The Painted Table(83)
Saffee is puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“Events around it, you know, fun things, like birthday parties, children coloring Easter eggs, your kids sorting out their Halloween loot and . . .”
She’s reminded of what Jack shared of his childhood. “Gail . . . I just don’t know.”
“Aren’t you and Jack going to . . . ?”
“Jack and I are fine without any children,” Saffee says, trying not to sound curt.
Gail’s imagination is not deterred. She says in her mind’s eye she sees a high chair pulled up alongside and a little one kicking the table with her foot.
Saffee makes it clear that after all her hard work she wouldn’t appreciate anyone kicking her beautiful table. Gail rattles on, naming kinds of shoes there will be, or at least could be, sharing space underneath during meals—sneakers, sandals, little slippers with bunny ears . . .
Saffee joins in. “Don’t forget adult high heels and black wing tips.”
“Right. And don’t forget the bare feet,” Gail goes on, “big ones, little ones, long legs and short, all under this table.”
Jenny Rose’s doll tumbles from its perch. Saffee picks it up and asks Gail if she had played with dolls as a child.
“Of course. Why?”
“Just wondering,” Saffee says. For some reason she’s wondered if playing with dolls taught a girl how to be a mother. She grins at her neighbor. “Anyway, if we ever decide to have a baby”—even the word is hard to say—“which I doubt, you’ll be one of the first to know.”
“Miss Saffee! Miss Saffee!” Another day Jenny Rose comes running across the driveway and into the garage where Saffee is peeling off another pair of shredded rubber gloves. It has been a productive day.
“Look, Miss Saffee, I made you a heart!” Jenny Rose waves a crayon drawing in the air.
Saffee kneels down and puts one arm around the exuberant little girl. “I like all the colors. It’s so pretty, Jenny Rose. Tell me about it.”
“Well, this is the ’splanation . . . My heart is a rainbow heart!”
“Jenny Rose, what a beautiful thing. A rainbow heart.”
“You can put it up in your garage and look at it while you work.”
“I will. I promise.”
Jenny Rose skips out of the garage. “I gotta go now. I love you, Miss Saffee! Gonna make a heart for my daddy! G’bye!”
Saffee calls after her, “Thank you, Jenny Rose.” Silently, with a lump in her throat, she adds, “I love you too, Jenny Rose.”
Saffee suddenly feels unsteady. She sits down in “Gail’s chair.” How can one’s long-held, stubborn mind-set change in an instant, making all of her reasons for it completely invalid? Her heart, her “rainbow heart,” feels ready to burst—all because of love. Motherhood no longer seems out of the realm of possibility. Not at all.
Saffee is at the stove browning chicken when she hears the VW pull into the driveway. Before Jack can put down his briefcase, she meets him with a warm embrace.
“Mmm, don’t you look happy,” he says, pulling off his tie.
“Well, I should.”
“Why?”
“It’s because,” she says, smiling, “I have a rainbow heart.”
“A what?”
She kisses him. “Come in. I’ll ’splain it to you.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
THE WEDDING GIFT
Saffee hastens toward the library exit after a day’s work.
“Mrs. Andrews?”
She stops abruptly. “Oh! Hello!” She is pleased that Leif Bergstrom remembers her name.
“I’m sorry I did not return this to you earlier,” he says, pulling her folder from his knapsack. “I have been so busy . . . My wife, she wrote it all out. She said it vas interesting.”
Saffee opens the folder and sees the original article along with a stack of handwritten pages. She rummages in her purse to find the folded bills she’s carried for some time, waiting to see him again.
“Ingrid, my wife, she said it vas a good vay to practice her English. She didn’t use the typevriter because she had to revise a lot. It vas easier to use a pencil . . . vit eraser.”
“This is wonderful. Please thank her for me.” Saffee presses the money into his hand.
“Thank you,” he says. “I’m glad I see you today; ve go back home soon.”
Going home? Saffee remembers the inscription she copied from the table and pulls the piece of tablet paper from her purse. “You’re leaving? Oh, but there’s something else . . . um . . . something short . . .” She hands him the paper.
“It is from the Bible,” he says. “Do you vant me to translate? It vill just take a minute.” Together they find an empty library table and sit across from each other as he writes. Upside down she reads two words: wife and vine.