The Girl in the Garden

by Melanie Wallace

  Death by magic.

  Have you told Claire? Mabel asks, coming up behind Iris, who stands with a hand to her mouth in front of the steeping tea. Iris turns to her with a look of surprise, as though she hadn’t realized Mabel was even present, for she is in the grip of those images from the inexplicably recurring nightmare and of her memories of Matthew’s death, which she had so long ago successfully repressed. Told Claire what? Iris asks.

  About the girl staying here over the winter.

  Oh. Well, it’s such a minor matter, there’s no reason. Besides, she wouldn’t be interested in the least.

  And with that she brings the teapot to the table, Mabel following with cups and saucers she takes from the open shelves that line part of the kitchen wall. Iris uses both hands to pour, settles back in her chair, leaves her cup untouched.

  How long has it been now?

  Since we spoke?

  No. The tremor.

  I haven’t kept track. Some days I hardly notice it.

  And you won’t see a doctor.

  I’d rather operate on the principle that what I don’t know won’t hurt me. Besides, the only doctor I’d trust to come over probably isn’t making house calls anymore, if he’s even alive.

  Well, at least June can be of some help. If you need it.

  What I need, Iris says, is to manage on my own.

  And, Mabel reflects, that is all Iris has ever needed since Matthew’s death, and accomplished to perfection, removing herself from life at the age of thirty-seven. No, a year later, Mabel corrects herself, for in that first year of Iris’s widowhood she still drove, albeit to other towns for what she needed, and she’d no choice but to tolerate the workmen and landscapers she’d hired from elsewhere to renovate the house and cottage and remove the lawn, plant trees, deliver and lay cobblestone and flagstone and bluestone chips, erect that wall. By the time Claire returned, that station wagon was gone, sold or given away, for Iris had no intention of ever leaving the premises again, and had never a need to. For Duncan—who undoubtedly was able to financially survive his first few years as the new lawyer in town because of Iris’s retainer—arranged everything, as Iris had charged him to, from bill-paying to grocery deliveries and garbage removal (for trash, back then, still had to be taken to the town dump) to Claire’s schooling and doctor and dentist appointments. Iris, so far as Mabel knew, refused to have even a checkbook on hand, and it astounds Mabel to think that nearly two decades have passed since Iris got rid of the station wagon, fourteen years since Claire left, and that in those intervening years only Duncan and Mabel—both, rarely—have had the privilege of passing through that outside door. Until now.

  She won’t bother you, Iris.

  That’s what Duncan said.

  I could ask her to join us.

  Oh, Iris tells her, finally reaching for her tea, I’d rather wait.

  Mabel had known that this wouldn’t be easy, that Iris would be even more uncomfortable at being left with June than the girl could possibly imagine, that Iris has no idea what to say to her, how to be with her, for she doesn’t want to be confronted by anyone with whom she’ll be obliged to speak and whom she won’t help but see; and Mabel knows too that Iris finds it impossible that the girl won’t be a bother, for the only way June wouldn’t bother would be if she were invisible. Like, in her own way, Iris has been, except with Mabel—who seldom visits—and Duncan, with whom she speaks almost exclusively over the telephone, Duncan always initiating a monthly call to give Iris an accounting despite knowing that she is not interested in figures or in answering his question as to how she is, which since she’d retained him has never varied from a curt Fine, thank you. So Mabel helps herself to more tea and settles into telling Iris how the season went, watches Iris begin to relax, to warm to her company, for they’re comfortable with each other as only longtime friends can be, neither of them bothered by the silences that fall between Mabel’s description of June and July and August, of the way rentals this year fell off: there’s the inconvenience of her location—the beaches without lifeguards, the fact that you have to bring your own groceries and drive elsewhere to replenish them, drive off for entertainment and not that there’s much of that in the small beach town a ways down the road, plus there’s the gas crisis and the faltering economy. Times have changed, Mabel tells Iris, the families who used to come no longer do, a lot of the old regulars now have camps on the lakes up north, and the highway has taken its toll; only the locals and the lost now use the old post road that runs past Mabel’s place. Or so it seems to her.

  But you’ll open again in the spring.

  I wouldn’t know what else to do. Plus I’ve promised June—not just you, Mabel adds—that I’ll take her back then.

  And there’s Roland, of course, Iris remarks.

  Roland, Mabel muses aloud, will do what he always does and just ignore that closed for the season sign. And Iris wonders if Mabel has ever suspected that Roland is waiting out her mourning—there’s no other explanation for his constancy—although he must surmise, and be oddly at ease with the suspicion, that Mabel might never stop grieving. But mourning is not something Iris can discuss, not with anyone and certainly not with Mabel, for if Iris regretted Matthew’s death she did so not with sorrow but with a relentless vehemence that bordered on hatred because of the way he died and—although Iris has never said and would probably never tell anyone—because of who he became, was, before he died. No, Iris never once considered Matthew’s death tragic—which Paul’s was—and its insidiousness sealed her fate. She accomplished what she saw as her only possibility and withdrew from the world, and has made her peace with that. Unlike Mabel, she wants no reminders of her past, has refused all intrusions, and reflects now that, despite their friendship and what they’ve long had in common, she and Mabel could not have suffered widowhood more differently, which has made them unique to each other.

  My guess is, one day that man will ask you to marry him, Iris says, corrects herself: No, Roland won’t ask. He’ll just say Marry me.

  Mabel shakes her head, almost laughs in disbelief. Well, before that happens, I’ll have to introduce you to June.

  Oh.

  It’s time, Iris. She won’t come over on her own, believe me.

  And so they rise, Iris sensing the drag in her leg and ignoring what she tells herself cannot be seen, this annoying lag, and follows Mabel as they cross the garden along the one cobblestone path Iris so painstakingly placed on her own. She stands back from the cottage porch while Mabel knocks at its door, which the girl opens quickly and slips out from, tall and impossibly angular and shockingly young, appearing far too young to have had a child, with that face forcibly composed in an expression of calmness because she is anything but. June’s eyes are red and swollen, Mabel realizes she’s probably been crying since stepping inside: there wasn’t much else for her to do, for Duncan made sure that the cottage was perfectly set up—the place was spotless, he’d put in a crib and highchair, stocked the shelves; there are pots and pans and dishware, a portable television with rabbit ears, a radio, blankets and sheets, towels, dishrags, soap and dishwashing liquid and laundry detergent, fresh bedding at the foot of the daybed as well as the loft bed, and twenty-five dollars with a note from Duncan describing how things worked and instructing June to come to his office at three o’clock on Friday. June and the baby had few enough possessions; it wouldn’t have taken more than minutes to put their belongings in drawers and the closet, make the beds. Mabel introduces June, still standing in front of the door, to Iris, still standing beyond the porch, and they manage an awkward hello, freeze into silence.

  And Luke? Mabel queries.

  Sleeping.

  He’s a good baby, Mabel says to Iris.

  Well, that’s fine, Iris responds.

  And Mabel thinks: This is awful. Says, to dispel her own dread: Let’s show June the garden.

  Iris leads the way. June brings up the rear. They walk wordlessly over the paths that wind through the t
rees and flowers, bushes and grasses, which Mabel assumes correctly June has no names for, wondering all the while whether Iris has realized, is realizing, how different this tentative, childlike girl is from Claire, who was never tentative and never quite childlike even when small because of the way she had of viewing and absorbing the universe, as though she were born with foreknowledge or could identify because of unambiguous recall from a previous life those things she effortlessly familiarized herself with once again. Claire at six—or perhaps seven, at any rate very young, and intensely curious despite having a relaxed manner born of natural wisdom—speaking as lucidly as an adult, besting Paul at checkers, Paul not giving an inch and the child still winning, explaining as well that the rules by which he played didn’t exactly follow what was written on the inside of the box, but that that was okay by her; and knowing the names of birds and trees and shells by then, able to roll a quarter between her fingers and make it disappear before pulling it out from behind Paul’s ear, and by the time she turned eight teaching herself chess, teaching Paul too, and already a mean blackjack and cribbage player. She confounded Mabel and Paul during the year she stayed with them, at twelve able to identify the constellations and to trace on any map the plates responsible for continental drift and to recite the classification of species, geological eras, the topographic layers of the earth’s crust. Before Iris even planted the fruit trees and flowers and grasses and shrubs, Claire could probably have named them all: that was the way she was, born seemingly without a clean slate, and here June—who, it occurs to Mabel, probably hasn’t even ever seen an actual apple, pear, persimmon, or apricot tree—had nothing but. Unless becoming pregnant and carrying full-term and birthing and knowing in some rudimentary way how to look after an infant could be discounted. Which, Mabel figures, maybe could be: even with the knowledge of such, the girl is otherwise so unsure of herself and wary of her own uncertainty, of her own ignorance, that she’s kept everything she knows—if anything—and everything she’s been through, to herself. They wind through the garden slowly, Mabel doing the talking that Iris—who hasn’t had anything to say to anyone, Mabel and Duncan and Claire excluded, for almost twenty years—cannot or will not, and hearing her words fail to provoke any acknowledgment from a girl who must feel, not for the first time, unwanted and consigned to silence. Mabel pauses by the leanto and explains that the shed holds gardening tools, then asks Iris whether June should take on the task of stacking cordwood onto Iris’s patio.

  Well, Iris says, without looking at either of them, I don’t see why she should.

  Maybe there’s something else—

  Not a thing, Iris snaps. The tone of her voice—she hasn’t looked at June—freezes the girl, but Mabel recovers immediately, smoothes over that snarl, gently says: I’d trust June to her own judgment, Iris. You two can work things out later. It’s about time for lunch—I’ve brought sandwiches—so, June, go on and get Luke and bring him over to the house. And June looks at Mabel beseechingly, at Iris’s turned back, and Mabel nods at her, touches her shoulder, sends her off, waits for Iris to stop studying the cordwood as though her life depended on inventorying the stack. I’m not going to be good at this, Iris finally says.

  We’ll have lunch, Mabel says, and then I’ll bring her into town, let her get her bearings, and by the time we get back it’ll be late afternoon, and she won’t bother you, not then and not tomorrow and not the day or week or month after that.

  See to it.

  I will.

  And during lunch Mabel can tell from Iris’s posture and face, that tremor in her arm, the way gravity rounds her shoulders and curves her spine, that Iris is defeated, drained. June sits straightbacked, almost on the edge of her seat, holding the baby on her lap with one arm and nibbling primly at a sandwich, and the baby—now awake—watches Iris so intently that she can’t help but notice, although she doesn’t make a move or sound that could possibly signify that she’s returning his interest. Luke—as if amused—grows more and more animated, gurgling and laughing and staring at Iris, flinging his hands in the air, kicking his feet. I’ll clear the table, June finally says, and Mabel tells her, Here, give him to me, June without hesitation handing Luke over as though Mabel—who has never before offered—is used to holding the baby. And as June clears the plates and returns for the glasses and silverware, Luke reaches constantly toward Iris and makes funny noises of sheer infant joy, until Iris finally softens, cocks her head to one side, whispers an exasperated What? in Luke’s direction, which sets the baby to laughing and bouncing, Iris now shaking her head and repeating What? What? And Mabel is reminded, for the first time in many years, of how beautiful Iris once was, how lovely her features. Here, Mabel says, offering Luke up, and to her surprise Iris reaches out and takes him, despite that trembling arm, and raises him to her eye level, gives him a shake, wobbles him up and down in the air. The sight of which stops June in her tracks.

  Luke’s made a friend, Mabel says.

  Don’t count on that, Iris tells the infant. When she turns him around and places him on her lap, he glimpses June and screams in delight, raises his arms to her. He’ll tire you out, June says.

  Well, take him then. And after June picks the baby up, Iris reaches into a pocket and produces a key on a ring, holds it toward the girl. You’ll be needing this, she says. Make sure to always lock the outside door whether you’re going or coming.

  Yes, ma’am, and thank you.

  Don’t thank me, Iris tells her, and don’t call me ma’am.

  Later, Mabel lets the car idle as she waits for June to disappear into what even Mabel now thinks of as Iris’s compound, to close and lock the door behind her, and when the girl is gone Mabel shifts into reverse, backs out into the street, pulls away. She isn’t sure whether she should feel relieved or rattled at having made this arrangement, but what’s done is done. June was quiet as Mabel drove her around the area, to town and through it, Mabel slowing to point out where June would catch the bus and where she would get off nearest to Duncan’s office, which she also pointed out, and then showing her the stores and diners and the one restaurant on the town’s main street as well as the stores on the side streets, asking whether there was anything she needed to shop for now. There wasn’t. The baby fell asleep before they reached town, remained sleeping the entire way, so that Mabel spoke in a low voice and told herself June was mostly silent because of Luke. But when they pulled back into Iris’s drive, June hesitated, and Mabel almost held her breath thinking the girl would never make a motion to leave the car. Finally June said: I don’t know what to call her or what to say to her.

  Call her Iris, Mabel told her, and just go on with your life and take care of Luke. Iris hasn’t had anyone around for years, so it’ll take some time for her to get used to the idea.

  Should I stack some wood tomorrow?

  You might think about it.

  June nodded, finally reached for the handle and opened the door. Mabel put her hand on June’s arm and stopped her. She didn’t know how painful it might be for the girl to hear the one question Mabel hadn’t been able to bring herself to ask and now needed to. June, she said, what do you want me to do if he shows up and wants to know where you are.

  The girl turned and looked at her in surprise. Goodness, she said, he drove me and Luke clear across the country knowing my only hope was that we might make a go of it if we got far enough away from where we’d started, with Ward—Mabel hearing for the first time June speak his name, which was not the name on the license he’d handed to Mabel—not saying we could or couldn’t, just asking where I wanted to go, and we got as far as we got and then he left us stranded without saying a word, and left us with nothing. He just drove right off, and he isn’t coming back.

  But if he does.

  June pulled Luke to her, kissed the crown of his head, the sadness coming over her face and into her eyes before she averted them, sighed. Mabel, she said, just tell him we drowned.

  Oldman

  DUNCAN HADN’T
FORGOTTEN June’s first Friday appointment but he wasn’t paying attention to the time because Oldman had come by with two hero sandwiches and a couple of cold beers to treat Duncan to a late lunch and tell him how he’d gotten a call from Dan Evans a few days back, and anything to do with Evans would, Oldman knew, be of interest to Duncan because Duncan had, without asking a penny, taken on Evans’s case after Evans came walking—in a manner of speaking—out of the center for physical rehab, which no one but Evans ever expected he would. The accident he’d been in had flipped his pickup truck when the hitch to the camper he was hauling—which camper he’d hauled before and which hitch was certified to pull a lot more weight than what the camper weighed—had split a moment or two after Evans had pulled out of a filling station and was adjusting his seat belt the way people do, tugging at it before fastening it. The camper and pickup jackknifed, the trailer toppling and coming apart as it crashed, the pickup continuing on, skidding along on its cab roof, with Evans not buckled in and his scalp opening against the cab’s ripped ceiling while his neck took the brunt of the blows. His wife, Sharon, had fastened her seat belt and ended up upside down without a scratch, but by the time she managed to free herself from the belt someone who’d been behind them by about a quarter-mile was already at Evans’s door trying to pry it open. Evans was screaming at him to shut the engine off, but the guy was so shocked at the amount of blood coursing from Evans’s scalp and at being yelled at that he just kept pulling at the door, whose window had been broken out, as Sharon was still trying to unhook herself. The guy finally screamed back at Evans, Buddy I’m just trying to get you out—I don’t know how to cut the engine but this vehicle is going to blow, when Evans changed tactics and calmly told him: Look, Bozo, just reach in and turn the goddamn ignition key off. Which the guy did, then at Evans’s bidding drove to the first highway emergency phone and called in the accident and said the driver was in a bad way, that his wife was trying to stem the blood that was coming out of his head and that the driver claimed he couldn’t feel or move his legs and that he didn’t want anyone but medics touching him, never mind pulling him out of the truck. Evans later told Oldman and Duncan both that he knew he might not live, but the thought of dying at that moment just didn’t sit right because he’d be leaving Sharon in a mess, what with all the equipment he had in their yard—a small backhoe, a tractor, the snowplow, a couple of snowmobiles, a shed and garage full of a lifetime’s acquisition of carpentry tools—not to mention the debt they seemed never to quite climb out of, which is why he’d sold the camper in the first place and was hauling it to the person who’d paid him extra to deliver it. Sharon rode in the ambulance with him after the medics had braced his neck and back and wrapped his skull, but the nearest emergency room couldn’t handle Evans’s grievous injuries, and she didn’t get helivacked with him to the hospital that was part of a teaching college in the north of the state, where he was operated on and stabilized and, eventually, told by his surgeons that they hadn’t quite expected him to survive and really couldn’t explain why some feeling was coming back into his feet and legs. They shipped him out to a rehabilitation center as soon as they were sure his neck, which had been fractured in four places, had healed enough. At the center, Evans fumed at his arms and legs that had so quickly lost muscle, at the skin he saw sagging and hanging, at the dustballs beneath the radiator and in the two corners of the room he could see while prone, and at the two—only two—half-hour sessions of physical therapy they allotted him daily. He demanded they not only sweep away the damn dustballs—the place was supposed to be spotless, for chrissakes, and cost enough, for chrissakes, that he should be able to eat off the floors—but also up his regimen of physical therapy to four times a day and even more—for chrissakes, he was a workingman with a mortgage and bills to pay. And he won out, the therapists came to love his against-all-odds attitude and determination, and almost six weeks after he was first brought in they watched him hobble away on crutches, walking solely on the balls of his feet and raising and lowering each foot as though he were fighting the suction of quicksand or had thirty-pound weights on each ankle. A few months later Sharon was still driving him to outpatient PT three times a week, and Dan realized that he wasn’t making much progress and perhaps never would, and that maybe he should consider the fact that he wasn’t dead or paraplegic something of a miracle.