Barbara White - The Unfinished Garden

They had reached the greenhouse and next to it, the studio, David’s office and hallowed lair. The thick, sweet scent of wild honeysuckle hit Tilly like a sugar rush, but it also brought the familiar letdown, the sinking in her stomach. This place should resonate with David’s presence. Standing here, she wanted to believe some essence of him watched her, that if she swung around she could catch him as easily as Isaac caught fireflies. But despite the tommyrot she encouraged their son to believe, David was nowhere. Death led to nothing.

Through the trees, a pair of turkey vultures tugged at the guts of a groundhog splattered across Creeping Cedars Road. At least in nature death led to some great, cosmic recycling of life. Roadkill became a feast, fallen leaves nourished new growth and rotting logs became bug suburbia. Tilly stared up at the giant oak, now a mutant thanks to the limbs the tree surgeon had removed from one side. Despite his dire prediction that the tree was dying, it was still home to a spectacular trumpet vine; and she would never give permission to fell such a magnificent piece of living history. The oak was safe on her watch, because she was just as mulish as David had been.

Tilly smiled at her Piss Off I’m Working sign and swung open the greenhouse door. Usually once she stepped inside, the greenhouse worked its calming magic. With a membrane of opaque plastic that let in only light, it was as if nothing else existed. But today, Sari followed, filling Tilly’s hidey-hole with the powdery odor of department store makeup halls.

Tilly grabbed the edge of the potting sink and breathed through her mouth.

“Jesus.” Sari gagged. “If I were in charge, I’d rip off the plastic and put in glass. Open the place up. I feel like I’m simmering in a Crock-Pot.”

Tilly carved out a dirt angel with her foot. Please, God, protect my nursery from this woman. Sari didn’t have to like this part of the job, but she did have to come in here every day for the next six weeks. Tilly appraised her artwork and smiled.

“What?” Sari said. “You think it’s funny this place freaks me out?”

“Of course not.” Tilly looked up. “Although it’s hard to imagine you scared of anything.”

“You don’t think everyone has fears?”

Tilly picked up a bundle of white plastic plant labels and put them back down. “Okay, then. What’s the deal with you and oceans?”

“I nearly drowned as a kid. Would’ve, too, if some stranger hadn’t jumped in while my dad stood on the beach yelling, ‘Kick your legs.’ And afterward all he said was, ‘You need to listen.’ Pretty rich since the bastard couldn’t swim.”

Bastard, never a word Tilly would use to describe her own father, who had taught her to swim in the freezing ocean off the Cornish Coast, his hands floating beneath her. Whole weeks went by and she didn’t think of him, but there would always be a gap in her life where he had stood. And, inexplicably, she thought of James Nealy’s comment about childhoods.

“I’m gonna get some quotes on a watering system while you’re off playing happy families,” Sari said. “I mean, c’mon. How cost effective can manual watering be?”

Tilly sighed; Sari had blown the moment.

“We’ve been over this, Sari. The electric bills would tear into my profits.”

“Yeah? What about your time? Is it better to spend five hours a day watching a hose piss or five hours a day potting up saleable plants?”

“Watering systems fail, but the worst thing a hose does is leak. Besides, if I can feel the water flow, I know the job’s being done.”

“Jesus, Tils. Lighten up. You wanna spend your life worrying about what might happen?”

If they were friends, Tilly would point out how ludicrous that question was. After all, the thing she had dreaded most had happened. What did a person have left to worry about after that? The mister system whooshed on, spraying a film of water over the newly rooted cuttings. The paddles of the fan whirred into action, and a belt of hot air walloped Tilly across the face.

“This is why you have to check the greenhouse every day.” Tilly pointed at the fan and then drew a diagonal line through the air with her finger. “See how the fan blows the mist away from this flat? These cuttings will die if you don’t watch that.”

“Understood. That it?”

“No. See this mister up here?” Tilly poked a spluttering nozzle, and tepid water drizzled down her arm. “It gets clogged. Then these cuttings will die.”

“Yup. Cuttings die, excellent. I’m outta here. See ya up at the house.” Sari tugged the door open, and a pale vehicle, probably the FedEx van, flashed past. At least Sari could sign for a package without killing anything.

Sod it. Tilly gave the mister head another poke. She was tempting disaster, but if the nursery went belly-up, so be it. She and Isaac would have to stay in Bramwell Chase. Or maybe not, now that Sebastian had decided to nest there. Tilly pinched absentmindedly at her left breast. What was he up to? Bramwell Chase had never been his home. Sebastian was a Yorkshire lad, and according to his mother’s last letter, happily ensconced in Hong Kong.

At fourteen, Sebastian was her life. By nineteen, he was her ex-lover, and even though they drifted through two reunions and a near miss before she met David, Sebastian remained part of her life. When her father was dying, Tilly flew home alone, insisting David fulfill his commitment to a well-paid lecture in Montreal. (If he had ever balanced the checkbook, he would have known how desperately they needed the money.) Tilly had swept in, determined to take care of everything, but the magnitude of family grief had nearly crushed her. Until Sebastian had stepped forward to handle the practical side of death, freeing Tilly to console her mother and sisters. After that, their friendship was sealed. Or so she thought.

Tilly made plenty of excuses for his lack of contact in the years that followed. He had a new wife, a new baby; they moved and had another baby. But then her world imploded. David died, grief eviscerated her, and Sebastian mailed a condolence card signed by his family like a corporate greeting. And for that—Tilly tugged open the greenhouse door—she would never forgive him.

* * *

A basketball pounded the concrete and a man laughed. No, absolutely not. Tilly curved around the giant red oak and groaned. Tucked between Sari’s bumper-sticker-covered Passat and the tumble of logs that passed for the log pile, was a sparkling Alfa Romeo convertible. Oh, this was too much. She had a thousand things to do, half of which she couldn’t remember, but would if she wasn’t being harassed by a wealthy retiree who was giving her son advice on free-throws and encouraging her only employee to giggle like a sixteen-year-old on date night.

Tilly paused at the end of the driveway, hands on hips. She was, if no longer a Haddington in name, a Haddington in heart. One never has an excuse for rudeness. Although James Nealy was testing her on that particular philosophy.

Since the conversation with her mother two weeks earlier, Tilly had developed a strategy for handling James: ignore him. She figured by the time she left for England, he would have lost interest. No one could be that persistent. No one, it seemed, except James.

“How many times do I have to say, ‘I can’t help you’?” She kept her voice light, jovial even, but anger foamed inside.

“I like repetition.” He grinned, flashing even, white teeth. So, James thought he could whittle her down, did he? Big mistake, because she could play a mighty fierce game of chicken.

“Well, gotta run.” Sari headed to her car. “James? It’s been real.”

“Want to tell me why you’re here?” Tilly said to James. She could take him, no problem.