The Garden of Happy Endings

by Barbara O'Neal

  Deacon smiled. “You bet.” He held out his hand. “What’s your name, honey?”

  “I’m Paris Jennings.”

  “Deacon McCoy, ma’am. And I promise I will treat him like the young prince he is.” Her fingers were cold in his own and he thought maybe he’d order an extra meal and send it up with Calvin when they got home.

  “Come on, boys,” he said. “Let’s get some grub.”

  Elsa was flung out of sleep in the cold predawn. She must have made some noise of protest as she hurtled through dream space to land with a hard crash in her own bed, because Charlie leapt up and nosed her palm.

  In the dark stillness, her heart raced. She stared upward into the night sky, haunted by a shard of an image, Kiki’s blue-starred fingernails digging into the earth.

  This was the worst of it. She could not stop thinking about the details. What sound had come from the girl’s throat? What tool had made such terrible marks on her young skin, her sweet young belly?

  It made Elsa feel sick to her stomach, how she kept returning to the violence.

  With a groan, she shook her head back and forth, trying to dislodge the images. But in the darkness, in the middle of the night, they always came back at her. Wearily, she flung her legs over the side of the bed and set her feet on the cold floor. If demons existed, she figured this was the form they would take. Horrific thoughts.

  She padded softly into the hallway, wrapping her robe around her. Tamsin’s door stood open, and Elsa peeked in on her sister, who looked like a teenager, with all her long hair spread out around her. Gently, Elsa closed the door.

  In the kitchen, she put on water for tea. The clock on the stove said 4:07. Not even the slightest bit of light yet broke the night. Somewhere, she’d read that more people died at this hour than any other. The dark before the dawn.

  She had begun to hate Sundays. Rubbing her hand over the top of her belly, as if she could scoop out the lump of tangled emotions that lived there, she wished it were a different day, at least. That there was something she could do that would replace all her years of Sundays in church. The ritual of it. The punctuation to her weeks.

  The joy of it.

  Yesterday, she’d had an email from a congregant, a woman whom Elsa could never love no matter how hard she’d tried. The letter was bitterly angry, accusatory—and probably fair. Elsa had left them at their moment of greatest need. But she had truly been falling apart, and without confessing the truth of her own crisis of faith, which would be worse for all of them, she’d had no alternative than to let them think it was her decision, rather than the board’s. As it was, she’d hung on for six weeks longer than had been wise.

  Better to leave the flock in the chubby, fatherly arms of Reverend Harris, who could gently nurse them through their year of grief. She had tried. She had failed.

  But she missed them. Missed the congregation and the church and Sunday mornings and standing up to deliver a lesson. She missed fellowship hall afterward, catching up on the tidbits of news from everyone, being present for the lonely, the devout, the children.

  Water boiled in the kettle. Elsa poured it over a strong English tea bag, and was transported back to the days when she had learned to drink it, in England. For a moment, she felt the press of cold damp air on her skin, air that had made her hair into such a kinky mass that she could do nothing with it at all.

  She’d fled to England after Joaquin had announced his decision to be a priest, without any plan in mind. She knew only that she could not return to the States or linger in Spain. At least in England, they spoke English. She got off the train in London with a horde of other backpackers, who swept her up into their midst, teaching her the ropes of working under the table, finding the crap jobs that nobody else wanted.

  After a month, she knew she wasn’t going to go home for a while. She left the noisy, crowded landscape of London, however, and began a pilgrimage on her own—a quest to find her own purpose. If she was not meant to be Joaquin’s wife, then what?

  Back in her house in Pueblo, Elsa took her fresh cup of tea to the front porch and shook out one of her contraband cigarettes. It could be tricky to hide the fact that she was smoking now that Tamsin was staying with her. At the moment, however, she lit a Kool and blew out the smoke with a gusty sigh of satisfaction. Huddled in her robe, with strong caffeine at her side and a cigarette burning, she felt the world set itself aright again.

  In England, she’d gone on a quest for the feminine side of God. The idea had come to her in a forgotten little church in a village along the Camino. Its graveyard lined the street. Elsa liked the idea—it would be so nice to have your loved ones close by, right around the corner instead of a long drive away. Joaquin disagreed. He thought it was sad.

  But they had both loved the church, tiny and ancient. It was noted for the lusty carvings that decorated its exterior, but it was inside that Elsa experienced one of the most profound moments of her journey. Praying beneath a shrine dedicated to the Blessed Mother, she felt enveloped in the Divine. For the first time, she experienced God as a woman, with long dark hair and a ripe goddess smile.

  Of course, Elsa thought.

  In England, it was as if that Divine Feminine, that Goddess energy, had laid a trail for Elsa to follow, whimsical at times, heartbreaking at others. She wandered through cathedrals and tiny chapels, north to Scotland and the old goddess islands, through the ruins of cloisters, where women had been sheltered and freer than many of their compatriots. She visited an ancient rowan tree that was rumored to hold the spirit of the Divine and slept there. As she slept, she was prompted to go to Glastonbury.

  Taking a sip of tea, Elsa smiled to herself. Glastonbury. It was equal parts hippie side show, tourist central, and genuine spiritual center. She sensed the power of the place the minute she stepped off the bus, and shivered in anticipation and worry.

  It was an old, old place. Sacred to the pagans before the Dark Ages, then central to the tales of King Arthur, and later still, the site of a vast, thriving cathedral and monastery.

  Elsa at first thought she had been called to the Tor, a lonely, much celebrated spire at the top of a hill, but though she found it beautiful, it had not spoken to her. Below, in the wells of Mary, she had felt stirrings of truth and spirit.

  But it had been in the ruins of the cathedral village that she’d found herself overcome. Once it had been a lively, beautiful place, filled with monks and nuns and pilgrims and ordinary citizens lucky enough to find themselves attached to it. Elsa wandered the grounds, imagining a medieval world full of riches and comforts, imagined herself as an abbess with keys on her belt, devoted to study and God and the women in her care.

  She saved the ruins of the cathedral itself for last, looking for what many thought was Arthur’s grave. A band of tourists had been there, but they wandered away as she came into the space, leaving her entirely alone to look at the roofless walls. She wandered, hushed, shocked that so beautiful a space had been wantonly destroyed by King Henry in his selfish quest to balk the Catholic Church.

  One man, she thought then, could build or destroy, could change time and history, for better or worse. One man.

  Or one woman.

  Standing in the green, green grass in the ruins of Glastonbury Cathedral, Elsa suddenly knew that she still wanted to preach. She could not be a priest in the current Church. But there were places she could be a minister.

  As if the Goddess herself applauded Elsa’s decision, a flock of butterflies sailed into the space, dancing in fluttering waves around her, their wings flashing blue.

  Elsa laughed. And she went home to study with Unity.

  Now, as dawn peeked over the eastern edge of the world, she thought of that healing time and wondered if there was some pilgrimage she needed to make now. Did she need to walk away her grief and loss of faith?

  She didn’t know. She certainly had no peace at the moment. She had no idea if God was a lie she’d told herself all these years, or if she was just on strik
e.

  She drank the last of her tea, found a pair of wool socks, a heavy sweater, and Charlie’s leash. He jumped down from the couch and trotted over eagerly, tags clinking. She left a scribbled note for her sister, still sleeping. Dog and woman headed out into the misty morning.

  This, too, had once been her meditation time. Charlie tugged on his leash and pulled Elsa toward some massively fantastic smell, yanking her out of her reverie. He snuffled across the weeds, nestled his nose into the depths of the damp yellow grass.

  Once upon a time, she would have prayed during this walk. Started a friendly conversation with God, about this and that, problems and joys, concerns and excitements. It had been such a joy, to reach out and feel that constant, loving presence.

  All those years, such a long habit, her prayers. She felt like she was going through detox. Detox from prayer! The thought made her laugh. There could be twelve-step programs, only instead of recognizing the presence of a Higher Power, they could recognize the fact that humans were alone in the universe, condemned to brief lives, then snuffed out. No more than bees or moths.

  Fleeting. Forgotten.

  As she continued walking, she realized that she was heading for the soon-to-be garden. Skirting the church, where the first Mass would start in an hour, she headed for the field in back.

  The rectory windows glowed yellow in the low light. She thought of Joaquin, preparing himself for the day, washing and shaving and praying, and blinked away sudden tears of longing. She missed it, the sense of purpose, that immovable, solid knowledge of why she was on the planet. A fierce stab of jealousy burned in her lungs.

  God had always loved Joaquin more than he loved her.

  The fog deepened, casting a deep hush over the space, swallowing the church behind and the apartments ahead, and she felt suspended in a cloud, alone in the entire vastness of the universe. She stopped and bent down to let Charlie off his leash, then stood there as he ran off, her hands loose at her sides, breathing in the cool mist.

  A young man emerged from the gloom, head down under a dark blue hoodie, his hands tucked deep into his jeans. Elsa had seen him around before, and she waited for him to look up so she could say hello, but he shuffled by without speaking, lost in his own thoughts, his mouth working as if he was talking to himself. In a moment, he was swallowed again, and Charlie came bounding from the other direction, carrying a stick. With great ceremony, he dropped it at her feet and waited for her, bounding out of sight as she threw it.

  The gloom lifted ten feet or so, revealing a glimpse of the open field, and Elsa blinked, amazed all over again at how much work they’d done yesterday, how the hands and backs of all those volunteers had turned a dump into this level, waiting place of potential. Stakes had been set up at intervals. Curious, Elsa paced between two of them, ten feet or so.

  Into the hush came the sound of a Native American flute, floating, eerily, as if it were being played by a ghost. Elsa blinked and peered into the mist, goose bumps rising on the flesh of her arms and her scalp. In her quest for truth, she’d spent a summer with the Lakota once upon a time. The wistful, haunting sound tugged at her now, but she didn’t want to disturb whoever it was.

  She whistled quietly for Charlie. He did not come, and she walked the way he’d gone. His form emerged from the fog, sitting in cheerful expectation in front of an old Native American man Elsa recognized from the soup kitchen. His eyes were closed as he played. She stopped, closing her own eyes to let the sound move through her, loosening something in her shoulders, easing through her belly. Almost without thinking, she took in a long, slow breath, tasting the cool morning, the promise of spring in the scent of fertile earth, sweetened by a faint grassy note.

  The song ended. Elsa opened her eyes to see the old man looking at her with a smile. “Aho,” he said, a twinkle in his eye. “You’re the soup lady.”

  “That’s right. And you’re Joseph, Mario’s grandpa, right?”

  “Yep. A good boy.” He gestured toward the cleared field. “I was calling the ancestors to bless this land.” He frowned. “They say there’s some trouble here, but they’ll help us.”

  “Are you a shaman?”

  “I do what I can,” he said. His voice was raspy with age, and his braids were silver shot through with threads of black. “This is good, to grow things. It brings people together, makes a spirit whole, to put your hands in the earth. It makes the Mother happy.” He put his finger on his nose, like Santa Claus, and with a teasing glint added, “That’s Mother Earth, you know.”

  Elsa chuckled. “Thank you.”

  He said, “I could use some help drumming. You think you could drum while I play?”

  “Um, sure.”

  He gestured for her to follow him and he picked up a big round drum from a tree stump. Using a stick covered with hide, he pounded it with a firm, powerful hand. “Like this,” he said, nodding his head each time. “Like your heart. Can you do that?”

  “I can try.” Charlie trotted behind her, curious. Elsa gripped the drumstick and brought it down somewhat gingerly. It whispered.

  “Harder!” Joseph cried.

  She brought more force to it. A powerful dum came from it, sending a wave of energy up her arm. The man nodded, spun his hand. Again.

  She hit it again, and tried to find a rhythm, counting under her breath, one two three four, one two three four. He seemed to approve, because he picked up the flute and started to play, weaving sweetness around the rumbling throat of the drum.

  Without warning, she was suspended in the otherworld, feeling the ancestors or ghosts, or whoever they were, rustling around them. She imagined that they were bringing blessings and cleansing energy to the field, preparing it for the miracle of food.

  What is true? What is real? The silent prayer slipped from her almost without her notice, and she let it stay and hang in the foggy air only because this old shaman needed her for his own form of magic, and even if she didn’t believe, he did. It was something small her hands could do this morning.

  * * *

  Paris Elaine Jennings was named for the city she was born in, which she had left in the middle of the night when she was fourteen. Not Paris, France, but Paris, Kentucky. It was a silly name, she thought, and it made her sound like somebody she wasn’t, which was why she had named her own son Calvin, a solid name. A name that a boy could grow into. A Calvin could be anything. Calvin Jennings, CPA. Judge Calvin Jennings. President Calvin Jennings.

  And he was a beautiful boy, too, with that perfect hair that mixed kids so often had, and his daddy’s big brown eyes. She could see his daddy in him in lots of ways. Not that he’d been around for a long time—he’d shipped off to Iraq only ten months after they’d started living together. She was pregnant when he left, though she didn’t know it, and when she found out, she thought she’d wait to tell him. For a while. She didn’t know when. He wrote her emails and clung to her in a way that made her feel so good, not like other guys. He was true and real. He loved her.

  And he got himself killed. They weren’t even married, so she was up a creek. Neither her folks nor his would have wanted anything to do with their baby. Not a mixed-race baby in Kentucky, and not in Georgia, either, where Calvin’s daddy was from with his pretty, soft drawl. She was on her own.

  She worked, yes she did, as a grunt in a nursing home for eight dollars an hour. Hard, dirty work. Sometimes the old people were mean to her. One old man always tried to pull her hair, but she knew he was just out of his mind with age and sadness. The apartment was rent-subsidized, and she got food stamps from SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, but it wasn’t but $162 a month. That didn’t buy as much as you would think. It always made her laugh when the politicians started complaining about abuses of the system. She’d like to see them live on $162 a month in groceries. Some of them probably ate at restaurants that cost twice that for a single meal.

  Muttering under her breath, she poked through the cupboards, wondering how she’d feed them b
oth for the rest of the week. She’d had to fix her raggedy-ass car and it had taken just about everything she had. She’d even taken her jar of change over to Safeway to cash it in. All that was left was five dollars. She’d had to do it; the car was how she got to work.

  But that left almost two weeks to get through before the next SNAP payment. She didn’t have two weeks of SNAP left, and they’d have to eat careful. She took stock. There was most of a gallon of milk left. One can of tuna. Some store-brand Cheerios, and rice. They could eat rice, but not all week. She’d maybe get some eggs for two dollars, and leave the milk for Calvin, and send him over to the church to eat at the soup kitchen on Thursday. That was one good thing, having the church right here. After the twelve o’clock Mass on Sunday, they served coffee and pastries and little bits of meat and cheese. She and Calvin made a big feast of it. She didn’t mind going to church if it meant they could eat. Father Jack told her God didn’t care if she was Catholic, and that she was welcome at Mass.

  Outside her window was the freshly turned field. It had been an eyesore before they cleaned it up, all kinds of junk and weeds growing in there, and the gang boys smoking and talking till late in the night. It was a dangerous place. Haunted, she sometimes thought. Her bedroom window looked out that direction, too, and sometimes she thought she saw blue lights dancing around. Somebody at work told her that it was swamp gas. Maybe it was.

  Now, though, the field was clear and open, and she had claimed one of those plots, you better believe it. She and Calvin would grow their own plants, just like she had as a child. Collards and beans and tomatoes, fresh and juicy. Squash because it was easy, and she liked yellow squashes, especially, steamed with just butter and salt. Corn, because Calvin wanted it. And of course, his magic bean seeds, which his teacher had given to all of the children on Valentine’s Day. He was sure he’d grow a beanstalk to find a giant, and she’d let him discover on his own that it was miracle enough to grow something in the earth to feed yourself.