The Unfinished Garden

by Barbara Claypole White

  Tilly gazed into the moon until her eyes throbbed from the brilliance of its halo. No, she hadn’t been scouting for love. She had been groping toward reconciliation with the pain of love past—holding on instead of letting go. When David was alive she could walk into any room, see him and know she belonged. Without him, she had felt invisible, which was a pathetic state of mind.

  James had guided her to this moment of revelation, to the knowledge that she mattered. But the pull of his demands was too strong. He was a magnet that attracted and repelled her, and she needed an emotional lull, not a lovefest akin to scaling Mount Everest in a blizzard. She didn’t want to feel a big empty space when James wasn’t around, to become invisible again. She screwed up her eyes and hoped that he could hear her thoughts:

  If I could pick a point in the future and jettison myself into it, I’d want you there. But the future’s a scary place, and I’m going to rest in the present for a while.

  She kissed her palm, held it toward James, then headed back to her life.

  * * *

  Sebastian and Rowena had disappeared up to the Hall, leaving him alone at Manor Farm. Rowena had clucked around him, insisting he join them, but she’d waited over twenty years for tonight. Only a prime asshole would gate-crash that kind of a party. In the end, she’d settled for making up the Farm’s guest bed for him, despite his announcement that he had no intention of sleeping. Not even a horse tranquilizer could knock him out. He’d already taken twice the usual dose of Clonazepam, and it had merely nibbled the edge off his anxiety.

  After pacing the upstairs hallway, James had retreated to the stark, functional comfort of a farmhouse kitchen with its sensorial memories of his mother’s baking. She’d given him his first cooking lesson when he was five. They made French toast that had tasted sweeter than anything imaginable. And afterward—James touched his cheek—she gave him the biggest kiss, and declared it to be the best French toast in the world. A lifetime of awards and achievements, and yet no compliment had ever trumped that one.

  James tugged open the huge sash window and filled his lungs with early-morning air. Once again, he was at a crossroads of his own making. Once again, he had alienated anyone who dared to care for him. He had orchestrated another spectacular cock-up—a word stolen from Rowena that sounded ugly enough to fit his mood.

  Returning to Chapel Hill would be too painful. Maybe he never would. He could always sell the house and live in Durham or Raleigh until the Duke trials were over. In the meantime, he would run back to Illinois and the company of dear friends, until he could muster the strength to visit Daniel.

  Tomorrow, he would fly to O’Hare, despite the reel of horror in his mind: images of the plane falling from the sky; images of the plane smashing into the ground; images of an explosion; images of crackling flames consuming everything, including him.

  James sighed and stared into the dawn. Tilly was out there, close but further away than ever. Even on the ride to the airport, he’d nursed a ridiculous dream that she would follow him, had conned himself into believing that ultimately, she would pick him over Sebastian. But this had never been about Sebastian. She had rejected James for herself, not for another man, and that was a blow that exploded his heart and slung the pieces to the outer rim of the galaxy. Game over. Game fucking over.

  In his fantasies, he’d been dueling for her affection. But now he had no one to fight, other than himself, of course. If only he could have stepped back and given her space. Or if he’d walked away when she’d first said, “I can’t help you.” And yet, that had never been possible. Not when he, silly romantic James, had believed that she was his destiny. Crazy thing was, despite all that had happened, he believed it still.

  For once he wasn’t trapped in doubt; he was adrift in certainty. He knew what he wanted, and it would never be his.

  James picked up his iPod and clicked through the settings until he found “repeat-one.” Music was his drug of choice these days, and right now, he needed dark lyrics that spoke to him of passion and heartbreak. He selected The Airborne Toxic Event and scrolled down to “A Letter to Georgia.” When he reached the two lines that lumped fear, truth, love and pain together, James began to cry. But the despair that split him open and lacerated his soul had nothing to do with a failed love affair.

  This was his third round with grief, and he would never recover.

  Chapter 29

  “Hey, handsome. Want a lift?” Tilly held open the passenger door and squinted into the Saturday morning sunshine. The world beyond the interior of the Yaris was too sharp and too bright. Too intense. Of course, that could be the result of a strong cocktail of sleep deprivation and a pre-breakfast tête-à-tête with a lush-looking Rowena.

  James yanked an earbud free and scowled into the car. “Sorry?”

  The roar of a village cricket match rose from the rec field. Sebastian was playing today, Rowena cheering him on. Which meant it was time to get out of Dodge.

  “I have wanderlust.” Tilly inhaled the smell of freshly mown grass. “Care to join me?”

  “Why not.” His coldness unnerved her, gave her doubt when five minutes earlier she had been so sure of her plan to find James and explain.

  A boy skipped out of The Corner Stores and, with a screech, dropped his iced lolly into a clutter of sickly begonias. Begonias! Buy One Get One Free! the chalkboard announced. Tilly fingered the car keys. In the time James took to settle—goodness, he could faff for all eternity—she could run inside and tell them to rewrite the sign so that it read, Free Plants Need Good Homes. Bugger. She was mutating into her mother, trying to live someone else’s life when she could barely live her own.

  “What’re you listening to?” Radiate bubbles of happiness, Tilly. Keep it light.

  He placed one of the earbuds in her ear, and Tilly had to choke back the shock. Of all the songs he could have chosen. She extracted the earbud and returned it to James, but kept her eyes on the dashboard. “‘Stuck in a Moment’ by U2. My grief song.”

  “My OCD song. Musical therapy for when my thoughts get stuck.” James wound the earbud cord around two fingers, pulled out the small aluminum case and black twisty tie from his backpack, and secured the bundle. “I was coming to find you.”

  “Yeah?” The air in the car thinned.

  “I’ve heard from a friend in Asheville. According to the news there was one confirmed tornado in Wake county, and twenty-one thousand homes in Orange are without power, but the damage is nothing like Fran. I’m sure your house is fine.”

  It wasn’t the house she was worried about, though. “Thanks.” She glanced over her shoulder and pulled out onto the High Street. “Staying up at the Farm?”

  “How did you know?”

  “I was out walking most of the night. Saw you in the kitchen.”

  James gave a wan smile. “Where are we heading?”

  Good question. “How about the historic market town of Olney? It’s a great place to mooch, and I feel like mooching.”

  James didn’t answer.

  “Cowper, the poet, lived in Olney, and so did John Newton. He wrote ‘Amazing Grace’ while he was the curate there.” Shut up, Tilly. “And it’s the site of the Olney Pancake Race, a mighty sporting event dating back to the fifteenth century. Housewives race around the town tossing pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. That’s the day you give up fat and dairy before Lent. Sort of English Mardi Gras without the carnival.”

  “My father was Irish Catholi
c, Tilly. I know what Shrove Tuesday is.”

  “Right.” Tilly’s hands slipped around the steering wheel. She rubbed one hand, then the other, along her thighs. “There’s a fabulous kitchen store you might like and a wonderful Oxfam bookshop.” Why was she telling him this? “Historical fiction’s my true love, but I’ll grab anything that takes my fancy.” Crap, that sounded so inappropriate. “How about you? What do you read?”

  She glanced at James as he turned away from her. “Fantasy,” he said.

  “What was your favorite novel, as a teenager?” Let me guess, The Hobbit.

  “The Hobbit. Yours?”

  She checked the speedometer before driving under the speed camera. “Green Darkness by Anya Seton. It’s about past lives and unresolved issues. Ironic, huh?”

  He picked up a scrap of paper from the dashboard shelf and folded it in half, then into quarters. When he was done, he sharpened the crease with his thumbnail before returning the paper to the same place. He paused, then pushed it a fraction to the left.

  “I’m sorry about Sebastian and Rowena.” For the first time since he’d got in the car, she heard friendship in his voice.

  “Yeah, well. I have this theory, a Tilly-ism. Want to hear it?”

  He shrugged, and Tilly swallowed her sigh. There was so much to say and only one chance to get it right. “Bad things are like the summer hail that covers my deck in minutes,” she spoke slowly and carefully, trying to ignore the sensation that her heart was performing Olympic-standard gymnastics on an imaginary trampoline. Why the sudden attack of nerves? This was James. Her friend, her ally, her…what? “Then the storm blows through, the ice melts and the air feels cleansed. It’s a respite from the heat, an unexpected gift, like dogwood days.”

  “Dogwood days?” James sounded bored by his own question.

  Bugger, this had sounded so much better when she’d practiced it in front of the bathroom mirror.

  “Indian summer in reverse, when the dogwoods are blooming and a cold snap drags you back to winter. The correct phrase is dogwood winter, but I like to put my own spin on things.” She offered him the biggest grin she could muster; he didn’t respond. “Spring is gorgeous in the Piedmont—brings out the inner gardener in everyone. Plant sales boom, business explodes. A snow day can seem like a gift. It forces me back inside, gives me the chance to goof off and concoct wacky planting ideas.” She paused. “I guess that’s where I am now, entering my own personal dogwood days. Stepping aside from my life, giving myself a breather.”

  “Did you not see this coming? In all your years of friendship?”

  Damn, right to the core. “No. But you did, didn’t you?”

  “Her flamboyance reminded me of how handicapped people adapt. I assumed she was overcompensating. And then the night before your date with Sebastian—”

  “James, that was a courtesy call to tell me about Woodend, not a date.”

  He smirked. “We got drunk together that night. Didn’t take long to establish we were seeking oblivion for the same reason.”

  “You didn’t think to mention any of this?”

  “Would it have made a difference?”

  Aftershocks of the previous night’s headache crowded her. “I guess not.”

  They had moved beyond the vision of the speed cameras, but Tilly continued to drive at 30 mph, hugging the edge of the road. “Turns out they had a drunken grope to ‘Nights in White Satin’ at some party before Sebastian and I met. Ro, who was drinking by twelve, remembered enough to know she was smitten. All Sebastian remembers, or so I’m told, is his first hangover.” She sighed. “Ro was at boarding school then, so we wrote letters. She’d been rabbiting on about Mystery Boy, and then I met Sebastian. When I introduced them, he didn’t recognize her. Can you imagine how that made her feel?”

  It also explained the only fight she and Rowena ever had, after Tilly scratched Rowena’s copy of “Nights in White Satin.” Tilly stole the boy and then trashed the soundtrack. Whereas Ro had sacrificed everything and betrayed nothing. And Tilly had never loved her more than that morning, when Rowena stood in the great hall, hands clasped behind her back, feet firmly apart, chin raised and declared, “It’s bollocks, because I love him beyond measure, but one night is more than I ever dreamed of. Go ahead, ask me to give him up.” And Tilly said, “So you don’t want my blessing?” And then they both cried. Since meeting James, she’d cried a lifetime.

  “Sebastian and I were merely flirting with the past. Besides, a relationship right now—” she’d reached the point she needed to make “—any relationship, would complicate the decision I’ve made about the business.”

  “Expanding?”

  “Yup. But not into landscaping. I’m thinking retail nursery. James, I—”

  “It’s okay, Tilly. It’s okay. I’ve cut myself open, shown you my blackened, burned-out heart. The rest is up to you. I won’t crowd you, but I will hope that one day you’ll pick up the phone and say ‘come to me.’ And I will.” He swiveled around to study her profile, and a tiny part of her wanted to throw her arms around him and never let go. Which was beyond potty, since she was behind the wheel of a car.

  “I’m a little confused here. You said you wouldn’t wait for me.”

  “I was trying to push you into a corner, but you outsmarted me.”

  “No, I believed you.” Tilly gave a feeble laugh. “You surprise me constantly.”

  “Interesting. I think I’m boringly predictable. I’m also a persistent bastard, which is why I left. Or tried to. I had to walk away before I repeated my past, before I forced you into a decision you may have regretted for the rest of your life.”

  “Meaning?” she murmured.

  James circled his lips with his index finger. “When I was fifteen, my father fell in love and I forced him to choose—her or me. Needless to say, I won. She left the area and got married. We didn’t know this for years, not until Dad bumped into her on a street corner in Chicago. Can you imagine the chances?”

  Yes, she could. How was coming together with James any different? Their lives crossed and they recognized each other. All that remained was to separate.

  “My relationship with my father was so tenuous at that point.” James leaned forward and slid the control on the air vent one way, then the other. “Seeing her again was enough to shred what was left, and he died before we reconciled.” He slumped back into his seat. “I lost one person I loved to hate. I couldn’t live through that again. Not with you.”

  “I assumed you and your father drifted apart because of your OCD.”

  “OCD began the process…my temper finished it.” James scraped back his hair. He held it, for a moment, then let it bounce free. It had grown so much over the summer, long enough now for a ponytail. “Tilly, I want to be with you—every day for the rest of my life. I have no doubts. But you have to want the same thing.”

  She turned the wheel and they followed a curve. Soon they’d be back on the A5, the Roman road that launched itself at the horizon without curves, without detours.

  “Half of me wants it, James. That’s the problem.”

  “But I want it all, and you can’t give me that. Can you?”

  The sun was shining, the road was straight and she knew where she was heading.

  She shook her head. “I’m not ready.”

  “I fly out tomorrow.” He lowered his voice and added, “If I can get on the plane.”

  “What happened yesterday, at the ai
rport?”

  James hesitated before answering. “I’ve decided to bypass Chapel Hill, give my contractor a break. No doubt he’s the only person in the Triangle thrilled to be incommunicado. I fly to Chicago for a week, then on to Seattle for an extended visit.”

  So, he was shutting her out. Could she blame him?

  “I need to spend time with Daniel. Until my father’s funeral, we hadn’t spoken in ten years. I want to repair our relationship—” James tapped his leg twice, then twice again “—and meet his fiancée, the woman who’s carrying my grandchild.”

  “A grandchild? Wow! Congratulations.” Tilly wanted to say more, but she’d barely processed the existence of Daniel. What would James confess to next, a ménage à trois?

  “I wanted to tell you, but vanity got in the way.” James twizzled an ear stud. “And since I’ve screwed up fatherhood, talking about becoming a granddad felt like a jinx. God, Tilly, if you really knew me.”

  “I do, James.” Why did she ever question that?

  “No, you don’t. You know what I’ve allowed you to know.”

  “Then tell me the rest. And I’ll promise to respect you in the morning.” She paused, but he didn’t follow her cue. Yes, she could leave him be, let the unspoken truths fizzle out between them, but that wasn’t her way.

  There was only one thing left to do. It was a cheap shot, but it would work.

  “If you love me—” goose bumps erupted on her forearms “—you’ll tell me everything.”

  James sighed. “My son suffered from clinical depression as a teenager. I thought if I could handle my monsters, so could he. I offered tough love, and Daniel had a breakdown. Amazing how little I’ve learned from my behavior. Take us, for example. I wish we could start over. I’d get it right, make it perfect from the start.”