Bleeding Heart (5 page)

“Do you want to see something magic?” Mara asked her son. I didn’t hear his response, but it didn’t take much imagination to guess what it was.

“I want you to drop this sunflower seed into that hole in the dirt. That’s right. Pat it down so it’s all safe and warm inside. Now sprinkle a little of this water on top. Not too much—that’s good. Now, do you know what’s going to happen?”

“Magic?”

“Yes, but it’s not going to happen overnight. In another couple of weeks that seed is going to sprout—and it’s going to start to grow just the way you are. It’s going to grow all through the summer—and by the end of August it’s going to be even taller than me.”

“Wow.”

“And you know the best part? It’s going to turn into this enormous sunflower that will be made out of hundreds and hundreds of seeds just like the one you planted.”

Mara was still sullen and abrupt around me most of the time. I didn’t care. In many ways, I preferred that to someone who nattered on about things that meant nothing to me. She was taking on more and more, and handling the workload well. We were alike in many ways, I was beginning to realize. That afternoon, as I listened to Mara talk to Danny, I realized—not for the first time—how much I longed to have children around me again. I missed my family. Oh, Olivia and Franny never failed to call me once or twice
a week, but they were both so caught up in their own worlds— young, newly married, commuting from the suburbs to the city and their important, demanding jobs. Sometimes I suspected that they took turns checking up on me. I knew they still worried about me. And blamed me, too. Though they’d never admit that, maybe not even to themselves.

An hour or so later, I got up from my computer to stretch and walked across the backyard to the greenhouse, where Mara and Danny were bent over the utility sink, washing their hands. The seedling trays were full. I asked Danny to show me which of the sunflowers he’d planted. He looked at me nervously, worried perhaps that he’d done something wrong. Mara was constantly telling him to be quiet when he was around me in the office. I got the sense that I scared him to death. But he finally pointed to a chipped clay pot, set apart from the others in their plastic molded trays.

“Do you want to take it home with you?” I asked him, picking it up.

Danny looked from me to his mom, his gaze searching—and imploring.

“Say thanks,” she told him with a nod.

“Thank you,” he said gravely, taking the pot into his arms.

“Make sure it gets plenty of water and sun, okay?” I said. “And don’t forget to give it a lot of love. That’s where the magic comes in.”

I
thought about what Phil Welling had said. If I landed the Mackenzie project, it would be a “huge score” for him, too. The designs that were coming together in my imagination—and on the landscaping software program I was using—would require a number of subcontractors, including a stonemason and an ironworker. Why not share the spoils with artisans I liked and admired?

I consulted Gwen’s cousin Nate LaSalle, a well-regarded master stonemason in the area, about the costs and feasibility of putting in the numerous walls and steps that were essential to my designs. During the last Harvest Festival at the Berkshire Botanical Garden I’d come across the unique wrought-iron work of Damon Fagels, who had a forge over in Chatham. I loved his fantastical tables and chairs with their animal feet and antlered arms, and candelabra shaped into branches and birds. He seemed excited about the prospect of creating the hand railings, wall sconces, benches, and other garden ornaments my plans were calling for. Both Damon and Nate, though, were concerned about getting everything completed by the end of June.

It was my biggest worry, too. By mid-April I had enough of my
plan ready—if not finished to the last detail—to present to Mackenzie. But when I called Eleanor to arrange for a meeting, she told me he was still traveling. And not expected back for another couple of days. I was in a fix. I couldn’t start my work until Phil had built the terraces and Nate had laid in at least some of the steps. In order to get the best stock, I needed to start ordering specimen trees, shrubs, and perennials more or less immediately. And all of this was predicated on the assumption that Mackenzie would like and approve my designs. A week after I first called Eleanor, still not having heard anything from Mackenzie, I woke up in the middle of the night in a panic. What if he’d lost interest in the project? What if all my hard work was for nothing? And worse—what if I was never able to put in this garden that I’d come to love? The thought was so upsetting that I threw off the sheets, got out of bed, and went downstairs. I made myself a cup of tea in the kitchen and then wandered out to the living room and my laptop to click through my presentation one more time.

It was good. No, it was better than good. Anyone who had a serious interest in landscape design would probably be able to spot my influences—most notably Beatrix Farrand and Gertrude Jekyll. Farrand had designed the gardens for The Mount, Edith Wharton’s estate in nearby Lenox, but it was Farrand’s plans for Dumbarton Oaks in Georgetown that I turned to again and again when I was thinking through how best to handle Mackenzie’s sloping acres. She’d dealt with the same problem at Dumbarton Oaks, though to a lesser degree, and I studied her solution with care: leveled-off areas at different elevations that formed intimate garden rooms, each with its own unique character and focus: a fountain, a reflecting pool, a walkway covered with wisteria and climbing roses. In the end, what she’d created was an outdoor mansion—with a ceiling as high as the sky.

Just as I was finally drifting back to sleep around daybreak, the computer still open on my lap, the kitchen phone rang. I ran to answer it.

“When can you get up here?” Mackenzie demanded.

“And good morning to you, too,” I said, irritated that he didn’t have the courtesy to apologize for the delay in getting back to me.

“Oh, honestly, Alice,” he said with a laugh. “Lighten up. I’m the client here, remember? I’ll be waiting.”

I was out of sorts from lack of sleep, and I made the mistake of drinking two cups of strong coffee to make up for it. By the time I started up Mackenzie’s winding private driveway my nerves were jangling. But as I got to the top of the mountain and looked down on the hillside I’d now come to know so well, I felt myself relax. Mackenzie was right: I needed to lighten up. I had every reason to be proud of my plans. What I was about to present to Mackenzie was by far the best work of my life.

There were several cars I didn’t recognize parked in front of the garages. I pulled in next to Eleanor’s familiar blue Passat and carried my laptop and presentation case up to the house.

“He’s in the sunroom having breakfast,” Eleanor said after she greeted me at the door. “With his ex and his son.”

“Won’t I be interrupting?” I asked as she started to lead me down the hallway. I’d already picked up from gossip around town that Mackenzie was divorced. I wasn’t surprised. I never felt a sense of family life in the house. It was more like a male bastion. A bachelor’s aerie.

“I have a feeling he’ll welcome that,” she said. “It’s not exactly a love fest this morning.”

I could hear what she meant as we approached.

“. . . dare you speak to your son that way.”

“Because he deserves it. When I was his age—”

“Oh, man, not that again! I’m not you, okay, Dad? I’m never going to
be
you. I stopped trying to fill your shoes a long time ago.”

“You’re twenty years old, Lachlan. A long time ago for you means
kindergarten
, for chrissakes! Either you get a job or you go back to school. I’m not going to underwrite any more of your half-assed ideas.”

The sunroom was a spacious octagon with floor-to-ceiling windows that faced southeast over the valley. Mackenzie, his ex-wife, and his son were seated at a round glass table. The former Mrs. Mackenzie was a redhead with a faultless porcelain complexion and suspiciously taut features for the mother of someone Lachlan’s age. She was tall—nearly Mackenzie’s height—with the upright, self-aware posture of a ballerina. She was probably beautiful, but it was hard to tell; anger had pulled her face into an unpleasant rictus.

Lachlan favored his father—the same high forehead and milky blue gaze, but his thick, wavy hair was jet-black. He wore hip dark-framed glasses and stubble across his jawline. Someone far younger and more susceptible to masculine charm than me might have considered him attractive. He seemed to be trying to project a certain go-to-hell brand of sex appeal—but to me he just seemed sullen.

“Ah, here’s my meeting,” Mackenzie said as Eleanor showed me in. He tossed his napkin on his plate and got up from the table.

“We’re not done with this discussion,” his ex said.

“Actually, we are,” he replied as he walked around the table and shook my hand. “I’m sorry that you had to find us in the midst of a squabble,” he went on, relieving me of my presentation case. “This is Chloe, my ex-wife, and my son, Lachlan.”

Chloe glared at Mackenzie, ignoring my presence, but Lachlan looked over and gave me a nod.

“And this is Alice Hyatt,” Mackenzie continued, as if the two
of them actually gave a damn. “She’s a landscape designer who’s here to present her plans for the gardens.”

Mackenzie didn’t wait for a reply as he led me out of the room, though he couldn’t help but hear—as clearly as I did—Lachlan’s sotto voce retort: “What a fucking waste of money.”

We walked down the hall to Mackenzie’s home office. It was octagonal, too, a pendant of the sunroom—but darker and wood-paneled, with curved casement windows facing north into the woods. A large desk with two computers dominated the space.

“I apologize for their behavior,” he said, closing the door behind us. “I can’t tolerate outright rudeness, and they both know it. They fly up from Atlanta periodically to see which one of them can rile me up the most.”

“I’m sorry,” I said noncommittally. I wasn’t there for an airing of his family’s dirty laundry, and I found the subject distasteful.

“She’s a bloodsucker,” he went on, walking over to the window with its tranquil prospect of birches and evergreens. “That’s all either of them want from me: money, money, money!”

I didn’t say anything, but I was hoping he was beginning to get the venom out of his system. I didn’t want his ugly mood infecting my presentation.

“They know I’m planning to cut them off entirely as soon as he turns twenty-one. It’s the best thing that could happen to him, as far as I’m concerned. He’s got to learn to stand on his own two feet. She’s just using him to get whatever she can out of me—and then she takes a cut. It’s disgusting . . . ,” he said, turning around as my silence continued. “And you’ve obviously heard enough out of me on the subject.”

“I’ve a lot to show you,” I told him, avoiding a more honest
answer. “I can give you a virtual tour on my laptop, and I also have printouts of the plans that we can go over, if you have time.”

“There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing, believe me. But let’s see if we can’t get your presentation up on one of these hi-res screens,” he said, walking over to his desk and sitting down. He pulled another chair next to his and waved me over. “Okay, let’s see what you’ve got.”

“There’s always a lot of water running below the surface of these hills,” I told him. Mackenzie had stopped me with so many questions that it had taken me more than an hour to get through the whole presentation, but we were nearing the end now. “What we discovered here, though, is pretty exciting. You see this double dotted line—east of the limestone outcropping? It represents what is basically an underground creek. I hope to redirect its course and have it come to the surface here”—I pointed to my largest terraced area, the one with the widest view of the valley—“and channel it across the garden in a low trough until it cascades over the edge in a waterfall to the pool we’re going to create below.”

“How far is the drop?” he asked. It was typical of his questions. He wanted facts and figures and seemed impatient if I didn’t have them at my fingertips. Luckily, the ten-day delay had given me time to go over every detail in my mind.

“About forty feet,” I said. “I plan to have steps leading down from over here, but I’m hoping the view will have a feeling of infinity.”

“Yes,” he said, staring at the screen. I’d taken a photo of the vista from approximately where I planned to site the waterfall and superimposed it on the virtual garden of ferns, irises, and hostas I proposed. A weeping Japanese cherry dangled its whips into the channeled stream.

“That’s it for the virtual tour,” I said. “I have printouts of the AutoCAD plans to show you as well as photos of samples from the ironworker and the stonemason I’d like to use.” I hesitated, waiting for him to say something, but he continued to stare at the last photo that I’d left up on the screen. There was the long valley with its patchwork of farms and woodland. The rise of mountains in the distance. The beams of sunlight breaking through the bank of clouds on the far horizon. What was he thinking?

“Alice,” he said at last, turning in his chair toward me. For a moment I thought there were tears in his eyes, but then he threw back his head and laughed. “It’s perfect! Absolutely fucking perfect! I knew you could do it.”