The Memory Garden (18 page)

Ruthie enters the dining room, carrying an enormous tray she sets on the sideboard. “Our main event, ” she says, “is chicken with rose-petal sauce and curried daylilies. Thalia, Bay told me you aren’t eating dead animals. You get extra lilies, and the rose-petal sauce is divine, so I put some on the side of your plate. Bay already brought in the calendula biscuits. Now, I think we need a toast.” Reaching for her water, Ruthie jerks away from the merlot, as though bitten.

Nan knows she should feel bad, but she can’t. It’s all she can do not to giggle. She just wants to get on with this toast so she can eat. She’ll worry about everything else later. She is determined to taste this food and not let it get past her the way the sorbet did.

“To the cut flowers,” Ruthie says, raising her water glass.

“To the cut flowers!” Nan responds, perhaps a little too loudly.

They raise their glasses and tap one another’s, then finally, they eat. They can deal with death later. They can fight later. They can forgive later. This is time to savor. Stella murmurs with pleasure. Thalia licks her lips. There is the sound of silverware, knife, and fork against plate, the spoon Bay uses to scoop the sauce; they are nearly finished before anyone speaks.

“Ruthie,” Mavis says, “judging by this meal, I expect your future includes opening a restaurant?”

“Oh goodness, no.” Ruthie shakes her head and purses her lips, apparently trying very hard not to be pleased.

“You should,” Bay says. “You’re a totally great cook.”

“I’m not.”

Everyone compliments Ruthie, who shakes her head, embarrassed, though obviously enjoying the praise. Seeing this, they continue complimenting, and Ruthie continues squirming until the mood at the table is quite elevated. Mavis proposes a toast in honor of the cook, which is heartily cheered. When glasses are returned to the table, the assembled gently push away the empty plates, beaming at one another as though they have all had a great success.

Ruthie announces dessert, to which everyone exclaims, as though the idea had never occurred to them. “I hope you saved room,” Ruthie says. “Some people say dessert is what I do best.”

“You have the coolest family,” Thalia whispers to Bay, who smiles and nods but wonders what she’s talking about. After all, these people aren’t her family; she’s only just met them herself.

“Mavis,” Nan hisses. “Pass the wine.”

Mavis hesitates, then passes the bottle as Ruthie returns with a dessert-laden tray. Thalia gasps and giggles, Mavis’s eyebrows swoop, Stella’s mouth drops open, and Howard cheers. Bay wishes she felt happier, but ever since the subject came up, she has been distracted by the question.
Is
Nan
really
a
witch?

“I don’t know if I can eat all this,” Nan says.

“Why not?”

“It’s just so beautiful.”

“Well, don’t be silly.” Ruthie smiles at her own full plate. “We have violet truffles, pound cake with blueberries and lavender syrup, and vanilla ice cream with black-pansy sauce. I couldn’t decide on just one.”

It is too much, on that they all agree. Yet, in spite of their full stomachs, with only the occasional pause for delicate burps behind napkins and murmured threats of never being able to, they eat, finally leaning back, moaning softly, the plates empty but for puddles of milk, a black-pansy smear, a bit of syrup, the occasional errant blueberry.

The candlelight haloes each satisfied face with gold, and for a long moment the party does nothing more than digest, until Ruthie says, “Well, that’s that then. What are you waiting for?”

The young people: Bay, Thalia, Howard, and Stella, push back their chairs and rise, rubbing their stomachs, closing eyes and licking lips, dreamily shuffling out of the room, speaking softly about how delicious the food was, how full they are, stopping for a moment to consider what to do next, agreeing to go outside, leaving Ruthie, Mavis, and Nan eyeing each other.

Almost
warily,
Nan thinks.

“It was always you two,” Ruthie says. “When we lost Eve, I lost my best friend. Or so I thought. I thought she was my best friend, though apparently she could not confide in me.”

Mavis starts to speak, but Ruthie continues. “I don’t know what you are up to, but I’ve decided to forgive both of you in advance. All these years you’ve had your best friend right here, on earth, and this is how you treat each other?”

Nan, who inspects the tablecloth during Ruthie’s scold, looks up, expecting Mavis to respond with a sharp comment or, at the very least, a glower, but Mavis has assumed a surprisingly tender expression.

“You don’t have to worry about me getting in your way with whatever you’ve planned for the rest of the evening.”

“Ruthie, we—”

“No Nan, stop. Putting together this dinner was a lot of work, which I wanted to do, but now don’t I deserve a bubble bath?”

“Of course you do,” says Nan. “It was a wonderful dinner.”

“I shall remember it the rest of my life,” Mavis adds.

“Well, that might have meant something when we were younger,” Ruthie says. “Will you girls join me in a circle?”

Nan figures it’s the least they can do. She takes Ruthie’s extended hand, which is shockingly cold; Mavis takes the other. Then, with only a look to make them understand, Mavis and Nan hold hands.

“This circle ends the Flower Feast,” Ruthie says. “Though it does not end the cycle.” As Ruthie releases her grasp, she says, “You have no idea what my life was like.”

Mavis and Nan exchange a look.

“See? That’s what I mean. Even after all these years, you two look to each other first.”

Mavis and Nan speak at the same time. They don’t mean to make Ruthie feel left out. They never meant to hurt her.

“All I’m saying is you should appreciate your good fortune. I know we parted under poor circumstances, but we were, well, not girls, I suppose, but we were quite young, and part of a terrible thing, for which we have suffered. Don’t try to stop me. I’m on a roller here. I have thought about this a lot over the years. I have thought about it most especially recently. We never should have let each other go. We never should have. Nan, I thought you understood that. I thought that’s why you invited us. There’s hardly any time left at all now. Less for some than for others, and that means less for all of us. We’re like the Beatles.” Ruthie leans forward, something in the light causing her eyes to appear both closer set and brighter than usual. “Heal this thing between the two of you while you still can.” Without further comment, she leaves the room, closing the rumbling pocket doors behind her.

“That,” Nan says, “was not the sort of prayer circle I expected. She’s right, you know.”

“What are you talking about?”

“After all, look what happened to Grace Winter.”

There. It’s been said. Even though they promised, all those years ago, not to speak of it; the promises of youth, Nan reasons, are not necessarily the best commitments for the old.

“What happened to Grace Winter was not our fault.”

“How can you say that? What happened to her happened because of us.”

Mavis sighs, quite loudly, twisting the boa around her throat. A few orange feathers float dangerously close to the flames. “Have you lived your entire life blaming us for every terrible thing that ever happened?”

“Are we really going to do this now?” Nan says. She feels a little thrill at the thought. After all these years, are she and Mavis going to have it out with each other? Finally?

“No,” Mavis says, “we’re not.”

Nan can’t believe Mavis is running away, but there she is, striding across the room, pulling on the pocket doors, though they do not open, even when she grunts and leans into them. She turns to Nan as if it is all her fault.

“They get stuck sometimes,” Nan says. “We can go out the window.”

“All right,” Mavis says, her eyebrows low, her mouth mean. “You want to know why I could not bear to remain your friend, is that it? Do you want to make me actually say it?”

Nan is confused. Mavis sounds as though she thinks she is being held captive! “This happens all the time,” Nan says. “One Christmas, Bay and I had to go out the window!” It is one of Nan’s fondest Christmas memories, composed of nothing more than the silliness of climbing out the window, the shock of snow and ice, the pleasure of coming into the warm house through the unlocked front door, rushing to change into pajamas and socks, which wasn’t really necessary, but felt so wonderful neither of them argued against it, recounting their adventure later as though it were a grand event while drinking hot chocolate on the couch, the Christmas dishes left until the next morning, when the doors, rather magically, opened. “We’ve kept it as a tradition ever since,” Nan says. “After Christmas dinner, we climb out the window, and when we come back in through the front door, there are two presents waiting for us in the foyer, new pajamas, which we change into. Then we drink hot cocoa, eat cardamom cookies, and watch
A Christmas Memory
, the old one with Geraldine Page.”

Mavis sits down so hard that the candles tremble. “All these years, how I’ve missed you,” she says, staring forlornly at the table still littered with the remnants of dessert, the small plates splotched with melted ice cream, pansy syrup, blueberries.

“You missed me?”

Mavis sighs deeply, still not looking at Nan. “I couldn’t stand to be with you after what happened, I couldn’t stand your certainty, your smug—”

“I was never—”

“You were,” Mavis says. “Don’t lie about it now. How could I have been so wrong? How could I have made such a tragic choice?”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Nan says, the words dragged out of her as though they bear thorns. “You were trying to do the right thing. We all were.”

“You don’t know how long I needed to hear you say that.”

Nan is startled; it never occurred to her that Mavis needed anything she couldn’t get on her own. “I never blamed—”

“Don’t ruin it,” Mavis says, “with one of your lies. Don’t you know? I forgave you a long time ago.”

“You forgave me?”

“Yes. I know you find that remarkable.”

Nan is surprised by the expansion in her chest, right where her heart is. As though a small bird caged there for all these years is finally released. She is surprised by her tears, and surprises herself further by leaning across the corner of the table to hug Mavis, who sits stiffly but lifts a hand to pat Nan’s shoulder. Nan is surprised most of all to hear herself say, “I’m sorry. I am. I forgive you too. I forgive all of us. I do.” Nan detects no scent of salt, none at all, so maybe it’s true.

“What about him?” Mavis asks. “Do you forgive him?”

Nan pulls away. “Well, there are limits,” she says.

What is the cost of life? As she’s gotten older, Nan has come to the conclusion that there is a price. Maybe it’s true what they say about how the good die young, not out of some otherworldly cruel hunger, but because living involves difficult decisions, the occasional willingness to be brutal, make cold assessments, come to unkind conclusions.
Sometimes
, Nan thinks,
it
all
works
out. Sometimes, it does not.

There was a time when Nan thought she would always weep, until one day she didn’t. She covers her eyes with her hands, as though it suddenly is unbearable to look. How can so much loss be survived?

Hearing the scrape of chair across the floor, Nan prepares to be hugged. It’s what anyone would do in such a situation. She is taken somewhat out of her grief by the notion of Mavis rising to administer a hug, though it takes such a long while Nan peeks between her fingers. Mavis, clutching the feathered boa close to her chest, blows out the candles in the candelabra on the table.

“Come,” she barks, “help me with the window.”

They work together to push out the screen, which falls with a clatter onto the front porch. Isn’t it just like Mavis to offer no solace beyond distraction? Nan steps carefully through the open window, grateful it’s the sort that reaches almost to the floor, because even this small maneuver is precarious. She turns to watch Mavis exit, hiking her narrow dress high, revealing, of all things, support stockings, the kind worn for varicose veins.

When did time grow so small? The present is all they have left. Who are they kidding? Ruthie is too old to open a restaurant. Mavis is too old for Africa. They are all old now, far too old for the future; perhaps that’s why they are finally able to deal with the past.

They stand on the porch, staring at the night sky seeded with stars. “Do you still plan on this ceremony?” Mavis asks.

Nan frowns as though the question is absurd, though actually she rather hoped the ceremony would be forgotten. Like many inspired ideas, it suffers under scrutiny.
What
does
she
know
about
getting
rid
of
ghosts?
All she knows is what people say: “send them to the light,” and whatnot. She has grave doubts it could really be so simple. Besides, what if she got it wrong? What if instead of banishing them, she brought more into her life?

Thinking about it now threatens Nan’s good mood, so she decides to think about it later. Instead, she suggests they sit for a while, and Mavis agrees without complaint.

Nan loves rocking. They had rockers on her front porch when she was growing up. She used to sit there in summer, with a big pile of books and lemonade, the good kind, not powder from a package.

“Oh, remember homemade lemonade?” Nan asks, but Mavis doesn’t answer. She sits with her head back, her eyes closed, her mouth open, her purple hair oddly crooked. Nan frowns, only just realizing—a wig! Why would anyone wear a wig that color? She closes her eyes, too tired to figure Mavis out.

She used to sit on her porch, surrounded by library books and the insistent scent of rosemary, that odd herb Miss Winter planted, which produced no flower, only thin green needles yet somehow emitted the seductive aroma that filled Nan with longing as she watched the women come to Miss Winter’s house. They wore big hats or hid behind sun umbrellas or turned away when they saw Nan. They mostly came in twos, though some came alone. Occasionally there was a man. Nan drank her lemonade and pondered the ignorance of those who said Miss Winter was a lonely old witch with no friends in the world. All you had to do was be her neighbor to see that Miss Winter had lots of friends.