The Garden of Happy Endings (26 page)

In the kitchen, she found an old stainless steel bowl and carried it outside to the little bricked area by the statue of San Roque. Deep, cool shade grew behind him. She filled the bowl and put it down in the shade, and whistled for the dogs, who came racing and dove into the water with eager slurping, pushing one another out of the way.

Tamsin had gone ahead to wash her hands and she came out now with her hair loose down her back, her face and hands clean. A little sunburn gave her cheekbones some color. “You and your dogs,” she said with a shake of her head. “It would never even occur to me to get a bowl and give them some water.”

“It’s not your job. You know how to make gardens grow in squares.”

Tamsin smiled. “I’ll meet you over there.”

Once the dogs had been watered, Elsa refilled the bowl for the last time and headed inside to the ladies’ room. She had it to herself. The first thing she did was pull the rosary out of her pocket, running it under warm water to wash away the dirt. It was a beauty, pale green leaves carved of what might have been jade, alternating with roses carved out of pink quartz, all strung on heavy string. Substantial.

She dried it and tucked it back in her pocket, taking a moment then to try to tame her hair and wash the dust off her face. The sun had kissed her, too, had made her look rested and healthy. Thinking of how lovely her sister looked, she plucked at her plain T-shirt, wishing she had a bit more chest, or
some
extraordinary feature, but she was honest with herself. Her eyes were an ordinary dark blue, her dark hair too curly, her face too full of angles to be pretty.

She plucked a few more curls from her tight bun, letting them frame her face a little, fall down her neck. Better.

When she returned to the field to join her sister at the tables that had been set up, Tamsin was already sitting with Deacon, making him laugh. “Hi, guys,” Elsa said.

Deacon stood up. “We’ve been waiting for you so we can all eat together.”

“Oh! Thanks.” She didn’t bother to sit down, because her stomach growled in earnest. “Let’s do it.”

But when they got to the food, the collards were gone, the bowl empty with a lone green leaf at the bottom.

“Poor Deacon,” Tamsin said, her hand on his arm. “Look at that face.”

He glanced at Elsa and she saw that he was truly disappointed. “I’m so sorry.”

“I think I’m gonna have to beg for that dinner you keep promising.”

Flustered, Elsa said, “Um. Yes. When?”

He leaned into her slightly. “Soon.”

“Well, aside from Wednesday nights, when I’m busy with prep for the soup kitchen, we don’t really have much on our schedule, do we, sis?”

Tamsin plucked a single slice of cucumber from her plate airily. “Speak for yourself. I have a job.”

“You do?” Elsa laughed. “What? Where? When do you start?”

Tamsin unmistakably blushed. “Well, it’s not exactly the Ritz. Fabric department at Walmart, thanks to the quilting list. Somebody there knew somebody in the fabric department and they called me this morning.”

“Tamsin, that’s great. You’ll even like it.”

She lifted one brow. “I guess. It’s something.”

Elsa spied a dish at the end of the row. “Look! There’s one piece of pie left, Deacon. You want it?”

“Split it with me?”

“I can make me a pie whenever I feel like it,” she said, leaning
over to scoop up the lone slice. She put it on his plate. “You’ve worked really hard on this project. I appreciate it.”

“It’s you who’s made it happen, Elsa.” For one little moment, that vine twined around them again, binding ankle to ankle, as he looked at her. His eyes twinkled, but there was also something solid and real there. “But you’re welcome.”

“It was all three of you,” Tamsin added as Joaquin joined them.

“What was?” he asked.

“Worked hard on the garden.” Tamsin put a square of red Jell-O and fruit on her plate. It wiggled, still firmly set despite sitting on the table for a half hour. Anemic fruit cocktail grapes peeked through the gelatin. “Don’t forget that Father Jack started the whole thing.”

“Jeez, Tamsin, you are such a flirt.”

She tossed her head with exaggerated coquetry. “Not everyone has such a handsome priest.”

Joaquin grinned, and half the old ladies who were politely serving up food swooned. They urged him to try their special dishes. “Have a piece of my chocolate cake, Father,” said a woman with clipped short black hair and hands gnarled by arthritis. “And my macaroni and cheese,” said another. By the time he reached the end of the line, his paper plate was groaning.

They all sat together, though before Joaquin could actually take a bite, a man in his forties, dressed tidily in Clothes Purchased Just for Gardening, said, “Father, may I have a word with you?”

“Of course.” Joaquin grabbed a cookie from the plate and walked away with the man, his head bent politely.

Tamsin asked, “Did they do that to you, Elsa? Talk to you all the time they need something?”

“Of course. That’s the nature of the job.” She took a bite of the macaroni and cheese; it really was quite good. “Did you taste this, Deacon?”

“No. Are you offering?”

She forked up a bite and put it on his plate.

“Didn’t it drive you crazy, people needing you constantly like that?”

Elsa thought of the long line of people waiting to hug her after services, how some of them would have tears of illumination in their eyes, and how some would hold on hard for a long moment, conscious of the other people behind them, but unwilling to let go too fast.

She thought again, with longing, of the way the congregation had looked in her direction when she stood up to speak, their upturned faces expectant. “No.” She took a breath. “I loved it.”

“How long are you on sabbatical?” Deacon asked.

“It was supposed to be for six months, which meant I would go back in June. But there have been some complications.”

“You didn’t tell me that,” Tamsin said.

Elsa waved a hand. “The man who took over for me had to have emergency knee surgery, so he’s out. They’ve brought someone else in, and he wanted a three-month commitment.” She speared a potato from the salad. “So, now I’m here through July.”

“Are you going to go back?” Tamsin asked. “I thought you were done with it.”

“I don’t want to be. I just don’t …” She didn’t even know how to express her doubts. “I just have to figure some things out.”

Deacon, sitting beside her, said quietly, “I told you my daddy was a preacher.”

“Really?” Tamsin asked.

He nodded, still talking to Elsa. “He lost his faith for a time, struggled with it for a year or two, but in those days, there wasn’t any way for him to say that out loud, that maybe he hadn’t been called by a God that maybe didn’t even exist. He had to keep preaching.”

She knew he was trying to be helpful. In her pocket was the
rosary she’d found, a knot that was somehow hot against the fold of her leg. “It was a lot harder in those days.”

“I don’t know about that. It’s always hard to …” He poked the potato salad. “Be an emissary. A person of God.”

The press of emotion that had so overwhelmed her earlier rose again against the back of her throat, and she said, “I don’t really want to talk about this.”

“Fair enough.” His blue eyes had the gleam of a pearly marble she’d had as a child. Such clear eyes seemed as if they could see too much. “About dinner—how’s Friday evening work for you?”

She found herself smiling. “Friday is fine.”

A murmur rose from the crowd gathered around the tables, coming toward them on a wave. Elsa heard the worry in it and looked up to see the three gang boys striding up the center path between the newly planted gardens. The tall one who had touched her neck with his knife was at the center, clearly the leader, a smirk on his face. They didn’t do anything but walk through, snickering and jostling one another, looking down their noses at the people who turned their faces away, curled bodies around their small children.

Elsa asked, “Where’s Joaquin?”

“What?” Tamsin said. “I think he was—”

Elsa was already on her feet, jogging diagonally across the path, dashing down another, narrower aisle between plots. Joaquin stood on the west side of the field, his back to them as he talked to someone smaller than he was.

She grabbed his arm and he turned around, startled, and then spied the gangbangers veering around the church. The leader turned back and lifted his chin toward her, or Joaquin. Maybe both. A boy with a white cat in his arms came out of the courtyard, watching sadly. Elsa suddenly recognized him, by the rose tattoo on his face. He met her eyes.

When Joaquin’s arm tensed, she simply stood there, holding on. “This is not a time for confrontation.”

“They can’t be allowed to intimidate people.”

“True, but let’s just let them go for now and come up with some ideas to address it in the next week or so, okay? There will probably be people here all the time and that will discourage them.”

“Will it?”

With a firmness she did not feel, she said, “Yes.”

D
eacon found himself a little nervous as he parked his truck in front of the sisters’ house on Friday night. It was a small place, like many of the houses in the area, a no-frills 1920’s bungalow with a deep porch and a giant elm tree arching over it. In front were a small patch of grass and a strip of flower bed. Lilacs lined the driveway. When the flowers bloomed, they would fill the nights with a narcotic scent.

They had not drawn the curtains and as he approached, Deacon could see them through the picture window. Tamsin set the table, her long blond hair pulled away from her face into a braid that fell down her lean back. Once upon a time, she would have been his type. Lucinda, his ex-wife, was a tall, lean blonde like this. As his daughter, Jenny, would be, by now.

Loss ached in him for a minute, making him pause. Every time you put yourself out there, you might take a hit. Was he ready to take a chance as a sober man? He’d had his share of women since leaving prison, though not as many as he might’ve had when he was still drinking. He hadn’t wanted to settle with any of them.

Tonight, he only had eyes for Elsa, with her small, taut body and black curls and unaffected face. If she wore makeup, he couldn’t detect it. Not that he had anything against makeup, but she didn’t need it. Her skin was smooth and olive, her eyes bright, her mouth a hearty rose that bloomed with good health. That was what it was, he decided as he climbed the steps. Her good health showed on her face.

He smoothed a hand over his own hair before he knocked. He’d brought a big bunch of sunflowers, sunny and enormous, and when Elsa opened the door and spied them, she gave a happy cry. “They look like sunshine!” She gestured him inside. “Come in, come in!”

“That’s what I thought, too,” he said, and stepped over the threshold. The scent of supper enveloped him, onions and pork and something sweet. “Mmm. Smells great.”

“It will taste even better,” she said with that saucy little smile.

He wasn’t a man short on comebacks and flirtations. You could even say it had been one of his life pursuits. And yet all he could think when she gave him that grin was that he wished he was a better man. Not because she was a minister, which didn’t unnerve him as it might have some others, but because that smile deserved to be met with the same sweetness with which it was given. A man who’d spent damn near twenty years in a whiskey bottle didn’t have much sweetness left in him.

“Deacon, it’s good to see you,” the sister said, coming forward, her hand outstretched. “You remember me, right?”

And with her, it was easier. “How could any man forget you, sweetheart?”

“Oh, brother!” Elsa said with a laugh, and headed toward the kitchen, flowers in hand.

Tamsin tilted her head and accepted his homage as her due. She gestured toward the table. “Sit down. Can I get you something to drink? Wine? Beer, iced tea?”

“Iced tea, please.” He appreciated the fact that Elsa had plainly not said,
Deacon, who runs the AA group, is coming over tonight. Hide the liquor
. Always excruciating.

As she fetched it, he looked around, not settling yet. The music was something he couldn’t quite identify, a woman singer he thought he knew from the radio, not exactly what he would have expected from Elsa. Though now that he thought about it,
he wasn’t at all sure what kind of music he’d imagined she would like. And maybe she hadn’t chosen the music anyway.

Noticing his thoughts chasing around like squirrels, he shook his head slightly. Crossed his arms. “Sure I can’t help in there?”

Elsa, standing in view beneath an archway to the tiny kitchen, laughed. “There’s not even room for two, much less three.”

Tamsin reemerged with his tea. He nodded his thanks but still didn’t sit down, instead going to lean against the kitchen threshold to watch Elsa at the stove. “This your music?”

She glanced up from stirring a thick gravy. “Yeah. You like it?”

“I do, as it happens.”

“You strike me as a Lynyrd Skynyrd kind of guy. Allman Brothers.”

“Are you stereotyping me?”

Her grin flashed, quick and elfin. “Maybe. Is it true?”

“Guilty.” He sipped his tea. “But I like music in general. Just about all of it. No Death Metal, which I just can’t understand, and no Rap, but the rest is good.”

“Some Rap is pretty powerful, but I’m with you on the Death Metal. If there was such a thing as demons, that’s what I think they’d sound like.” She poured gravy into a waiting serving dish, and the steam curled in the air, carrying the smell of meat and salt and browned flour. Tucking hair behind her ear, she said, “What about Celtic, New Age? A lot of manly men don’t like that kind of music.”

She cut her eyes sideways at him, one eyebrow raised slightly, and Deacon’s chest expanded the smallest bit, puffing up like he was a bird. The image of himself as a blue jay, fluffing up, seemed ridiculous, but true enough. “Manly men, huh?”

“You bet.” She swept the gravy boat around and into his hands, and for one minute, her face was tipped up toward his, smiling, her eyes glittering. It had been ten thousand years since he’d felt anything real and true move in him, but he did now. He let it
show in his eyes, then took the weight of the boat fully into his hands.