The Mother Garden

by Robin Romm

  “I stopped at the market,” Marsha says. “You wouldn’t believe who I saw with Dale Kerchaw, that pig.” Ellie’s face lights up. Marsha sets the yogurt and peaches on the nightstand and straightens the stack of magazines. “That twenty-two-year-old nurse!”

  Gerard backs out of the room to let them gossip. He knocks softly on Celia’s door.

  “Come in,” she calls. She’s sitting on the floor with eight dolls lined up on folded blankets or towels. None of them have any clothes on.

  “What’re you up to?” Gerard asks.

  “I’m playing,” she says. In her hands she’s got a ballpoint pen and she looks a little guilty. He walks toward her and kneels.

  “What are you playing?”

  “Hospital,” she says. “They’re sick.” And then Gerard sees that a bunch of the dolls have little holes in their arms, pressed into the plastic or cloth with the pen. The holes are small, black with ink around the edges.

  “Why are you sticking them with a pen?” he asks, pressing his hands against a creepy-looking brunette, its blue eyes trained at the ceiling.

  “I’m helping them,” she says.

  Gerard waits. He’s sure he will start to feel something. He looks at his daughter. Her dark eyes seem misplaced in her pale face. She has almost no lashes, no eyebrows, and yet she has his eyes, dark and large, and his oversized lips. She’s not pretty, though it’s not clear why. All her features are handsome but they’re poorly combined. There’s something fishlike about her, actually.

  “Isn’t there another game you could play?” Gerard asks. Celia looks at him gravely and shrugs.

  Why is it that no one around here can get enough of death? Even Marsha comes up to see Ellie almost every day. And though it’s terribly kind, gives Ellie something to look forward to and gives Gerard a chance for carnal release—he can’t help but wonder sometimes if she’s a little bit attracted to the spectacle of decline. It’s more excruciating and exhilarating than any carnival ride or horror film. It’s happening right in front of them, what they all fear most.

  Gerard stands up. “Maybe we should go put the fish in the bowl Marsha brought.”

  “Can you just do it?” Celia asks, twirling her pen. “I don’t want to.”

  Outside her window, he can see the sun reflecting off Marsha’s red car. They’d had sex in that car on Thursday. They’d driven out to look at the flower farms, to pick Ellie daisies and irises, and had parked on the side of a dirt road afterward, the flowers wrapped in paper, flung all over the backseat. Marsha leaned over the emergency brake and unbuttoned his pants. He was already hard when she ran her tongue down him, wedged her fingers below his balls. And then, as if they were still sixteen, she crawled over him, lifted her long, flowery skirt, slid her underwear off until it hung from one knee, and jerkily fit him inside of her.

  She came so easily. It was nothing like Ellie. He had to work for Ellie’s pleasure. He had to go down on her, play with her, watch her arch and tense and then lose her focus, bring her back to center, keep the rhythm going. That was how it used to be, anyway. He hadn’t had sex with Ellie in almost a year. They’d tried a few times, but it was so depressing. She couldn’t get into it, all the smells were off, and it ended in tears. Marsha did this thing with her hips and ass, pressing herself away from him a little, jerking angrily, and then she just came, loudly, unexpectedly, expelling air and noise like a sea mammal, her small eyes glittery and distant.

  Gerard shoves his hands in his pockets. Celia is waiting for him to leave. He bites his bottom lip and feels a worm of longing roll inside of him.

  Celia looks down at her dolls, her posture full of purpose, and punctures another one with her pen.

  Gerard rinses out the squashed-looking bowl and fills it with the water from the container. He takes the bag and undoes the rubber band. The fish isn’t looking at him. The fish is darting back and forth in the bag like it’s looking for a corner.

  One of these days, Ellie’s going to slip into a coma. That’s how it happens. Or for some reason that’s what Gerard has decided. One day he’s going to walk into the bedroom with a cup of tea and she’s going to be staring glassily at the ceiling, just like that doll. He’ll sit calmly on the bed with her, repeating her name. And then he’ll call Marsha and the two of them will call the ambulance together—they’ll watch as Ellie’s loaded in, wrapped in her favorite afghan, the one her great-grandmother knit in stripes of avocado and red—and the doctors will admit her so she can have the right doses of things—or so she can have an IV bag, at least. And he and Marsha will sit vigilantly in a small, medicinal room, breathing in molecules of bodies on their way to becoming dust—and they will look at each other, he and Marsha, and sometimes they’ll go back to her tiny house and eat cottage cheese with salsa and fuck in her cramped bedroom, both of them nauseated with lack of sleep, and people will probably send flowers, Ellie’s obese sister Petra will probably show up, bearing some awful food for him, sausage lasagna or beef stew. And Celia will be home with a sitter. And sometimes he will bring Celia to the hospital. And that’s how the end will be.

  There’s moisture around the top of the bag and Gerard moves his thumb and forefinger together so that the two plastic sheets slide pleasurably between them. The fish catches light from the window on its scales and shines through the murky water. Does it know that it’s about to begin a lifelong incarceration? That it will swim in circles every day of its life? Or does the fish just exist for the moment—and what would that be like—to live every moment with no concept of past or future? If he could exist only in this moment, then he’d see only the fish and the water and the dirt particles and the light. He would feel that he tied his left sneaker too tight and that it’s cutting off some circulation in his foot. He wouldn’t think of Ellie’s ravaged body—the smell of decay when you got close to her—sweet and fishy. He wouldn’t remember what it was like before she got sick. How they used to collapse next to each other on the sofa after work and complain. God! What had they complained about? And he really did like the challenge of Ellie’s body then—the way he had to work to bring her over the edge, to distract her from the stress of her mind, and then when he finally did, she shook and would hold on to him afterward, her long fingers kneading his while she dozed.

  And then—shit! He’s still holding the bag, but only one side of it, and there’s water all over the floor, cascading off the counter, running down toward his feet. The fish is on the counter, flopping toward the edge in small, spastic jerks. He reaches for the tail, but it slips through his fingers. Dammit! He tries again. The fish is slick, muscular. It can’t die. No! Not in this house, nothing else is going to die! It’s cold and orange and has no pigment on one side, that’s why Celia liked it. The fish between his fingers feels like something internal—something he has no right to be touching—and his insides get hot and his joints feel shaky but he pinches down hard and moves fast and manages to get the fish back in the stupid bowl.

  “Fuck you,” Gerard says to it. And then he turns to see if anyone has seen him. But he’s alone in the kitchen, the bright blue wall, the white shelves, the glass jars full of herbs turning gray in the sun.

  Gerard starts to tremble a little and a pain shoots from his back to his head. His heart pounds furiously. He’s dizzy. The room gets brighter, slowly brighter—but not that slowly. The edges of the counter are getting so bright they’re fading out. He’s not okay. He’s going to collapse. He’s going to die and die first! He’s sweating now, and this takes all of his strength. He has to sit. His knees give gently, it’s as though large hands are pushing him down, and then he’s on all fours. He’s spinning, an ax is banging on the bone of his forehead from the inside and something is too hot inside of him. He can’t breathe and his heart is pounding and his saliva is doing something weird—he can taste his saliva. As soon as he can stand up again, as soon as he stops tasting this—so bitter, like a plant he shouldn’t be chewing on—as soon as he can breathe again he’ll knock t
hat fish onto the floor and he will be able to breathe because—he thinks—something will be let go, the soul of the fish will be let go.

  Gerard sweats, a bead of it falls onto the parquet floors, his hand turns white from pressing down, his body spins and spins and there is Celia. She is talking to him, she is running toward the bedroom—

  And he should take the fish outside because its soul might get caught against the ceiling and hover and maybe he should make Ellie die outside too because her soul might get trapped in the house and then they would have to move, but how could they sell the house to someone knowing Ellie’s soul was caught in it? He’s trying to get himself outside, scooting on his arms, trying to get toward the front parlor so he can die outside—they are all going to die outside, this is the only thing that makes any sense. This makes sense. Ha! He’s going to die first! And then there are hands on his back, grabbing him by the waist of his pants. What on earth, Marsha is saying, Gerard, get a hold of yourself but he can’t breathe—he’s laughing! And there is Ellie, teary and odd-looking, holding on to the wall. He can see right through her. Ha ha ha ha! HA! He is going to die first and that will be something! Something no one could have expected.

  It’s the Xanax that Marsha gets from Ellie’s stash that finally calms him. Marsha sets him up in the living room and turns on cartoons—a cat racing through a well-manicured forest. He feels so light. He feels so good, actually. Like his thoughts have been bleached and fluffed.

  “Come sit with me,” he says. Ellie’s gone back to the bedroom. Marsha squints at him.

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” she says.

  “Just come here,” he says, patting the cushion.

  Marsha reluctantly sets her bag down. When she sits, she’s stiff, her legs bent in ninety-degree angles, her feet parallel. Gerard wants to laugh. She looks like a diagram!

  He puts his face against her chest. She stiffens even more and pushes it away.

  “Not now,” she says. “Gerard, get a grip.”

  He leans away from her. Her face puckers, her eyes scrunch.

  “Marsha,” he says, reaching out for her shoulders.

  “What the hell,” Marsha hisses, slapping his hands away. “What are you doing? What was all that?” She stands. He can hear her shoes clack as she stalks down the hall. The front door opens, slams. He would chase her, but his body doesn’t feel like it could move that fast. His shirt feels fuzzy and warm.

  The clatter of pans wakes him. It’s dark out now. Dread hits him as soon as he’s conscious, before he even remembers what happened. He stands and his knees crack. They’re sore.

  Ellie’s in the kitchen. She’s dressed in her nice clothes—her red washed-silk pants and an orange cashmere sweater; he hasn’t seen these clothes in so long. They went to an opera once—Celia was smaller then, maybe six—and Ellie wore that sweater. Her hair is damp from a shower. She turns to look at him, her face pale and serious.

  Gerard looks at the wall clock. It’s ten-thirty. Shit, he didn’t make Celia dinner and now she must be asleep.

  Ellie has a large pot on the stove.

  “What are you doing?” he asks. She’s put on makeup and you can’t tell she’s dying—not really. The eye shadow glimmers up to her eyebrow.

  “I’m making soup. We didn’t have a lot of stuff, but there were dried lentils and that beef shank in the freezer. And Marsha brought all those carrots.”

  Ellie hasn’t cooked in two months, not since the pain got so bad she had to take pills on top of the pain patch. She barely has the energy to get back and forth from the bedroom to the living room to watch an hour of television. He stands next to her. She’s wearing perfume, dark, leathery, and woodsy. Small circles of carrots line the cutting board; the lentils boil, filling the room with their bean smell.

  He looks at the fish. It swims in circles, flipping its body around and around. He takes the yellow container of fish food Marsha brought and shakes some into the water. The fish darts up and sucks the flakes down.

  Ellie sets down the knife and holds out her arms to him. Beneath the orange cashmere those arms are so thin, bruised from various injections.

  “I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” she says. She’s crying. Soon they’ll all cry so much they’ll flood the house; they’ll damage the foundation. She’s shaking her head. The mascara leaves speckled tracks down her cheeks.

  He walks over to her, takes her body. Ellie, he wants to say—just her name. The lentils roll over themselves, making a soft sound. The fish hovers at the top of the bowl. Nothing else in the room moves. He’s gripping her too tightly; he can feel her tensing away. But it’s all he can do. He can’t let go.

  THE MOTHER GARDEN

  LAUREL’S THE NEWEST ARRIVAL. SHE WON’T BEHAVE.

  “Don’t put me next to Agnes,” she says. “That heifer.”

  “That’s mean,” I tell Laurel as I jam her feet into the tilled soil. Her kitten heels make good digging tools and I’m able to get her wedged in deep.

  “I’ve worked hard for this figure,” Laurel says. “And I’ll be damned if I get stuck beside all the fat I’ve left behind.” Agnes smoothes her dress over her stomach and thighs. The breeze blows a few of her brown curls loose from her barrette.

  “Agnes’s curves are part of her charm,” I say.

  “You mean Agnes’s curves belong in a barn,” Laurel says. Her eyes glint like sun on metal.

  “You’re being a bitch,” I say to Laurel. The other mothers pretend not to notice. “I’m sorry, Agnes.”

  I can’t take credit for the garden, not entirely. It was Jack’s idea. We were having beers after work a few months ago and he’d just talked to his mother. His face, always prone to pinkness, was nearly violet.

  “I’ve been calling her once a week, you know, to forge a relationship, and she has never asked me about my life. I’m not exaggerating. She just goes on and on.” Jack’s voice went up a few octaves. “‘Maryanne’s getting remarried to that nice man at the post office, you remember, Dudley Bilson—you played horseshoes at his house. And Boz Parker ran off with that little blonde he just hired, Connie is just a wreck. You should see her, Jack, she looks terrible.’” I pushed some foam around the top of my glass. As a general rule, people don’t complain to me about their mothers. “She would keep going for hours if I didn’t interrupt her,” he said. “You have no idea, Claire, you just don’t.” Jack picked up his coaster and started tapping it on the table. “It’s shitty of me to be ungrateful, I know, you’re going to play the dead mom card.”

  “Maybe you could loan her out,” I said. “I might borrow her.” For a moment Jack was still, his little beard a handle pulling his mouth open.

  “Maybe there’s something to that,” he said, and jotted an idea on a bar napkin.

  Jack’s a landscape designer. He did the sloping gardens at the university—dark purple foliage and bright green flowers. That garden has made its way into magazines and design shows, everything a little off-kilter. We’ve been best friends since our failed love affair in college. I’ve seen him rise through the ranks, from weekend gardener to Master of Landscape Architecture. Now I’m collaborating with him to stretch the frontier of landscaping. He expands his portfolio and I get all the moms I’ve missed. We’re blending land and family. We’re altering space and our conceptions of the garden. We’re cutting edge.

  It was easy to get Jack’s mom, Doreena, to volunteer. She retired two years ago from her job with the postal service and shortly thereafter, her dog died of lupus. Jack is her only child. She doesn’t hear a word he says, but she’d do anything for him.

  We installed Doreena on a Saturday afternoon. She sat on the grass and held out her bunioned feet as if for a pedicure. Jack carefully settled them into the hole. He filled a bucket with warm water and poured it over her feet, then packed the dirt around her ankles. Doreena squared her meaty shoulders; her russet hair stood straight from her head like quills.

  “She looks magical out there,”
Jack remarked that evening as we watched her from the kitchen window. We’d put Doreena near the back fence and the bougainvillea rose up behind her, framing her stout figure in blobs of purple. The moonlight spilled off the leaves and gutters, tinting her skin a milky blue.

  “Do you think she’ll get bored?” I asked.

  Jack shrugged. “She does a bang-up job talking to herself,” he said. “It seems to keep her busy.”

  That night I tried to sleep, but each time I’d drift, Doreena’s voice would break the silence.

  “Goodness!” she said. “You are an ugly bug! You go back to your ugly bug world!”

  At three in the morning, I opened my window.

  “Doreena,” I called.

  “Yes, dear?”

  “Do you think you could keep it down?”

  “Oh!” she said. “I didn’t realize I was talking.”

  My mother has been dead for more than a decade. My memories of her feel static. They’re like film clips that I play over and over: my mother sitting at the kitchen table with her brown ceramic mug, her dark curls clasped in a leaf-shaped clip. She says, “Claire-belle, look at the magnolia tree.” Her face looks dreamy. “I was twenty-three before I saw anything that pretty.” Or: she sits by the side of my bed, her feet gauzy in nylons. A bowl of broth steams on the old wooden tray. “If you want, there’re noodles in the kitchen,” she says. Her cool hand sweeps over my damp forehead. “Poor babe,” she says. “You look like a noodle.”

  It’s been a long time without her now—almost as long without her as with her.

  “Mom,” I sometimes say to the dirt, to the tree, to the old recycle bin, “that was a dumb time to go.” The recycle bin sits blue and still. The dirt stares back at me with its dark face. The tree sways in the wind.

  “I’m not sure I can deal,” I said to Jack the next morning when he stopped by on his way to work. “I slept for three hours. She talks incessantly.”