Small Blessings (47 page)

*   *   *

Tom and Henry were somewhere around New Paltz on Interstate 87 when Henry spoke up from the backseat. “My mother's dead, isn't she?”

Every ounce of Tom felt immediately and fiercely protective of the small person behind him, strapped into his safety seat. He put on his emergency blinkers, pulled over, got out, and got in beside Henry. So here they were, face-to-face with the truth that would set Henry free from both the hope and the worry that Serafine Despré would someday show up to claim him again. “Yes,” he said. “Your mother is dead.”

Henry was staring out his side window. “What did she die of?” he asked in a toneless, old man's voice.

The world might be willing to show Henry mercy, but Henry was evidently not going to show himself any. Was this
really
the kind of truth that sets you free? “Drugs and alcohol,” Tom said. Which, he told himself, was the actual truth even if it wasn't the exact truth.

Henry nodded. “She wasn't ever happy,” he said, his face still turned away from Tom. “She said she was, but she wasn't. I could tell. Mawmaw and Pawpaw always said she couldn't help it. That she was sick, just like she had cancer or something.”

“That's right,” Tom said, not knowing what else to say.

“Just the way your wife was sick,” Henry said.

“Yes.”

An enormous semi rumbled by them on the left, followed immediately by another.
People die; life goes on,
Tom thought.
Or at least commerce does.

“Is Rose dead?” Henry asked.

“Heavens, no,” Tom said.

“Are you going to die?” Henry's voice was small and tight.

How much truth could one almost-seven-year-old handle? Tom reached over, unbuckled Henry's seat belt, and pulled the little boy out of his safety seat onto his lap. Henry was stiff as a board, as stiff as he'd been the first time Tom tried to hug him.

Tom stroked his hair. “Listen, Henry,” he said. “Everybody's born at the beginning of life and everybody dies at the end of it. So death isn't bad or unnatural; it's just … just unknown. And it's hard on the living because when people die they are gone and we miss them.”

A strange sound came out of Henry; part sob, part howl. And then he crumpled as completely as though his bones had turned to Jell-O. “I don't want you to die,” he wailed.

Once again Tom could think of nothing to do for his small son but hold him close. And so he did.

*   *   *

An older version of Rose opened the door when Tom and Henry knocked. “Well, well,” she said. “Good for you!”

Tom agreed, at least partially. He hadn't really had any doubts about
doing
this since talking to Rose last night. His only doubts concerned how she might respond. Still, he was somewhat taken aback by such forthright approval from someone he'd never met. Nevertheless, he politely stuck out his hand. “I'm Tom Putnam.”

“Of course you are,” the woman said. “And this must be Henry.”

Henry, in full on-a-mission mode, got straight to the point. “We've come to see Rose and ask her to come home.”

“Of course you have,” the woman said, taking Tom's hand. Instead of shaking it, though, she held it in both of hers. “I'm Mavis, in case you couldn't tell. And Rose is right back through there talking with Stu. If you don't mind, I'll come back with you, so Stu doesn't mistake this for a
social
call.”

“Of course,” Tom said.

Mavis reached out for Henry's hand. He gave it to her without the slightest hesitation. “Tom and me are skipping school, but my teacher said it was okay.”

“Of course she did. Your teacher's no fool.” Mavis led the way deeper into the warm old New England house. Tom felt right at home. Books were everywhere. Just as they were bearing down on what appeared to be a back den, Mavis called out, “Stu, Rose has got company, and she needs her privacy. So you need to keep me company out here, okay?”

“Okay!” a pleasant male voice responded. Almost immediately, a tall man in a gray sweater appeared in the doorway. Thinking back later about this first glimpse of Stu, all Tom could remember was how
cheerful
he'd seemed, and how he, Tom, had irrationally willed that his own future resemble this man's past. The man extended his hand. “I'm Stu. You must be Tom,” he said. The two men shook hands. “And you must be Henry,” he added, smiling down at Henry.

Henry offered his hand to Stu without prompting.

Mavis took her husband firmly by the arm. “That's enough of that for now. Stu and I will be out in the kitchen for as long as we can stand it. Both of us are naturally nosey.” She winked at Tom. Stu smiled happily down at the top of his wife's head, and the two were gone.

Henry, back in mission mode, didn't hesitate. “Rose,” he shouted, running into the room, “Dad's come to rescue you again!”

Tom, older and perhaps less wise, hesitated before he could make himself enter. He'd worried on the way up about whether or not this might overwhelm Rose, be too much love thrown at her too quickly.

But really he'd had no choice but to come. He was who he was, and who he was was in love with Rose Callahan.

And there she was. Seeing her sitting there with her arms around Henry, her nose buried in his curls, it was much as it had been that first day in the Book Store. Except that this time Tom felt his heart flex, bursting free from all the stupid constraints routinely imposed upon it by his head.

When Rose looked up at him over Henry's frothy head, he saw something suspiciously close to joy in her eyes.

“You know what I've decided?” she said.

Tom held his breath. This was it. “What?”

Rose gently pushed Henry away from her so that it was clear she was addressing them both. “I've decided,” she said, her eyes dancing, “that it's okay for me to be happy.”

“With me?” Tom could hardly breathe.

Rose nodded. “With you. And Henry, of course.”

Henry looked perplexed. “But you don't need to
decide
that, Rose,” he said. “We
are
happy. All of us.”

“Exactly,” Rose said, taking a deep breath, crossing her fingers for luck, hoping against hope that life really might be that simple.

 

About the Author

MARTHA WOODROOF was born in the South, went to boarding school and college in New England, ran away to Texas for a while, then fetched up in Virginia. She has written for NPR,
npr.org
,
Marketplace, Weekend America
, and the Virginia Foundation for Humanities Radio Features Series. Her print essays have appeared in newspapers including
The New York Times, The Washington Post
, and the
San Francisco Chronicle. Small Blessings
in her debut novel. She lives with her husband in the Shenandoah Valley. Their closest neighbors are cows. Visit her Web site at
marthawoodroof.com
.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

SMALL BLESSINGS.
Copyright © 2014 by Martha Woodroof. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Cover art by Sara Wood

eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

 

Woodroof, Martha, 1947–

   Small blessings: a novel / Martha Woodroof.

           p.  cm.

   ISBN 978-1-250-04052-7 (hardcover)

   ISBN 978-1-4668-3588-7 (e-book)

   1.  College teachers—Fiction.   2.  Husband and wife—Fiction.   3.  Life change events—Fiction.   4.  Fathers and sons—Fiction.   5.  Domestic fiction.   I.  Title.

   PS3623.O6685S63 2014

   813'.6—dc23

2014000134

e-ISBN 9781466835887

First Edition: August 2014