Free Warm Wuinter's Garden by Neil Hetzner Page A

she added a cup and a
half. When others smiled, she snorted. When others patted, Dilly
bear-hugged. In the aftermath of a fifth young man eluding Dilly’s
clasp, Bett had told her daughter that she didn’t fall in love, she
took hostages. With that advice, Dilly had changed her ways just
long enough to marry Bill.
    Bett steeled herself for the hot white light
of Dilly’s attention.
    “Does he?” she said. “I hadn’t noticed. He
hasn’t said anything.”
    “Does he ever?”
    “Now, Dilly.”
    “Mother, Mother, he’s sixty-six. He should
retire. You don’t need the money. He should slow down. He looks all
wan underneath that tan, which, by the way, is sure to kill him.
Does he have any idea how fast a skin melanoma can erupt?
    Held rapt, cobra and victim, by her
daughter’s relentless stare, Bett tried to arrange her thoughts
while her unguided fingers fumbled with the sharp-edged shells of
the nuts.
    “Dilly, your father likes what he’s doing. If
he were to retire he’d be around here all the time. Could there be
a worse fate? Think of how tired he’d be if he were under my sway
all day.”
    “Mother, Mother.”
    Dilly’s tone held the same exasperation that
she used on her children when they were slow in exiting a fantasy
to come to dinner or to go to bed.
    “He’s getting old. He is old. He should take
it easy. He needs to take better care of his health.”
    Should. Should. Dilly was so liberal with her
shoulds. There were times when Bett wondered how Dilly could be her
daughter. Should was not a bad word. She herself had always used it
a lot. The difference was that she had directed most of her shoulds
to herself while Dilly aimed hers toward all of those around her.
She and Neil had been motivated to teach their children by example
rather than by command. In Dilly’s case, the lessons had been
missed. Dilly always knew what was right for everyone but herself.
Dilly’s bossy energy poorly concealed a being so lost and so
confused that its sadness wrenched Bett’s heart.
    Parenting was such a random process. There
seemed to be no rhyme nor reason as to what stuck and what did
not.
    “We shouldn’t be making ice cream. Do you
know how bad these pistachios are for us? We’re making frozen
death. Sugar, cream, egg yolk and salted nuts. We should all write
our goodbyes.”
    “We’ve always made ice cream on summer
holidays.”
    “Mother, Mother, it’s collective suicide.
It’s the Koster family version of Jonestown Kool-Aid. Some
cardiologist will find us all strewn around the yard in pools of
congealed cream. Infarcted.”
    Neil came around the corner of the house and
climbed the steps to the porch. The too small tee shirt he was
wearing, one Lise had given him that supported African famine
relief, had ridden up slightly on his small belly. There was a
sliver of tan skin between his shirt and his madras shorts. His
deck shoes were worn without the rawhide shoestrings. Neil stopped
behind Dilly’s chair and stared down at the bowls in her lap. One
bowl held whole nuts, one was nearly filled with empty shells, and
the third had a few shelled pistachios in the bottom. He reached
over Dilly’s shoulder to take a handful of nuts. She made a quick
slap at his hand.
    “Am I missing a lecture?”
    “Dilly doesn’t think that we should be making
ice cream.”
    “We always make ice cream.”
    “She’s worried about your health.”
    “So am I. That’s why I insist upon getting my
dairy products. Ice cream. And exercise. Tracking those kids down
to turn the crank. Did anyone get more ice?”
    Dilly tried to turn her stare onto her
father, but as she twisted around in her ancient Adirondack chair
he moved sideways out of range.
    “Yes, I did,” Bett said as she dropped a
shell with no crack onto the white wicker table beside her. The
tradition was that Neil got to crack the culls with his teeth
later.
    “My always thoughtful wife.”
    “Not according to your daughter.”
    Neil patted Dilly’s