The First Gardener

by Denise Hildreth Jones

  “I’m feeling pregnant,” she said matter-of-factly.

  His eyes registered surprise, and he straightened. “Pregnant?”

  “Yeah. It feels just like . . . last time.”

  “Are you still on the Pregnyl?”

  She shook her head. “I haven’t taken it since Maddie died. I’ve barely wanted to brush my teeth, let alone have a shot reminding me of . . . everything.”

  He pulled his stethoscope from his bag. He placed the cold instrument against her chest. “Breathe in.”

  She obeyed. Life was easier these days when she was being told what to do. Even being told to breathe helped.

  “When was the last time you and Gray were intimate?”

  She didn’t have to think about that. She remembered. “The week Maddie died.” Everything in life would now be defined by that experience. Before Maddie died and after Maddie died.

  “Were you on the Pregnyl then?”

  She nodded.

  He moved the stethoscope to her back. “Deep breath now.”

  She breathed in deeply, and when she released it, she felt light-headed. And nauseated. The wave came hard. She barely made it to the bathroom. At least now she was well-dressed as she hung over the toilet. When the wave subsided, she stood and went to the sink to wet a washcloth and wipe off her mouth. She pulled out her toothbrush and brushed.

  Thad came to the door and walked over to the counter. “We’ll do some blood work to see if you’re right. But in the meantime you could have Gray go buy a pregnancy test for you. They’re rarely wrong.”

  Mackenzie spit and rinsed, then straightened to look at him in the mirror. She slowly reached down and opened her bottom drawer. Five pregnancy tests sat neatly in a row inside. “They had a special on them,” she quipped.

  “Been a lot of trying, hasn’t there?”

  She could buy a car with the money she had spent on those boxes over the years, and the mere sight of them made her knees weak. “Lots.”

  He reached into the drawer and pulled one out. “I’d like you to take this for me.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t want to.”

  “I know you don’t, Mackenzie, but let’s just see what it says.”

  She caught her reflection in the mirror. The look on her face was panicked. “What if it’s negative?”

  “Like I said, we’ll do blood work as well. That will tell us definitely. But this could save some time. We need to find out what is causing this nausea anyway.”

  She took the box from him as if it contained a nuclear weapon. He gave her a reassuring smile as he slipped from the bathroom.

  She hated these things. For her, they held such unfulfilled possibilities, such crushing disappointments. Five times, she’d seen tiny pink lines, and only one time had the little pink line actually resulted in life. The other four times, the pink promise had ended in miscarried pain. Still, each time she’d seen a pink line, even knowing that heartbreak could follow, something inside her had come to life in a completely new way.

  She pulled the wrapper from the box. The noise felt like it echoed from every corner of the room. She did what you do to get the results on things like these and then stood up to wait. As she waited, she realized this was different from any time before. Every other time, she’d had Gray waiting right outside the door. This time she hadn’t even told him her suspicions. She had just watched him grieve with her and over her for the last six weeks. And now he was consumed with worry since she had gotten so violently sick.

  She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t told him. But she hadn’t wanted to tell anyone. It was another piece of this new life that she had decided to keep to herself. Just like her anger, her fear, and her pain. Sharing with anyone, even Gray, felt too dangerous, like opening a wound that would never stop bleeding.

  The edge of a pink line forming on the stick in her hand arrested her thoughts. She felt her breathing stop. And she didn’t exhale until a completed pink line was staring back at her.

  Chapter 23

  The stainless steel handle was cold beneath Gray’s fingers, the light of the refrigerator bright in the dark kitchen. “Thad was here today,” he said into the phone, “but I don’t know what he said. I was at the office until about an hour ago, going over some budget stuff with a few of the clerks. Did you get my message about Raymond Field’s $150,000 project to study the life cycle of cicadas here in Nashville?”

  Kurt’s voice came through the other end. “Are you kidding me? Wouldn’t his district love to know when the state parks close or we have to lay off police officers that at least we’re figuring out when the next round of cicadas are coming?”

  “I can tell them that for free.” Cold air from the refrigerator filtered out onto Gray’s face. “Some come out every thirteen years and some come out every seventeen, depending on what kind of cicadas they are. There, I just saved us $150,000.”

  “Get some rest, friend.”

  “I will. Talk to you tomorrow.”

  Gray ended the call and laid his phone on the counter. He turned back to the contents of the refrigerator and realized that two months ago everything there would have looked good to him. Tonight he just knew he needed to eat because he had worked through dinner and his body required food. He closed the door, deciding to settle for a banana. That at least would quell the growling.

  He turned and jumped at the shadowed figure in front of him, illuminated by the outside lights shining through the large bay window. It was Mack.

  “You’re working late tonight.”

  He walked around the island that separated them, his hand sliding across the wooden top as he went. “What are you still doing up? I thought you would have gone to bed hours ago. You think you could eat something? I’ll fix you something.” He took the edges of her white cotton robe beneath his fingers.

  She patted his hands. “No, I’m good. I actually got some soup down tonight. Thad gave me some medicine that seems to have stopped the vomiting, but it knocked me out. Just woke up a couple of hours ago.”

  “Do you want to tell me what he said?”

  Mack pulled out a barstool and sat, so he pulled one out for himself. She was quiet, and in the darkness it was hard to make out the expression on her face. She finally spoke. “Babe, I’ve never hurt like this before.”

  His hand instinctively went to her knee. His hunger had completely dissipated. “I know,” he said. “Me neither.”

  She placed her hand on top of his. “I’m so sorry. I’ve seen your hurt. I’ve felt it in bed at night. But it’s been all I can do to breathe, let alone feel for someone else.”

  “But I needed you.” He heard the break in his own voice. “No one around here but you understands how hard this is. Not really. I don’t want to eat. I do everything in my power to work because I know I have to. Then I come home, and I can’t even talk to you. I can’t ache with you. I can’t cry with you. Instead, I’ve felt like you just want to grieve alone.”

  She laid her head against his arm. It felt so good to have her near him simply because she wanted to be. And yet he couldn’t help feeling a little angry too. A little hurt. The way she had pulled away, shut him out, had torn at his heart.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She let the tears fall. “I love you so much, Gray.”

  “I love you too, babe. It’s okay.” He bent to kiss the top of her head, his own tears falling into her hair. She clung tightly to his arm. And he let his body absorb every ounce of her presence.

  “Nothing feels the same,” she whispered.

  He savored her words. There had been so few since Maddie’s death that he wished she would sit here and talk to him all night. “It will never be the same. But we still have each other, and we can’t forget that.”

  They settled in this place for a long time before she spoke. He felt the movement of her lips against his arm. “I’ve got something to tell you.”

  “You can tell me anything.”

  She pushed herself up. “I’m pr
egnant, Gray.”

  He blinked. His mind fired off thoughts like an AK-47. When? Where? How? Why now?

  Finally he found his voice. “How—when did you find this out?”

  “Thad called and confirmed it tonight, but I had been thinking this past week that was where the nausea was coming from.”

  He sat up straight in his chair. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I had to know for sure. I didn’t want to speculate about something like that.”

  Gray stood, his flip-flops slapping against his feet as he paced across the tiled kitchen floor. He ran both hands through his hair over and over. “This is crazy, Mack. I can’t believe this. I don’t even know how to feel.”

  She didn’t move. “I know. I don’t either.”

  He walked over to her. “All these years. We’ve been trying for the last three years, and this is when it happens? This is when God decides to give us another baby?”

  She shook her head. “I know. I’ve gone through all those same thoughts all week. I haven’t known whether to be ecstatic or angry. But I think this might be our miracle, Gray. I think it might be God’s gift since we’ve suffered so much. Our restoration. I can’t help but think that.”

  He sat down again and pulled her toward him. She rested her weight on the front of his barstool and leaned her head on his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her neck. It had been his initial thought too, but he’d been afraid to verbalize it. Mack’s body had rejected so many children. If this pregnancy failed, he couldn’t imagine how devastated she would be.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t even begin to understand God’s mind. I just know that this is where we are. This is what is happening. And I’m going to choose to be happy about it.”

  She leaned back and looked at him. Her face was so different from the face he had seen the last several weeks. This one had a spark, almost a smile. And he was so grateful. If this life inside her could bring her back to him, then he would do everything in his power to make sure it arrived safely into this world.

  Her body softened in his arms. “I love you so much.”

  “I love you too.”

  He studied her wounded but hopeful face, then leaned over and kissed her. At first it felt awkward, but gradually she responded as she had so many times before. He picked up her tiny frame in his arms and headed to their room. And that night he made love to his wife in that way of knowing that only a shared grief—and a shared hope—can bring.

  Chapter 24

  Six weeks later

  Mackenzie nuzzled her face in the crease of Gray’s neck. “Do you know what today is?”

  “No,” he said. “What’s today?”

  “It’s the end of the first trimester.” She popped up to sit cross-legged on the bed. “We actually made it. I knew we would.”

  Gray rolled onto his side and propped his head on the palm of his hand. “You kept saying it, didn’t you, babe? And you were right.”

  She leaned down and kissed him softly on his lips. “I’ve just felt from the beginning that this was our gift. Our restoration. We’ve been through so much, you know.” Her hands pulled at the hem of her red silk pajama top. “It’s time, Gray.”

  “Time?”

  She punched him. “You know what I’m talking about. It’s time to make our announcement. You don’t keep stuff like this quiet, Gray. You share it.”

  They’d had this conversation before. From the moment they learned about the pregnancy, she’d wanted to shout the news from the rooftops. She said that the people of Tennessee had grieved with them and should now be able to celebrate with them. Because of their track record, he had asked her to wait at least until the first trimester was over, and she’d gone along with his request. But she just knew. She knew in her gut that this was the boy they had longed for. And now she was ready to tell the world.

  “You sure you don’t want to wait a little longer?” he asked with a gentle smile. “Are you ready for the public attention? I mean, after—”

  “I’m ready.” She hopped out of bed, and he followed her to the bathroom. Sophie let out a yip from her kennel in the closet when she heard them.

  “Just a minute, girl,” Gray called to the puppy. “Hang on.” He walked to his side of the counter and pulled out his toothbrush.

  “It’s going to be a busy week,” she told him. “Things have been hopping since we agreed to host that luncheon for the Duchess of Wilshire in a couple of months. Jessica might as well be preparing for the queen. She’ll have a heart attack when I ask her to put together a press release about the baby, but too bad. She’ll just have to work it in.”

  Gray turned to look at her, his eyes serious. “I want to read it before it goes out.”

  “Sure,” she said through a mouthful of toothpaste. She finished, wiped her mouth, and walked to the shower, opening the door and turning on the shower to warm the water. “What’s your day look like?”

  “Full. The budget requests have all come in, and we’re in the beginning stages of going over everything.” He rinsed his toothbrush. “What about you? Besides the announcement, I mean.”

  Mack slipped from her pj’s and into the warmth of the streaming water. “Well, I’ve got a trip to the baby store with Anna. I’m buying something today to celebrate.” Steam began to filter out of the shower. “We’re going to meet Tina and Heather for lunch. And then I’m working on writing the foreword for the Junior League’s new cookbook. I’m pretty sure my mother got me that gig.”

  Gray put down his towel and walked over to the shower. “I bet you’ll smile all day,” he said through the door.

  She giggled. “I’ve smiled the last two months. I’ve even done everything Jessica has told me to do. Can you believe that? I haven’t changed her schedule one time.” She poked her wet head out. “Until today.”

  “I wondered why she was humming the other day.” He gave her a quick smile and disappeared into the closet, where Sophie gave another yip.

  She slipped from the shower, grabbed her towel, and picked up a bottle of baby oil. And for just a moment she remembered. It all came back. She opened the pink top, thinking of how soft the oil had made Maddie’s skin. That was why she’d started using it on her own.

  But she couldn’t go there. Not now. She pushed the thought away and replaced it with a new, positive one. She imagined how wonderful it would be to slather oil on the new baby.

  She wrapped a towel around her body and walked to the closet just as Gray stepped out with Sophie in his arms. The puppy had grown so much over the last two months. Her shaggy hair fell in front of her eyes and was about ready for a ponytail holder. She wiggled wildly.

  Mackenzie reached out her hands. “Let me take her.”

  Gray’s shock was evident.

  She laughed. “Don’t act like that. I have been very sweet to her lately.”

  “Sweet, yes. Dog walker, no.”

  She wiggled her fingers. “Come on. Let me take her.”

  “No,” he said flatly.

  Her brow furrowed, and she dropped her arms. “Gray, I just want to take our dog for a walk.”

  He answered again. “No.”

  She was getting frustrated. “You’re being ridiculous. Seriously.”

  “Mack, you’re wearing a towel.”

  She looked down and burst out laughing. She had completely forgotten. “Well, I guess I am.” She crinkled her nose. “Maybe I’ll take her tomorrow.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah. I’ll help you remember that.”

  She walked into the closet smiling. Her outfit for the day was hanging up and ready to go. And so was she. She had been on a full schedule for six weeks now. From the time she knew life was inside of her, life seemed to have come back to her. Her brown slacks swished softly as she made her way to the small balcony off their bedroom. The location had changed, and so had the prayer. But she couldn’t help but return to praying after the gift she’d been given.

  She raised her face to th
e sunshine, the soft leather of her jacket rubbing at her neck. And then, when she was finished, she headed downstairs to the garage. In minutes, her new car was headed for Anna’s house and then that quaint baby store in Belle Meade.

  She had a nursery to decorate. And for the second time in her life, she was going to enjoy every minute of it.

  The last few months ’round here be sweet. Miz Mackenzie seem to come back to life, and I knowed why even ’fore they gone and finally told. Any man seen his wife with his seed planted inside her know what a woman with chil’ look like. I ain’t said nothin’ ’bout nothin’ ’til they ready to ’nounce. But I still knowed. And I knowed it be a miracle.

  They havin’ a gatherin’ here at the mansion today. That feel like a miracle too. After Maddie Mae died, I be wonderin’ if this house ever do any celebratin’ again. But then they gone and had ’em a coupla Christmas parties. And now what they havin’ be some kinda ladies’ tea honorin’ a dignitary from England. Some relation to the queen, I hear.

  You’d think that kind a highfalutin stuff would keep the crazies out. But Miz Eugenia and her three cronies been up in here all day fussin’ ’bout. Eugenia even insist that her and her friends gon’ do the flowers, and Miz Mackenzie say okay. Don’t know what she was thinkin’.

  That Dimples ’bout near destroyed my magnolias. Probably maimed ’em for life with all the leaves she gone and cut. But Eugenia bringin’ all the rest herself. All she had to do is ax me—I gots me plenty a flowers winterin’ in the greenhouse.

  But she ain’t done it. She too proud.

  ’Course, them crazy women the least a our worries ’round here. The gov’nor, he be ’bout near through with his budget, I hear. He tell me he find ’nough manure in that thing to keep my gardens fertilized ’til Jesus come back. I tol’ him at least that be one less thing the gov’ment gon’ have to go and pay for. He just laugh the way he do. An’ that fine with me. I just glad to hear him laugh at all.