Sebastian. For the past twenty-four hours Tilly had reminded herself that he was single only in living arrangements. But there he was again, prowling around her thoughts, looking gorgeous in a dark, well-cut suit. What was he doing right now? Excelling at efficiency while directing a loyal assistant from behind an uncluttered desk? Mahogany, of course, with a watercolor centered on the wall opposite, a landscape of an inhospitable stretch of Yorkshire coastline, a view Sebastian could escape to.
Tilly scratched under her arms. Damn chigger bites had yet to heal. When she moved to North Carolina, people warned her about the obvious threats—stepping on a copperhead, flipping up the lid of the composter and exposing a black widow spider, grabbing poison ivy with a handful of weeds. But the things she had come to dread most were almost invisible: disease-carrying ticks and minuscule red chiggers whose bites stung like burns. Tilly scratched harder.
And stopped when her fingers rested on a small, smooth lump moving deep beneath her skin.
* * *
The next morning Tilly sat in the driveway, unable to do more than listen to the car engine idle and the turn signal blink. She must have sounded desperate for Dr. Fulton to squeeze her in before his first appointment. Or, with his knowledge of the cancer that had claimed both her father and her grandmother, was he more concerned than she was? Except—she held her right hand level and watched it shake—she wasn’t concerned. She was tear-at-her-skin, scream-at-the-world, grab-at-her-son-and-never-let-go terrified. If only David were here to hold her and say, “It’s okay, babe. We’ll handle this together.”
“And where are you?” she yelled at the sky. “Dead, which is so not helping.”
In ten years of marriage, she had never raised her voice to her husband and never criticized him, although she did argue with him once, over the behemoth of a stereo he wanted to blow a month’s salary on—she won. And there were a few times she’d locked herself in the bathroom and mouthed “asshole” at the door. But now that he was less than air, she was gunning for a fight. Empirical evidence that, in the past twenty-four hours, she had become a fruitloop.
Her mother’s Matchbox car chugged, the vibrations keeping time with the tremors of her heart. Get a grip, Tilly. Women have lumps in their breasts all the time, most of them benign. Think about that, not the genetic soup sloshing through your veins, heading for your lymph nodes.
Before her father was diagnosed with advanced kidney cancer, he had taught Tilly to be wary of monsters masquerading as men. But what if the monster wasn’t nameless and faceless? What if the monster existed within you?
Tilly flopped onto the steering wheel and stayed there. Life tripped her up every day. Sort of like fiddling with a Rubik’s Cube, which she’d never had the patience for. You struggled to line up all those silly little colored boxes and with one click, they tumbled out of whack. Of course, with a Rubik’s Cube you could always reshuffle and start over. Defeat didn’t have to be an option. Tilly raised her head. She was a gardener; she didn’t know how to quit, let alone wave a white flag. And while gardening gave her staying power, widowhood showed her, every day, the futility of melodrama.
With a flourish, Tilly canceled the indicator. Who the hell could see her signal, anyway? Time to pull onto the road and slam into her future. She chopped at the air with her right hand. Aha! A woman in control of her destiny. Then she sighed: As if.
Okay, break this down into manageable chunks. First things first, turn left. But into which lane, on which side of the road? Tilly hated driving in England. She approached roundabouts she had zipped over as a teenager like a terrified tourist, her American driver intuition telling her to treat them as four-way stop signs. Which, of course, ticked off every car stacked up behind her. And as for the narrow country lanes she had whizzed along at eighteen, how could anyone drive that fast on roads designed for single file?
Tilly edged out of the driveway, and the wipers scraped across the windscreen. So much for the sun. The English summer had reverted to form, the sky filled with lumpy clouds the color of Isaac’s white sports socks after she washed them with his jeans. Actually, the sky had the consistency of two-week-old white bread, which suited her mood; she felt pretty moldy herself.
“Driver must be in the middle,” she muttered. “Stay in the middle of the road, Tilly. Stay in the middle of the road.”
A supermarket run had provided the perfect cover, especially since Isaac was happy to stay at Woodend perfecting his bowling technique. Guilt poked at her, prodded her with a big, sharp stick. She had stood in her mother’s kitchen ten minutes earlier and spouted a juicy, fat lie, which, like Pinocchio’s nose, had continued to grow. Tilly was a pitiful liar; Isaac was bound to see through her. But wasn’t it easier to bury the truth in words, to keep heaping them on until even the speaker was lost in their meaning? After all, one simple sentence—Daddy is dead, or Mommy has cancer—could rip out a child’s heart.
Isaac mustn’t suspect anything, not until she could bounce up to him with a game plan, not until his summer had stretched out marked only by the thrill of learning cricket. Rowena was right: some truths weren’t for sharing.
But some things demanded a map. And dammit, she’d forgotten to dig out a street map of Northampton. She always went astray in the town’s one-way system, which seemed to mutate every year during her absence. If she got lost in North Carolina, she opened her mouth, let her English accent pour out, and garnered more help than she needed. Maybe she’d just drive around until she recognized a landmark or two from her teenage playground. Anyway, it hadn’t been that long since she’d visited the tall, thin doctor’s office, squished like an afterthought between a hair salon and a podiatrist. Was it as a college student with mono? No, Dr. Fulton had come to her that time. House calls—her American friends would never believe it.
Of course, the Dr. Fulton who had nursed her through mono and measles had retired years ago. She hoped the younger Dr. Fulton, junior if he were an American, had warm hands. She hated male doctors probing her.
Armfuls of yellow hawkweed flowers and pink rosebay willow swayed as the car brushed past, and a yellowhammer flitted from the old-man’s-beard in the hedgerow. Her summer memories of Bramwell Chase were chock-full with birds, and yet she had seen so few since coming home. Except for pigeons, which evidently outbred rabbits these days. What had happened to the turquoise-breasted kingfisher, the chaffinches and goldfinches, the trotty wagtail? Even the dawn chorus of her childhood had dwindled to a lone thrush. That was the problem with memories: you could protect them like fragile knickknacks on a shelf, but they still gathered dust and irrelevance.
Tilly’s thoughts slipped to the array of birds that lit up her woods every day with color and music. She missed the cardinals on the birdfeeder and the hawk that seemed to watch her when she gardened. And she missed her gynecologist, the person who had shared every moment of Tilly’s twenty-two hours of trench-labor—David had been stranded in St. Petersburg and he’d missed the whole thing. But she didn’t need a pain partner this time. Other people might confuse her, distract her from following her gut. No, it was simple, like turning onto a road. She must find her position and stay there.
If the lump were malignant, the breast had to go. But that might not be enough. If the doctors found cancer, she would opt for a double mastectomy, whip them both off! She slapped the dashboard. What did she need breasts for anyway? Her nursing days were over and her boobs had never been her best feature. They were miserable lit
tle nodes and now lumpy, too. Wasn’t that the kicker? She’d always wanted voluptuous breasts like Rowena’s perfect 36C. Breasts that strained against lace and gauze and cupped into tantalizing cleavage. Instead she was stuck with the figure of a thirteen-year-old boy. But what the hell. According to her husband, she was damn sexy. So why did she need breasts? She’d had enough regrets in her life. For Isaac’s sake there would be no more. Goodbye, breasts! And if the cancer stood its ground—what then? What would be best for Isaac? A clean break from the past or a husk of it to cling to? Should she consider a living will?
Nope. Not going there.
The car revved under her, and Tilly squeezed the gas pedal. She was going to fly down those country lanes just like she used to. And hope she remembered the location of the speed cameras as she got closer to town.
* * *
James slammed down the phone and before he could consider the action, punched a hole through the drywall. Fuck! He shook his throbbing knuckle. Fuck! Physical pain didn’t bother him, but Tilly not waiting for his prearranged call felt like emotional disembowelment. How could she not be there? She knew how important this was to him; she knew.
He stared at the powdered debris on the polished wood floor, at the mess he had created. After he’d cleaned up, he would have to get someone out to fix the hole, and then call his landlord and explain what had happened. He raked his hands into his hair and found his breath. Inhale—one, two, three, four, hold to the count of two, exhale—one, two, three, four.
He never released anger, not anymore. He had spent thousands on therapy so this kind of shit didn’t happen ever again. What was wrong with him? And what was wrong with Tilly? Why had she instructed her mother to pawn him off with a feeble excuse? Tilly wasn’t intimidated by him, would have no qualms about saying no. The day they met, she turned him down with nothing more than a smile. Curiosity was the only reason she hadn’t enforced that rejection. What had happened? Was she injured, sick, in the middle of a family crisis? Did she need help?
His mind buzzed, trying to decide where to settle—on worry for Tilly, or on this non-answer, this unexpected delay. His heart raced and fear pounced, too strong to resist. Delays; he couldn’t handle delays.
James paced in circles. Faster, tighter. Round and round, round and round, round and round. He rubbed his arms, up and down, up and down, up and down. A fog of panic closed in. Thicker, darker panic dragged him into the abyss. He couldn’t resist, couldn’t stop this.
Helpless, he spiraled.
* * *
Tilly rustled two half-filled shopping bags, hoping a few sound effects might lend plausibility to a three-hour supermarket trip that had yielded three four-packs of Cadbury’s chocolate mousses, a packet of chocolate-covered HobNobs, a box of Roses chocolates and ten bars of Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut. And one bruised Granny Smith apple. It was reassuring to know she hadn’t given up on her health, although slightly disturbing to realize that she had no memory of buying the apple. Or the chocolate.
Thanks to the heat thrown out by the Aga, the kitchen was unbelievably stuffy. Cramped, too. Woodend used to seem vast, but now the rooms felt pokey after her open-plan house on Creeping Cedars. Damn, it was hot. Tilly tugged at the neck of her T-shirt.
“Darling?” her mother called from the drawing room.
Tilly didn’t reply. Why bother? If Mrs. Haddington wanted an answer, she got one.
Dr. Fulton, who did, indeed, have cold hands, had confirmed the obvious. Definitely a lump, he had said. Nine out of ten lumps are benign, he had said. It could just be a fibroadenoma, he had said, but since she didn’t check her breasts regularly—he had paused at that point to emphasize her failure—there was no way of knowing. Then he railed on the National Health Service while slashing his blotter with a shiny, silver letter opener. And asked what the job opportunities were for a GP in North Carolina. Finally, he referred her to Northampton General.
Tilly had assumed, wrongly as it turned out, that she would get an appointment the next day. After all, if a time bomb were ticking in your armpit, didn’t every second count? But the breast clinic took a minimum of two weeks to notify patients about appointments. Two weeks! In two weeks she might just gnaw off every finger. She needed to take charge of this horror, to be halfway through chemo, bald and sporting a natty Joan Collins turban.
“That nice James telephoned.” Her mother’s voice boomed along the hall. It was her classroom voice, intended to carry to the farthest desk. “He seemed a little miffed that you weren’t here. Said he’d ring back later.”
Tilly unwrapped a bar of Fruit and Nut, snapped it in two and shoved the biggest piece in her mouth. Bugger, bugger, bugger. Priority number one: ditch the guy with more issues than the crazed, cancer-riddled single mother. And where was Isaac? She ached to hold him, and yet the thought of seeing him unhinged her completely.
Monty’s toenails scrabbled on the parquet hall floor, followed by the clunk of her mother’s cast and the squeak of the rubber-tipped crutch.
“Can’t talk to him, Mum.” Tilly sensed her mother in the doorway but didn’t look up. “Not today.” Yum. She crunched a hazelnut.
“Tilly? Is that…all you bought?”
“Selective memory loss.” Tilly unwrapped the second bar and bit off another chunk of chocolate. Raisins squished between her teeth. Delicious.
“Does this have something to do with Sari’s telephone call?”
“Hmm.” Tilly munched slowly. Some days it didn’t matter how much chocolate you stuffed into your mouth, it was never enough. Just as some days stretched into a never-ending lie. Of course, the latter was a new experience, but surprisingly easy to master as new experiences went. Go figure.
“I thought so.” Her mother sighed. “You haven’t been yourself since that conversation.”
Tilly reached for the rest of the half-eaten bar of chocolate. Myself. When was the last time I felt like myself?
“When James phones back,” her mother said, “shall I tell him you’ll call in a few days?”
Tilly winced as a jagged nugget of chocolate lodged in her throat. She swallowed hard. “He’s not going to like it. I have a feeling Vesuvius could erupt and cause less damage. Sure you can handle that?”
Her mother’s sapphire eyes sparked with mischief. Yeah, silly question.
“Leave him to me,” her mother said.
Gratitude blasted Tilly’s fortifications, tempted her with the lure of an emotional dump: Hey, Mum. I have a lump in my breast. Confession might bring relief, but at what cost to a woman who had buried two daughters and watched her husband die of cancer?
No, Tilly must keep this to herself until she had answers. Why scare her mother needlessly? Two weeks extracted from a lifetime meant nothing. And, what d’ya know? She had enough chocolate supplies to guide her through.
* * *
James slammed down the phone again, but this time he was prepared. He knew the rejection was coming. Although it wasn’t a rejection. Tilly was playing for time, and he wanted to know why. He stared at his MacBook Pro with its oddly relaxing mandala screensaver. He needed to slow down the world so he could push aside the voice, figure out if this was just another case of serotonin deficiency sounding a false alarm.
His psychologist always asked him to identify the fear lurking behind the toxic thought, behind the worry. But this wasn’t OCD fear, this was real. This was James: Something’s wrong, I can feel it. Why was Tilly using her mother as a shield?
None of it made sense, contradicted everything he knew about Tilly. God Almighty. How could he presume to know a woman he had met only twice? But he did know her; he did. And he could help her; he could protect her. But protect her from what? Herself?
James picked up the bottle of Maker’s Mark and his tumbler and headed onto the balcony, back into the heat. Heat kept him on the edge, and he needed that to bar the OCD. Worry for people he loved could pervert his reasoning and force him to see tragedy where there was none.
He poured bourbon into his glass and held the glass up to the sunlight to check the level. Not too little, not too much. Perfect. He took two sips and relished the warmth at the back of his throat. Now he could think.
If something were wrong with Tilly, then Isaac was at risk, too. Shit. Wasn’t it bad enough to feel the way he did for Tilly? After twenty-seven years he had to develop paternal instincts, but for someone else’s kid?
He emptied the glass in one gulp, refilled it and repeated. By the time the bottle was a quarter empty, he knew what his next move would be. A boneheaded stunt? You betcha. Financially reckless and potentially embarrassing? That, too. Did he care? Not a fuck. He sat still, which he rarely managed. How could he not do this? He wasn’t fatalistic, but meeting Tilly and Isaac felt like predestination. Great, now he was a recovering Catholic who spouted Calvinist doctrine. Wasn’t he messed up enough without adding religion back into the mix? But if Tilly and Isaac were in trouble, he had to be there for them. It was that simple.
* * *
The Unfinished Garden Page 12