The Garden of Happy Endings (14 page)

“And say the rosary.”

Clearly Tamsin expected Elsa to participate. Whatever. She didn’t have to believe it to do it. “Yes. That, too.”

A
t a little past seven that evening, Joaquin came over for a late supper at Elsa’s house, at her request. She watched from the window as he wove calmly through the little knots of newspeople, holding up a hand and shaking his head as he made his way to the door. She cracked it open and ushered him in. “I wasn’t expecting that,” he said.

“Tell us about it.” From the table, Tamsin rolled her eyes. Her hands were cupped around a mug of tea. “Things aren’t crazy enough without them, right?”

Elsa took his long black coat. He held a small package. “Come on in. We’re having chicken and dumplings because it’s Tamsin’s favorite comfort food and she needs a little comfort.”

“Smells great. And you know I love it.”

“Yes.” She hung up his coat as he went to Tamsin’s side and put his hand on her shoulder, that big, steadying hand.

“How are you?”

She shrugged. “I feel trapped.”

“Well, I brought you the sacraments, if you like. Perhaps it will help.”

Tamsin nodded.

As he chanted the words, Elsa stepped back, giving them space for the rite, watching as he carefully poured wine and wiped the chalice, as he offered it to Tamsin. Funny, Elsa never saw him in this role, as priest and confessor. It seemed to give him height, breadth. She listened to the words, loving as always the timbre of his voice, the depth of his reverence.

But her stony heart did not soften. Or crack open.

When he finished, Elsa took dishes out of the cupboard, wide shallow bowls, and ladled chicken and soft, biscuit-style dumplings into them, making sure there were enough carrots and celery to brighten each serving.

The bowls did not match. One was a
Titanic
replica she’d found at a yard sale, another was deep cobalt and gilt, which she put in front of Joaquin, and the third was a delicate china bowl with flowers at intervals along the edge. With a secret little smile, she put the
Titanic
bowl down in front of her sister. The ship’s name was hidden under the food.

“How were your sermons today?” Elsa asked, sitting down.

“Very good. There were a lot of people this morning.”

“And it’s not even Easter.”

Joaquin grinned, his hair falling down his forehead. “True. That always brings them in.” Capturing a dumpling, he admired it for a moment. “I think it’s the garden that’s bringing more people in. They feel included, like they matter.”

“That’s the whole point, right?”

“I thought it would take longer.” He tidily ate the dumpling. “Do you think it would make sense to have chickens?”

“To eat?” Elsa asked. “Or for eggs?”

“Both, I guess. I’ve never had them, so I don’t really know what’s involved, but maybe having fresh eggs and the odd old hen for the pot would be a nice addition. Teach the children about sustainable food, get some fresh eggs for the soup kitchen. What do you think?”

“Ew!” Tamsin cried. “How can you eat them after you’ve made friends with them, fed them? That will totally traumatize those kids.”

“Don’t be silly,” Elsa said. “Kids are sturdier than that.”

“Who’s the mom here?” Tamsin snapped.

Elsa looked at her.

“Sorry.”

“I haven’t had chickens, either,” Elsa said, “so I need to look into it, gather some facts. It might not even be allowed in the city.”

“But what if it is? What do you think of the idea in general?”

“Not sure, really.” She put down her fork and spoon and picked
up her napkin, imagining plump black hens clucking around the gardens, speckled brown eggs still warm from the bodies of the birds. “I like the
idea
. You know, fresh eggs and teaching the children about where food comes from in a real, honest way.” She scowled. “But what about roosters? Do you have to have one to get eggs?”

“I have no idea!” Joaquin admitted with a big grin. “I guess we’ll need to find that out, too.”

“They’re really noisy.”

His eyes glittered. “Are you thinking of the roosters in Spain?”

“Yes! I am.” A memory of a cock crowing all night long somewhere along the Camino came to her—his voice ragged by the time the sun came up. “Where was that really obnoxious one? Estella?”

“Maybe. It’s been a long time. I remember they woke us up a lot, and the one I remember most is the guy at the end, right after everyone finally went to bed following that all-night fiesta.”

“Oh, I remember that! It was some festival for the dead and they had a band that started playing at eleven o’clock at night. We were exhausted.”

“Lavacolla.” He glanced at Elsa, then away. “The last day.”

She remembered, too. They had an unspoken pact to keep certain things off the table, some painful, some joyous, some—like this one—carnal. She tried to think of something to say, but the memory of the big open window of the hotel room, the stars shining, Joaquin’s skin against hers, was powerful.

In the silence, their spoons clicked against their bowls.

“Jeez,” Tamsin said. “You two sure got quiet. What happened that day?”

Joaquin shook his head. “Nothing. That just brought back a lot of memories. Do you still have your shell, Elsa?”

“Yes. And my passport.”

“Was the
camino
hard?” Tamsin asked.

Elsa glanced at him. Their eyes caught and tangled for the
most fleeting of seconds. “Brutal, actually. We thought we were so tough, and we were whining within a few days.”

Joaquin carefully cut a piece of chicken, noticeably silent.

“You guys never really talk about that trip. What happened to you?” Tamsin asked. Her tone was flat, and she was barely eating, pushing food from one side of the plate to the other, which would undermine Elsa’s
Titanic
joke.

“It was a big adventure,” Elsa said lightly, and reached for the bowl. “If you’re not eating that, maybe I should pour it back in the pan.”

“Sorry. Not very hungry.”

“It would be good for you to eat,” Joaquin said gently, and touched her hand.

She looked at him for a minute, then picked up her spoon and ate a bite. Two. Elsa thought again of the
camino
, of a rainy day and the way her feet felt after fifty-six days of walking, and how her heart and spirit seemed to grow lighter and lighter with each new blister.

“Did Elsa tell you that they wouldn’t let me in my house today?” Tamsin said to Joaquin.

“No,” he said.

“They told me I’d be able to get in there, but then they wouldn’t let me go after all, not even for my personal things. The investigation is under way or something.” She tucked a long lock of hair behind her ear. “I don’t know what they think my underwear is going to tell them.”

“I’m sure they’re worried that you’ll take something else,” Elsa said. “We’ll talk to the lawyer tomorrow, and if they don’t let us in then, we can go to Target and get you some underwear and things.”

“With what money, Elsa? I don’t have anything. Not even one little bitty credit card or secret stash or anything. Nothing.”

“I have some savings,” Elsa said calmly. It wasn’t a lot, but it would stretch that far. “I’ll take care of you, I promise.”

Joaquin said, “We have a benevolence fund for emergencies. I’ll talk to Wilma in the church office tomorrow and she can order a check. It’ll cover a few clothes.”

She bent her head. Nodded.

“Eat,” Joaquin urged quietly. She obeyed.

Again, the thick ticking of the clock. “Maybe we need some music,” Elsa said. She pushed back her chair and turned the radio on to a pop station. But it was too jangly and she turned it off.

Joaquin finished his dumplings, placed his napkin neatly on the table. “ ‘All things work together for good for those who love God,’ Tamsin,” he quoted. “You asked what happened on the
camino
. In a way, I did. That’s when I was called to the priesthood.”

Tamsin raised her head, intrigued. “How did you hear a call? Like a voice?”

“People hear it many different ways, but for me, it was an actual voice.”

Elsa leaned on the table, pushing away her bowl.
Let him do his work
. Her sister needed him.

“What did it say?” Tamsin lifted a hearty bite of stew. Ate.

“That’s private, but I can say that it was unmistakable, and true. I knew from the time I was seven that I was meant to be a priest, but I had been running away from it.”

“Why?”

Elsa watched his face, the weariness that moved over his temples, his mouth. He didn’t look at her. “Because it is not an easy road. Because I wanted the ordinary joys of a family.”

“And you were engaged. You guys were like the most solid couple ever.”

Elsa took a breath. It had been a long time, almost two decades, but in her current raw state, these memories could still sting. She had to fight a powerful urge to stand up and fuss with the food or do the dishes, start some coffee.

“We were,” he said. “From the eighth grade, there was nobody
else for either of us.” He folded his hands, as if to keep them to himself, and Elsa smiled gently, a sudden softening in her chest making her breathe more easily. She rested her own hand on his forearm briefly.

“We were,” she echoed.

“I don’t see how God could want to take that away from you.”

“I knew what I was supposed to do from the time I had the measles, remember.” He lifted a finger, pointing it toward the heavens. “If I had been faithful to the first call, I would not have—” He cleared his throat. “I would have done things differently.”

“So would Elsa. It wasn’t very fair to her, was it?”

He started to speak, but Elsa held up her hand. She could spare him this, at least. “All things work together for good,” she said, and something rippled through her, a softness. “I had things I needed to do, too.”

Tamsin inclined her head. “I wish I felt that. Not the call, the God thing, because honestly, I don’t think there’s anything out there.”

“And yet you accepted the sacraments today.” Joaquin smiled.

She shrugged. “Maybe it will help.” She took a breath. “A sense of purpose would be nice.”

“You need only ask,” Joaquin said.

“But then watch out, right? What if I get called to do something I don’t want to do, like you did?”

“Oh, but I love being a priest,” he said, and put a hand on his heart. “It gives my life meaning, and shape, and purpose. I am honored every day to be so called. That’s how it works. You’re called to do work that’s right for you.”

She bent her head. Her glittery hair fell forward. “I’ll think about it.” She took another bite of dumpling and it cleared the bowl enough that the
Titanic
flag and emblem showed through the pale yellow broth. She burst out laughing. “Very funny, sister dear.”

“I thought you would appreciate that.” Elsa stood, clearing her bowl and Joaquin’s. “Who wants a cup of tea or coffee?”

“I do,” Joaquin said. “That cinnamon tea you made last time?”

“Absolutely. Tamsin?”

“No thanks. I’ll have a glass of wine.”

A
fter Elsa went to bed, Tamsin stayed awake, playing on her sister’s laptop, drinking box wine. Not bad. It lasted longer, that was all. Maybe by the time it ran out, she’d have some money from somewhere. Surely they couldn’t expect her to live on absolutely nothing, not when she hadn’t known anything about Scott’s business.

The wine sealed the sucking hollow in the middle of her chest, at least for a while. For the first time all day she was able to stop thinking for more than three minutes about Scott, about the house, about what it was going to mean for herself and Alexa and … well, everything. Her own
Titanic
, and she was now clinging to a life raft in the freezing waters of the Atlantic, waiting for help.

For now, cozy on her little raft, she checked the quilting websites and waved at some friends, answered a few questions on the boards she moderated, and read the comments on the photographs of her latest quilt, which made her feel equal parts pleased, furious, and bereft. Pleased because the group was responding as she had hoped—with awe and respect and high compliments. A couple said things like, “This is the best you’ve done yet, Tamsin!” She agreed.

Which wasn’t vanity. She had made her first quilt, a doll blanket, when she was seven, and she’d been making them ever since. She was a devoted gardener, a cheerful cook and hostess, but only a true expert at this one thing.

Her pride over the praise gave way to fury. The quilt was locked up in the house, along with all of the supplies she’d collected over the past three decades. All of the fabrics and notions,
the Bernina sewing machine, the pattern books, and the piles and piles and piles of quilts. Some simple, some elaborate. Some had won prizes at local shows, and she’d been urged to enter a couple of them in the art show at the State Fair, rather than entering them in the home arts. She had friends who were weavers who had done that, but she hadn’t yet had the nerve.

Until this one.

When rage leaked into her eyes, she took another gulp of Sauvignon Blanc, blinking hard to keep the tears at bay. Right now, if she started crying again, she’d kill herself. Her eyes already looked like somebody had punched her a few times.

Alone in the quiet room, with only the sound of the keys clicking to keep her company, Tamsin wondered how she would continue. What she would do. Listening to Father Jack tonight, she had wondered what her own calling would be. If she had the nerve to ask.

At last she checked her email, hoping in some bizarre way that there would be something from Scott to explain all this, something that would say,
Hey, sorry I left you in a bad place, but I’m just trying to get things together to get us out of this hot water
.

Would he ever come back? Or had he completely disappeared from her life forever? The thought was so enormous on top of everything else that she shoved it away. She had to believe that somehow, some way …

What? That he’d get a message to her? What would it even say?
Sorry, babe, I screwed up?

But of course there was no email from him. Instead, there were three emails from her daughter. One said only,
Where are you? I’ve been calling and can’t get through
. The other two had photos.