Read The Garden of Happy Endings Online
Authors: Barbara O'Neal
The Garden of Happy Endings
H
OW TO
B
AKE A
P
ERFECT
L
IFE
“Mothers and daughters are at the heart of this beautiful novel by O’Neal.… Highly recommended.”
—Library Journal
(starred review)
“Absorbing … O’Neal’s tale of strong-willed women and torn family loyalties is a cut above the standard women’s fiction fare, held together by lovingly sketched characters and real emotion.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Envelops you like the scent of warm bread, comforting and invigorating, full of love and forgiveness and possibility.”
—E
RICA
B
AUERMEISTER
, bestselling author of
The School of Essential Ingredients
“This book will have you smiling and crying and pining for an old love, or just a hunk of really good fresh-baked bread. I loved every single delicious bite.”
—J
ENNIE
S
HORTRIDGE
, author of
When She Flew
T
HE
S
ECRET OF
E
VERYTHING
“O’Neal has created a powerful and intriguing story rich in detailed and vivid descriptions of the Southwest.”
—Booklist
“Readers will identify with this story and the multilayered characters.… And with some of the tantalizing recipes for dishes served at the 100 Breakfasts Café included, O’Neal provides a feast not only for the imagination but the taste buds as well.”
—Romantic Times
“Barbara O’Neal has masterfully woven local culture, the beauty of nature, her love of food and restaurants, and a little romance into this magnificent novel.”
—
Fresh Fiction
T
HE
L
OST
R
ECIPE FOR
H
APPINESS
“
The Lost Recipe for Happiness
is a delectable banquet for the reader.… This book is as delicious as the recipes interspersed throughout an incredible story.”
—S
USAN
W
IGGS
,
New York Times
bestselling author
“
The Lost Recipe for Happiness
is utterly magical and fantastically sensual. It’s as dark and deep and sweet as chocolate. I want to live in this book.… A total triumph.”
—S
ARAH
A
DDISON
A
LLEN
,
New York Times
bestselling author
“Beautiful writing, good storytelling and an endearing heroine set against the backdrop of Aspen, Colorado, are highlights of O’Neal’s novel. A tale that intertwines food, friendship, passion, and love in such a delectable mix is one to truly savor until the very last page.”
—
Romantic Times
“Will appeal to women’s fiction fans and foodies, who will enjoy the intriguing recipes … laced through the book.”
—St. Petersburg Times
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
2012 Bantam Books Trade Paperback Original
Copyright © 2012 by Barbara Samuel
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
B
ANTAM
B
OOKS
and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in mass market in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 1989.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
O’Neal, Barbara
The garden of happy endings : a novel / Barbara O’Neal.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-345-53446-0_01
I. Title.
PS3573.I485G37 2012
813′.54—dc23 2011036881
Cover design: Belina Huey
Cover images: © Cultura (woman and garden),
© Justin Paget/Oxford Scientific (dog)
v3.1
MANY YEARS AGO
T
he second time Elsa turned her back on God, it was raining.
She had imagined that they would end their pilgrimage by walking from the Camino right into the Cathedral de Santiago de Compostela, which she had seen in pictures. It was one of the largest cathedrals in the world, and in her mind, the Camino was a red carpet leading directly to it.
Instead, there was first a long slog through the city itself. It was pouring, a relentless deluge that soaked them as they walked suddenly on sidewalks instead of gravel, trudging through the large and thriving metropolis, complete with noisy cars, and planes roaring overhead, and the cacophony of thousands of people. After forty-three days of walking from one quiet hostel to the next, where the noisiest things in the world were roosters and frogs, the city jangled her nerves.
Joaquin, her fiancé, was deeply quiet. They had begun the
camino
as a lark, one last adventure before they started graduate school, but it had become much more as they traveled, one foot in front of the other.
They should have known better, Elsa thought, shoulders
hunched in misery.
She
should have known better. The
camino
called you for a reason. Secretly, she had hoped to find some indication of the way to express her vocation. From tiniest girlhood, she had wanted to be a priest. That idea had been shattered when she was fourteen, but she had still focused on comparative religions as an undergrad.
“Are you all right?” she asked Joaquin.
He took her hand. “Yes,” he said, but his throat betrayed him, showing his Adam’s apple moving in a big gulp.
At last they made their way to the square and into the vast, ancient cathedral. And there they stopped, dripping rain from hair and ponchos and packs, their mouths open in astonishment at the gold.
Oceans
of gold, mountains of gold. Gold slathered over statues and walls and candlesticks, gold enough to feed all the poor in the world for a century at least. Gold and adornments and Santiago overseeing it all.
Joaquin walked to the altar and knelt, and she saw that he was sobbing, his shoulders shaking. He had always been deeply faithful; it was one of the things they shared in a world that was increasingly underwhelmed by the old practices. To give him time and privacy, she knelt and crossed herself and entered a pew. Pilgrims with dusty feet and grimy packs milled around, along with tourists in tidy skirts who had arrived by bus, going to kiss the saint. Some of them looked sideways at Joaquin, but not as many as you might have thought.
At last, he rose and turned to her. Elsa left the pew to meet him. He took her hand. His eyes were red from crying, and she had a terrible feeling. She thought of the way he had made love to her that morning, with both fierceness and tenderness, and a burning began in her heart.
“Don’t say it,” she said, and backed away from him, closing her eyes, covering her ears with her hands. Water dripped down her back from her wet hair.
“Elsa,” he said, and caught her hands. “Look at me.”
She did.
“I am going to be a priest.”
Elsa stepped away from him, and looked up at Santiago, draped in gold. “All that way I walked,” she said, “and this is what you give me?”
She spat on the floor and stormed out of the cathedral.
Chapter One
S
ix days before she turned her back on God for the third time, Elsa Montgomery went to the harvest festival at her church.