The Last to See Me

by M Dressler

  “Why should I?”

  “Because you have to. Because I’m telling the truth.”

  “Have some toast.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “I never see you eat anything.” It’s a curious thing to say, just now.

  “I’m not hungry. Just ask me anything, and I’ll tell you what you want to know. I promise. Just ask.”

  “Then I want to know everything. Starting with that past you told me you were trying to get away from. I want to know it all—why you came to this village, and rather amazingly became the real estate agent for a substantial property you are clearly connected to.”

  “I told you. The heirs came up and liked me. They wanted a go-getter. Someone young. My broker travels all the time.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

  “Fine, then. I’ll tell you. But you won’t get much out of it.” She shrugs. “I’m a lot less Lambry than you imagine.”

  I listen to Ellen’s story. A sad story. But is it all a lie? I watch Pratt’s face go hard, and then softer, as he listens. How foolish and forgiving the living can be, and at the wrong times! I know all about that. You want to punch, jab at something. But then you let yourself be knocked down, instead.

  She was born in a small town on the other side of the coastal range, she tells him. Her father owned an insurance business, and her mother stayed at home, sickly. Ellen’s earliest memories were of her mother pinned to a striped sofa, looking out the window onto a street lined with eucalyptus trees, waiting for her husband to come home. He was a respected man in town but a womanizer, and when Ellen was still a girl, he was caught at another man’s house with his wife. The man came in on them, in the middle of things, and shot them both dead with a rifle.

  She puts her chin up. “It sounds like a tragedy, doesn’t it? But it wasn’t. It was small and stupid and ugly and horrible.”

  “Hard luck, you mean,” Pratt says.

  She shrugs. “Harder on my mother. She blamed herself—if you can believe that. She said it was her sickness that made him leave her. She was mentally unhealthy. She didn’t know how to think like a well person. After it was all over she sold my father’s business, but instead of taking us away from the valley like she should have, she used the money to strap us in and down. Just the two of us. In our house. With that striped couch.”

  Ellen saw to her mother’s meals. She drove her to the doctor. She gave her her medicines. She came straight home from school and sat with her and read. When she was old enough she told her mother she was going to leave for college but her mother howled in pain and said, Don’t you understand you’re like a cork in my body, that you’re the only thing holding my life in?

  “Jesus.”

  “Get the picture? So I was responsible. Because there wasn’t anybody else.”

  “You couldn’t have reached out to your relations?”

  “The Lambrys? Is that what you’re driving at?” She laughs. “That’s just it. My mother would never let me. She was a proud woman. Even if she was ashamed of her life. She said she would no more go to her family than she would ask for prayers from a stone.”

  But every year, Ellen’s mother sank a little lower on the couch, looking out the window at the eucalyptus trees, waiting for her dead husband who never came. Every year Ellen went out less and less.

  “But I found out I could study for a real estate license from home. It’s one of those things anyone can try for. I didn’t tell her. I just studied. And waited. And I knew what I was waiting for. How do you admit to yourself that you’re waiting for someone to just give up? You don’t. You just wait. And then one morning I woke up and heard this awful, rasping sound coming from her room. They said later it was her heart that kept on going. That her mind had given up but her heart didn’t know it. I could see it in her eyes, she was somewhere else already, but her chest kept going out and in, and her throat, that sound, it wasn’t breathing. It was—escaping. And then it stopped. When she died she only had one eye open. I stayed with her until the funeral director came. I blocked out everything about that for a long time. I went through a period of … depression. But then I got better. And I sold the house and sold everything and left.”

  “And went looking for the family connected to her.”

  “No. All I heard was it was beautiful out here. And the agency had an ad out; they wanted someone who’d work for a small commission, almost nothing. That was me.”

  “And how long was this after your mother died, Ellen?”

  “A year.”

  “And what were you doing during that year?”

  “What do you mean? I told you. I was depressed. I felt … dead. I thought maybe I even really was. But then I got better. I decided to give myself a new life. And here I am. That’s it. That’s all of it.”

  Pratt sits back. Watching her closely.

  “You thought you were dead.”

  “I had my moments.”

  “And now?”

  “I’m fine. I have my life. Everything was looking up, until— Shit.” She reaches for her telephone. “We should call the hospital. To see how Manoel’s doing.”

  “He passed. At four this morning. I called before you came down.”

  Poor man. May he rest in peace. Poor, unlucky Manoel.

  Ellen’s face unfolds all at once. “He’s … dead?”

  “Yes.” Pratt blinks up at the ceiling, as if he might find the Portuguese there, still high up on his ladder.

  “I can’t … feel anything. Philip. What’s wrong with me?”

  “You’re overwhelmed, maybe. Or you feel gutted, like me. Or you’ve just gone all hollow.” He pushes some cold toast and jelly toward her. “Eat something.”

  “No.”

  “You don’t eat, Ellen.”

  “Because I can’t.”

  “Then we should get out of here.” He signals to the waiter.

  “Where? Where are we going?”

  “To shake the past off. And whatever nightmares, for now, we can. Go somewhere pleasant. Beautiful.” He says this strangely.

  “Thanks, but …” She looks at him, her turn to be uncertain.

  “I want you to go with me to the Botanical Garden. Remember? To see Mrs. Fanoli.” He lifts the death certificate from the tablecloth and drops it, deliberately, back into her bag.

  “Oh.” She blinks. “Mrs. Fanoli.”

  “We have someone now who needs the truth. His name is Manoel Cristo. He deserves it. And he deserves justice. And the very best of us, I think.”

  “Of course, of course.”

  “It’s time for us to actually work together, agreed?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth, earlier. I guess … all I can say is I didn’t know how.”

  “Do you want to go upstairs and change your clothes?”

  “No. It doesn’t matter. What matters is we have to stop whatever this is, Philip, that’s doing all of this to us! Monstrous, indecent things are happening to decent people.”

  I don’t like this sudden, emotional, dramatic Ellen. Trying to make Pratt think she’s decent, after all, is that it? Her voice seems false and forced.

  “Yes, they are.” Pratt watches her carefully as she stands. “Monsters all around us. All the time.”

  I watch them as they leave the hotel. They don’t walk as closely together as they did before. Pratt, especially, seems to tuck his bulk into himself as Ellen walks a little behind him on their way to his car. Something’s different, it’s plain, between them. It’s loneliness that’s come to them, I see. Loneliness with its sudden cold feeling of deadness in your mouth and all around you, though you still breathe, and another breathes beside you. One moment you think you have a friend you can count on. The next you’re in a world full of sea and sound, but one voice is missing, the one you trusted, and you can’t have it back again.

  It was Quint who told me my beloved Franny had died. He brought the news from town, and gave it to me as we sat
on a blanket on the beach. She’d died in her cabin by the Russian River before the doctor could get to her. The baby half out of her. Franny. My good, good, loving Franny.

  I dug my hands into the sand. He put his arm around me but nothing could warm the surf, the world.

  “A week ago. I didn’t know if I should tell you.”

  “Her—husband?”

  “They say he’s mad with grief.” He stroked my cheek.

  No. I turned away from his hand. It wasn’t right, being touched in that way, not then. It didn’t feel right. To feel my living skin coddled while my beloved friend lay cold, far from me. My beloved Franny. I pulled away. I made myself go still and cold, apart from Quint. I wanted to be alone, in my heart, with my friend. Is it love when you say no to what you love, even though you love it? Because you love—loved—someone else, too.

  The New Year had just turned over, 1915. Time wasn’t doing what Franny had said it would do for us. The future felt as though it were slipping like a seal into the fog. The war news had reached our strip of coast. The men and boys in the logging camps all wanted to join up, but Quint’s mother and father wouldn’t give him permission to go. I let him rave and sulk, the next time he came to me. He had his own troubles, he said. Nothing was going his way.

  “I have my own war going on, I tell you, with my father.”

  It seemed a small and petty thing to say, with Tommy Allston and all the others going over, and Franny lying cold in her grave beside the river.

  He stood and paced the shingle of the beach. It was a miserable month, a miserable day, but we had nowhere else private to be. I wouldn’t let him into my cottage. I wouldn’t risk being alone with him. I thought of Franny. Be careful, or you’ll get a fawn, she’d said. I thought of my mother, and how a woman could die in the breech, or from losing too much blood, too fast.

  “My parents can’t stop me from seeing you, anyway.” He stopped walking the sand and grabbed me. “Not that they ever could, short of knocking me down and tying me up.”

  I let him kiss me. “Are they going to try to stop you?”

  “I think they know I’m coming here and … they think I’ll just grow tired of you. Which I won’t.” He turned away, angrily. “I know their game. If only I had the right to all my funds. They’d see the backside of me—us—soon enough. That would teach them. It’s a modern world we’re living in now, and a man should be able to go and do whatever he pleases. Lord, you should see the flabby-faced girls they’re throwing at me now.”

  He came back toward our fire and held me again. “Give me another kiss, Emma. I promise I’ll keep you safe and warm, and we’ll get away. You’re such a fine girl, Emma. Truly. Kiss me, kiss me …” he said, as if one more touch from me would stop all the wars in the world, and make everything right again.

  18

  Mrs. Fanoli sits, her thin lips pressed together. She carries her life collected in cups of skin under her eyes. Her back is humped. Her shoulders are as sharp as the gray cornerstones of the Benito Botanical Garden Welcome Cottage, behind her. Her knuckles are bluish, shimmering, the color of abalone, and woven together over the knob of her wooden cane. She’s waiting for Pratt’s car to roar itself up through the garden’s gates and arrive at her perch. From her bench, she looks down the hill. Stands of purple heather fall in waves on one side of Garden Drive, toward the cliffs. On the other, banks of white roses crowd like a hundred brides.

  It’s noon, warm and clear. From where I sit, beside the old woman, I can see the cove and cliffs and beyond them the steeples of Benito, rising high as stakes. Brightness, brightness … I smile at the view. It’s still summer, after all, and a ghost shouldn’t let herself get too dreary.

  Pratt pulls into the empty lot ringed with hydrangeas.

  “Is that Mrs. Fanoli?” he asks, getting out of the car.

  “Yes, that’s her,” Ellen says. “She spends a lot of time outside, waiting for visitors. She’s the main docent.”

  “She looks like she’s used to waiting a long time.”

  “Not as many people care about the garden as they used to.” Ellen seems to be recovering her nerves after being caught in all her Lambry lies. How strange to think that all the while I was so drawn to her, it must have been because she was one of them. “Mrs. Fanoli. Here we are!”

  They come up the terraced walk toward us. The old woman shifts her hands on the cane between her knees. She doesn’t move from the bench. She lets Pratt look down on the knot of silver hair on top of her head.

  “Mrs. Fanoli,” he says. “Thanks for seeing us on such short notice, ma’am.”

  “Call me Agnes. Short notice is no trouble here at all, sir.” Her voice shakes a little. Her free hand quivers, too, like a hummingbird. “And how nice to see you too again, young Ellen. Come a little closer, please, both of you. It’s not so easy for me to see anything that isn’t brightly colored, nowadays. You both have to keep still a minute so I can gather you in.”

  They wait on either side of her.

  “Well, Mr. Pratt. You have the chin of a prizefighter, but the rest of you is pretty. Ellen, you’re a pixie, as always.”

  Pratt offers, “Should I tell you what I see?”

  “Oh, I wish you would. I can hardly make myself out, anymore.”

  “A strong face and eyes to match.”

  “Ha! I don’t hear you saying the word beautiful. But all beauty goes, just like the rose. So. You’ve come out today to learn about our flowers, have you?”

  “I have. And Ellen tells me you’re the expert. That you’ve worked here along the coast for years.”

  “Volunteered. At my age, nobody works, young man.” She shrugs. “But you don’t want to lie down all day, either. When you lie down at ninety-three, you fall asleep almost right away, and when you fall asleep, you dream, and the dreams of the old … they can be terrible. The past haunts us.”

  “It doesn’t have to.”

  “You’ll find out differently when you get here. But no need to worry about it now. Let’s get up and walk while I’m still chipper, and you can tell me what it is you both want to know.” She stabs her cane into the ground, and leans forward and pushes to stand over it.

  “I know you’ve come because there’s been trouble in the village again,” she says, leading them. “I’ve heard all about it. But I tell you what: I’d be lying to you if I didn’t say I feel some sympathy for the poor thing causing all the ruckus. You might start to feel that way, too, when you’re getting as close to the end as I am. You might be more inclined to ask a few questions, first, before you squash a ghost. Like: ‘So how can I not die, too?’ I think it’s a bit ungenerous, what you do, with your hunting.” She leans toward him, smiling.

  “But I’m required to do it, Agnes.” Pratt takes her elbow to help her balance. “I’m no volunteer.”

  “Ah, well. I suppose if we didn’t know we were going to get squashed in the end, life wouldn’t be so very precious. And we do know it, and we do get squashed. So”—she turns to Ellen—“wear turtleneck sweaters when you’re my age, dear. To hide where the squashing’s already begun. It’s this way to the Heritage Garden, children.”

  The three of them walk slowly, Mrs. Fanoli showing off her knowledge between the rows and rows of color.

  “Russell’s Cottage rose, there. Teplitz. Hermosa. This beauty, here, is an Overboard White Moss.” She bends on her cane to smell it. “Not to be confused with the White Pet. Here we have Devoniensis. Wichuraiana. Rosa mutabilis. Lady Hillingdon. Louis Philippe. Mary Wallace. Van Fleet. I’d love to have a rose named after me, wouldn’t you? It hasn’t happened yet, though I keep hinting to the breeder-gardeners. They’d better hurry. American Pillar, here. And Veilchenblau.”

  “You’re extraordinary, Agnes,” Pratt marvels. “How long have you been docenting?”

  “Sixty years. I was born in Benito. And I’ve never left it, except on trips with my husband, God rest his soul. He died in a car crash not far from here, when he fell asleep a
nd veered off the road. Now I don’t drive. A neighbor brings me here every day. But for many years, Walt and I drove up and down the coast together, happy as clams, collecting local plants.

  “Now, Ellen tells me,” she says, stopping to rest under a vine-laced gazebo, “that you have a special interest in our local blooms. When this garden was begun, you might want to know—when it was started, that is, by a group of us in the last century who still cared about such things—it was only roses, plain and simple. We collected all the varieties we could find from the local homesteads. And we ended up finding other things you might not imagine could survive in such a cold, northern climate. Camellias. Magnolias. Flowers that had blown up from the desert and found the water and the salt they remembered. Or else brought in by the Indians, staying on even after the last of them were chased or killed off. Plants are living things that can adjust themselves, so they can stay.

  “But first, it was only roses here. And the first thing you have to understand, Mr. Pratt”—she shakes her finger at him—“if you want to understand roses in a place like this, is that they’re not just flowers. They’re human landmarks. They’re signs you’ve arrived. People plant roses when they know they’re going to stay, and when they want to show that they’re going to stay. Roses are narratives. In the old days, people brought them to the village not only to make the village seem less rough and wild, more civilized, but to tell the story of who they were, and what happened to them, and what mattered to them. That’s really the origin of all the beds and terraces you see here.” She straightens and waves one hand shakily over the grounds. “All of these flowers arrived here as part of a story. And they’re still telling it, talking in their way, about what someone, or certain people anyway, thought was beautiful or valuable or necessary or something to add to their consequence. Something to express emotions they somehow couldn’t or something they wanted to remember or memorialize. That’s what roses do. That’s why people give them as gifts all the time. Not because they’re flowers. But because they speak.”