The First Gardener

by Denise Hildreth Jones

  “What are you not saying?”

  Kurt instinctively reached a hand toward his friend and put it on his knee. It felt heavy and hot. “Maddie was thrown from the car.”

  Gray let the words settle. They never found a place to land. They went straight through his ears, pierced his gut, and then escaped somewhere, though he had no idea where words like that could escape to. “Her seat belt,” Gray whispered.

  He turned his gaze back toward the window. Pain was searing him from the inside out. Tears rushed down his face, and he was unable to stop them. By the time the car arrived at Vanderbilt Medical Center, Gray was halfway out the door. Two doctors in scrubs met him and ushered him to the surgical ward. The squeaking of their tennis shoes on the floors of the hospital corridor irritated him. The sound of their pants legs brushing together made him want to scream.

  “I’m Dr. Hank Rosenberg, Governor, and this is Dr. Allen.” The doctor was old and wiry and kept talking as he walked. “We took your wife straight into surgery when she got here. There was extensive bleeding, and X-rays showed that she had a pneumothorax. Do you know what that is?”

  Gray shook his head.

  “It’s a collapsed lung due to changes in pressure within the chest. What happens is that, when she breathes in, her rib cage basically moves in reverse—it sinks instead of expands. This doesn’t occur unless there is a great deal of blunt force trauma, usually when a rib either tears the lung or punctures the chest wall. Your wife had ribs broken in both the front and the back. When she arrived here, her breathing was very labored, and she was having severe chest pain. She was also expelling some blood as she coughed. It’s amazing that she even got out of the car, but adrenaline can make even the severest pain seem nonexistent.”

  She got out of the car. Gray let the visual settle over him.

  “She also has two broken bones in her right arm, with a complete break at the wrist, and, uh, several lacerations on her face. A few were pretty deep. She received a total of forty-five stitches, twenty-five to a cut on the left side, where the major impact was for her. But our biggest concern right now is her lung.”

  Gray could hear Fletcher and Kurt behind him. The doctor’s words registered, but all he could think was that someone had made a catastrophic mix-up and they were talking about two people he had never met, not the two people who meant the most to him in the world.

  Gray stopped in the center of the hall. The doctors were five steps ahead before they realized he wasn’t beside them. “My baby girl. You haven’t mentioned Maddie.”

  The younger doctor stopped and turned. His light-brown hair was brushed neatly to the side. “I’m sorry, sir. We thought you had been told.”

  He felt the lump heavy in the base of his throat. “I wasn’t told anything I wanted to hear.”

  He felt Fletcher and Kurt move beside him. They were close. Really close. The doctors stepped forward. The one with the glasses and bony nose spoke first—Dr. Rosenberg, he thought. “It was instant, Governor.”

  Fletcher’s hand came up under his left arm, and Kurt’s hand held the other. Kurt turned Gray toward him. “She was thrown from the car. But she didn’t suffer.”

  Gray turned when the other doctor, the younger one with the clear blue eyes, began to speak. “There was no pain. The blunt force trauma to the head was so severe that she died on impact.”

  He wanted to hit this man, to throw him against the wall and beat him. He wanted to hit anything. He wanted to scream. He wanted to run. He wanted to fall on the floor in a pile and weep.

  “Would you like to see her? Your wife will be in surgery a couple more hours.”

  See her? See the lifeless body of his daughter? No, he didn’t want to see her. He wanted to kill whoever was responsible for this. He wanted to go back to this morning and grab his baby and his wife and hold them close and not let them go anywhere. He wanted what had been. He wanted what had just been an hour earlier.

  “Take me to her,” he said.

  Fletcher tugged at his arm. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “It’s my baby, Fletcher. What would you do if it was your baby?”

  Fletcher released his grip and nodded, his tears no longer hidden. “I’m so sorry, Gray. Do you want us to go with you?”

  Gray shook his head. The weight of it all was almost so great he couldn’t move. “I’ll do this. Alone.”

  Kurt released his grip on his other arm, and Gray wasn’t sure if he could stand without the support of his friend. But he did. He steadied his feet and spoke to the older doctor. “Take me to her, please.”

  The doctor nodded and led the way up the hall. When he pressed a square metal button on the wall, the swinging doors to the ER slowly opened in front of them. They moved into a large open room, and Gray could feel the eyes turn his way as he walked toward a glassed-in room where the shades were drawn.

  “It was instant, Governor.”

  He stopped behind the doctors. The younger one held the door handle. “Would you like us to go in with you, sir?”

  Gray shook his head. There were no words left. The doctor bowed his head and pulled the door open far enough for Gray to step through. But he couldn’t move. There was something inside him that knew stepping through that door would make this nightmare real. It would take him to a reality that would change his life forever. And he didn’t want any of this to be real. He wanted it all to be a lie, a mistake, someone else’s story.

  The older doctor came around and took his arm. “You don’t have to do this.”

  He stepped inside the room, turned, and took the door from the doctor’s hand. “Yes, I do.” And with those words, he closed it behind him.

  He turned slowly, noticing the sun that streamed through the open window. How could the sun be shining if this was true? Then he forced his eyes to make their way to the gurney in the center of the room.

  There in front of him was his Maddie lady. She was perfect. He moved to the side of the gurney and let his eyes take her in. Only then did he see bruising on the side of her face and caked blood nestled in the small crevice of her ear. This side of her hair was still damp from where they must have washed more blood out. He ran his fingers through her baby-soft black hair, which lay with such life against the white sheet. Her olive skin was paler but still held that hue he loved. And her face—her face was the same one he had memorized last night.

  Last night. Last night he had known, hadn’t he? He had known something. He had felt something. But he’d had no idea it would be this.

  He leaned his head down and rested it against Maddie’s cheek. It was cold. So cold. He instinctively drew the sheet up under her chin, and as he pulled, he saw Lola resting next to Maddie’s arm. The side of her face was dirty. He took the lifeless doll and snuggled her under Maddie’s chin, then tucked the sheet around them both.

  “Keep her warm, Lola.” Slightly frantic, he looked around the room. He needed a blanket. But the room was empty. No machines. No instruments. Nothing that would show they had done anything to save the life of his little girl.

  He laid his head down against her again and let his tears fall across her cold forehead. He wrapped his arms around her, desperate to warm her, to bring her back to life. He nestled his nose in her hair and smelled the familiar scent of her favorite shampoo. A surge of nausea engulfed him. And the governor of Tennessee barely made it to the trash can in time for the pain on the inside to be expelled.

  Gray felt a cold rag come down on his head. A strong arm fell across his back and wrapped itself against his side. Fletcher’s voice fell on his ear. “Sit down, Gray.”

  He opened his eyes and saw the feet of both of his friends beneath him.

  They never listened to him. He was the governor and they still never listened. Right now he was so glad.

  He let himself cave into the arms of his friends, and they helped him fall into a chair at the edge of the room. He looked up to see his child’s body in front of him.

  The baby gir
l who would never call him Daddy again.

  That reality penetrated the room with such weight that he gave way beneath it. His friends could apparently see the torrent before it exploded all over them because they both fell to their knees beside him and encased him in their arms.

  Then they wept.

  The three most powerful men in the state of Tennessee wept.

  Together.

  Gray walked into the ICU, and his eyes took in an entirely different scene. Mack lay there with tubes running everywhere—one from her chest, apparently draining fluid, another from her mouth where they’d had to intubate her for surgery. A large bandage covered the left side of her face, and smaller bandages crossed her forehead and chin. A cast encased her right arm all the way to the top of her bicep. And monitors beeped constantly.

  He moved to her side, grateful she was unaware of their new reality. He wished for a moment that she would never have to know. As glad as he was that she was there—still alive, still his—as thankful as the selfish piece of him was that they could walk through this pain together, the selfless part of him almost wanted her dead as well. Because when she woke up and had to deal with what had happened . . . well, he just wished he could spare her that.

  “It’s amazing that she even got out of the car, but adrenaline can make even the severest pain seem nonexistent.”

  Mack had gotten out of the car. Oh, God, no. She saw everything. He could only pray she’d seen the same Maddie lady he had. That she was able to know how beautiful and peaceful their baby girl was and that she’d experienced no pain.

  He pulled a chair up to the left side of Mack’s bed and laid his head down on her good arm. He realized then and there that the world wouldn’t stop to let him collapse. In a few minutes he would have to console his mother-in-law and their best friends. And then he’d have to make arrangements to put his little girl in the ground.

  The heaviness of it all caused him to sink a little deeper. But for now—for right now—he just closed his eyes and begged God to stop the world.

  Five days later

  There be the deepest sadness ’round here. It so deep and thick, you just know it gon’ swallow you whole. I seen so many people tryin’ to pull Miz Mackenzie outta it but can’t pull somebody outta that kind a grief. They gots to decide themselves when they ready. And when does a body ever get the strength to do that?

  The gov’nor, he be so strong through all this, even talk at his own baby’s funeral. He say no one knowed her like him and Miz Mackenzie. And when he say that, I seen him break down for that one li’l moment, then gather himself up like a gentleman and talk some more ’bout his baby. I thought I was gon’ go and lose it right in that there church.

  There been so many tears this week. So much snifflin’. Miz Eugenia, she hurtin’ so. But Miz Mackenzie, she like a stone today. Just like one a them rocks in my garden. Not cryin’. Just sittin’ there. I think she just be numb.

  They had to postpone the funeral for ’bout five days so Miz Mackenzie’s body could be put back together ’nough. But they still had to push her ’round in a wheelchair ’cause a her breathin’ and all that bruisin’. And she gots way more bruisin’ on her heart than her body. Them wounds gon’ take lot longer to heal.

  Grief ain’t got no playbook—I hear somebody say that once. But I ain’t been prepared for the way it done bust out ’round here. Been axin’ the good Lord to help us get through . . . ’cause goin’ through be the only way we gon’ get to the other side.

  Chapter 17

  Eugenia burst through the swinging door of the kitchen with the force of class IV rapids on the Ocoee River. “Rosa, I need you to go on and get on out of this kitchen so I can get some food out there that people will eat.”

  “Señora Quinn, I make what I know Señor and Señora London want.”

  “There isn’t a fried anything out there. Not a homemade biscuit. Nothing.” Eugenia didn’t even turn to see who had entered behind her. She’d know the sound of that crew anywhere.

  “Okay, señora. But I help anyway, por favor.”

  Eugenia didn’t answer. She just walked over and started banging cabinet doors, looking for who knew what. Her three amigos fell in line behind her, each of them grabbing a cabinet door and banging too. After a good minute of endless clatter, Eugenia finally asked, “What in the world are y’all doing?”

  Dimples tilted her head. The woman looked more like a cocker spaniel every day. “I have no idea. What are we doing?”

  “We’re sharing grief,” Berlyn announced as she opened another cabinet and slammed it shut.

  Sandra yanked at the ruffled collar of her black dress. If that woman was going to choke to death, Eugenia thought, now would be as good a time as any. Everyone was already here, and there was about to be food worth eating. Just what every good wake needed.

  “I don’t need you to share my grief,” Eugenia announced. “I just need to put together some decent food. There isn’t a piece of fried chicken on that table. What is a dinner after a funeral without fried chicken?”

  “Or a congealed salad,” Sandra added.

  Berlyn nodded. “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “Do they have lard in a governor’s mansion?” Dimples asked.

  “Dimples, you know very well we don’t use lard to fry chicken anymore,” Eugenia responded. “Now we use Crisco. And you can rest assured that if Eugenia Quinn’s daughter lives here, then everything we need is on the premises.” She bent down and went to clanging cabinets again until she finally found a cast-iron skillet and pulled it out. She walked to the refrigerator and looked inside as if the secrets to life were held there.

  Sandra scooted closer and put a hand on her arm. “It’s okay to cry, Eugenia.”

  Eugenia jerked it away. “I don’t need to cry. I need to cook.”

  “I always feel better after I’ve eaten grease,” Berlyn responded.

  “Eugenia, do they let foreigners in the governor’s mansion?” Dimples always spoke of herself as a foreigner because she’d been born in Maryland, though her mother had moved to the real South when Dimples was two. She said she’d gotten here as fast as she could, and she’d given Dimples a Southern name to get her started. But even though Maryland was technically below the Mason-Dixon Line, Dimples still worried that she wasn’t a true Southerner.

  Eugenia never took her head out from the refrigerator. “The cook is Mexican, Dimples. Seriously.”

  “Just checking. I was thrown in jail one time for running into a fence. It was the third time for that particular fence, and the police thought I was drunk because I have to cock my head and all. And, well, while I was in there, you remember me telling you about—”

  “About the big woman with spiky blonde hair who was making eyes at you? Yes, Dimples, we remember. We’ve heard this story a thousand times,” Sandra announced. “And it’s still disgusting each time you tell it.”

  Berlyn broke in. “And I still don’t know how you thought you could tell she was making eyes at you anyway.”

  Dimples straightened her frail back and tugged at the hem of her black cotton sleeveless shirt, which hung loosely over her too-big black cotton skirt. “Shut up, Berlyn. I can see just fine. I see what I want to see, and you drive me crazy, so that’s why I don’t pay any attention to you and what you want me to look at. But that woman was looking at me with a look that ought not be shared between two women. And, well, that night traumatized me so much, I don’t have any desire to spend another moment in jail.”

  Eugenia slammed the refrigerator door and opened the freezer. “You’re not going to jail today, Dimples. So you can quit worrying.” She found a package of frozen chicken breasts and pulled it out, slamming it down on the counter.

  Berlyn walked to the pantry and swung open the doors. She stared for the longest time. Eugenia was about to go drag her out of there, but she finally grabbed a bottle of olive oil and set it on the counter by the chicken. “I didn’t see Crisco.”

  “Y
ou didn’t look,” Eugenia confirmed.

  “I did look. And all they have is this fake stuff. Your chicken’s going to taste straight-up nasty.”

  “Well, you look pretty nasty in that dress. It’s a funeral, for pete’s sake, Berlyn, not an afternoon of speed dating.”

  Berlyn put her hands under her breasts, hoisting them up and then letting them go. “You can meet nice men at funerals, I’ll have you know. And this was a big one. There were senators here.”

  Sandra walked over and pulled out a barstool. “And not a one of those senators, Berlyn, nor any man in that church who was actually looking at you—which I daresay was very few—ever saw your face because he was looking at your breasts.”

  Berlyn leaned against the counter. “Jealousy is ugly on an old woman, Sandra. Just ugly.”

  Sandra huffed.

  Eugenia turned. “I want you all out of here, each one of you. I don’t want you. I don’t need you. I don’t need to hear you talk about your breasts or senators or anything else. I just need you to get out of here so I can cook a real meal and—” Her voice broke.

  Berlyn was at her side in a moment. She grabbed Eugenia’s arm and led her to a seat at the breakfast table. Sandra grabbed Dimples’s hand and got her to a seat at the table too. Berlyn squatted her thick legs down and knelt in front of Eugenia. “We’re your friends, honey. We love you. And you need us.”

  “I need Madeline. I need for my daughter and Gray not to be hurting.” Her tears were falling hard now.

  Sandra and Dimples instinctively stood and came around behind her. Dimples laid her head on her shoulder, and Sandra gathered the sides of Eugenia’s blonde bob together at the base of her neck like a mother would for her little girl.

  “We’re so sorry, Eugenia,” Sandra whispered.

  “We are.” Dimples’s mouth moved on Eugenia’s shoulder.

  “How do you survive something like this? Surviving Lorenzo’s death was one thing, but a child? How do you survive losing your child?” Eugenia’s words were coming out as bursts through her explosion of pain.