“Ah,” Eudora said. “But even under the shadow of death, one can celebrate life. Each day with a loved one is a blessing.”
“I’m not sure that applies to AIDS.”
“Dahlia had a drawn-out death. Cancer. But we took joy where we could, right up until the end.”
They climbed the slope behind the pond, and Felix forgot to check his watch. Eudora paused by a cluster of ceramic pots in grays and browns that spewed over with plants in eclectic shades of green, gold, and bronze. He looked up—across the green water of the pond, streaked with orange fish, to the white steps and multihued walls, and, finally, to the pergola and the backdrop of forest. The gardens were surrounded by naked trees, and yet the plant beds were filled with layers of life.
“Splendid view, isn’t it?” Eudora said. He turned to find her watching him. “Do you have a favorite plant?”
“Everything I know about plants comes from Tom, from his tales of plant folklore. Ivy always appealed. In Celtic tree astrology, ivy is a tree—the strongest of them all. At Tom’s suggestion, Ella had ivy in her bridal bouquet to represent endurance and fidelity. Mother, who believes ivy belongs in churchyards, was quite horrified.”
“I often wondered why you folks chose not to rip up the ivy on your property. To most people, ivy is little more than a parasite.”
“Tom taught me that it symbolizes survival—the ability to overcome all odds.”
Eudora nodded. “Seems I learned something from you today, son. But oh, would you look at that!” A young man dashed past, carrying a backpack and wearing outrageously high stilettoes. “Only a man would wear heels to a garden.”
“It would seem so.” Felix laughed—a stolen moment of pleasure. This was another reason he loved the heart of Durham: the downtown pulsed with creativity, especially in historic Black Wall Street, where he worked, with its art deco buildings, funky cafés, and nonsensical one-way system that could appeal only to a Londoner.
He stopped by a spreading magnolia, its twisted branches whispering, Come climb me. Tom would have loved it, would have created a whole world of make-believe in its boughs.
Eudora kept walking. “And now I’m taking you to the best part,” she called over her shoulder. “The Blomquist Garden, started in 1968 by the first chair of the botany department at Duke.”
With the cold stinging his cheeks, Felix jogged to catch up. For an older woman, she walked at a fair lick. “And what makes it special?”
“Nine hundred species of native plants. I have a feeling you’re someone who will appreciate that we grow the real beauties here,” Eudora said. “Not the gaudy sun perennials that want to flash everything they’ve got like cheap hookers. You have to look hard to find the pockets of beauty in my garden.”
“Your garden?”
But Eudora was no longer listening. She strode ahead, slowing down when they entered an intimate fairy-tale forest. The path narrowed and switched to pale stone. Crazy paving, Tom would have called it—stone slabs haphazardly slotted together in a way that defied time, feet, and the extremes of weather. The formal, structured sweep of the Historic Gardens was replaced by a hint of controlled but wild beauty. Above the towering hemlocks, the clouds broke apart to reveal slashes of blue sky.
Eudora was right—so many pockets of beauty if you looked hard enough: trailing catkins and clusters of reddish pitcher plants that looked like rhubarb stalks with curling ends. (Such fascination he’d had for carnivorous plants after Tom had shown him a picture of a Venus flytrap in Encyclopædia Britannica.) A dead stick jutted up through the leaves; the sign next to it read “Northern Catalpa.” He would research that on the Web when he got to the office. See if he could find a picture of it in full leaf.
“Here, smell this.” Eudora had stopped by a small, unimpressive tree, but as Felix moved close, he spotted tiny pom-poms of reddish blooms. He had never seen anything quite so weird or wonderful. Ella should definitely plant one of those.
“Hmm.”
“Witch hazel.”
Birdsong surrounded them, and they ambled along a gravel path that meandered down a short flight of steps.
“This railing . . .” Felix reached for a red wooden handrail so shiny it glowed.
“Magnificent, isn’t it? Believe it or not, I helped with the sanding. Heavens to Betsy, that was some job. Several weeks of eight-hour-a-day shifts.”
Of course he believed it. Nothing about Eudora surprised him.
“Red cedar,” Felix said. “Long lasting and slow to rot.”
“And always the first tree to colonize when the land is no longer farmed. Very common in the North Carolina landscape.”
“What’s the finish?”
“Polyurethane. Come,” Eudora said. “There are more rails up ahead.”
The path snaked through the trees, and they followed in silence, passing through the endangered species garden and over a small bridge with more cedar railings. Such a simple, organic idea, yet so beautiful—not unlike the earrings Ella used to make. As he walked, his mind drafted design ideas for a new bridge to their house. He imagined the joy of working with his hands again. Of creating beauty.
The ground was hilly but the slopes gentle. Ahead, nestled in the leaves and sitting on the brow of a slope, there was a cedar shelter shaped like a giant bird feeder with benches. Presumably for bird watching. How inventive. More cedar rails led up toward it, the end post richer and darker than the others. Felix stepped forward. He couldn’t help himself; he had to stroke the wood. For a moment, he thought of Harry. Always touching, unable to stop.
“This piece appears to have been burned at one time.” It was as smooth as he’d imagined.
“Such stories in this one rail, and the flaws make it beautiful. All the timber came from Durham. From an old moonshine distillery, unless I’m mistaken.” She touched his upper arm briefly. “Look,” she whispered. “On the bird feeder.”
“A woodpecker?” Felix said.
“A downy woodpecker. What a handsome fella.”
They continued along the woodland path and down another flight of steps, and Felix paused to stare at a pavilion that overlooked a small pond. A flash of sunlight broke through the trees, turning the water luminous. To their left, a mossy nook closed around a circular stone dais with two wooden benches flanking a round stone table.
“A hobbit’s grotto,” Felix said.
“Isn’t it just?” Eudora settled herself on one of the benches. Felix sat opposite.
“I think we’ve avoided the issue long enough,” she said. “Tell me about Harry.”
A squirrel shot through the leaves, and Felix raised his face to a flickering patch of sunlight. Harry was right; Felix always sat in the sun. And yet he’d talked Ella into a house that was tucked away in the shade. He lowered his head slowly and held Eudora’s gaze.
“He left his laptop open with a message to his girlfriend on the screen. A message in which he called me a rather unpleasant name. I doubt he intended for me to find it. Harry is scattered but not malicious.”
Eudora nodded. “I suspect his ADHD means he often leaves things undone.”
“Did I tell you about that?” He frowned at her.
“No need.”
“You don’t miss much, do you?”
“At my age, I miss plenty.”
Water babbled down a small waterfall sculpted from mossy boulders.
“We had a pair of red-shouldered hawks in the garden once,” Eudora said. “Very protective of their nest, they were. One morning, we found them attacking a baby owl. Couldn’t adapt, you see. Couldn’t accept that little owl posed no threat, unlike his mama or his daddy.” Eudora raised her eyebrows. Again, he was aware of hidden meaning in her words, a lesson he couldn’t grasp.
Felix leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “My son hates me.”
“That’s not true, hon.”
“I haven’t been much of a father to him.”
“No.” She patted her perfectly pinned
hair bun, or french roll, or whatever an updo was called these days. “You haven’t been.”
“Thank you. I’m so glad we had this conversation.”
“Mistakes are human. Learn from them, but leave regret where it belongs—in the past. It’s the future we need to pay heed to.”
Felix glanced at his signet ring with the Fitzwilliam family crest and motto. If only it were that easy—walking away from the past.
“When Dahlia died, I didn’t think I could go on. Son, I was sure I couldn’t. But then I thought about my remaining time on this precious earth. I haven’t visited China yet, or New Zealand.” Eudora paused. “I want my tombstone to read ‘She Lived Out Loud.’ You, hon, need to start living out loud.”
“I’m not an out-loud person, Eudora.”
“Golly bean, you do have some dusty ideas in that brain of yours.”
Golly bean?
“You can be whoever you want to be, Felix. No one is responsible for your happiness but you. What do you do for fun?”
Felix watched two small birds flit in and out of dead undergrowth on the forest floor. Would they be nesting soon, starting a bird family? “I don’t have much free time. What I have is devoted to fixing up the house.”
“Your house doesn’t need fixing up. It’s delightful. You’ve lived there for, what—sixteen, seventeen years? And all that time you’ve been modernizing it, decorating it, changing its very nature?”
Felix raked his fingers through his now permanently ungelled hair. “Trying to bring it up to standard.”
“And will it ever be just the way you want it to be?”
In the forest behind them, the woodpecker hammered away. Rat-a-tat-tat; rat-a-tat-tat.
“No.”
“Well, there you have it. Stop looking around corners, Felix Fitzwilliam. Enjoy the glorious now.”
The sun disappeared behind a cloud; a sudden chill settled on his shoulders and slunk down toward his heart. “What if my wife is dying?”
“If that’s the good Lord’s intention, then even more so.”
Felix stood. Why had he allowed that thought in his head? Why had he allowed it to come out of his mouth? Every day he spun in ever-decreasing circles, trying to eat his tail like the mythical dragon Ouroboros. How could he pick up his life and move on when this fear for Ella gnawed at him constantly? The forest slipped into full shade; the clouds had thickened and re-formed while they’d been talking. It would be dark early tonight.
“My last year with Dahlia was the happiest of my life because I allowed it to be. Did I have days when I wanted to scream and cry at the injustice of it all? I sure did, son. I’m no saint. But I didn’t spend life waiting for death to show up on our doorstep. Her prognosis was very bad, but miracles happen. And those doctors? Heck, they don’t know who’s going to beat the odds and be in that slim percentage of survivors. If you’re too busy worrying about what might be, you forget to enjoy what you have.”
“I miss her—the real Ella. She shuffles around the hospital as if she’s little more than a ghost.”
“She’s still Ella, hon, but she’s been through a life-changing event. Well now, so have you and Harry. Y’all need time to heal. I can help out with Ella when she comes home, but it’s you and Harry I worry about. You need to be looking after each other.”
“And how do you propose I do that if he hates me?”
“Dang. For a smart guy, you don’t listen as well as you should. Just because something’s always been one way doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. As I see it, some adapting needs to be going on, and I’m guessing that’s not your thing. But life just handed you an opportunity. You’ve been given a second chance to be a daddy.”
Felix stared at layers of decaying leaves piled on top of each other. Spring had become a distant fantasy. “Suppose I was never meant to be a father?”
“Bit late to decide that, don’t you think?”
Felix smiled; he couldn’t help it. “Is this your ‘suck it up’ speech?”
“Fatherhood doesn’t come with an expiration date, and that delightful boy of yours will need his daddy until the day you die. This time next year, he’ll be a young man thinking about graduating from high school. An exciting time, but terrifying, I’m sure, for such a homebody. And when he does finally fly the coop, he’s got to know his daddy will have his back. Wherever life takes him.”
“That’s typically been his mother’s role.”
“No reason he can’t turn to both of you. This isn’t an either/or situation. And while I’m being so candid, you need to ease up on yourself. Life isn’t perfect, and people sure as heck aren’t. We’re broken and messy and a hornet’s nest of contradictions. And yes, that includes you, son. I think if your own daddy were alive, he’d congratulate you for being a true family man this last month.”
“My father was a bastard,” Felix said.
“But you, Felix, are not.” Eudora gave him a withering stare. “You’re a good man.”
“I’d like to believe you, I really would.”
“It’s the gospel truth.” Eudora stood slowly. “I don’t lie.”
They began walking again and emerged back on the sandy path that ran straight like a Roman road.
“Why are you helping us?” Felix said. “And please don’t insult me with talk of southern hospitality.”
“Does kindness need a reason?”
“In my world, yes.”
Eudora raised an eyebrow, looking like an aged version of Samantha in Bewitched. (Tom had loved that show. One of the few American imports on the BBC in those days.) “Then we need to expand your world.” She paused for a shallow sigh. “It was obvious to any person with half a brain that your family needed help and you were stubborn as a mule and bound to say no. Depositing myself in your garden to take care of things I was pretty sure didn’t interest you seemed the best way to start. After that, it became apparent.”
“What became apparent?”
“That you need more help than your wife and son.”
Felix stood still as anger prickled through his muscles and up into his jaw. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t know where your demons come from, hon, and it’s none of my business. But I sure do wish you’d figure out how to enjoy that boy of yours. His heart, well, it’s big enough to feed the world, the way I see it.”
“My son is a disorganized mess.”
“Powdered sugar on a doughnut. It’s what’s inside that counts. First time I met your son, I was carrying in groceries. He came rushing over to help.” Eudora smiled the smile that took its time to unfold. “I’ll never forget him leaping over my flower bed, arms outstretched, shouting, ‘Wait! Let me!’”
“I hope he didn’t crush any of the flowers on the way over.”
“See. There’s my point. That’s why you need my help.”
“What?” Good grief, his voice had become a parody of Mother’s imperial tone.
“Seems to me you always have a mind to focus on finding fault, not celebration.”
A young man in a bomber jacket trotted by and raised his chin in greeting. “Hey, Eudora.”
“Hi, hon.” She waited until he was out of earshot before continuing. “Now. What about taking a trip—just you and Harry? A weekend in Boone, maybe?”
“I don’t have time for a jaunt to the mountains. But spring break is around the corner. I’m planning a college tour.”
“With Harry’s input, of course.”
Felix tugged up the collar of his coat. Yes, there was definitely snow in those clouds. “Every time I raise the issue, he refuses to engage.”
“I suspect he’s scared.”
A hawk cried and Felix tensed. “Of me?”
“Of his future. The threat of change can be a fearsome enemy. Would you like me to talk with him?”
“No, thank you. I’ll give him one more chance, and then I’m moving ahead with my plans. Time is running out.”
“Well, I’m sure you know best.” Again with t
he smile. Underestimate it at your own cost.
I do; I’m the father here. And no offense, but you’ve never had children. The conversation had begun to annoy him, and he didn’t want to appear rude.
“I should return to the office. Thank you for the”—he hesitated—“advice.”
“My pleasure,” she said, and walked back the way they’d come.
Felix marched in the opposite direction. He had wasted enough time. He needed to focus on Harry’s future; more specifically, he needed to arrange a trip to Harvard. Harvard was the key to Harry’s future, just as Oxford had been the key to his.
TWENTY-FOUR
Would Dad be up for a driving lesson this weekend, or was he still pissed? Duh. Turned with a knife in his hand and snarled no when Harry offered to help with dinner. ’Course, he shouldn’t have suggested that it would be easier to chop the onion in the food processor. Dad 101: never make helpful suggestions.
As Max had said so eloquently at lunchtime, “You, my friend, are in some deep shit.”
Dad hadn’t spoken to him since last night. Questions about school, like “Do you have your lunch box?” didn’t count. Did he now have the Dad Situation as well as the Mom Situation?
Going to Sammie’s had probably been a mistake, but removing himself from the house had seemed the best plan. If he’d stayed, he might have thrown out something far worse than Nazi neat freak. Thing is, he wasn’t angry anymore. Dumping on Dad had been surprisingly liberating. But worth it? Hell, no. The tension in the house was now heavier than southern humidity in August. With anyone else, he would have fallen on his sword. Apologized and been done. But this was Dad. The guy who’d taken to smashing heirloom glass. (Yeah, he’d uncovered the evidence in the garbage.)
Harry picked up a piece of graph paper from his desk, folded it into a paper plane, aimed it at the trash can. Yes!
If only he were outside shooting hoops, burning up megawatts of energy, but that meant walking through the dining room—the new Dad Work Zone. This Life Plan shit seemed to be a do-or-die deal, but weren’t they all? And now that Dad’s work had crept into the house, started taking over, everything felt prickly again. What had his psychologist said? “Behavioral contagion, Harry. Remember the mantra: this is not my stress.”
The Perfect Son Page 21