From the Relief Society Magazine, August 1968 –

Moment Out of Time

By Rosa Lee Lloyd

Time was always running away from Molly Van Hardin. Life in the Steven Van Hardin household was a continual rush and race.

Molly was always awake and waiting for the alarm to ring in the mornings; she would prepare breakfast and Little Sue’s bottle; pack lunches; drive Steve to his office; and drop Stevie, eleven, and Meg, almost eight, off at school. Molly always took Little Sue (who had been born three months ago, just before Steve’s father died) on her daily errands. Somehow, she felt more contented with the little tyke beside her, although Steve’s mother, who lived through the block on Clover Street, would gladly care for her at any time.

She always picked the children up at three-thirty for swimming lessons or dancing lessons. There was the rush of dinner, dishes, and rehearsals, or making costumes, or performances in the ward.

This morning, in mid-October, she flicked a wisp of reddish brown hair from in front of her eyes when she turned the car down the highway and headed for the Benjamin Franklin school.

She knew she must look like a witch with her hair flying wild, but this afternoon she was stealing time to go to Paula’s Beauty Salon for a shampoo set, then to Redwood’s for a fitting on her new white formal for the company party tonight.

Steve’s mother was coming to take care of the children and her friend Betty was taking Little Sue while Molly had her hair done.

Steve’s mother, she repeated with a guilty pang as she sped past Clover Street. They should see her more often. Here it was the middle of October and she hadn’t had a free day to spend with her for weeks!

Molly had meant to drive her to the canyons to see the autumn leaves in all their gold and crimson glory before they turned into brittle brown curls, but there was always something that kept Steve and Molly on the go.

Molly was very fond of Steve’s mother, Anna Bell Van Hardin, who had come as a young bride from Holland to America fifty years ago. The children lovingly called her Tinkle Bell, as Steve’s father had taught them to do. It was such an appropriate name for the bright-eyed, pretty little woman who had reared three daughters and one son and helped her husband in his real estate business so there would be enough money to send them all to college.

I he three daughters had married and moved away from Haysville, but Steve had returned after college to take care of the business.

“Mother and Dad need me nearby,” he had told Molly, before they were married, and she had agreed.

“It’s mine!” Stevie now yelled from the back seat. “The blue basket’s mine!”

Molly had to stop the car and settle the argument. The chocolate cupcake that Stevie liked was in the blue basket, and the vanilla cupcake in the yellow basket.

That settled the argument, so she sped on to school, dropped them off, and headed back to the highway.

Now to get home, put a load in the washing machine, make the beds, vacuum and dust, and make a noodle casserole for the children’s dinner.

By one-thirty Molly was back in her car, driving down the highway toward Paula’s Beauty Salon. Once there, she promised herself, she would relax while Paula shampooed and set her flyaway hair. Maybe she would even have a golden rinse to bring out the highlights. She would bask in the rhythmic hum of the hair dryer while her nails were being manicured.

Oh, luxury, she thought with a little sigh. A couple of hours to spend on herself was pure joy for Molly. She didn’t have a chance very often, but tonight was a big night for Steve. She must look as beautiful as possible for him. She wanted him to be proud of her.

She glanced at her wrist watch, and at the same time slowed the car for the crossing at Clover Street.

It was a heavenly day, she thought, drinking in the beauty of the blue sky and the crimson hills surrounding the valley. It was a day for walking in the canyons, feasting your eyes on the gorgeous colors, feeling the branches of maple leaves in your arms, resting your cheek against their scarlet loveliness.

It had been such a day, she remembered, that Steve’s mother told about when she and Steve’s father were young. It had been the beauty of the autumn hills that convinced them, fifty years ago, that this was the valley where they should build their home. The hills had been a symbol to them, and every autumn they had gone to the canyon for a long afternoon. The hills, in the autumn, were a touch of glory in Tinkle Bell’s life.

“Oh, Tinkle Bell,” Molly repeated, feeling a sudden urge to see her.

The light changed to green and she started the car, but, instead of going straight ahead, she turned down Clover Street.

Sometimes, she thought, we don’t know why we do things on the spur of the moment, but she did not question the urge to go to Steve’s mother. On a sudden impulse, she decided to give up her beauty appointment and take Tinkle Bell to the canyon. Cold reason argued she could do it tomorrow, there was not time today, but her heart said no, she must do it today. She would cancel the beauty appointment.

“Anybody home?” Molly called out gaily as she rang the bell and gave her familiar knock on the front door of the old white house.

“She isn’t home,” young Mrs. Brennan called from her front yard. “She left an hour ago for uptown. Took the bus. She said she was going to that new Dr. Blaymier everyone is talking about. Then she was going to shop before she went to your house to tend the children.”

Dr. Blaymier, Molly repeated to herself, with a little shock! He was an eye surgeon, and Tinkle Bell hadn’t even mentioned that she was going to him!

“Thank you, Mrs. Brennan,” she said as she got back in her car.

Twenty minutes later, she walked into Dr. Blaymier’s crowded office in the new medical building on Harvard Street.

Tinkle Bell was sitting near the window awaiting her turn. She had pulled the drape to one side and was gazing out across the busy street to the hills in the distance. There was yearning in every gesture of her frail body, but there was courage, too, and determination in the lift of her chin.

“Tinkle Bell,” Molly murmured as she hurried to her side, “Why didn’t you tell us you were coming here? I would have come with you. Gladly. What is it, dear? Tell me.”

“Molly. . . .” Tinkle Bell touched her hand. “Of course you would. But I know how busy you are. I have had four children, Molly. So many things to do. There isn’t enough time.”

“But there must always be time for you, Tinkle Bell,” Molly answered.

“Mrs. Van Hardin!” the reception nurse called from her desk. “You may go in now.”

Molly waited until Tinkle Bell disappeared into Dr. Blaymier’s private office, then she approached the reception desk.

“I am Mrs. Van Hardin, Jr.,” she explained. “I didn’t know until a few moments ago that our Mother’s eyes needed attention. Will you explain her condition to me, please.”

The nurse shook her head.

“I am sorry, but you will have to ask Dr. Blaymier,” she answered kindly, noticing Molly’s concern. “This is her third visit in two weeks. I think her operation is scheduled for next Wednesday. Do talk to Dr. Blaymier.”

Molly sank down on a chair. Operation! she repeated to herself. Third visit in two weeks. Oh, Heavenly Father, forgive us. Maybe the first visit was on that morning when Tinkle Bell had called to ask Molly if she had time to have luncheon uptown with her, and Molly had explained that the children were having a dance rehearsal. Could they go some other day? she had questioned casually.

Molly walked to the window, but she could hardly see the autumn hills through the sudden tears that clouded her eyes.

This is what we do, she told herself. We chase madly through our busy, workaday world, forgetting the ones we love so dearly, taking them for granted, assuming they are all right because they don’t want to worry us.

Mechanically, she used the telephone to cancel her beauty appointment, then she called Steve’s office.

He wasn’t in, so she gave his secretary the message that she was with his mother. He was to send someone to school at three-thirty to pick up the children because she and Tinkle Bell were going to the canyon to see the autumn leaves. She would explain everything later.

Sounds crazy, she thought, as she hung up the receiver. But an hour later, standing beneath the branches of a golden red maple tree, she knew it was the wisest thing she had ever done.

“Look at them, Molly! Just look at them!” Tinkle Bell exclaimed. “Oh, Molly, this means the world of beauty to me. I wanted to come here so much — before the operation. I can take this picture with me when my eye is operated on and afterwards when it is covered, I will still see the beauty of my hills. Thank you, Molly, for bringing me here.”

Molly could not answer for the tightness in her throat.

| he leaves were falling and the ground was covered with a thick carpet of red and gold. She led the way to an old tree stump, and they sat down side by side.

“It’s like fairyland,” Molly murmured, leaning back dreamily against the branches of a tree. “Oh, Tinkle Bell, we should do things like this more often. But we get so caught up in the business of living. We don’t take time to bask in the loveliness our Heavenly Father has given to us.”

Tinkle Bell sat with her hands folded together and her eyes lifted as though holding on to each precious moment.

“I know,” she said softly. “I know. When my children were little, life seemed to stretch out before me in a never-ending hubbub of duties for them and my husband. But Steven always insisted that we take time to come up here to this very spot. He said it had a touch of heaven and was balm for our souls. Molly, it was a divine prompting that sent you to me today.”

“I think so, too, Tinkle Bell. Even though I have been extra busy today — and the party tonight.”

“The party!” Tinkle Bell sat upright. “I’ll bet you were going to have your hair done!”

“That’s right!” Molly laughed, gaily, stretching her arms high above her head. “But I wouldn’t change this moment here for all the beauty salons in the world! No shampoo. No manicure. No fitting on my new white dress. But I don’t care one bit, Tinkle Bell. Steve will just have to take me without my glamor.”

Tinkle Bell leaned toward Molly to see her better in the fading light of afternoon. Little twigs had tangled in Molly’s hair, and a stray lock bounced crazily over her forehead. She looked like a little girl on a picnic.

“Glamor,” Tinkle Bell repeated with that tender, wise look she always had when she spoke to the children, “I guess I don’t know much about glamor, Molly. But if you mean, will my Steve appreciate those natural red glints in your hair when I get through brushing it for you, and will he like the way your white dress will fit you when I get through stitching it, well — all I can say is that he will, Molly. He will.”

She got carefully to her feet.

They had barely reached the car when the first clap of thunder roared through the canyon.

“We’ll have to hurry!” Molly shouted as she ran to open the car door. “Look at those clouds. There will be a big storm!”

Tinkle Bell stood a moment looking wistfully at the hillsides again.

She is taking it with her, Molly thought, gratefully. And so was Molly. No matter how busy her world became, she would always be glad she had taken this moment out of time, to dream awhile, to linger in thought with Steve’s mother before the winter winds whipped the trees until their crimson glory was only a memory.

Yes, she thought, as lightning streaked the sky and thunder answered with a savage roar, you have to take the golden moments even when there doesn’t seem to be time for them. You do, she thought, as her heart lifted and sang, if you like to share happiness with those you love.