Wallpaper with Roses Read online

  Table of Contents

  Wallpaper with Roses

  Copyright

  Dedication

  I. HILDA

  Chapter 2

  II. VIOLET

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  III. CHRISTINE

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  IV. MIRANDA

  Chapter 11

  V. THE ROSE GARDEN

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  VI. SARAH

  A word about the author...

  Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  Wallpaper

  with

  Roses

  by

  Jenny Andersen

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

  Wallpaper with Roses

  COPYRIGHT © 2013 by Jenny Andersen

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Debbie Taylor

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Mainstream Edition, 2014

  Print ISBN 978-1-62830-033-8

  Digital ISBN 978-1-62830-034-5

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  For my mother

  I. HILDA

  Damask Rose, var. York and Lancaster. (R. damascena versicolor) A large shrub with great sprays of small, fragrant, semi-double blooms that range in color from pink to white. May appear straggly, but blooms are unsurpassed for cutting and potpourri. Easy to care for.

  Chapter 1

  Parents get old. They die. It’s the natural order of things. That doesn’t mean I like it. Or that it’s bearable.

  Sarah Gault glared across the parking lot at the nursing home. It squatted in the California sunshine, an evil, money-hungry, mother-swallowing troll.

  She shivered with a burst of helpless panic. Her mother was in there, getting who knew what kind of treatment. After surviving the surgery, would she survive the rehab? No way to be sure she got good care.

  Giving in to fear wouldn’t help, though. Sarah locked the car and picked up the cookies, flowers, and clothing she’d brought. The low, rambling building wasn’t dirty or run down. Well-kept lawns surrounded it, and roses bloomed in brick-edged beds.

  The place should have been welcoming. It wasn’t. This was the last stop for most of its inhabitants.

  But not Mother. Please, not my mother.

  People did recover from brain surgery, and this was the only rehab facility/nursing home within two hundred miles. Her mother needed to be here. So like it or lump it, Bellonna Gardens and its overworked staff were part of her life.

  She crossed the heat-softened asphalt of the parking lot, took one last breath of clean summer air, and opened the door. No pervasive smell of urine met her. It was worse than that. No matter how clean the facility, how cheerful the staff, or how new the furniture, the Bellonna Gardens Center smelled of despair.

  All the way to her mother’s room, Sarah fought the temptation to keep her eyes front, to ignore the wheelchaired row of shriveled people that lined the hall. Call her a sucker, but she couldn’t bring herself to add that casual cruelty to their day. Consequently the thirty feet to the nurses’ station was always an emotional gauntlet. She paused when she reached the desk and set a box of home-made cookies in front of the plump nurse.

  “Oh, thank you, Ms. Gault. You’re so sweet. We all just love your cookies.”

  That was obvious from the straining buttons of her uniform, but hey, if bribery would improve the nurses’ care of her mother, she’d bake from now until doomsday. Even if she had to get up at five to do it before work. “It’s the least I can do. You all take such good care of Mama.” She hoped. “How is she today?”

  “Hilda’s had a good day. A bit tired after her physical therapy, but she’s doing well.”

  Sarah stifled an urge to tell the woman how much her dignified, old-fashioned mother hated the attendants’ use of first names, and concentrated on the news that lightened her worries. Physical therapy was good. Doing well was even better.

  Sarah forgot about physical therapy the minute she came through the door of the room. Roses, books, and clean laundry crashed to the floor as she leaped to help her mother, who struggled with a bedpan. “Oh, Mama.”

  “Thank goodness you’re here, Sarah. I’ve been on this thing so long my legs are numb.”

  Sarah put an arm around her and maneuvered her to a more comfortable position. “Why are you on it at all? You’ve been getting up for a week.”

  “With help. I guess they were too busy.”

  Or didn’t care. Damn these people. Sarah swallowed her anger for the moment, scooted the pan out of the bed, and carried it to the bathroom.

  “The nurse must have forgotten,” her mother said when Sarah returned to the bedside. “And no one ever answers the call button.”

  The patient resignation in her mother’s voice was gasoline on the fire of Sarah’s anger. She turned away to hide her expression and busied herself picking up the clean clothes she’d brought and putting them away.

  Once that was done, she found the hairbrush and started the afternoon primping that had become their cheer-up routine. “So nice you’re not wearing that bicycle helmet thing anymore, Mama.”

  “Yes, but I’m missing half my hair.”

  “It’ll grow,” Sarah reassured her. “And it’s still lovely and silvery.”

  “What there is of it.”

  Sarah settled into a soothing rhythm with the brush until the fretfulness left her mother’s voice, then smoothed her hair into the best approximation of a hairdo that she could manage. “There. You look just like new. But where in the world did you get those clothes? You’ve never owned such things in your life.” The faded cotton blouse, flowered polyester slacks, and stiff, felted sweater were a far cry from her mother’s usual soft silks, cashmere, and elegance.

  “The nurse put them on me. I told her they weren’t mine, but she didn’t listen. She took my laundry, too, instead of leaving it for you.”

  Oh, damn. The laundry here could ruin cast-iron clothing. Not that it mattered. Chances were they’d never see any of those garments again anyway. “I’ll go see the supervisor as soon as I get everything tidied up here.”

  “Now, honey, don’t get upset.”

  “Of course I’m going to get upset. This is my only Mama they’re mistreating,” Sarah said. She turned away, fists clenched and eyes squinched to fight the tears brought by a toxic combination of helplessness, anger, and exhaustion.

  “Sarah? Are you all right?”

  She swallowed the lump in her throat. Heaven knew the caregivers were overworked, but she couldn’t stand being powerless to protect her mother. “Of course. I’ll be nice. I promise.” She put the brush in a drawer and kissed the soft, wrinkled cheek. “Be right back.”

  She detoured into the ladies’ room to get control of the urge to scream. Talk about being over a barrel. Between a rock and a hard plac
e. Up a creek without a paddle. Splashing cold water on her face, she reviewed the dilemma. She couldn’t stand the uncertainty of having her mother in this place. She couldn’t care for her alone. She couldn’t afford private rehab services.

  Conclusion: she had to go play nice with the administration and hope for the best.

  Her heart thumped harder with each step down the speckled beige tiles of the hall. Facing the uncooperative facility supervisor was just one more unpleasant task among the many she’d managed over the last few months. Trying to make sure an elderly relative got good care wasn’t a job for the faint-hearted. Sarah mentally chanted her nursing home mantra: deep breaths; stay calm; be nice if it kills you.

  The door to Ms. Festerson’s office stood half open as if to invite entry, but the woman inside hunched over the paperwork on her cluttered desk in a way that said “At Your Own Risk.” She looked up at Sarah’s knock. Her expression froze when she saw who stood there.

  “Good afternoon, Ms. Festerson.” Sarah pinned on her most winning, most social smile. “How are you?”

  “Ah, Ms. Gault. Just the person I wanted to see.”

  Right. Just as though Sarah hadn’t been here twice a day for the last however many weeks, and for the entire eight weeks of her mother’s previous stay. A chill raised the hair on the back of her neck.

  “I planned to call you later.” The supervisor tapped papers into a neat stack and set them down, the edges aligned perfectly with the desk. “I was just looking over your mother’s file.”

  Sarah half expected ominous background music in the pause that was clearly designed to make her uncomfortable. It worked, too.

  “We’ll release your mother tomorrow. You can pick her up at ten.”

  Joy and practicality collided and rendered Sarah speechless. Her pulse stuttered. “That’s wonderful. But you said just a few days ago that she’d be here for at least another week.”

  The supervisor gave her a cool, unsympathetic look. “Hilda has made excellent progress while she has been here. The therapist has released her, so you will take her home tomorrow.”

  “But she’s not ready to take care of herself at home.”

  “Oh, she’ll need a bit of help at first,” Ms. Festerson said airily. “But that won’t be hard for you to arrange.”

  By tomorrow? This woman was crazy. How could they do this? Why? Sarah ran a quick mental check of Medicare days left for her mother. No, that wasn’t it. Anyway, the home would get more from private pay than Medicare, wouldn’t it?

  “That’s awfully short notice. I can’t arrange everything tonight.”

  Ms. Festerson drew herself up and Sarah could have sworn that the temperature dropped in the small office. “I should think you’d be pleased.” The starchy voice held a wealth of censure.

  “I am. But—”

  “You’ve had weeks to prepare.”

  She’d had weeks of uncertainty about whether discharge was even possible. “I haven’t known what to prepare for.”

  “Hilda’s condition is such that she can be released. We wouldn’t send her home if she weren’t ready.” Ms. Festerson’s tone said the subject was closed.

  Oh, right. Sarah went rigid with anger. “I was never informed about her progress, never told what preparations I needed to make.”

  “Hilda has been with us for several weeks. You should have made arrangements by now.”

  “What part of what I just said didn’t you understand?”

  “Regardless, you’ve had ample time to prepare.”

  “You can’t just throw people out without adequate notice or with no thought for their well-being.”

  Ms. Festerson drew in a breath.

  Sarah lost her grip, her temper flared, and she didn’t wait to hear what platitudes would emerge this time. “Do you have the same discharge coordinator as the hospital?”

  “Miss Harkness is a charming woman who does a much-needed job.” Ms. Festerson crossed her arms and glared at Sarah, clearly trying to intimidate. “Hilda will be released tomorrow.”

  Miss Harkness was an über bitch whose job was to get patients out of the hospital when their Medicare coverage ran out. “She tried to send Mother home between surgeries instead of to a rehab facility.”

  “That’s irrelevant,” Ms. Festerson snapped.

  “Not to the people involved.” She glared at the supervisor.

  The supervisor glared back.

  After a tense silence, Sarah said, “I need to talk to the physical therapist.”

  “She can’t help you with our policies.”

  “She can tell me what my mother needs.”

  The look on Ms. Festerson’s face said she’d like to tell Sarah what to do and Sarah wanted to kick herself. Hostility from the staff was the last thing her mother needed. “Please help me, Ms. Festerson. I’ll spend tomorrow doing whatever the therapist says is necessary and take Mother home as soon as her home is safe. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to be responsible for any accidents.”

  To Sarah’s relief, the unspoken threat worked.

  “Of course we do not want Hilda to be in an unsafe situation,” the supervisor murmured.

  Sarah hid a surge of relief. “Of course not. And you can’t be any more eager to have her leave than we are.” She left the office and went back down the hall. With every step, her smile grew broader.

  “Such a smile, darling,” her mother said when Sarah came into the room. “You look like you won the lottery.”

  “I feel like I did, Mama. You’re going to go home in a day or two.”

  “Home! Oh, Sarah, I can hardly believe it! It seems like an eternity since I’ve been in my own home.”

  Sarah took her mother’s hand. “Almost two weeks in the hospital, and eight weeks here, and another week in the hospital, and then more weeks here. No wonder it seems like forever.”

  It felt like it to her too. An endless treadmill of rushing from work to bedside and bedside to work, with only brief stops at home to feed her dog and cat. Afraid the whole time that her mother would die or would get inadequate care. Terrified in general about changes she didn’t like, want, or understand. Terrified of the system, the unfeeling, merciless system that controlled her mother’s care.

  But the end was in sight, with Hilda’s unexpected, more than welcome, full recovery on the horizon. How thankful she was that the problems had been physical, and that her mother’s mind remained clear.

  Sarah pulled a chair close to the bed. This part wouldn’t be easy. “Things will have to change some. I’ll talk to your physical therapist tonight. But I’m pretty sure you’ll have to move downstairs.”

  “Downstairs? Oh, no. I want my own bed, my own room.”

  “Temporarily, Mama.” Sarah resisted the urge to sigh. Or snap. Or cry. “The stairs will be too hard until you’re stronger.”

  Hilda grimaced, and for a moment Sarah was afraid she’d play the mother card. Her spine sagged with relief when common sense won out and Hilda said, “Of course. I’m sorry dear. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “We can put your furniture in Daddy’s old office. It’s a lovely room, and there’s the bathroom attached…”

  “Of course. I’ll miss my roses, though.”

  “You and your roses.” Sarah smiled. Her mother’s room was wallpapered with a pattern of luscious Damask roses, one of the special papers she’d brought back from England years ago. “But you’ll have me. I’ll stay with you for a little bit. Just until you’re sure you can manage.”

  “That’s very kind of you, dear.”

  Even as Sarah smiled at her mother, a dizzying list of decisions that needed to be made, tasks that needed to be done formed in her mind. She couldn’t burden her mother with too many choices while she recovered. Life had turned into a walk across quicksand.

  Hilda’s hand, warm and soft and dry, clamped onto Sarah’s arm, startling her upright. “Please, Sarah,” she said urgently. “Please don’t ever make me come back here. Please promise me.”
>
  Dismay rose in Sarah’s throat until she nearly choked. How could she promise that? There was always the possibility of illness, accident, so many things she couldn’t manage at home on a permanent basis.

  “I’m sorry, darling.” The frantic grip relaxed. “How silly of me. Of course you can’t promise that. I know that sometimes there’s no other way. Just forget I ever said that.”

  Sarah looked away to hide the distress she couldn’t keep from showing. Trust her mother to be rational and sane, and to face whatever came with dignity. “I’ll take care of you, Mama,” she said, her voice thick with unshed tears. “Always. You’ll never have to come back here,” she said.

  And prayed she hadn’t lied.

  ****

  Late afternoon sunlight glittered through beveled glass panes and turned the oak-paneled hall of Hilda’s Victorian house mellow and golden when Sarah opened the door to Beth. “Wow. You must have left work really early. How did you get away from Macklin?”

  Beth gave an impish grin. “Old Time Clock was so busy fussing about you daring to take a day off he never even noticed when I left.”

  Wonderful. Why couldn’t I have had a supportive boss? He’s old. You’d think he’d understand. But oh no, not him. She stood back so Beth could come in. “Thanks. What a friend.”

  “Think nothing of it.” Beth tossed her purse on the small, marble-topped table next to the door and stretched. “He’s such a jerk.”

  “True. And I tried so hard to time my call this morning so I’d get his secretary instead of him. I could have died when he answered. You might know that would be the one day in ten years that he wasn’t lurking around the door watching the time clock. I’m still smarting from the lecture.”

  “Better you than me.”

  “Oh, thanks. So glad to take the heat for you.”

  “Any time.” Beth stretched again, loosening the kinks from hunching over a desk all day. “Man, am I happy to be out of that place, even if it means working all evening. I’m assuming you didn’t ask me over for wine and conversation. What’s the plan?”

  “Finish getting the house ready. If I tell my mother she has to spend one more day at Bellonna, she’ll be really upset. I can’t do that to her.”