The Unfinished Garden

by Barbara Claypole White

  “My guilt,” she said, “is the guilt of failing my family.”

  A nuthatch hopped up a tree, with the simple goal of finding food. How easy life would be if you could live only in the moment, if you could erase the past and the future.

  “I was doing pretty well in the big scheme of guilt.” She tried to smile but it could have escaped as a grimace. “Then I found this lump, and here I am, stuck like a player in Monopoly with the do not pass go, do not collect $200 card, wondering, yet again, if my husband died because of me.”

  Tilly rubbed her hands back and forth along her upper legs. The rocking motion felt good. Was that why James moved so much? Did an active body ease pain in the mind? “My husband had a living will. I don’t. It was the one area of our marriage in which we agreed to disagree. He argued it would allow the three of us to move on quickly if something catastrophic happened. Whereas I pointed my moral compass north and refused to budge.” She tugged on the back of her neck, her fingertips worrying at a tension knot. “I always thought there was time. To talk him round. Who knew time was the one thing we didn’t have.”

  She refused to imagine what could have happened if David had woken up. “My husband was a brilliant man who had a horror of being trapped in an unresponsive body.” She paused. “Like the sun in the walled garden, he was relentless in his need to shine. He had to maintain control, even in death, which is why I told the doctor about the living will. I thought that was what he wanted. And therein lies my mistake. Because—” she stared at the ground until it blurred “—I think he changed his mind.”

  A creature scratched on the forest floor. A woodcock? No, woodcocks were far too rare. There was a time she could identify every sound in The Chase. Not anymore.

  Tilly sucked in her breath then forced it out. “He held on, for five days. They unhooked him, pulled the plug, and he held on. I remember being grateful—isn’t that appalling?—that I could touch his skin and feel life. Some days I even convinced myself he was asleep. So he held on, and I watched him die. And did nothing. Afterward, I started thinking, questioning. Had he hung on for a reason? Had he, in the end, chosen life, expecting me to do the same?” Tilly wrapped her hand around her mouth and pinched her lips between her thumb and forefinger, squeezing as hard as she could. “Did you ever see Groundhog Day?”

  “At least six times.” James grinned. “I like repetition, remember?”

  “I feel as if I’m the hero in that movie, constantly reliving the moment I said—” Tilly shuddered. She was back in the room where her life had stopped—listening to David slowly die.

  “Your mind is stuck, like mine,” James said, his voice hushed, the sort of voice you used in the middle of the night when everything around you was quiet.

  “No one can share what goes on in here.” He tapped his temple: two fingers, two taps. “But if you’re lucky, you can find someone to help ease the pain.”

  With a deep sigh, he stood and stretched, his T-shirt rising up to reveal the tattoo she’d glimpsed a few days earlier. A man who was scared of everything had marked his body with a decorative, coiled snake. Why? Tilly tried to draw her eyes away, but she was captivated by the white skin on his abdomen, translucent against the black ink of the tattoo and much paler than the skin on his arms and his face. She tried to picture James sunbathing on a beach, listening to palm fronds clack in the breeze, but even in her imagination, he couldn’t stay still.

  “Tell me your story,” she said. “I need to know.”

  * * *

  He had tried to deflect the conversation from himself, but she’d outsmarted him. How much should he tell her? What could he risk exposing? How could he find words that didn’t scare her? James often imagined himself trapped in a burning building where no one could hear him scream. But Tilly was offering to reach in. Could he accept her hand? She had trusted him; could he trust her? He picked at a small scab on the back of his wrist, and then snapped his fingers away when he released a trickle of blood.

  “You’re not turning bashful on me, are you, James?”

  “I’m not good at editing my thoughts. I might say too much.” And that was a terrifying truth.

  “And bore me to death? Look around you…we’re alone in a forest and I have nothing to do but listen. I told my mother and Isaac to forage for lunch, that I’d promised the day to you.”

  She’d promised the day to him. He didn’t dare look at her. Didn’t want to see pity or horror. What he did want to see, he had no right to hope for.

  “It’s hard when you’re invested in the outcome,” James said.

  “But you’ve already made your impression, become a friend. The rest is merely frosting.”

  “Frosting?” He laughed, but kept his eyes lowered. If he looked up, he might kiss her.

  “Yeah. Sometimes it’s too sweet and you want to spit it out. Sometimes it’s just sweet enough. Besides. I just told you something I’ve never told anyone. It’s your turn to share.”

  “I wish this were just frosting. OCD is more like the basic ingredient of my life.”

  “Would it be easier for you if we walked? We can go forward.” She signaled with her arm, waving as if directing a jumbo jet on the tarmac. “Or back. Even sideways. The choice is yours.”

  What had he done to deserve friendship from this woman? She was a karmic gift; she understood. He started walking, quickly, because the alternative was worse than a kiss. His body was burning with need for her. Right here. Right now. He couldn’t allow himself to slow down, or worse, turn and face her.

  A pheasant coughed and James strode ahead, his mind settling into a rhythm that matched his gait. The shade grew deeper, the brightness disappeared and the birdsong became less frequent. He drew strength from Tilly’s presence, knew that with her behind him, he could speak words he had never uttered outside a psychologist’s office. Still, it was, at best guess, ten minutes before he talked.

  “OCD creates fear in the absence of real threat. It bombards you with unwanted thoughts and marshals your body to ward off danger no one else can perceive. The cause may be an illusion, but the terror is genuine.”

  That was pretty much his thesis statement, but where did his story go from there? Should he start with his mother or with his father? And then his memory stuck on the camping trip he and his dad took six months after his mother’s death. It was supposed to be a beginning, and in many ways it had been: the beginning of the end.

  “A kid trips over a rotting log, says, ‘Is it poisonous, am I going to die?’ His dad laughs and says, ‘Don’t be ridiculous, that isn’t poisonous.’ The kid grabs at the reassurance and craves more, becomes locked in a cycle of escalating fear, a belief that he is about to die. But his dad sees only a rotting log. He loses patience, tells his self-absorbed son to snap out of it. When that doesn’t work the father threatens, and delivers, punishment. How long before this boy internalizes his fears and transforms himself into a ticking bomb?”

  “You were the boy,” she said softly.

  James twisted around, using his torso to pin back a branch, but he trained his eyes on the ground. When Tilly had passed, he resumed the lead.

  “Ten years old, split open by grief, yet nothing terrified me more than my own thoughts, the uncertainty of what they’d tell me to do next.” He sighed. “I masked my symptoms at school, but they exploded when I got home. Dinnertime became a fiasco because I couldn’t stop washing my hands, and every morning I missed the school bus because of my rituals.
” Goodness, he could summarize all that horror in one sentence? “I’m not sure Dad recovered from either loss—Mom’s life or my sanity.”

  “Dear God,” Tilly said. “How did you both cope?”

  “He shouted, rescinded my privileges and retreated in Jack Daniel’s, where he stayed. And I slammed into anything that gave release—the speed of motorbikes, drugs, sex. I was casual with life, but for some reason I survived.”

  “Why do you twist your hair?” she asked. “I’ve been dying to ask, but I was worried it was too personal. Sorry, I’m just curious.”

  “Why apologize? Since we’re baring our souls here, I think all bets on intimacy are off.” With every sentence he relaxed more. “It’s a compulsion. The OCD tells me terrible things will happen if I don’t twist my hair.”

  “What things?”

  “Irrational things.”

  “Such as?”

  “Catch cancer from you and die. Which sounds crazy, right?”

  “No.” Her voice sounded like a spoken shrug. “So a compulsion is a quick fix, right?”

  “One as addictive as heroin.” Keep going, James. Keep going. “Rituals start out small but become more complex as the fear mutates. If you make a mistake, any mistake, you must start over. Imagine how that translates for a kid struggling with homework. How can he complete the assignment when he’s always checking, always erasing, always moving backward?”

  “How did you?”

  “I was a straight-A student who never slept.” Shit, he didn’t mean to turn and face her. Really, really didn’t mean to do that. But when she smiled, he was pathetically glad he had.

  Tilly put her hands on her hips and looked around. “I think we’re lost.”

  “No, I know where we are.” He wove his fingers together across his neck and stretched. Nothing he had said—so far—had shocked her. “It’s good to talk, Tilly. Thank you.”

  A bird sang and her stomach gave a single, loud growl. God Almighty, how could he be so thoughtless? It was way past lunchtime; she must be starving.

  “I’m sorry,” James said. “Once my brain starts tumbling I forget everyone else isn’t on the same carnival ride. Let’s head back.” He began walking again.

  “Good plan. I’d hate to turn native and start eating nettles.”

  “You’re good at using humor,” he called over his shoulder. “Laughter is a vital tool for diffusing anxiety. After all, the two are hardly compatible, unless people are making fun of you. No one jokes about a broken wrist, but you hear sniggers when you pick a dandelion with a handkerchief.”

  “We didn’t laugh,” she said. “That day at Maple View Farm.”

  “No.” He slowed, allowing her to catch up. “You didn’t.”

  * * *

  Tilly had a fleeting sensation, one long forgotten, of relying on someone else to make decisions. Only minutes earlier she’d been staving off the panic of being lost, but James had wheeled around with purpose, and she had followed. She visualized him as a child, but shook away the mental picture of a young boy alone with his grief. Unbelievable, she had just done something James could never do: brush aside an unwanted thought. He was like a person without facial muscles, a person marked by a difference few could comprehend.

  Despite the shade, the midday heat was building. She was eager to hear the heart of his story and get back to the garden. What was driving her impatience—hunger? Or was it the knowledge that her project with James was a hiatus from life, a distraction, a conversation she had struck up with a fellow traveler while stranded midjourney. It was a good conversation, but the kind that never survived beyond baggage claim. After all, when you cared about someone, you couldn’t rush the learning. It took ten years of watching David with books to notice, in the last week of his life, that his lips moved when he read.

  James strode ahead, his shoulder-length hair licking the neck of his figure-hugging T-shirt.

  Tilly swallowed. “OCD must be hell on relationships.”

  He hesitated. “By the way, you should warn Rowena that I’ve reorganized her toolshed.”

  Well, that wasn’t the answer she’d expected. In fact, it wasn’t an answer at all. “She doesn’t have a toolshed.”

  “She does now.”

  Tilly laughed. “So you’re really a Virgo with a bit of extra umph.”

  “You’re a Virgo?”

  “God, no. I’m organizationally impaired. Surely you’ve guessed that by now. No, Sebastian’s the Virgo. Anal as they come. Even in school his study had to be just so. If you picked up a Biro and didn’t return it to the exact same spot?” She slashed a finger across her throat and made a gargling noise.

  James trailed his fingers behind as if reaching for her, and Tilly almost skipped with joy. But when she leaned forward, he slipped his hand into his pocket. Oh. Poor man was probably just stretching again, or maybe she was hallucinating, thanks to hunger and heat. Anyway, he didn’t hold hands. Tilly sighed. How she missed the everyday touches of a life shared.

  James spun around, and Tilly jerked back. “Is Sebastian ancient history?” he said.

  Why did James do that, ask questions that cornered her?

  “I don’t know.” Tilly looked away, a flotilla of tiny black thunder flies the only witness to a blush that rose up her neck and wrapped itself around her cheeks.

  “What about women?” She turned with a burst of brightness.

  “What about women?” He smirked.

  “Oh, you know.” Tilly put on her ditzy voice, the one that was so useful when she wanted to hide. “Partners, lovers. Women—or men, if that’s your fancy.”

  “No men, sorry to disappoint. I’m boringly heterosexual. But there have been a great many women in my life. Too many.” The laughter in his eyes vanished. They began walking again, abreast this time. “Starting relationships was never my problem. Keeping them was the challenge, and not because of my compulsive behavior. My problem was the one my dad accused me of as a kid. Being self-absorbed.”

  “As a workaholic? Building your internet empire?”

  “No, that came easily. I’m a stereotypical overachiever. Enough is never enough for me. But once you start running, leaving others behind, it’s hard to stop.” He flashed her a look. Was he talking about himself or issuing a warning? “I’m determined to change that. With a garden.”

  “But how?” Tilly heard restraint in her voice. She felt as if she were sneaking up on a rare creature, one easily startled.

  “I’ve been reading about exposure therapy, when you expose yourself to your fears, starting with the smallest. Unfortunately, I don’t function that way. I have to aim for the top.” He hesitated. “Gardening is the main trigger for my obsessions. It’s the key to everything.”

  “I mean no disrespect, but gardening is pretty benign.” Tilly ran her fingers up the velvety flowers of a solitary foxglove, standing rigid amongst the bracken. How she loved wildflowers. The ninth circle of hell was, in Tilly’s mind, reserved for wildflower pickers. What was it her father had said, that cut flowers smiled, but flowers in the ground laughed?

  “How can anyone be frightened of gardening?”

  “There’s no logic to OCD, Tilly.” James’s voice was flat, his patience worn. “You conquer one fear…another detonates in your face. There’s a viscous lump of anxiety inside me waiting to stick to anything I pass. I see mold on a tree—it’s anthrax. I hear an alarm—it’s warning of nuclear war. I look at a garden—I see cancer.” A tw
ig snapped under his foot. “I see my mother digging frantically, turning the soil with her handheld fork while my father explains to me that she’s dying. And as she becomes sicker, and her garden withers, I feel cancer breeding in the soil, destroying her life and ours. Dirt, Tilly, is my greatest fear. I’m forty-five and terrified of dirt.”

  He gave an uncertain smile. He’s gauging my reaction, she thought, like Isaac does when he’s desperate for my approval.

  “I’m a gardener who’s terrified of worms. How ludicrous is that?”

  He sighed, she assumed from relief, and continued talking. “I thought I had broken the cycle of anxiety. I distanced myself from my father, stumbled into yoga and threw myself into work, never allowing time for my thoughts to catch up.”

  “But something happened,” she said, “to upset the balance. Am I right?” Oh crap, where were they going with all this?

  He nodded. “Eighteen months ago my father died. We were estranged, but his death brought back a rush of issues, issues I need to face. Once again, my mind is under siege, haunted by images of dirt beneath my mother’s fingernails, dirt she scrubbed off potatoes, dirt she trekked into the house, dirt—the conductor of disease and death.” He stared at his hands as if they had betrayed him. Then he reached up and tugged on his hair. “Cognitive-behavioral therapy has helped, but it moves too slowly for me.”

  “What about medication?”

  “There’s no cure for OCD, Tilly. SSRIs, antidepressants, can take the edge off, but not if you have a low tolerance for them.”