Richard Montanari - The Devil_s Garden

At just after six PM they found the address. The house was set far back from the road, barely visible through the trees, approached by a long winding driveway that snaked through the woods, bordered by early spring flowers and low undergrowth. There was a single car in the driveway. According to Kolya, it was a late model compact. Aleks did not know anything about current American models. They all looked exactly alike to him.

Except for Kolya’s Hummer. This was a gaudy, pretentious tank of a vehicle. It stood out.

America, Aleks thought. He lowered his window, listened. Nearby someone was cutting their lawn. He also heard the sound of a little girl singing. His heart began to race.

Was this Anna or Marya?

Aleksander Savisaar glanced at the gloaming sky. The sun would soon set fully.

They would wait for darkness.

Abby watched the girls at the dining-room table. They had eaten dinner, just the girls, and done an assembly-line job of rinsing the dishes and putting them in the dishwasher.

When they were done they put two pots of water on the stove, hard-boiling two dozen eggs. The windows were soon covered in mist. Emily drew a smiley face on one of them.

Twenty minutes later the dining-room table was covered in newspaper, mixing bowls, wire dippers, decals, and egg cartons. The kitchen smelled of warm vinegar and chocolate. It brought Abby back to her childhood, she and Wallace coloring eggs, hand-weighing chocolate bunnies to see which ones were hollow, which ones solid, fighting over the Cadbury Cremes, spiriting away marshmallow peeps.

When Abby had learned, years earlier, that she could not have children, this was one of the scenes that flashed darkly through her mind, a scene that would never be, along with Christmas mornings, Halloween nights, birthday parties with too-sweet cakes bearing candles shaped in the forms of 2, 3, 4…

It was one of the million blessings that were Charlotte and Emily.

At six-thirty the doorbell rang. Abby wasn’t expecting anyone. She crossed the kitchen, into the foyer, looked through the peephole in the front door.

It was Diane, her neighbor from across the street.

Diane Cleary was a hotshot realtor in her early forties. She was slender and toned, had collar-length dark-blond hair, and was wearing a navy blue suit that probably cost more than the left side of Abby’s entire closet. Her son Mark was a junior at Princeton, her to daughter Danielle was in kindergarten. Abby didn’t know her well enough to ask about the disparity, but Diane and Stephen Cleary had one of those marriages that were either hell on earth, or textbook romance perfect. Regardless, Diane had the kind of metabolism that allowed her to eat anything and everything – Abby lost count at four pieces of birthday cake at the previous day’s party – and not gain an ounce. She hated her.

Abby opened the door. “Hey.”

“Any cake left?” Diane asked with a wink. “Kidding.”

Diane stepped inside, made a beeline for the kitchen.

“Time for coffee?” Abby asked.

“No thanks. I’m showing a condo in Mahopac.”

“Say hi to Mrs Cleary,” Abby said to the girls.

“Hi,” Charlotte and Emily said, neither looking up from their egg-decorating chores.

“You know you have the cutest girls in the world.”

Now the girls looked up and smiled. Such little divas.

“You guys have to stop getting cuter every day,” Diane added. “You have to save some cute for the rest of us.” Diane looked at her own face in the toaster. A funhouse visage looked back. “I need all the cute I can get.”

Abby could almost hear the lead sinker break the surface of the water. Diane Cleary spent half her time fishing for compliments, the other half refusing to reel them in.

“Oh, I don’t think you have any problems in that department,” Abby said, taking the bait.

Diane smiled. “So who was that guy who looked like a younger, taller Andy Garcia at the party?”

“That was my husband’s friend Tommy. They work together.”

“He’s a prosecutor?”

“Yep.”

“Maybe I’ll get arrested.”

Abby laughed. “You’ll have to do it in the city.”

“Speaking of which,” Diane began, looking out the kitchen window, at the absolute blackness of the night, “I’ve never asked you this, but do you miss living in the city?”

Abby didn’t have to think about it too long. “Well, except for the noise, pollution, crime, danger, and general apathy, not so much. On the other hand, I’m not that suburban. I haven’t burned my little black dresses yet.”

Diane laughed, glanced at her watch, which probably cost the entire right side of Abby’s closet. “Anyway, I just wanted to remind you about tomorrow.”

Tomorrow? Abby wondered.

“The block sale?” Diane asked.

“Oh, right, sorry.” Twice a year a dozen or so of the neighborhood families pooled their junk and had a block garage sale, hosted by the luck, or misfortune, of the draw. Abby had done her time the previous sale. “I have the boxes in the garage.”

“Great,” Diane said. “If you have any big stuff let me know. Mark and some of his friends are coming in for Easter and they’ll be happy to haul it over.”

Abby desperately wanted to get rid of the old waterfall buffet they’d had since she and Michael were married, but it was one of the few things Michael had left that belonged to his parents. It was probably not the right time, or the right way, to dispose of it. “I’ll let you know.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

“Bye, girls,” Diane said.

“Bye,” they said.

Abby made a note about the block sale and put it on the refrigerator with a Care Bears magnet. She was getting terribly forgetful in her old age.

Twenty minutes later, with two dozen brightly colored eggs drying on the kitchen counters, the girls turned their attention to coloring an Easter egg drawing. Or, more accurately, a portion of an egg. Emily was drawing the top half; Charlotte the bottom. Even this was not entirely accurate. They were each drawing what would turn out to be a third of an egg – top and bottom – leaving out the center.

Charlotte was working on the top of the egg with her usual precision and care, colors never straying over the lines. Emily was working on the egg with her usual flair – bright colors, bold lines, abstract images.

Abby sipped her tea, watched with amusement and no small measure of puzzlement. The girls were leaving out the middle. It was the second year running for this. To Abby’s bewilderment, they’d made the same sort of drawings the previous Easter (and, now that she thought about it, the previous Halloween too, leaving out the center third of all their pumpkin drawings).

When they were done, Abby took the two drawings and taped them together. The edges didn’t line up, but probably would have if there had been a center to the drawing.

Why was there always a missing third to everything the girls did? Abby wondered. Three chairs at the tea table in their room, three Peppermint Patties at the store the day before. Abby tacked the big egg on the refrigerator. The two girls stood, admiring their work.

“It’s very pretty,” Abby said. “Daddy is really going to like it.”

The girls beamed.

Abby pointed to the odd shapes. At the top and bottom of the egg were a pair of strange looking little creatures. “What are these?”

“That’s a duck and a bunny,” Charlotte said, pointing to the figure at the top.

“That’s a bunny and a duck,” said Emily, pointing to the other.

On the top of the egg, the duck seemed to be inside the rabbit, and inside the rabbit looked to be another egg. On the bottom, it was the exact reverse.