“What’s Wedgwood?” I whisper.
“Those little bowls,” he says, eyeing the light blue one next to me.
I reach for it, but he slaps my hand and shakes his head in a way that makes me think this bowl could pay for my college education.
* * *
I imagine that Liam’s mother, Mrs. Coffin, will look like British royalty—like pictures I’ve seen of the queen. I assume that she wears pearls. But the woman who descends the staircase looks much younger and stylish. Her skin is pulled back tight, though. Somehow there are no lines around her eyes, and her lashes are so long they remind me of whiskers.
We stand when she enters the room, and then we all sit down again. It seems like the thing you do in the presence of a woman who looks like this. She’s in a loose-fitting, silky long-sleeved dress that, with the right accessories, could be formalwear. But she’s just wearing it around the house.
“Please sit,” she says, and gives us a thin, glossy smile.
Liam enters the room again behind her and gives us an encouraging nod.
“This is Seth and—”
“Lori,” I finish for him.
“Right,” Liam says. “They were looking for Tapestry Garden. I explained it’s just the yard.”
Liam’s mom looks surprised—at least I think that’s what her face is trying to show.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” Seth says. “It’s just that we’re here because my mother died last week.”
As soon as the words are out of his mouth, it seems like they’ve taken up the whole room. Liam’s mom puts her hand on her heart.
“I’m so sorry,” Liam says.
“How awful,” Mrs. Coffin says.
“Thank you,” Seth continues. “It feels odd to say that out loud. I need to work on my delivery.”
“Don’t even think about it,” Liam says, and Seth smiles.
“My mother was a lover of gardens. It was her passion,” Seth says, and he is in full sales-pitch mode. I love when he talks like this, when he talks about his books. “We’re not having a formal funeral, but Lori and I wanted to visit her favorite gardens together, and to read passages from her favorite books in each spot.
“She left us a list, and this one, Tapestry Garden, was on it. We hoped to see it and to say a few words there. Honestly, we had no idea it was a private space. It’s so nice of you to let us in, but we’ll be happy to get out of your hair. We wouldn’t have come if we’d known it was a family’s home.”
“I wonder how she would have even known about a private garden,” I add.
“Did she attend the annual neighborhood garden tour?” Liam’s mother asks. “We’re on the open house tour every other year. That’s how most people know about us.”
“Yes!” I exclaim. “She totally did.”
I decide I have to start whispering because everything I say sounds like a shout in this library-like room. I’m going to have to write a story about this place. There are definitely ghosts here. And the last name of the ghosts is Coffin, which is a bit on the nose, but I love it.
“She must have really connected with this place,” Seth says, and even though he’s told these people we’ll get out of their hair, he’s not going anywhere.
“We don’t do many private tours,” Liam’s mother says, and now it’s awkward.
“I’m sorry,” I say, although I’m not sure what I’m apologizing for.
“Mom,” Liam says, getting Seth’s hint. “What if I show them the garden. It’d be nice to let them honor their mom for a few moments. I can take them out there myself, and they can do a little reading. You know, for their loved one.”
Mrs. Coffin takes a beat and then nods. She’s not afraid to let us know she’s unsure about this, but now it’s too late; her son has decided to be hospitable, so she’s stuck with us unless she’s willing to look like a jerk. “I’ll come with you,” she says, and once she stands, we all follow.
We trail her in a line—Liam, Seth, then me—through a narrow hallway that has more books and art, hundreds of books on more of those shelves, and I wonder if any of the books have been read. Their spines, whether they’re old and leather-bound or new, are all pristine. Some are novels. Others are about home design.
We walk past a kitchen where two older women, who appear to be staff of some kind, are shuffling around in a panic.
“We’re hosting a dinner for the French Cultural Center in a few hours,” Mrs. Coffin says, explaining the trays of food on the counters. I spy tiny mushrooms filled with something creamy. There are little French flags sticking out of them. “The guests will arrive by six.”
It must be about four by now. She’s giving us a deadline. This family has fancy things to do tonight.
We arrive at a stained-glass door.
“This is the garden,” Mrs. Coffin says, and ushers us outside.
I have never seen anything like this place in real life.
I feel better when Seth’s gasp is louder than mine.
* * *
I did not like reading much before I found horror, fantasy, and some science fiction. The first book I loved was Pet Sematary by Stephen King, and I pretty much still read it once a year.
It’s the reason I usually spell cemetery wrong. Stephen King ruined me.
But of all of the regular, non-magic books I had to read growing up—the depressing required fiction like A Separate Peace, which made me feel nothing, and the big books like East of Eden, which Seth says is amazing but I think was just fine—I most enjoyed The Secret Garden.
At least, I liked the part of it that was actually about the garden. There’s something cool about the idea of a place that no one knows is there—a place that, once discovered, becomes totally yours. I didn’t care much about the characters and the illnesses and everything that happened in the house, but I liked the part where the girl gets to go into the garden. When she brings someone new there for the first time, it’s as if the place is making them feel better. I think of the book now because of what’s in front of me. The garden is small and square and much wilder than I thought it would be, based on the rest of the house. Ivy snakes up the back of the brownstone, and the grass springing from the walking path looks lush and untamed.
I wish Chris were here to draw it.
“It’s best in spring,” Mrs. Coffin says, as if she has something to be embarrassed about. “The perennials have long peaked.”
“Not those,” I say, pointing to a patch of flowers. “Are those calla lilies?”
Mrs. Coffin is impressed by my quick ID. So am I.
“I love my calla lilies,” she says, beaming. “I only get to see them for a few weeks, but when they’re here, they’re good company.”
I love that she talks about flowers as if they’re people. Grandma Sheryl did that too. Maybe it’s just a garden person kind of thing.
I find myself wondering whether Mrs. Coffin has ever had a job or if she’s been to the Natick Mall. I wonder if her son lives here full-time, who her husband is, and if she is lonely.
I am drawn to a patch of pink flowers that remind me of starfish.
“Toad lilies,” Mrs. Coffin says, answering my unspoken question.
“How’d they get that name?”
“They’re bumpy,” she says, and nods her permission for me to touch their weird freckles.
Next to them are a patch of bright petals that are easy to ID because there are so many of them in Grandma’s field guide.
“Nice begonias!” I say too loud, and Seth lets out a snort. To my surprise, Mrs. Coffin gets why he’s laughing.
“Many men have told me so,” she says.
“Mother!” Liam says, and he’s delighted. Suddenly we’re all friends, and Mrs. Coffin no longer looks like she’s desperate to push a button to send us through a trapdoor.
“The garden tours can be difficult for homeowners,” she tells me, as if she understands that she needs to explain why she’s been so unfriendly. “We want to make our private
gardens available for garden clubs, and we love the concept of an open house, but it’s an entire afternoon of people coming through our private quarters. That’s why we offer Tapestry tours every other year. I wonder when your grandmother visited.”
I wonder, too.
“I’ve only lived with her for three years or so, so I don’t know,” I say. “I didn’t always pay attention to where she went with her garden club. Now I wish I had.”
“Well, I only ask because I’d like to think I met her,” Mrs. Coffin says, and then pauses. “You said you’re not having a funeral. Have you laid her to rest?”
It’s a spooky and personal question, and before I can stammer out an answer, Seth steps between us.
“She was buried at a Jewish cemetery in Framingham,” he says with so much confidence that I forget for a split second that a quarter of Grandma Sheryl is in my backpack.
“Lovely,” Mrs. Coffin says, and clears her throat. “Liam, let’s give them some privacy to do their reading and have whatever moment they need.”
“Sure,” he says, following her to the back door. “If you need us, we’ll be just inside,” Mrs. Coffin says, and Liam smiles again.
“Come on,” Seth whispers, and swings me around to pull the backpack off my body. “We have to be really fast with this.”
“Wait,” I say, pulling away from him, my arms flailing like I’m a turtle. The backpack falls to the brick path beneath us in the garden. “We can’t actually do this. It’s a private garden, Seth.”
I turn around, and we stare at each other, both of us confused.
“It was on the list. This is Box Three,” Seth says.
I am trying to figure out if he is kidding. We cannot put Grandma Sheryl here. It’s the house of a real person, not the estate of a long-dead family that’s willed the property to a trust for public tours.
“This is no longer Box Three,” I tell him. “She clearly didn’t mean for us to bring her craisins to this house. She must have confused the name of this garden with another. Or maybe she forgot where she saw it. Or maybe—I don’t know. She wouldn’t want us to dump her body in someone else’s backyard without them knowing.”
An annoying thing about having a loved one die is that they’re not around to answer practical questions. What was she thinking?
“Wait,” I say, and pull out my phone. Seth remains impatient.
“EMERGENCY,” I text to the Garden Girls. “Tapestry Garden is private! Like in someone’s house!”
Kevin is the first to respond. “Yes,” he says.
“???” I write back.
“She really, really loved that garden,” Jill says.
“I’m sure she did,” I write. “Who wouldn’t? But it’s private!”
“Have you asked for permission?” Rochelle writes.
“I did think it was curious that it was on the list, TBH,” Lenny says.
“We’re in the garden,” I say. “They let us in so we could see it, but they would not want us dropping ashes back here.”
“I would let someone put ashes in my garden,” Jill says. “I would be honored.”
“That’s because you’re a doll, Jill,” Deb writes. “Lori, what’s blooming?” she asks in a second message.
I mutter a profanity and put the phone away. The Garden Girls really do have one-track minds, and at the moment, they do not understand the weight of my problems.
I don’t have time to take pictures or search my book to ID all the blooming things in front of me.
“Stop asking permission. This isn’t that big of a deal. Think about all the birds that shit on this garden. Or their friends who spill wine here. It’s outside,” Seth says, and he’s already pulled out the Chico’s bag and the box inside. “Pick a spot, fast.”
I grab his arms. “Seth, this is weird!”
“It’s all earth,” he whispers. “What’s the difference between putting tiny stones here or putting stones by the water on a property that used to be owned by rich people?”
My mother’s words from last night, the ones about Seth doing what he wants, scroll through my head, but I push them out. Seth is just emotional and committed and, at the moment, eyeing this garden as if it’s a bank he’s ready to rob.
Maybe he’s right. Maybe this is fine, and no one will know. It is not that much of anything. Just rocks.
I feel short of breath, and I want to rip my dress collar off. I know he won’t be stopped, so timing is most important. We can’t get caught. I turn in a circle and think about where I want Grandma Sheryl to have a home.
“There,” I say, pointing to a patch of swaying black-eyed Susans.
“They’re a little weedlike,” Seth says, scratching under his chin.
“Grandma Sheryl liked them. We passed a field of them once near this strawberry-picking farm and she pulled the car over and just stared at it awhile.”
It was last summer. The weather was steamy that day, the way it’s been for the past week. I’d gone for my phone to take a pic of the never-ending field of brown and yellow flowers, and she stopped me.
“I want to show Chris,” I had said, taking my phone out to capture the scene.
“No,” Grandma Sheryl said. “How would you describe it? You’re a writer. How would you put it in a book?”
“I wouldn’t have to describe it that much, because he’d illustrate it. That’s why it’s good to know an illustrator.”
“Illustrations shouldn’t make you a lazy writer.”
I looked at the field of bright yellow black-eyed Susans that day, thousands upon thousands of them bobbing their heads in the same circle, their centers making them look like friendly Cyclopes, and I told Grandma Sheryl, “They look like August. They look like the last moments of summer when you’re about to go back to school. They look ripe. Does that make sense?”
“It does,” she said. “Well put. You might just be a writer.”
That’s why I know this flower so well. I have no pictures of that field of flowers, but I’ll remember them forever.
I snap out of the moment, and Seth is already squatting by the patch, looking sinister, as if he’s about to bury a body, and then I realize that’s exactly what he’s about to do.
I glance at the back door to keep watch. This feels so wrong.
“Cover me,” he says as he peels off the gold Walsh’s sticker from the box and removes the bag inside. I position myself on my knees behind him, fully shielding him.
He moves fast, and I clench my fists when I see the bagful of craisins, not because they are human remains—the pieces of bone no longer upset me—but because I know this is wrong. No matter how I spin it, it’s a violation.
If Chris were here, he would not allow it. I’d have someone on my side.
With his free hand Seth digs a small hole in the soil between the flowers.
“Here,” he says. “Get down here fast and help.”
I use two fingers to tunnel through the dirt.
He lifts the bag and shakes it.
“It’s all stuck together,” he says.
He’s jostling the bag, which is so disturbing.
“Stop doing that,” I hiss.
I pull the book from my backpack, the Dorothy Parker, but he bats it down.
“Lori, there is no actual time for that. We can read it when we’re outside, maybe in front of the place.”
We both look at the size of the bag compared with the small patch we have to put it in.
“We can’t put this whole bag here,” I say.
“We’ll just put in as much as we can and bring the rest to the next stop,” Seth says.
His eyes are wild, and for maybe the first time in my life I wish my mom were here. She would not allow this either. She’d talk about bad karma or something and force Seth out of this place.
“Seth, this isn’t . . . this doesn’t feel right,” I tell him.
“Lori, let it go. This is for my mother,” he says, and he begins to pour.
Just as
the craisins begin to flow into the dirt and the dark brown mulch, the pieces looking way too white to belong there, the back door slams open and Mrs. Coffin is there, Liam behind her, and she’s shouting, “No, no, NO!” Seth quickly moves the bag behind his back and stands, moving his body in front of what he’s just done.
“Wait, it’s not what it looks like—” I stammer.
“Don’t move,” Mrs. Coffin says. “Please stop doing what I know you’re doing.”
Her voice is shaky. She is furious, and she might also be afraid of us. I don’t blame her.
“Really, it’s not what it looks like,” I say again, although I literally have no idea what it looks like. Whatever it is, we are terrible.
“We’re not stealing anything,” Seth says, and the rest of us look bewildered.
“I didn’t think you were stealing,” Mrs. Coffin says. “It looks like the two of you are scattering your loved one’s ashes in my garden.”
Liam shoots a look at Seth, his face a mix of empathy and betrayal. He lobbied for us to get back here, and now we’re putting my grandma in a secret garden that belongs to his mother.
Seth pauses, maybe trying to think of a lie, but we’ve been caught, and at this point I just want to get out of here.
“Please don’t call the police,” I say.
“The police?” Seth says. “They wouldn’t call the police, Lori.” He looks over at Liam Coffin. “Wait . . . you’d call the police?”
“I don’t see why I shouldn’t,” Mrs. Coffin says. “Please. Please go.”
I notice how much her voice is trembling and that she’s crying. Tears aren’t quite escaping from her eyes, but they’re there. My heart sinks into my stomach.
“We’re so sorry,” I say. I grab the bag of Grandma from Seth, kneel down, and cup my hands to scoop the cremains from the soil and put them back into the bag. It’s a messy process; I can’t pick up all the white pieces without taking a lot of soil with them. Seth isn’t helping. He’s sort of frozen.
He’s never had to be the grownup.
“This is so disrespectful,” Mrs. Coffin says in Seth’s direction. “You told us you were visiting the garden, that you were doing a reading. I knew it, though. I knew you were up to something. That’s why I asked—and then you said she was buried in Framingham? You lied.”
Things That Grow Page 15
