The First Gardener

by Denise Hildreth Jones

  “Smell that?” Anna asked.

  “What?”

  “Those pretzels.” She pointed toward an Auntie Anne’s store in the middle of a large open area surrounded by tables and peppered with partakers. “I love those things.”

  Mackenzie shrugged. She no longer loved any kind of food. “I didn’t even smell it.”

  “Want some?”

  “We’re eating lunch in an hour.”

  “It can be our appetizer.”

  Mackenzie shook her head. “You get one if you like.”

  “I don’t want it if you don’t.”

  Mackenzie nudged her. “Go. I’m fine. I’m just going to walk over there and look in the window.” She pointed toward the Sephora store directly across from Auntie Anne’s.

  She left Anna and wandered to the window. An acrylic stand inside displayed three tubes of lipstick in vibrant pink, orange, and red. She rubbed her lips together. Today was the first time she had put on lip gloss in . . . well, forever.

  Pain jolted her Achilles tendon. She reached down instinctively.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. I just wasn’t paying attention.”

  Mackenzie turned to see the small wheel of a stroller wedged against her foot. A red-faced young woman gripped the stroller’s handle.

  “It’s okay.” Mackenzie absently rubbed her heel, jolted again by the sight of a sleeping baby nestled inside the carrier. “I’ll take a wound for a little one.”

  “I really am sorry.”

  Mackenzie laid her hand on the stroller. “How old?”

  “Six months. It’s such a great age.”

  “They’re all great.” The comment came out without Mackenzie even realizing it.

  “You have children?” the woman asked.

  A fog settled over Mackenzie quick and thick. She shook her head slightly. “Um . . . no, I don’t . . . Well, I . . .” She straightened. “It’s a long story.”

  “Well, I’m sure you would be a wonderful mother.”

  Mackenzie wasn’t aware that dams could burst without warning, without at least a brief sign. In all her years of being self-controlled, a planner, a think-before-you-speak kind of soul, she had never experienced anything close to what happened next. In that moment, every crack in her soul collided with the onrushing reality of the world that now was hers, and it was more than she could endure. The floodwaters simply let loose, and she had no ark to ride out the deluge.

  She whirled and took off in a full run toward the department store. She heard Anna’s voice calling out to her as if it came from a lifetime she no longer resided in. Her wails came from a deep place where excuses were never given and where people’s opinions were of no consequence. She tried to maneuver a corner and ran into a metal rod displaying silk dresses. It dug hard into her shoulder before crashing to the ground.

  She never let it stop her. By the time she broke free into the parking lot, she was already hoarse from her screams.

  Chapter 40

  Bloodshot eyes stared back at Gray from the mirror of his father’s bathroom. He rubbed his stubbled jaw. The careworn face in the mirror accused him. He was losing it. Hanging on the edge of a cliff. Dangling over a desperate place he didn’t want to go and Mack didn’t deserve.

  Jeremiah was right. Mackenzie needed to be loved back to life. But he did too. He deserved to be loved too. And for a brief moment he had realized just how easy it would be to grab for the wrong kind of love.

  He turned on the faucet and watched water circle down the drain. His life felt like it was going down just as quickly. He dipped his hands into the stream, lowered his head, and splashed cold water against his face. His nerve endings came alive with the impact and so did his senses.

  I’m the governor of the state, and I just assaulted my chief of staff. One of my best friends, no less. And that nurse . . .

  He placed his hands on the edge of the Formica countertop. Water dripped from his face. He pulled a white towel from the plastic ring that held it and dried his face. Then he heard his father moan.

  He walked into his dad’s room. Gray Senior had been asleep for at least three hours. The doctor was coming over later this afternoon, and Gray had decided to wait for him.

  Gray sat down and put his hand on his dad’s bed. His father’s eyes were open but remained locked on the ceiling.

  “Hey, Dad, how’re you doing?”

  His father’s eyes slowly focused on Gray’s face and seemed to study it. Then a soft smile made its way to his lips. “Hey, Son. I’m doing good. Where ya been?”

  Gray’s heart melted. It felt like it could ooze right from his fingertips. A lump came to his throat with such force that his tears couldn’t be stopped. “Been right here.”

  “Yeah? Well, I’ll be. I’ve missed ya.”

  Gray let out a soft laugh, then wiped his nose. “It’s okay. You’ve been resting.”

  “Then why do I feel so tired?” He rubbed his eyes.

  Gray couldn’t help it. He was a boy and this was his dad. He laid his head on his father’s chest and wept. After a minute he felt his father’s hand rubbing his scalp.

  “Hey, what’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

  “I’m sorry, Dad.”

  “I told you to never apologize for that. Not a thing wrong with a grown man crying. Tears have to come out. It’s the way God made us.”

  “I’ve just missed you too; that’s all.”

  “Well, then, we don’t need to go so long without seeing each other.”

  Gray lifted his head and nodded. His tears had left a wet spot on his father’s pajama shirt. Gray forced himself to sit up. He didn’t want to miss this moment of lucidness with his face buried. He wanted to look into his father’s eyes so he could remember what it was like to have him present. Just in case this was the last time it happened.

  “Dad, can I ask you a question?”

  “You can ask me anything.”

  Gray took his father’s hands and held them in his own, the green coverlet wrinkled beneath them. “When you hurt really bad, how can you take care of someone else? How can you be there for someone else when you can’t even figure out how to heal your own heart?”

  He felt his father’s fingers squirm loose from his hold. He held on a little tighter, worried his father was getting agitated and about to have another fit. “Son, can you let my hands go for a minute?”

  Gray laughed and released him.

  “You having a hard time these days?” his father asked.

  “Really bad.”

  “Mackenzie too?”

  Gray nodded.

  “Want to tell me why?”

  He couldn’t tell his father what had happened. The brunt of it might send him away again. Gray just shrugged.

  His father shook his head. “Healing takes a lot of energy, you know. Sometimes it feels like your whole body is focused on that one gaping wound like it can’t even think about anything else. And that’s okay. There are seasons for that. But pain can also make us selfish. We can let it swallow us up until there isn’t anything left to offer. And the only way to avoid that is to keep on giving even in the middle of your own pain.”

  He reached to grip Gray’s hand. “You hear me, Son? If Mack needs you, you need to be there. I have a feeling that seeing her heal will help heal you too.”

  Gray leaned down and kissed his dad’s hands. He let his lips linger there a few moments. When he looked up, his father was fast asleep. He kissed the top of his head before picking up Sophie and leaving the room.

  Out in the hallway, he shifted Sophie to one arm and pulled out his cell phone as he proceeded to the parking lot. He climbed into the car, placed Sophie on the passenger seat, and closed the door. Then he dug through the console between the seats and found the card for the counselor Thad had suggested.

  He needed help. And he needed to heal. He didn’t know how you even started to heal wounds as big as his. He dialed the number on the card.

  A man’s voice came alive on the
other end. “This is Ken Jantzen.”

  “Ken, um . . . this is Gray—Gray London. You know—Mackenzie’s husband—the, um, governor . . .” Gray lowered his head to the steering wheel. His voice cracked as he said, “I think I need to come see you.”

  His call-waiting signal beeped, and he checked the display. Why in the world would Anna be calling him?

  Chapter 41

  “Hey, Mack. Babe, it’s okay. It’s okay.” Gray’s words were soothing as he knelt in front of her in the tiny lounge of the ladies’ room.

  Mackenzie sat in a green fabric chair with her legs curled underneath her. She rocked back and forth, staring at Gray and Anna, but her mind was a world away. They might as well have been strangers.

  “She ran out into the parking lot.” Anna shook as she spoke. “It was all I could do to get her in here. I’ve never seen her like this. We’ve got to get her some help.”

  “It’s okay.” Gray’s voice kept the same soothing tone. “I’ve got her. Will you make sure no one comes in for a few minutes?”

  Mackenzie’s eyes darted around the room. Even this bathroom mocked her. The changing table attached to the wall. The seating area for nursing mothers. Everywhere she went, the world seemed to scoff at her.

  Gray placed his hands on her knees. “Let me take you home, Mack.”

  She slapped at his hands. “Don’t touch me.”

  He moved his hands. “We just need to get you home.”

  She jumped up from the chair. “I don’t want to go home. I don’t ever want to go home.” Her tears started in a fresh surge. She walked over to the changing table and jerked at the latch. The long plastic table bounced as it fell open. She tugged at its straps in a desperate attempt to wrench the table from the wall.

  She felt Gray’s hands encase her. “Stop. Please. Stop.”

  “Let me go!” Her words came out with a venom she didn’t know was in her. “Let me go!”

  He held on tighter. “I won’t. Come here.” His words were almost a whisper. “Babe, come here.”

  Her grip on the nylon straps was almost like an animal’s, but he was finally able to pry her away. He pulled her back toward the chair, and she flailed wildly in his arms. “Let me go.”

  “Mack, you’re going to break something or end up hurting yourself.”

  “I don’t care! I just want to die! I should have died! Not Maddie! Not our—” Her voice choked with another burst of tears.

  “I know. It hurts so bad.”

  She kept jerking within his grasp, and he finally let her go. She stood there shaking in front of him. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way!”

  His own tears were falling now. “I know, babe. I know.”

  “I should have been a mom so many times by now. I should have children everywhere. But I don’t! Do you know what I have?” She walked back to the changing table and slammed her fist on it. “I have a diaper bag with nowhere to take it! I have an empty baby book with nothing to record in it! No first tooth. No first haircut. I have baby hangers that will never hold baby clothes.”

  She grabbed the table and began slamming it up against the wall over and over. “This is all wrong! My life wasn’t supposed to be this way! I want to die! I want all of this over, and I just want to die!” Her body collapsed in desperate sobs.

  She felt Gray bend down and encircle her again. “I’m glad you didn’t die. I need you.”

  Mackenzie all but spat her words at him. “You need someone to help you win a campaign! You don’t need me.”

  He shook his head adamantly. “No. That’s not true. I was wrong with what I said last night. I was just hurting. I do need you. I do. But none of this is going to change anything. It won’t bring Maddie back or get us another baby.”

  “You blame me! Go ahead and say it—it’s all my fault. You’ve been wanting to say that since Maddie died. Tell me what you really feel, for once!” Her fists pounded his chest. “Tell me what you’ve wanted to say to the woman who killed your child!”

  Gray grabbed her hands. “That’s not true. I don’t blame you. It was an accident.”

  “You’re lying! Say it, Gray! Say it!”

  “I love you, Mack.” His words came out through his own tears. “That’s all I’m going to say. I . . . I love you.”

  He held on until her body could no longer fight. Finally she gave way beneath his strength and felt her body fold. She had nothing left. For a little while there, she’d thought the anger could help her survive. But life was too big. The pain was too great. The blackness of it seemed to swallow her whole.

  She woke in the middle of the night and found herself in bed, in a soft pair of pajamas. Gray’s arms were tight around her. She fell back asleep, desperate to never wake up.

  Ain’t got no words to tell God how grateful I be today. I waked up, and there ain’t been one flower pressed in my mind to give Miz Mackenzie. Thought sure I be off the hook. Then I seen Miz Eugenia marchin’ down the basement stairs this mornin’ with a box in her hand. And my mind gone straight to thinkin’ I ’bout to be dropped right there in the middle a my trays a seedlin’s.

  But Eugenia, she gone and surprised the stew outta me.

  “Here,” she say when she marched into my workroom. She stuck that box plumb into my chest. Almost made me jump.

  I opened it. It be white handkerchiefs. White handkerchiefs! What a man gon’ do with white handkerchiefs when he work in the dirt all day long and sweat like a pack mule? Ain’t no bleach gon’ take care a such a thing.

  I got my manners though. I tol’ her, “Thanks.”

  She flick her hand like she wavin’. “Yours are filthy. You needed new ones.” But even though she try to act like it were nothin’, I knowed Eugenia Quinn givin’ me handkerchiefs was sump’n.

  So I ax her, “What you go and give me white ones for?”

  She got that all-puffed-up look. Looked like the buttons on that pink sweater a hers done stretched or sump’n. She snatched the box from my hand. “Well, aren’t you an ungrateful old cuss.”

  “I ain’t ungrateful. I just thinkin’, if you gon’ give somebody a gift, might wanna figure out ’xactly what they need. And anybody can see a man that work in the dirt all day ain’t need him no white handkerchiefs. He need dark ones.”

  She wrinkle her forehead and pull that box tighter to her chest. “Well, a proper man would know to just say thank you when he’s given a gift, not tell the person who gave it to him what the gift should be.”

  “Guess that make me proper, then, ’cause I did say thank you first.”

  I watch her beady blue eyes get all slantedlike and think for a minute her lips gon’ squinch up so tight, gon’ need my shovel to pry ’em loose. But I shoulda knowed they’d find a way to open up. Ain’t that much green ever coursed through my valley.

  “You’re incorrigible,” she say with one a them ol’ huff things she do. “I wanted to tell you that you can give Mackenzie flowers if you want.”

  My eyes ’bout bulged outta my head when she say that. “What?”

  “You heard me, Jeremiah. Give her flowers if you want.”

  “Like any kind a flowers? And you ain’t gon’ shoot me?”

  “I’m not saying I won’t eventually shoot you.” And from the look on her face, I be believin’ she mean it. “But it won’t be because you gave her flowers.” Then she mumble sump’n, sound like she sayin’ I be right. But I know there ain’t no way this side a heaven or hell that Eugenia Quinn gon’ admit I be right ’bout sump’n.

  “If getting angry keeps her alive, we’ll settle for anger for a while. And hope . . .”

  Her words gone and trailed off then. Her eyes couldn’t look at me. And there be one li’l moment there where all that live inside a me want to break out whoopin’ and hollerin’ and laughin’ and just rub that woman’s face all up in the fact that she had to go and she be wrong.

  But I ain’t done it. Lord amercy, I wanted to, but I ain’t. I just shake my head, let her move on with
what dignity she think she got left. “I like me some hope” be all I say.

  She shifted all antsylike then and got all weird actin’. “Well, all right, then. . . . That’s all I needed to say.” She flitted her hand the way she do up ’round my flowers. “Now go back to tending whatever it is you tend. ’Cause the good Lord knows that garden out there needs to be tended to. Ought to have a gardener to come behind the gardener.”

  And off she prance. Prance away like she done her deed. Like she been keepin’ a tally for all the good deeds she need to do this year and she fulled it up in one big swoop when she hand me them dumb handkerchiefs.

  She ain’t knowed there always been a Gardener who come up behind me. And as soon as she leave, I heard him. God done tell me to give Miz Mackenzie that other bulb I been growin’ in the workroom.

  I been worried he might gon’ do that. ’Course, it won’t be bloomin’ good for another coupla of weeks. But Lord help us when it do—’cause I know what that flower mean. And if that orchid made her angry ’fore, I ain’t even wanna know what gon’ happen next.

  Chapter 42

  The world had lost all its landmarks.

  Mackenzie sat in her chair, unable to identify anything that passed in front of the window. All she could focus on was what was going on in her mind, and that was nothing but torment.

  She knew by now that grief was a cruel companion. It didn’t care how tired or weak or desperate you were. It hovered and mocked and rarely yielded. It might pull back for a brief moment, only to swoop in again through an unsuspecting word or glance or memory.

  The moments of respite felt almost crueler than the constant pain because they could end in a split second, and you never saw the attack coming.

  But now there were no more respites. Somewhere in the numberless days that passed her by, the darkness had thickened. Every waking minute, it whispered in her ear how utterly hopeless life was.