by Holly Jacobs
“Are you asking me for a date?” I asked, wanting to be sure I had it right. After all, he might simply be someone who was thinking about writing himself and wanted to pick my brain.
He laughed as we twirled around the dance floor. “Is that so hard to believe?”
Rather than admit it was and sound pathetic, I laughed and said, “Of course, I’m going to say no, your asking was not a surprise at all. I was simply surprised it took you so long to ask.”
We both continued to laugh as we danced. And though I’d never officially answered his question, we both knew I’d have dinner with him. Before the evening was over, we exchanged phone numbers.
That night Amanda was in the forefront of my thoughts. I pulled off my grown-up clothes and changed into a pair of well-worn yoga pants and a sweatshirt, then took the leather journal and went out to the front porch.
The school had floodlights for security. So at night my front porch was bathed in a soft glow of light that I knew from past experience was just enough to write by.
I loved my porch at night. Some of the neighboring houses had lights shining through their windows. You could tell the ones that came from televisions. They flickered and changed color.
A car drove by. I wondered where they were going so late at night. Were they coming in from some social function, too? Or were they on their way out to meet friends?
At midnight, the neighborhood was very quiet. I could see the school’s playground bathed in light, but empty. Silent.
It was as if the hustle and bustle from the day was a distant memory.
I picked up my pen and the noise of the first scratch across the paper seemed amplified in the silence.
Dear Amanda,
When I was pregnant with you, I borrowed a baby-name book from the library. I knew I wouldn’t keep you—that I couldn’t keep you—though it took me months to admit it. My mother had gone back to school for her doctorate and she offered to quit and help, but that wouldn’t have been fair to her or to you. Even with her help, I couldn’t have given you the life I dreamed for you. You deserved so much more than a teenage mother who had two years of high school left could give you . . .
As I write those words, I realize you are now the same age I was when I got pregnant with you.
I put down my pen and tried to digest that fact.
I hoped Amanda’s mother had talked to her about sex . . . more than that, I hoped Amanda had listened.
I thought about telling her about her father tonight, but I wasn’t ready for that yet, not that my story was unique. I thought I knew what love was, but the flash-in-the-pan feeling wasn’t love. That sizzle was like a firecracker. It was bright and loud, but burned itself out quickly.
I was so young, not that I realized it at the time. When I was fifteen, I thought I knew it all. I was sure my life would be a fairy tale, and maybe in some ways it has been. I’ve built a life I love.
But there is a hole in my heart and in my life. That hole is filled with the absence of you. I didn’t give you up in order to build a better life for myself, but because I wanted a better life for you.
And though I knew your new parents would give you the name you’ve grown up with, I needed to name you. I only held you for that hour, trying to store up a lifetime of memories and love in sixty short minutes.
And when the nurse came to take you, she opened the door and I caught the barest glimpse of the parents who would raise you. They looked . . . ordinary for that first second, but as the nurse put you in your new mom’s arms, she was transformed. She was absolutely beautiful in her joy. Your dad, too.
As the door swung shut, I called out, “Good-bye, Amanda,” and I tried to let you go.
It’s been fifteen years and I’m still trying.
Amanda means “deserving of love.”
You do deserve that and so much more.
I hope that by giving you to your mother and father, you found love and a happy home.
Love,
Piper
Ned’s car pulled into his driveway. Even though I hadn’t turned on the porch light, he saw me.
“I just dropped off Mela,” he said as he got out of his car. Then he added, “You look more like yourself,” as he walked the few steps to the edge of the porch.
I didn’t take offense that, in Ned’s eyes, looking like myself meant wild hair and oversized sweatshirts. “I feel more like myself. I swear my hair whimpered with gratitude when I took it down.”
He laughed, then saw the notebook on my lap. “I’ll let you get back to it.”
“I was just finishing up and getting ready to head to bed. I don’t do late nights very well.”
“I’ve got to go to the office tomorrow, so I need to call it a night, too.” But rather than turn to leave, he said, “It was a nice evening. Everyone danced and seemed to enjoy themselves.”
“I’m glad. Everyone was very generous.”
“Your speech was short, but good. I mean, I know how much you love the limelight.”
I snorted my response. “Yes, I do love the limelight. And I’m a huge fan of root canals, too.”
For a moment, his teasing ebbed and he looked serious as he said, “I think that makes what you did this evening all the more impressive . . .” he paused and then added, “Pip.”
“Thanks, Fox.”
“Night,” he said, chuckling.
I watched as Ned walked to his own front door. He unlocked it, then gave a little wave before he went inside.
I got up myself and headed inside, the journal clutched in my hand.
Maybe this small, leather-covered book was my bear trap. I’d climbed back into the trap and was now climbing out again.
And I hoped tomorrow, I’d feel better for it.
At least, until the next time.
Chapter Four
As I pulled my car into my driveway that following Sunday, I was reveling in a successful morning of house sales. I couldn’t help but think of my mom. She says I am a creature of contradictions. I love fine china, but my idea of fine clothing is a pair of jeans with no holes in the knees.
From the front, my brick house with its big porch and small white dormer jutting out from the roof is as neat and orderly as I can possibly keep it. There are immaculately trimmed hedges along the porch. And on the porch, white wicker furniture, a welcome mat, and an antique milk box that my paperboy leaves the paper in.
But my backyard is not neat in the least.
It’s overgrown and more than a bit wild looking. In a sea of well-kept lawns, my backyard was the neighborhood anomaly. I’d like to say I felt bad about that, but in truth, my yard is fenced in, so unless my neighbors are standing on something, I don’t think it bothers them. At least no one’s mentioned it to me if it does.
When I first moved in five years ago, there was a six-foot, solid wooden fence around the yard, but very little grass and no trees or bushes. That first spring, I went to a local nursery and went a bit crazy. I spent a week planting everything from serviceberry trees to raspberries bushes. Then I added a couple apple trees and a chestnut tree.
That fall, I put in hundreds of bulbs and added more in the spring, then threw three containers of wildflower seeds into any bare bits of earth that were left. Still, I added. Mints, chicory, milkweed, Queen Anne’s lace . . .
Sometimes one plant choked out a neighbor, and occasionally something totally unexpected popped up. But five years later, my yard is perfectly imperfect.
It’s a chaotic jumble of greenery.
If my front porch was my place to work, then my backyard was my place to dream.
One of the nicest perks about being a professional writer was that daydreaming was part of my job description, and my yard was the perfect place to do that.
I’d gone to a local estate sale. There are a lot in Erie on weekends. One
of the guys who worked it helped me load today’s prize into my car, but there was no way I was going to pull it out of the car and drag it into the back on my own.
I glanced at the time on my phone. Ten thirty-five. That was a perfectly acceptable time to bother someone. Especially when the someone in question was Ned.
Although, even if I felt it was earlier than was acceptable, I probably still would have bugged him.
I texted him.
Need some help, if you have a minute.
He texted back within seconds.
Where are you?
Out front.
A few minutes later he came out of his house wearing mesh shorts and an FBI Academy T-shirt. He’d gone to the academy when he was still a cop. He’d been at Quantico for four months and from his tales he’d loved every moment of it.
He took one look at my open tailgate and sighed. “What treasure did you unearth now?”
He didn’t really need me to answer as he was already in view of my prize.
“Another garden bench, Pip?” He shook his head, clearly not understanding what a true winner I had this time.
“This one’s solid iron,” I said. “And you can’t buy a patina like that.”
“Who’d want to?” he groused.
“A lot of people. This bench is practically an antique. And you know what I say—one can never have too many benches.” I used my most proper tone.
He snorted as he reached for an end. I got the other end and we carried it alongside the house to the gate. Ned set his side down and opened the gate. “Welcome to Narnia,” he muttered.
“Oh, come on,” I said as we hefted the heavy bench. “You can come up with a better literary comparison than that.”
“Oz?” he tried.
“How about The Secret Garden?” I asked. Cooper read that book out loud in school every year. Last year, she’d brought her class to my house to visit afterward.
This year would be easier. She wouldn’t need to arrange drivers. The kids could walk across the street, through the gate at the side of my house, and into my yard.
Ned just snorted. “This garden’s no secret. The entire neighborhood knows about it. How about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon?”
“Huh?” was my elegant response. Then I chuckled, sure this was another one of Ned’s jokes. He was famous for making things up.
“No, really, it’s a thing,” he said, then asked, “Where’s this going?”
“Back by the milkweed.” I would never be a master gardener and there were a number of plants in my garden that I couldn’t name, but every year I tried to add something and last year, it was milkweed. I hoped I’d have monarchs soon.
“Be more specific,” Ned said.
I nodded toward the back corner of my larger-than-average backyard. “The back right-hand side.”
“Better. And what you’re saying,” he started, then dodged a cluster of raspberry bushes, “is you’ve never heard of the Hanging Gardens?”
Sometimes, it was hard to tell if Ned was teasing. He could do it with an utterly straight face, which probably made him good at his job, but made it impossible to tell if he was being truthful.
“No, I’ve never heard of them,” I said slowly.
He laughed. “It’s rare that I know something you don’t know.”
“Speaking of things I don’t know,” I said. “Have you noticed how unfair it is that you are willing to call that new attorney at your firm—”
“It’s not my firm,” he interrupted in order to correct me.
I started again. “You called that new attorney at the firm you work for Anthony, not Tony. Why won’t you call me Piper?”
We nestled the bench against the fence, right next to the corner of milkweed. After a bit of wiggling it seemed rather level.
I stepped back to look at it and nodded.
I sat down to try it out. My house was virtually hidden by the greenery that separated this seat from it. This would be the perfect place to lose myself in a daydream.
Ned sat next to me and answered my question. “After all that talk about names and their meanings, did you know that pip can be short for pipperoo, which can mean something wonderful. It’s slang, but it’s British slang, so I thought you—my proper-teacup friend—would appreciate it.”
I gave him a questioning look. Was he teasing about this as well?
He made the childhood symbol for truth by crossing his heart with his index finger. “I looked it up. A couple days after we met. You are most definitely a pip, which is why I call you that.”
He said the last bit with a seriousness that made me feel . . . odd. So I snorted, which made him laugh and things were back to normal between us.
And we sat silently in the back of my yard enjoying the view, until Mela called Ned from his back door like some mother calling a child who was late for dinner. “Ned?”
“See you later,” he said, already hurrying toward the gate. “You were right to buy the bench,” he called over his shoulder. “It fits right there.”
Half an hour later, I got a text message from Ned. It was a link to a site devoted to the mysteries of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
I laughed.
Dear Amanda,
I’m sitting and writing this on my new bench—well, an old bench I rescued from an estate sale. I rarely write in the garden, but today, I felt compelled.
I’m looking at my milkweed plants. I gave them this entire back corner of my yard. They aren’t as pretty as a lot of my flowers, and they aren’t edible . . . at least by humans. They actually can burn if you get the sap on you, and if you inadvertently ingest any of the plant, it can make you sick.
So why did I plant them? Because milkweed is the monarch butterfly’s only food. I read an article about how necessary it is to the species’ survival.
People dug up most patches because they consider it a weed. That’s how I thought about them, but this year I had flowers and they were beautiful. Different, but stunning in their own right.
I think it will be fascinating to see the caterpillars munching away on the leaves. Monarch caterpillars eat something that’s poisonous, then curl up in a chrysalis and emerge as a butterfly. Frankly, the caterpillars are rather ugly, but they turn into something beautiful. Then they begin the process all over again.
The last generation of butterflies each season migrates to Mexico in the fall. Something that fragile looking can travel such a huge distance.
The butterflies will winter there, then fly back and start the process all over again. I saw a picture of a swarm of butterflies on a tree in Mexico. It was amazing.
Sometimes I think there’s a correlation between the monarchs and me. Losing you was bitter, but rather than poison me, it gave me purpose. I started out as a nurse, and I emerged a writer.
But maybe people are like monarchs in more ways than that. Maybe we all repeatedly curl up in a chrysalis and emerge as something else entirely.
I was a child; for that brief hour, I was a mother . . . then a nursing student, then a nurse, then a writer, then a . . .
Maybe we live our lives constantly becoming and rebecoming.
Maybe we’re always in the process of metamorphosing into something new.
Love,
Piper
Chapter Five
The Friday after the fund-raiser was one of those perfect autumn afternoons. As summer drifted into memory, the sun hit my porch at a different, lower angle. It came later in the morning and sank under the western horizon earlier.
There was a crispness to the air as a light breeze gusted. It carried the smells of apples and leaves. And though I knew it wasn’t so, I would have sworn that I smelled cinnamon.
I had on new jeans that I’d washed three times before putting on this morning. Not a holey knee in sight.
&nbs
p; I was trying to work, but it wasn’t going well. I had a date with Anthony and though I tried to ignore it, it skittered at the edge of my thoughts all morning.
Thankfully, I had a built-in distraction for the afternoon. I had to go across the street to Cooper’s class.
Her eighth graders were writing their own novels. I was Coop’s guest expert on the matter. I didn’t feel like an expert, but she felt I was.
Working with thirteen-year-olds was much different than reading to five- or six-year-olds.
I tried to focus on my work. When I wasn’t admiring my holeless knees, I’d been staring at my laptop’s screen, waiting for inspiration to strike—it hadn’t.
A brown UPS truck slid in front of my house.
I was saved from going through the motions by a delivery.
I closed my laptop and waited with the breathless excitement of a child at Christmas.
I think I love deliveries because there’s always a sense of possibility when something arrives. I may be pretty sure it’s the box of bookplates I’d ordered, or maybe the new filters for the furnace, but it was just as possible it was something else entirely.
Maybe there was a mysterious letter from an attorney informing me I was the sole heir of a reclusive millionaire. Or maybe I’d won some sweepstakes and they were delivering a prize. Or . . .
I normally knew what a delivery held, but I hadn’t ordered anything online lately, so although the UPS man could be bringing me that letter about a massive inheritance, the chances were more likely that he was bringing me something else entirely.
Dave got out of the truck with a large box, which, judging from the way he was carrying it, weighed a lot.
I was pretty sure it wasn’t an inheritance, but I was equally sure this was better.
“There’s another one in the truck, Piper,” Dave said.
“Thanks, Dave,” I said.
I was on a first-name basis with my UPS guy, my FedEx guy, and my mailman. I worked alone at home all day. Other than Ned, who worked crazy hours and was sometimes home during the day, my most constant visitors were my delivery people.
