In everything that had happened afterward, that simple prayer had been lost, but now she looked at Deacon over Calvin’s head. Deacon, who had lost his daughter and now filled the emptiness with little boys and old dogs.
He was perfectly still, watching her. Next to him, his dog gazed up at her, too, a smile on his snout.
The night air began to smell of roses and possibility.
They loaded the telescope into the back of Deacon’s truck and helped Joe into the cab, then walked the boys home. Charlie tagged along quietly, as ready for his bed as the boys were for theirs. Mario let himself in, and they peeked around the corner to see Joseph sleeping in his recliner, hands tucked over his belly.
Paris opened the door to Calvin, smiling when she saw Elsa. “Did y’all have a nice time?”
“The best,” Calvin said, and turned to hug first Elsa, then Deacon, who was taken aback a little. “Good night!”
Which left Deacon and Elsa to walk back down the stairs together. The halls were lit with harsh halogen bulbs, but the stairways were dark, the lights broken out, and it gave her the creeps. “Why doesn’t the landlord fix this?”
“Absentee. I hear he’s trying to sell.” He took her elbow, guiding her, and let it go again when they left the building. “Where’s your car?”
She pointed. “East side.” The depth of the shadows struck her again. “What happened to the lights?”
“Knocked out with rocks. I have to get screens to cover the fixtures.”
“It really is dark without them.”
“Are you scared?” He reached for her hand. The calloused palm and long fingers engulfed hers. She laced her fingers through his, and he tightened his grip ever so slightly.
“Maybe a little.”
Just before they reached the pool of light spilling over her car, Deacon stopped. Elsa stopped with him and looked up, aware of her body again, all of it, her breasts and thighs that had not been touched in so long, the length of her spine, rippling with the desire to be stroked. He smelled of hot chocolate and cinnamon, and she could tell he was nervous, which was touching in some strange, human way.
She raised her hand to his face, a finger tracing the high angle of his cheekbone, her palm against his cheek. His jaw was smooth, and the idea of him shaving before he came out tonight gave her a sweet swelling tenderness. He lifted his hand and covered hers, his calloused palm rubbing against her knuckles. Without breaking eye contact, he pulled her palm over his mouth and kissed the very center.
Charlie had been leaning against her leg, and now he barked suddenly. Fiercely. Elsa and Deacon broke apart, startled. Charlie growled, low and menacing, at two youths sauntering along the sidewalk. One of them smoked a cigarette, blowing smoke out in a gust illuminated by the streetlight.
“Evening,” Deacon said.
Neither of them said anything, just stared as they walked by. Charlie kept rumbling, and as they passed, he leapt up and gave a deep, businesslike warning, barking savagely. Elsa reached for his collar.
“He’s never done that before.”
Deacon inhaled. “Maybe he never had reason before.”
She looked after them. “Maybe not.”
“Let’s get you to your car,” he said, and just like that, the moment had passed. He opened the door and stepped back. Charlie jumped in and Elsa paused for a moment, wondering if she should do … something. But neither of them did.
“Good night, Deacon,” she said finally, and got in the car.
“Good night, Elsa,” he said, and snugly closed the door.
At home afterward, Deacon eyed the box of paper on his table. It was a stationery set he’d bought at Hallmark, light blue paper with matching elements. Classy, he thought, and the simpleness made it masculine. Over the past three years, he’d written a lot of letters on that paper. All to Jenny.
Who didn’t want his letters.
Now he took out the lined guide he’d made to keep his handwriting straight and put a sheet of the thin blue stationery over it. Using a fountain pen he’d bought specially for this purpose, he began to write, concentrating on keeping his letters clean and legible.
Dear Jenny,
I’m sitting here tonight with a couple of old dogs begging for scraps. Last night, I made scrambled eggs with cheese and jalapeños and pimentos, and I couldn’t help thinking of you.
You won’t remember, but we used to make that sometimes when you were little. You always liked the hot stuff, even when you were a bitty little thing. We’d make the eggs and some toast with butter and raspberry jam, then read a book or twenty together.
You don’t want my letters anymore, and I get that. I’m not mad or anything. I just like writing them, thinking about you reading them, putting your hands on this very same piece of paper I’m touching right now. It’s like we’re still connected somehow.
When you grow up and have babies of your own, I reckon you’ll get how much I love you. Or maybe you won’t. I’m pretty sure my daddy never really loved any of us at all. I wish I could let you know that I do love you, and always did. You are the finest thing to ever show up in my days, ever. I didn’t deserve you when you were born and did a lot to deserve you even less, and that’s not a pity party, it’s just God’s own truth.
I love you. I let you down. You deserved better and it sounds like you got it.
But I’m realizing that these letters are partly what’s been keeping me together. I guess maybe you are my Higher Power, Jenny. Wish I could have seen that sooner, but it is what it is. In your honor I try to do things better now. I pay attention. I try to listen. I don’t drink. Someday, maybe, you’ll come see me. Whenever that is, even if it’s when we’re both old and gray, that’s okay with me. I will always be here. Waiting. Loving you.
Dad
He folded the letter, put it in its envelope and carried it over to the stove. He flipped on the gas burner and stuck a corner of the letter into it. When it caught, he swiveled to hold it over the sink, letting the carbon curls fall to the old porcelain.
Eased, he could finally go to bed.
Chapter Twenty
Elsa and Tamsin waited for Alexa at the center of the Denver airport. Midday sunlight poured through the high windows. They had been lucky enough to snag a bench, and they drank coffee out of paper cups.
“Why doesn’t Starbucks recycle more?” Tamsin said, frowning at her cup. “They’re supposed to be so hip, and yet how many cups do they go through in a day, do you suppose? Ten million? Not to mention these little finger protector thingies. Why don’t they have recycling bins in every single Starbucks in the country?”
Elsa had been thinking of Deacon again, reliving that moment when she could have invited him to bend in and kiss her. She had wanted it. Why hadn’t she?
Why hadn’t he?
“They should definitely have recycling,” she said.
Tamsin gnawed on a plastic stirrer. “This is so weird. The last time I saw my daughter, absolutely everything in my life was different. Everything. It’s kind of bizarre, how everything can flip over in a second.”
“Like a tsunami.”
“Yeah. Or a tornado.” She sipped her latte, eyes trained on the door from which exiting passengers would emerge. “It’s funny how we expect things to be stable and they never really are.”
“Yeah.”
Tamsin looked at her sister. “You aren’t listening to me at all, are you? Where’s your head this morning?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m just sleepy.” She wiggled a foot, thinking of Deacon’s wrist, a flat rectangle with scatters of dark hair. She thought of the shape of his mouth.
Let it go.
She took in a breath and blew it out. To redirect the conversation, she said, “Honestly, Tamsin, you are so much less—wrecked—than I would have expected.”
She puffed out a bemused laugh. “I know. Me, too. I saw a friend of mine yesterday and she said I looked happier than I had in years.”
“Were you unhappy
in your marriage?”
“No,” she said, slowly. “But I’m not sure I was happy either, you know? He was gone all the time, traveling for work, for pleasure. I—” She pursed her lips. “I think I was lonely. I think I’ve been lonely for a long time.” She gave Elsa a perplexed little smile. “How is that possible, that you live with someone for all those years and you don’t even know them, really?”
“I don’t know. There’s only one person I know like that, and, honestly, he probably is exactly who he seems to be.”
“Joaquin, you mean.”
“Who else?”
Tamsin took a breath, blew it out. “Yeah, that’s true.” She shook her head. “You were always his only weakness. Still are, if you ask me.”
A memory floated through her, Joaquin kneeling in the gold-drenched cathedral at Santiago. Her body had still smelled of his lovemaking as he declared his intention to be a priest. “No,” she said. “He loves God.”
“How did that all happen, anyway?”
“It doesn’t matter, Tamsin. It was a really long time ago. We’re different people now.” A trickle of people began to emerge from the international terminal. “Here they come.”
A long line of people poured through the doors, their faces wearing the glazed and greasy mask of an overnight flight. It was more than five minutes before Alexa emerged.
“Oh, my God,” Tamsin said, covering her mouth. “She looks awful!”
“Don’t tell her that,” Elsa said.
But it was true. Alexa had the wan look of a terminally ill patient. Her eyes were ringed with purple and her lips had been bled of color, and she’d dropped at least fifteen pounds from her already slender frame, making her collarbones and cheekbones too prominent, her arm bones awkward. She spied her mother and broke into a run, dashing through the crowd unerringly. “Mommy!” she cried, dropping her pack and flinging herself into Tamsin’s arms. She burst into tears. “I just want to die.”
Tamsin grasped her daughter powerfully, putting a hand on her hair, the other around that tiny waist. She gave Elsa a look of alarm over Alexa’s shoulder. Elsa stepped forward and put her hand on her niece’s back and leaned into her from the other side, making an Alexa sandwich. “We love you,” she said, putting her cheek against the bony back. “We love you.”
“We love you,” Tamsin repeated. “You’re home now. We’re going to take care of you. Everything will be all right.”
“No,” Alexa gasped. “Nothing is ever going to be okay again.” Her body shook with sobs. “It’s all ruined.”
After a time, Tamsin said, “Let’s go home, baby. You can get some sleep.”
Alexa curled into her misery in the backseat, covering her head with her sweater so she could sleep. How she hated this long drive down I-25 to Pueblo! It was bright and sunny and the landscape could have been Spain in some ways, the mountains and the yellow plains and the bright blue sky. But there were no tumbles of villages or ruined castles in the distance or British tourists with their apple-red cheeks. Only shopping malls and subdivisions.
And until they drove up in front of the house where her mother and Elsa had grown up, it didn’t really sink in that she wouldn’t be going home, to her pretty bedroom in the tower of the red sandstone Victorian with its blooming poppies and peonies that her mother had coaxed out of the earth.
Instead, they drove through a working-class neighborhood with frame houses all built in the twenties. Little houses, with two-foot spreads of lawn in front of them, and porches to sit on to wave at the neighbors. It was all neat enough. Flowers were blooming in the beds, tulips mostly, a few more exotic things.
She got out of the car feeling like her limbs would not carry her, and it finally occurred to her that she hadn’t eaten in … well, a really long time. “I need food,” she said.
“Done,” her mother replied, getting Alexa’s bag out of the trunk. “You go ahead. I’ll get these things.”
Elsa rushed ahead to open the front door. At the picture window, her dog barked cheerfully, his paws on the windowsill, making him seem very tall. He was big, with a shiny black coat, and a wagging tail. “What kind of dog is he?”
“This,” Elsa said, opening the door to let the dog come greet them, “is Charlie. Sit.” He obeyed, but his whole body wiggled with excitement as he looked from Elsa to Alexa, his mouth in a toothy smile. “He’s flat-coat retriever for sure, but something more than that, too. I don’t know what. Maybe Newfoundland.”
“He’s beautiful,” she said, holding out her hand so he could smell her. He made a low noise of longing and looked at Elsa.
“Okay, baby,” she said. “Greet.”
He stood up and came over to Alexa to sniff her all over, curiously. She ran her hands over his fur, and it was as soft as it looked. “I’ve never had a dog.”
“He’s a good one.” Elsa put her keys down on a table by the door. “Come in, sweetie, and sit at the table. I’ll start some lunch. What would you like?”
The living room and dining room were one long rectangle, with windows down one side and a little archway opening into a tiny hallway. At the far end was another archway leading into the kitchen, where she could see a stove and a sink, and another window. “Where will I sleep?”
“Back here,” Elsa said. “Follow me.”
Alexa followed her through the kitchen to a room lined with windows that ran the width of the house, though it was only about ten feet wide. Pine paneling covered the walls and ceiling. White curtains, crisp and starched, hung at every window. Her mother’s doing, Alexa was sure. She had probably even sewn them. A double bed with a cast-iron headboard, clearly ancient, took up most of the space at one end. A white chenille bedspread covered it, and someone—her mother—had piled bright-colored pillows over it, along with the stuffed animals from her childhood. A simple chest of drawers, a small end table beside the bed, and the backdoor heading into the garden. That was it.
“Your mom thought you’d want to put your things around you, so they’re in the boxes right there. The room faces west, so it’s hot in the late afternoon, but with all the windows, you’ll have a nice breeze, and it won’t be too bright in the morning.”
“It’s pretty,” she said without feeling.
“Good. Your mom worked hard on it.”
“I can tell.” She put a hand over her middle.
“Come on, let’s eat. I have some cheese and bread and soup. What would you like? Eggs?”
A thousand choices danced over her imagination. Pulpo, and fish and churros y chocolat. “I wish you had churros,” she said.
Elsa laughed, touching her arm. “Me, too. At least you can get them here. When I left Spain, I went to England, and they had no churros at all.”
A breath of something green moved through her. She had forgotten that Elsa had felt this homesickness once, this longing for the place left behind. “Did you miss it when you came home? Spain, I mean?”
“Yes,” she said, and took one of Alexa’s hands. “Yes, I did. Eventually it gets better.”
Alexa thought of Carlos and tears began to well up in her eyes again, but she was too tired to cry anymore. She was dizzy with jet lag and hunger and grief, and she needed to eat and have a bath and go to bed, in that order. “I hope you’re right,” she said. “I guess I’d like some eggs.”
“I can do that.”
Wednesday afternoon, Elsa stopped by the church to drop off the supplies she’d gathered from various sources for the soup kitchen—a local butcher had contributed bacon scraps and ham bones; Safeway had offered day-old doughnuts and mixed cookies, which were always popular, and a bag of expired produce that included wilted celery and carrots, and some collard greens that were wilting but not yet spoiled.
Perfect. She would make caldo gallego, a Spanish peasant soup, with beans and chorizo. Using the small budget that the church provided for the soup kitchen, she purchased mixed navy and pinto beans, big fresh onions, and some dinged canned tomatoes, half stewed, half cho
pped. All good. As summer ripened, they would be able to harvest a lot of these things themselves. Fresh, wholesome produce! She could hardly wait.
From her own pocket, she bought a fat chicken fryer, and left it in the car when she ran everything else inside. The beans went into a bowl for soaking overnight, and the celery into an icy bath to revive it.
St. Martha gazed down benevolently from her niche in the wall. Elsa put a cookie on her foot, then headed back out. She poked her head into the church office. Mrs. Timothy sat primly at the desk, typing into her computer. “Is Father free?” Elsa asked.
Mrs. Timothy shook her head, mouth tight. “Busy all afternoon,” she whispered.
Elsa waved, strangely relieved, and headed back home with her chicken. Tamsin was at work. Alexa sat on the couch, television remote in hand, flipping channels through soap operas. “Why don’t you take a walk, sweetheart? Take Charlie and get outside. It’s beautiful.”
Alexa barely moved, flipping again. “I don’t feel like it.”
Her color was better, but barely, and she still couldn’t seem to summon any appetite, picking at the scrambled eggs her mother had cooked, nibbling a taco, a section of tangerine. It had only been three days, but Elsa wanted to see Alexa get moving. She reached over, plucked the remote from the girl’s hand, and said, “Go sit on the porch, then.”
“I don’t feel like it.”
Elsa carried her canvas bag into the kitchen and put it on the counter. “I don’t care. Do it anyway. You need some fresh air to clear your head.”
“My head isn’t going to clear. My life is over.”
Torn, Elsa looked at the chicken, then put it away in the fridge. Grabbing Charlie’s leash, she said to Alexa, “Go put on some shoes. You’re going for a walk with me, like it or not.”
“Whatever.” She shrugged, as limp as any Victorian heroine, and shuffled off to find her shoes. Her hair was lifeless and greasy, and she had chapped lips from biting them constantly. It made Elsa think of Marianne in Sense and Sensibility. Maybe they should watch that movie, the one with Kate Winslet as Marianne.
The Garden of Happy Endings Page 25