n mid-February, green was the color of defiance. White crocuses and snowdrops blossomed overnight, their thin, velvety green stalks pushing up through the glittering white blanket of snow.

Every day, Meredith vowed to talk to Jeff about their troubled marriage, but each time she made such a promise to herself something would happen that moved her in a different direction. And the truth was that she didn’t want to talk about it. Not really. She had enough on her plate with her mother’s increasing confusion and weird behavior. A newlywed might not be able to understand how troubles in a marriage could be ignored, but any woman who’d been married for twenty years knew that almost anything could be overlooked if you didn’t mention it.

One day at a time; that was how you made it through. Like an alcoholic who doesn’t reach for the first drink, a couple could simply not say the sentence that would begin a conversation.

But it was always there, hanging in the air like secondhand smoke, an unexpected carcinogen. And today, finally, Meredith had decided to begin it.

She left the office early, at five o’clock, and ignored the errands that needed to be done on the way home. The dry cleaning could be picked up later and they could go a day without groceries. She drove straight to her mother’s house and parked out front.

As expected, she found Mom in the winter garden, dressed in two nightgowns and wrapped in a blanket.

Meredith buttoned her coat as she went out there. Nearing her mother, she heard the soft, melodic cant of her voice saying something about a hungry lion.

The fairy tale again. Her mother was out here alone, telling stories to the man she loved.

“Hey, Mom,” Meredith said, daring to place a hand on her mother’s shoulder. She’d learned lately that she could touch her mother at times like this; sometimes Meredith’s touch could even help ease the confusion. “It’s cold out here. And it will be dark soon.”

“Don’t make Anya go alone. She’s afraid.”

Meredith let out a sigh. She was about to say something else when she noticed the new addition to the garden. There was a bright new copper column standing next to the old verdigris-aged one. “When did you order that, Mom?”

“I wish I had some candy to give him. He loves candy.”

Meredith helped her mother to her feet. She led her back into the bright, warm kitchen, where she made her a cup of hot tea and reheated a bowl of soup for her.

Her mother huddled over the table, shivering almost uncontrollably. It wasn’t until Meredith gave her a slice of bread, slathered with butter and honey, that she finally looked up.

“Your father loves bread and honey.”

Meredith felt a surprising sadness at that. Her father had been allergic to honey, and the fact that Mom had forgotten something so concrete was somehow worse than the previous confusions. “I wish I could really talk to you about him,” she said, more to herself than to her mother. Meredith needed her father lately, more than ever. He was the one she could have talked to about the trouble in her marriage. He would have taken her hand and walked out in the orchard with her and told her what she needed to hear. “He’d tell me what to do.”

“You know what to do,” her mother said, tearing off a chunk of bread and putting it in her pocket. “Tell them you love them. That’s what matters. And give them the butterfly.”

It was perhaps the loneliest moment of Meredith’s life. “That’s right, Mom. Thanks.”

She busied herself around the kitchen while her mother finished eating. Afterward, she helped Mom up the stairs to her bedroom and brushed her teeth for her, just as she used to do for her daughters when they were small, and like them, her mother did as she was bid. When Meredith began to undress her, the usual battle began.

“Come on, Mom, you need to get ready for bed. These nightgowns are dirty. Let me get you something clean.”

“No.”

For once, it was too much for Meredith—she was too tired to fight—so she gave in and let her mother go to bed in a dirty nightgown.

Outside the bedroom door, she waited until her mother fell asleep, began to softly snore, and then she went downstairs and locked up the house for the night.

It wasn’t until she was in the car, driving home, that she really thought about what her mother had said to her.

You know what to do.

Tell them you love them.

The words might have been tossed in a bowl of crazy salad, but it was still good advice.

When had she last said those precious words to Jeff? They used to be commonplace between them; not lately, though.

If reparations had to be started, and a conversation undertaken, those three words had to be the beginning.

At home, she called out for Jeff and got no answer.

He wasn’t home yet. She had time to get ready.

Smiling at that, she went upstairs to shower, not realizing until she reached for her razor how long it had been since she’d shaved. How had she let herself go so much?

She dried and curled her hair and put on makeup and then slipped into a pair of silk pajamas that she hadn’t worn in years. Barefooted, smelling of gardenia body lotion, she opened a bottle of champagne. She poured herself a glass and went into the living room, where she started a fire in the fireplace and sat down to wait for her husband.

Leaning back into the sofa’s soft down cushions, she put her feet up on the coffee table and closed her eyes, trying to think of what else she would say to him, the words he needed to hear.

She was wakened by the dogs barking. They were running down the hallway, falling over each other in their haste to get to the door.

When Jeff walked into the house, he was engulfed by the dogs, their tails thumping on the hardwood floor as they struggled to greet him without jumping up.

“Hey,” Meredith said when he came into the room.

Without looking up from Leia, whose ears he was scratching, he said, “Hey, Mere.”

“Would you like a drink?” she said. “We can, you know... talk.”

“I’ve got a killer headache. I think I’ll just take a shower and crash.”

She knew she could remind him that they needed to talk and he’d change course. He’d sit down with her and they’d begin this thing that so frightened her.

She probably should force it, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what he had to say anyway. And what difference would a day make? He was clearly exhausted, and she knew that feeling in spades. She could show him how much she loved him later. “Sure,” she said. “Actually, I’m tired, too.”

They went up to bed together, and she snuggled close to him. For the first time in months she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

At five forty-five, she was awakened by the phone. Her first thought was Someone’s hurt, and she sat up sharply, her heart racing.

She grabbed the phone and said, “Hello?”

“Meredith? It’s Ed. I’m sorry to bother you so early.”

She flicked on the bedside lamp. Mouthing Work to Jeff, she leaned back against the headboard. “What is it, Ed?”

“It’s your mother. She’s in the back of the orchard. Field A. She’s... uh... dragging that old toboggan of yours.”

“Shit. Stop her. I’ll be right there.” Meredith threw back the covers and got out of bed. Running around the room, she looked for something to put on.

“What the hell?” Jeff said, sitting up.

“My eighty-some-year-old mother is out sledding. But I’m wrong. She doesn’t have Alzheimer’s. She’s just grieving.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I’ve told Jim.” She found a pair of sweats on the floor of her closet and started dressing. “He’s seen her three times in the last month and every time she’s as rational as a judge. He says it’s just grief. She saves her crazy for me.”

“She needs professional help.”

She grabbed her purse off the bench at the end of the bed and ran out without saying good-bye.

By spring, Meredith and Jeff had settled into silence. They both knew they were in trouble—the knowledge was in every look, every non-touch, every fake smile, but neither of them brought it up. They worked long hours and kissed each other good night and went their separate ways at dawn. Mom’s bouts of confusion had become less frequent lately; so much that Meredith had begun to hope that Dr. Burns was right and that she was finally getting better.

Meredith closed the ledger on her desk and put her mechanical pencil in the drawer. Then she hit the intercom. “I’m going to the house for lunch, Daisy. I should be back in an hour.”

“Sure thing, Meredith.”

She grabbed her hooded parka and headed down to her car.

It was a lovely late March day that lifted her spirits. Last week a warm front had swept through the valley, pushing Old Man Winter aside. Sunlight had left its indelible mark on the landscape: ice-blue water ran in gullies on either side of the roadways; sparkling droplets fell from the wakening apple trees, creating lacy patterns in the last few patches of slushy snow.

She turned onto Mom’s driveway, parked, and walked up to the gate. Off to her right, a man in coveralls was checking the red smudge pots. She waved to him and covered her mouth and nose as she walked through the thick black smoke.

Inside the house, she called out, “Mom. I’m here,” as she took off her coat.

In the kitchen, she stopped short.

Her mother was standing on the counter, holding a piece of newspaper and a roll of duct tape.

“Mom! What the hell are you doing? Get down from there.” Meredith rushed over and reached out, helping her mother climb down. “Here. Take my hand.”

Mom’s face was chalky; her hair was a mess. She was dressed in at least four layers of mismatched clothes but her feet were bare. Behind her, on the stove, something was boiling over, popping and hissing. “I need to go to the bank,” Mom said. “We need to take our money out while we can. We haven’t much to trade.”

“Mom... your hands are bleeding. What have you done?”

Mom glanced toward the dining room.

Meredith walked slowly forward, past the cold samovar and the empty fruit basket on the counter and into the dining room. The large oil painting of the Neva River at sunset had been taken down and propped against the table. Wallpaper had been torn away in huge strips. In places, dark blotches stained the blank walls. Dried blood? Had her mother worked so feverishly that she’d scraped the skin off her fingertips? Ragged strips of wallpaper had been placed in a bowl on the center of the table, like some weird wilted floral arrangement.

Behind her, the pot on the stove continued to boil over, water sizzling and popping. Meredith rushed to the stove and turned it off, seeing now that the pot was full of boiling water and strips of wallpaper.

“What in the hell...?”

“We will be hungry,” Mom said.

Meredith went to her mother, gently took hold of her bloody hands. “Come on, Mom. Let’s get you washed up. Okay?”

Mom seemed hardly to hear. She kept mumbling about the money in the bank and how badly she wanted it, but she let Meredith lead her upstairs to the bathroom, where they kept the first-aid kit. Meredith sat Mom on the closed toilet seat and then knelt in front of her to wash and bandage her hands. She could see several precise cuts—slices—to the fingertips. These wounds hadn’t been caused by feverish scraping. They were cuts. Slices. “What happened, Mom?”

Her mother kept looking around. “There’s smoke. I heard a gunshot.”

“It’s the smudge pots. You know that. And you probably heard Melvin’s truck backfire. He’s here to make sure the pots are all working.”

“Pots?” Mom frowned at that.

When Meredith had her mother cleaned and bandaged, she put her into bed and pulled up the covers. That was when she noticed the bloodied X-Acto knife on the bedside table. Mom had cut herself on purpose.

Oh, God.

Meredith waited until her mother closed her eyes. Then she went downstairs and just stood there, looking at the damage around her—the boiling wallpaper, the ruined walls, the freaky table arrangement—and fear settled in. She went out to the porch just as Melvin drove away. It took every scrap of willpower she had not to scream out loud.

Instead, she pulled the cell phone out of her pocket and called Jeff at work.

“Hey, Mere. What is it? I’m just about ready to—”

“I need you, Jeff,” she said quietly, feeling as if she were coming apart. She’d tried so hard to do everything right, to fulfill her promise to her father, and somehow she had failed. She didn’t know how to handle this alone.

“What is it?”

“Mom has gone way around the bend this time. Can you come over?”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“Thanks.”

She made a call to Dr. Burns next and told him she needed him to come over immediately. She didn’t hesitate to use the word emergency. This definitely qualified as one in her book.

As soon as the doctor said he’d be right over, Meredith disconnected that call and dialed Nina’s number. She had no idea what time it was in Botswana or Zimbabwe—wherever her sister was now—and she didn’t care. She only knew that when Nina answered, Meredith was going to say, I can’t do this alone anymore.

But Nina didn’t answer. Instead, her perky recorded voice said, “Hey, thanks for calling. God knows where I am right now, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you when I can.”

Beep.

Meredith hung up the phone without leaving a message.

What was the point?

She stood there, the phone in her hand, staring through the slowly dissipating smoke. It stung her eyes, but it hardly mattered. She was crying anyway. She didn’t even remember when it had started, her crying, and for once, she didn’t care.

True to his word, Jeff showed up in less than ten minutes. He got out of the car and came toward her. At the top of the porch steps, he opened his arms and she walked into them, letting his embrace hold her together.

“What did she do?” he finally said.

Before she could answer, there was a loud crash in the kitchen.

Meredith spun on her heels and ran back inside.

She found her mother sprawled on the dining room floor, clutching a strip of wallpaper in one hand and her ankle in the other. A chair lay on its side beside her. She must have fallen off of it.

Meredith went to her, bent down. She tested the already-swelling ankle. “Help me get her into the living room, Jeff. We’ll put her on the ottoman bed.”

Jeff bent down to her mother. “Hey, Anya,” he said in a voice so gentle it made Meredith remember what a wonderful father he was, how easily he’d dried his daughters’ tears and made them laugh. He was such a good man; after all Mom had put him through over the years, all the silence she’d heaped on him, still he managed to care about her. “I’m going to carry you into the living room, okay?”

“Who are you?” Mom said, searching his gray eyes.

“I’m your prince, remember?”

Mom calmed down instantly. “What have you brought for me?”

Jeff smiled down at her. “Two roses,” he said, scooping her into his arms. He carried her into the living room and put her down on the ottoman bed.

“Here, Mom,” Meredith said. “I’ve got an ice pack. I’m going to put it on your ankle, okay? Keep your feet on this pillow.”

“Thank you, Olga.”

Meredith nodded and let Jeff lead her into the kitchen.

“She fell off the chair?” he asked, glancing into the ruined dining room.

“That would be my guess.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.” She stared at him, not quite knowing what to say.

She heard Dr. Burns drive up and relief propelled her forward.

He came into the house, looking more than a little harried, holding a half-eaten sandwich. “Hello, you two,” he said as he came inside. “What happened?”

“Mom was tearing down wallpaper and fell off a chair. Her ankle is swelling up like a balloon,” Meredith said.

Dr. Burns nodded and set his sandwich down on the entryway table. “Show me.”

But when they went into the living room, her mother was sitting up, knitting, as if this were just an ordinary afternoon instead of the day she’d tried to cook wallpaper and cut her own flesh.

“Anya,” Jim said, going to her. “What happened here?”

Mom gave him one of her dazzling smiles. Her blue eyes were completely clear. “I was redecorating the dining room and I fell. Silly of me.”

“Redecorating? Why now?”

She shrugged. “We women. Who knows?”

“May I take a look at your ankle?”

“Certainly.”

He gently examined Mom’s ankle and wrapped it in an Ace bandage.

“This pain is nothing,” she said.

“And what about your hands?” he asked, examining her fingertips. “It looks like you cut yourself on purpose.”

“Nonsense. I was redecorating. I told you this.”

Dr. Burns studied her face for a few more minutes and then smiled gently. “Come on. Let Jeff and me help you to your room.”

“Of course.”

“Meredith, you stay here.”

“Gladly,” she said, watching nervously as they made their way up the stairs and disappeared.

Meredith paced impatiently, chewing on her thumbnail until it started to bleed.

When Jeff and Dr. Burns came back down the stairs, she looked at the doctor. “Well?”

“She’s sprained her ankle. It will heal if she stays off it.”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it,” Meredith said. “You saw her fingers. And I found an X-Acto knife by her bed. I think she did it on purpose. She must have Alzheimer’s. Or some kind of dementia anyway. What do we do?”

Jim nodded slowly, obviously gathering his thoughts. “There’s a place in Wenatchee that could take her for a month or six weeks. We could call it rehabilitation for her ankle. Insurance would cover that, and at her age, healing is slow. It’s not a long-term solution, but it would give her—and you—some time to deal with what’s happened. It’s possible that time away from Belye Nochi and the memories here might help.”

“You mean a nursing home?” Meredith said.

“No one likes a nursing home,” the doctor said. “But sometimes it’s the best answer. And remember, it’s only a short-term solution.”

“Will you tell her she’s going there because she needs rehab?” Jeff asked, and Meredith could have kissed him. He knew how hard this decision was for her.

“Of course.”

Meredith drew in a deep breath. She knew she would replay this moment over and over, probably hating herself more every day. She knew her father would never make this choice and wouldn’t have wanted her to make it. But she couldn’t deny how much this would help her.

She sleeps outside... tears down wallpaper... falls off chairs... what will be next?

“God help me,” she said softly, feeling alone even with Jeff right beside her. She’d never known before how profoundly a single decision could separate you from other people. “Okay.”

That night, Meredith couldn’t sleep. She heard the clicking of digital minutes into one another as she lay in bed.

Everything about her decision felt wrong. Selfish. And that was what it was in the end: her decision.

She stayed in bed as long as she could, trying to relax; at two o’clock, she dropped the pretense and got up.

Downstairs, she roamed through the shadowy, quiet house, looking for something to help her sleep or to occupy her mind while she was awake: TV, a book, a cup of tea...

Then she saw the telephone and knew exactly what she needed: Nina’s complicity. If Nina agreed about the nursing home, Meredith would shoulder only half the guilt.

She dialed her sister’s international cell phone number and sat down on the sofa.

“Hello?” said a heavily accented voice. Irish, Meredith thought. Or Scottish.

“Hello? I’m calling Nina Whitson. Did I get the wrong number?”

“No. This is her phone. Who am I speakin’ to?”

“Meredith Cooper. I’m Nina’s sister.”

“Ah, brilliant. I’m Daniel Flynn. I suppose you’ve heard of me.”

“No.”

“That’s disappointing, isn’t it? I’m a... good friend of your sister’s.”

“How good a friend are you, Daniel Flynn?”

His laugh was low and rumbling. Sexy as hell. “Daniel’s me old man, and a mean son of a bitch he was. Call me Danny.”

“I notice you didn’t answer my question, Danny.”

“Four and a half years. Give or take.”

“And she never mentioned you or brought you home?”

“More’s the pity, eh? Well, it was grand talkin’ to you, Meredith, but your sis is givin’ me the evil eye, so I’d best hand her the phone.”

As Meredith said good-bye, she heard a rustling sound, as if Danny and Nina were fighting over the phone.

Nina answered, sounding a little breathless; laughing. “Hey, Mere. What’s up? How’s Mom?”

“Honestly, Neens, that’s why I’m calling. She’s not good. She’s confused lately. Calls me Olga half the time and recites that damn fairy tale as if it means something.”

“What does Doc Burns say?”

“He thinks it’s ordinary grief, but—”

“Thank God. I wouldn’t want her to end up like Aunt Dora, stuck in that pathetic nursing home, eating old Jell-O and watching game shows.”

Meredith flinched at that. “She fell and sprained her ankle. Luckily I was there to help, but I can’t always be there.”

“You’re a saint, Mere. Really.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Th at’s what Mother Teresa said to me, too.”

“I’m no Mother Teresa, Nina.”

“Yes, you are. The way you’re taking care of Mom and running the orchard. Dad would be proud.”

“Don’t say that,” she whispered, unable to put any power in her voice. She wished now that she hadn’t called.

“Look, Mere. I really can’t talk now. We’re just on our way out. Do you have something important?”

This was her moment: she could blurt out the truth and be judged (Saint Mere, cramming Mom in a home) or she could say nothing. And what if Nina disagreed? Meredith hadn’t thought about that possibility before, but now she saw it clearly. Nina would not support her, and that would only make matters worse. To be called selfish by Nina was more than she could bear. “No, nothing important. I can handle it.”

“Good. I’ll be home for Dad’s birthday, don’t forget.”

“Okay,” Meredith said, feeling sick. “See you then.”

Nina said, “Good-bye,” and their conversation broke.

Meredith hung up the phone. With a sigh, she turned off the lights and went back upstairs, where she crawled into bed with her husband.... stuck in that pathetic nursing home...

Saint Mere

She lay there a long time, in the dark, trying not to remember those wretched, long-ago visits to Aunt Dora.

She was certain she had never fallen asleep, but at seven A.M., the alarm clock jolted her awake.

Jeff stood by the bed with a cup of coffee. “You okay?”

She wanted to say no, to scream it, maybe even to burst into tears, but what good would that do? The worst part of all was that Jeff knew it; he was giving her his sad look again, his I’m-waiting-for-you-to-need-me look. If she told him the truth, he’d hold her hand and kiss her and tell her she was doing the right thing. And then she’d really lose it. “I’m fine.”

“I thought you’d say that,” he said, stepping back. “We need to go in about an hour. I’ve got an appointment at nine.”

She nodded and shoved the hair out of her face. “Okay.”

For the next hour, she got ready as if this were any ordinary day, but when she climbed into the driver’s seat of her big SUV, she suddenly lost the ability to pretend. The truth of her choice swept through her, chilling her.

In front of her, Jeff started up his truck, and together they drove in their separate cars to Belye Nochi.

Inside, she found Mom in the living room, standing at her Holy Corner. Dressed in a black woolen sheath, with a white silk scarf around her throat, she managed to look both elegant and strong. Her back was straight, her shoulders firm. Her snow-white hair had been drawn back from her face, and when she turned to look at Meredith, there wasn’t a drop of confusion in those arctic-blue eyes.

Meredith’s resolve slipped; doubt surged up in its place.

“I want the Holy Corner brought to my new room,” Mom said. “The candle must be kept burning.” She reached over for the crutches Dr. Burns had brought her. Settling them in place under her arms, she limped slowly toward Meredith and Jeff.

“You need help,” Meredith said as she approached. “I can’t be here all the time.”

If Mom heard, or cared, there was no sign of it. She limped past Meredith and went to the front door. “My bag is in the kitchen.”

Meredith should have known better than to seek absolution from her mother. How well she knew that whatever she needed from Mom, she wouldn’t get it. Maybe this most of all. She walked past her mother and went into the kitchen.

It was the wrong bag. Meredith had packed the big red suitcase only last night. She bent down and opened this one.

Her mother had packed it full of butter and leather belts.