Tending Roses

The first book in the Tending Roses series opens with a prologue in which Kate Bowman writes to her 18-year-old son, Joshua, in a notebook as he prepares to leave for college. She confesses she has never told him the full story of his early life and their journey together.

In December 1999, Kate, a public relations director on maternity leave from the Harrison Foundation in Chicago, travels with her husband, Ben, a freelance structural design consultant, and their four-month-old son, Joshua, to the rural Missouri farmhouse where Kate's 89-year-old grandmother, Bernice "Grandma Rose" Vongortler, has lived for decades. The family has sent Kate and Ben to supervise Grandma, who recently had a stroke and nearly set the house on fire by leaving an iron unattended. Kate's Aunt Jeane is researching nursing homes near St. Louis, while Kate's father, Jack, a retired doctor, wants to sell the farm. Kate dreads the visit; she has not returned since her mother's funeral six years earlier, after which the family drifted apart.

Financial pressure mounts at once. Ben cannot connect to the Internet from the farm's outdated phone lines, costing him a major contract. Denied insurance claims for Joshua's emergency heart surgery pile up, and a foundation audit threatens Kate's job. Grandma probes into their finances and offers quiet counsel: "Maybe you should start wanting less" (20).

Kate discovers a handmade book around the house, its cover decorated with pressed wildflowers. Inside, Grandma has written short stories drawn from her own life. The first, "Yellow Bonnets," describes Grandma as a barefoot child spending a precious dime at a carousel, only to regret that she wasted her time wishing for more nickels instead of enjoying the wildflowers around her. Kate recognizes the story as Grandma's indirect way of saying what she cannot express in conversation: to cherish what is precious now. She begins questioning whether to return to her demanding full-time job.

Grandma proves resourceful, arranging for Ben to use the church office phone lines so he can work. On a grocery run, they nearly hit Dell Jordan, a neglected girl of about 10 biking alone on the highway. Grandma dismisses Dell's family harshly. A second story, "Tending Roses," recounts how Grandma's prized rose garden grew wild while she raised her children, yet those were the best times of her life. A third story, "Fragile Things," reveals that Grandma's family was driven from a town as beggars and a trunk of heirloom china shattered in the street. Kate now understands Grandma's obsession with possessions, her fear of losing the farm, and her hostility toward Dell, who reminds Grandma of the destitute child she once was.

Ben leaves for a week-long job. The next morning, Kate wakes to the smell of propane: Grandma turned on the oven without lighting the pilot and walked away. Grandma weeps in confusion when confronted. Kate withholds the incident from Aunt Jeane, fearing it would accelerate the nursing home plan. Kate befriends Dell after meeting her at Mulberry Creek. At the town Christmas pageant, boys taunt Dell, and Grandma erupts, seizing them by their collars and scolding them for wasting food while others go hungry. A fourth story, "Blooming," relates Grandma's father telling her that if they are to bloom at all, they must bloom where they are planted.

When Ben extends his trip, Kate insists over the phone that she wants to cut expenses and work part-time. He dismisses the idea. Grandma uses a parable about a road that always leads to the same place to show Kate that repeating the same behavior yields the same results. Kate visits Ben and offers to help rather than fight. They reconcile, and Kate proposes selling their boat and canceling memberships, rekindling a connection dormant for months.

Grandma secretly outfits Dell in donated clothes and school supplies at the church. Dell holds Joshua and reveals she once had a baby brother named Angelo who was given to his father before her mother died. When Dell asks whether she has "a ugly no-good daddy," Grandma tells her she is "a child of God and a beautiful gift to this world" (146). Further stories reinforce the themes of faith and humility: "Breaking" teaches that sometimes people must bow their heads and have faith in one another, while "Broken Bread" describes how pride and silence nearly destroyed Grandma's early marriage until a bread recipe sewn into a flour sack broke the cycle.

Jack arrives unexpectedly, stiff and critical yet surprisingly tender with Joshua. Aunt Jeane pushes Kate to visit her mother's grave for the first time since the funeral. Overwhelmed with grief, Kate silently promises to heal the family and keep the farm. She argues against the nursing home plan, insisting Grandma will not survive being uprooted. Kate's sister, Karen, arrives with her husband, James. On the night before Christmas Eve, Jack summons both daughters and admits he and their mother let careers eclipse their children. Karen reveals she was pregnant when their mother died, lost the baby, and learned she could never have children. Kate takes Karen's hand for the first time in years.

On Christmas morning, Kate reads Grandma's story "For Joshua at Christmas," a tender reflection on rocking a baby by the tree and recognizing the child as her youth repeated. Grandma has a green velvet dress waiting for Dell. Karen holds Joshua and refers to the family as "we" for the first time. After Christmas, Karen sides with Kate against the nursing home. Ben proposes hiring a live-in caretaker funded by Grandma's farm income. Jack objects but is outvoted and stays several extra weeks, repairing fences and bonding with Joshua.

In February, Grandma wakes disoriented, insisting her long-dead husband is waiting for church. Jack recognizes a minor stroke, and they rush her to the hospital. Kate faints, and tests reveal she is pregnant. Ben steadies her, quoting Grandma: "The Lord doesn't give us more than we can bear" (331). He reveals he has been offered a steady position with a Springfield-based software company, with the ability to work remotely.

Grandma spends eight weeks hospitalized with pneumonia. On a lucid day at home, she tells Kate she is leaving the farm to Kate and Ben, making Kate promise to keep it as the family's gathering place: "I am in this farm, Katie. . . . You tend it. Tend my roses. Tend the family" (361). At Grandma's 90th birthday on May 1, she tells the crowd the secret to a happy life is "learning to want what you get" (353). That evening, Kate reads "When Did the Fireflies Stop Dancing?," in which Grandma recalls realizing the fireflies had vanished while her head was bent to her tasks. Kate carries Dell's jar of captured lightning bugs outside and releases them.

Grandma slips into unconsciousness. Each family member says goodbye. Dell lies beside Grandma on the bed, then returns with a willow basket of roses, saying Grandma asked her to bring flowers to take to heaven. Grandma opens her eyes one last time, whispers that they look like heaven, and dies peacefully. She is buried beside her husband, a loaf of bread engraved on the headstone.

A week later, Kate finds the wildflower book with one final entry. "Hymns and Lullabies" recounts how Grandma's dying mother touched her pregnant belly and called the unborn child the reason she had existed. The story closes: "Katie, do not be sad. You must smile at my babies for me. I love all of you, Grandma" (366). Kate tends the roses and carries flowers to the family graveyard, feeling her daughter, Rose, flutter inside her. The roses nod on the breeze, "as if inviting the fireflies to come out and dance" (367).