Savannah packed her one bag, but in that heat could not find the energy to get in her car and drive sixteen hours back to San Francisco. Instead, she walked to the mermaid fountain, where even the algae beneath a foot of water had turned brown and died. She crawled right into the bowl, her red dress fanning out around her. She scooped lukewarm water onto her neck and shoulders, but it dried on impact.
Her mother came out ten minutes later. Savannah scooped another handful of water and splashed it on her face.
“I spit in that bowl every morning,” Maggie said.
Savannah hesitated, then went on splashing. Maggie reached into her pocket and handed over a twenty.
“Are you serious?” Savannah asked.
“Don’t I look it?”
Savannah looked at the cash, then climbed out of the fountain. “Well, it’s thirty now.”
Maggie turned and went back in the house. She came back carrying another ten, shoved it at her, then walked into the garage.
Savannah stood there as steam rose up from her dress. She was having trouble reading fortunes. She’d let in a few customers last night, and had predicted new love for a man who’d been happily married for thirty years and revenge for a woman who had everything. She might get the Ten of Cups, the card of peace and contentment, in her mother’s recent past. She might get anything.
Blisters were forming on her feet, though, so she went in the garage. Maggie had already sat down at the table and swiped everything that had been on it—books and magazines and Savannah’s hats—to the floor.
The fan was oscillating in the corner, but the torpid air refused to budge. Already, the hem and arms of Savannah’s dress were dry. Sweat slid down her neck, curling around each shoulder blade. She picked up the vivid Voyager deck, but Maggie scoffed at it.
“Those are too pretty,” she said. “Get me the ruthless cards. You think I’ve got anything to fear now?”
“I threw them all out.”
Maggie smiled and walked to the makeshift kitchen. She opened the top drawer and started pulling out Savannah’s old decks. “Rider-Waite. The Yeager Tarot. The Thoth. My God, what kind of name is that?”
Savannah stared at her, too hot to ask why her mother had saved what she did not believe in.
“Which has the worst odds?” Maggie asked, swiping at the sweat on her forehead.
“The Rider-Waite.”
“All right then.” Maggie brought the deck to the table. She sat down, brushed the sweat off her palms, and started to shuffle.
“You don’t believe in this,” Savannah managed to say.
“Well, maybe I don’t have the luxury of not believing anymore. Did you ever think of that?”
“I don’t know if I can read this for you. All my fortunes have been coming out strange.”
“Stop acting scared. I don’t care what you have to do, Savannah, just read my fortune. My husband’s dead and I’ve got one more chance to tell him I love him, so you just sit down and tell me how to do it.”
Maggie shuffled the cards ruthlessly, twelve times, then held them out. Savannah hesitated only a second, then sat down and laid them out. The heat strangled clear thinking, because she automatically reverted back to the old Celtic spread.
The first card was the King of Swords, which was no surprise. The King was the card of force, an authoritative, controlling person. The crossing card, though, was the Hierophant, the card of timidity, mercy, and forgiveness.
“I don’t know what that means,” Savannah said.
Maggie stared her down, and Savannah looked back at the cards. It was getting hard to even breathe now. The flies in the window were languid, lying on their backs on the sill. Savannah pulled her dress away from her chest and fanned it. “Your future and destiny go together. The Tower and Six of Swords. Both are cards of major changes. A trip or journey.”
Her mother said nothing, and Savannah noticed she had stopped sweating. She was looking over Savannah’s shoulder at the corner. Savannah laid out the last four cards, then massaged her temples.
She could have started crying when she turned over the King of Wands, the card of fathers and honest men. Or later, when the Star, the card of hope, came up as her mother’s final result. Then the room turned cool as rain and was drenched with the smell of garden soil, of incense cedar and sweet peas and Breath of Heaven. Squeaky sounds escaped her mother’s lips, and she looked up to find Maggie Dawson crying.
Savannah followed her gaze to the corner, but saw nothing. If anything was truly there, it had not come for her. Her father was bred to love her, but loving Maggie had required of him a daredevil leap of faith. For thirty-six years, Doug had risen to the challenge of loving his wife despite everything, and he may never have known that in return, Maggie had become a different person from the one she had intended to be. She had had a happy life despite herself.
Savannah got up from the table and walked outside. She stood in the hottest spot, where the sun reflected off the garage and melted pavement, where even the sun-loving sage had wilted. She stood until she was burning up. It was a sad, sad thing to realize her mother was more prone to romance than she was. It was pitiful that Maggie Dawson was the one seeing her lost lover as a shadow on the wall.
Maggie came out ten minutes later with the Star tucked into her pocket and tears all down her cheeks.
She reached into her other pocket and pulled out a wrinkled piece of paper.
Savannah looked at it, then began to shake. Somewhere along the way, she must have stopped believing in everything, because she even doubted this. It was a poem written in her father’s hand, and at the top was a hand-drawn portrait of eight stars and a woman, a perfect copy of the Star.
“I don’t know how to break this to you,” Maggie said, “but one way or another, if you’re lucky, love will break your heart.”
Savannah reached out to touch the paper, but recoiled when she felt how cool it was, like a slab of ice. She slid her hands into the pockets of her dress.
“Did you see Dad?” she asked.
Maggie turned away. She slid the poem back into her pocket and looked at the sky. “It’s all mumbo jumbo,” she said, but she was crying hard.
“That may be, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”
Maggie walked to the mermaid fountain and ran her hand over the copper rim. “The lineup is on Monday. In case you want to stay.”
Savannah walked over and laid her cheek against her mother’s shoulder. Right now, in San Francisco, it would be cool as a cave. The bay would be dotted with sailboats, the hills smothered in pastel houses that looked like flowers. Tonight, there would be a chill in the air, the better for lovers to kiss and girls to wrap themselves up in red-hot dreams. San Francisco was the city of desire, but only if her heart was in it. Only if there was nowhere else on earth she’d rather be.
EIGHTEEN
JUSTICE JUST REWARD
Whoever opened the front door was light on their feet, nearly silent, but what unnerved Jake more was that the intruder didn’t rouse the dogs. Rufus and Gabe were both downstairs, lying by the fire, and they ought to be going crazy. Instead, he heard their toenails clicking on the hardwood floor, Gabe’s fat tail thumping against the wall.
He sat up in bed. Since he’d moved back to the loft, he’d been disoriented and achy. Maggie and Doug must have moved the bed a few inches, because whenever he looked through the skylight, all the stars seemed out of place. Orion and Cassiopeia sneaked closer together each night, until she’d coiled herself around his belt. When dawn broke, he swore the sun rose out of the west. Besides that, he’d grown used to the unyielding concrete floor in his workshop. Softness just taunted him.
He got to his feet soundlessly. The gun was still in the locked gun cabinet downstairs, useless. He looked around for a weapon, then froze when he heard footsteps coming up the stairs.
“You’re this close to a bullet between the eyes,” he bluffed.
The footsteps stopped, then started up again
. Jake grabbed the lamp off the bedside table.
“Don’t shoot,” the voice said, and then a feathered hat rose up out of the stairwell.
Jake set down the lamp. It was almost certain he was dreaming, and if he was, then he just wouldn’t wake up. Someone had come back for him, and he would like to end it right there, with the one happy ending he was entitled to. He prayed she didn’t say another word.
Savannah walked toward him and would have kept on coming, if he hadn’t stuck out his hand and stopped her a foot away. “Whatever you’re doing,” he said, “you might want to reconsider. No doubt I’ll be picked out of a lineup Monday morning.”
She brushed aside his hand and slipped her arms around his waist. He closed his eyes tight. He might not be good enough to love, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to take what was offered. That didn’t mean he was a fool.
She tilted back her head to kiss him, and when she was done, she smiled. “We’re ditching Roy.”
She grabbed a few of his clothes, then pulled him downstairs. The dogs were already in her car, tearing up the leather upholstery. Jake looked back at the house, where he swore he saw Roy Pillandro standing on the roof, meteor dust building up on his shoulders.
“You see that?” he asked.
Savannah followed his gaze, then slipped her arm around his waist. She smelled so good he didn’t care if he was crazy or not. She kissed the warm pulse at the corner of his neck.
“He can haunt you all he wants,” she said, “he’s still dead.”
Jake pulled himself up straight. He knew he couldn’t outrun the police—they would hunt him down eventually and bring him back. All at once, though, he knew he could do something about a ghost. It was as easy as turning his back on him. All he had to do was walk away.
They got into the car and Savannah turned the key. The roar of the engine drowned out any outrage Roy might be spewing. Her headlights cut right through the heart of his black soul.
“Ready?” she said.
Jake reached out and fingered the green silk feathers on her hat. He marveled at the blue glow of her rings on the steering wheel. “Let’s go.”
She pulled out of the driveway and he didn’t look back. He let out his breath when they reached the road. Sometime life masqueraded as complicated, when really it was as simple as moving on.
She drove for twenty minutes down the treacherous road before even looking at him. “You want to know where we’re going?” she asked.
“I don’t care.”
She stopped the car and turned off the engine. In a painful heartbeat, she crawled onto his lap. She ran her palms down the smooth skin of his cheeks and chin. He had shaved off the beard the day Doug Dawson died, and no hair had grown back since.
“Did I tell you I love you?” she asked, tracing his jaw, the curl of his ear.
“Not that I recall.”
“Well, I’m telling you.”
He took off her hat and tossed it in the backseat with the dogs. “All right.”
He opened the door and carried her to a soft spot by the road. The meteor shower was worse than ever, poking holes through the sky. Up around Flagstaff, four thousand hits had been recorded in a two-hour period, shattering windshields and choking off lakes, but miraculously killing no one. No one knew where the next strike would land, and if it would be deadly. People led braver lives than they imagined just by walking out their front doors.
He slipped his hand under her dress, around the hot, inner curl of her thigh. He could live without her, he’d proven that, but there were degrees of living. You measured its quality by the things you dared to love: a home, a dog, a woman, a child. Each demanded a greater offering and returned a bigger slice of rapture, until it was as fierce a thing as a man could stand.
She tugged at his pants and he pulled them off. When he slipped inside her, he closed his eyes. He didn’t even bother to check what was streaking out of the sky. He was just going to take his chances.
“I love you too,” he said. Where she kissed him, he could feel her lips curling up in a smile.
Later that night, as Savannah drove them wherever it was she thought they would be safe, Jake slept soundly for the first time in weeks. When he finally opened his eyes, it was morning, and they were in the green, wrinkled hills of northern California. Savannah was drinking coffee, which she must have picked up somewhere along the way.
“We won’t go to my house,” she said. “We’ll stay at Ramona’s a couple days. I already called her. She’s got some ideas, some friends in out-of-the-way places. We can disappear off the face of the planet, if we want to.”
He woke up a little more now that he knew what she wanted. He reached for her hand and held it tightly. No one had ever tried to save him before.
“Savannah,” he said, but she just shook her head.
“Don’t even think about saying you’ll just wait around for Cal to arrest you. Don’t even dare.”
He wouldn’t, not with the look in her eye. He just reached over and turned on the radio, as if everything might still turn out fine.
Emma registered for eleventh grade at Danville High because she had to, because her stepmother was standing right there, watching her every move. But she wasn’t going to show up for a single chemistry class. If it was up to her, she wouldn’t come out of her room ever again. She wouldn’t even breathe.
Melinda took her home after registration and poured them each a glass of milk. Emma hated milk, but she didn’t have the energy to fight Melinda’s kindnesses. Her stepmother had already bought her new flannel sheets for the fall and pasted stars on the ceiling of her bedroom. She’d slaved over her previously favorite meals, none of which Emma could eat, because food just stuck in her throat.
Melinda picked up an envelope from the counter and held it out. Emma didn’t take it. She recognized her mother’s handwriting, and just the sight of those curlicue letters made her stomach roll. She wasn’t going to forgive her mother for anything. She was never going to speak to her again.
Melinda opened the envelope for her. She read the letter, then took out the card behind it and set it face down on the table. Though she ought to have been drained dry, Emma still managed to start crying all over again.
She was not going to turn over that card. She thought about how quickly she could be up and out of that house, throwing herself in front of traffic, but instead Melinda put a hand on her shoulder. Somewhere along the line, this woman Emma had had every intention of hating had thrown out an unexpected lifeline, and it had taken hold. Melinda never gave her enough time alone to kill herself. She spent all her time and energy making up reasons Emma should just hang on.
Melinda slid the letter in front of her. “Mothers just go on adoring you,” she said. “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Despite herself, Emma looked up. She stopped crying for the barest instant. She took the paper out of Melinda’s hand and read it.
Emma,
Loving you has always hurt going down, and
I’m glad. I surrender.
Mom
Melinda sat down beside her and gathered her in her arms. Emma didn’t want to love anyone but Eli, but they were making it so hard.
At some point, she reached for the card her mother had enclosed and flipped it over. “Jeez, she is so obvious.”
Still, after Melinda had gone, she slipped the card in her pocket. The Three of Cups, the card of compromise, the card of mothers and daughters.
They had one good night at Ramona’s, and that was something. A few blissful hours of thinking they were free. The night even lingered a while, the sun stayed dim behind the fog, to give them time to say what they needed to say. It was all they could have asked for, under the circumstances.
In the morning, Savannah and Jake and Ramona sat at the kitchen table planning where they should go.
“The Russian River,” Ramona said. “Carol and Fred Tarkinton live in a little cabin you’d never know was there
. Fred’s still hiding out from the draft.”
Savannah looked at Jake, but he was staring out the window, watching the fog drift past in clumps.
“All right,” she said. “Give me directions. We’ll be there by this afternoon.”
After Ramona left the room, Jake walked back and took her hand. “What I’m thinking is—”
Savannah rose up and kissed him. “Don’t think.”
“Savannah—”
“Just don’t. For once in your life, you’ve got to trust another person. Do you think you can do that?”
He stared at her, then finally nodded. They went to the guest room and packed their things.
Savannah kissed Ramona goodbye. She had one moment of thrilling expectation, then she opened the door and walked straight into Cal Bentley.
“It was Dan Merrill,” Cal said. “He’s been antsy for weeks. Once we got the lineup scheduled, he went on out to Jake’s cabin. It wasn’t hard to track you down.”
Cal took out a cigarette and lit it. In forty years on the force, he’d been solid as a rock, but now his hand was shaking. “He took it on himself to let San Francisco PD know you’d crossed state lines. They took it out of my hands. All I could do was ask to come along when they picked you up.”
Savannah looked past him, to where two more cops waited on the curb. “He’s not under arrest.”
“No. But he’s a prime suspect. It all depends on the lineup. The rest, well, it’s all circumstantial. A judge would throw it out in a heartbeat. But that woman … We’re just going to have to see what the witness says.”
“This is crazy,” Savannah said. “The man’s been dead fifteen years. He’s a goddamn ghost, Cal. There are some people who plain deserve to die.”
Once the words were out, she knew she couldn’t take them back. She didn’t even want to. They were words that hung in moist California air forever.
The Wishing Garden Page 30