The Return of Jonah Gray (29 page)

I dropped to my knees beside her. “The garden?” I asked.

“All of it. You try to take care of them. You do your best and then something like this. How do you plan for something like this? What am I supposed to do?”

It hit me that she had, indeed, been trying to protect us this whole time, to protect Blake and Kurt and me, her children, from the pain of loss. Maybe it came across as manipulation, but there was a method there. “It's okay, Mom,” I said. “It'll be okay. We'll get through it.” I met her eyes, and for the first time since that day at the hospital, I held her gaze. “What do you need me to do?” I asked.

“Oh, sweetie. I know you don't like to get your hands dirty.”

“I can get my hands dirty,” I said. “It'll wash off.”

She wiped her eyes and managed a smile. She took a deep breath. “I have some other pots in the garage,” she said.

Six of her plants were damaged beyond repair. Seven others had suffered cracked or shattered pots. We found spare containers for all but the largest, a small tree, and that one my mother and I secured with a torn piece of burlap, like a field dressing.

“You know what Jonah Gray would say about this, don't you?” I asked wiping my hands on my shirt.

“What do you think he'd say?”

“Sometimes we do the repotting, and sometimes repotting is forced upon us.”

She smiled.

When we were done, my hands and knees were filthy and my nails were embedded with potting soil. To my surprise, I found that I kind of liked the looks of it.

AT FIRST, I THOUGHT THAT MY MOTHER WAS SIMPLY
replacing what she'd lost in the earthquake. Or else that she was expressing her grief via acquisition. On the day of my father's funeral, all sorts of plants began to show up at the house. Four times that day, five times the day after, three times the day after that—and that was only what I counted in the hours I was around. Each time the doorbell rang, another delivery van waited with another plant. Not cut flowers, but living things full of roots and dirt and leaves.

“Look at those bleeding hearts,” I heard her cluck. “Oh, and a tillandsia. I adore those.”

“Who are all these from?” I asked. I'd checked a few cards, but I didn't recognize the names.

“Friends. Colleagues.”

“What colleagues?” I asked.

“I can't have colleagues? Oh, and look at this. Do you know what this is?”

I shook my head.

“You're asking Sasha?” Blake asked. He was doing his homework at the kitchen table.

“I'm learning,” I told him.

“It's a miniature yew,” my mother said. “How thoughtful.”

Even I could see that the little tree was lovely, both young and alive and somehow wise at the same time.

“Mrs. Maselin dropped something off, too,” Blake said. “I put it out on the patio.”

My mother ran her hands through Blake's hair and smiled down at him. She had decided to wait to tell him about Ian Maselin, and I had decided to trust her decision. Maybe once the school year was over, she said, depending on how he was doing. He was no longer a child, but facts doled out judiciously seemed a kinder thing than the whole truth just then.

“What did Mrs. Maselin bring over?” I asked.

Blake just shrugged. “It had leaves.”

I glanced at the card attached to a cachepot of daffodils. “So how do you know Gordon?”

“Gordon is the tulip guy.”

“Who's Gordon the tulip guy?”

“Well, I've never met him face-to-face. But I understand that he works over at DePlains Nursery, where you got our Christmas tree. And he's a frequent contributor on Gray's Garden.”

“Gordon? I bet he's one of the people who called me when Jonah Gray first posted my name. If it's the same Gordon, he wasn't very nice.”

“I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it. He was just concerned.”

“I'm pretty sure he did mean something by it. Why is he sending daffodils? How did he know about Dad?”

“He must have read my post.”

“Your what?”

“About your father's passing.”

“You posted that on—”

“Gray's Garden,” she finished for me. “Yes.”

I saw Blake giggling.

“It's not funny,” I snapped.

“This is a major trauma in my life, Sasha. I wanted my friends to know—”

“Those people aren't your friends. You've never even met them.”

“I can't like someone I've never met? I can't develop an appreciation for someone from afar?” She stared at me. “Do you think that has never happened? Perhaps you can even come up with an example from your own life.”

“That's different,” I said.

“Just look how supportive they've been. You know I love Martina, but if I get another box of beef jerky—”

“Yeah, well, we'll all be glad when she's onto another account,” I said.

“Why don't you take one of these plants back to your house?” my mother suggested. “I've got more here than I can deal with.”

“I don't know,” I said.

“Or put one in your office. Fred told me that you don't have a shred of greenery in there.”

“Fred who?”

“Fred Collins. Your boss? He came to your father's funeral?”

“Oh, Fred. Sure.” My boss and my father had met years before, when Fred was just a junior compliance clerk for the Service. They hadn't kept in close touch, but he had come by to pay his respects all the same. I was wondering when he expected me to return to work. It had been a while.

My mother grabbed the yew tree. “Take this one,” she said. “As a reminder of the world beyond the IRS.”

“What if I forget to water it?”

“Don't.”

 

Jeff called me the following night, just back from his conference. It was four days after my father's funeral, and I appreciated his offer to drop by my house. I couldn't remember the last time he'd been there.

“So what's new in the archivist world?” I asked, trying to sound like a supportive girlfriend.

“A lot of new software. Some interesting approaches to cataloging. Why?”

“What do you mean, why? You've been gone a week.”

“You don't have to pretend that you're interested.”

“Why would you assume I'm not interested? You know how I like to learn new stuff.”

“Your posture says that you're bored.”

 

We watched television in silence for a while, until I realized that I wasn't following the story. I yawned. “I'm so tired,” I said.

“You've been tired a lot recently,” Jeff said.

“I know. It's been a difficult few months. I'm tired of being tired.”

“I hoped to make your life easier,” he said. “I tried to.”

“It's not you, Jeff,” I said. “It would have been difficult no matter what.”

“I guess.”

“You guess? Do you want to see my father's death certificate?”

“Don't get sarcastic,” he said. “Maybe if I'd been someone else, it wouldn't have been so hard for you. Whatever. I'm going to be the bad guy either way.”

“What are you talking about?”

He stared at me with his serious eyes. “This isn't working for me.”

I felt my cheeks start to burn. “What isn't working?” I asked.

“You and I. I did some thinking when I was down in Fresno, and later at the conference.”

“You mean Fres-yes?”

“See, that's just it. You don't get me. Besides, my family doesn't think you're right for me. They didn't see a real connection between us.”

“I don't get you? Wait a minute—you're breaking up with me?”

He shrugged, but it was a shrug in the affirmative. A definite affirmative. “I wanted to wait until after your father died.”

“Give yourself some credit,” I said. “You even waited until after the funeral. That must have taken discipline.”

IN MARCH, I OPENED MY DOOR, DRESSED TO GO JOGGING
, and nearly plowed into Gene. He was standing there, catalogs in hand, leaning toward the mail slot.

“Sasha!” he said.

“Gene! It's been a while.” In the previous few months, my mail had come as regularly as ever, but it seemed that I was always gone when Gene made his rounds. Of course, I'd been gone a lot.

“How are you doing?” He asked with a delicacy that I knew referred to my father's passing. “I'm so sorry I missed the funeral. I was away for the holidays.”

“I thought you were obligated to deliver through rain, sleet and even snow,” I said.

“I am, but not through two weeks' paid vacation. That's the loophole. How's your mom holding up?”

“She's okay. Well, she will be. She started working over at DePlains Nursery, in Piedmont,” I told him. “If you're ever near there, you should stop by. I'm sure she'd love to see you.”

“That sounds like a new beginning,” Gene said.

He really was remarkable, I thought. For the first time, I felt lucky to have dated him, lucky that he'd been in my life, for however long. There was nothing ugly about Gene. Nothing controlling. Maybe he wasn't as observant as I'd have liked—but he was humane and he was kind. I hadn't appreciated it at the time, but I found myself wondering whether I could again.

“It's something,” I said. “It's her first job in ages.”

“And you? Still at the Service?”

“Year seven, can you believe that?” I asked.

“They should give the person who hired you a medal,” Gene said.

“I don't know about that.”

“Oh, I do. They really lucked out.”

“What about you, Gene?” I asked. I was finding it a pleasure just looking at him again.

“Same old, same old,” he said. “The mail keeps on coming. Speaking of which.” He looked at his bag and motioned down the street.

“Of course,” I said. “You're on the clock.”

“But it was nice to see you,” he said.

“You, too,” I told him.

He turned to go.

“Hey, are you doing anything this weekend?” I asked.

“This weekend?” he asked.

“Yeah. I was thinking maybe we could have dinner. Catch up.”

“Catch up,” he repeated. “That would be fun, but, well, I'm seeing someone now,” he said.

“Oh.” I deflated a little.

“Remember, ages back maybe, I mentioned that guy at work's sister?”

“I think so.”

“That's working out real nice. Actually, we're living together.”

“Wow,” I said. “That was quick.”

“I know, right? And it was my idea, if you can believe it. But it feels right. I was going to tell you, but with your father and all, I didn't know how to bring it up.”

“I'm happy for you, Gene. Really, that's great.”

We stared at each other for a moment.

“Well, I don't want to keep you,” I said. I closed the door and sat on my couch, dressed to go running, but headed nowhere. Gene had found someone. Martina had found Marcus (and vice versa). Blake had no trouble finding dates. But why was I always on the outskirts?

I looked at my bookshelves, full of dusted, alphabetized accounting books. I looked at my kitchen, spotless, everything in order, everything in its place. Was there simply no extra space in my life? I wandered through my house, eventually landing in front of my computer. There, I did what I often did—logged on to Gray's Garden and read what Jonah Gray had written that day. I liked to imagine that we were keeping up, although I realized that he knew nothing about me.

Every so often, I'd stumble across one of my mother's postings. In the past week, on behalf of one of her customers, she had asked why a certain plant was failing to thrive. Did he think it needed more sun? More bone meal? A more acidic soil? Or was it something else? Was there something intrinsically wrong with the plant, something invisible to the naked eye that weakened it from within?

That day, he had answered her question about a gardenia bush that was yellowing unexpectedly. He had asked how old the plant was and about its history, before expounding.

I sat there at my computer, thinking of my father and of Ethan Gray and of the lost oak tree up at 530 Horsehair Road. Then I thought of myself. If I was sure about one thing, it was that I didn't want to look up after twenty years with the Service, the same books on my shelves, the same numbers in my head, and all my options gone.

 

At the lamb end of March, my mother organized dinner at the Banner Hill house, to mark that we'd all survived the first full season without my dad around. Uncle Ed was at a professional symposium, and Blake's marching band was down in Anaheim that week, performing along the streets of Disneyland. But the rest of us came. Kurt, Lori and the boys, Marcus and Martina, me and my mother.

“Actually, Stockton's beautiful in the spring,” I heard Kurt telling Marcus. “It took me a while to give it a chance, but now I'm convinced. We'd like to put down roots there.”

“I'm still recovering from my move to Oakland,” Marcus said. Martina squeezed his shoulder.

“Speaking of moving, guess who's headed back to Fresno?” I asked.

“Jeff is going to leave the file room?” Marcus asked.

“Ricardo told me that he and Susan are headed there by the end of April,” I said.

“I never thought he was good enough for you,” my mother said, shaking her head.

“I know you didn't.”

“Either did your father and either did Blake.”

“How is Blake?” Lori asked. “The boys have been asking about him.”

“Better and better,” my mother said. “His last report card wasn't great, but he's been getting his homework done this quarter. Marcus has been helping me stay on him about academics. It's been hard to get him to focus on anything but this band trip.”

“Except maybe prom,” Marcus said. “And Elaine.”

“Oh, right. Elaine.” My mother smiled.

“Elaine?” Kurt asked. “I thought it was Sara.”

“Sara was December,” I said. “Way back.”

Lori stood and walked to the sliding glass doors. She looked out across the pool, still closed for the winter. “The tree looks really great, Lola,” she said.

My mother had ripped up some of the concrete patio to reveal the earth beneath, and we had planted our Christmastime noble fir in that spot, in honor of my father.

“It reminds me of that thing you read at Thanksgiving, about plants,” Lori said. “Like all it needed was a new place.”

I walked over and stood beside her. There was something satisfying about seeing the little tree I had picked out growing nobler every day. Maybe it would make a fine Gardner family tradition. Better than infidelity, in any case.