Winter Garden (6 page)

“Sit . . . Meredoodle,” Dad said gently, and at the nickname, she felt her resistance give way. Woodenly, she crossed the room and sat on the Oriental rug, as far away from her mother as possible.

In the rocking chair, Mom sat very still, her gnarled hands tented in her lap. “Her name is Vera and she is a poor peasant girl. A nobody. Not that she knows this, of course. No one so young can know such a thing. She is fifteen years old and she lives in the Snow Kingdom, an enchanted land that now is rotting from within. Evil has come to the kingdom; he is a dark, angry knight who wants to destroy it all.”

Meredith felt a chill move through her. She remembered suddenly how it once had been: Mom would come into their room at night and tell them wondrous tales of stone hearts and frozen trees and cranes who swallowed starlight. Always in the dark. Her voice was magic back then, as it was now. It would bring them all together for a time, but in the morning, those bonds would be gone, the stories never spoken of.

“He moves like a virus, this knight; by the time the villagers begin to see the truth, it is too late. The infection is already there; winter snow turns a terrible purplish black, puddles in the street grow tentacles and pull unwary travelers down into the muck, trees argue among themselves and stop bearing fruit. The fair villagers can do nothing to stop this evil. They love their kingdom and are the kind of people who

keep their heads down to avoid danger. Vera does not understand this. How can she, at her age? She knows only that the Snow Kingdom is a part of her, like the soles of her feet or the palms of her hands. On this night, for some reason she cannot name, she wakes at midnight and gets out of bed quietly, so as not to waken her sister, and she goes to her bedroom window, opening it wide. From here, she can see all the way to the bridge.
In June, when the air smells of flowers, and the night itself is as brief as the brush of a butterfly’s wing, she cannot help imagining her own bright future.

It is the time of white nights, when at its darkest the sky is a deep, royal purple smattered with stars. In these months, the streets are never quiet. At all hours, villagers gather on the streets; lovers walk across the bridge. Courtiers leave the cafés very late, drunk on mead and sunlight.

But as she is breathing in the summer night, she hears her parents arguing in the other room. Vera knows she should not listen, but she cannot help herself. She tiptoes to the chamber door, pushing it open just a crack. Her mother stands by the fire, wringing her hands as she looks up at Papa.

“You cannot keep doing these things, Petyr. It is too dangerous. The Black Knight’s power is growing. Every night, it seems, we hear of villagers who are turned to smoke.”

“You cannot ask me to do this.”

“I do ask you. I do. Write what the Black Knight tells you to. They are just words.”

“Just words?”

“Petyr,” her mother says, crying now, and that frightens Vera; never has she heard her mother weep. “I am afraid for you.” And then, even more softly, “I am afraid of you.”

He takes her in his arms. “I am careful, always.”

Vera closes the door, confused by what she has heard. She does not understand all of it, or perhaps even part of it, but she knows that her strong mother is afraid, and that is something she has never seen before.

But Papa will never let anything bad happen to them. . . .

She means to ask her mother about the argument the next day, but when she wakens, the sun is shining and she forgets all about it. Instead, she rushes outside.

Her beloved kingdom is in bloom and so is she. How can anything be bad when the sun shines?

She is so happy that even taking her younger sister to the park doesn’t bother her.

“Vera, look! Watch me!” twelve-year-old Olga calls out to her, launching into a series of cartwheels.

“Nice,” Vera says to her sister, but in truth she is barely watching. She leans back into the bench and tilts her chin upward to the sun, closing her eyes. After a long, cold winter, this heat feels wonderful on her face.

“Two roses do I bring to thee.”

Vera opens her eyes slowly and finds herself looking up at the most handsome boy she has ever seen.

Prince Aleksandr. Every girl recognizes his face.

His clothes are perfectly made and decorated in golden beads. Behind him stands a gleaming white carriage, drawn by four white horses. And in his hand, two roses.

She responds with the poem’s next line, grateful that her father has made her read so much.

“You are young to know poetry,” he says, and she can tell that he is impressed. “Who are you?”

She straightens, sitting up, hoping he notices her new breasts. “Veronika. And I am not that young.”

“Really? I’ll wager your father would not let you go walking with me.”

“I don’t need anyone’s permission to go out, Your Highness,” she lies, feeling her cheeks redden.

He laughs, and it is a sound like music.

“Well, then, Veronika, I will see you tonight. At eleven o’clock. Where shall I find you?”

Eleven o’clock. She is supposed to be in bed by then. But she cannot say that. Perhaps she can feign an illness and put blankets in her place in bed and climb out the window. And she will need some kind of magic to find a dress worthy of a prince. Surely he will not want to go walking with a poor peasant girl in a worn linen gown. Perhaps she can sneak over to the Alakee Swamp,
where the witches sell love for the price of a finger. At that, her glance shoots to her sister, who has noticed the prince and is walking this way.

“On the Enchanted Bridge,” she says.

“I think you will leave me standing there alone.”

Olga comes closer, yells her name.

“No. Honestly, I won’t.” She glances at Olga, wincing at her approach. “I won’t. Go, Prince Aleksandr. I’ll see you then.”

“Call me Sasha,” he says.

And just like that, she falls in love with this smiling young man who is all wrong for her. Above her station. And dangerous to her family, as well. She looks down at her pale, slim hands, seeing calluses from washing clothes on rough stones, and she wonders: Which finger would she lose for love . . . and how many will it take to make the prince love her in return?

But these are questions that have no answers and do not matter, not to Vera, anyway, for already love has begun. She and her handsome prince sneak away and fall in love and get married, and they live happily ever after.

Mom stood up. “The end.”

“Anya,” Dad said sharply. “We agreed—”

“No more.” Mom smiled briefly at her granddaughters and then walked out of the room.

Honestly, Meredith was relieved. Against her best intentions, the fairy tale had sucked her in again. “Let’s go, girls. Your grandpa needs his rest.”

“Don’t run away,” Dad said to her.

“Run away? It’s almost ten, Dad. The girls have been traveling all day. They’re exhausted. We’ll be back early in the morning.” She went to his bedside, leaned down to kiss his stubbly cheek. “Get some sleep, okay?”

He touched her face, let his dry palm linger on her cheek as he stared up at her. “Did you listen?”

“Of course.”

“You need to listen to her. She’s your mother.”

She wanted to say she didn’t have time for fairy tales and listening to a woman who rarely spoke wasn’t easy, but instead she smiled. “Okay, Dad. I love you.”

He pulled his hand back slowly. “Love you, too, Meredoodle.”

The fairy tales had always been among Nina’s best childhood memories, and though she had not heard one in decades, she remembered them well.

But why would her father bring them back up now? Surely he knew it would end badly. Meredith and Mom hadn’t been able to leave the room fast enough.

She went to stand beside him. They were alone now. Behind her, the fire snapped and a log crashed downward, crumbling to orangey black bits.

“I love the sound of her voice,” he said.

And Nina suddenly understood. Her father had employed the only device known to actually make Mom talk. “You wanted us all to be together.”

Dad sighed. It was a sound as thin as tissue, and afterward, he seemed to grow even more pale. “You know what a man thinks about . . . now?”

She reached for his hand, held it. “What?”

“Mistakes.”

“You didn’t make many of those.”

“She tried to talk to you girls. Until that god-awful play . . . I shouldn’t have let her hide. She’s just so broken and I love her so much.”

Nina leaned forward and kissed his forehead. “It doesn’t matter, Dad. Don’t worry.”

He grabbed her hand and looked up at her through watery brown eyes. “It matters,” he said, his mouth trembling, his voice so weak she could barely hear him. “She needs you . . . and you need her. Promise me.”

“Promise you what?”

“After I’m gone. Get to know her.”

“How?” They both knew that there was no way to get close to her mother. “I’ve tried. She won’t talk to us. You know that.”

“Make her tell you the story of the peasant girl and the prince.” As he said it, he closed his eyes again, and his breathing turned wheezy. “All of it this time.”

“I know what you’re thinking, Dad. Her stories used to bring us together. For a while, I even thought . . . but I was wrong. She won’t—”

“Just try, okay? You’ve never heard it all.”

“But—”

“Promise me.”

She touched the side of his face, feeling the prickly white outcroppings of a beard that hadn’t been shaved and the wet trail of his tears. She could tell that he was almost asleep. This afternoon, and maybe this conversation, had cost him too much and he was fading into the pillows again. He’d always wanted his daughters and his wife to love each other. He wanted it so much he was trying to believe a nice story hour would make it happen. “Okay, Dad. . . .”

“Love you,” he whispered, his voice slurred. Only the familiarity of the words made them decipherable.

“I love you, too.” Leaning down, she kissed his forehead again and pulled the covers up to his chin. Turning off the bedside light, she slipped her camera around her neck and left him.

Drawing in a deep, steadying breath, she went downstairs. In the kitchen, she found her mother standing at the counter, chopping beets and yellow onions. A giant pot of borscht simmered on the stove.

Of course. In times of trouble Meredith did chores, Nina took photographs, and Mom cooked. The one thing the Whitson women never did was talk.

“Hey,” Nina said, leaning against the doorway.

Her mother turned slowly toward her. Her white hair was drawn back from her angular face and coiled in a ballerina bun at the nape of her neck. Against the pallor of her skin, those arctic-blue eyes seemed impossibly sharp for a woman of her age. And yet, there was a brittle look to her that Nina didn’t remember noticing before, and that new fragility made her bold.

“I always loved your stories,” she said.

Mom wiped her hands on her apron. “Fairy tales are for children.”

“Dad loves them. He told me once that you told him a story every Christmas Eve. Maybe you could tell me one tomorrow. I’d love to hear the rest of the peasant girl and the prince.”

“He is dying,” Mom said. “It is a little late for fairy tales, I would say.”

Nina knew then: her promise couldn’t be kept, no matter how hard she tried. There was simply no way to get to know her mother. There never had been.

Meredith threw back the covers and got out of bed. Reaching for the robe on her bathroom door, she was careful to brush her teeth without looking in the mirror. Reflective surfaces would not be her friend today.

The minute she left her room, she heard noise: the dogs were jumping downstairs, barking, and a television was on somewhere. Meredith smiled. For the first time in months, it felt like home again.

Downstairs, she found Jillian in the kitchen, setting the table. The dogs were positioned beside her, waiting for breakfast scraps.

“Dad told me to let you sleep,” Jillian said.

“Thanks,” Meredith said. “Where’s your sister?”

“Still in bed.”

Jeff handed Meredith a cup of coffee. “You okay?” he asked quietly.

“Rough night,” she said, looking at him above the rim of her cup. The fairy tale had stirred up a lot of old emotions, and that, combined with her worry about her dad’s weakness, had caused a restless night. “Did I keep you awake?”

“No.”

She remembered how entwined they used to sleep. Lately, they slept far enough apart that one’s restless night didn’t affect the other.

“Mom?” Jillian said, putting down napkins. “Can we go see Grandpa and Baba again this morning?”

Meredith reached past Jeff to the stack of buttered toast on the counter. Tearing off a tiny piece, she said, “I’m going to go now. Why don’t you all come after breakfast?”

Jeff nodded. “We’ll take the dogs for a walk and be right down.”

She nodded and took her coffee upstairs, where she exchanged her robe and pajamas for a pair of comfortable jeans and a cable-knit turtleneck sweater. Saying a last quick good-bye, she hurried out of the house.

It was a surprisingly sunny day. Her breath was visible as she walked the quarter mile downhill to her parents’ house. All night she’d dreamed about her dad. Maybe she’d been awake, really, and it had been memories that spiraled through her mind. Or maybe a combination of the two. All she really knew for sure was that she needed to sit beside him, let him tell her some stories from his life so she could hold that knowledge close and pass it on someday. They’d forgotten to do that—pass along family stories, put photographs in scrapbooks; that kind of thing. They knew a little about Dad’s relatives in Oklahoma and how the Great Depression had ruined them. They knew he’d joined the army and met Mom while on active duty, but that was pretty much it. Most of their family stories dated from the start of Belye Nochi, and Meredith, like many kids, had been more concerned with her own life than his.

Now she needed to rectify that mistake. And she wanted to apologize for running out after the fairy tale. She knew it had hurt his feelings and she hated that. This morning she’d give him a kiss and tell him how much she loved him and how sorry she was. If it mattered to him, she’d listen to every damn stupid story her mother had to tell.

At the front door, she knocked once and went inside.

“Mom?” She called out, closing the door behind her. She could tell immediately that coffee hadn’t been made.

“Nice, Nina,” she muttered.

She put the coffee on and went upstairs. At her parents’ closed bedroom door, she knocked. “Hey, guys. I’m here. Are you in there?” There was no answer, so she opened the door and found her parents cuddled together in bed.

“Morning. I’ve got coffee going downstairs, and I started the samovar.” She went to the windows and threw open the heavy curtains. “The doctor said Dad should try to eat. How do poached eggs and toast sound?”

Sunlight shone through the huge bowed windows, illuminating the honeyed oak floors and landing on the ornate Eastern European bed that dominated the room. As with most of the house, there were few splashes of color in here. Just white bedding and dark wood. Even the chair and ottoman in the corner were upholstered in snowy white damask. Mom had done the decorating, and since she didn’t see color, she tended not to use it. The only art on the walls were Nina’s more famous photographs, all in black and white, framed in black walnut.

Turning, she looked at her parents again. They lay spooned together, with Dad on his left side, facing the dresser, and Mom tucked up against his back with her arms around him. She was whispering to him; it took Meredith a second to realize that Mom was speaking Russian.

“Mom?” Meredith said, frowning. For all of her mother’s Russianness, she never spoke that language in the house.

“I am trying to warm him up. He is so cold.” Mom rubbed her hands vigorously along Dad’s arms, his sides. “So cold.”

Meredith couldn’t make herself move. She thought she’d known pain before, but she hadn’t; not until this moment.

Her father lay too still in bed, his hair a mess, his mouth slack, his eyes closed. He looked peaceful, as if he were simply sleeping late, but a pale blue cast rimmed his lips; it was just barely there, but she, who had looked at this face so often, saw that the man she loved wasn’t there anymore. His skin was a terrible gray color. He’d never reach for her again and pull her into a bear hug and whisper, I love you, Meredoodle. At that, her knees buckled. She remained standing only by force of will.

She went to the bed, touched his pale, pale cheek.

He was cold.

Mom made a sobbing sound and rubbed his shoulder and arms harder. “I have some bread saved for you. Wake up.”

Meredith had never heard her mother sound so desperate. In truth, she’d never heard anyone sound like that, but she understood: it was the sound you made when the floor dropped out from beneath you, and you were falling.

The last thing Meredith wanted to think about was what she should have said to her father, but there it was, a shadowy reminder of last night, standing beside her, whispering poison. Had she told him she loved him?

She felt the sting of tears, but knew she couldn’t give in now. If she did, she’d be lost. She wished sharply, desperately, that it could be different, just this once, that she could be the child, taken into her mother’s arms, but that wasn’t how this would go. She went to the phone and dialed 911.

“My father has died,” she said softly into the receiver. When she’d given out all the information, she returned to the bed and touched her mother’s shoulder. “He’s gone, Mom.”

Her mother looked up at her, wild-eyed.

“He’s so cold,” Mom said, sounding plaintive and afraid, almost childlike. “They always die cold. . . .”

“Mom?”

Her mother drew back, staring uncomprehendingly at her husband. “We’ll need the sled.”

Meredith helped her mother to her feet. “I’ll make you some tea, Mom. We can have it while they . . . take him.”

“You found someone to take him away? What will it cost us?”

“Don’t worry about that, Mom. Come on. Let’s go downstairs.” She took her mother by the arm, feeling like the stronger of the two for the first time ever.

“He is my home,” her mother said, shaking her head. “How will I live without him?”

“We’ll all still be here, Mom,” Meredith said, wiping away her own tears. It was a hollow reassurance that did nothing to ease this pain in her chest. Her mother was right. He was home, the very heart of them. How would they stand life without him?

Nina had been out in the orchard since before dawn, trying to lose herself in photography. For a short time, it had worked. She’d been mesmerized by the skeletal fruit trees, turned into crystalline works of art by the icicles that hung from the limbs. Against a tangerine and pink dawn sky, they were stunning. Her dad would love these portraits of his beloved trees.

She would do today what she should have done decades ago—she’d enlarge and frame a series of apple tree shots. Each tree was a representative of her father’s life’s work, and he’d love the reminders of how much he’d accomplished. Maybe she could even go through the family photos (not that there were many) and find old pictures of the orchard.

Recapping her lens, she turned slightly, and there was Belye Nochi, its peaked roof on copper fire in the new light. It was too early yet to take her dad some coffee, and God knew her mother wouldn’t want to sit at the kitchen table with her youngest daughter, so Nina packed up her gear and walked the long way up to her sister’s house. She’d started from a spot deep in the back of the orchard; by the time she reached the road, she was actually breathing hard.

Really, she couldn’t believe that her sister did this run every day.

When she reached the old farmhouse, she couldn’t help smiling. Every inch of the place was decorated for Christmas. Poor Jeff must spend months putting up lights.

It wasn’t a surprise. Meredith had always loved the holidays.

Nina knocked on the front door and opened it.

The dogs appeared immediately, greeting her with enthusiasm.

“Aunt Nina!” Maddy ran toward her, throwing her arms around Nina and giving her a big hug. Last night’s meeting had been too reserved for both of them.

“Hey, Mad,” Nina said, smiling. “I hardly recognize you, kiddo. You’re gorgeous.”

“And I was what, a total bow-wow before?” Maddy teased.

“Total.” Nina grinned. Maddy took her by the hand and led her into the kitchen, where Jeff was at the table reading The New York Times and Jillian was making pancakes.

Nina actually paused. Last night had been so artificial—with the dark room and the fairy tale and all that unspoken grief—that Nina hadn’t had time to really see her nieces. Now she did. Maddy looked young, still gangly and coltish, with her long, wild brown hair and thick eyebrows and oversized mouth, but Jillian was a woman, serious and composed. It was already easy to picture Jillian as a doctor. There was an invisible line, straight and true, from the pudgy blond girl who’d caught bugs all summer and studied them in jars, to the tall young lady at the stove. And Maddy was still the spitting image of Meredith at that age, but more buoyant than Meredith had ever allowed herself to be.

Strangely enough, Nina felt the passing of her own years when she looked at her nieces’ adult faces. It occurred to her for the first time that she was edging toward the middle of her life. She wasn’t a kid anymore. Of course, she should have had this thought before, but when you lived alone and did what you wanted, when you wanted, time seemed somehow not to pass.

“Hey, Aunt Neens,” Jillian said, removing the last pancake from the griddle.

Nina hugged Jillian, took a cup of coffee from her, and went to stand by Jeff. “Where’s Meredith?” she asked, squeezing his shoulder lightly.

He put the paper on the table. “She went down to see your dad. Twenty minutes ago, maybe.”

Nina looked at Jeff. “How is she?”

“I’m not the one you should be asking,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

Before Jeff could answer, Maddy was beside her. “You want some pancakes, Aunt Nina?”

“No, thanks, hon. I better get down to the folks’ house. Your mom is going to tear me a new one for not making coffee.”

Maddy’s wide mouth stretched into a smile. “She sure will. We’ll be down in thirty.”

Nina kissed both girls, said good-bye to Jeff, and headed down the road.

Back at the house, she hung her borrowed coat on the entryway hook and called out for her sister. The smell of freshly brewed coffee drew her into the kitchen.

Her sister was standing at the sink with her head bowed, watching the water run.

“Aren’t you going to yell at me for not making coffee?”

“No.”

Something about the way her sister said it made Nina stop. She glanced back at the stairs. “Is he awake?”

Meredith turned slowly. The look in her eyes was all Nina needed; the world tilted off its axis.

“He’s gone,” Meredith said.

Nina drew in a sharp breath. Pain that was unlike anything she’d ever known collected in her chest, in her heart maybe. An absurd memory flashed through her mind. She was eight or nine, a black-haired tomboy following her dad through the orchard, wishing she could be anywhere else. Then she’d fallen—caught her toe and gone flying. Nice trip, Neener Beaner, he’d said. See you in the fall. Laughing, he’d scooped her into his arms and positioned her on his big shoulders and carried her away.

She walked forward, her vision blurred by tears, and stepped into her big sister’s arms. When she closed her eyes, he was beside them, in the room with them. Remember when he taught us to fly kites in Ocean Shores? but like the other, it was a silly memory, not the best by far, but it was here now, making her cry. Had she said everything to him last night? Had she told him how deeply she loved him, explained enough why she was gone so much?

“I don’t remember if I told him I loved him,” Meredith said.

Nina drew back, looked into her strong sister’s ruined face and tear-filled eyes. “You told him. I heard you. And he knew it anyway. He knew.”

Meredith nodded, wiped her eyes. “They’ll be . . . coming for him soon.”

Nina watched her sister regain composure. “And Mom?”

“She’s up with Dad. I couldn’t get her to leave him.”

They exchanged a look that said everything and Nina said, “I’ll go try. And then . . . what?”

“We start making plans. And phone calls.”

The thought of it, of watching his life turn into the details of death, was almost more than Nina could bear. Not that she had a choice. She told her sister she’d be back and left the kitchen. Every step took effort and by the time she reached the second floor, she was crying again. Softly, quietly, steadily.

She knocked on the door and waited. At the silence, she turned the knob and went inside.

Surprisingly, the room was empty except for her father, lying in the bed, with the covers drawn so tightly to his chin that they looked like a layer of new-fallen snow on his body.

She touched his face, pushed a snow-white strand of hair away from his closed eyes, and then leaned down and kissed his forehead. The cold of his skin shocked her and the thought slipped in: He’ll never smile at me again.

She drew in a deep breath and straightened, staring down at him for a long time, memorizing every detail. “Good-bye, Daddy,” she said softly. There were more words, of course, hundreds of them, and she knew when she’d say them later: at night, when she felt lonely and disconnected and far away from home.