The Garden of Happy Endings (22 page)

“Wouldn’t argue with you there.”

To change the subject, Elsa said, “What are you planning to grow?”

“Well, I’ve been debating. Garlic, ’cuz I love it. Tomatoes, of course, because they taste so good when they’re hot off the vine. Mmm.” He shook his head. “Cannot wait for that.” He stapled down the length of the post, picked up the roll, and moved on, the staple gun loose in his hand.

Elsa trailed behind, and from nowhere, she imagined how his back would look without a shirt, how the muscles would move. For the space of a few seconds, the picture was vivid and compelling—the long spine, the muscles over it, his lean waist. A buried yen awakened, stretched, made a sharp yipping noise.

Startling. He wasn’t her kind of man, all that brokenhearted charm.

Must be the sunlight. The spring. The fact that she’d not had sex in a while and human bodies were designed to indulge.

No
.

He propped the fencing against the last post. “I want to grow collard greens, which you probably don’t like.”

“I love them,” she said, “with hot pepper sauce.”

“You don’t say?” He paused to look at her. “Where’d you learn to like that?”

“My grandmother was Mississippi born and bred. We used to go down and spend summers with her until she died, when I was twelve. She taught me to cook, since my mother was the worst cook on the planet.”

“On the planet?”

“Oh, you don’t even want to know. She was absolutely tone
deaf and had no idea she was so terrible. Like somebody who sings off-key in church, very loudly.”

He laughed.

“So I cooked for us a lot. And I cooked what my grandmother taught me to cook. Collards and beans and black-eyed peas. Hmm.” She nodded. “Maybe I’ll grow beans and peas, too. They keep so well.”

“You’re making me so hungry, sweetheart.” He paused, holding the staple gun down. Every position his body took was graceful, easy. “You hear my stomach growling? There is no good southern food in this town.”

“I guess I need to have you over for supper one of these days, then.” She said it lightly, even as that blooming thing between them grew brighter. “Collard greens and black-eyed peas and cornbread.”

“Oh.” He put his gloved hands over his heart, faking a stagger. “I’d be your slave.”

“Yes,” she said.

“The sooner the better.”

Elsa inclined her head. “That you become my slave?”

He smiled slowly. “You bet.”

She ducked her head, surprised at herself. And pleased.

T
amsin’s task for the day was to find a job. She not only needed the money, but she needed something to
do
. She was helping organize and set up the community garden, and had promised to be the “expert” on hand one afternoon a week, but that wasn’t enough.

In her old life, the upkeep of the house and gardens took a lot of time, and she spent many hours a day on her quilts. She attended a book group and the quilting society, and volunteered at the library, which she supposed she should
still
do, but whenever she thought of going in there to face her friends, she couldn’t breathe.

Her friends had been decidedly silent, actually. A couple of them had called when the news first hit, but nothing lately. It stung. Although, her two best friends weren’t able to be seen with her, not now: Andrea’s husband was a lobbyist, and Nancy’s husband was planning a bid for Congress. Better to keep some distance from Scott Corsi’s wife.

She twirled her long hair into a knot at the back of her neck. She stood back and surveyed herself—a crisp pink shirt tucked into gray slacks, a black belt and black shoes. The shoes were frankly awful, many years out-of-date, with their super-pointy toes, but they didn’t have any scuffs at least. She wore a silver bracelet and her little opal studs. For a minute, she thought with longing of a blown-glass necklace in her jewelry box. Would they let her have those things, eventually—the sentimental ones that didn’t have any real monetary value?

She had no idea, but it reminded her to pick up the phone and call the Sheriff’s Office, as she did every morning. Things didn’t get done by themselves, and she figured it was even worse at the station or any other place where bureaucracy held sway. The dispatcher answered in a bored voice. “Pueblo County Sheriff.”

“Hello, this is Thomasina Corsi again. How are you?”

“Good, good. How are you this morning, Tamsin?”

“I’m fine, thank you for asking.” She smiled to make her voice smile, too. “I’m just making my daily check. Don’t suppose I can get my things?”

“Hold on, sweetie. Let me see.”

Music came on the line. Tamsin leaned forward into the mirror and carefully applied a hint of berry lipstick. She smacked her lips together.

“Looks like a judge has ordered the department to accompany you to the house as soon as possible and supervise your claim on your possessions. You can come by and get the list, then somebody will go over there with you.”

“Really?” She dropped her lipstick in the sink, leaving a curve of red against the porcelain. Using a tissue, she tried to wipe it off, but it only smeared. “Is there a time that’s better than another? Do I need to get a truck or something, or is it just a little bit?”

“Probably best at around three p.m. Quieter then. The order says, let’s see … ‘Thomasina Corsi will be allowed to remove personal clothing and possessions, including quilting supplies and tools, but no quilts.’ ”

“What? Why did they say that?”

“Maybe the judge thinks the quilts are worth something.”

“Mm. What about kitchen stuff?”

“That seems like it would be covered under personal supplies. You can also withdraw anything belonging to your child. I’m gonna tell you right now that there are no computers left, and once you leave today, they’re going to seal the place.”

Tamsin took a breath and blew it out. “Okay. You’ve been so nice. I really appreciate it. How long do you think I’ll have?”

“If I were you, I’d plan on a couple of hours, no more, so bring whatever help you can get.”

Tamsin smiled. “Thank you. From the bottom of my heart.” Maybe, she thought, she would make her a quilt.

“You’re welcome, Mrs. Corsi.”

Since she was already dressed to impress and had a list of places with job openings, she decided to make the best of her time before going to the house. She had applied online for many of the positions, but she’d decided to also pop into the yarn shops and fabric stores in person. She had printed up copies of her newly written, neat little resume. Of course, she hadn’t had a lot of experience to put on it, but she figured she’d make an impression with her charity work and quilt awards.

Actually, she
hoped
she would.

She also hoped no one would recognize her from the recent news stories.

Slipping out the back door, she walked down the block and around the corner, to where she’d left her car, out of sight. Nobody seemed to see her, and she prayed her invisibility held. Nobody would want to hire a woman dogged by paparazzi.

And she really, really needed a job.

T
he morning was disheartening. People took her resume, politely, but no one asked her to come back for an interview.

She hadn’t had a dollar to her name in a week, and it was not only humiliating, but challenging. Not a dollar for a pack of gum or a bottle of water. She’d had to ask Elsa to fill her car up with gas, and it had cost over fifty dollars.

But she wouldn’t give up. Maybe there would be things in the house she could sell on eBay, things the police had overlooked. She could have sold the quilts if they’d been released.

At just after three, she drove her Subaru over to the house, accompanied by Elsa, Deacon, and Father Jack. Deacon drove his truck. There wouldn’t be a lot of room in Elsa’s house, so Tamsin had gone through a mental list, trying to think of the most urgent things she needed. Her quilting supplies, of course, her wok and copper pots and pans, some clothes and costume jewelry, and everything she could get from Alexa’s room.

But when she entered the house, the smell of it slammed her so hard that she swayed in the foyer, feeling as if she might faint. Beeswax and rotten bananas, dust and a thousand days of hard work. She looked upward at the stairs, following the golden light into her tower, and tears began to run down her face.

“Ma’am, you’ve only got two hours,” said a woman deputy. “I’d suggest we get moving.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” She shook off everything but the goal. “First my daughter’s room. Deacon, you want to come with me?”

“On it.” He grabbed some boxes and followed her.

“I’ll tackle your room,” Elsa said. “What do you want?”

“Just get as many of my clothes and shoes as you can. All my boots, especially. And the photos.” She halted on the landing. “There’s a trunk in the little room off the kitchen. It’s filled with family photos and scrapbooks. We need to find that.”

Deacon gently touched her shoulder, directing her up the stairs with his other hand. “Father Jack and I can find it in a little bit. Let’s tackle one thing at a time.”

Tamsin moved up the stairs, then whirled back. “And my spices! I have a lot of spices and staples.”

“I’ll get those,” Father Jack said.

From this vantage point, Tamsin could see both the second floor and the first—polished wood spread out beneath her, adorned with antique Persian rugs she’d found at estate sales and antiques shows across the country. Light fell in golden pools, splashing over an armoire, and a giant fern she’d cultivated for two decades. Bavarian lace curtains hung over the long double-hung windows. She made a little sound.

“You don’t have much time, honey,” Deacon said behind her. She nodded and forced her heavy feet to move up the stairs, to Alexa’s bedroom.

It was on the second floor, in the tower, and had windows on all sides. Alexa had fallen in love with it when she was six. “It’s a princess’s room!” she’d cried. They had furnished it with a canopy and hung gauzy curtains over the circle of windows, and held endless sleepovers and tea parties here.

The canopy was long gone, of course, but the shelves still held Alexa’s dolls and stuffed animals and books from childhood. Alexa saved everything, a sentimental thread her mother shared, and Tamsin suddenly realized, urgently, that her most important task here today was to preserve as many of her daughter’s childhood artifacts as possible. Nothing else really mattered, not even her quilting supplies.

“Let’s get all the dolls and toys and books,” she said, directing Deacon to the shelves. She pulled open the closet and started
pulling out clothes and shoes, as many as she could stuff in. Other years, Alexa would have had her most precious things at school with her, but this semester, of course, she was living with a host family, and had taken only the barest of supplies—her laptop and MP3 player, some of her clothes, a camera.

Tamsin looked frantically through the drawers, wondering what was precious and what was only stuff. Bras and pretty underwear, pajamas of all sorts—she left them. She grabbed piles of journals, labeled by year, and tucked them into a box, took all the photos from the walls. Anything that looked vaguely mementoish went into a box to be sorted later.

“I’ll take these down,” Deacon said, hefting two boxes. “You’d better move on and get your own stuff.”

She turned in a circle, feeling both agony and a weird, lifting freedom. “What does any of this even mean?” she asked.

“You don’t have time for existential questions,” he said, and headed out of the room.

And the truth was, Tamsin wanted her fabrics. With one last glance over her shoulder, she raced downstairs, grabbed two good-sized boxes, and ran the three flights up to her studio, feeling in her quads the fact that she had been away from her exercise program—and all these stairs—for a few weeks.

The door to the room stood open—just as she’d left it. A beam of loss slammed into her chest, making her stagger backward for a moment.

This. Oh, this
.

How much time had she spent here? Minutes upon hours upon days, weeks, months.
Years
. Through the windows, she could see clusters of seeds on the elm tree, green promise about to blow into the gardens and lawns of everyone in the neighborhood. The tree had always reminded her of a magic tree from a novel in her childhood, and she loved it as much as she did this house.

Oh, crap! She just loved it all, and this was maybe the worst day of her life, and if she wanted to cry, she was going to. She
started pulling fabric from the shelves, all colors, all weights and threads, blue satin and white gauze and sturdy denim and clouds of silk. Over the years, she had found fabric everywhere, falling in love with patterns and colors—this, for example, this simple peach cotton, such an exquisite color. She put it in the box. All the fabric, squishing it down hard to make it fit. She filled another two boxes with notions, threads and buttons and plastic containers of beads, needles and pins and tape and scissors. She closed the little sewing machine and the longarm quilter, which was too heavy for her to carry down three flights of stairs. She took the small machine to the first floor, ran back up to get the boxes of fabrics.

For a long moment, she stood there, closing her eyes. “Thank you,” she breathed, remembering thousands of hours of sewing and cutting, with music and color, and sunlight or starlight, flooding through her.

She ran her hands over the quilts, too. The most recent one she’d finished, the
Green Goddess
, which had been so highly praised, lay on the table, waiting to be sent to a studio for hanging. She put a hand on it, resentment rising in her. This was by far her best work! It wasn’t fair that it should be sacrificed. The house and all of that belonged to Scott, but these quilts, everything she’d made all these years, belonged solely to her.

A wicked idea bloomed in her mind. What would happen if she crept back in here to get the quilts later? Maybe not all of them, but enough to sell to get a few hundred dollars on eBay?

What if she took some today? Glancing over her shoulder, she dumped one of the boxes of fabric and tucked two neatly folded quilts into the bottom of the box. On top of them, she shoved fabric scraps in tightly, covering the quilts. Her heart was pounding. She layered the rest of the fabric on top and carried the box downstairs, avoiding the gaze of the sheriff as she handed it to Father Jack.