Caring for Crabgrass

By Beverly M. Rathburn

Book Summary
Fully capable and fiercely independent at the age of seventy-four, Marjorie Palmer is unexpectedly reunited with her wayward daughters-in-law, Sandra and Kate, to perform a rather unpleasant task. Unrelated by blood yet bound by family ties, the three women have diametrically opposed personalities and can barely tolerate each other. All of them harbor hidden agendas and well kept secrets. When a twist of fate threatens to prolong their unintentional cohabitation indefinitely, tempers flare and things begin to unravel.
Beautifully set in the White Mountains, Caring for Crabgrass is about the precarious journey these three women must travel together before any of them can reach the summit of resolution.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483603223

Beverly M. Rathburn

Author Bio This is Beverly’s third novel. Like Caring for Crabgrass, The Water’s Edge and Evidence of Mice explore the shifting lifestyles of women who have reached the other side of fifty. A musician, an artist, and a nature enthusiast, when Beverly isn’t hiking in the woods, she is in her backyard communing with the furry and feathery critters that comer her way.

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Copyright © 2013 by Beverly M. Rathbun.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 03/06/2013

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Contents

Acknowledgement

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

DEDICATION

For Tim and Alexis

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

T HANK YOU MOM for reading it twice, to Donna and Harvey for providing a sense of place, to Genevieve for inspiring the character ‘Marjorie’, and to Charlie for being my partner in life, in music, and in the wilderness.

It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.

Wendell Berry

CHAPTER ONE

I T DOESN’T GET any better than this , Marjorie thought pushing open the window sash a little higher, then higher still, until the summer breeze, fresher than a sun-dried bed sheet, saturated every corner of the room.

The restless mountain air lifted Marjorie’s silk camisole, caressing her naked skin, teasing up gooseflesh on her exposed belly and breasts. She smiled.

Over seventy and still sexy, she said to Lenny. The brown spotted beagle raised his snout over the edge of his basket and thumped his tail twice.

Replenishing the hazelnut brew in her clay-fired mug, she toasted the rising ball of fire as it climbed radiantly along the crescent folds of Lafayette and illuminated Garfield ridge. Tapping a thumbnail against the mug, she sat back down at her desk and celebrated the panoramic view of the mountain ranges that had long ago been pushed up from the earth and were now kissing the sky—ever changing, ever the same.

The grandfather clock standing sentry by the front door chimed the opening bells of the Westminster chorus, marking the quarter hour. Marjorie had been at her desk early. The most creative time of her day, it wasn’t unusual for her to begin working at first light, and today had been no different. She slid her wire-rimmed glasses forward on the bridge of her nose and studied the fuzzy sixteen point type. Despite her youthful countenance, there was no denying that her cloudy blue eyes had seen more than their share of beauty as well as blight, and were not as sharp as they used to be.

I Marjorie D. Palmer, being of sound mind, The unfinished statement stretched across the computer screen like an antipathetic headline. The computer, a gift from her son James, was supposed to have been a convenient way for Marjorie to stay connected with family and friends, not a technological device to transcribe her last will and testament. Ironically, it had been James’s sudden death that had prompted her to perform this less than desirable task.

Am I really of sound mind? Marjorie asked Lenny.

Lenny gazed up at his mistress. His dark soulful eyes followed her as she stood and walked over to the baby grand piano on the far side of the room. Opening the lid she poked at the keys, mimicking the grandfather clock, plunking out the final notes of the familiar melody. It was the full extent of her musical repertoire. She closed the lid. Playing the piano was Jon, her younger son’s talent, not hers, but he hadn’t played the Steinway in years. Having suddenly lost the energy to write anything more for today, Marjorie was grateful she’d at least been able to accomplish one important task.

Before her failed attempt at drafting her last wishes, Marjorie had successfully forwarded the corrected galley of Bridget’s sixth summer at camp to her agent. Greta Jones had been after the finished manuscript for weeks. Your fans are getting anxious, she reminded the author in her last e-mail. Greta had also been hot for the outline of number seven. Marjorie wasn’t sure that there was going to be a number seven. Lately she wondered if it might not be time for her young heroine to lock the latch on her trunk, roll up her sleeping bag and journey on to wherever it was fictional characters go when their literary creators decide to retire.

Marjorie knew how disappointed her loyal adolescent fans would be, and even though she’d tried to soften the blow by foreshadowing Bridget’s possible departure in the final chapter of number six, she knew that neither her readers nor Greta would be pleased.

Well, she said aloud. I can’t think about that today.

Lenny padded over to the piano bench and pushed his nose into Marjorie’s lap. I know, she said patting his velvety ears, It’s a beautiful morning, and about time we went for our walk.

Marjorie tugged on a pair of frayed shorts and slipped her arms into a worn cotton shirt; all but two of the buttons were missing. On rare occasions she pinned her silvery white braid into a halo on the crown of her head, but today, like most days, she let it languish, long and heavy down the middle of her back. As soon as they were out the door, Lenny trotted across the square bit of lawn and over to the nearest tree to do his business. No matter how many years passed, no matter how many times Marjorie stepped out of the house and onto the patch of green that hugged the front stoop, she couldn’t help but be reminded of Maynard.

Situated amidst untamed forest land, the house was girded on all sides by towering birch and pine; at their feet, an array of scrub brush and wild groundcover creeping tenaciously between their rooted toes. But Marjorie had always wanted a proper lawn in her front yard and her husband, Maynard, had been determined to give it to her. He’d dug out a swath of earth; prepared and fertilized it. And yet, no matter how hearty the grass seed was that he planted, no matter how carefully he watered and weeded the garden of green, it didn’t take long before the industrious foxtail and crabgrass invaded and choked out the tender blades.

In this rough world we could all use a soft place to rest our feet, Maynard had told her each time she suggested he give it up. Which was why, when Maynard became ill, Marjorie faithfully trimmed the lawn and scrupulously kept it free of weeds. It was only after his death that she let the weeds finally have their way, every now and then rolling the push mower across the lawn to cut the crabgrass into an even layer. Now, as she waited for Lenny, she stepped out of her shoes and shuffled her bare feet through the variegated carpet.

*     *     *

Marjorie and Maynard Palmer had been born and raised in the flatlands of the Midwest. Barely twenty-three, Maynard journeyed east with his sixteen-year-old bride for a honeymoon holiday in the granite state. Without a doubt the newlyweds were smitten with each other, but the Palmers were taken completely off guard at their instant and total attraction to the White Mountains. Traveling along the Kancamagus highway in their Ford pick-up, they’d fallen head over heels with the glacier sculpted peaks and ravines.

Land was cheap in the fifties, and Marjorie and Maynard wasted no time buying up eighty acres of prime real estate in the Franconia Notch. They cleared a level plot close to what was then a dirt road and built their first home, a three room A-frame cabin.

A plumber by trade, like his father and grandfather before him, Maynard had no trouble setting up shop and finding work, and it wasn’t long before M & M Plumbing became a thriving and prosperous business. While Maynard plumbed the new homes in the rapidly developing area, Marjorie kept the books for the business and kept house for her family. When she gave birth to Jon, only sixteen months after their first son James, it became obvious that the A-frame would no longer be adequate for their needs. Maynard hired an architect and a contractor to build his family something not only bigger and better, but a lodging that would symbolize the Palmer’s affection for their woodland habitat.

A student of Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect was a master at bringing modern architecture and nature into harmony. He designed an extraordinary house that set seamlessly into its natural environment. The two-level home rested gracefully on the slant of an incline and had a walk-out lower level with a playroom, bunkroom, and full bath exclusively for Jon and James. The main floor of the house had three bedrooms and two and a half baths. The living room, kitchen and two of the bedrooms flowed one into the next on the east side. With thermal paned windows running the length of the house, it appeared that one could reach out and touch the mountains.

Marjorie had read in an old guide book that during Hawthorn’s time folks referred to the White Mountain Range as the white hills of New Hampshire. She liked the idea of having a great house in those very same hills: Lafayette, Canon, and Garfield. For the next fifty years, Marjorie and Maynard feasted their eyes on the seasonal artistry afforded by those magnificent four thousand foot peaks.

Like so much of the region, the old growth forest had struggled valiantly to recover from the heavy logging done by those that were less sensitive to keeping the earth. The slender birch, mountain laurel, and eastern hemlock, a testament to regeneration, greeted Marjorie as she and Lenny walked across the gravel driveway. They paused for a moment in front of the original A-frame cabin.

Thirty years ago Maynard had completely renovated the cabin for Jon and Kate. They were newly married then with no jobs, and a baby on the way. It could use a fresh coat of paint, Marjorie thought as she peered in through one of the front windows. Even though she loved the main house, it was the A-frame—the home that she and Maynard had built with their own muscle and sweat that remained closest to her heart. The dear little kitchen with its soapstone sink and cast iron potbelly stove, the back bedroom where both Jon and James had been conceived all held such sweet memories.

Whenever she experienced a case of writer’s block, Marjorie would slip a pen and pad into her pocket and spend the day at the A-frame. Maybe it was a sense of nostalgia or maybe it was because she felt closer to Maynard, but as soon as she entered the cabin she was seized with creative inspiration. If asked, she would even confess that there had been days following Maynard’s death when she’d seriously considered moving back into the cabin permanently.

Marjorie shook off her sudden melancholia and steadied herself. Regardless of what some might call her advanced age she was healthy and strong. Slender yet solid, she was clever, and fiercely independent. She’d donned a rugged pair of denim jeans long before it was fashionable and boycotted wearing a bra years before burning them was popular. Had she been born at the turn of the previous century she would have been a sassy suffragette or a flamboyant flapper. As life presented its manic menagerie of challenges she barely flinched; deftly girding her loins to deal with whatever came her way. Birth, death, divorce, illness—she’d survived it all.

When baby Avery arrived in this world, stricken with cerebral palsy, when Jon and Kate split up, when Maynard had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Marjorie had squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, and soldiered on.

Fortunately, the previous six years, the years following Maynard’s death, had been relatively free of hardship. She’d fully embraced living on her own; getting dressed, not getting dressed, eating, not eating, sleeping, not sleeping. Choosing to work, or not whenever the spirit moved. However, time seemed to be accelerating faster and faster, and with each passing year Marjorie wondered how many good years she had left.

It seems like only yesterday we were blazing this very trail, she said to Lenny as they made their way down the switch-back path. Marjorie and Maynard had painstakingly mapped out the easiest route to traverse the seven hundred vertical feet stretching from behind the house down to Lafayette brook. They had folded the path many times to insure a manageable walk, even, as they often joked, when they reached a more mature age.

The brook in the shallow ravine had been their water source before they dug their well. Back then no one worried about filters or treatment. The spring fed brook had provided an unending supply of sweet water to drink, to cook with, and to bathe in.

James and Jon spent their childhood climbing all over the river worn boulders and wading through the rushing waters. Like busy beavers they’d gathered fallen logs and large rocks—damming off a small area and digging out a swimming hole. James, who had been the more daring of the two, never tired of swinging from a sturdy rope tied to a tree branch and plunging into the chilly water.

More than once, Marjorie had speculated how James had managed to survive through his childhood. Even as an adult he refused to grow out of his dare-devil attitude toward life. If it was dangerous, if it was extreme, if it pushed his family’s buttons, he not only attempted it, but usually succeeded in his attempts, which made it quite ironic that the ultimate cause of his death had turned out to be so mundane.

Jon, on the other hand, had always been the good boy. Timid and quiet spoken, he’d been the one to help his mother with the cooking and cleaning; the one who volunteered to accompany his father on a plumbing job. Instead of sports, music had been Jon’s passion. Shortly after he began to imitate the dramatic gestures of the great Liberace on his toy piano, Maynard had bought his youngest a baby-grand piano. As it turned out neither son had followed in their father’s footsteps, and contrary to their innate personalities, James had played it safe, choosing a career as a certified public accountant, while Jon had ended up risking it all, moving to Vegas to become something else altogether.

*     *     *

It took Marjorie a good ten minutes to weave her way down the well worn path to the brook and it would take her twice as long to climb back up again. Lenny jostled his excited body over to the nearest spray of water jetting out from between the rocks. He lapped at the rushing bubbles, vigorously shaking his head as the water splashed into his nose. Cocking his head to the side with one ear turned inside out, he looked back at his mistress.

Marjorie laughed. Go on, she said. Go on and explore.

Several stepping stones out into the middle of the brook there was a particularly impressive boulder that over the millennia had been carved smooth on one side to make the perfect place to sit. Marjorie lowered her body into the natural indentation and once again addressed her dearest friend—a friend with whom she could freely share her intimate joys, profound sorrows, and unanswerable questions. In her mind it laughed with her, wept with her, and somehow understood her rhetorical ruminations.

Some might say she was a foolish eccentric, but she believed that the brook contained great wisdom. Fed from a well-spring hidden deep within the earth, refreshed by the gushing snow-melt from pinnacles on high, she believed that the brook collected experience and knowledge as it traveled along and, in a sense, became a living testament to the passage of time.

Marjorie was fascinated by the brook’s seemingly arbitrary sense of direction. Why did it drift forward in a straight line and then suddenly veer off sharply to the left or right? Did it seek the path of least resistance or did it revel in the challenge of each new obstacle? Why did it sometimes aggressively push barriers out of its way, while at other times leap over or burrow under others? And why did pockets of water seem to remain stuck forever in a whirling vortex, caught between unyielding rocks and stones? She suspected that the brook did not always know the answers. It merely trusted its instincts and kept on keeping on. This was the mantra that both Marjorie and Maynard had applied to their own journeys, and it had served them well.

Spending time in the woods with the trees and the brook had also provided a healing elixir for Maynard during his illness. Marjorie was convinced that it was the reason Maynard had lived three years and not the three months the doctors had given him after his diagnosis. No matter how difficult it became, no matter how many obstacles he had stacked up against him—ostomy bag, wheelchair, feeding tube—Marjorie made sure that her husband spent as much time in the company of trees as possible. When he could no longer walk with her down to the brook, she’d wheel him out onto the back deck and they’d listen to it speak if only from a distance. Together they’d watch the birds soar from treetop to treetop or gaze at the pattern of moonlight dancing playfully down through the leafy branches. They were serenaded by the melodic song of the scarlet tanager, the warble of wild turkey, and the questioning call of the Great Horned owl. As long as we’re in the woods, we’ll always be together, they promised each other. And so, even in the deep freeze of winter, Marjorie still found ways to honor that promise, even if only for a split second. When propelling herself from the warmth of the car into the warmer house, she would pause, listen to the music of the wind in the trees and remember their time together.

*     *     *

Silently festering in Maynard’s pancreas, the cancerous tumor had been discovered too late. Fortunately, he’d retired a few years earlier, transferred his plumbing business to his younger partner, George DuVay, and he and Marjorie had taken the opportunity to travel: a railway tour of Europe, a cruise to Alaska, a leisurely drive across the country to California. They were grateful that they’d had the chance to see at least a small part of the world.

After the diagnosis they stayed close to home, determined to squeeze every last moment they could in their beloved wilderness nest. As Maynard’s illness took hold and took over their lives, caring for him became Marjorie’s full time job, and after his death, there was a point when she wondered what in the world she would do with herself.

At first she kept on task with funeral arrangements and household duties. She was a practical woman and cleared away Maynard’s belongings, the things he no longer needed, without anxiety or assistance. Her friends and neighbors tried to help, and they understood when, for the first month she preferred not to have visitors, but after a while, worrying that she might be becoming a recluse, they paraded daily to her house with pasta casseroles and predictable concerns. She thanked them for their kindness and their casseroles, but sent them away explaining that she was doing just fine and had more than enough to do to keep her busy.

I can’t understand what it is that you do all day. George commented once when he too shared his concern for her being totally alone.

I have plenty to do, she assured him. And I’m not alone, I have Lenny. He keeps me company.

Her friend Pam tried to be more persuasive. We miss you at the thrift store, she said. The kids miss you. They want to know when you’ll be back.

Marjorie also missed the kids at the thrift shop. She promised Pam she’d return the following Wednesday, and she had with a batch of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies in hand.

The truth was, since her husband’s death, Marjorie had become infatuated with a new love. Instead of the hours in each day dragging on in endless boredom, there never seemed to be enough of them for her to pursue this new love of hers. From dawn until dusk, Marjorie kept very busy indeed—writing.

However, she was not writing cookie recipes, or letters to long lost friends, or even entries in a journal. Although Marjorie had barely finished her sophomore year in high school, she now found herself crafting a novel. And not just a single novel, but what was soon to become a best selling young adult adventure series.

Because she had cleverly disguised her identity under the pen name, M. Dean, none of her family, friends, or adolescent readers suspected that the