The First Gardener

by Denise Hildreth Jones

  “You going to appoint that dog your chief of staff? You’re with her more than your two sidekicks these days.”

  Gray put his nose in Sophie’s fur. “She’s a sweet little dog, Eugenia.”

  “Key word: dog.” She opened the washer’s lid and dumped the sheets inside.

  “She likes me. I think I needed her.”

  Eugenia poured in detergent and turned to Gray, studying him. Then she reached out and patted Sophie’s head as if it were a hot burner. Sophie’s eyes popped open. “I think she needed you too,” Eugenia said softly. “The doctor on his way?”

  Gray checked his watch. “Should be here in about fifteen minutes.”

  “Well, I’ve sat her in the chair by the window. Why don’t you go spend some time with her?”

  “Okay.” He held Sophie out to her. “Watch her for me?”

  She shook her head and moved past him, heading back up the hall. “No. Y’all are the two needing each other. I don’t need her at all.”

  He looked at Sophie. “Looks like we’re going to see Mama.” As he turned to follow Eugenia, he spotted the white hyacinth in a vase on the hallway table. Jeremiah had brought a flower each day this week, but Gray had forgotten to take her this one. Mack used to get a flower only on Mondays. Obviously Jeremiah had felt the need to change things. Gray tucked Sophie under one arm, picked up the vase, and headed to see his wife.

  She didn’t even move when he opened the door. Sophie squirmed beneath his arm. When he set her down on the floor, she instinctively ran to Mack’s chair, her little hind legs still wobbly in getting her where she wanted to go. He walked over and placed his vase on the round table, right beside another vase that held two wilted hyacinths.

  Maddie’s face stared back at him from five of the ten pictures scattered on the table. His favorite was a black-and-white one where they had colored in her blue eyes and the creamy dollop of vanilla ice cream on her nose. His shattered heart seemed to fracture even more just looking at that picture.

  He turned his gaze toward Mack. She still wouldn’t look at him. She had hardly looked at him since the funeral. He sat on the edge of an ottoman and pulled her legs into his lap. He put his hands beneath the soft fabric of her pants and ran his hands up and down her smooth skin, physically aching to be able to pull her into his arms and have her respond in some way.

  “Hey, babe.” He reached up and moved a strand of dark hair behind her ear. The cuts on her face still looked painful, but he knew they were healing. If only that were true of the rest of her.

  “You look beautiful,” he told her.

  She still didn’t move. Her brown eyes remained fixed on the view outside.

  “Kurt and Debbie came by today. They wanted you to know how much they love you, and they’ll do anything you need, okay?”

  He waited. When there was nothing, he continued. “Thad’s going to be here in a minute. Can I get you anything? Would you eat something if I had your mom make it?”

  Sophie was chewing on the laces of his tennis shoes.

  She shook her head. “I’m not hungry.”

  He understood that. Food was nothing more than a nuisance to him these days too. If it wasn’t needed, he wouldn’t eat either. Poor Rosa made all their favorites, and Eugenia cooked some as well, but there was no flavor, no satisfaction in any of it. Eating was simply an element of survival. That’s all anything in life was.

  Even right now, this moment with Mack, was about survival. The next sentence. The next movement. The next moment. Life had boiled down to nothing more than surviving each moment.

  “Will you talk to me? Tell me what is going on inside of you? No one in this world understands what you’re experiencing like I do, babe. Please, just talk to me. I need—”

  A soft knock on the door interrupted his plea. He stood instinctively. Sophie jumped underneath the table. “Come in.”

  Their friend and family doctor Thad Tyler walked into the room. He didn’t say anything, simply wrapped Gray in a tight hug. When he stepped back, he kept his right hand on Gray’s arm.

  Thad turned his head toward Mack. His green eyes filled with an unavoidable compassion. “How is she?”

  “Tough week. But it has nothing to do with her physical injuries.”

  “Well, let me check them out for her.”

  Thad worked and talked with Mack for the next hour, checking her wounds, listening to her lungs, and rewrapping her ribs. Gray sat quietly on the edge of the bed with Sophie in his arms and watched as Mack lifelessly answered Thad’s questions and summoned the strength she required to survive her own moment.

  When Thad left, Mack turned toward the window again. She stayed there all day, cared for periodically by Eugenia, until he put her to bed. When he curled up beside her, he wrapped his arms around her waist as softly and gingerly as he could.

  “I love you, babe,” he whispered, burying his face in her hair. “Feel like talking?”

  She never said a word.

  Chapter 20

  Even the sound of her mother fluffing a cushion for the wicker rocker on the veranda made Mackenzie want to cry. “This will do you good,” Eugenia puffed as her arms beat wildly against the cushion.

  “I just want to be left alone,” Mackenzie protested, yet no fight resided in her tone.

  “You’ve been alone enough. You look pasty and need some vitamin D.” Eugenia placed her hand under the upper part of Mackenzie’s arm and helped lower her to the chair. Mackenzie’s ribs still ached with each movement. And each time they ached, so did her heart. Because the ache was a reminder of what now was.

  That was one reason she wanted to be left alone, because solitude brought fewer reminders of how utterly empty her life would forever be.

  It had been two weeks since she had been outside, and her mother was waiting no longer. She’d come into her room that morning at eight o’clock, forced her into the bathroom for a shower, carefully rubbed sunscreen on her facial scars. Then she’d brought her out here to the spot where she held her little girl’s hand every morning and prayed.

  It was a spot she’d sworn never to visit again, a prayer she could no longer manage. And yet here she was, sitting in a wicker rocker, a glass of sweet tea beside her.

  She raised her face to the sun, its early September heat an undeniably welcome sensation. It fell across her arms and moved down her bare legs to her uncovered toes. The white tank top and soft blue Nike shorts had been Eugenia’s choice. Everything she wore these days was Eugenia’s choice.

  For nearly three years, Mackenzie had picked out her wardrobe a week at a time. She’d taken her calendar to her closet on Saturday mornings before Maddie was up and chosen a complete outfit—clothing, shoes, jewelry, handbag, even underwear—for every coming event. Once she’d hung the outfits in a special section of the closet, her week had been set. Organizing her wardrobe had been something she enjoyed.

  It was a girl thing. But now it was a Mama thing. Because if it were up to Mackenzie, she’d just give it all away and go dig her baby up and climb inside the coffin with her. That’s what she’d wanted to do the day of the funeral—just crawl in there with Maddie and tell them to close the lid. She would never care again what she wore.

  “Your pastor’s wife called.” Eugenia said. “You want me to get the phone so you can call her back?”

  “No thank you.”

  “She said there’s a lady at church who lost a child and it might be good for you to talk to her.”

  “I’m not interested.”

  “Mackenzie, darling, you seriously need to—” Her mother’s words stopped when the door opened. “Jessica’s here.”

  Her assistant came into view and walked over to a chair next to the table. Mackenzie was exceptionally grateful for her presence, only because it cut her mother off.

  “Good morning, Mrs. London.”

  “Good morning.” She motioned to the other chair. “You can sit.” Mackenzie could only imagine what her absence had done to Jessica�
��s nerves. But she didn’t have the energy to worry about it. Jessica was a grown woman. She’d have to figure it out for herself.

  Jessica sat slowly. “We’ve missed you,” she whispered. “And we’re all so sorry.”

  Mackenzie looked at the young woman. A woman who had never had children. A woman who didn’t know what this kind of pain was like. A woman whose biggest issue when she woke up this morning was whether to wear her taupe suit or her gray one, whether to put her hair in a bun or a ponytail.

  “Thank you.” Mackenzie could barely get the words out. And she said nothing more.

  “Well . . .” Jessica shifted uncomfortably and finally stood. “Just know we’ve got everything under control in your office and, um . . . well, just let us know if we can do anything.”

  Mackenzie nodded but didn’t answer. Jessica’s eyes filled up, and she quickly turned and went back into the house.

  “She’s hurting for you,” Eugenia said. “So many people are hurting for you.” She pulled Mackenzie’s hair from her neck and put it in a loose ponytail. Then she leaned over her shoulder and whispered in her ear. “I’m going to make you something to eat. I’ll be right back.”

  They both looked up at the same time to see Jeremiah climbing the stairs to the veranda.

  “Since he’s headed up here, why don’t you tell him that I checked on his Lilium Loretos. They need more shade. He’s going to assassinate them.”

  Mackenzie stared ahead. “What is a Lilium Loreto?”

  Eugenia patted her daughter’s head. “I’ve taught you nothing. My horticultural talents are going to die with me because my child refuses to tap into her heritage.” Her footsteps walked away, and the door opened. “It’s a lily, Mackenzie. A lily.”

  The door closed, and Mackenzie focused her eyes on Jeremiah. His lanky, lumbering movements were strangely relaxing as he ascended the expansive staircase toward her.

  He didn’t look the same. No one looked the same. Mackenzie didn’t see people now as she once had. No, now she saw them through her memories of them with Maddie. She couldn’t help it. Every shattered piece of her heart was attached to that child. And so anyone who desired to enter her world had to pass through Maddie’s memory.

  Jeremiah was passing through it now. She could see Maddie so clearly, twirling around in her little skirt and telling Jeremiah all about her big day. The tears didn’t even ask permission.

  He reached the top of the stairs, close enough that she could see beads of sweat perched atop his upper lip. “Mornin’, Miz Mackenzie.”

  She scanned his familiar, freckled face. “Morning, Jeremiah.”

  “Sure good to see you out here in the sunshine.”

  Mackenzie tried to smile, but her face just didn’t work that way anymore. She had nothing to offer him. She was grateful he didn’t force her to.

  “Picked you sump’n this mornin’, ma’am.”

  She looked at the multiple stems of multicolored blooms in his hand, then back at him. “Jeremiah, in three years you’ve never given me anything but roses—and those only on Mondays. Why have you changed all of a sudden?”

  He shook his head and tugged at the left side of his overalls with his free hand. “Well, flowers have meanin’s, you know. Each one mean sump’n. And today, these mixed Zahara zinnias be what I wanted to say to you.”

  She reached her hand out and let Jeremiah slip them to her. He held her hand with both of his and made sure she had a strong grasp before he let go.

  “So what do these mean?”

  He pulled out a faded blue hankie and swiped at his lip and forehead. “They mean I be thinkin’ of a friend that ain’t here no more.”

  The words thudded onto her heart. He might as well give me these for the rest of my life.

  “Miz Mackenzie, ain’t no words big ’nough to tell you how my heart be achin’ for you and the gov’nor. Ache so deep down inside.” He held a hand against his chest, and tears puddled in his lower eyelids. “I loved that chil’ so much.”

  Mackenzie felt the knot clench more tightly inside her. She was tired of talking. “Thank you, Jeremiah.”

  “You ’member how you gone and loved me and took care a me and prayed for me when my Shirley died?”

  That was different. “I remember when Shirley died.”

  “Well, I be gon’ take care a you however you need. If you need me, I be right out here tendin’ to our garden. I’d go and take up all your burdens sure ’nough if you could just go and hand ’em on over to me.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that. So she just said thank you again.

  He nodded the way he always did when they finished their conversations. But this time he reached down and took her free hand and placed it between his own. The warmth and gentleness and roughness and strength of it, all combined, swept through her. Then he let go. She watched his aged gait as he made his way down the stairs.

  “Did you tell him about the lilies?” Eugenia’s voice interrupted the silence. She set a piece of peanut butter toast with homemade preserves in front of Mackenzie.

  Mackenzie kept her eyes on Jeremiah. “No, I didn’t tell him.”

  Eugenia reached over and took the flowers from her hand. A smirky smile came over her face. “I thought he only gave you roses.”

  “That is all he’s ever given me for three years.”

  “For three years? Every day?”

  “Every Monday, actually. Red rosebuds with all the thorns taken off. Don’t know where he found them in the winter,” she mused.

  Eugenia looked at Mackenzie. “He took off the thorns?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Red rosebuds mean ‘pure and lovely.’ And when all the thorns are taken off, it means that it was love at first sight.”

  Mackenzie looked toward Jeremiah’s disappearing figure. “Oh,” she said. “What do white hyacinths mean? He’s been sending those up to me ever since the funeral.” She glanced at the zinnias. “Until today, that is.”

  She watched as Eugenia looked out toward Jeremiah. A softness that Mackenzie rarely saw swept across her face. “They mean ‘I’m praying for you.’”

  Mackenzie leaned her head back. It was a good thing someone was because she wasn’t sure when or if she ever would be able to again.

  Chapter 21

  Gray took off his readers and rubbed his eyes. They burned beneath his touch. The camel-colored leather of the antique desktop blurred, and he rubbed harder.

  He hadn’t been in the office for almost three weeks, but it was time. He was the governor, and that was the end of it. Eugenia had gotten Mack out of the room today, so life was now entering a different phase. He hoped.

  “We don’t have to do this now.” Kurt leaned back on the sofa, laying a sheaf of printouts on the caramel velvet cushion beside him. Sam Foster, the commissioner of finance and administration, sat beside him. “It’s still early days to put the budget together.”

  “This isn’t going to be an ordinary budget.” Gray’s words were sharp and uncharacteristic. “We can’t spend our way out of this economic slump. The housing market still hasn’t recovered. The flood cost us billions of dollars, and the tornado up north and then all the weather last winter haven’t helped things. We lost millions in state revenue when Opry Mills wasn’t rebuilt. And the Assembly keeps trying to sneak pork through here when I’ve let men who are behind bars go free just to make sure we don’t have to shut the lights off or cut our teacher workforce in half. Remember the 2002 government shutdown?”

  Kurt nodded. He obviously remembered. Sam’s face made it clear he remembered as well.

  “Well, I will do it again. I will stop classes at state universities. I will close state parks. I will stop road construction.” His voice was escalating as his hand made a sweeping motion in front of him. “If that’s what it takes for this government to get control of itself, I will do all of it. Even in an election year.” He made the last statement before Kurt posed the question.

  Sarah put her
pen down and straightened her back in a French antique side chair. Fletcher tugged at his bow tie. Gray felt their anxiety.

  Kurt slumped back. His boyish good looks seemed to have faded some in recent weeks. “We won’t even have the agency requests until October, and we won’t be able to make any real decisions until we’ve got those numbers. But we’re already looking at a shortfall this year, and it’s only September. Next year’s going to be even tougher.”

  “I know.” Gray’s sigh came out heavy and long. “And each decision we make affects everyone. But the senators and representatives in this state are going to have to give up something too, whether they want to or not. Or they will find themselves twiddling their thumbs back in their hometowns.”

  “We’ll go through everything with a fine-tooth comb, Governor,” Sam said, making a note in the leather portfolio on his lap. “We’ll weed out everything that isn’t essential.”

  Gray got up suddenly and pulled his dark-green suit coat from the back of his leather chair. He felt like he wanted to climb out of his skin. “We have to. Or come July, the lights in the capitol and the mansion are going to be cut off if I have to turn the switch myself.”

  “You going somewhere, Gray?” Kurt sat forward on the sofa, his face showing concern.

  Gray was stuffing papers into his briefcase. “I’m sorry, guys. I thought I was ready. But I have to be close to Mack. Right now I just . . . need to know where she is.”

  The compassion in the room was both felt and seen. He knew these people had his back, his front, and his sides. Over the last few weeks he had fought to maintain any semblance of himself. He was grateful that these four people knew the Gray beneath this grief that he wore.

  “Go home, Gray.” Sarah spoke like a mother.

  He nodded and headed for the door. “I’ll read through those numbers you’ve given me, and maybe we can get together again in a day or two.”

  “We’ll get it done. I promise.” Kurt got to his feet and walked with him out the door. As they exited the office, he heard a rush of activity that reminded him his people wouldn’t let him down. Their work to save this state from complete collapse and their work to help their governor and friend survive were mutually inclusive.