The First Gardener (36 page)

Chapter 50

Eugenia burst through the doors of the mansion, scaring the heebie-jeebies out of Joseph. She could tell by the way he grabbed his chest when the door swung open. “It’s okay, Joseph,” she told the steward. “It’s just me.”

She hollered out the door to Berlyn. “Bring them in.”

Berlyn turned her broad behind around, displaying the equally broad hot-pink rose that was splattered across it.

“I’m buying her nothing but stripes for Christmas,” Eugenia muttered to herself.

Dimples and Sandra climbed out of the car. Sandra was huffing and puffing and acting like she was dying.

“Get the laundry,” Eugenia barked. “You’re doing it, Sandra.”

Sandra’s top lip pressed hard against her bottom lip, but Eugenia knew her friend well enough to know that her Southern manners or Southern pride, however you wanted to define it, would never let her say, “There’s no way on God’s green earth I’m doing that stinky laundry” in front of the very people it belonged to. So Eugenia had handled that perfectly.

Jeremiah got out of the car slowly. The man needed a piece of dynamite stuck to his rear end. Dimples came around the corner of the car and ran into the bumper. Eugenia popped the lid to her trunk with a little button in her hand, and it shot upward, about scaring poor Dimples’s left eye straight.

Berlyn held the hand of one of three little girls as she led them in the front door. “It’s okay. Come right in. You get to stay here until beds open up at the shelter.”

The mother of the three girls stood a head above Eugenia. She had to be at least six feet tall. But she was kind of scrawny and ostrichlike. And her poor hair must have been running from shampoo. If she even had any shampoo.

Jeremiah brought up the rear and grabbed Eugenia’s arm right before she headed upstairs to get Mackenzie.

“Where you goin’?”

“I’m going to get Mackenzie. Now, let me go.”

“What if she ain’t gon’ come?”

“Then I’ll drag her out of the bed.”

“What good that gon’ do? Same bed be there tomorrow.”

She jerked her arm free from his grip. “Do you think I brought this woman and her children here for me?”

“Nope. Be pretty clear on why you brought ’em here. Just maybe you ain’t thought through what you need to do now that they here.”

She shook her head in frustration and stomped her foot. “Speak English, Jeremiah. English. What are you trying to say?”

“That flower do mean pride, Miz Eugenia. It do. I knowed that when I give it to Miz Mackenzie. And I knowed self-pity’s one a pride’s ugliest and meanest faces. But alls you can do for somebody when they all tangled up in hurt is give ’em a chance to heal. And if you think you can do more’n that for ’em, well then, maybe that flower wasn’t for Miz Mackenzie.”

She could feel her brow furrow. “Are you saying me?
I’ve
got a problem with pride?”

“’Bout as English as I can say it. Control be pride, Miz Eugenia. Lettin’ go . . . now, lettin’ go is healin’.”

Eugenia was too flustered to think. She had just brought a homeless family to the governor’s mansion. Sandra had all but thrown up when she heard she had laundry duty. Dimples needed as much taking care of as the woman and her children. And Berlyn couldn’t be trusted in the governor’s mansion; she always left with a souvenir. And now Jeremiah had the nerve to suggest Eugenia had gone to all this trouble because she was too full of pride?

Jeremiah must have read her mind. “Alls you can do is lead her to the water, Miz Eugenia. She the only one can decide to take a drink. You gots to leave all that in the Lord’s hands. He a big ol’ God.”

Eugenia ran her hand across her face and then tugged both hands through her stiff-sprayed bob. “Go, Jeremiah,” she said. “Just go!” She marched up the stairs, right past a flustered-looking Jessica, still feeling his eyes on her. But she was Eugenia Quinn, and every day was Burger King for her. So she would have it her way.

Mackenzie’s door was closed. Eugenia opened it slowly to find her daughter still in bed, the covers tucked around her. It was as if she were still seven, sleeping there all safe and sound, back when Eugenia and Lorenzo could keep her safe. Tell her what to do. Make her do it. Mackenzie had always been an obedient child—a little stubborn sometimes, but she would eventually do what she was told. Even if she did it her own way.

Eugenia walked to the window, keeping her eyes on her daughter. Mackenzie had needed her these past six months, and she had been there. There had been moments when she needed to be pushed, and Eugenia had pushed her. And there had been moments when she simply needed to be loved and held, so Eugenia had loved her and held her.

But Jeremiah was right. Eugenia knew it.

That was why she hated it so much—because it had come from him. She flipped her hand in disgust and walked to Mackenzie’s bed. “Mackenzie, I want you to get up.”

She saw Mackenzie’s eyes move slightly.

“Come on. I know you can hear me. I need you to get yourself out of that bed and get up. You’ve got company to tend to.” She reached for her daughter’s arm.

Mackenzie’s embrace around her pillow tightened.

“Now you listen to me, Mackenzie. Your mother has told you to do something, and it’s time to do it.” Her voice shook, and she could feel her fear rising rapidly. “Now, come on. You need to get up and get dressed and come help me take care of these visitors we’ve got.”

Even as the words came from her mouth, she knew they were useless. Banging gongs. Clanging cymbals. Biscuits made without Crisco. Useless. But she was a mama, and mamas didn’t let their babies drown. They dove in after them and would pummel sharks with their bare fists if that was what stood in their way.

She was leaning down to tug again at Mackenzie’s arm when the tug of something else arrested her. Her body moved back instinctively. She felt it again. It was pulling her away from Mackenzie. A thought fluttered through her soul—
I’ve got her.

She pushed against it. But she knew where it had come from.

“I can’t trust you with her,” she whispered. “Not now. Not after all of this.”

She moved closer to the bed. Mackenzie stirred. Another thought dug deeper still.
Broken worlds hold broken things. But only one can put it all back together.

Eugenia stepped back. She knew it was true. She knew this world was broken and cruel and nothing like what had originally been intended. And she also knew from losing Lorenzo that heaven was the only place big enough to put the kind of agony that travels through your insides and doesn’t stop until it has removed half your heart.

It was time to let go. Strangely, it felt like she’d known that for a long time, long before Jeremiah had said anything. But knowing it and doing it were not the same thing.

She retreated to the bay window and stood there a long time, watching a sky that still held the fleeting blue of day. Finally she spoke. “Father, I’m good at a lot of things. I’m good at gardening—better than Jeremiah. I’m good at deciding and dictating. Without me, those three down there would be lost. And I’m a good mama. You know that. You made me one. But I have never been good at letting go. I can beat a dead horse, pick it up, and then beat it again.”

She chuckled to herself. “At least that’s what Mackenzie always says, but I guess you made me that way too.”

She felt the knot grow large in her throat, and she had to wait for it to subside. “Father, my baby girl is broken, and I can’t fix her. I see that now. I really do. I’ve done everything I know to do. I’m all out of fixing.”

She shook her head and then stood silent for what seemed like days. Finally she cupped her hands and raised them toward the blue of the sky. “All right, Lord. You gave that baby girl to me. Now I give her to you. She’s in your hands.”

Tears fell freely down her face. “But please, if you can bring her back to us—the real Mackenzie, our Mackenzie—” she had to fight to get those words out—“Gray and I would sure appreciate it.” The next pause was long, and what transpired in the middle of it would redefine Eugenia Quinn forever. “But whatever you think is best for my baby girl . . . I’ll trust you.”

When she finally knew her surrender was complete—or as complete as she was capable of—Eugenia walked to Mackenzie and kissed her softly on the cheek. And with that, she left her alone.

As soon as she closed the door, she heard a scream.

Obviously Sandra had gotten the laundry out of the car.

I knowed soon as I let go her arm, that woman ain’t gon’ listen to a thing I say. So I gone and did what I knowed to do. Marched right down them stairs to my workroom and tol’ them boys to leave me be for a few minutes. They all knowed why. When I clear ’em out like that, it be ’cause I gots business to do.

I knowed the gov’nor and Miz Eugenia wanna save Miz Mackenzie. I wanna save her too. But she gots to want to be saved. So this be Miz Mackenzie’s fightin’ place too. This ’tween her and God.

And so I do the only thing make a lick a sense. I get down on my knees, grateful they still good ’nough to be gotten down on, and I start prayin’ for all a them. Prayin’ for the gov’nor, prayin’ for the crazy lady, and prayin’ for Miz Mackenzie. That each one a them find strength to let go they pride if they got any.

And pride hard, ’cause it like to pretend it sump’n it ain’t—like a rescuer or a protector or a griever or a pitier. I’m thinkin’ sometimes pride can pretend to be an ol’ man tellin’ gov’nors and such what they oughta do.

But no matter what it pretend to be, pride be such a liar. It make us
think
we sump’n we ain’t. Make us think we can get by without God.

Way I see it, God thought it’d be okay to get all a life started in a garden. Then, after ever’body thought he gone for good, he show back up in another garden. Women that saw him after he raised up from the dead, they thought he be a gardener. Always did love that story. Way I see it, he be a Master Gardener. So now, good Lord, please help us all to keep our prideful hands outta your garden and get outta the way a all the growin’ things you be tryin’ to do.

Chapter 51

A shrill scream pierced through the haze in Mackenzie’s mind. She blinked hard. The sun was still up. She had no idea what time it was, when Gray had left, or whose scream had just awoken her.

She tried to pick up her feet to move them to the edge of the bed. They felt like they had soaked in concrete all night. She finally got them over the side and managed to sit up. Everything hurt. She shouldn’t be surprised. Her body had spent more time against that mattress than it had anywhere else. It was a miracle her muscles hadn’t atrophied completely.

Loud voices sounded down the hall. A knock landed on her door, loud and forceful. “Mrs. London?”

She didn’t respond. She just sat still on the edge of the bed.

Another knock, harder this time, and the voice at her door was louder. “Mrs. London?”

“Would you stop it! She’s resting!” Her mother’s voice was loud enough to wake the dead, let alone someone sleeping in the other room.

Mackenzie pushed to her feet and picked up a white fluffy sweatshirt that was draped over the foot of the bed. She realized that Gray had known what she’d want when she got up. She’d want her sweatshirt. That sweatshirt. And he had left it there for her.

She put on the sweatshirt and looked around. Something felt . . . different. Her senses seemed more alert than usual. She walked to the door and opened it.

Jessica and her mother stared at her, wide-eyed. She immediately knew why. Her mother had seen her this morning, practically dead to the world. Jessica had seen her yesterday, sitting in her chair like a zombie. Right now she didn’t feel so great, but she was neither of those people.

“Oh, Mrs. London,” Jessica said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were sleeping. I just . . .” Her words trailed off.

Mackenzie leaned against the doorframe. “It’s okay.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “What’s going on?”

Jessica’s look was uptight. Her words followed the same pattern. “Did you decide you wanted to bring a family in today from the mission?”

“I decided for her,” Eugenia said.

Mackenzie rubbed her eyes. “What do you mean? What family?”

“There is a family here. A mother with two girls—”

Eugenia interrupted. “Three.”

Jessica turned toward Eugenia and shook her head. “Okay, there are four people downstairs, all seemingly here to be fed and housed for the evening. And I know you’ve done this in the past, but usually you run things like this through me.”

Her head kind of tilted toward Eugenia as the last sentence came out, a subtle declaration of what belonged in a home.

Mackenzie moved past them and down the hall. She looked over the railing to the foyer below. A tall, dirty woman with three scraggly redheaded children waited there. One girl sat on the floor, another at the bottom of the steps, and the other ran wildly through the foyer, arms stretched out and airplane noises coming from her little but boisterous mouth.