home. Vera perches on the edge of her bed, trying to keep her tired back upright and thinking ruefully of the times gone by when she could have hopped up and trotted down the long hallways here without a second thought. For now, she must let it be enough to sit facing the door, to look and listen to goings on out there.

  Maya doesn’t work on Sundays, but somebody else will be along, Vera reminds herself. If she needs a hand. (She tends to forget, either the girl’s schedule or the day of the week, then must endure the syrupy tones of the impatient aides who address her as if she was a small child.) Yesterday, Maya helped her with the computer, and read out to her the messages. Frank, her youngest, will be coming by with his new wife, one of his daughters, and some assemblage of grandchildren.

  As is typical, he was vague with the details. Vera’s eyes drift downward, and she brushes at her light cotton pants, unsure if she’s seeing discoloration or just wrinkles. Or perhaps it’s a pattern in the fabric. Well, no matter. If he can’t be more specific than we’ll see you in the afternoon, he can hardly expect his mother to be pristine and wrinkle free. There are lots of ladies here who get dolled up really beyond necessity for their visitors, Vera thinks. Hair permed and sprayed, garish stripes of bright red lipstick, stiff flowered skirts, and all for people like the minister’s assistants who must make their after-church rounds.

  Vera decides she can ease herself into the bathroom – she needs to go anyway – and put on a subtle bit of lipstick. Otherwise, they’ll have to take her as she is.

  Frank is turning 60. It’s remarkable to think that her youngest child has now lived longer than either her own father or younger brother did. That Frank, the baby, might now be called a senior citizen (not that he would ever allow such terminology; in that he is like her, quick to deny his own signs of aging).

  Frank and his younger second wife live near Los Angeles, but have come to spend a long weekend at a fancy hotel in San Francisco. Surely there was a party, or a festive dinner of some sort. Vera tries to recall now, she feels sure she saw an invitation but understood it to be pro forma – hauling her out of the home and across the bay into the city would have been too much trouble, a terrible distraction. She thinks someone declined graciously on her behalf, yes, that’s why the group will be arriving here.

  Maya helped her with a birthday card and it went into the mail early last week. The Byrnes have never been big on presents and treats for birthdays except for the children. But she wonders now – maybe she should have made more of an effort to join them. Maybe they should have encouraged her more. Somehow gotten her out into the wider world again, if only for an evening. But Frank, of all the children, she and Walt had to admit on occasion, was a bit spoiled. Not so much one to think of others, always feeling a bit more entitled, that’s the word, than his siblings. Far more so than she or Walt, or anyone of their generation, certainly.

  After awhile, a pleasant interlude of reasonable comfort in her chair, enjoying what she can of the pretty day outside, snippets of conversations from the hall and a bit of music from her radio, she hears them approach. Frank’s voice is loud – he’s possibly somewhat hard of hearing – and the wife’s tone high pitched and staccato.

  “Come in, come in,” Vera calls, projecting her ragged unused voice as much as she can. Such energy, from so many people crowded in her doorway. “Let me say hi to each of you. Then Frank, if you can give me an arm, we can visit down in the nearer parlor. Give everyone a place to sit.”

  Vera feels her chest expanding, the smile that won’t leave her face at the sight of these dear people. The children, smooth faced and smiling, each so polite, so careful with her. Frank’s girl Lizzie, or Liz she goes by now, still looking so young herself but here she is with children of her own. Vera tries to remember Frank’s wife’s name. Her face is familiar, kind of over tight and chiseled, hair careless and dry looking, blonder than nature ever intended it. Vera thinks of her as easily distractible, and indeed she is holding onto her cell phone, eyes darting toward it, even as they all make their way down the long hallway.

  They sit, Vera on a stiff chair that will support her back, the other adults sprawling across a couch and love seat, kids on the floor. Liz offers the children a pair of picture books to look at, admonishing them to do so quietly.

  “Don’t worry,” Vera says, “We all like to hear children’s laughter here.” She hesitates, not wishing to supercede parental authority, but Lizzie and Frank both laugh.

  “These two get started, you’ll need earplugs,” Frank says. “Even I will!”

  Vera laughs with them. Asks about the grand dinner party. As Frank regales them with tales of the event, Vera finds herself only partly listening. More, she watches Frank, and hears traces of Walt in his voice, in his mannerisms. And also, so clear as if they’ve gone backward in time, she sees her boy, her young man, Frank as he was years and decades ago. The youngest, always piping up with his own take on things, striving to be heard amongst the others. The most interested in new trends, the most rebellious.

  Turning half away, eyes on his wife as he prompts her to join in, there are traces of all three of her brothers, even her father, in the mature man Frank has become. Vera holds her tongue, though. As a boy, Frank preferred to be his own person, not reminded of how much he resembled all those other boys gone by.

  But here comes another cacophony of voices, and more lovely people tumbling into the room. TJ, Alexis, Nate and Lucia have come too. Windblown, laughing, exclaiming over their ride, for it seems TJ has driven them over in his tiny car that was already stuffed with gear he was bringing for Frank from the party.

  Vera can’t quite keep track of which ones got rides to the city with each other, who stayed with whom, but just drinks in the liveliness they all bring to the room. Alexis crawls onto the floor to play with her nieces, while Lucia and Nate, second cousins close in age who used to play together well, kid around with each other as always.

  TJ draws up a chair right next to Vera and tells her how good she looks, teases her that she can’t possibly have a son as old as Uncle Frank.

  “Oh, aren’t you the flirt,” Vera tells him. She feels her cheeks flush slightly. For an instant, she is brought back to a much earlier time. To the sweet things Walt would say, during their brief courtship. Or further back, the older times. She turns away from these thoughts, and asks Alexis and Nate and Lucia for updates on their studies.

  How polite they are, even Alexis, who gently reminds her that she finished college some time ago.

  “Time flies, doesn’t it, Ma?” says Frank. “I look at these two and I can’t believe I have grandchildren. I think I
’m seeing Lizzie and Alexis. Pretty in pink but plotting trouble.”

  Friendly eye rolling from his girls, giggles from the little ones. “Tell us about when Daddy was little,” Liz suggests. “The naughty stuff he used to do.”

  The young adults cluster around her, fully grown but still with the appearance of large children. Vera has told them family stories before. Cleaned up, cheerful family tales – food fights and flashlights hidden under bedding to stay up past midnight. The kitten Ginnie found and lured home, kept in the boys’ room in secret for nearly a week before she heard its telltale meowing, how she grew to be the favorite pet, boss of the family dogs. Later, the creak of footsteps on the squeaky steps, sneaking in after curfew. Frank growing his hair out long, skipping school to go to a protest, only to have his picture printed in the local paper.

  She doesn’t talk about things like Frank getting caught smoking pot. His dropping out of college. Ginnie getting married so young and then bitterly divorced. The lost feelings she herself got sometimes, thinking of the life she might have missed. If not for the hard times, if Nellie had somehow survived. If she had married Reno the first time they spoke of it, rather than gaily sending him off to the coast to earn more money. How could any of them have guessed that just a few short years lay between them and the easy prosperity that followed?

  But Lucia is talking now, bringing the others up to date on the journey her parents have undertaken. To hear her tell it, they are roughing it near as much as Vera herself did, and Vera must clear her throat and speak up to gently correct this impression.

  “My dears, they may be in a rough and tumble pick up truck, but they are on paved highways, not the road they used to call bloody 66. Going twice, three or four times as fast. They have guard rails and headlights, road signs, gas stations and restaurants all the way along. Why, if they got a flat tire, they could call someone from their cell phone and not even have to leave the car!” Vera catches her breath. She is flattered to see the circle of faces surrounding her, hanging on her every word.

  “Did you change the tires yourself, Grandma?” asks TJ. “How long did your whole trip take?”

  “Well, I helped my brothers, yes indeed. Starting the Ford up too, it had a hand crank. Not just a simple key to turn.” Vera pauses. “Almost eight weeks, it was altogether,” she tells TJ. “Of course we made several stops along the way. Not least to fix a tire that blew right as we were coming fast down a hill, that slowed us down indeed.”

  “Tells us about when you and Grandpa got married,” Alexis exclaims. She is still so young, moony about romance. No one really wants to think about those hardships so long gone.

  Vera settles back on her chair. She knows they have heard her story, but she can see their smiles. The sense nostalgia even amongst the younger set. “It was wartime,” she says. “Even though the war had come to Europe, we’d been seeing it on the newsreels, it came as a surprise to us here. Pearl Harbor seemed to change everything in a day. Our fleet struck, so close to the west coast, not a person didn’t wonder if San Francisco or the shipyards on the bay would be targeted next. The whole country geared up. Everyone felt patriotic – think how it was after 9/11,” she adds, to keep it relevant to the youngsters. It strikes her briefly that the children don’t even remember that.

  “Well, your grandfather and I had been seeing a bit of each other before then. Dating, you could call it, though we didn’t have much pocket money to do more than walk around the lake. Sometimes go to the pictures. I’d cook him a meal now and then. He had recently lost his mother, you know. Hadn’t much learned to fend for himself in the kitchen.”

  “Not like Dad,” Alexis pipes up. Indeed, Frank had fancied himself somewhat of a gourmet after he got divorced.

  “Well, it was different for a bachelor back then. But we hadn’t been in any hurry, is what I mean. We had known each other for several years, if you count back to when our families were first acquainted. But when the war came, everything speeded up. It was as if the last years had been in slow motion and then everything got fast. Factories got going. Preparations for war. Recruiting stations opened, men rushed to sign up. Walt was 24, I was 21. He’d never been able to get a good solid job, and I guess there was no question that he’d sign up.” Here Vera takes in all the faces again. Sees pieces of herself and Walter both in each of them, in the blue eyes, the upturned noses.

  “He stopped at the jewelry store on the way from the recruiting station. He didn’t have enough to pay for the ring, but the fellow there let him have it on loan for the evening. An older gentleman, as if it was something he could do to support this brand new soldier. And Walt proceeded straight to my apartment that I was sharing with three other girls. He took my hand and walked me right out to the sidewalk though it was winter, cold and windy outside. I remember I could see two of the girls in the window, watching, hands over their mouths when Walter got down on a knee.” Vera feels herself tearing up for a moment, surprised at how much the memory yet moves her. “’Vera Mae,’ he said, ‘I don’t know if I’ll make it back, but I want there to be someone here waiting for me.’”

  There is a collective sigh from the girls. Even Frank has a smile, nods for her to finish, doesn’t try to change the subject.

  “So we tied the knot just a couple weeks later, before he had to leave for boot camp. Oh, the dress my mother helped me sew was a simple one, but pretty enough. Something new. Most everything else was borrowed or old, yes indeed.”

  “And their honeymoon was just a weekend at a hotel,” Frank adds, for he grew up hearing about this. “They didn’t take a real getaway for another 15 years!”

  “Well, I had my job, I wasn’t about to lose that,” Vera tells them. “Walt left for his service, and I got myself a good factory job. The kids started coming along. And after the war, we went back to Modesto so he could join with his brother in the growing operation.” Vera suddenly feels as if she is looking out a train window, the years of her life swooping by like telephone wires.

  Alexis, bless her, remembers that there’s a small black and white framed wedding photo, up on top of the set of shelves from home. She dashes off to fetch it and returns, giving it a quick dusting and then holding it for the girls to see.

  Vera takes a look too. The dress that once was hastily sewn, patched together from slightly different bolts of fabric, now looks simple, elegant, classic. Walt, arms a bit too long for the suit he’d inherited from his late father, is handsome. Impossibly young. And happy – she sees it, and recalls from that long ago day, how he felt he was snatching some joy from the uncertain future he was about to face, over there in war torn Europe. Her own expression is more serious, more reserved. But joyous in its way as well.

  Several conversations erupt at once. Vera is hard pressed to follow. But she’s thinking back about the past anyway. About how, yes, maybe she felt lost sometimes. Yet she cannot imagine a life that didn’t include all these people. Her children, her grand and great-grandchildren, the deep affection she had for Walt, especially in their last years together. Their marriage may have begun with two people in mourning, striving to pull their way to the surface as if from underground, but eventually it flowered into something much more – all the faces surrounding her are ready proof.

  The angriest she ever got with Walter was when he confessed, after half a dozen years had gone by, that he had heard the rumor that it had been Smitty killed at the cannery, Reno in bad shape with the head trauma, but alive, languishing there for weeks, dazed. This when they were completely ensconced in their life in Modesto, the four youngsters growing up, a household to manage, Vera’s mother on her last legs. As if she would just up and leave all that and go off in search of him. That’s why he hadn’t say anything at first. It took her understanding the depth of that fear of his for her to forgive him. And maybe also for her to appreciate the life they had built together.

  Of course sh
e had been curious about what happened to him, she would admit, once she got over the utter surprise of it. She did learn later that the rumor was true, it was Reno who had only been hurt. He had recovered, had stayed out on the coast, married and built a life of his own there. Awake, surrounded by her kin, she understands that that is a fine outcome for her cherished first love.

  Vera watches her great granddaughter, Lucia, laughing with the others. She’s glad she told her to tell Caleb and Nina about the last piece of the puzzle. All this time gone by, there’s hardly a need to keep any of it secret anymore. It’s only when she’s dreaming that those old feelings return.