FALLING STARS
Chapter Thirty-Four
Rose slowly recovered from the loss of Jack.
While she would never forget him, time did heal wounds, and her grief slowly
lessened. She realized that Jack would have wanted her to go on with life, and
slowly but surely, she did.
She began working in her garden again,
finding that the act of digging into the soil, planting seeds, and nurturing
the young plants had a healing effect on her, and resumed walking around the
neighborhood, the puppy that Cal had brought her tugging her along. She
rejoined her friends in the women’s club, and began taking part in different
activities at her church.
When she felt up to it, Rose began traveling
again, visiting with her children and grandchildren. There were a total of
seven great-grandchildren now, and she visited with all of them, getting to
know them, as she had not had a chance to do before. Jack had been too weak to
travel for several months before his death, and their grandchildren had been
busy with their own lives and didn’t often visit Philadelphia, except for the
Calverts in Pittsburgh, who lived close enough that they had visited almost
every week.
Rose visited often with her children in
Philadelphia, Gregory and Libby. Gregory was still running the art gallery, a
legacy from his father, and he was teaching his youngest daughter, Gina, to
take over after him. Gina was the youngest of Gregory and Emily’s children,
fourteen years old and the only one still living at home. Her talents lay more
in photography than in drawing or painting, and she often unnerved her parents
by going to scenes of crimes or accidents to get human interest photos. Many of
her photographs were displayed in the art gallery, which was slowly changing
form and function.
Libby’s children were grown and had left
home, but she had continued her career as a researcher, making strides in the
study of radiation-induced diseases and birth defects. She had never remarried,
but had instead spent the last five years living with a man she had met while
serving as a guest lecturer at a local college. Libby was three years older
than he was, and it occurred to Rose that she should be shocked by her
daughter’s living arrangements, but for some reason she wasn’t. Maybe, she
thought, it was because she had spent so many years shocking people herself.
She had asked Libby once why she didn’t marry the man she was living with, but
Libby had just shrugged and replied that she didn’t wish to, and that she
enjoyed her freedom. She had rejected the idea that she might need to marry
him; after all, it was the 1970’s, and mores had changed somewhat since she was
a young girl, and beyond that, she was fifty-five years old and certainly
wouldn’t be having any more children. Rose, knowing that nothing was going to
change Libby’s mind, didn’t push her.
One thing that did surprise Rose was the
amount of attention Cal paid to her. He had always kept his distance before,
while Jack had been alive, but about four months after Jack had passed away, he
began accompanying Rose on her walks around the neighborhood. Rose was somewhat
annoyed by this at first--she had to slow down and wait for him, as he was much
slower now than her--but after a while she began to appreciate his company. She
understood now why he had walked into her house uninvited that day--to shock
her out of her misery, and get her back on the road to living again. He was a
friend, and technically her stepbrother, though she had never really thought of
him as such. He was also an in-law, through the marriage of Gregory and Emily,
but after a time she realized that he was becoming more than that to her.
She would never love him as she had loved
Jack--such a love came only once in a lifetime--but she did develop a certain
affection for him, one that was more than just friendly. They had fought
bitterly when they were young and engaged, but time and circumstances had
mellowed their tempers considerably, and the fifty years they had spent as
neighbors, and later friends, had brought them closer together.
She continued seeing Cal, walking around the
neighborhood with him, and after a time he became stronger, and even left his
cane at home most of the time. They began to go places together--dating,
Gregory and Emily teased them, though they both denied it--and Rose realized
that they felt something for each other. Sometimes she quailed at the idea,
almost feeling as though it was a betrayal of Jack, but Jack was gone, and she
and Cal were alive, and somehow, she knew that Jack would understand.