The Garden of Happy Endings (13 page)

Elsa chuckled. “Thank you.”

He said, “I could use some help drumming. You think you could drum while I play?”

“Um, sure.”

He gestured for her to follow him and he picked up a big round drum from a tree stump. Using a stick covered with hide, he pounded it with a firm, powerful hand. “Like this,” he said, nodding his head each time. “Like your heart. Can you do that?”

“I can try.” Charlie trotted behind her, curious. Elsa gripped the drumstick and brought it down somewhat gingerly. It whispered.

“Harder!” Joseph cried.

She brought more force to it. A powerful
dum
came from it, sending a wave of energy up her arm. The man nodded, spun his hand.
Again
.

She hit it again, and tried to find a rhythm, counting under her breath, one two three
four
, one two three
four
. He seemed to approve, because he picked up the flute and started to play, weaving sweetness around the rumbling throat of the drum.

Without warning, she was suspended in the otherworld, feeling the ancestors or ghosts, or whoever they were, rustling around them. She imagined that they were bringing blessings and cleansing energy to the field, preparing it for the miracle of food.

What is true? What is real?
The silent prayer slipped from her almost without her notice, and she let it stay and hang in the foggy air only because this old shaman needed her for his own form of magic, and even if she didn’t believe, he did. It was something small her hands could do this morning.

* * *

P
aris Elaine Jennings was named for the city she was born in, which she had left in the middle of the night when she was fourteen. Not Paris, France, but Paris, Kentucky. It was a silly name, she thought, and it made her sound like somebody she wasn’t, which was why she had named her own son Calvin, a solid name. A name that a boy could grow into. A Calvin could be anything. Calvin Jennings, CPA. Judge Calvin Jennings. President Calvin Jennings.

And he was a beautiful boy, too, with that perfect hair that mixed kids so often had, and his daddy’s big brown eyes. She could see his daddy in him in lots of ways. Not that he’d been around for a long time—he’d shipped off to Iraq only ten months after they’d started living together. She was pregnant when he left, though she didn’t know it, and when she found out, she thought she’d wait to tell him. For a while. She didn’t know when. He wrote her emails and clung to her in a way that made her feel so good, not like other guys. He was true and real. He loved her.

And he got himself killed. They weren’t even married, so she was up a creek. Neither her folks nor his would have wanted anything to do with their baby. Not a mixed-race baby in Kentucky, and not in Georgia, either, where Calvin’s daddy was from with his pretty, soft drawl. She was on her own.

She worked, yes she did, as a grunt in a nursing home for eight dollars an hour. Hard, dirty work. Sometimes the old people were mean to her. One old man always tried to pull her hair, but she knew he was just out of his mind with age and sadness. The apartment was rent-subsidized, and she got food stamps from SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, but it wasn’t but $162 a month. That didn’t buy as much as you would think. It always made her laugh when the politicians started complaining about abuses of the system. She’d like to see them live on
$162 a month in groceries. Some of them probably ate at restaurants that cost twice that for a single meal.

Muttering under her breath, she poked through the cupboards, wondering how she’d feed them both for the rest of the week. She’d had to fix her raggedy-ass car and it had taken just about everything she had. She’d even taken her jar of change over to Safeway to cash it in. All that was left was five dollars. She’d had to do it; the car was how she got to work.

But that left almost two weeks to get through before the next SNAP payment. She didn’t have two weeks of SNAP left, and they’d have to eat careful. She took stock. There was most of a gallon of milk left. One can of tuna. Some store-brand Cheerios, and rice. They could eat rice, but not all week. She’d maybe get some eggs for two dollars, and leave the milk for Calvin, and send him over to the church to eat at the soup kitchen on Thursday. That was one good thing, having the church right here. After the twelve o’clock Mass on Sunday, they served coffee and pastries and little bits of meat and cheese. She and Calvin made a big feast of it. She didn’t mind going to church if it meant they could eat. Father Jack told her God didn’t care if she was Catholic, and that she was welcome at Mass.

Outside her window was the freshly turned field. It had been an eyesore before they cleaned it up, all kinds of junk and weeds growing in there, and the gang boys smoking and talking till late in the night. It was a dangerous place. Haunted, she sometimes thought. Her bedroom window looked out that direction, too, and sometimes she thought she saw blue lights dancing around. Somebody at work told her that it was swamp gas. Maybe it was.

Now, though, the field was clear and open, and she had claimed one of those plots, you better believe it. She and Calvin would grow their own plants, just like she had as a child. Collards and beans and tomatoes, fresh and juicy. Squash because it was easy, and she liked yellow squashes, especially, steamed with just butter and salt. Corn, because Calvin wanted it. And of course,
his magic bean seeds, which his teacher had given to all of the children on Valentine’s Day. He was sure he’d grow a beanstalk to find a giant, and she’d let him discover on his own that it was miracle enough to grow something in the earth to feed yourself.

The idea of so much food, all free except for the seeds, made her dizzy. She wouldn’t waste one single bit of it, either. She knew how to put food away, in the freezer and into jars. Her mama had taught her that, and although Paris had hated it at the time, now she was grateful.

Behind her, Calvin came into the kitchen. “What’s for breakfast, Mama?”

“How about Cheerios?”

He climbed into his chair and she kissed his head. As she poured the cereal, her stomach growled. Later, they could eat at the church, and this afternoon, she’d take that last five dollars and buy some eggs and bread, maybe a tiny bit more milk if she could squeeze it out. Eggs and bread and milk could keep body and soul together pretty well.

W
hen she looped back home, Elsa could see the news vans from two blocks away. Antennas stuck into the lifting clouds, and even at this distance, she could see a handful of reporters in long camel coats milling around, coffee cups in their gloved hands. She paused on the sidewalk and tried to think of an alternative to plowing right into the middle of them. She ducked left and headed down the alley, cursing under her breath when it set all the dogs on high alert. Charlie loped along, ignoring them in his superiority. He looked over his shoulder at her, as if to say,
Do you hear these cretins going insane?

“You are so supercilious, Charlie-Man.”

One intrepid reporter had set up camp in the alley and he whistled loudly as she appeared, moving forward to shove a mic at her. “Can you tell us where Scott is? When’s his wife going to spill the beans?”

Elsa held up a hand and hurried by him, letting herself in through the gate and closing it firmly behind her. She didn’t have the key to the back door, so she knocked on it, calling loudly, “Tamsin, it’s me! Let me in!”

Her sister appeared at the door, hair an uncombed tangle, her
eyes swollen from sleep or wine or crying. Her phone was pressed to her ear and she raised a finger to her lips.
Alexa
, she mouthed.

A hubbub erupted in the alley as Elsa closed the door behind her and drew the curtains over the windows of the sunporch, an unheated space at the back of the house, lined with windows. In high school, she’d grown plants of various sorts out here, and her mother had kept small appliances on the shelves—a blender and a mixer, and all the things that wouldn’t fit in the cramped kitchen. There was nothing here now but the view of the backyard, which thankfully no one had yet breached.

Privacy secured, Elsa headed into the front room. Tamsin was making listening noises to her daughter, her tone upbeat and utterly unconcerned. Elsa caught her eye. Tamsin shook her head, again putting her finger to her lips. “That sounds like a great weekend, honey.” She laughed, lightly. “Not everyone can say they swam with royals.”

Elsa went to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee—clearly Tamsin had only just rolled out of bed for Alexa’s call. She would need something heartening. When the coffee was going, she pulled out a skillet and the ingredients for pancakes, eavesdropping shamelessly.

Tamsin said, “I just haven’t had a chance to check my email for a couple of days.” Not
strictly
a lie. “I’ll read it after a while. I have plans with your aunt Elsa this afternoon.” Also sort of true.

From the freezer, Elsa took a package of blueberries, and poured some into a bowl to run under cold water. In the living room, Tamsin was finishing off her conversation. “Don’t worry about anything for this last month, honey, just enjoy every single second, okay? It’ll be back to the real world before you know it.”

Still holding the phone, Tamsin leaned on the threshold to the kitchen. “She called because she hasn’t heard from her dad since he was in Madrid,” she told Elsa. “He’s not answering emails and his phone goes to an error message.” In the early morning, without makeup, she looked suddenly older, her mouth pale, her
eyes ringed in smudgy shadows. “I didn’t know what to say. I don’t want to lie, but she’s only there for another month, and I’d hate to see that ruined.”

Elsa broke eggs into a dish, nodding. Privately, she was pretty sure Alexa would hear the news before much longer, but she’d let Tamsin come to that conclusion herself. It wouldn’t hurt to let her have her delusion for a few hours.

“Do you think that’s going to come back and bite me, that I’m protecting her from the truth? What is she going to do differently? I mean, nothing, right? And there’s the possibility that it will all be sorted out by the time she gets home.”

“Sure. That’s possible.”

Tamsin looked at the phone and a long hank of hair fell down in her face. “You think I’m deluding myself. I don’t actually think it will be sorted out, either, but there is the
possibility
.”

“You know your daughter better than anyone, Tamsin. You know the right thing to do.”

She raised her head, hope giving new light to her blue eyes.

“You think so?”

“Good grief, who
are
you? Where is my mighty sister? The mistress of all she surveys? The queen of all things?”

She shook her head, balancing the phone in the middle of her upheld palm. “I feel winded. Like I can’t breathe.”

“Well, go wash your face and then we’ll eat breakfast.”

Shouts came from the front of the house and there was a knock at the door. “What are we going to do about them?”

“I don’t know if there’s anything we can do. You’re part of the story. They’re going to do what they can to get something out of you.”

“Should we watch the news?”

“No. Breakfast first, then we can decide on a plan of action. Seriously, sis, go brush your hair and wash your face and we’ll eat. It will make you feel better.”

“I need to go to church,” Tamsin said firmly. She looked at the
clock. “There’s a Mass at ten. I can get a shower and go to that one.”

Elsa raised her eyebrows. “Mass, Tamsin? Seriously? Since when do you ever go to church?”

“I have to do
something
! I feel like I’m right on the brink of a panic attack.” She put her palm on her throat. “Like I’m going to throw up.”

“So say the rosary from here,” Elsa said. “Or, better yet, make something beautiful. That’s your worship.”

“No! Those, those … nosy
pigs
out there aren’t going to keep me locked up in this house.”

Elsa thought of Kiki’s memorial service, all of the reporters, the sensitive and the crass all mixed up together, their prurient curiosity creating a wedge and an unwanted distraction for those who were earnestly grieving. Their presence had interfered with what might have been a pivotal healing point for a great many of them.

Including, perhaps, Elsa herself.

“I get that, but you can’t go to church,” she said to Tamsin. “You have an obligation to do what you can to minimize the trouble this is going to cause for other people. You can’t do a lot to spare your neighborhood or even mine, but you can keep it away from San Roque during services. It’s only fair.”

“How is
any
of this fair?” Tamsin’s red-rimmed eyes filled with tears. “And why do
I
have to be the noble one? I’ve lost everything.”

“No you haven’t. You have more than a lot of people. You’re healthy. You have your daughter. Your life. Even if everything else is gone, you’ve got a lot of advantages.”

Tamsin bowed her head. “It doesn’t feel that way right now.”

Elsa hugged her. “I know, sweetie, but it will get better.” Releasing her, she said, “Now, go take a shower. Wash your hair. We’ll eat breakfast.”