In the Light of the Garden: A Novel

by Heather Burch

  “A friend’s child?” he asked.

  She leaned forward. “Pretty sure she’s a runaway. Eighteen, though—she claims—so technically she’s an adult.”

  “That makes her a transient, not a runaway,” he corrected her. His brows were high on his forehead.

  Charity didn’t want to have to fight over this. Dalton had given her enough trouble last night about Daisy and the fact of the matter was, she was helping Daisy, and that’s all there was to it. “She’s staying with me, and that’s the end of it.”

  A crooked smile grew on Harold’s face. “Well, look at you. I don’t remember you being so stubborn, Lil’ Bit. You always seemed more of a people pleaser than a rabble-rouser.”

  She had to laugh. “That was then, Uncle Harold. I even stood up to my mother when she called and ordered me back to New York.”

  His arms spread wide. “Didn’t know you had it in you.” He winked. “This calls for a celebration. Steaks for dinner. My treat.”

  She sipped her coffee and considered her uncle. He looked as if the weeks away had aged him. “What happened in Birmingham?”

  His gaze dropped to his mug, old fingers toying with the handle of the marine-blue pottery piece. “This here is a nice mug. Did George make it?”

  She grinned. “I made it.”

  He closed one eye. “Proud of your work on this piece, aren’t you?”

  Sometimes he reminded her of Master Yoda from Star Wars. Insightful is this one. “I am proud of it.” She motioned around her. “It’s this place. It’s Gramps’s wheel and kiln and the sleeping porch and the special ingredient—”

  His eyes flashed, only for a moment, but she noticed. “There’s special ingredient in this mug?”

  “No. I only use it in special orders.”

  “And you’ve never had a special order for yourself?” He was fishing here. But for what, she couldn’t say.

  “Harold, what do you know about all this? Why would Gramps leave me a bag with an unknown substance inside and make sure I put a scoop in each order?” Mrs. Parker had wanted a plate. Mrs. Gorben had wanted a candy dish. Charity had received an invitation to a wedding from the young man who’d requested wine goblets. They’d all been overjoyed with their purchases. But why? It was just a candy dish. Just a plate.

  “All I know is, your gramps would be awful proud of you, Lil’ Bit.” Harold tipped his head back, and the morning sun got trapped in the tear in his eye.

  She reached over the table. “Harold, I know you have a business in Birmingham and surely a life there, but I was wondering if you could maybe stay here for a while. A few months maybe? I know it’s a lot to ask. But when you’re here, I feel . . . like I haven’t lost my family.”

  Old men weren’t supposed to cry. Still the tears came, and Harold fought them by pressing his lips together and swiping his cheeks with his aged hands. “I want to stay, Charity, so much, but—” His voice cracked, and he swallowed the words.

  “Harold, what?”

  He pressed his hands flat on the counter. “Things between your gramps and me weren’t good when he passed. There are things you don’t know. Things that might change your mind about wanting me here.”

  “Didn’t Gramps send you that letter wanting to reconcile?”

  He shook his head, no. “You don’t understand. That letter was postmarked weeks after he’d died.”

  Charity tried to absorb the implications. What could that mean? Was it a fraud? “He didn’t write it?”

  “Don’t know. I look at the words, and it’s his handwriting, I mean, more shaky, but it has me convinced. I don’t know what to make of it, Charity.”

  She squared her shoulders. “Letters get lost in the mail. If you believe he wrote it, I believe he wrote it.”

  He sniffed. “Why would you put such trust in me?”

  She stood from the kitchen stool and moved around the island to be near him. “You’re my Uncle Harold. You’d never do anything to hurt me.”

  They were interrupted by a knock on the back door. But as Charity moved away from her uncle, she was almost certain she’d heard him whisper, “I already have.”

  Dalton stood at her back door soaking wet, his dark hair matted to his brow and his clothes shining. “Did you run through the sprinklers?” But just as she opened the door more fully to let him in, she saw the look in his eyes. It was as if he’d trapped a chunk of sunlight and was trying to hide it. Uncontainable, it gleamed from his irises.

  “I need to talk to you.” It was a breathy few words. He reached in and took her hands. The motion drew her a bit closer, and that was when she noticed something dangling from one of his fingers.

  Charity sucked a breath as she stared down at the smallest hiking boot she’d ever seen. Was this his child’s shoe? No other personal item was more painful to see than a lost person’s shoes. Shoes were life. They represented the journey, the travels, the destinations of their owners. They stretched to fit their master. They conformed to that person’s shape. They carried the dust from where one had gone and pointed in the direction of the future. Shoes were life. And there was nothing sadder than a pair of shoes that would never be used by their owner again.

  Barely able to move, she stepped aside as he strode into the kitchen. With both hands—as if it were a delicate porcelain doll—he lovingly placed the tiny boot on her kitchen counter.

  “Charity, we have to talk about the tree.”

  Her mind tried to form a remark, but she had no words. All she could do was stare at that tiny shoe that would never again feel a little girl’s foot. It looked so lonely there, without its mate.

  “Charity.” The word—almost a command—held more substance, so she dragged her gaze from the counter to Dalton.

  “The tree.”

  What had happened to his eyes? They looked lighter.

  Dalton straightened his spine. “I’m going to tend the tree. I know you don’t like that idea, but—”

  “You mean the willow. I told you to stay away from it,” she said through gritted teeth. Her head spun. Didn’t like the idea? She’d rather have him move away from the island and never see him again than have him working on the tree.

  He came toward her. “You don’t understand. Let me explain what happened. I went and sat beneath the tree.”

  Her hands fisted. He hadn’t listened to her at all. He’d been under the tree? Charity placed her hands at the sides of her head where a pounding sensation drove her to move away from him. As she passed, she noticed that Uncle Harold was on his feet.

  Harold’s voice interrupted her wild thoughts. “I’m going to leave you two to talk.”

  Before either could answer him, he’d passed through the doorway, his feet echoing off the marble floor.

  Charity yelled for him. “Harold!”

  When he stepped back inside and paused at the doorway—ready to make a quick exit, no doubt—Charity motioned him into the room. “Look, you need to hear this, too. You’re both going to be around, and I don’t want to have to keep arguing about this. No one tends the tree.”

  “It’s going to die, Charity.” There was a pleading tone in Dalton’s words.

  There was nothing she’d like more.

  Harold took a small step toward her, causing her to look at him. She’d expected to see understanding on his face, but all she saw was concern. “You’d let the willow die? Charity, I can’t believe that.”

  Shame rushed over her, but quick on its heels, determination. “I know objects aren’t evil, but the willow—”

  Harold didn’t seem to hear her. “Your grandfather loved the willow.”

  Her hands fisted with years of frustration. No one understood.

  Dalton approached her. “Why do you hate it?”

  Of course no one understood. She’d never explained. “There are a lot of poems and legends about willow trees. That you’re not supposed to plant them at night, that if you cut yourself on a willow branch, it will cut everyone who touches it. But the o
ne I always remembered was about trimming the branches.”

  “What about the poem, Charity?” Uncle Harold asked. “That’s the legend you can believe in. I know George and Marilyn recited it to you a thousand times. I heard them.”

  The poem had played like a record in her head for years. But that was before her eleventh birthday and the last summer she’d spent here on Gaslamp Island. She tried to force the rhyme from her head, but Harold’s voice interrupted her.

  Will you come, sit with me.

  We’ll tell our troubles ’neath the tree

  The tears we shed will surely be

  Water for the weeping tree.

  And in its shade our woes will fall.

  Pain and suffering, sorrow and all

  They’ll fall like glistening diamond drops.

  You see, the tree, our pain, it stops.

  Dalton took ahold of her arm. “Charity, that’s what happened to me. I sat under the tree, and I can’t explain it, but . . . it gave me hope.”

  Her head hurt. Her stomach was sick. “No. The tree doesn’t give. It takes. I was supposed to trim the branches.” Charity felt the tears welling in her eyes. “When I turned eleven. Gramps gave me the task of trimming the branches, but the tree was so big, and I only trimmed the ones on the front. I let the back of the tree grow. I didn’t like being back there where no one could see me.”

  Dalton shook his head. “OK.”

  “The legends. The one I always remembered was that if you didn’t trim the branches, and if they touched the ground, someone you loved would die. My gram died after I went home that summer. It was my fault.”

  She heard something behind her and turned just in time to see Harold losing his balance, his face pale. She and Dalton both dove for him, her hand reaching out and closing around the sleeve of his shirt. His weight fell against Dalton, who helped him onto the nearby bar stool.

  “Uncle Harold, are you OK?”

  But his look was bewildered. A set of watery blue eyes darted around them. His gaze finally landed on Charity. “Oh, Lil’ Bit.” His age-rough hand cupped her cheek. “Your grandma’s death wasn’t your fault.”

  The look of absolution in his eyes caused her to want to believe. But her hard speculation shot it down. She’d carried the weight of her gram’s death. It rested on her shoulders. Right where it was supposed to be. “Let’s get you to the living room where you can lie down.”

  Before he could protest, Charity cupped her shoulder beneath his arm, and with Dalton on the other side, they helped Harold to the couch.

  Once he was stretched out, and Charity had covered him with a throw, she cut her eyes to Dalton. “We’ll talk about this later.”

  She knew he wanted to protest, but he was a wise man and also knew she’d met her quota of brick walls for the day.

  When Harold mumbled, she bent closer to hear him. A crooked finger pointed at the chandelier fixture above his head. “You got cobs.” Then he closed his eyes and slept.

  End of summer, 1996

  Charity’s grandma’s funeral was the first one she’d ever attended. Were they always so sad? Did the sky always cover the sun with clouds when the preacher spoke of the great reward waiting on the other side at a place he called Glory?

  After the ceremony, they pulled the car into the driveway of her gramps and gram’s house. Now that Gram was gone, was she supposed to just refer to it as her gramps’s house? So many questions. Kendrick and Momma kept her between them, each holding one of her hands as they stepped from the car. Kendrick’s hand was cold and sweaty, and Charity didn’t like holding it. He’d pushed Charity away at first when her momma had suggested they walk to the front door of the big mansion like this. Momma always thought of how things looked, and she’d whispered to Kendrick they needed to make it look good. She dabbed her eyes with a napkin from McDonald’s as Gramps opened the front door. Charity tried to pull away from Kendrick, but that only made him angry. He squeezed Charity’s hand until she could feel the throbbing of her own heart in each fingertip. Charity had tried to ride with Gramps, but her momma had snagged her by the collar of her black dress and mumbled, “Oh, no you don’t.” She’d shoved Charity into the backseat.

  There at his front door, her gramps looked sick. His whole head seemed covered with wrinkles that she’d never even noticed before. On the porch, he knelt to hug her, and she stepped into his arms and could have stayed right there forever. When Kendrick started talking—eyes sad and saying all those things people said when someone died—Gramps stood from his spot. Charity half expected him to scoop her into his arms, but he didn’t seem to have the energy to do it.

  Inside, Gramps made Twinings Earl Grey tea. Charity dragged its full scent into her lungs. On the couch was Gram’s favorite quilt. On the side table, her reading glasses. Charity stared and stared at them, trying to gather all the magic she could, trying her best to will Gram back into the room. Surely, she couldn’t be gone. Not really gone. Not forever gone.

  With the grown-ups in the kitchen, Charity sat on the cold marble floor of the parlor and stared at the library. She reached behind her and dragged Gram’s quilt from the couch and curled inside it.

  Kendrick was talking about how he and Ellen were going to get married and how they wanted to help Gramps in his time of need. But Gramps’s tone sharpened as he asked questions and apparently didn’t get answers he liked. Charity’s momma took over the conversation. She talked on and on about how she hadn’t done right by Charity in the past, but they had changed all that.

  Had they? Charity didn’t see any difference in anything. If anything, things were worse for her. Momma spent every waking hour looking at herself in the mirror and asking Charity if she thought Kendrick still found her beautiful. Charity’s momma was the most beautiful woman in the world. How she couldn’t see that herself defied Charity’s comprehension.

  When the grown-ups started arguing, Charity knew she needed to interrupt them. She had to tell them the truth. It was going to change everything. With courage she could only have drawn from knowing a devastating secret, she headed for the kitchen. She stepped inside, still wrapped in the blanket and opened her mouth wide to admit the sin that had taken her gram’s life. But she froze when three sets of eyes landed on her. Gramps’s filled with pain, Momma’s flashing anger, and Kendrick’s loathing her interruption, or maybe her entire existence. She lost her voice. She tried to croak out a word, just to get started, but no words came. Would Gramps look at her the way Kendrick and her momma did once he knew Gram’s death was Charity’s fault? She’d never survive that. Not from Gramps.

  Charity’s hands fisted around the quilt, and she ran through the kitchen and right out the back door through the sleeping porch and into the yard. Before her, Gram’s garden shone like balloon bouquets of bright colors. Off to the right stood the weeping tree.

  Charity’s heart filled with anger—maybe hate, it was such an intense emotion. It propelled her forward. But she stopped, narrowed eyes darting from side to side, searching for a weapon. There, sitting on the ground by the shrubs at the back door sat Gramps’s garden ax. She grabbed it up in one swoop and stomped toward the willow tree. It was her fault that her gram was dead, but it was the weeping tree’s fault, too. If she’d only been brave enough to tend the tree and trim all the branches . . . but the back of the tree was scary. Why she felt no fear now, she didn’t know.

  Her hand was slick with sweat, and she swiped it on the quilt that was now slowing her, dragging along behind as if it knew she needed to stay away from the tree. But despair made her courageous, and she used the ax to part the branches and step under the tree. She stopped cold. It was darker here. Long branches arched over her head. There were bare sections of dirt below her feet. When the wind rose, and the branches answered by swaying, she lifted the ax high overhead and took five full steps toward the massive trunk. “I hate you,” she said and swung with all her might until the ax lodged into the flesh of the tree.

  Over and over
again, she repeated the motion until her face was slick with tears, and her arms ached. She tried to focus her blurry eyes but couldn’t. Sweat matted her hair to her head, and bits of tree bark speckled her black dress. Charity dropped to her knees, the ax slipping from her hand and landing on the ground. She pulled in a long breath, and as she exhaled, it was as if all the sorrow she’d ever felt or could ever feel had rushed to the surface of her being. A silent scream stayed on her face as she dropped to the ground and lay down beneath the tree. “I hate you,” she whispered again and covered herself with the quilt.

  Time passed, and the branches moved, but Charity refused to look out from under the quilt until she felt a tapping on the covering. She uncovered her head, half expecting pixies to be dancing atop her, but it was only rain. She wished the rain could wash away her guilt. She wished it could take her pain and make it disappear like she’d disappeared beneath Gram’s quilt. But there were no fairy answers to her problem.

  Soaking wet, Charity stood. When a warm breeze moved into the space around her, she lifted her arms wide and let the rain wash over her from head to toe. She stayed like that a long time. Until the rain stopped, and she knew it was time to go back inside the house. But as Charity stepped out into the bright sunlight, a shiver ran over her flesh. Something was gone. She hurried from under the tree, leaving the quilt behind, and ran to the door of the sleeping porch. There she stopped to take in the view behind her. The tree, speckles of color on the ground where her gram’s quilt lay getting dirty. Charity was wet, and her momma would tan her hide for getting the dress so filthy, but it was inside Charity’s heart that the real problem lay. The tree had stolen a piece of it. It surely had. Because Charity knew it was her fault that her gram was dead, but the guilt she knew should be there was gone.

  CHAPTER 10

  The Secret

  For three weeks Charity mulled over what Dalton had said about the weeping tree. In that time, she’d allowed memories from her past to flood her. Again and again she’d gone over that day when she stood beneath the weeping tree searching for clues to things she couldn’t understand.