The First Gardener (32 page)

I got my manners though. I tol’ her, “Thanks.”

She flick her hand like she wavin’. “Yours are filthy. You needed new ones.” But even though she try to act like it were nothin’, I knowed Eugenia Quinn givin’ me handkerchiefs was sump’n.

So I ax her, “What you go and give me white ones for?”

She got that all-puffed-up look. Looked like the buttons on that pink sweater a hers done stretched or sump’n. She snatched the box from my hand. “Well, aren’t you an ungrateful old cuss.”

“I ain’t ungrateful. I just thinkin’, if you gon’ give somebody a gift, might wanna figure out ’xactly what they need. And anybody can see a man that work in the dirt all day ain’t need him no white handkerchiefs. He need dark ones.”

She wrinkle her forehead and pull that box tighter to her chest. “Well, a proper man would know to just say thank you when he’s given a gift, not tell the person who gave it to him what the gift should be.”

“Guess that make me proper, then, ’cause I did say thank you first.”

I watch her beady blue eyes get all slantedlike and think for a minute her lips gon’ squinch up so tight, gon’ need my shovel to pry ’em loose. But I shoulda knowed they’d find a way to open up. Ain’t that much green ever coursed through my valley.

“You’re incorrigible,” she say with one a them ol’ huff things she do. “I wanted to tell you that you can give Mackenzie flowers if you want.”

My eyes ’bout bulged outta my head when she say that. “What?”

“You heard me, Jeremiah. Give her flowers if you want.”

“Like any kind a flowers? And you ain’t gon’ shoot me?”

“I’m not saying I won’t eventually shoot you.” And from the look on her face, I be believin’ she mean it. “But it won’t be because you gave her flowers.” Then she mumble sump’n, sound like she sayin’ I be right. But I know there ain’t no way this side a heaven or hell that Eugenia Quinn gon’ admit I be right ’bout sump’n.

“If getting angry keeps her alive, we’ll settle for anger for a while. And hope . . .”

Her words gone and trailed off then. Her eyes couldn’t look at me. And there be one li’l moment there where all that live inside a me want to break out whoopin’ and hollerin’ and laughin’ and just rub that woman’s face all up in the fact that she had to go and she be wrong.

But I ain’t done it. Lord amercy, I wanted to, but I ain’t. I just shake my head, let her move on with what dignity she think she got left. “I like me some hope” be all I say.

She shifted all antsylike then and got all weird actin’. “Well, all right, then. . . . That’s all I needed to say.” She flitted her hand the way she do up ’round my flowers. “Now go back to tending whatever it is you tend. ’Cause the good Lord knows that garden out there needs to be tended to. Ought to have a gardener to come behind the gardener.”

And off she prance. Prance away like she done her deed. Like she been keepin’ a tally for all the good deeds she need to do this year and she fulled it up in one big swoop when she hand me them dumb handkerchiefs.

She ain’t knowed there always been a Gardener who come up behind me. And as soon as she leave, I heard him. God done tell me to give Miz Mackenzie that other bulb I been growin’ in the workroom.

I been worried he might gon’ do that. ’Course, it won’t be bloomin’ good for another coupla of weeks. But Lord help us when it do—’cause I know what that flower mean. And if that orchid made her angry ’fore, I ain’t even wanna know what gon’ happen next.

Chapter 42

The world had lost all its landmarks.

Mackenzie sat in her chair, unable to identify anything that passed in front of the window. All she could focus on was what was going on in her mind, and that was nothing but torment.

She knew by now that grief was a cruel companion. It didn’t care how tired or weak or desperate you were. It hovered and mocked and rarely yielded. It might pull back for a brief moment, only to swoop in again through an unsuspecting word or glance or memory.

The moments of respite felt almost crueler than the constant pain because they could end in a split second, and you never saw the attack coming.

But now there were no more respites. Somewhere in the numberless days that passed her by, the darkness had thickened. Every waking minute, it whispered in her ear how utterly hopeless life was.

She had thought her surge of anger would last, that she could use it to her advantage and somehow outsmart her grief.

She had been fooling herself.

Before she threw that orchid at Jeremiah, she had never thrown anything in her life. Afterward she had wanted to throw everything she touched. The deep rage had felt like it was coming from her toes. But once she expended it, it had left her expended. And since then she had nothing. Absolutely nothing.

There were still moments when the present would press in. She’d hear a word, catch a glimpse of something that actually registered. But for the most part she lived in this empty well. A pit of black and heaviness and tormenting voices in the key of “if only.”

If only she’d stopped the car and made Maddie put on her seat belt.

If only she’d set a better example.

If only she’d taken better care of herself when she was pregnant, not tried to do so much.

If only . . .

The voices beat at her mercilessly until she took the medicine Thad had given her. Then they simply echoed more quietly, joining the voices of all the people who kept trying to intrude on her silence.

More than anything, she wished that the voices would all stop. Just leave her alone.

Gray seemed different, though. That much she noticed. He was there almost all the time now, trying harder to reach her. But he was just one more distant voice calling her to stay in a world she wanted with all her heart to escape.

And in those rare moments when the voices silenced long enough for her to hear the sound of what she thought might be her own heart, she realized this world of nothingness was far scarier than the world of fury. She was certain that when she reached the bottom of wherever she was headed, there would be no retrieving her.

She didn’t know what that meant, and in this torturous occurrence of yet another day, she wasn’t sure that she cared. But she did for a moment wonder if there could be a darkness darker than what she was now living. And something inside her stirred the thought that there actually was.

Chapter 43

When Gray woke up the morning after Mack’s breakdown, she had reverted back into her shell. He had tried to engage her, talk to her, but she’d given him nothing.

He had hung around anyway. For the last two weeks he had done everything for her and had made it clear to everyone that was how he wanted it. He brought her breakfast. He brought her lunch. He bathed and dressed her.

Jeremiah’s words about the azaleas rang over and over in his mind:
“They worth tendin’ to. Fightin’ for. And a really wise gardener, a gardener that know he don’t know it all—he get real good at listenin’ to what heaven tell him ’bout
how
to tend ’em.”

It had taken him a while, but now he felt he was finally listening.

Because after Mack’s meltdown at the mall, when he finally got her to the car, he had heard heaven whisper. And it had clearly said, “Love her.” That’s what he was trying to do in every moment. He was loving her the best he knew how.

Whether it would be enough, he just didn’t know.

Another couple of weeks remained before the house and senate were due to deliver their final budget bills. His lawyers were working diligently on the VRA court case. And he had told Fletcher they would not hire a new chief of staff—not yet, anyway. For the next few weeks, Fletcher was simply to remain on message. And the message right now was that the governor was taking a respite with his wife to make a final decision about running for a second term.

He had assured the public he would let them know before the April filing deadline. And it was already the first week of March. Newman was rising in the polls, but Gray’s numbers were descending faster than Bradford pear trees could bloom—and around here that was practically an overnight occurrence. But with Mackenzie this way, he knew there was only one thing he could do—be the husband he had committed to be. In sickness and in health.

The bedroom door opened. “Get out,” Eugenia’s voice instructed him.

He looked at her over the top of his readers and put down the book he had been reading to Mack. “I’m not leaving, Eugenia. I told Fletcher I’d be back in the office Monday, and I will. But it’s Wednesday, not Monday.”

Eugenia picked Sophie up as if she were a sewer rat and handed her to Gray. “Go. You need fresh air, and I need to spend some time with my daughter. You’ve had her long enough.”

He took his readers off, set them on the table beside him, and looked at Mack. She sat unmoving in her chair by the window, looking out at God only knew what.

He did need to get away. To breathe. To live, even if for just a minute.

“Sure you don’t mind?”

She nudged him out of the chair. “I wouldn’t have offered if I minded.”

He leaned over Mack and kissed her on the head. “I won’t be gone long, babe. Just going to take Sophie out to walk.”

She never moved.

Eugenia touched his arm. “Go, son. I’ll take care of her.”

“Thanks, Mom.” He kissed her before he left.

He and Sophie were headed to the front of the house when the yellow school bus stopped next door. He watched Oliver’s coffee-colored curls bounce as he darted down his driveway.

Every time Gray saw Oliver, Maddie’s memory offered no grace. It roared to life with maximum impact. And it was so vivid. He could see her and Oliver jumping on the trampoline, playing on her swing set, entertaining Gray and Mack with dramatic performances on Sunday nights after pizza.

He refused to push away the memory. He let the grief pass through him and felt the ache it produced in his gut. That’s the promise he had made to himself in his father’s room, a promise his sessions with the counselor had reinforced. He wasn’t going to run from his grief any longer. Instead, when grief showed up, he was going to run into it. He would hold it, feel it, absorb its impact. Then he’d move back into the life that, for whatever reason, he’d been left to live.

Live
—he had forgotten what that really meant. When Maddie was still with them, every moment vibrated with life. In his grief, his anger, his self-pity, he had forgotten what life actually felt like, and he was just now realizing it. He hadn’t watched a single football or basketball game except the one that day at the sports bar—and he hadn’t really seen that one. He hadn’t had a belly laugh since he couldn’t remember when.

He lifted his face to the sun as it pressed gently against his skin. He hadn’t been aware of that sensation since Maddie’s death had removed his ability to feel anything except pain.

Then he opened his eyes and called Oliver’s name. He had just thought of something that would make him feel unimaginably alive.

The boy turned at the sound of his voice. His hand shot up. “Governor!”

Gray stepped closer to the black wrought-iron fence that separated the mansion grounds from Oliver’s house. “Hey, buddy! Can you come here a minute?”

Oliver flung his book bag to the aggregate stone of his driveway and broke into a lanky trot, his skinny knees flashing white under khaki shorts. Gray smiled. March had brought them nice weather, but not shorts weather. Obviously second graders were impervious to chilly temps.

Oliver reached the fence. “What ya got, Governor?”

Gray squatted down so he could be closer to Oliver’s eye level. Sophie stuck her head between the rails of the iron fence, straining to get as close to the boy as she could. She caught Oliver’s attention first. “Sophie!” he hollered. He knelt and rubbed Sophie wildly on the head.

Gray sank into the soft grass on his side of the fence. “Oliver, I was thinking. Since you and Maddie never got to have that lemonade stand, what do you say you and I make ourselves a lemonade stand this afternoon?”

Oliver cocked his head. Sophie did too. They both seemed to be wondering if they could take Gray seriously.

“Like you and me on the sidewalk?” Oliver looked toward the street. “Okay, we don’t have sidewalks. So . . . like on your driveway? But wait! You’re the governor, right? I bet you could get someone to put us some sidewalks in real quick.”

Gray laughed. “Well, I don’t know if we could have them in by this afternoon, so how about we just do it right over here on the driveway? I’ll go ask Rosa to make some lemonade, and I’ll get a table—”

“And I’ll make the sign!” Oliver jumped up so his feet could do a little dance. Then he stopped abruptly. His brow furrowed. “But I’ve gotta tell ya, Governor. I think we should ask for a buck and no less. This economy is killin’ us.”

Gray had to bite his lip. “You don’t think a buck is a lot for a cup of lemonade?”

Oliver’s bushy eyebrows pulled together, almost making one full brow across his head. He twisted his lips back and forth and scratched his head as if this was the biggest decision he had made since starting second grade. “Nah,” he finally said. “With you being the governor and all, I’m sure we can get a buck.”

Gray decided there was no budging Oliver on the price. So he’d just find some big cups.

Oliver leaned toward the fence and whispered as if they were plotting the next great military attack. “Meet in an hour. Right here. We’re gonna kill it, Governor. By the time we go to bed, Warren Buffett’s gonna be jealous.”

Laughter had to be released with that statement. And Gray felt it. All the way to his soul, he felt it. The boy must have been listening to his economist father. Maybe Gray should hire Oliver and his dad to help fix the budget. Right now, though, he had a lemonade stand to run. “I’ll see you in an hour,” he said.

Oliver pointed a finger at him. “Make sure Miss Rosa doesn’t use any of that fake stuff. We’re going real lemons, real sugar all the way.”