The Doll in the Garden

by Mary Downing Hahn

  Kristi patted my shoulder and whispered something, but it didn’t comfort me. It was Daddy I wanted. No one else would do.

  Chapter 19

  Flowers for Louisa

  I DON’T KNOW how long I cried, but when I finally stopped, I saw Kristi sitting on the grass a few feet away knotting a chain of clover blossoms together. While I watched, she laid the flowers at the angel’s feet and sat back, her head tilted, to study their effect.

  Kristi glanced up, saw me looking at her, and tried to smile. Her face was still streaked with tears. “I thought she might like some flowers,” she said. “Maybe we can get some nicer ones and bring them to her tomorrow.”

  All around us birds and insects chirped and scolded. The summer breeze rustled the leaves of the holly tree, and from outside the graveyard came the sounds of cars and the voices of children playing in the park across the street.

  “Roses,” I said, thinking of the fragrance of Louisa’s twilight world. “She’d like roses.”

  At the sound of footsteps, Kristi and I looked up, startled.

  “You’re right. Louisa was always partial to roses,” Miss Cooper said. Giving me a bouquet of pink and yellow roses, she added, “Put these on the child’s grave for me.”

  Taking the flowers, I laid them carefully at the angel’s feet next to Kristi’s clover chain. Their colors brightened the ivy.

  “I’d have come sooner,” Miss Cooper said, “but I didn’t realize how tired I was. I sat down to rest and before I knew it, I was sound asleep.”

  She sighed, and gazed at the little angel. “I had a dream,” Miss Cooper said. “About Louisa. I was in her yard the way it used to look and she was there, too, only she wasn’t sick. She was so happy, all smiles, and I could hardly speak I was so surprised. She came to me and kissed me.”

  Miss Cooper touched her cheek lightly and smiled. “She forgave me.”

  “I had a dream like that once about my father,” I said.

  “I think it’s their way,” Miss Cooper said. “Their way of telling you not to fret about them, to let them go.”

  We all were silent then. A bluejay scolded from somewhere in the treetops and a catbird called from the holly tree. Across the street, the children’s voices rose and fell.

  “Were you angry when Louisa died?” I asked.

  Miss Cooper frowned and her mouth worked on the words before she spoke. “It shames me to say it,” she admitted, “but I was mad at her for dying before I had a chance to give the doll back. And for leaving me without a friend.”

  She was silent for a moment. “Louisa died early in the morning,” she went on, her voice shaking a little. “Mama told me at breakfast, and Papa said it was lucky for me that the Lord always took the good children first and left the ones like me for the devil to claim when he saw fit.”

  “What an awful thing to say.” I stared at Miss Cooper, unable to imagine anyone having a father so cruel.

  The old woman shrugged. “I was a bad girl, you know that yourself, but I’ve kept the devil waiting a long time, haven’t I?”

  She stared at the angel for a few seconds, her face softened by the shadows the holly tree cast over it. “But Louisa, she was a good little creature, and maybe Papa was right. She didn’t sutler very long before the Lord took her.”

  Neither Kristi nor I spoke, so Miss Cooper went on, her old eyes fixed on the angel’s face. “This is the first time I’ve been here since the burial. I couldn’t come before, couldn’t bear thinking about Louisa and that doll, knowing I’d made her unhappy. But now, well, she’s got no cause to hate me.”

  The bluejay cried out over our heads and flew away, a flash of color in the shade. Miss Cooper leaned on her cane, as still as the angel she regarded. Then she looked down at Kristi and me. “I felt bad all these years,” she said. “I’d see the cat, I’d hear Louisa crying even July, but I never thought I could give the doll back and make things right.”

  Slowly Miss Cooper reached out and touched our heads, first mine, then Kristi’s. “I’ve got you girls to thank for showing me the way,” she whispered.

  Miss Cooper straightened up then and brushed a strand of white hair out of her eyes. For a second I remembered how she’d looked at Louisa’s bedside, a little girl no older than I was.

  “Well, it’s powerful hot, isn’t it?” Miss Cooper’s voice rose to its normal level. “Why don’t we walk on back home and have a nice cold glass of lemonade? I made it fresh before I left the house.”

  Silently Kristi and I looked at each other. Then we followed Miss Cooper down the gravel path and out into the sunny street.

  “What kind of cookies do you like?” I heard Miss Cooper ask Kristi, but I didn’t listen to her answer. I was too busy thinking about what Miss Cooper had said about her dream. Had Daddy been giving me a message, too?

  Chapter 20

  At Peace

  IT WAS A LONG slow walk back to Homewood Road, and Miss Cooper’s living room felt cool after the heat of the sun. While the old woman went out to the kitchen to fix our drinks, Kristi and I sat side by side on an antique sofa. Its cushions were hard and slippery, and I felt like a child in an old-fashioned book as I listened to the tick tock of a grandfather’s clock in the corner.

  Kristi brought me back to the present when she nudged me and whispered, “Where’s Max?”

  I looked around uneasily, but I didn’t see the dog. “Maybe he’s outside,” I said, but as I spoke I heard the click click of Max’s toenails trailing behind Miss Cooper as she entered the room carrying a tray.

  When Max saw Kristi and me, his number-one enemies, sitting in his living room, he raised his lip, showing a bit of mottled gum and an ugly yellow tooth. He growled softly, and Miss Cooper nudged him with her toe.

  “Shush,” she warned him. “These girls are my guests today, so you behave yourself, mister.”

  Max roiled his eyes at her and crawled under a table. Making himself comfortable, he devoted his attention to me. One false move, he seemed to say, and I’ll bite off your leg.

  Ignoring Max, Miss Cooper handed Kristi and me each a glass of lemonade and offered us a plate heaped with sugar cookies. While we ate, she talked about Louisa and how they’d played in the garden together.

  “She had a little tea set her Papa gave her, tiny cups and saucers made out of china so fine the light showed through when you held it up to the sun. Her aunt would fix weak tea and cookies and what a feast we’d have.” Miss Cooper sighed and shook her head.

  “Those were the happiest times of my life, sitting there by the fountain, playing with Louisa. Then I had to go and ruin it all by stealing the doll. I don’t feel so bad now, but I still wish I’d been nicer to that poor little child.”

  The grandfather’s clock chimed one o’clock, and in the silence following, we heard Kristi’s mother calling her.

  “I’d better see what she wants,” Kristi said.

  Carefully we handed Miss Cooper our empty glasses and stood up to leave. “Thank you for the lemonade and cookies,” I said as I followed Kristi to the front door.

  “Come and see me again,” Miss Cooper said. “I think we’re going to get along better, you and I, but I still don’t want to see that cat of yours out in the yard scaring my birds.”

  She smiled at us both and stood in the doorway as we ran down the porch steps. Max barked once, but I heard Miss Cooper shush him again while Kristi and I left the yard.

  Before she went into her house, Kristi turned to me. “Miss Cooper sure has gotten friendly,” she said.

  “It’s because of Anna Maria,” I said.

  Kristi nodded. “She doesn’t feel bad about Louisa any more.” Then she frowned and kicked at a clump of chicory. “If only Louisa hadn’t died,” she muttered.

  I looked past Kristi at the sky and the clouds and the leaves of the maple tree rustling in the breeze. “Maybe death is too big to change,” I said slowly. “If Louisa had grown up and had children, the whole world could be different somehow.
But giving a doll back, that’s only a little thing. All it changed is Miss Cooper.”

  “And it didn’t change her whole life,” Kristi said. “It just made her feel better, made her nicer.”

  “So even though we didn’t save Louisa’s life, we helped Miss Cooper,” I said.

  “Maybe that’s what Louisa wanted,” Krisd added, saying out loud the very thing I was thinking. “To help Carrie.”

  We stared at each other, and I thought of the note Carrie had buried with Anna Maria. “Please forgive me, I am sorrie.” All these years, had Louisa been trying to tell Carrie she was forgiven?

  “Kristi, where have you been?” Brian was staring at us from the back door. “Didn’t you hear Mom calling you?”

  “I’m coming, I’m coming.” Kristi ran across the grass and up the porch steps. Before darting inside, she yelled to me, “I’ll come over later, and we can do something. Okay?”

  As the door slammed shut behind Kristi, I looked up and saw Mom on the porch. “Don’t you want some lunch, Ashley?”

  I nodded and climbed the steps, suddenly anxious to tell Mom everything.

  …

  While Mom fixed tuna salad sandwiches, I filled our glasses with iced tea and thought about what I wanted to say.

  “You’re awfully quiet, Ashley,” Mom said as we sat down at the table. “You haven’t quarreled with Miss Cooper again, have you?”

  I shook my head. “Just the opposite,” I said. “I think Miss Cooper and I are going to be friends now.”

  Mom stared at me and I smiled at her. “Remember the doll Kristi and I found in the garden?” I asked her.

  “How could I forget something that upset you so much?”

  “Well, I tried to tell you the doll didn’t belong to Miss Cooper, but you gave it to her anyway.”

  “I had to, Ashley. The doll was a valuable antique, and you found it in Miss Cooper’s garden. I couldn’t let you keep it, not when she said it was hers.” Mom took a sip of her iced tea, but her eyes didn’t leave mine.

  “Well, let me tell you a story, okay?” I leaned across the table toward her and took a deep breath. “Once there was a little girl named Louisa,” I began, “and she had a doll named Anna Maria.”

  As I continued, Mom didn’t say a word. Her sandwich lay on her plate, half-finished. The ice slowly melted in her glass, but she sat still and listened.

  “Now Miss Cooper is free,” I finished. “She still feels bad about Louisa dying, but she knows it isn’t her fault, and she knows Louisa forgave her.” I looked at Mom, waiting for her to say something, but the only sound was the refrigerator humming behind me.

  “What I’ve been thinking about is Daddy,” I said finally, “and that last time I saw him in the hospital. And how bad I feel because I didn’t kiss him before he died.”

  I started crying then, and in a couple of seconds I was on Mom’s lap and she was hugging me tight. “Ashley, Ashley,” she whispered, “why didn’t you tell me what was bothering you?”

  “I didn’t want you to know I didn’t kiss him,” I sobbed.

  Mom held me tighter. She was crying too. “Kissing couldn’t save Daddy, Ashley,” she said. “Nothing could. Not all the love in the world.”

  “I know that now. I saw Carrie kiss Louisa, and it didn’t change anything. But still, it must have hurt his feelings, Mom. He must have died wondering why I’d stopped loving him.”

  “Oh, Ashley, when you said good-bye to him he was so drugged with pain killers, he didn’t know what you said or did.” She stroked my hair back from my face, drying my tears with her hand. “He knew you loved him,” she whispered, “and he knew I loved him.”

  “I was afraid to get close to him,” I said. “He didn’t look like Daddy anymore.”

  Mom nodded. “All that was left of him were his eyes. And they were so blue, bluer than the sky.”

  “But Mom, the worst thing is I was angry at him. It wasn’t just that I was scared, it was also because I was mad.” I started crying again. “How could I have been so mad? He didn’t die on purpose.”

  Mom sighed. “I was mad, too, Ashley.”

  “You were?” I stared at her.

  “Of course I was. Most people are angry when somebody they love dies.” She hugged me again. “We should have talked more, Ashley. I should have realized you were feeling the same things I was.”

  “I had a dream about Daddy a few nights ago,” I told her. “He was happy and strong and he told me everything was all right. Miss Cooper had the same kind of dream about Louisa, and she said it was Louisa’s way of telling her not to fret about her.”

  “I have dreams about Daddy, too,” Mom said, “just like that.”

  “Then maybe Miss Cooper’s right—maybe Daddy’s telling us not to worry about him.”

  “I know he wouldn’t want us to worry,” Mom said. “He loved us too much to want us to be unhappy because he’s gone. And he’d understand about our being angry.”

  I closed my eyes and clung to Mom. We were both silent, and I was sure she was remembering Daddy too—not the way he was in the hospital when he was dying, but in the days before he got sick. We’d be able to talk about Daddy now, I thought, without crying.

  …

  Much later, long after dark, long after I’d gone to bed, I woke up. Oscar was sitting on the windowsill looking out into the night. I knelt beside him and pressed my face against the screen, trying to see what he saw. Moonlight and shadow patterned the lawn with silver and ebony, and the old garden sweetened the air with the fragrance of honeysuckle and roses.

  There was no sign of Snowball, though. “You’ll never see him again,” I told Oscar, knowing it was true. Like Louisa, the white cat was at peace.

  Then, from the other side of the hedge, from Louisa’s yard, I thought I heard a child laughing, but the sound was so faint it could have been anything—the clink of glass, a distant car radio, someone’s television.

  I looked at Oscar, and he looked at me, his ears pricked, his eyes wide. Then he butted his head against my face and purred, and I lay back down. Still purring, Oscar curled up beside me and I drifted off to sleep, dreaming of Louisa playing happily in the garden with Anna Maria.

  Visit www.hmhco.com to find more books by Mary Downing Hahn.

  About the Author

  MARY DOWNING HAHN, a former children’s librarian, is the award-winning author of many popular ghost stories, including Deep and Dark and Dangerous and The Old Willis Place. An avid reader, traveler, and all-around arts lover, Ms. Hahn lives in Columbia, Maryland, with her two cats, Oscar and Rufus.