The Night Garden: A Novel

by Lisa Van Allen

  He noticed she didn’t finish her food. But when she said nothing was wrong, he had no choice but to take her at her word. His daughter’s emotions were a mystery to him. He couldn’t understand her. There was only one time Arthur could think of that he and his daughter had ever truly shared in the same emotion the way they might split a milk shake or a mincemeat pie. On the one-year anniversary of Alice’s death, when Olivia had been five, they had been out walking the fields, holding hands and inspecting for invaders like purslane or quackgrass. Olivia had stopped suddenly and said Oh! And when Arthur looked down, first at her and then at the grass she stared at, he saw a small brown house sparrow that lay where it died. He couldn’t know what had happened to the sparrow—if there was a nest nearby, if it had lost its mother, if it had been whacked with a machine. But it looked so sad, lying there on the grass, and before he knew it, Olivia was crying, and then he was crying, and then they were both standing there, crying, and not really thinking about the sparrow at all.

  He turned his fork backward and used it to scratch at his face beneath his beard. “Your mother would have got a kick out of this.”

  “Oh?”

  “The flowers. The frills and stuff. She always liked those kinds of things—even though she knew I didn’t. All this—she would have thought it was hilarious. Never would have let me hear the end of it.”

  Olivia smiled.

  “Course, she never would have let me live down here to begin with.”

  “But you wouldn’t have wanted to, if she was still here.”

  “A lot of things would be different,” he said. He cleared his throat. “So … I’ve been waiting to hear what happened with that serum … Were you able to try it?”

  “Yes.”

  “With Sam, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did it—”

  “No,” she said.

  He felt her disappointment as if it were his own. “Ah. Well. We’ll try again.”

  She stood up and, oddly, went to stand beside a tree, facing away from him. She wrapped one arm around it and leaned her temple against it, almost like it was more human than pine.

  “Olivia?”

  She drew in a deep breath.

  “What is it?” he said softly. “What happened?”

  “Nothing.”

  A choked noise came from her throat. Her shoulders were shaking. Was Olivia—his Olivia who had broken her arm falling off a wagon without shedding a single tear—crying?

  “I think I might have blown it,” she said. “With Sam.”

  “He was mean to you?”

  “Oh no. He would never be mean. He came last night to tell me about Gloria, and he was just … I don’t know. Normal. He was normal to me. Like … like I could have been anyone.”

  “You’re not anyone. You’re special.”

  “Unfortunately,” she said.

  He supposed he should have known, from the beginning, from the moment she mentioned Sam’s name, that his reappearance would be a problem. During Olivia’s childhood, Sam had been like the son he’d never had. Until his tenth birthday, Sam had liked to show up on the farm dressed in various costumes: a fireman, a superhero, a doctor, an Old West ranger, a lifeguard, and—once—a Swiss mountain dog. He’d been a good friend to Olivia when she’d needed one. And Arthur, he’d been horribly, sourly, bitterly afraid that Sam would one day take her away. He’d hoped that Sam’s return to the farm would be a chance for Arthur to help set things right between them. But it appeared that nothing was going to change after all, that life with Olivia would go on as usual, and while Arthur was sad for her, he was also aware that Sam’s disinterest meant Arthur would continue to be the most important person in her life for at least a few years more. He was prepared to give her up—absolutely. To forfeit all of his happiness, if it would help her in any way. And yet, what a relief to think he might not have to.

  “Oh Olivia,” Arthur said. The urge to make her feel better was like cotton caught in his throat. “Maybe it’s best to just … let Sam go.”

  Her arm flexed on the tree branch. “But how can you say that?”

  “My love. I hate to see you suffer.”

  “Is that what love is? Suffering?”

  “Maybe it is for us. You must have realized by now that we Pennyworts aren’t lucky. Love doesn’t work out for us. Romance isn’t something we do.”

  “You had Mom.”

  “For a short time, yes. But love in our family doesn’t last.”

  “That’s a superstition.”

  “No. It’s Green Valley. The Van Winkles are heroic. The Hildebrands are teachers. The Whites are good with cows. There’s something about us, Olivia. We don’t get to love the way other people do. It was a miracle the Pennywort line continued as long as it did.”

  Olivia made a noise that was almost a sob, and immediately Arthur wished he could withdraw his words. He’d upset her again, this time because he’d managed to remind her that she was the last Pennywort and she would never have children of her own. It was a miracle that Olivia herself had shown up: While other farm families in Green Valley were having litters of children through the generations, Pennywort couples had been lucky when any child showed up at all. Olivia, because of her condition, would be the period at the end of the Pennywort line.

  She turned to him; her face was streaked in dust and tears. “You can’t believe that—that we fail at love. You … you made the serum. You wouldn’t have tried that if you didn’t believe someone could … could love a woman who’s poisonous.”

  “Anyone could love you,” he said. “And Sam’s an idiot who doesn’t deserve you if he thinks your condition is so completely objectionable.”

  Olivia had turned her back to him again, and he saw her wipe her face. “It is objectionable. There’s got to be something I can do. I wasn’t born this way. So I’ve just got to figure out how to get back to how I was before I—” She stopped.

  “Before you spent so much time in the garden.”

  She turned to look at him through reddened eyes. “Dad. What happened to me wasn’t your fault.”

  He was quiet.

  “I could have stopped going into the garden at any time, if I’d wanted to. You didn’t do this. There was nothing we could have done differently.”

  Still, he was quiet. Because of course there was always something a person could do differently, in hindsight.

  She rubbed her eyes. “I’ve got to go lie down.”

  “By all means,” Arthur said. But inwardly, alarms went off. Olivia never needed to nap in the middle of the day. In fact, she hated napping; it was their agreed-upon belief that naps were a waste of time.

  “If there’s something I can do …” he said.

  She took in a deep, steadying breath. “I’ll be fine. Sam’s company—it was nice for a while. Really, really nice. But—I’ll get over it.”

  “Olivia. Thank you. For … everything. The drapes and the teacups and all of that.”

  “It’s no problem,” she said. “If I’m not back tonight, there’s more soup in your ice chest. Okay?”

  “Yes. But I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  Wild Oats

  The days passed. July became August without a hint of rain. From his window Sam watched the members who belonged to the Pennywort farm show up for their weekly shares of produce and then leave frowning into their half-empty paper sacks. On television, the meteorologists continued to promise that rain was coming, and though big-bellied storm clouds paraded over Green Valley, their water droplets seemed to evaporate as they fell and did not actually reach the ground. In the mornings, people couldn’t be sure if what they saw when they looked out their windows was mist or a haze of dust that rose like mist. The black bears sent midday beachgoers scattering as they waded into White Lake, emerging with waterlogged fur that made it difficult to take them seriously even when they grumbled and growled.

  Sam too felt irritable under the
unceasing, bludgeoning heat. He’d gone to the opening celebration of Gloria Zeiger’s new shelter for the homeless, though putting on his uniform for recreation had been the last thing on earth he’d wanted to do. His boss had convinced him that it would be a good idea to make an appearance: Just think of it as knowing your enemy, he’d said. Or at least, playing the game. There had been a band with a five-piece brass section, finger foods passed on rectangular plates, champagne in delicate glasses that made Sam’s hand feel as clumsy as a paw, and lots and lots of speechifying. Gloria had spoken to Sam only once during the evening, to ask him if he thought the shelter would be appealing to the Penny Loafers and if they might be encouraged to move in. Sam said he didn’t know. She made an impassioned case for trying to improve the lives of people in the community—and to his surprise, Sam found her to be more earnest than theatrical. She did genuinely seem to be concerned about the boarders. She said she didn’t like to see people suffering—not the young or the old—and she hoped Sam knew they had that in common. He wanted to call her out for trying to meddle in the Pennyworts’ lives, but she was quick-thinking and unflappable, and he found it was difficult to claim the moral high ground even when he was quite sure it was under his feet. In truth, he liked the way the shelter was laid out: private bedrooms and showers, classrooms for self-improvement, even a small pool and gym. As he walked the cinder-block hallways that reminded him of his elementary school, he wondered if Olivia’s boarders really might leave her.

  The next day, he heard that the shoe had finally dropped in Gloria’s scheme to “rescue” Arthur Pennywort from Solomon’s Ravine. One of the guys down at social services had been sent to the Pennywort farm to ask some questions and pay Arthur a visit. Sam hadn’t heard the details, but he knew the end result: As far as the social worker could tell, Arthur Pennywort had everything he needed. He was as lucid as he’d ever been. He certainly wasn’t being abused. The shack wasn’t pretty, but it wasn’t illegal either, thanks to Green Valley’s forgiving laws about structures of indeterminate age. If Arthur didn’t want to voluntarily leave the ravine, no one could make him. Sam had breathed a sigh of relief for Olivia’s sake. But he hadn’t gone to congratulate her on the good news. He continued to stay away.

  The days had come and gone, and Sam had a sense that things should have been changing in his life but were not. He was restless. He was anxious. He wasn’t happy. He had adjusted quickly to the return of sensation in his skin, and although he knew enough to be grateful that he could actually feel the irksome itching of the tag on his shirt, it was all beginning to seem very ordinary. His dissatisfaction shouldn’t have been so profoundly disappointing or surprising—he had not come to Green Valley expecting to be happy. But then, for a second, he’d been infected by hope. And now he was stuck wanting something he could never have. He wanted to be the first person to greet Olivia in the morning and the last to kiss her good night; he wanted to fight with her about whatever things they would fight about and then have makeup sex; he wanted to walk through the fields with their children and teach them about millipedes and butterflies and mushrooms.

  To distract himself and to divert his mind away from wanting a future he absolutely could not have, he’d taken Cindy Middleton out to dinner and a movie, and he’d even done a little old-fashioned necking with her in his car overlooking the Concert grounds. But ultimately, it had left him feeling like when he had too much of the Greek diner’s premade frozen apple pie: slow and heavy and wishing he hadn’t overindulged in something he didn’t really like that much anyway. He attempted to flirt with grocery clerks and even with coworkers, but women seemed to smell desperation on him, and not even Sue Ellen Forman, who worked behind the bar at Boomer’s, hung around to see where his innuendos might lead. By the time Cindy Middleton called him for a second date, he knew he should have been glad for whatever female company he could get. Instead, he said he was feeling under the weather and stayed home to watch a sitcom marathon.

  This morning when he peered out the window toward the Pennywort farm, eight days into August and almost two weeks since the picnic under the Lightning Oak, he realized that he hadn’t actually caught sight of Olivia in a few days—which was odd. He went to the farm stand across the street on the pretense of buying a bunch of fresh parsley, and when he’d asked after Olivia, he was told by one of the boarders that she was sick. He had to bite his tongue to keep from saying, Tell her I was asking if there’s anything I can do. But that would have only been cruel. He was trying to stay away from her—for both their sakes. His longing for a future with Olivia was like a tether that wasn’t actually attached to anything real. And desire was a wretched survivor: Even the smallest morsel of hope was enough to keep it alive.

  He was on duty, making his rounds near the old motels in White Lake and trying not to think of what things he might be able to do with Olivia without actually touching her, when he heard a call over the radio that could not have been more surprising than if a meteor dropped through the hood of his squad car. There was an unconscious female down in the maze at the Pennywort farm.

  Sam told himself: Not Olivia. One of the Penny Loafers. Or someone who had come for a stroll. But still, a very strong, very bad feeling came over him, the kind of premonition that a person wonders about later on, after it turns out to be true. He couldn’t ignore it. He switched on the lights and sirens and sped madly toward the farm. Luckily he wasn’t far away. He beat the ambulance there. A cloud of yellow dust billowed around the car as he braked into the Pennyworts’ parking lot. He wedged his long body through the yellow and purple flower at the maze’s entrance, then hurried deeper into the tangled, ribboning corridors. He called hello! and then followed the sounds of people calling back to him even as the maze seemed to be scattering the voices in every direction. Then, there in the Rainbow Garden, where pots and trellises of white flowers were colored by bright rainbows that splashed from hanging crystals, he found a few of the Penny Loafers standing over the body of a woman. Olivia. Lying on the ground. He didn’t think: He only acted.

  “Move!” he said.

  The people around her stepped away.

  She was sprawled among delicate white flowers, her head turned to the side, her hair like a rumpled flag, the toes of her tan work boots falling outward. Sam dropped to his knees. “Olivia?” She turned her head toward him, blinking up. He thought, Thank God. Her life did not depend on him. One of the women explained that she had been bending over and had simply passed out—just like that. He sent the boarders in different directions: some to get water and ice, some to fetch something sweet and sugary to help revive her, some to wait on the side of the road for the paramedics in order to lead them through the unfriendly knots of the maze. The others he told to just go. Olivia was very private and wouldn’t want spectators. He did not ask if any of the women had touched her after she passed out: He didn’t want to arouse suspicions if anyone had. He leaned his two hands on either side of her face and peered down. A faint sheen of sweat was on her forehead and cheeks; her lips were parted and pale.

  “Olivia,” he said. “Ollie. Are you okay?”

  “Sam. What happened?”

  He wanted to bundle her close. Instead, he sat back on his ankles. His heart was pounding hard. “I think you fainted.”

  “I did?” She started to sit up slowly. He wished he could help.

  “Easy there. Did you eat today?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  She told him she’d had scrambled eggs for breakfast, with ham and melon.

  “Are you thirsty?”

  “A little.”

  “Do you think you can get yourself into the shade?”

  “I … I think so. Just …”

  “What? What is it?”

  She tucked her chin into her chest. “I need you to give me a little space.”

  He hadn’t realized how close he was to her. He edged back. Olivia didn’t stand but scooted until she was in a triangle of deep, sharp shadow th
at ran on the bottom edge of a white stone wall. His training had kicked in when he’d first seen her, blocking his fear and dread, but now that she was sitting up and talking he felt utterly raw and afraid. What if something had happened to her? What if she, like Patrick Kearny, had died?

  “Do you have heatstroke?” he asked.

  “Heatstroke. Yes. Must be.”

  She touched her forehead and he knew she was dizzy. He studied her carefully. It was not like Olivia to be careless in the heat. Arthur had schooled them both relentlessly on the dangers of heatstroke the year that a farmer on a neighboring property had dropped dead of it in the middle of his beans. They’d learned to know their limits, to rest as they needed, to stay hydrated and shaded. He also knew that Olivia had a streak of pride and obstinacy as a farmer that went all the way back to the first Pennyworts to stick a spade in Green Valley soil: Even if she did have heatstroke, it was unthinkable that she would admit to it so easily.

  He heard sirens in the distance; she turned toward the sound. Her eyes went wide. “Oh no. Sam. You have to tell them I’m fine. Please. Get on your radio and tell them I don’t need them. It was a false alarm.”

  He frowned.

  “Please, Sam?” Sweat had broken out on her brow, and he was glad to see it. When there was a question of heatstroke, sweating was a good sign. She said, “There’s nothing they can do for me. If they come, they’re going to want to—to examine me. They can’t touch me, Sam. They can’t find out. I don’t want to have to explain. Please? Hurry. Call them.”

  “But what happened?” he asked. “I’m not sending my guys the other way until I know you’re fine.”

  “I’ll tell you, okay?” Her eyes brimmed with pleading, and color came back to her cheeks. “I promise. I’ll explain everything. Just—please. Tell them to go away. Don’t let them find me like this. I don’t want everyone to know.”

  Sam was swept up in her distress—but he was shocked by it, too. He hadn’t realized how afraid she was, how afraid she always was, that someone might discover the truth about her. But there it was: fear. Raw and undisguised. Reluctantly, he grabbed his radio from his belt to call off the dogs. He said, False alarm. One of the boarders had overreacted; he was sitting with Olivia Pennywort and she was right as rain.