The First Gardener (16 page)

There been so many tears this week. So much snifflin’. Miz Eugenia, she hurtin’ so. But Miz Mackenzie, she like a stone today. Just like one a them rocks in my garden. Not cryin’. Just sittin’ there. I think she just be numb.

They had to postpone the funeral for ’bout five days so Miz Mackenzie’s body could be put back together ’nough. But they still had to push her ’round in a wheelchair ’cause a her breathin’ and all that bruisin’. And she gots way more bruisin’ on her heart than her body. Them wounds gon’ take lot longer to heal.

Grief ain’t got no playbook—I hear somebody say that once. But I ain’t been prepared for the way it done bust out ’round here. Been axin’ the good Lord to help us get through . . . ’cause goin’ through be the only way we gon’ get to the other side.

Chapter 17

Eugenia burst through the swinging door of the kitchen with the force of class IV rapids on the Ocoee River. “Rosa, I need you to go on and get on out of this kitchen so I can get some food out there that people will eat.”

“Señora Quinn, I make what I know Señor and Señora London want.”

“There isn’t a fried anything out there. Not a homemade biscuit. Nothing.” Eugenia didn’t even turn to see who had entered behind her. She’d know the sound of that crew anywhere.

“Okay, señora. But I help anyway,
por favor
.”

Eugenia didn’t answer. She just walked over and started banging cabinet doors, looking for who knew what. Her three amigos fell in line behind her, each of them grabbing a cabinet door and banging too. After a good minute of endless clatter, Eugenia finally asked, “What in the world are y’all doing?”

Dimples tilted her head. The woman looked more like a cocker spaniel every day. “I have no idea. What are we doing?”

“We’re sharing grief,” Berlyn announced as she opened another cabinet and slammed it shut.

Sandra yanked at the ruffled collar of her black dress. If that woman was going to choke to death, Eugenia thought, now would be as good a time as any. Everyone was already here, and there was about to be food worth eating. Just what every good wake needed.

“I don’t need you to share my grief,” Eugenia announced. “I just need to put together some decent food. There isn’t a piece of fried chicken on that table. What is a dinner after a funeral without fried chicken?”

“Or a congealed salad,” Sandra added.

Berlyn nodded. “That’s what I’m saying.”

“Do they have lard in a governor’s mansion?” Dimples asked.

“Dimples, you know very well we don’t use lard to fry chicken anymore,” Eugenia responded. “Now we use Crisco. And you can rest assured that if Eugenia Quinn’s daughter lives here, then everything we need is on the premises.” She bent down and went to clanging cabinets again until she finally found a cast-iron skillet and pulled it out. She walked to the refrigerator and looked inside as if the secrets to life were held there.

Sandra scooted closer and put a hand on her arm. “It’s okay to cry, Eugenia.”

Eugenia jerked it away. “I don’t need to cry. I need to cook.”

“I always feel better after I’ve eaten grease,” Berlyn responded.

“Eugenia, do they let foreigners in the governor’s mansion?” Dimples always spoke of herself as a foreigner because she’d been born in Maryland, though her mother had moved to the real South when Dimples was two. She said she’d gotten here as fast as she could, and she’d given Dimples a Southern name to get her started. But even though Maryland was technically below the Mason-Dixon Line, Dimples still worried that she wasn’t a true Southerner.

Eugenia never took her head out from the refrigerator. “The cook is Mexican, Dimples. Seriously.”

“Just checking. I was thrown in jail one time for running into a fence. It was the third time for that particular fence, and the police thought I was drunk because I have to cock my head and all. And, well, while I was in there, you remember me telling you about—”

“About the big woman with spiky blonde hair who was making eyes at you? Yes, Dimples, we remember. We’ve heard this story a thousand times,” Sandra announced. “And it’s still disgusting each time you tell it.”

Berlyn broke in. “And I still don’t know how you thought you could tell she was making eyes at you anyway.”

Dimples straightened her frail back and tugged at the hem of her black cotton sleeveless shirt, which hung loosely over her too-big black cotton skirt. “Shut up, Berlyn. I can see just fine. I see what I want to see, and you drive me crazy, so that’s why I don’t pay any attention to you and what you want me to look at. But that woman was looking at me with a look that ought not be shared between two women. And, well, that night traumatized me so much, I don’t have any desire to spend another moment in jail.”

Eugenia slammed the refrigerator door and opened the freezer. “You’re not going to jail today, Dimples. So you can quit worrying.” She found a package of frozen chicken breasts and pulled it out, slamming it down on the counter.

Berlyn walked to the pantry and swung open the doors. She stared for the longest time. Eugenia was about to go drag her out of there, but she finally grabbed a bottle of olive oil and set it on the counter by the chicken. “I didn’t see Crisco.”

“You didn’t look,” Eugenia confirmed.

“I did look. And all they have is this fake stuff. Your chicken’s going to taste straight-up
nasty
.”

“Well, you look pretty nasty in that dress. It’s a funeral, for pete’s sake, Berlyn, not an afternoon of speed dating.”

Berlyn put her hands under her breasts, hoisting them up and then letting them go. “You can meet nice men at funerals, I’ll have you know. And this was a big one. There were senators here.”

Sandra walked over and pulled out a barstool. “And not a one of those senators, Berlyn, nor any man in that church who was actually looking at you—which I daresay was very few—ever saw your face because he was looking at your breasts.”

Berlyn leaned against the counter. “Jealousy is ugly on an old woman, Sandra. Just ugly.”

Sandra huffed.

Eugenia turned. “I want you all out of here, each one of you. I don’t want you. I don’t need you. I don’t need to hear you talk about your breasts or senators or anything else. I just need you to get out of here so I can cook a real meal and—” Her voice broke.

Berlyn was at her side in a moment. She grabbed Eugenia’s arm and led her to a seat at the breakfast table. Sandra grabbed Dimples’s hand and got her to a seat at the table too. Berlyn squatted her thick legs down and knelt in front of Eugenia. “We’re your friends, honey. We love you. And you need us.”

“I need Madeline. I need for my daughter and Gray not to be hurting.” Her tears were falling hard now.

Sandra and Dimples instinctively stood and came around behind her. Dimples laid her head on her shoulder, and Sandra gathered the sides of Eugenia’s blonde bob together at the base of her neck like a mother would for her little girl.

“We’re so sorry, Eugenia,” Sandra whispered.

“We are.” Dimples’s mouth moved on Eugenia’s shoulder.

“How do you survive something like this? Surviving Lorenzo’s death was one thing, but a child? How do you survive losing your child?” Eugenia’s words were coming out as bursts through her explosion of pain.

“There’s no way to survive it, honey. A heart can’t survive this kind of pain. Only thing that heals this kind of pain is heaven itself,” Berlyn said, her meaty arms on top of Eugenia’s legs. “So we’re gonna pray for you. Right now, girls.”

Berlyn’s eyes looked past Eugenia to the two women behind her, and then she started praying. Her prayer was as loud as her Pentecostal roots. It was as fiery as a preacher during a tent revival, and it was as needed as water for an empty well. Eugenia rested her head on Berlyn’s thick bosom and let the words wash over her.

When she was finished, Berlyn raised Eugenia’s chin so she could look her in the eye. “Remember when our husbands died and we wondered how we were going to make it through the day? And somehow we did? We’d wake up, and it would be a new day, and we had survived? And then, day by day, the pain got a little easier and easier? Well, that is how we’ll get through. It’s like there is something pulling us to the next day.”

Eugenia looked at Berlyn and wiped her eyes. “I can’t get through this one, Berlyn.”

Berlyn stood and pulled Eugenia into a tight hug that stuffed her face back into that hefty bosom. “You can and you will.”

And Eugenia rested in the safety of her friend, knowing there was a huge probability of suffocation if she stayed there very long. But there was an aching piece that wouldn’t really care.

Ten days later

Ain’t nothin’ green ’bout this here valley today. Valley gone dark.

Miz Eugenia pretty near moved in by now. Miz Mackenzie’s best friend Anna been here for a week too, helpin’ out. And you should see all the flowers and notes and such. But most people, they stayin’ away.

I seen that before. Folks don’t know what to do with this kind a grief. I think they ’fraid, like it sump’n you can catch. Like admittin’ it mean it can happen to you. So a lotta folks clutchin’ they own and grievin’ at a distance.

Gov’nor been tryin’ to get back to work. Guess he don’t know what else to do. All the rest a us just movin’ slow ’neath this dark cloud that gone and settled over us. We just tryin’ to get by. Rosa cookin’ and cryin’. The gov’nor’s friends ain’t even raised they voices at one ’nother since that sad day. And Miss Jessica ain’t had her a twitch, neither.

We all just deep in the griefs. We down so deep, don’t know if we ever comin’ out. Like God done took the one bulb outta the lamp been keepin’ all a us lit up. Like he forgot that be the one thing we needin’ the most.

I ain’t never understood that ’bout God. He always doin’ things that in the natural don’t make a lick a sense. And in middle a all that craziness, he go and ax us to trust him.

Trust him? Today I ain’t even sure I like him. I been arguin’ with him, givin’ him all my meanness and madness. And he takin’ it—ain’t striked me or nothin’. Just sittin’ up there, listenin’ to an ol’ man question his ’bility to manage this here world. ’Cause it feel like he done took his eye offa us. Way offa us.

I ain’t gon’ stay mad long. Never do. Me and God got a deal. He make me mad, I tell him. I make him mad, he tell me. He winnin’ on the scorecard I been keepin’.

I been thinkin’ a lot these days ’bout my ol’ daddy. He the one taught me ’bout talkin’ to God. Taught me a lot ’bout flowers too. He always say, “God can handle my yellin’, and flowers can win a heart.”

This white woman he work for, ol’ Miz Moss, she be mean and gruff and ugly. And I don’t mean just heart ugly. She just plain beat-by-the-ugly-stick ugly. And Daddy, he her yardman. Anyway, he tol’ me, after he had all a her he could stand, God started layin’ flowers on his heart to give her. Flowers that got meanin’.

He learned ’bout the meanin’s of flowers when he worked for a flower shop, way back ’fore I come along. So he’d write the meanin’ down on a note and stick the flower and the note by her door.

She ain’t ever spoke one nice word to him ’bout them flowers, but he knowed she liked ’em. Said he saw it in her eyes. And sure ’nough, when my daddy died, ol’ Miz Moss gone and paid for ever’ part a his funeral. Took care a my mama, too, ’til the day Miz Moss died. Then Miz Moss’s son took care a Mama the rest a her life.

God been speakin’ to me ’bout flowers too. Couple a months ago, I ain’t knowed why but felt like growin’ me some white hyacinths from bulbs. Today, it like God be whisperin’, “Today the day.” So I take her one a them hyacinths. That mean I be prayin’ for her. Ain’t gon’ tell her arguin’ been more like it.

But she wadn’t out there to take that hyacinth from me, ’cause she don’t come outside to pray that prayer no more. Guess she don’t see the point, since there ain’t no little hand gon’ be holdin’ hers.

God, we gots to help her back to her point.

Gov’nor took that flower and put it in water and took it up to her, I s’pose. And I did see her sad face starin’ out that there window one day. But she ain’t seen me. She seen
through
me, but she ain’t seen me. Don’t know when she gon’ see nothin’ again.

I prayin’ that one day, one day, Lord, our Miz Mackenzie be able to see sump’n other than her grief.

Though alls I seein’ right now be mine.

Chapter 18

Mackenzie hugged the pillow against her body, and it seemed to press against every ache in her being. Her mother had come in that morning and opened the draperies, even though she wanted them closed. If she had the strength to get up, she would close them herself. But she didn’t. All she had the strength for was tears, and fresh ones were falling down familiar paths they had all but carved on her face. They fell into her hair and then onto the pillow.

She hadn’t been out of their room since the funeral. She had gone through that service with some strength she couldn’t define, but as soon as she got home, she crawled into bed and had only come out to go to the bathroom. She still wore the pajamas she had put on after the funeral.