The First Gardener

by Denise Hildreth Jones

She had thought her surge of anger would last, that she could use it to her advantage and somehow outsmart her grief.

  She had been fooling herself.

  Before she threw that orchid at Jeremiah, she had never thrown anything in her life. Afterward she had wanted to throw everything she touched. The deep rage had felt like it was coming from her toes. But once she expended it, it had left her expended. And since then she had nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  There were still moments when the present would press in. She’d hear a word, catch a glimpse of something that actually registered. But for the most part she lived in this empty well. A pit of black and heaviness and tormenting voices in the key of “if only.”

  If only she’d stopped the car and made Maddie put on her seat belt.

  If only she’d set a better example.

  If only she’d taken better care of herself when she was pregnant, not tried to do so much.

  If only . . .

  The voices beat at her mercilessly until she took the medicine Thad had given her. Then they simply echoed more quietly, joining the voices of all the people who kept trying to intrude on her silence.

  More than anything, she wished that the voices would all stop. Just leave her alone.

  Gray seemed different, though. That much she noticed. He was there almost all the time now, trying harder to reach her. But he was just one more distant voice calling her to stay in a world she wanted with all her heart to escape.

  And in those rare moments when the voices silenced long enough for her to hear the sound of what she thought might be her own heart, she realized this world of nothingness was far scarier than the world of fury. She was certain that when she reached the bottom of wherever she was headed, there would be no retrieving her.

  She didn’t know what that meant, and in this torturous occurrence of yet another day, she wasn’t sure that she cared. But she did for a moment wonder if there could be a darkness darker than what she was now living. And something inside her stirred the thought that there actually was.

  Chapter 43

  When Gray woke up the morning after Mack’s breakdown, she had reverted back into her shell. He had tried to engage her, talk to her, but she’d given him nothing.

  He had hung around anyway. For the last two weeks he had done everything for her and had made it clear to everyone that was how he wanted it. He brought her breakfast. He brought her lunch. He bathed and dressed her.

  Jeremiah’s words about the azaleas rang over and over in his mind: “They worth tendin’ to. Fightin’ for. And a really wise gardener, a gardener that know he don’t know it all—he get real good at listenin’ to what heaven tell him ’bout how to tend ’em.”

  It had taken him a while, but now he felt he was finally listening.

  Because after Mack’s meltdown at the mall, when he finally got her to the car, he had heard heaven whisper. And it had clearly said, “Love her.” That’s what he was trying to do in every moment. He was loving her the best he knew how.

  Whether it would be enough, he just didn’t know.

  Another couple of weeks remained before the house and senate were due to deliver their final budget bills. His lawyers were working diligently on the VRA court case. And he had told Fletcher they would not hire a new chief of staff—not yet, anyway. For the next few weeks, Fletcher was simply to remain on message. And the message right now was that the governor was taking a respite with his wife to make a final decision about running for a second term.

  He had assured the public he would let them know before the April filing deadline. And it was already the first week of March. Newman was rising in the polls, but Gray’s numbers were descending faster than Bradford pear trees could bloom—and around here that was practically an overnight occurrence. But with Mackenzie this way, he knew there was only one thing he could do—be the husband he had committed to be. In sickness and in health.

  The bedroom door opened. “Get out,” Eugenia’s voice instructed him.

  He looked at her over the top of his readers and put down the book he had been reading to Mack. “I’m not leaving, Eugenia. I told Fletcher I’d be back in the office Monday, and I will. But it’s Wednesday, not Monday.”

  Eugenia picked Sophie up as if she were a sewer rat and handed her to Gray. “Go. You need fresh air, and I need to spend some time with my daughter. You’ve had her long enough.”

  He took his readers off, set them on the table beside him, and looked at Mack. She sat unmoving in her chair by the window, looking out at God only knew what.

  He did need to get away. To breathe. To live, even if for just a minute.

  “Sure you don’t mind?”

  She nudged him out of the chair. “I wouldn’t have offered if I minded.”

  He leaned over Mack and kissed her on the head. “I won’t be gone long, babe. Just going to take Sophie out to walk.”

  She never moved.

  Eugenia touched his arm. “Go, son. I’ll take care of her.”

  “Thanks, Mom.” He kissed her before he left.

  He and Sophie were headed to the front of the house when the yellow school bus stopped next door. He watched Oliver’s coffee-colored curls bounce as he darted down his driveway.

  Every time Gray saw Oliver, Maddie’s memory offered no grace. It roared to life with maximum impact. And it was so vivid. He could see her and Oliver jumping on the trampoline, playing on her swing set, entertaining Gray and Mack with dramatic performances on Sunday nights after pizza.

  He refused to push away the memory. He let the grief pass through him and felt the ache it produced in his gut. That’s the promise he had made to himself in his father’s room, a promise his sessions with the counselor had reinforced. He wasn’t going to run from his grief any longer. Instead, when grief showed up, he was going to run into it. He would hold it, feel it, absorb its impact. Then he’d move back into the life that, for whatever reason, he’d been left to live.

  Live—he had forgotten what that really meant. When Maddie was still with them, every moment vibrated with life. In his grief, his anger, his self-pity, he had forgotten what life actually felt like, and he was just now realizing it. He hadn’t watched a single football or basketball game except the one that day at the sports bar—and he hadn’t really seen that one. He hadn’t had a belly laugh since he couldn’t remember when.

  He lifted his face to the sun as it pressed gently against his skin. He hadn’t been aware of that sensation since Maddie’s death had removed his ability to feel anything except pain.

  Then he opened his eyes and called Oliver’s name. He had just thought of something that would make him feel unimaginably alive.

  The boy turned at the sound of his voice. His hand shot up. “Governor!”

  Gray stepped closer to the black wrought-iron fence that separated the mansion grounds from Oliver’s house. “Hey, buddy! Can you come here a minute?”

  Oliver flung his book bag to the aggregate stone of his driveway and broke into a lanky trot, his skinny knees flashing white under khaki shorts. Gray smiled. March had brought them nice weather, but not shorts weather. Obviously second graders were impervious to chilly temps.

  Oliver reached the fence. “What ya got, Governor?”

  Gray squatted down so he could be closer to Oliver’s eye level. Sophie stuck her head between the rails of the iron fence, straining to get as close to the boy as she could. She caught Oliver’s attention first. “Sophie!” he hollered. He knelt and rubbed Sophie wildly on the head.

  Gray sank into the soft grass on his side of the fence. “Oliver, I was thinking. Since you and Maddie never got to have that lemonade stand, what do you say you and I make ourselves a lemonade stand this afternoon?”

  Oliver cocked his head. Sophie did too. They both seemed to be wondering if they could take Gray seriously.

  “Like you and me on the sidewalk?” Oliver looked toward the street. “Okay, we don’t have sidewalks. So . . . like on your driveway? But wait! You’re t
he governor, right? I bet you could get someone to put us some sidewalks in real quick.”

  Gray laughed. “Well, I don’t know if we could have them in by this afternoon, so how about we just do it right over here on the driveway? I’ll go ask Rosa to make some lemonade, and I’ll get a table—”

  “And I’ll make the sign!” Oliver jumped up so his feet could do a little dance. Then he stopped abruptly. His brow furrowed. “But I’ve gotta tell ya, Governor. I think we should ask for a buck and no less. This economy is killin’ us.”

  Gray had to bite his lip. “You don’t think a buck is a lot for a cup of lemonade?”

  Oliver’s bushy eyebrows pulled together, almost making one full brow across his head. He twisted his lips back and forth and scratched his head as if this was the biggest decision he had made since starting second grade. “Nah,” he finally said. “With you being the governor and all, I’m sure we can get a buck.”

  Gray decided there was no budging Oliver on the price. So he’d just find some big cups.

  Oliver leaned toward the fence and whispered as if they were plotting the next great military attack. “Meet in an hour. Right here. We’re gonna kill it, Governor. By the time we go to bed, Warren Buffett’s gonna be jealous.”

  Laughter had to be released with that statement. And Gray felt it. All the way to his soul, he felt it. The boy must have been listening to his economist father. Maybe Gray should hire Oliver and his dad to help fix the budget. Right now, though, he had a lemonade stand to run. “I’ll see you in an hour,” he said.

  Oliver pointed a finger at him. “Make sure Miss Rosa doesn’t use any of that fake stuff. We’re going real lemons, real sugar all the way.”

  Gray nodded. “Got it. Real lemons, real sugar. No fake stuff.”

  “Get on ’em, Governor!” And with that, Oliver was off.

  Gray eased himself up from the grass, groaning slightly from the effort, then looked at Sophie, who was already whining for Oliver to come back. “We’ll be millionaires by bedtime, girl. Budget crisis solved.”

  He started toward the house. She gave up and followed. And as they walked, a little piece of his heart felt like it was headed home.

  The lemonade sale had been a success in so many ways. Oliver made forty bucks in the span of two hours. Of course one of his customers had given him a twenty just to get him to quit talking. And a little girl who stopped with her mother in their minivan had given him five dollars mostly because she thought Oliver was cute. And two troopers from Gray’s security detail had drunk two glasses apiece just because they had to stand out there with them.

  Oliver was clueless about those dynamics, of course. As far as he was concerned, he and Gray were bona fide lemonade tycoons. Gray let him think it. The whole experience had done his heart good.

  They had just begun to tear down the stand when a black van pulled up. “It’s a buck,” Oliver said as he extended a plastic cup.

  Gray recognized a familiar clicking sound and looked up to see the zoom lens of a camera extending from the back window. The driver stuck his arm out, something black clutched in his fingers. The troopers moved in quickly. “Hey, hey,” the kid behind the wheel protested. “It’s just an iPhone.”

  One of the officers jerked it from his hand. Gray stepped forward quickly as he moved Oliver out of the way, lemonade splashing on the pavement as he did. “It’s okay, Clint. Give him back the phone. He’s a kid who didn’t have anything else to do but come check on the governor today.”

  The officer handed back the device, and the young man extended it toward Gray. “Governor, any comment on the budget that the house and senate are about to pass?”

  Gray knew the phone’s recording function was on. He had a phone just like it. He shook his head.

  “So is this what you do with your respite—play at a lemonade stand with neighborhood boys?”

  Oliver bowed out his chest. “Hey, I’m not a boy. I am a young man.”

  Gray bit his lip, trying his best to hide his growing anger. “I’m doing what people do when they take a break. I’m relaxing.”

  “Do you really think this is a time for the governor to take off? People are losing their homes. You’re asking everyone to cut back, and you’re getting a paid vacation from the taxpayers.”

  Gray felt his pulse quicken. “For over three years I’ve held this office, and I’ve taken a total of only twenty-one days off to be with my family. Frankly my wife needs me right now. And I don’t have to—no, I won’t apologize to you or anyone for it.”

  “So making lemonade is taking care of your wife?” The question came out snide and smart-alecky.

  “It’s time for you to go,” Gray said calmly.

  “Yeah, if you ain’t giving us a buck, you need to get to the getting,” Oliver announced. Then he added with a wave of his hand—accurately, for a change—“Au revoir.”

  The two young men drove off, and Gray made sure Oliver was okay before he sent him home. He could only imagine what stories the boy would come up with from this or what the reporters would do with what they’d discovered.

  But Gray knew what he’d gotten from the afternoon. For the first time in more than six months, he’d actually had fun.

  Chapter 44

  Eugenia brushed the thick black hair that fell across her daughter’s back as she’d brushed it a thousand times. “Baby girl, you’ve got to eat. Rosa has told me that your plates are coming back untouched, and you can’t do that. Your body needs food.”

  Mackenzie’s head tilted back slightly as Eugenia pulled her hair into a ponytail. Eugenia glanced at a vase filled with white violets. It was all Jeremiah had brought Mackenzie since Eugenia had told him that he could start giving her flowers again. They meant “let’s take a chance.”

  Eugenia knew what he was trying to say with the violets. He was trying to call her daughter back out, encourage her to take a chance on living. And in the depth of her soul, she appreciated him for it. Mackenzie had never once bothered to ask what they meant. But Eugenia made a point of telling her anyway.

  As Eugenia pulled the ottoman out, Mackenzie shifted her feet to make room.

  “You can’t survive this way, and I need you to survive.”

  Mackenzie turned her face toward her mother’s. Her eyes were sunken dark circles. “I don’t want to survive.”

  Eugenia felt her breath leave her. Hearing Mackenzie say it out loud caused fear to race through her like blood through her veins.

  “You can’t say that!” She grabbed Mackenzie by the shoulders. “If you were supposed to die, you would have died. But you didn’t. And I’m not going to let you. Do you hear me?” Eugenia’s tears broke loose with such force that she threw her head across Mackenzie’s lap, wrapping her arms around her daughter’s bony legs.

  Mackenzie didn’t move. Eugenia’s dam of strength burst and seeped out across her daughter’s bedroom. But she didn’t care. She no longer cared. If it took her daughter seeing her heartbreak, she’d let her see it.

  She finally raised her head and saw that Mackenzie wasn’t even looking at her, just staring out the window. She stood and quietly walked to the bathroom.

  She heard the bedroom door open. “Mom?” She could hear concern in Gray’s voice.

  “In here.”

  He came around the corner, relief apparent when he caught sight of her. Then his face fell. “What’s wrong? Did Mackenzie say something?”

  “No!” Eugenia didn’t care who heard her. She pointed toward the bedroom. “She doesn’t say anything! She is dying, Gray. My daughter is dying.”

  Gray pulled her into a hug, and she let her head fall to his chest. “You’ve got to get her some help. We can’t just let her shrivel up and die.”

  He held her tighter. “I know. Thad and I have already talked about it. He’s arranged for a wonderful psychiatrist to come evaluate her on Monday. He said that what he’s had her on doesn’t seem to be working, and he wants to bring in a specialist.”

 
; He pushed back and held her shoulders, looking into her eyes. “I don’t know what will happen. The doctor may try another medication—and give her a little time to see how that works. Or he might think she needs to be in the inpatient program at Vanderbilt. But I’m committed to doing whatever it takes to get her back. You know that, don’t you?”

  Eugenia studied his clear blue eyes. They looked so different now than they had just a couple of weeks ago. Calmer. More focused. More there.

  “Of course I know that,” she said quietly. “I’ve never doubted how much you love my girl, Gray.” She rubbed her eyes. “All that psychiatrist stuff—I don’t know much about it. But I know my baby is sick, and I’m for anything that will get her well.”

  He nodded and released her. “I know you are. Now, you go home. I’ll take care of her tonight. But come back tomorrow because I have someone I need to go see.”

  Eugenia wiped her nose. “Okay, but please get her to drink or eat something.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  Eugenia walked into the bedroom to her daughter. She leaned down and pressed her head to Mackenzie’s. “I will not let you die. Do you hear me?” When Eugenia raised her head, she saw a tear roll down one of Mackenzie’s sallow cheeks.

  A glimmer of hope seeped through her. If Mackenzie could cry, she was feeling something. Tonight Eugenia would take that.

  Chapter 45

  Mackenzie didn’t try to stop the tears. Her mother’s words were true. Mothers did everything in their power to help their babies live and not die. She knew that. And she also knew that she was the ultimate failure.

  She had heard Gray and her mother talking and knew what was being planned. But she didn’t care. If they put her in a hospital room and pumped drugs inside her for the rest of her life, she would be grateful. Anything to help her forget.

  Gray lifted her from the chair. He carried her into the closet and began undressing her so he could put some pajamas on her. He had done this every night since her breakdown. She had done nothing, felt almost nothing. In fact, this was the first tear she had shed since that day.