The Garden of Happy Endings

by Barbara O'Neal

  And then, when I had a very bad week with my ex, who had taken pretty much everything already and wanted to take my house, which I was trying so hard to keep and keep nice, it was the one good thing in my life, and I was so mad and so lost and so sad that I was afraid I might go back to drinking if I didn’t do something, and I remembered about Unity and that lady, so I looked up the times on the computer and went that very next Sunday.

  You won’t remember, of course, but you talked that day about love. How could God love me less than I love my dog? Which I don’t have a dog, but I have a cat and he is my best friend in the world. (His name is Jordan and he’s a giant creamy tabby with blue eyes. The prettiest cat you ever saw.) And you talked about animals and how they love us and something in me just gave way, like I never thought of loving myself the way Jordan loves me, which is a lot, you should see the way he looks at me, and he comes running when I get home from work, and purrs on my chest. I’m his favorite thing and he’s mine, but I’d never thought about it the way you said it that day, how God loves us like that. Always I thought about God being this big judgmental president kind of guy, and what you said made me imagine that if I could see him, he’d give me a hug. Because no matter what, he’d love me like I love Jordan and Jordan loves me. I started to cry right then, and I knew I’d come back. I loved the way you looked up there on the stage or altar or whatever it’s called, with your hair all curly and your pretty scarves and your bracelets rattling on your wrists. You have a voice that’s easy to listen to, too. Like music.

  And I guess I’m getting embarrassed now, that you’ll think I’m a crazy stalker person, but I wanted to let you know that. And I know I’m just an ordinary person without any skills or whatever, but if you ever want to talk, I’m sure willing to listen.

  Your friend,

  Maggie Reims

  Elsa didn’t recognize the name Margaret, but she knew who Maggie was, a time-worn woman in her forties. She volunteered with the cleaning committee and the library and, just before Elsa had taken her sabbatical, she had stepped forward to be an usher for the coming year. It would be good for her to greet the congregants as they came in, giving hugs or handshakes.

  Abruptly, Elsa exited the program, stinging. The work we are meant to do. If she wasn’t going to be a minister anymore, what would she do?

  Who would she even be?

  No time to worry about it now. She had to take a shower and get over to the church. It was the end of the month and the soup kitchen would be busy.

  She left a note for her sister.

  Don’t forget! Come to the church by 8:30 and there’s wine in it for you tonight. We really, really need your help today, so please come.

  When she peeked out of the front windows, there were no reporters, thank heaven. She leashed Charlie and zipped her coat, pulling on a wool cap and gloves. It wasn’t light out yet. Not unusual—she often walked to the church before dawn on soup kitchen days—but something lingered from her forgotten dreams, something dark and bloody and evil. For a moment, she paused on the step, listening. Charlie waited with her, looking up with a puzzled expression on his snout, his tail sweeping slowly side to side behind him.

  “I know, you’re right. Let’s go.”

  She walked briskly, only realizing after several repetitions that she was chanting the rosary under her breath, a very old habit. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee …”

  How she had loved Mary as a teenager! It made her feel slightly foolish to chant the rosary now, but—even so—she imagined a capsule of blue light falling down around her, making her invisible to those who would cause her harm, keeping her warm and safe. Just as she had when she was a child.

  What could it hurt? She highly doubted Mary was there, either, but if the image of blue light made her feel better, that was fine, too. On the far distant eastern horizon, the sky had begun to lighten, and just the promise of light made her feel less anxious.

  Maybe the encounter with the gang boys had unsettled her more than she realized.

  As she and Charlie approached from the back of San Roque, she saw that Joaquin’s lights were on. Maybe they could have a cup of coffee before the day began. With that in mind, she cut in a diagonal across the internal courtyard, and startled a white cat at the base of the statue of San Roque. It dashed away, and Charlie made a small yip of yearning.

  There were lights in the field, or at first she thought there were, soft little balls of blue light bobbing along the ground. When she took a step toward the field, peering into the darkness, they disappeared, and she heard the distant sound of laughter.

  “Must be fairies,” she said to Charlie, who looked up at her with his head cocked, perplexed. Elsa rubbed one uplifted ear. “Don’t look at me. I have no idea where it went.”

  As she passed the statue of the saint, she touched his foot. “Bless the dogs,” she said, and brushed the head of his dog, “and those who love them.”

  She unlocked the kitchen door, let Charlie off his leash to go see Joaquin, and turned on the lights. Grocery bags sat on the counter, and she peeked into them, finding day-old cinnamon rolls and cookies and bags of clementines that would be very cheerful to look at. Someone had donated carrots that had gone a little soft and she pulled them out to be washed. The soup today was one of her favorites, a split pea with barley, which stuck to the ribs and had a great solidness in the mouth from the grain.

  The thing that took the most time every soup kitchen morning was the bread, which they made from scratch, always the same seven-grain, which volunteers started the day before. She pulled the loaves out of the fridge and lined them up on tables to begin to warm to room temperature and rise a final time. There were three ovens in the room, and she turned them all on to 350°.

  She glanced at the clock. The first volunteers would arrive around seven, another hour and a half. She started a pot of coffee in the little pot, not the giant-sized one they would use at lunch, and pulled the dishwasher open. It was full of clean dishes, so she put them away, checking the stores of spoons and bowls.

  All routine. As she worked, the email echoed through her, earnest and so kind. Impossible not to think about her little church tucked away from the street in its grove of firs and monkey trees. The first time she’d seen it, Elsa had fallen in love. It looked like a chapel at church camp, cozy and welcoming, never judgmental. The sanctuary always smelled of cedar and old carpet and the candles that were part of the altar table. They changed colors through the seasons, replaced by the women who kept the altar beautiful.

  Arms crossed, she stared absently through the window at the predawn sky, letting it in. Letting them in, all the people who filed in on Sunday mornings to the upbeat sound of piano or flute or whatever the musicians were playing that morning. The church was blessed with musicians—a cellist from the local symphony, a blues singer from Mississippi, a classically trained opera singer who could blow the windows out of the place when she was on full power. Elsa smiled, remembering the high drama that could erupt over music when so many talented people were involved.

  The woman who had sent the email, Maggie, had begun by slinking into a seat next to the wall at the back, but as time went by, she claimed a spot near the middle, on the aisle, where fingers of sunlight sometimes touched her hair. She was as ordinary as grass, with her dishwater hair and round figure. Before Elsa left, Maggie had begun to wear a red jacket to church, or sometimes a bright blue sweater that made her look like a piece of stained glass.

  Homesickness swamped Elsa. That sea of faces, turned expectantly in her direction, waiting as she rose to take the lectern each Sunday. Her ritual was to breathe in Spirit in the instant before she stood, letting go of what she wanted and trying to become a conduit for light and hope and help. For whatever they needed.

  “Hey, are you all right?” Joaquin’s voice broke her vision.

  She straightened. “I was thinking about Sunday mornings, just before you stand up to begin speaking. All the faces.”
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  “Mmmm.” He leaned on the opposite counter, arms crossed over his black shirt, mirroring her posture. “What brought that to mind?”

  Elsa shrugged, recognizing that she didn’t want to tell him about the email. Interesting. He was her prime confidant, and had been for years. “I guess I just miss it a little.”

  “A lot.”

  She nodded. “Yes. A lot.”

  “Will you go back, Elsa?”

  “I have no idea.” She struggled with the tangle of emotions. “I don’t know if I don’t believe or if I’m just mad or—” She broke off. “I kinda feel like I’m mooning around now, like there’s some action I should take, but I don’t know what it is.”

  “And I suppose it’s foolish to suggest that prayer might help?”

  “No, of course not.” She scowled at him. “I think about it all the time, but when I get ready to do it, something blocks me.”

  “You really are angry.” His dark eyes rested quietly on her face, without judgment. “I keep feeling like there’s more to this than the murder.”

  “Of course there is,” she said. “It was walking all that way to Santiago only to lose the life I wanted. It’s that bastard Father Michael dismissing my passion for the priesthood and making me feel like a worm. It’s God favoring men so much.”

  Two hectic patches of color burned on his cheekbones. “What did you do the other times?”

  She shook her head. “No.” She waved a hand, pushing away the anxiety the conversation raised. “I have work to do this morning. I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “Okay.” He gave her the beneficent priest version of his smile, which was low key and meant to be kindly. “God is patient.”

  She waved that away, too. “Have you eaten?”

  “I was waiting for you. Oatmeal?”

  “Very good.” She poured them each a cup of coffee and they wandered down the hall toward the rectory kitchen, which was friendlier than the vastness of the church kitchen. Charlie thumped his tail at her and she gave him a perfunctory pat.

  Joaquin said, “I’ve been up for hours, thinking about those gang boys. There was another confrontation between two rival gangs yesterday. I’m concerned.”

  “About the garden?” She took a saucepan out of the cupboard as Joaquin pulled out a glass measuring cup and filled it with water.

  “Maybe we’re going to need security. Fencing. Something.” He handed the water to her and she poured it into the pan.

  “Security sends the wrong message.” From a salt shaker on the stove she poured a tiny pile into the center of her palm, dumped it into the water, and turned on the stove. As she pulled out the metal measuring cups, Joaquin found the oatmeal, and set it on the counter, by her elbow. She said, “I think you’re letting that encounter get under your skin too much.”

  He spread cloth place mats on the table. “And I don’t think you’re taking it seriously enough.”

  “There’s always a rough element in a poor neighborhood.” She took spoons from the drawer and handed them to him. “One of the reasons you wanted to start the garden in the first place is to create a setting for grace.”

  “Yes.” He paused. “Grace will not be compromised if there is a security detail.”

  “You know better than that, Joaquin.” The water started to boil and she stirred in the oats. “People don’t like to feel they’re being watched. That won’t heal things.”

  He turned away to retrieve a carton of milk, and poured some into a small metal pitcher. Placing it carefully at the exact center between the two settings, he said quietly, “I feel uneasy.”

  “Walking,” she replied in a firm voice, “look at me.”

  He obliged. Elsa touched her neck. “I’m okay. Nothing happened.”

  “He cut your throat.”

  “Yes. But you can’t let that stop this project. You know it’s the right thing to do. It will bring food and beauty and life into the neighborhood, and especially into the lives of the people who live in that apartment complex.”

  As a boy, his eyes had been much too large for his face, with the shiny liquidity of a lake. Time had whittled his cheekbones and jaw and given proportion to the size of those eyes, but they were still grave and thoughtful, almost unreadable. She waited. Behind her the oatmeal bubbled.

  At last, he nodded. “You’re right. I know you are.”

  “Maybe we can brainstorm things to help address the gangs themselves, those boys.”

  He sighed. “It’s a big problem. I don’t know the answer.”

  “Let’s just think about it.”

  “I will. Do me a favor, will you?” He pulled a chain from his pocket, and on it was a saint’s medal. “Wear this.”

  She recognized it, a St. Christopher medal his mother had given him as a child. He’d worn it through his nearly fatal bout with the measles and often through high school. She held it in her palm for a moment, then remembered the oatmeal and turned around to take it off the burner. Joaquin put the bowls beside her. “Just wear it,” he said. “It’s no big deal. It’ll make me feel better, that’s all.”

  The medal was warm from his body, and she rubbed a thumb over the worn shape of the saint, then kissed it and pulled it over her head, letting it drop below her shirt. “Done.”

  He smiled. “Thank you.”

  “Let’s eat, worrywart.”

  Tamsin awoke with a soft feeling of well-being. Last night, she’d spent an hour talking online to her friends in the quilting world. They had no idea that anything in her life had changed—that part of her didn’t matter to them. On the quilting boards, she was admired and liked for the work she did with fabric, for the insights she could offer others, for her good color sense and talents. It eased her heart.

  When she finished, she’d taken out the fabrics she purchased at Goodwill and spent a couple of hours spreading them on the dining room table, humming along with her iPod. A quilt was brewing, though she didn’t see its shape yet. The organza spoke to her, and the magenta satin. Intriguing. What story would they tell?

  The peacefulness she felt upon waking lasted until she heard the noises outside. Voices calling out to one another, static and electrical sounds from the equipment, a motor running. The journalists had returned. She groaned and covered her head with a pillow, then flung back the covers and marched into the kitchen. They were not going to rule her life. She would have a shower, make some coffee, and march right over to the church to honor her commitment to Elsa. They could all come right into the soup kitchen with her if they wanted.

  But she couldn’t stop fretting as she braided her hair and put on the gym clothes so it wouldn’t matter if they got dirty. Why had they come back? Had something else happened? She was torn between turning on the news and clinging to the peace she’d felt upon awakening.

  Her body was tired of being on high alert. Just for today, she would be an ordinary person, her sister’s helper in the soup kitchen.

  She was grateful for her enormous sunglasses, and a baseball hat she took from a hook in the back room. Even so, as she stepped off the front porch, the reporters surged toward her. “Tamsin, where’s your husband? Where’s Scott? What are you going to do?”

  The questions pinged against her ribs, each one like a tiny arrow. The answer to all of them was “I don’t know.” She missed her husband, or at least the man she had imagined him to be. She missed her house and studio and the easy cadence of her days.

  Head up, she kept walking, and they left her alone, more or less. Somebody followed behind in a little car, parking across the street when she got to the church.

  Tamsin went over and knocked on the car window. “We have a soup kitchen going today. We can always use extra hands if you feel like pitching in.”

  “Is this a publicity stunt, a way to get sympathy?”

  “No,” Tamsin said, and left it at that.

  The long church kitchen smelled of yeast when she entered. There were already six or seven volunteers in place, w
ashing dishes, talking, chopping. Others were setting up chairs and tables in the adjacent fellowship hall. Elsa was nowhere in sight, so Tamsin pulled off the cap and glasses and approached the first person in the row, who chopped carrots on a big white cutting board. “Hi, I’m Elsa’s sister. What can I do?”

  “Over here, honey,” called a black woman with a high voice. She was plump and freckled, with a short reddish Afro. “You’re helping me with the dishes for now. Elsa wants you to serve later, if that’s all right.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m Alberta,” the woman said. “You can start with these pans, if you would.”

  “Tamsin,” she said, and tugged up her sleeves.

  “Hey!” said a girl with tattoos circling her arms and growing across her chest. She had black hair and blue eyes and was extraordinarily pretty. “Are you that lady I’ve been seeing on TV? Your husband is the guy who disappeared with all that money, right?”

  Tamsin was not given to blushing, but judging strictly by the burn, her ears must be the color of cherries. She glanced at the girl. “Yes.”

  “He’s gone completely, huh? You don’t know where at all?”

  Tamsin shook her head, focused on scrubbing the bottom of a deep pot.

  “That must suck. You must—”

  The woman with the Afro said, “Crystal, hush. It’s none of your business. You want people asking you all kinda questions about your ankle bracelet?”