Jodi Thomas - The Secrets of Rosa Lee

“All right, seven.” Micah couldn’t blame Logan. His choice at home was usually a kid’s TV dinner or fast food.

Jimmy’s double tap on the door sounded and Logan was off like a racer hearing the gun. He grabbed his backpack and jacket, slapped a high five on his dad’s hand and ran for the door.

Micah scraped the half-full bowl down the disposal and reached for the old leather backpack he used as a briefcase. He knew at thirty-four it was long past time to switch to a briefcase, but the bag he had carried since college still felt right on his shoulder. He hated change. There had been so much change in his life, he clung to the familiar in small ways whenever he could.

“You need anything before I go?” He glanced toward the basket, but the cat was sound asleep.

He felt stupid talking to a cat, but it beat the silence of the house. “See you at noon, Baptist.”

If he hurried, he’d have time for breakfast at the Main Street Café before the committee meeting. No one thought it strange when a man ate breakfast alone, Micah thought. He’d be safe from sad looks, for once.

With coffee cup in hand, he grabbed his coat and headed toward his car. A blast of sunshine and cold air hit him as he ran the ten feet to the old garage. He tried to hold the coffee and pull on his coat. Brown spots plopped along the walk. By the time he got to his car, the half cup of coffee he’d managed to save was cold. He drank it anyway while he waited for the heater to warm. This time of year, by midafternoon, he’d need the air conditioner. Nothing made sense to him anymore, not even the weather.

He missed the green of East Texas, but he couldn’t return. Not yet. When he had moved to Clifton Creek and accepted the associate pastor’s position at First United Methodist Church, he’d decided to give his grief a year to mend before returning home. But Amy’s memory hadn’t faded. In a few months, she’d be gone three years. His heart and body still ached for her. Some nights, he ran miles trying to outdistance the emptiness of his life. Logan was all that gave him reason to breathe most days.

He sat at the edge of the counter at the café, ordered pancakes and strawberry pie and pretended to read the Dallas paper while he tried to figure out when he’d have time in the day to shop. When he’d finished eating, he paid out, speaking to almost everyone in the place.

He elected to walk to his meeting a few blocks away at the edge of town.

Micah smiled and waved as the plump Rogers sisters climbed from their van. He’d become an expert at smiling…at hiding…at pretending to live.

The Rogers sisters were so short they tumbled out of the Suburban like beanbag dolls. Micah thought of suggesting they drive a smaller vehicle. Since neither had children, he saw no need for six extra seats. But maybe, to them, the van was like some of the old men’s pickups around town. Farmers who moved in from their farms wound up hauling nothing more than groceries around, but they thought they still had to drive a truck. Maybe the sisters had needed the van when they’d taught school and had simply become used to it.

“Look Beth Ann, it’s that young Reverend Parker,” the smaller of the sisters whispered in a voice Micah could easily hear. “He’s so handsome it makes me think of changing religions.”

Micah fought down a laugh. He certainly wasn’t young at thirty-four, and no one but Amy had ever thought him handsome. “Morning, Miss Rogers.” He offered his hand to the one who’d spoken. If she’d called the other Beth Ann, then she must be Ada May. He turned to the other. “Miss Rogers.”

Both women smiled, but it was Ada May who spoke again. “You get on this committee, too?”

Micah nodded. As the associate, part of his job was to serve on every committee and charity board that came along. This one didn’t seem to require much. They only had to vote on what to do with the old place. He hadn’t even gone inside and had already made up his mind. They needed to tear it down before it fell. Micah envisioned a park in its place, maybe with a running track.

“Isn’t it exciting?” Beth Ann finally found her voice. “I’m sixty-four and, to my knowledge, no one’s ever been past the door of this place in my lifetime. There’s no telling what we’ll find.”

“Mice,” Ada May mumbled. “Maybe even rats and spiders. Rattlers, if it’s warm enough.”

Beth Ann shuddered and pulled a purse, big enough to use for a sleepover, from the van. “We came early, hoping to walk around the grounds before the meeting started. Would you like to join us, Reverend?”

Micah offered each an arm. “I’d love to, ladies. I planned to do the same thing.” He didn’t add that he had been early to everything for three years.

Stones still marked the path through what had once been a fine garden. Huge bushes of twisted twigs looked misshapen. Micah guessed in spring they’d bloom once more as they had for almost a hundred years. A stand of evergreens along the north property line blocked the wind and cast a shadow over part of the plants, making them appear gray and lifeless.

Ada May tugged on Micah’s arm. “The garden seems to have no order, twisting and turning, but if you stay on the path, you’ll make it back to the house. All paths turn back on themselves and lead to the rear of the house.”

“Now, how do you know that, sister?” Beth Ann asked from just behind them.

“Everyone knows that,” Ada May snapped. “Young folks bring their dates here and have for years. Lovers walk the path at twilight.”

“Well,” Beth Ann interrupted. “We’ll know if it’s fact after we walk it. I don’t go around telling anything that I don’t know to be true, until I check it out for myself. I’ve heard tell that evil roams these gardens. As a child, I heard of people being chased out of the gardens by a crazy man with long white hair flying like a sail in the wind behind him. But, I don’t know that for a fact, mind you.”

Both women paused as if waiting for him to say something, but Micah guessed it would be dangerous to come between the sisters. He wondered if any man had ever been brave enough to try. Since they weren’t sure where the path ended, he figured neither had ever made this journey at dark when lovers came out.

As they walked along, it occurred to him that he felt as dead inside as the winter gardens that hadn’t known a human touch in years. He didn’t much care as long as he could hide his feelings from everyone. Like an actor, he’d played the same role so many times that the words no longer made sense.

He couldn’t talk about his thoughts, his feelings. Couldn’t tell people how much he still missed his wife. Every day. Every minute. It didn’t matter. Years had passed since he’d kissed Amy goodbye. All he had to do was stop breathing. Just don’t take another breath, and he’d be with her.

But he couldn’t leave Logan. She wouldn’t want him to. So he’d go on walking, smiling, pretending, until Logan grew up, and one day he might get lucky and forget to breathe.

As the sisters talked of winter roses, Micah closed his eyes and thought of Amy.

“Straighten up, Lora. You look round-shouldered. I swear you’ve a model’s form when you hold your head up, but when you slouch, all I see is Lurch from The Addams Family,” Isadore whined. “And hurry up or you’ll be late for the committee meeting.”

Lora Whitman pretended not to hear her mother and wondered if she could special order an ejection seat for the passenger side of her next Audi. Sometime during college, she’d become an Olympian at ignoring Isadore Whitman. Before Lora had hit puberty, her mother had thought her ideal, dressing her up like a doll and bragging to her bridge club about the perfection of her only child.