The Wishing Garden (30 page)

“I figured they were on a timer,” he went on. “But there was a Corvette in the driveway, too.”

“You came all the way up here for that?” Maggie asked. “You could have called.”

“Well,” Ben said. At last, the dogs got a whiff of chipmunk and took off in another direction. Then he thought,
What the hell
. He’d get himself a tarot card reading and let the gladiolus come up all over his perfect fescue lawn. He might never scale Everest, but if things went his way, he might be the next man on the block to paint his house limestone green.

“I came to see Savannah here.” He smiled the smile that had won Helen over more than fifty years ago. “Would you do me the honor of reading my fortune?”

Savannah clapped her hands. She led him into the small cabin, which, contrary to Wendy Ginger, did not smell like blood. There were women’s clothes draped over the sofas and chairs, hats and dresses and a pair of long white gloves with the fingers cut out. Eye shadows in every shade of blue were spread out on the dining-room table.

“Let’s sit on the floor,” Savannah said.

Ben had to bend his legs at odd angles to get down there. The retriever had given up on the chipmunk and come inside. He sniffed him thoroughly, then decided he was friendly. The dog nudged Ben’s hand until he stroked him behind the ears.

Savannah found her cards and handed them to him. “Go ahead and shuffle,” she said, sitting beside him. “Concentrate on your question.”

Ben patted the dog, then took the cards. Helen had always said to him, “Ben, what are you doing with a little ol’ southern girl? You’re an adventurer at heart. Don’t think I can’t smell it on you.”

She’d never had any idea loving her was more dangerous
than a solo ascent of Denali. He might survive a hundred-foot fall, but he was certain he couldn’t live without Helen. When she was out of his sight for even a day, he felt wobbly. A month after their wedding, he stumbled on the easiest section of El Capitan and never went mountain climbing again. He stopped taking chances. He double-bolted their door every night, but death came up from under the bed and slithered into a blood vessel in Helen’s brain. What he wanted to know was how to stop hating God.

He handed the cards back to Savannah, and she laid them out. The others had come in and were watching from the kitchen table, but Ben paid them no mind. Because right away, he could smell the scent of Helen’s lilac perfume. Right above the cards, plain as day, was a cloud the color of pink gladiolus.

“What crosses you is the Two of Pentacles,” Savannah said. “This often signifies too much conservatism. Difficulty getting started.”

Ben said nothing. He couldn’t stop looking at that cloud. They all had to see it, yet no one said a thing. It twisted a little, took on the shape of Helen’s face, as everything did. The blunt cut of her chin, the tender curl of her nose, the long, wavy hair, the style she’d worn when they met.

“Your past was a good one,” Savannah said. “The World and the Sun side by side. You don’t see that too often. That’s love, joy, and fulfillment. You’ve been a lucky man.”

Ben hung his head. He’d been lucky, then his wife died in bed while he slept peacefully beside her. He didn’t even wake up to hold her hand.

“Your future is the Knight of Cups,” Savannah went on. “That’s an invitation or opportunity arising. A challenge.”

Ben raised his head while Savannah laid out the
last four cards. The cloud was dissipating now, the smell of Helen’s perfume fading; by the time he reached out, his hand swiped nothing but clean mountain air.

“This here,” she said, “the Eight of Pentacles, puts you in perspective. That’s effort and change. Sometimes upending your whole life. With the Two of Pentacles you got earlier, it seems to me you’ve got something to do.”

“Helen, she …” He trailed off, but Savannah took his hand and smiled.

“The Knight of Swords is your dream card. Isn’t that lovely? It’s the strength and dash of a young man.”

“See, I could just as easily go home and never come out of my house again.”

“Well, sure. That’s your choice. The cards just show your options. Either way, your destiny is the Five of Cups, reversed. That’s the return of an old friend.”

Ben held Savannah’s hand in both his own. For a moment, it seemed those ruby-red fingernails shortened, her fingers widened and freckles rose up on every knuckle. For a moment, he had what he’d always wanted most, what he had never taken for granted, not once. Then Helen was gone, and Maggie was standing behind him, her hand on his shoulder.

“You believe all this, Ben?” she asked.

“Well, why not?” he said. “Wouldn’t you?”

She didn’t answer. Ben got to his feet and took a twenty out of his pocket. His hand was trembling as he placed it in Savannah’s palm.

“What will you do?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

But by the time he was backing out of the driveway, he did know. He didn’t hate God; he hated himself without Helen. His wife had once announced he
was passive-aggressive, with a borderline antisocial personality disorder, and it was obvious he wasn’t getting any better. He was too old for mountain climbing or sailing the seven seas. He had lost all desire to see the wonders of the world, especially if he couldn’t turn to Helen and say, ‘Well, lookie there. A pyramid.’ There was only one adventure left to him, and as he pressed on the accelerator he smiled, because he was no longer afraid of a thing.

As soon as Ben left, Savannah went looking for Emma. She found her in Jake’s workshop, knee-deep in willow strands. She had untwisted the knots he’d made to keep them neat, and her hands were full of splinters. As soon as Savannah came in, she thrust the willow away. She stood up and tried to go past her, but Savannah put a hand on her arm.

“You’ve been sneaking out with Eli.”

Emma jumped back and planted her feet. “I have not.”

“Emma, don’t make it worse by lying.”

“I’m not. What, did Jake tell you he saw me? Well he’s wrong, all right? I was going for a walk by myself. I’m not chained to the bed, you know. I can’t sleep here, it’s so quiet. It drives me crazy. I like to walk is all.”

Savannah bent down and picked up the straightened willows. “Whoever undoes a knot undoes their own luck.”

Emma glared at her, then yanked the willow out of her hand. “You don’t scare me.”

Savannah could see that was true. For weeks now, Emma had been standing on tiptoes, ready to fight anyone, prepared to do anything. She hadn’t just fallen in love with a street punk, she’d sworn to never stop.

“That boy is trouble,” Savannah said.

Emma walked to the window, then whirled around. “I love him.”

Savannah could feel the implication clear to her toes. Emma was going to love Eli no matter what she did. She was going to love him to spite her.

“I’m glad,” Savannah said carefully. “But you’re fifteen, honey. You don’t understand yet—”

“Oh yes, I do. I understand I scare the hell out of you. I know what I look like. I’m ready to explode, and you know what? I’m glad of it. I don’t mind exploding. I don’t care if this ends up killing me, just so I get to feel this now.”

Savannah grabbed her hand. “I understand, believe it or not. But there’s something you need to understand as well. This will pass, Emma, and then what will you have? A boy with no future, no talent, and not a single shred of hope inside him.”

Emma yanked away her hand and folded her arms across her chest. “You’re not listening to me. Not even when I tell you things from the very bottom of my soul.”

“You’re wrong,” Savannah said softly. “I hear every word you’re saying.”

Emma walked to the door, then back again. “You know what I think? I think you never loved Dad. You couldn’t have, if you let him go so easily. Did you cry when you married him? Did it hurt going down?”

“Emma, that’s not love, it’s surrender. It’ll break your heart in two.”

“So then break it. People walk around with broken hearts all the time, and that’s kind of beautiful, if you think about it.”

Savannah took a deep breath. “Emma, you can’t see him anymore. I’m sorry, but he’s the kind of boy who can only do you harm.”

Emma stared at her, but Savannah didn’t back down, just as her mother had never backed down. She was a parent, which meant she had to stand there and take her daughter’s loathing. She had to do what was best, even if it meant Emma would never talk to her again.

Emma walked out without a word. Savannah picked up the discarded willow and tried to reknot it, but her hands were clumsy. She ended up with nothing but a palm full of splinters too.

Her mother came in soon after and put her hand on her shoulder. “There’s no joy in motherhood,” Maggie said.

“Oh, that helps.”

“Nothing helps except time.”

Savannah dropped the willow and turned around. “She hates me.”

“And she should. You’re stopping her from having the only thing she wants.”

“I can’t just let her go to him. That boy—”

“She wants to be free and you want to keep her safe, and there is no middle ground. The tighter you hold her, the more she’ll squirm, until she flies right out of your hand.”

“Mom, you are not comforting me.”

“If I did, you wouldn’t be prepared. Now listen to me, Savannah. At this very moment, Emma’s figuring ways to get around you. She’s plotting her little guts out, and you’ve got to be ready. This is just the beginning of years of being defied and despised.”

Savannah stepped back. The worst part was not what her mother said, but that she was beginning to believe her.

“Just stop,” she said.

“Why? Emma won’t. She’ll fight and plot and become more devious and mean than you can imagine
and you know what? That’s good. That’s what you want. Those kids who never rebel, they’re the ones who go crazy with machine guns in McDonald’s. Emma’s turning into a well-adjusted young woman.”

“Mom,” Savannah pleaded.

Maggie stepped back. “Listen to me.” As always, when she said that, Savannah braced herself. She stood up straight and glared, but all Maggie did was turn toward the door. “This is when she starts mistaking your love for prison. When she starts swearing she never loved you at all. Don’t believe her. I never did.”

She walked out quickly, so neither of them could see the other crying, which was a ridiculous thing, after all this time.

Sasha was digging up the pea seeds the dying man had sneaked out to plant when she heard the grating of steel against granite. To humans, it sounded like nothing more than a snap, perhaps an old tree splitting in two in the distance, but the one thing Sasha hadn’t lost over the years was her ability to hear trouble. The sound sent a pulse of hot pain down her spine, and she threw back her head and howled. She sped past the hat woman who’d just come out of the workshop, and made her brittle legs run.

She followed the scent of exhaust smoke and gladiolus. Around the blind turn, she spotted smoke. She hesitated on the edge of the ravine, where the side had given way. She could hear the woman and the good man behind her, calling her name and running hard. Sasha could easily outrun them, even when slowed from arthritis and plain old dying, and for a moment she considered the possibility. If she started now, she could reach the big mountain by nightfall. She could
run until her heart gave out, the way every dog prayed to go.

But she was not so much a dog anymore, that was the trouble. The good man had been messing with her all these years, playing a subtle game of kindness that could drain the wildness out of any beast. He’d tricked her into craving kibble instead of squirrel meat, and going to sleep every night with a pillow beneath her head. She was so soft now she couldn’t even run without checking to see that he was following her, so she waited on the precipice until the good man and woman came around the corner, then she started down the path of the slide.

She found the car hung up between two fifty-year-old ponderosas. She could smell the blood when it was still fifty feet away, and she howled again. A few flames shot out of the engine, then died out. That old man must have died on impact; he’d come halfway through the windshield, and still managed to keep his eyes wide open.

Sasha circled the car, peeing on all four corners to keep the wolves at bay. Already, crows were circling. A coyote approached stealthily until Sasha growled and ran him off.

The man and woman finally reached the wreck, but only the man really looked at it. The woman grabbed hold of a knobby pine and threw up. She held onto the tree and wept until Sasha’s spine shivered. The good man closed the old man’s eyes, then tried to hold the woman, but she acted like an injured wolf, the kind it was too late to help, who paced until he died.

“It was a blind turn,” the good man said. “An accident.”

But the woman was no fool. Sasha had known that from the start. She had the ability to look at things the
way a dog would, stripping them down until she found the core of truth. She knew, for instance, that all men were worth saving, and that this had all the makings of an old man running until his heart gave out.

She looked straight at Sasha, and though Sasha thought most of those words they uttered were wasted effort, she wished she had some of them now. She wanted the woman to know what else she had heard at that first crash of metal on granite, the sound of an old man cheering.

Instead, she walked over to her and pressed her muzzle into the woman’s thigh. The woman just went stiff.

“Dear God,” she said, “what have I done?”

When Savannah saw the blood on Ben’s face, she easily could have sat down and never gotten up again. When an excited deputy cordoned off the whole hillside with yellow tape, and a crane pulled up Ben’s mangled car, she thought about running and never coming back. When word filtered down to town, and the crank calls started that night, she might have taken to crying, but instead let Jake take the phone off the hook.

She vomited again after her mother made pot roast, then late that night lay listening to her own quick, scared heart. At midnight, still wide awake and sick to her stomach, she walked out onto the deck.

That’s when she smelled it, not clean mountain air but stale cigarette smoke. She felt an unsettling coldness at her ear.