Page 32 of Beneath Her Hands
In her office, Rosalind methodically went through all the paperwork and charting that she needed to catch up on. She barely noticed what she was doing, ticking boxes and annotating notes, most of this nothing more than rote memorization. Her thoughts continued to turn to Jane. It was so hard for her to figure out why she was fighting this. She had feelings for Jane; she knew this. It wasn’t something she could deny, and yet every time she started to get close, to feel comfortable, she felt constricted, almost trapped. Frustrated with herself, she finally turned off the computer and hung up her lab coat. This wasn’t a problem with Jane, and she knew it. This was her own issue, something that she had failed to really examine in all the time she’d spent flitting from army base to army base.
At no point in all this time had she ever really considered the future, she knew she’d be called to serve where she was needed, and there was no pressure for her to try and influence it. She would go and help wherever she landed. Rank, connections, money—none of that ever mattered. She just did all she could tohelp whoever needed it, and who better to tell her where she was needed than the military? Coming home to help her mother was the first real decision she’d made for herself in decades, and it didn’t feel like her decision at all, just something she had to do. Then she met Jane, and despite the very real attraction to her, she felt trapped by it. If she became attached to Jane, then it would mean her whole life would be upended, because she knew she wouldn’t be able to just keep this casual. All she wanted was to be near her, to be with her.
Rosalind gathered her bag and headed for the door to see her parents. Her father was unconscious, and unlikely to wake up from it, but surprisingly her mother was not in there with him. Rosalind checked the cafeteria and the nurse’s station, but no one had seen her for hours. Worry prickled at her, but she refused to acknowledge it. She went instead to the parking lot and climbed into the leased car she’d taken temporarily for her time here in Phoenix Ridge and headed to her childhood home.
She pulled into the driveway of the modest three-bedroom house just outside the city. The dark trim and light siding gave it an almost cottage feel, but the bushes in the front needed tending; she wasn’t terribly surprised that they had fallen into neglect. Guilt pricked at her that she’d barely been here since coming back to city. She chastised herself for how fervently she’d avoided the place she’d spent most of her childhood, and even when she’d been there, she’d been distracted, rushing to get out as soon as possible.
When she opened the heavy door, nostalgia hit her square in the chest. Memories came flooding back of her coming through there for so many years. So many memories of her parents, her mother, excited for her accomplishments, holding her during disappointments. When she’d left for the military, she’d barely looked back. It didn’t make any sense, not even to Rosalind. Her childhood had been happy, her parents supported herthrough everything, provided for her, allowed her to make her own choices. At no point in her life had she ever felt that she disappointed them, so why was it so hard to stand here and allow herself to enjoy the memories?
“Hello, Rosie,” her mother’s voice carried across the living room as she came from the kitchen wiping her hands on a towel.
“Hey, Mom, I figured you would still be at the hospital,” Rosalind said, coming back to her body.
“Oh, there’s not much I can do there but sit and wait, and your father would never have approved of that,” her mother said with a slight smile. Her eyes were heavy and watery. Rosalind could tell she’d been crying.
“Why are you worried about how he would feel about it?” Rosalind asked, genuinely curious.
“It’s not just about him, love,” her mother answered. “It’s about me, too. I can’t just sit around and wait for him to die. There’s too much that needs to be taken care of.”
“You’re always taking care of everyone else, Mother, what do you want to do?” Rosalind asked, suddenly feeling defensive.
“Where’s this coming from, Rosie?” her mother asked, knowing that Rosalind wasn’t just asking for her sake.
“I don’t know,” Rosalind said and sat down heavily on the couch. The living room was immaculate as usual, family portraits hanging on the walls, not a speck of dust anywhere. Her mother must have been cleaning.
“Do you ever regret marrying Dad?” Rosalind asked and dropped her head into her hands.
“Why would you ask that?” Her mother sat down on the couch next to her and began to rub Rosalind’s shoulders.
“Did you ever feel, I don’t know, trapped by the expectations that came along with,” she gestured to the room around her, “all this?”
“That’s a very complicated question, with an even more complicated answer,” her mother answered squeezing Rosalind’s shoulders. “Sometimes, sure, I felt that way, and your father never really understood. After all, he is a man.”
Rosalind looked up at her mother’s wry smile. “Why did you do it?”
“Again, that’s complicated,” her mother leaned back on the couch. “There were societal expectations, your father’s expectations, family expectations, they all played a part, but what I wanted more than anything else was to provide you with a home where these were no longer expectations, but choices. Sometimes I had to give up some things for that, but I was able to pursue what I wanted also.”
“I don’t understand,” Rosalind said and shook her head.
“In a way, I became used to it, conditioned even. I just focused on you, and you became everything I’d hoped for and more. You choose how to live your life, you don’t depend on anyone else,” her mother sighed. “There’s a lot of things I wish I had done that I pushed aside, but you are definitely not one of them.”
“I’m not talking about me, though,” Rosalind said. “What’s next? What are you going to do when Dad’s not here anymore?”
“Oh, I have plans, love,” her mother said with a smile. “You don’t have to worry about me, you don’t have to take care of me.”
Rosalind furrowed her brows and looked at her mother.
“An agent is coming out to appraise the house tomorrow, it’s been in the works for a while, and your father’s businesses are being turned over to become publicly traded, and I’m taking Rhonda and Elsie and we’re hitting the road.”
“What?” Rosalind was flabbergasted. “Why haven’t I heard about any of this?”
“Well, I’m not going around publicly announcing my big plans for after my husband dies—what would people think?” Hermother chuckled. “We started making these plans a long time ago, and your father knew about it all along.”
“I… I had no idea,” Rosalind said, but it felt as though a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
“Of course not, I wasn’t going to bother you with it all, I only let your father call you out here because I knew you would want to help and I wanted you to be able to say goodbye,” her mother smiled softly. “Of course it will hurt to be without him—he’s been part of my life for a long time—but I’m not giving up on my own life, and he wouldn’t want me to.”
“That’s beautiful,” Rosalind said. Her mind was spinning. How could she have underestimated her mother so thoroughly?
