Things That Grow

by Meredith Goldstein

  Ethan is wearing dark purple shorts, a peach top, and sunglasses with spotted frames. He has shaved his beard for summer.

  “Lori, it’s been too long,” he says, and pulls me in for a hug. He smells like spearmint gum. Then he shakes Chris’s hand. “Hello, Christian.”

  Chris blushes. I think it’s Ethan’s English accent.

  Ethan gives me a long look. “How are you faring, my girl?”

  “Bad,” I say without looking at Seth.

  “Your grandmother was a wonderful, brilliant soul,” Ethan says. “And what a lovely tribute, to bring her here.”

  Now everything is a little bit better. Uncle Ethan always knows what he’s doing.

  “Has everyone been here before?” Ethan asks. “It looks quite scenic, I must say. I’m embarrassed that I had no idea Edith Wharton’s house was an attraction in the Berkshires.”

  “We’ve never been,” I respond, “but I’m excited.”

  “Lori doesn’t read Edith Wharton,” Seth says, stepping in front of me ever so slightly. He’s trying to make me feel stupid, but Ethan doesn’t pick up on this.

  “I should probably whisper this, considering where we are at the moment, but I found Ethan Frome to be very boring,” Ethan says. “I’m an Age of Innocence man myself.”

  “Grandma Sheryl liked both,” I answer.

  “Lori, I’m surprised you’re not interested in Edith Wharton’s ghost stories,” Ethan says.

  “She wrote ghost stories?” I ask him, but my eyes are on Seth, who looks into the distance as if he can’t hear us. I wonder if he knew that.

  “Yes,” Ethan says. “Those I enjoyed. Ghosts in libraries, and haunted things happening in creepy meadows. I imagine an old house in the middle of nowhere gave her some good inspiration. The dead are everywhere here.”

  As soon as he says those last words in a spooky voice, he regrets them. His face falls as he remembers that we’re here to scatter ashes.

  “How tasteless,” he says, but before he can apologize, I stop him.

  “It’s okay,” I say, giving him a warm smile. “Please. The more death jokes, the better.”

  * * *

  The four of us follow the other tourists from the parking lot to the entry booth to buy tickets, and Ethan pays for all of us. That’s the kind of thing he does. Then we make our way down a long driveway shaded by tall trees. If we walked off the path, we’d venture into cavernous woods covered in green plants. It’s peaceful and quiet, even though I know there are lots of visitors here. The sound travels up and disappears.

  Had I known the property was like this, I would have come here with Grandma.

  We turn a corner and see a huge, castle-like gate. Behind it is the house, The Mount, and the second it enters our sightline, we are transported back in time.

  Edith Wharton knew how to live. Her home is huge, and there are many windows.

  Seth takes out his phone for a picture, and even though I’m annoyed with how much he’s been on his phone while we’ve been avoiding each other, I can’t blame him. I hate pictures of myself, but even I want to stand in front of it and pose.

  This is the kind of home where an old-timey writer in a bonnet carries a parasol and has dinner parties that have many courses. If I lived here, I’d be Lady Seltzer.

  The property around the house is covered with beautiful flowers—there are so many things growing here. We could put Grandma anywhere, really; the whole place is in bloom. As we drove in, I could see the outline of the gardens in the back. I know they’ll be square and well-manicured—and maybe a rabbit will dart by and tell us to follow him because he’s late.

  A bunch of other visitors are loitering near the main gate, and in front of them is a woman. Her name tag says MARGE. She looks like a Marge, and that is a compliment.

  “Hello . . .” Marge calls out to us, greeting all the visitors. Most of the tourists here are older men in pairs or women with cool glasses. They all look cool—like they’re the kind of people who own antique typewriters at home. Three of them are holding the exact same New Yorker tote bag.

  I notice that there are no little kids, which makes sense. Even though there’s a ton of open space on this property, it’s not the kind of place where you’d want anyone to run around and play. Chris and I are the youngest by far.

  “Welcome to The Mount,” Marge continues. “I’ll be starting the next tour now, so please line up if you’d like a guided walk through the house. You’re more than welcome to navigate the property on your own, of course.”

  Ethan turns to us. “We’re doing the tour, yes? Before we . . . find the gardens?”

  As much as I always get super bored during official tours, I nod. We should know more about this place that made it onto Grandma’s list.

  Seth’s sunglasses are on, so I can’t read his mood.

  We line up with Marge’s followers, ready to be educated.

  “One of the first things you’ll notice about The Mount is symmetry,” Marge begins. “Take a moment to look at the windows on the building.”

  I see them. Rows of dark green shutters that stand out against the bright white paint.

  “Some of those windows are not actually windows,” Marge says. “Edith liked everything in her home to be symmetrical, so she added false shutters for balance.”

  I look closer and see that indeed, some windows are not actually windows.

  Edith Wharton was apparently particular and weird. This makes me like her.

  “If you’ll all stay in line and follow me, we’ll see more of that symmetry inside.”

  The house looks like any rich person’s old house should. There are a lot of rust-spotted antique mirrors, and furniture with shiny fabric upholstery.

  When we get to a sitting room, we learn the basics. Edith was the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Edith had some weird marital stuff, like a complicated husband and some other guy later. Edith died in France. Edith loved dogs.

  Marge also tells us about Edith Wharton’s interest in design—how much she loved writing about architecture and houses—and I start thinking about how horrible it is that Seth always has a snarky thing to say about any writing that isn’t literary. Everybody has to be working on some sort of sad family novel, or it’s not real writing. But Edith Wharton—who won a Pulitzer!—devoted her entire first book to decorating houses.

  “Her great love was design,” Marge says.

  If Edith Wharton were alive today, I think, she’d probably be a really big Instagram influencer, taking pictures of all her symmetrical rooms.

  And Seth would probably write her off as useless.

  I crack my knuckles and follow the group into the dining room.

  “What do you notice about the lighting in these rooms?” Marge asks.

  The fifteen or so people on the tour look around, dumbfounded.

  “Look up,” Marge hints, and then gives it away. “You’ll notice that there are no chandeliers with lights in any of these rooms. No lights on ceilings. Edith believed that overhead lighting was bad for complexions—unflattering to everyone. She avoided it completely.”

  “Well,” one of the women with a New Yorker tote whispers to the woman next to her, “now I’m going to have to rip out all the fixtures I just put in my kitchen.”

  Marge smiles and continues.

  “We’ve put place settings on the table to show you who would have been dining in Edith Wharton’s company,” she says. “Edith liked small groups; she preferred an inner circle of friends.”

  The tiny cards on the fine china show familiar names, although I don’t quite know who they are. Henry James is the only one I’ve heard of.

  I think about who I’d put at this intimate, circular table if it were my own. Chris, obviously. Jessica and Jason. It’s been too long since I’ve seen them, but really, it’s been only a few days. Where there’s a placard for Edith Wharton’s husband, I imagine Jason in sweatpants, eating a hamburger.

  I could live here
.

  “Now, to her bedroom,” Marge says, and we follow her down the hall into a simple, modest bedroom with a white knit bedspread. There are handwritten letters strewn across the bed as part of the display.

  “These are Edith’s real letters,” Marge whispers, and I’m surprised they don’t put everything under a glass case.

  “In every official portrait of Edith as a writer, she’s shown at a desk,” Marge says. “But she actually did most of her writing in bed, in the mornings. She’d awaken, a lady’s maid would bring her breakfast, and then she’d write for five hours every day. She wrote a book a year—twenty-six in all, not counting the short stories.”

  “Must be easy to just write all day when you have a lady’s maid,” Seth says to Ethan, and his tone gives away too much. He’s jealous of Edith Wharton.

  “Are you really getting competitive with Edith Wharton right now?” Ethan whispers, reading my mind.

  “Don’t do that,” Seth whispers back, and I’m not sure what “that” is, but I am smug because he is being called out on something by someone other than me.

  “All I’m saying is that it’s easier to work when you can sit in a country house and write all day.”

  “Right. It would have been much harder for her if she’d been living your strenuous life,” Ethan says.

  Everyone hears that, and we’re all silent. I am shocked. Chris looks like he wants to run. Then Ethan looks ashamed. The tops of his cheeks are red, and he wipes his forehead.

  Marge clears her throat and breaks the silence. “There’s some private space in the room down the hall,” she offers.

  An older couple flashes a look of concern in our direction. Seth storms out of the room. Ethan follows, sighing.

  “Sorry,” I say to the group. “My grandma just died. We’re all going through some stuff. But she loved Edith Wharton, so . . . anyway, it’s nice to be here!”

  It’s an overshare, with too much enthusiasm, but the tour group looks sympathetic.

  Marge nods. “Well then, let’s move on.”

  “What was that?” Chris whispers as we head back into the hallway.

  “No idea,” I say.

  Eventually we exit through the gift shop—which sells lots of books and magnets with Edith Wharton’s face on them—and we find Seth and Ethan standing outside, wearing smiles.

  “Sorry about that,” Ethan says, his voice too bright. “I think the heat was getting to us.” Ethan holds up a bag. “I got you some of those ghost stories.”

  He is so thoughtful.

  Seth’s expression is sort of blank, and then he shields himself with his sunglasses again.

  “Well, I guess it’s time,” he says, and it is.

  During the tour, Marge had told us that there are two main gardens in back of The Mount. One is French in style, the other Italian. There’s a path lined with big trees that connects one to the other.

  It’s difficult for Seth and me to decide which garden to visit first when we’re barely talking to each other.

  “Shall we start with French?” I ask him, but I’m looking at his neck.

  “Sure,” he says, and his voice is even enough for me to assume we’re calling a temporary truce.

  I can ID the French garden from where I stand. Marge said it was colorful and open, whereas the Italian one has more overhead trees and stones, as if it’s a hideaway.

  I lead our group down the tree-lined path until we come to the entrance of the square, large garden that we’ve heard is known for its tulips, which are greens by August. There’s a rectangular pool in the middle.

  The pool of water is boxed in by circular plots of bright green grass that are also lined with flowers. If Grandma wanted to be around “things that grow,” this is it.

  “Well, isn’t this lovely,” Ethan says, and I turn around to see him place his hand on Seth’s back. Seth is looking around, scowling, and I think I know why.

  As much as this garden is all in bloom, the mood doesn’t seem right for Grandma Sheryl. It’s scorching again today, maybe over a hundred degrees. In this French garden there’s no shade, and the sun is beating down on us so hard, it’s difficult to imagine anyone wanting to be here for eternity.

  Also, there’s no privacy for what we need to do. The space is open, and people are loitering everywhere. There’s a couple—two of the women from our tour with Marge—posing for a photograph in front of a bed of lilies. Tourists keep wandering into the shot, and the photographer, a hired professional carrying bags of equipment, is trying to be nice to passersby, but he’s getting annoyed.

  “Um, can you excuse us?” he says. “These are engagement photos. If you could just give us some room.”

  He lifts his old-school camera to take another photo, but when the women pose, their faces close, an old man with a cane wanders into the frame.

  The photographer sighs, and I shoot him a sympathetic look.

  “It’s our fault for coming in the afternoon,” he tells me. “We should have done this first thing, before the tourists.”

  I blink. I don’t even know what time it is. Every day since Grandma died has felt like we’re stuck in some never-ending summer Thursday. I wake up whenever and go to bed a few hours after it gets dark.

  I look at my phone to check the actual date. August 28, which means school starts in less than a week. In Natick, at least.

  Grandma hasn’t even been gone a week. That seems unreal. Shocking, actually.

  “This garden is a crowded mess,” Seth says.

  “It’s kind of funny,” Chris says. “Based on what Marge told us, Edith Wharton would have been miserable in this kind of public environment. It’s an introvert’s nightmare.”

  “Her ghost must wait until night to come outside. Then she can hang out by herself,” I say, and Ethan smiles.

  Chris stares into the distance for a second, and I know his silence means he will be drawing Edith Wharton’s introverted ghost later, maybe hiding in one of the closets until the crowd gives her some space each night.

  “Let’s go to garden two,” I say. “It looks like less of a party over there.”

  We walk in pairs, Seth with Chris, me with Ethan, back down the path, until we enter the parallel square that is the Italian garden.

  Inside, it is something else. This one is perfection.

  “Even more gorgeous,” Ethan whispers.

  It’s much cooler here because it’s under the shade of the woods next to it. It’s also walled in, which makes it feel magical. Those walls are covered with greens that snake up the rocks. I pull my phone from my dress pocket, take a picture of the walls, and send it to the Garden Girls. It feels like a betrayal, like I shouldn’t even have a phone in this place.

  “Beautiful porticos,” Ethan says.

  I don’t know what a portico is, but everything in here is pretty, so I nod in agreement. I like that I can enjoy this garden without having to squint. I kneel down to get a better look at the square fountain in the center. Water bubbles up from a sculpture that’s basically a pile of rocks on top of one another.

  There are other people milling about, but they are quiet and slow. There’s one man sitting near the fountain, reading a book. I can make out that it’s Ethan Frome. He probably just bought it in the gift shop.

  “Lor, come look,” Chris says, and he’s taking my hand.

  He leads me to the side of the garden and points to the ground.

  “There,” he says, and his eyes are watery, which makes me skip a breath. “Read it.”

  There is a plaque next to our feet. It is a quote from Edith Wharton: “In spite of illness, in spite even of the archenemy sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways.”

  I read it again and then feel Seth and Ethan come up behind me. They’re reading too.

  “Well, that seems relevant,” I say, trying to make a joke, but my voice
cracks.

  I look around and see the view of The Mount from where we stand.

  All this beauty, and I am so grateful that Grandma saw it. That she took trips with the Garden Girls.

  I wonder if she visited during spring or in late summer, like we are now. What was blooming? I take out my phone and text them.

  “Thank you,” I say to these women—and Kevin—who brought her to beautiful places when I wasn’t really paying attention. “Thank you for bringing her to this perfect garden.” I take a picture of the plaque and send it along.

  I can see they’re responding, the messages and emojis—tiny pink hearts from Rochelle and prayer hands from Deb—pop up fast, but I put my phone away. I need to be present now.

  I sink to the ground next to Edith’s words.

  Seth starts to cry, and Ethan puts his arm around him.

  I tug on the bottom of Seth’s shirt, and he understands. He reaches into the backpack and pulls out the plastic Chico’s bag. He brings out the third box again, the one that was already opened during our failed stop at Tapestry Garden, and then he’s unsealing the bag of remains.

  Chris stands at our backs, facing out, trying to be a human shield. He’ll let us know if anyone is coming. There aren’t many people in the garden anymore, and no employees from what I’ve seen, but we do need cover.

  “Are you sure this is okay?” Ethan whispers. “It’s a historic property.”

  “They’ll be fast,” Chris tells him over his shoulder.

  “Where exactly do we put her?” Seth asks.

  I look around.

  “It’s all perfect. Every inch of this garden is perfect,” I say.

  “You’re right,” Seth says. “Let’s not pick one spot. Let’s crop-dust.”

  “What?”

  “Let’s just fucking crop-dust this one,” Seth says again. “It’s all too perfect.”

  Still confused, I whisper, “Crop-dust?”

  At that, he shoves his hand into the bag, takes out a big scoop of Grandma Sheryl’s remains, and bends over some big flowers I think are hydrangeas. Pretending to admire them and leaning in farther, he sprinkles the remains around them. It’s almost unnoticeable. He walks to the next bed of flowers, and with every step, he drops more.