The Garden of Happy Endings (41 page)

The gardeners surveyed the damage, faces masked with rage and shock and sadness. “Who would do this?” one older woman asked, lifting a decapitated cabbage. Another tried to brace her torn fence, but it kept falling over again.

Elsa pulled her phone from her pocket and called Deacon. He answered gruffly, and Elsa said without preamble, “We need you at the community garden. There’s been some vandalism.”

He swore. “How bad?”

She looked over her shoulder. Paris was running down the center path toward her plot, Calvin and Mario in tow. “Bad. They beat up old Joseph, too.”

“Bastards.”

“We need fencing and tools to start the repairs. Can you help with any of that?”

“You bet. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Thanks,” she said, and jogged up the side of the garden to reach Paris and the two boys, just as they arrived at their plot. All three of them stared at the torn-down fence with blank expressions.

Calvin went immediately to his bean plant, which had been twining up a stake, and made a roaring noise. “They wrecked my beanstalk!” he cried, and his mother, who’d been looking at the destruction with a murderous expression on her face, wrapped her arm around him.

“No, baby, look,” she said, kneeling. “The stake is gone, but we can tie the bean up again.”

The plant was distressed, but didn’t appear to be broken. Elsa spied the stake and carried it over to him, her eye on Mario. He stood in the bright morning, wearing a dirty T-shirt, his hair loose down his back. His mouth trembled. Elsa went to him.

“How are you doing, honey?” she asked, and slid an arm around him.

He shrugged. “Somebody beat up my grandpa.”

“I know. I talked to him, though, and he was really worried that he wasn’t going to be able to do the drumming. He said the spirits need that. Do you have a drum?”

“Yeah.” He swiped an angry tear from his face. “I don’t know how to do what my grandpa does, not just like him.”

“I think the spirits will understand that you’re a medicine man in training. They’ll just be glad you’re doing it.”

He chewed on his lip. “Will I get beat up, too? I’m scared of those guys.”

“You won’t be here by yourself,” she said. “I promise. Let’s go take a look at your garden, too, see what we can fix. Deacon will be here in a little while.”

“Good.” He shrugged off her arm. “I gotta go to the bathroom first.”

Elsa nodded, then turned back to Paris, who was carefully tying the beanstalk back to the stake. Calvin patted the earth at
the base. “You think Father Jack would sprinkle some holy water on it?” he asked.

“You can ask him.”

Calvin jumped up. Hopeful. “I’ll be right back, Mama.”

Paris nodded. “Stay in sight.”

Elsa knelt in Paris’s garden and plucked leaves from a sunflower, and removed some broken bits of a tomato. The carrots and potatoes would be fine, hidden as they were under the earth. A swath of corn was crushed. Paris yanked out the little broken plants with fury. Elsa put a hand over hers. “I think if you leave those alone, they’ll be okay in a week or so.”

Paris tossed the shoots aside, and Elsa saw that her hand was shaking violently. “My whole life, all I’ve been trying to do is have a little bit of comfort, to make things a little bit nicer than rock-bottom hillbilly shit.” She wiped at her jaw. “Just a
little
. And every time, some man takes it away, stomps on it, or gets himself killed, or ruins it. I’m tired of that.” Her blue eyes, so young and so old, met Elsa’s. “So tired.”

“I know,” she said quietly, not looking away. “It’s evil, and it’s painful, and it doesn’t seem fair. But you are good and strong and smart and real.” Paris leaned toward her, soaking up the words. Elsa continued, “You’re also raising a boy who will grow into a man who will make the world better, not worse. I believe in you, Paris.”

The girl stared at Elsa for a long moment, too ferocious, too angry. “I could just kill those boys. What were they thinking? They’re just as poor as we are. This is
food
.”

“I know.” Elsa stood. “They’ve been damaged, too, somehow, or they wouldn’t want to do this. We can’t fix them, but let’s see what we can do about this fence.”

A
ll day, Elsa helped in the gardens. Her sister came and went, taking Charlie back home with her. Joaquin and Deacon worked, too, hauling rebar out of Deacon’s truck and patching the fences
and digging out sections of damaged crops. A church member went to a garden shop and brought back three flats of mixed bedding plants to help replace those that had been lost.

In the late afternoon, Elsa sank down at the picnic table in the center of the gardens, took off her gloves and slapped the dust from them. Her hands were shaking and she realized she had not eaten since breakfast. Someone had brought doughnuts and bananas and gallons of water. She’d gobbled down a strawberry-frosted doughnut, and poured a big paper cup of water. As she gulped that down, too, she thought again how efficient the volunteer system was in Joaquin’s church. Absently peeling a banana, she looked around for him, wondering how he kept the machine running. He was nowhere in sight. The bells began to ring, calling the faithful to Mass.

Of course. It was Saturday afternoon. A couple of men in the garden looked up, dusted themselves off, and wandered toward the church.

It had been like that in medieval times,
before
medieval times, with the same bells, the same Mass, the same words. That was something she missed about Catholicism, one of the many. There was all that time and history and ritual already in place, the weight and solidness of it a pattern to hold on to.

Would she have been a priest if she could have? If it had been allowed? Would she have made the sacrifice Joaquin had made?

“Hey, stranger,” Deacon said, sitting down next to her. He had two cups in his hands, steaming hot. “I thought you could use a little more substance. Tea for you. Two sugars and milk, not cream, right?”

She grinned up at him. “Right. Thanks.”

He faced the church, as she did, and they each drank in silence for a time. “I don’t think I’ve thanked you for the fried chicken,” he said. “It was delicious.”

She smiled sadly. “You don’t have to lie, Deacon. Joaquin told me you gave it to him.”

“I gave him half,” he said. “Not all of it.”

Elsa turned.

He looked at her, then looked down and put his hand over hers. “I’m struggling a bit with my loyalties, Elsa.” His fingertip traced the curve of her nails.

She waited.

He raised his head, looked at her mouth, at her eyes. “Joaquin saved my life.” His drawl seemed deeper, softer. His hand was hot and it pulsed over hers with a clear burning energy. A scent of grass came from his skin. Elsa had a clear and perfect wish to move closer and taste his mouth. Her heart was beating a little faster.

“I was in prison and lost and he came into that place like—” He made a clicking noise. “Hope. Just hope. He spread it around all of us like fresh soil.”

She forced from her mind all of the reasons they shouldn’t be together and looked up at him directly, letting her heart open to him. She sensed in him the things he needed, saw them in his pupils, and the beauty of his mouth.

And she allowed herself to acknowledge her own wishes, too. “I think you should take me somewhere for dinner.”

He hesitated still, but at last he gave in, and leaned forward and kissed her. Just a brush of his mouth on hers, but Elsa caught the back of his neck before he could draw away. She pulled him back to her. On his lips she tasted the future—music and laughter, things they would do. Places they would go.

With a soft sigh, he pressed his forehead to hers. “What do you feel like eating?”

She straightened. “A lot. I’m starving. Pizza?”

“Let’s go.” He poured the coffee onto the ground and turned around to hold out his hand. With a sense that she was stepping across an invisible line, Elsa took it. Something like glitter seemed to burst in the air. She hummed under her breath and danced a little beside him.

* * *

T
hey went to the Riverwalk and found a table downstairs on the patio at Angelo’s, where their dusty clothes wouldn’t be noticed. It was darker on the lower patio, close to the river flowing through a man-made channel. The sidewalks and paths along the river were busy on a Saturday afternoon, and the sound of fountains cooled the air. They ordered a pizza and root beers, and chips and salsa to tide them over.

“The Riverwalk always amazes me,” Elsa said. “It’s so beautiful and it really has changed the look of this area, hasn’t it?”

“I never saw it before. I only got here about four years ago. I was living in Denver when I got the DUI, and only came to Pueblo when I got out of prison. The Riverwalk was already here. Maybe not as developed as it is now, but they’d built the channel.”

“Ah. Well, it used to be a pretty run-down area, and the river was over behind the levee. Safely, so it couldn’t flood.” She gestured with a chip, encompassing the entire area. “In 1921, there was a massive flash flood. Wiped out downtown, and this whole area was so deep underwater that you could only see the tops of those buildings.”

“I’ve always kinda wondered about that. It’s a pretty small river by southern standards, but that’s a
serious
levee.”

“Right. That’s why. This was the original channel of the river, but as you see, only a little bit of the water is allowed to come through.”

“It’s pretty. I like it down here.” He leaned back and stretched out his long legs, then inclined his head and looked at her for a long moment. “I was watching you today. You were really in your element.”

“What do you mean?”

“You were just tireless, and everybody looked to you for help and advice. You have a real gift for ministry, Elsa.”

She shook her head ruefully. “It’s funny how that kind of event or need just”—she made a circle in front of her heart—“pulls me in. I feel like I’m a much better version of myself.” To her surprise and embarrassment, tears pricked the back of her eyes. She blinked hard. “I miss it,” she said honestly. “I was telling Joaquin that last night. I have to figure things out. This drifting is not what I’m meant to do. What any of us are supposed to do.”

“You don’t have to be in a church, you know. There are a lot of ways to help people. You could work with the Red Cross or take up nursing or … a thousand things.”

Before she could stop them, words came pouring out of her mouth. “But I love being a minister. In a church. I love church, period. All churches, pretty much, but especially when I have one of my own, a flock to look after.”

He smiled. “Sounds like you have your answer.”

Their pizza came and Elsa, ravenous to her very bones, picked up a slice. “We can keep talking about that in a minute, but I have to eat first.”

They both dug in. Elsa concentrated fully on the pizza, with its Brooklyn-style crust, the salt and tang, the onions and greasy pepperoni. Across the river channel, a woman drifted out to a balcony to water pots of petunias. Elsa wiped grease from her lips, and gestured toward the woman. “That would be a nice place to live.”

“Pretty,” he agreed, and pointed north. “You can see Pikes Peak.”

“Imagine how gorgeous the world looks from up there.”

“I’m sure you have to pay for the privilege.”

“No doubt.” She admired his jawline against the light, the length of his neck, and thought of putting her mouth there, nestling in to smell him. Her skin rippled, like a cat’s, hungry for stroking. Beneath the table, she kicked off her sandal and put her foot on his.

He cocked an eyebrow, very slightly, and that charming half
smile flickered. He reached for her hand, tracing a circle on her inner wrist. His expression was bemused. “Are you coming home with me after this?”

“I would like to.”

He nodded, put down his pizza. Wiped his lips carefully. “I need to ask you a question, point-blank, and I need a clear answer.”

“Okay.”

“If Father Jack suddenly were not a priest, would you be his wife?”

“No,” she said with some amusement and leaned forward so that she could speak quietly. “I have done everything I can think of to let you know that
you
are the one I’m interested in. No,” she said, interrupting herself, “ ‘interested’ is way too small a word. I was just sitting here thinking how much I’d like to bury myself in your neck and smell you. I keep imagining how you’ll look without your shirt on.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear,” he said gruffly, and leaned over to kiss her, just once, with promise. “Finish up your pizza, sugar.”

“I love it when you call me sugar.”

“I thought you hated it.”

“I don’t like the casual endearments you use for everyone. I want ‘sugar’ to belong only to me. Can you save it for me?”

He chuckled. “That I can do.”

“I have a question for you, too.” She picked up another piece of pizza. “I might well go back to my church, you know.”

He nodded, meeting her eyes.

“They need me, and I need to be busy again. Until I’ve sorted everything out, I won’t be the teacher they need, but it feels like I might be getting there.”

“That’s good.”

“You know what church life is like. Could you ever live around that again?”

He leaned forward and picked up her hand. “I reckon I could, for the right woman.”

The pocket of tension in her chest dissolved. “What do you believe in, Deacon?”

He looked toward the west. The sun had fallen behind the mountains, leaving a jagged blaze of gold light on the horizon. “I don’t feel the need to be that specific. There’s something up there, out there, all around us, but I don’t necessarily know what to name it.” He lifted a shoulder. “I like it when Joseph says ‘Great Spirit.’ That seems as close to what it feels like to me as anything.” He took another piece of pizza in his long-fingered hand and looked at her with a level gaze. “You reckon you might be a touch too hard on yourself?”

Elsa laughed.
“Moi?”

As they ate in companionable silence, she kept her bare foot on his arch, touching his ankle with her big toe. Anticipation, bright yellow and edged with heat, brewed between them, circling, tightening, sweetening. The water shimmered. It seemed that all of Pueblo was out enjoying the day, eating ice cream as they walked by, having a beer at Angelo’s, strolling along the walkways.