The Wishing Garden (7 page)

When she found Savannah simply banging her fists for another cupcake, Maggie knelt down in her stained nightgown and sobbed into her hands. Doug came in behind her, soiled gloves in his hands. He just stood there watching her cry.

“The mothers all flock to me because Savannah’s
so pretty and sweet-natured,” she said. “But I want them to flock to me because of
me
. I can offer more than a good baby. Can you understand that?”

She could see he didn’t.

He went into his new garden and clipped the first rose of the season. “See now,” he said, bringing it back to her, “just take a whiff of that.”

She looked at him, incredulous. All she wanted was an extraordinary existence, while Doug was happy with an unacceptable life. Really, it was amazing they had anything to say to each other. Sometimes it was all she could do to keep from screaming, to remember he was not one of her regrets. She heard the rotten things that sometimes came out of her mouth, but that didn’t mean she had control of them. If she could force him to passion, perhaps even break his heart, then she could piece it back together. If she couldn’t have greatness, then at least she ought to have a life with some
drama
in it.

But Doug did not rise to the bait. He never got promoted, never made a million dollars, never fulfilled his dreams and got to Europe, and yet he walked into his garden every morning whistling. She had replaced half a dozen of his torch lilies over the years, but sometimes she thought the wilting plants would have survived anyway. Sometimes she thought plants grew in Doug’s garden simply to please him. If her husband had spent half as much effort on her, she would be a different woman. She might have forgotten the things she’d once wanted. Maybe she would have wanted only him. If he’d put in a few lemon trees and been done with it, if he’d stopped gardening before the wicked Phoenix sun got ahold of him, he might not have a hole in his forehead the size of a golf ball, and cancer running right into the core of his brain.

Her granddaughter, Maggie was glad to note, did
not care about the garden. She was not listening to a thing Savannah said, but glancing back at Sasha, the psycho’s dog, who was still growling menacingly from the porch. Emma glanced at the front window and Maggie dropped the curtain. She breathed deeply and counted to ten, then opened it again.

Emma had disappeared and Savannah had reached the mermaid fountain Doug picked out right before his death sentence. Every time Maggie passed it, she spit into the copper bowl.

Savannah had gained a little weight over the last six years, padded her hips and stomach, and added an armload of bracelets. Nearly twenty years ago, when her body was still under Maggie’s control, Maggie had grounded her for getting her ears pierced without permission.

“I won’t let you ruin yourself,” Maggie had said. “You’ll thank me someday.”

Savannah had stared at her. “I’m absolutely certain that I will not.”

Maggie squinted at her daughter now. It was true, Savannah had not thanked her, not even when she turned out lovely, the one design that didn’t come back rejected. She had moved away and become a success in advertising. She pretended she was too busy to visit. Maggie told the young people in Prescott to consider not having children at all. She meant it; motherhood had wrecked her. Thirty-six years later, she’d ended up with one hand locked in a fist, the other reaching for the hair her daughter wouldn’t let her touch anymore. “Kids will suck you dry,” she told them.

She walked to the phone in the kitchen and pressed the Speed Dial button. All the numbers were listed—Wendy Ginger, Maggie’s best friend two doors down, Putnam’s Nursery, Ben Hiller, head of the
MesaLand Homeowners Association. All except number 9, which Maggie pushed.

“Williams-Sonoma,” a friendly voice said. “How may I help you?”

“It’s Maggie. Is Angela in?”

They put her on hold to elevator music, and Maggie scanned her cupboards—gold-rimmed place settings, porcelain gravy boats, twelve crystal flutes, Lladro salt and pepper shakers for eighty bucks apiece. She’d been on a high for a week over the cappuccino cups she’d gotten at the Dansk outlet, but that was fading. It was unnerving how quickly her purchases now turned to junk. Sometimes within hours; occasionally, even, while she was still standing at the cash register. A salesperson would be wrapping her brandy glasses in tissue, and a cold hand would reach down Maggie’s throat and snatch the air from her lungs. Sometimes, in the middle of the housewares department, with everything she could possibly want within reach, Maggie Dawson couldn’t even breathe.

Finally, Angela came on the line. “What can I get for you today, Maggie?”

Maggie reached behind the phone book on the counter, where she stuffed her catalogs. She opened the Early Summer edition of Williams-Sonoma. Every page was dog-eared, two or three items circled in red, but believe it or not, she had some self-control. She would get only the essentials.

“I need towels. Page forty-eight. The flour-sack towels? Are those as good as they say?”

“Better,” Angela said. “Super-absorbent. You could pick up, like, a whole cup of spilt coffee with one.”

“All right then. Two sets of eight. And I was looking at that electric food slicer. Page twenty-seven? That’s something.”

“It’s a definite must. You can cut your meat delithin.
You know, most stores will give you a discount if you buy a whole side of roast beef, rather than having them slice it. You’ll make the money back in no time.”

“The only thing is where I can put it. It’s not exactly something I can tell Doug we’ve had all along.”

“I’m telling you, Maggie, once you start making him paper-thin bologna and cheese, he won’t care how much you spent. And it’s only two hundred. That’s a steal, in my mind.”

Maggie thought it over, though she didn’t have to. Already her mind had cleared off the counter space. She hardly ever used that eight-slot toaster she’d bought two months ago, after Doug’s first round of chemotherapy turned him pale and breakable as chalk. He might be able to stare at an oozing mole on his head and think everything would turn out fine, but she needed an occasional pick-me-up. He could go in for radiation five days a week, for six weeks, come home every day slightly blue and too tired to trim a single, leggy daisy, and still laugh during his favorite
Seinfeld
rerun, but she felt better only after she bought something nice. Doug never woke up terrified because the person in bed beside him paused between breaths, but she did.

“Let’s do it,” Maggie said at last.

“By the way,” Angela said. “The crepe pan you wanted is still on back order. But let me read you the telephone specials.”

She rattled off a list of special-priced steamers and cutting boards, all of which Maggie was fairly certain she needed. She held back, though.

“Ship everything to Wendy, like always. Bill it to my—”

She heard a throat clearing behind her, and whirled around to find Emma leaning against the doorjamb, one sandaled foot crossed over the other.

Emma wore a stained T-shirt two sizes too small, showing off a concave stomach that made Maggie’s throat tighten. Her toenails were painted blue, her jeans ripped at the knees and flared at the bottom, and Maggie knew for a fact that if she’d made it to New York all those years ago, she could have saved this generation’s fashion debacle.

“—Discover card,” Maggie finished and hung up.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Emma said. “Can I get a glass of water?”

Maggie could see right away that Emma was trouble; from clear across the room, Maggie could smell the lingering aroma of clove cigarettes and tangy rebellion. Emma had cut her fingernails to a sharp point, and tracked in two sandals’ worth of mud without thinking twice. Her eyes were such a light silver, so heavily made up in blue, they’d give some people the heebie-jeebies. If she were
her
daughter, Maggie would force her into the bathroom and scrub her clean. She’d put her into some decent clothes and, while she was at it, go through her drawers for signs of marijuana.

But she also noticed that this fifteen-year-old girl didn’t have an ounce of fear in her bones, and that was something Maggie admired. She was coming to believe that fearlessness was the only attribute worth having, in the end.

Emma had already taken two steps into the kitchen without being asked, and was heading toward the sink.

“You heard nothing,” Maggie told her.

Emma looked at the phone, then at her. She tapped her right ear. “What? What’s that you said?” She smiled—a smile that made Maggie forget, for a moment, that a fifteen-year-old girl should not be wearing that much lipstick.

“Whatever she told you about me,” Maggie said, “don’t believe it. I’m actually quite nice.”

“Believe it or not, Mom’s never said a bad word about you. She never says a bad word about anyone. She’s, like, insane or something.”

Maggie laughed. She went to the cupboard Doug never looked in, the one with the new cut-glass stemware she’d bought at Dillard’s in Phoenix. She filled a crystal flute with water and handed it to Emma.

“There’s not much to do here for a fifteen-year-old,” she said, “except get into trouble. Let me warn you right now, I see all, hear all, know all about the children living under my roof.”

Emma drained the water, then put the glass in the sink, and raised her chin. “I’m not staying here.”

“Oh no?”

“You know what’s really pathetic about my mom? It has never occurred to her that I’ll run away.”

Maggie stepped back. She looked out the kitchen window, where Savannah was walking up the cobblestone path toward the kitchen door.

“Where will you go?”

Emma squinted at her, then abruptly swung back her shoulders. “Everywhere.”

Savannah walked in then and smiled. “I see you’re getting to know each other.”

“This place sucks,” Emma said.

Maggie nearly cackled, but managed to squeeze it down. She was not above wishing Savannah a little misery, not after all she’d been through.

She started taking down old dish towels. When Doug asked if she’d gotten new ones, she would look him straight in the eye and tell him she’d just used bleach.

“Emma, please,” Savannah said. “Mom, tell me about Dad. What happened to him?”

“That sounds exactly like a daughter who cares,” Maggie said. “Mom …”

Maggie slapped the towels on the counter. “The garden, that’s what happened to him. How many times did I tell him to wear a hat? You heard me. ‘Put on a goddamn hat, Doug,’ but no, he liked the feel of the sun on his head. He liked desert sun, if you can imagine that. He’d like hell, if you sent him there. He’d tell me the people are just misunderstood.”

Maggie paced around the kitchen. “Then, bam! A mole shows up on his forehead and starts growing like crazy. Pretty soon, it’s the size of a quarter and bleeds every time he touches it. He goes to the doctor and, just like that, they tell him it’s malignant, and what the hell was he thinking, staying out in the sun all goddamn day? They cut a hole the size of a baseball right in the middle of his head, and without even giving us a chance to breathe, they radiate the hell out of him. Then as if that’s not enough, they start him on chemotherapy that makes him sick as a dog, and tell us to hope for the best. The best! You tell me, Savannah, what is the best I can hope for now?”

Savannah had backed up with each word, until she had flattened herself against the far wall. “He loved his garden,” she whispered, holding a hand over her throat. “I would bet he’d say it was worth it.”

Maggie whirled on her. “Then he’s a selfish bastard, because it sure was not worth it to me.”

Maggie noticed Emma in the far corner, rocking up and back on her feet. Maggie had no doubt her granddaughter had never heard rotten language her whole life. Savannah would have suffocated her with that positive-thinking crap and not prepared her for the slightest trauma. The first time she got her heart broken, she would no doubt split in two.

“When is Dad coming home?” Savannah asked.

“God knows. The psycho could have killed him already.”

“You haven’t changed a bit,” Savannah said quietly.

Maggie put her hands on her hips. “No, I haven’t, and you know why? Because life has come out exactly as I expected. I never got to New York, not even on vacation, my only daughter went north and forgot me, my husband isn’t expected to live out the year, and I’m stuck in this goddamn retirement community when I’m only fifty-five years old! I should be taking cruises and visiting my grandchildren. I should be snuggling beside my husband every night instead of being afraid to touch him, in case he starts bleeding again.”

“You got the life you expected to get,” Savannah said. “You would have been unhappy no matter what.”

Maggie turned away. She was not going to cry, not anymore, not when it did so little good. She slapped a towel down on the counter. As soon as Savannah went out, she’d call Angela back and order a steamer. She’d buy Emma seventy-dollar jeans from J. Crew.

Savannah walked over to Emma. She put an arm around her, but Emma jerked it off. Then they all heard the truck in the drive.

“That’s Daddy,” Savannah said, and took off running.

Maggie watched her go, then let out her breath. It was true, she had expected the worst and had not been disappointed. But what she had not expected, and didn’t deserve, was never to be the one her daughter ran to.

Doug might have been the nice one, but he was also the one who had gone speechless whenever Savannah had gotten a cut, or soiled her underwear, or needed help with the school bully. Doug had known how to hug his daughter, but not the way to the pediatrician’s
or tactics for fighting back against the schoolyard thug. He’d never had any clue how to threaten and cajole and scream until his child brought her grades up enough to pass eleventh-grade English, how to use guilt to keep her from smoking pot and killing brain cells. He had no idea of the tricks and ruthlessness required to get a child through. But in the end, what did he care? He got what he wanted: He was the one who was loved.

 T
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