We filled up my backseat three times with all the nursery stock and put bags of compost in the trunk.
“Want some help planting?” she said. “I could come over Sunday and spend the day. We could get it all done.”
“Thanks,” I said, “but I think I want to do this part alone.” Mama always taught me that if you plant flowers with love, they’ll grow better, and I know that’s true.
I wanted to make a ritual out of digging the hole for each plant. I’d mixed up some liquid fertilizer, and before I lowered each plant in the ground, I talked to it, baptized its roots with the fertilizer, then gently packed loose dirt around it to give it stability and contact with the soil.
I was just about done when Nancy drove up in the van from the shop.
I stood up, peeled off my garden gloves, and went to give her a hug.
“I hope I’m not interrupting,” she said. “I just wanted to stop by and give you something.”
“Your timing is great,” I said. “I’ve had a good day out here, but I’m ready for a break.”
Nancy looked over the bed and smiled. “It’s really coming together, isn’t it?” she said.
I stood back and looked at it for the first time. I’d been so busy studying each individual plant that I hadn’t seen the harmony from a distance. “I guess so,” I said.
“Well, hopefully you can find a spot for this,” Nancy said, opening the back of the van. There, propped up by boxes and cushioned by blankets, was a birdbath in the shape of an angel. The face, with its half-open eyes and delicate lips, conveyed tranquility and rest, and the wings folded together in front to form the basin.
“Oh my God, Nancy. That’s beautiful,” I said. “You brought that for me?”
“Of course,” she said. “I ordered it into the shop and then hid it from you the last few days. As soon as I saw it, I knew it belonged to you—and to Rose and your mom.”
We stood and stared at it, in all its concrete weightiness, both thinking the same thing.
“I bet you had some help getting it in there, didn’t you?” I said.
Nancy nodded.
“And I bet we’re going to need some help getting it out of there.”
“Right,” she said, clearly embarrassed that she hadn’t thought things through.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll call Miriam.”
Ten minutes later, Miriam showed up wearing sturdy shoes and carrying a bottle of wine, and the three of us heaved the angel out of the van and into a spot where the freshly planted hosta and astilbe would eventually surround it in a sea of green.
“Nice work, ladies,” Miriam said.
We pulled up lawn chairs near the pergola and spent the rest of the afternoon together. I considered it the best consecration the garden could have.
DAY THIRTEEN
On the way to the airport this morning, I stared out the car window, trying to drink up as much of the vitality of the vine-covered overpasses and landscaped lawns as I could. “I forgot how much I like it here,” I said.
“You could move out here, you know,” Holly said. “There’s nothing really stopping you.”
I paused. “You know, it would be so hard to leave home. So many memories there.”
“Maybe it would be good to get away from those.”
“Maybe,” I said.
Holly and I have had this conversation before. “Why don’t you move out here near us? In fact, you can move in with us if you want. The kids would love it, and so would I.”
“You know how attached I am to home,” I said. “You’d have to move heaven and earth to get me away from there.”
I remembered what waited for me back on the acreage. Not the usual rolling hills, the green, the enchantment, as though nature was talking to me. But plants barely hanging on, even the leaves on the trees suffering and withering. The day I left for Seattle, leaves from the river birch covered the deck—at least a month ahead of schedule. And the cottonwood trees—the ones in the small grove that Rose and I used to call the fairy circle—showed signs of stress with brown leaves curling before they fell to the ground.
“That’s a big house for you to take care of all by yourself,” Holly said.
“Most of the time, I like keeping it up,” I said honestly. “I don’t like the repair work, but you know how I am. Anything in the yard, whether it’s a hundred degrees or ten below zero, that’s my joy.”
Well, not completely truthful. I hadn’t been used to twelve days of 100-plus temperatures in a row.
“You’ll have to tell me how things go with Joe,” Holly said. “Are you excited to see him?”
“Yes,” I said, realizing the truth in my response. “And nervous, too.” Also true.
Before I left the house, I left a note for each of the kids under their pillow, expressing how much I admire them and love them. I didn’t want the notes to sound like I was saying good-bye, just encouragement from their favorite aunt.
When we got to the airport, my flight flew out of gate B20.
* * *
As the plane landed, the pilot announced the time: three o’clock. And the temperature: 102 degrees. I retrieved the car and drove home under a bright blue sky with no clouds in sight, reentering a world still petrified by heat and drought.
How often have I wished for this on a cold January day? But this year the heat feels relentless and cruel, especially after Seattle, where my senses started to fill up with color and fragrance again. Here it smells like everything is dying. Even the rows of corn, which typically would be robust, standing tall and glossy green this time of year, are withered and gray.
I feel like I went to another world, and one I needed to visit to remind myself that this acreage, as much as I love it, is not all there is. I made my decision based on the withering around me and in me. And now I’ve gone to another place that’s vibrant and alive, where I could feel glimmers of the same qualities in myself again. So do I regret my decision to take the pearls? I’m still not fully sure. I know saying good-bye to Holly was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done.
When I got home, I pulled the car onto the shoulder of the highway to get the mail. A hot wind whipped my hair as I leaned out of the car and reached into the box to tease out the accumulation of circulars and bills. Then I sat back and flipped through the stack, looking for one thing: the lab results.
They weren’t there. I went through the stack again piece by piece, thinking I must have missed it, but nothing.
I leaned back in the seat and closed my eyes, feeling the weight of every minute that has passed, and every minute I may have remaining. The wind kicked up dust and burned my eyes, and I felt my legs weaken beneath me.
Don’t panic, I told myself. Patience. Remember all the joy of the past few days. Remember. Remember. Remember.
* * *
When I got to the house, I found a note tucked inside the screen door. It was from Joe.
It felt good to know he’d been here, had seen Mama’s driveway and porch. Maybe he’d sat on the porch swing to write the note. I went inside, turned up the air-conditioning to cool off the place and clear out the stuffiness, and sat down at the kitchen table to read the note. It looked as if he wrote it on whatever scrap of paper he had in the car.
I’m looking forward to seeing you, it said. I’ll give you a call to make plans.
* * *
One summer when Rose was seven years old, we went camping at a state park. Joe and Rose went off into the woods on one of their scavenger hunts while I made supper on the camp stove. I heard a crash and a scream, and I went running until I found Rose on the ground, Joe bent over her.
“She fell off that log,” he said, motioning to a dead tree. Rose bit her lip but didn’t cry.
“Where does it hurt?” Joe asked her.
“My ankle,” she said, trying to sit up.
“Stay still,” I said, crouching next to her and stroking her face. Dirt and leaves clung to her hair.
Joe gingerly fe
lt her ankle. “It’s not broken,” he said. “I think you’re going to live.” She smiled and slowly sat up.
“Want a ride?” Joe said. He squatted down in front of her, and I helped lift her onto his back.
He walked carefully back to the campsite, picking his way through the woods, while Rose reached up and brushed away low-hanging foliage. We wrapped her ankle with an elastic bandage from the first aid kit, and by the next day, she was skipping around as if nothing had happened.
I knew the accident wasn’t Joe’s fault—and Rose didn’t suffer any real injuries. But a voice inside me urged me to blame someone, and he was the only person available.
It strikes me as no accident that he would show up now. It’s time to make amends as I should have done long ago.
* * *
Rose wanted to be an astronaut. She made the announcement when we were all out in the backyard on a typical Saturday morning. I weeded the garden, Joe trimmed the boxwood hedge, Rose swung on the swing set, going higher and higher, and Cricket stretched out, relaxed but alert under the linden tree, watching Rose’s every move, as usual.
She announced her life ambition out of the blue, at the top of her lungs, declaring her purpose to the clouds and the trees and to God Himself.
“I’M GOING TO BE AN AS-TRO-NAUT!” she said, then jumped off the swing and landed on her feet. She climbed right back on and started kicking her legs, sending the swing ever higher.
Joe and I looked at each other, tickled by what we had helped create.
“An astronaut?” Joe said. “What made you decide to be an astronaut?”
“Because,” she said, pumping her legs and pushing the swing with her whole body, “there are bugs on other planets, and I want to find them.” Then she jumped off the swing again and climbed right back on.
That night Joe got out Rose’s pad of drawing paper and box of crayons and set them in front of her on the kitchen table.
“So what do you think those bugs from other planets look like?” he asked.
She grinned, energized by the challenge, grabbed a crayon, and started to draw. Thirty minutes later, we had seven detailed drawings of alien creatures. An orange spiderlike monster with fangs and claws. A pink-and-white-striped bug that looked like a fish, with gills that doubled as wings. An astounding purple worm that lived underground and laid two thousand eggs at once.
“These are beautiful,” I said as I started hanging them on the refrigerator.
“Yes,” Rose said as she sat back, scratched Cricket behind one ear, and admired her artwork. “But we have bugs that are just as beautiful right here on Earth.”
* * *
When we came home from the hospital after Rose died, we drove up the gravel lane to our house inside a cloud of lightning bugs. We could see the twinkling lights before we even turned in the drive. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe. They surrounded our car as though they were delivering us to the door, to our new life without Rose.
When we got out of the car, we stood and watched for a few minutes as they continued to turn on and off, a field of ever-moving stars. Then, as though in unison, they disappeared, leaving us with the darkness and moonlight.
I walked up the steps to the door, where Cricket lay quiet, greeting us with a soft whimper that told me he knew his friend was gone. I felt as heavy as I had when I carried Rose in my womb. Joe followed me, flipping on the lights in the kitchen. The venom I’d felt in the car on the way home numbed me to his touch, to his glance.
Without looking at him or saying a word, I walked to Rose’s room and turned on the light. Her latest artwork hung on the wall. Her braided friendship bracelets were stacked on her dresser. Next to the snowman jars of cotton balls sat another jar, the one she’d used to catch a lightning bug just three nights before.
I stopped breathing for a moment when I saw that jar. Rose captured bugs, but she fed them and let them go. She prided herself on taking care of them for just a short while, then returning them to the outdoors. “I’d like to keep them,” she said, “but they have their own lives, you know?”
I walked to the dresser, picked up the jar with holes punched in the top, and looked inside. There the lightning bug lay on its back, already starting to decay.
I didn’t know Joe was standing in the doorway, watching me. But when I started to weep, he came and held me. I wanted to melt into him the way I always had. But I didn’t. I stood straight and stiff, as though all that was left of me was a bag of bones.
* * *
After reading Joe’s note when I got home, I sat and looked at the colors on the kitchen wall as if seeing them for the first time. They were more vibrant than I’d realized, yet peaceful. I felt myself blending with them somehow, embraced by their welcome.
When I got ready for bed, I sat on the toilet and noticed a fluffy white towel on the vanity in the glow of the night-light. A few days ago I would have thought, Why didn’t I put that in the laundry before I left for Seattle? Why can’t I be a better housekeeper? Is laundry detergent on the list? Instead, I looked at it and saw the way the texture and folds created curves and arcs, light and shadow.
I saw every contour and could feel the softness and comfort of the towel as though it were around my shoulders. I could see the essence of the towel in all its loveliness. It almost looked alive.
“Okay,” I said to myself. “Now I’m really starting to lose it.”
But I realized I was gaining something real and important instead.
I didn’t drink the powder from the healer while I was at Holly’s for fear of what effect it might have. So tonight, as I held the packet from Lin in my hand, it was time to make a decision.
After being so filled up by the trip, I felt the same sense of vacancy that had led me to take the pearls in the first place.
But at the same time, my vision has begun to change. Not my external vision, not the way I see the colored glass in the kitchen window or the slant of light from the moon, but something inside me. Either Seattle or the pearls has changed me. Even the thirsty grass and the drooping flowers, despite Miriam’s care in my absence, affect me differently now. More and more, I’m filled with peace instead of sadness.
I’ve been depleted, as though a part of me has been dying for a long, long time. Another part of me is emerging into new life, and I’ve been resisting that and holding it in. It’s time to let the new life arrive, even though it may cause some endings. This is the way of nature, and I’m willing to let nature take its course without more intervention, whatever the outcome.
Just a few days ago, I didn’t know if my life was worth living. Then I didn’t know if it was worth saving. Now I’m not sure it’s worth throwing away. Having twenty days is so different from a sudden demise because I have time to question my decision, to prepare or resist. That’s my choice.
I choose not to resist, but to prepare for whatever is to come. And the fascinating thing is that I understand now—the preparation to live is the same as the preparation to die. With all the cleaning out, I’ve learned not to hold on to things that I no longer need.
So tonight I sat down at the kitchen table, opened the packet of powder from Lin Chow, and stirred it into a glass of water. I stirred slowly and deliberately until all the crystals dissolved and disappeared, just like the pearls when I stirred them into the yogurt.
Then I carried the glass outside, poured it into a watering can, added more water, and sprinkled it on the flower beds, starting with the memorial garden. If there is new life in that powder, may it soak into the ground and nourish those flowers to the very depth of their roots.
DAY FOURTEEN
At 8:01 this morning, I called the clinic and told Carla the results haven’t arrived yet.
“Really?” she said. “I’m sorry. They should have been there by now. Let me check on them for you.”
I sat by the phone until she called back a few minutes later. “They were sent out last Wednesday,” she said. “Maybe the mail is just slow. If they don�
��t show up tomorrow, give me another call.”
“Can I go ahead and find out what the tests showed?” I asked, feeling my heart beat faster.
“Sorry,” she said. “The lab can’t release the results except to the doctor, and he’s out of the country on a family vacation.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay, thank you,” I said. “I’ll let you know if they aren’t here tomorrow.”
* * *
Back and forth, back and forth. Last night I was so at peace about the powder. This morning I felt like I was in a cage, rattling the bars.
In my best moments, I feel better than I have in years. I don’t know if this is a side effect of the pearls or of my own state of mind, but I feel a little giddy, as if I’m going on vacation and can’t wait to get there. It feels totally irreverent to say that, but it’s true, and I figure there’s no reason for me not to be completely honest, at least with myself.
Why does life inspire us to be dishonest, as though pretending or lying will make anything better? When you have nothing to lose, you realize how much easier everything is when you just tell the truth.
So here it is—at least part of the time: I’m grateful for Dr. Edelman. And if anyone reads this after I’m gone and blames him, please try to understand my point of view and realize that he did nothing wrong. If you want to blame anyone, blame me. But, truly, there is no one to blame. I’m at peace with my decision. So energized, in fact, that I spent the evening washing out old flowerpots and gathering up miscellaneous tools, and I came to one profound conclusion:
This is one hell of a time to fall in love with my life.
* * *
The phone rang while I was unloading the clothes dryer, and I knew who it was before I picked it up. Joe.
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