Cupid’s Confederates

Bett moved forward helplessly. “I am,” she assured her mother, and forced a smile as she hugged her. “I am…I was just…overwhelmed for a moment. And angry with you.”

“Angry with me?”

“For taking on something like this with your arthritis. Dammit, look at you, Mom.”

“Don’t swear.” But unconsciously, Elizabeth had been trying to rotate a swollen wrist. She stopped the instant Bett mentioned her arthritis. “It’s nothing.”

“It isn’t nothing. Mom…” Bett stared in despair at the half-painted room. The bright mint green caught the morning light. Some greens did well in sunlight. This one turned putrid. What was she going to do about her mother? In the meantime, she had an orchard to spray that afternoon; Zach had taken on enough jobs in the past two weeks. And she really had to tackle that bookkeeping; the workers had to be paid tomorrow.

“You don’t like the color.” Elizabeth’s lip was quivering.

Bett whirled. “Of course I do.”

“You don’t.”

“I do.”

“I was so sure you would love it.”

“Mom. I do!” Elizabeth was rubbing her sore wrist again, a waif at fifty-four in her orange bandanna and pedal pushers. “Mom, I really do,” Bett said softly. “And I’m grateful for the thought, really I am. You’re a very special, generous lady and I love you for it. But you’re not going to paint this room; it’s just too much for you.”

“Well, you don’t have time.” Elizabeth tugged down her blouse. “I admit it was a little more of a job than I had originally anticipated, but I’ll manage, Brittany. I’ll just take it slower-”

“What I’m counting on you to manage is Zach’s lunch,” Bett intervened swiftly. She tried out an impish smile. “I was looking for an excuse to play hooky this afternoon anyway.”

“You always have so much to do…”

“Not this afternoon, I don’t,” Bett lied blithely.

Her mother allowed herself to be gradually bullied downstairs. Then Bett returned alone to the nursery and stared at the green walls for a few moments in silence.

It wasn’t that she didn’t know exactly why her mother continually upset her-and why she kept letting it happen. Mother and daughter were coming from two different generations, and worse, two different systems of values. Because Bett didn’t live her mother’s lifestyle, Elizabeth seemed to feel she was being criticized for her own choices. You must see that what I’ve done all my life is important, she continually told Bett ever so unconsciously. A feminine woman, by the standards of Elizabeth’s generation, kept a clean house, prepared for babies and didn’t ride tractors.

Two weeks of subtle criticism, though, had depressed Bett. Not because she was unhappy with her own choice of lifestyle, however. It just wasn’t a simple thing, two women’s different definitions of “woman.” She couldn’t conceivably argue with her mother when Elizabeth was going through a rough period. And her mother really couldn’t see that Bett had anything more important to do than paint a room in ultimate preparation for a baby.

Bett picked up the paintbrush, stared at the strange green color dripping from it, and sighed.

***

Zach strode through the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest. At the sound of his footsteps, Bett glanced down from her perch on the ladder, regarding her husband’s flinty blue eyes with a sick fluttering in her stomach. Surely he realized Elizabeth was responsible for the painting? He knew his wife well enough to realize mint green was not among her favorite colors. So why did he look angry?

“Hi there,” she tried brightly.

Zach said nothing. He often walked into this empty room at the end of the hall, for no reason, really. This odd feeling would hit him sometimes, and he’d find himself by the window in here…

“Zach?”

An odd uneven pulse was beating in his throat. They’d argued about finishing this room or not. They’d argued over the architectural plans for it; they’d argued square footage and the shape of the window. They had agreed to let it stand empty until they were ready to start a family, which had made perfect sense to both of them. At least, he’d believed it made sense to both of them. The pulse in his throat kept throbbing. It seemed very foolish to feel hurt about this; Zach had never considered himself in any way oversensitive. It was just…Bett was his whole family. And he could have sworn she’d understood his need to be involved when a baby was made part of that unit.

“You know if you’d waited just a couple more weeks until the harvest was over,” he said quietly, “I would have helped you.”

“We can do it over,” she said swiftly. She realized suddenly that he hadn’t even noticed the color. She had to explain, and yet she didn’t want to sound as if she were accusing Elizabeth. It was bad enough to be harboring uncharitable thoughts about her own mother…

“It doesn’t matter.” Zach turned toward the door. “Be back in for dinner.”

He was gone; Bett was still swallowing the huge lump in her throat, trying to find the right words to say.

Chapter 6

“How about a little game of three-handed bridge?” Elizabeth suggested brightly.

Zach, stretched out on the couch, lifted his eyes from the farming journal in his hand. It was after ten. He’d just finished sixteen hours of work, give or take quick breaks for meals, and if he hadn’t needed to catch the latest weather report on the late news, he would already have been sacked out upstairs. “Thanks, but no, Elizabeth,” he said evenly.

“Brittany? Of course, we can’t play bridge with only two, but these are other card games…”

Bett was already rising from the opposite couch, rapidly swinging her feet to the floor. Her muscles ached from painting. Her head ached as well. In fact, everything ached. Spraying all morning, painting all afternoon, payroll until ten minutes ago… She forced herself to a standing position with a miraculously energetic smile for her mother. “I’ll play.”

“A good game of cards will relax us both,” Elizabeth announced.

“Yes.” Elizabeth looked as relaxed as a bouncing ball. Bett trailed her into the kitchen, stifling a yawn. “Maybe we could just play for a few minutes, Mom. I’m a little tired.”

Elizabeth glanced up from the card drawer with a hurt look. “If you really don’t want to play-”

“I do. Really.” Particularly if keeping her mother busy meant a few minutes of peace and quiet for Zach. After doing both his own work and half of hers for the past two weeks, Zach was understandably exhausted. Apart from tiredness, though, he wasn’t in the best of moods. If Bett hadn’t yet managed to claim a moment of privacy with him to explain about painting the room, the least she could do was ensure him some peace. At dinner, Elizabeth had chattered on and on.

Bett settled in a kitchen chair while her mother expertly shuffled the cards. “Canasta or poker?” Elizabeth questioned.

“Canasta.”

“I think poker. We haven’t played that in a long time.”

“Poker, then,” Bett agreed.

“On the other hand…”

They played canasta. After one game, Elizabeth got up to bring them both glasses of lemonade, and peeked into the living room. “Zach’s fallen asleep on the couch,” she said fondly.

They played a second game, and were halfway through the third when Elizabeth laid down her cards, perched her elbows delicately on the table and looked at her daughter. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you, honey.”

“Hmm?”