The Girl in the Garden

by Melanie Wallace

  Only Iris’s hair—its autumn-oak-leaf color faded but still visible beneath those predominant silver streaks—was still luxurious, had retained its thickness and heft, incongruous given the obvious vulnerability of her dying body. Luke always reached up and touched it as Iris read to him, the child leaning back against her chest, or, facing her when they talked, gently played with it or pushed it behind her ears. Claire began to photograph them together too, and Iris never knew whether that kept Claire from asking whether Iris had ever been as loving with her. Iris never asked whether Claire remembered being held and caressed, whether she remembered what Iris considered their happiest times, on vacation at Mabel’s without Matthew and at home when Claire was very young, before Matthew became obsessed with trussing not only himself but also Iris, using chains and locks and cords and ropes and leaving her tied to bedposts or immobile and twisted on her stomach or side with her wrists and ankles tied behind her back, claiming he was only trying to make Iris over in his own image as an escape artist. He changed as his power over Iris grew, he came to revel in his realization that she could not undo those knots he tied or those locks he locked, that she could not escape him, would not ever; and slowly, almost methodically, he pushed at that tenuous boundary separating bondage from sadism, satiating himself with his prowess over her, and—upon that one occasion when Iris somehow summoned the courage to resist him—finally threatening to instead turn his attentions to Claire, who was then five, and teach her to become a contortion and escape artist, a child magician and wonder. Which Iris would never allow, and so succumbed once again and of course thereafter to what Matthew had come to sneeringly call his artistry, continuing to suffer what he made Iris do to him, what he made her watch him do to himself, what he—often violently—did to her. Because Iris so feared Matthew’s intentions toward their daughter, she kept her husband from Claire by sacrificing herself to his every desire, swearing to herself that the child would thereby never experience his obsessions or perversities; and she did all, everything, that was necessary to keep Claire from him, and from herself, encouraging her daughter to find refuge in books and being amazed that, even as a child, Claire preferred those that had photographs of people staring back at or walking away from the camera, who at any rate remained on the page and did not demand anything more than Claire’s gaze; and now, Iris reflected, perhaps that was how her daughter became self-sufficient and insular, made her peace with the world as an outsider, and eventually came to frame what she saw to her own peculiar satisfaction. Yes, she had, Iris told herself, saved Claire from that dark, lithe man Claire so resembled that people who knew them always remarked She’s the spitting image of her father, which is why after Matthew’s death Iris couldn’t bring herself to look upon her daughter.

  Whether Claire had minded, Iris will never ask. Although the question that had long ago stopped gnawing at her had once again come to mind because of Claire’s presence, Luke dispelled it by crawling onto Iris’s lap each morning for that hour Claire allowed. And no matter what they read together, the hour didn’t end without Luke excitedly talking about the snow to come, Iris chiming in that she wanted that first snowfall to be heavy so Luke could make a snowman for her in front of her patio while she watched from inside the house, the two of them discussing what Luke would use for the snowman’s eyes and nose and mouth and arms, whether the snowman would wear a hat and scarf. Claire listened to and photographed them during these conversations, when both were at their most animated planning this snowman, until the morning Luke interrupted Claire with: How come you’re always taking pictures of me and Grandma?

  So I can give them to you, so you’ll know what you looked like as a kid after you grow up. So you’ll know what your grandma looked like then. So you won’t forget.

  I don’t know how to do that yet, Luke told her.

  He won’t forget, Iris said. And neither will I.

  Okay, Claire replied, then let’s say I’m taking pictures because your grandma is my project. At which Luke frowned, studying Claire in great seriousness, his mouth pursed. Enough, Iris told Claire. And Claire acquiesced, put her camera down and stepped away, then returned a few minutes later and tapped her wrist: time for Luke to go. Iris watched him run across to the cottage, where he and June would wait for Claire’s friend, who now came every day and took them off, away, until after nightfall; and when Claire’s friend—Claire hadn’t mentioned his name, and Iris did not ask—arrived, Iris watched him walk over to the cottage and knock on its door and scoop the boy up in his arms, kiss him and set him down, greet June by touching his cheek to hers, then pocket his hands before walking June and Luke back across the garden, before walking them out of Iris’s life for—to Iris—the rest of yet another interminable day.

  Another interminable night too, during which Iris will not take a sleeping pill or the antispasmodic she terms a muscle relaxer, and so during which she will twilight-sleep and wake to hear Claire’s quiet, insistent rummaging. Iris knew Claire was going through every drawer, every closet, every page of every book, looking for any remnant of Iris’s life, for postcards, notes, letters, any photograph that had escaped Iris’s destruction; but Iris had destroyed everything that could have reminded her of Matthew, those years spent with him. Iris would never mention that she now believed she had—tragically, perhaps, and certainly pitiably—with this disease suffered a physical manifestation of the emotional state she’d suffered after his death when she had determined to face no one, to turn herself inward, away from the world and from Claire. She also knew that if she spoke of Matthew, if she would, if Claire would—Claire had never spoken of her father to Iris before, and Iris would never know that Claire had spoken of him only once to Duncan, having been asked her reaction to having learned, months after Matthew was buried and finally from Mabel that he was dead, simply stating He terrified me—if they, Iris and Claire, would speak of him, discuss him, nothing would change, for nothing between her and Claire would ever change.

  This visit can’t go on indefinitely, Iris finally admitted to herself. And the next morning said coldly to Claire, with no further explanation or protestation: I’m not used to having company at night.

  Me neither, came Claire’s response.

  Mabel

  MABEL WAS SURPRISED but hid her disappointment: neither Claire nor June and Luke were at Iris’s. Claire, Iris told her, had gone to have lunch with Duncan and would later that afternoon visit with Oldman, and June and Luke were with a friend of Claire’s who came by every noon and took them away. Where, Iris didn’t know.

  Mabel made tea and brought it to the table, readied the cups, and watched Iris stand from the armchair and then maneuver her walker over to Mabel and manage to sit across from her. When Iris had called, she’d surprised Mabel by asking whether Mabel had any photographs from those summers during which Iris and Claire stayed at the cabins, or from the school year during which Claire remained with Mabel and Paul. Roland had helped Mabel go through several shoeboxes of keepsakes from the attic; it had been difficult enough for her to finally clear out Paul’s clothes by herself, handle them knowing that they’d been laundered before he’d left that last time, that they bore no trace of his scent, so the most she could do was remove them from the hangers and fold them, smooth them, pack them carefully into boxes, then take those boxes some seventy miles away and in a largish town donate his belongings to charity.

  Roland had helped her go through the photographs, but he hadn’t retrieved them from the attic, where Mabel had finally decided to put Paul’s shoes, which she couldn’t bring herself to throw out. She sat on the attic floor in front of them for a long time, hugging her knees; the way he’d worn them was still visible, each heel worn down toward the inside of each foot, the last trace of Paul’s having been alive, of the way he’d walked and stood and danced. His two pair of dress shoes were polished, his loafers scuffed, his broken-in work boots laced with new cords, his leather boots treated with beeswax. Size eleven and a half: a big man. His la
ugh and heart bigger, the way he’d loved her beyond measure. The way she’d loved him.

  He would have wanted her to be happy, and she was. She marveled at that, marveled at Roland’s constancy, at how different he was from Paul; and perhaps that was what had made life with Roland possible, for the two bore no resemblance to each other in personality or physique, Paul big and bearlike and loud and funny with his freewheeling ways, a man who commanded attention just by entering a crowded room because of his size and booming voice and love of storytelling and laughter, whereas Roland was slender and soft-spoken and reflective, a man who blended in with walls or quietly slipped onto a barstool without being noticed and who walked beaches solo in a never-ending quest to find what he hadn’t yet found or see what he’d often seen, perfectly content to take the measure of the shore, the dunes, and content to weather those years of bachelorhood through which he’d waited out his time without impatience, like a sailor untroubled by the doldrums because soothed by the lifeless sails and quiet surface of the sea. Paul the tornado, Roland the calm, having nothing in common except that each had become, would always be, a part of her life.

  Iris had been right: Roland never asked, just one day told her: Marry me. And she thought then as she knew now that Paul would have wanted her to be happy. After a while she stopped hugging her knees and left Paul’s shoes where they were, where she wanted them to always remain, and brought the boxes down from the attic, went through the photographs with Roland, and for Iris. Or, rather, for Claire: after all, Iris had said, I’m asking for Claire, I destroyed everything that was here, everything she keeps searching for, and the longer she comes up empty-handed the longer she’ll stay with me, use me as her excuse—she claims I’m her project—and photograph me constantly, no matter what I’m doing or mostly not doing, run interference with my life. I’m at my wits’ end, Mabel, because Claire wants or needs something I can’t give her, which maybe you can. And which I’d appreciate.

  They’d found Brownie and Polaroid prints. The shoebox Mabel had brought with her sat on the table’s far end from Iris, who did not want to look at what it contained. There’s one of you in a polka-dot two-piece bathing suit standing next to me, Mabel told Iris, and I’m wearing that striped one-piece; and there’s another of Claire in that bathing suit that was gathered in tucks; she’s sitting on that plaid blanket you had and wearing barrettes shaped like flowers. Are you sure you don’t want to see just these two?

  Iris shook her head. I don’t need to be nostalgic, she told Mabel. Actually, I’m not even capable of such a thing. And I’m not interested in seeing myself as someone I can no longer recognize.

  Mabel herself had barely recognized Iris as she now was, had been shocked at her friend’s appearance—it was as though she were already a corpse, her skin wan and discolored by an unhealthy sheen and drawn tightly over bones and joints, the backs of her hands, her hollow face—and at the violence of her tremors. That she leaned tremulously into her hands on the walker and managed to shuffle and scuff about seemed both miraculous and tragic. She appeared to be on the verge of utter exhaustion, but she continued to speak, telling Mabel—with a hint of that irony Mabel knew Iris was capable of—that despite not being interested in seeing herself, she had also begun to hallucinate. In flashes, Iris said, fish will fly through the garden, small creatures scamper across the floor, bats hang in ceiling corners just for an instant before they’re gone. Funny how they’re not there at all, but I can’t help but notice them.

  Iris shrugged in the ensuing silence—Mabel didn’t know what to say—then sighed, Claire is tiresome.

  You mean tired.

  No. Yes. Well, both. Both. She hovers, usually with that camera in her hand, while I’m awake. Searches through the upstairs after I’m in bed. She wanted to talk about Matthew, but I won’t. Someday after I’m gone, she will probably tell you the same.

  I wouldn’t know what to say about him.

  You should tell her that I hated him.

  Iris—

  Grew to hate him, grew to hate the man who, in social situations, was the one I’d fallen in love with but who, in private, became more and more of a monster. Was a monster. Everyone thought he was the life of the party, but no one knew what he was like, that our marriage was perfect on the outside and rotten within. He was sick, Mabel. He sickened me. I couldn’t leave or divorce him, for what would people say; no one divorced in those days, except for adultery or extreme cruelty, and I couldn’t, no, wouldn’t air our dirty laundry in public and, after all, we were Catholic. I could never bring myself to tell anyone, not even a priest—anyway, I’d dropped out of the fold, stopped going to church when my marriage descended into hell—what life with him was like: the ropes, chains, masks, whips, gloves, eventually those obscene leather outfits, eventually my horror and humiliation. Every couple I knew seemed happy, normal, and we seemed happy, normal, but I was at my wits’ end because of him, because I was living a lie; and we had Claire, I was supposed to love her, I did love her, but I had to learn to keep her at arm’s length to protect her. The only way he’d stay away from Claire was if I didn’t divide my attention, if he remained the center of my world, if I gave him what he wanted, did what he said. The only times I could breathe, remember what it was to be happy, was when I could get away from him, come to your place; and I dreaded returning to him, knowing the worst would begin all over again. There were times I thought I’d go insane. And then he died the way he did—it wasn’t the first time he’d strung himself up, the strangling excited him sexually, he thrilled to almost die, thrilled too in escaping death—and I was mortified, for the police and coroner knew how he’d killed himself, the priest had been informed, it was all I could do to pull strings to get his death ruled accidental, to get him buried in hallowed ground for the sake of keeping up appearances. And of course word got out anyway, everyone knew, and even if they didn’t, I knew I’d never again be able to hold my head up. I grew to hate Matthew in life, and I hated him in death: he ruined me from both sides of the grave. My only consolation, the only thing I could do, was to erase every trace of him. Tell Claire, if she ever asks you, that that’s why I destroyed everything he’d ever touched, every blade of grass he ever walked upon; it’s why I had this house and the cottage and the garden ripped apart and redone. Why I burned or threw away everything else. That the only thing I couldn’t cart away or erase was Claire, whom I couldn’t look at and so turned my back on. To save her, and to save my sanity.

  Iris, Mabel said thoughtfully after a long moment—watching Iris watch her and not reading anguish or any other emotion in that rigid skull, those receding eyes—Claire would never ask me.

  I think she might. One day or another she might want to know why I kept her at arm’s length while he was alive, why she and I lived separate lives after he died. Not that it excuses what happened—that is, everything that never happened—between us. And not that either of us is sorry.

  I can’t imagine you’re not. That she’s not.

  Iris shrugged again. She seemed happy, Iris said, she had Duncan to watch over her—which he did well—and, of course, she found Oldman. She left and made her way in the world.

  And Mabel, who could not say this was untrue, studied this woman with whom she’d been friends for much of her life and realized how impossible it is to know the inner workings of another’s being: Iris had divulged more than Mabel had ever suspected, had divulged more than she’d ever expected, for she’d suspected and expected nothing. She’d brought the photographs, and the certainty came over her that she’d never see Iris again, that this visit was her last, that Iris had used the photographs—which she indeed wanted for Claire—to summon Mabel, that the farewell about to take place would do so between the living, that there’d be no opportunity or reason to say anything to Iris after she was dead.

  Mabel poured more tea, but neither of them touched her cup. They sat in silence for a long time, during which Mabel wondered what would become of June, of Luke; without
them, the cottage seemed forlorn, the way this house, she reflected, once Iris was gone, would seem to June and Luke, deserted during the day, dark and desolate during the night. Mabel and Roland were going to let go of the cabins—they’d closed early this season, her last, she and Roland would put the place up for sale in the spring—and even if this weren’t the case, Mabel wouldn’t be able to offer June what Iris had, a permanency, what knowledge of planting and pruning and reaping Iris had shared, this garden where Duncan would—unbeknown to anyone, even Claire—scatter Iris’s ashes of fine and coarse powder and pieces of bone upon the snow that would be covered by another snowfall and by those following, and then melt into the ground with spring’s thaw.

  Mabel cleared her throat, decided to ask what might happen to June but saw that Iris’s chin had dipped, that she was dozing, her eyelids translucent and the eyes behind them restless as though searching through dream. And so she asked nothing, instead quietly rose and cleared the table, washed and rinsed the teapot and cups and saucers, the spoons. She took her seat again and watched Iris sleep, was grateful for the almost indiscernible rise and fall of her thin chest, and waited. When Iris finally opened her eyes, Mabel managed a smile.

  I’ve kept you far too long, Iris told her.

  I’ll come again.

  Please don’t.

  You’re sure.

  There’s no sense in it. No reason. You’ve seen enough, and I’ve asked more than enough of you: perhaps too much. For which I’m sorry.

  Don’t be, Mabel told her. And at that Iris reached for the walker, pulled herself up and stood shakily, shuffled toward the door. The cloudcover was heavy, solid, the day’s wane settling. Mabel followed Iris, then stepped around her to let herself out. Iris stared across the garden as the chill hit them both.