The Garden of Happy Endings

by Barbara O'Neal

  “Walking, it’s me,” Elsa said. “I’m getting one of my warnings. Will you say some prayers?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Thanks, I have to get back to the harvest festival. I’ll call you later.”

  “It’s the fundraiser for the soup kitchen tonight. I won’t be back until about ten.” He said something over his shoulder, and Elsa imagined him talking to his secretary. “Your sister contributed a quilt. It’s amazing. She really needs to show them.”

  “Which one is it?”

  “It’s a garden, which makes it sound ordinary, only it isn’t.”

  “Shoot a cellphone picture and send it to me.” Someone tapped on her door. “I’ve gotta go. Talk soon.”

  * * *

  A thousand miles away, Elsa’s sister, Tamsin, knelt in a flower bed, using a hefty pair of garden shears to prune the frost-killed plants. In the high desert of Pueblo, Colorado, the sun could be very hot even so late in the season, but a giant old elm protected the backyard at high midday. Even so, Tamsin wore a sun hat and long sleeves and gloves to protect her pale white skin.

  Any day she could spend in a garden was a good day in Tamsin’s book. She had restored every inch of the 110-year-old garden beds herself, reviving ancient peonies and climbing roses; Naked Lady lilies and a bed of poppies that bloomed like lush courtesans each June. Just now, there were only seedpods and withered flowers, so she gave the plants their haircuts, leaving coral bells and intriguing stalks to stand for winter interest. She pruned the roses mercilessly, trimmed the irises to fans of three inches, yanked up annuals and tossed them into the compost heap. It was hard work, sweaty and dirty, but that was what it took to make beauty.

  Her husband, Scott, called to her from an upstairs window. “Tamsin, do you know where my black dress shirt is? I can’t find it.”

  Tamsin rocked back on her heels, and pushed her hat off her hair so that she could see him. Her husband was a big man, tall and broad, and lately a little stout, though she didn’t mind. He worked hard as an investment banker, a career that had given Tamsin more luxury than she’d ever dreamed of. He played hard, too, with an epicurean lustiness that made her worry sometimes that he’d give himself a heart attack.

  He was packing for yet another business trip, this one to Memphis. They were more and more frequent lately. Some, she suspected, were mainly gambling trips, high stakes poker games in back rooms in big cities. He loved gambling, and the black shirt was his favorite for poker.

  None of her business. As long as he kept his head, what did it matter to her? “Check the dry cleaning in the downstairs closet.” She straightened, slapped dust off her jeans, and her mind drifted back to the garden. Maybe she should divide the peach irises next year. They were looking a little crowded.

  “Hey, Tamsin,” Scott called again, and she looked up.

  He leaned from the window and tossed her a small, colorful cloth bag, the kind you could buy at shops that sold Tibetan goods. It landed at her knee with a plop of dust. “What’s this?”

  “A little something, that’s all.”

  Smiling, she thought he must have made a good deal. Through the years both she and her daughter, Alexa, had become accustomed to surprises like this. The strings of the bag were tied, and she loosened them, pouring the contents into her hand. A pair of diamond solitaire earrings winked at her. Each was the size of a fingernail, and they glittered even in the shade, sending out rays of yellow and blue and violet.

  Holding them cupped in her palm, she looked up. He was fond of surprise presents, but not this big. “What’s the occasion?” she asked in some bewilderment.

  For a minute, he looked too sober, then his usual twinkle returned. “Maybe I just want to get lucky before I have to leave.”

  She laughed, because it was acknowledged between them that Tamsin was by far the more sexual of the two. And lately, he’d been very stressed and busy with work. “Is that so?”

  His hands hung loosely over the windowsill on the third floor of the red sandstone Victorian, one of the most beautiful in the city. Her pride and joy, this house, this garden, the tower room where she created her quilts. “Come upstairs, Tamsin,” he said.

  “I’ll be right there.” She headed inside, tucked the earrings into the secret drawer in her bread box, and dashed into the downstairs shower. Clean, still damp, she wandered through the house naked and feeling deliciously wicked about it. There were benefits to an empty nest.

  He waited on their enormous bed, tucked demurely beneath the sheets. His bearish chest showed some gray hair lately, and he had started shaving his head because he was balding. He was fifteen years older than she, but she still found him attractive. Loved his size, his twinkling blue eyes, his wicked sense of humor.

  Tamsin took her time walking toward him, knowing her body was still in great shape, that he was immensely proud of her, and that this would be good, hot sex.

  “God,” he said, holding out a big hand toward her, “I’m the luckiest man in the world.”

  “You are,” she agreed with a chuckle, and dived in beside him.

  Across the world, Tamsin’s twenty-two-year-old daughter, Alexa, wore a blue dress and stood on a rooftop garden in Madrid, sipping a glass of Rioja. Around her, sibilant Spanish rose and fell, a perfume for the ear, the most musical of all the languages. There was nowhere in the world she would rather be than in Spain. She inhaled the air of it, dry and light.

  Spain.

  Again.

  At last.

  She had first fallen in love with Spain through her aunt Elsa’s stories. Elsa and her boyfriend had walked the Camino de Santiago when they were young, and they had met bandits and ghosts and angels, and travelers from all over the world. Elsa spoke of cows wandering up a street in front of an old woman with a stick in her hand. She told stories of black dogs that seemed to appear out of nowhere, and cidra, a hard cider that was cold and refreshing after a long day of walking. Elsa had seen the enormous censor swinging from the rafters in the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela.

  Curled up in her arms, with her aunt’s warm voice pouring over her, murmuring words in lispy Spanish, Alexa fell in love with the magical far away. Spain became a siren to her, calling and calling. The yearning drove her to study Spanish in a serious and focused way, and to learn about the history and culture of Spain.

  Not Mexico, as many of her friends in Pueblo had, but Spain. Sometimes they thought she was being arrogant by dismissing the new world in favor of the old; they cited the bloody stories of the Inquisition. She countered with tales of the Moors and the high degree of medical knowledge that had been their legacy, and the flamenco, and the great cities and cathedrals.

  Mostly, she didn’t care what anyone said. Only Spain would do.

  In her senior year of high school, she was an exchange student in Madrid. Her host family had been cold and unfriendly, but Alexa loved the city, the people, speaking Spanish all day long. She made friends and had a string of sweet boyfriends, and promised herself she would be back.

  Sometimes, it felt like she had been born in the wrong country. How could she have been born in America, when she clearly belonged in Spain? It was the most fanciful thought she ever had, and she was not a particularly fanciful girl. Her mother always said that Elsa was mystical enough for the whole family, so she was free to focus on the beautiful, beautiful world. Alexa loved the world of the mind.

  When the opportunity to return to Madrid arrived in college, Alexa leapt. Honestly, the opportunity didn’t just show up. She’d had to track it down and then beg her parents to let her go, and she still didn’t get to spend her junior year abroad, but instead had to finish her course work and achieve her degree before they would let her spend the year there. Her parents were worried that she would not return. They were worried about terrorist attacks.

  Mainly, she thought, they were worried that they would lose her to the far away. And perhaps that was not so far off the mark.

  But she had at l
ast succeeded, as she usually did with her parents, who doted on her, both of them. She tried not to take advantage of it too much, but in this case, it had been important. She’d had to get back to Madrid. Had to. Her life was waiting. She could feel it, ripe and ready beneath a thin skin of distance.

  And this time, her host family was much kinder, a wealthy family with connections. They liked her manners, her excellent accent, her knowledge of Spain. Tonight, they had brought her along to a dinner party that began at ten p.m., with cocktails on this elegant rooftop garden with the stars overhead.

  It was warm. Alexa wore an aqua dress with a loose empire skirt that floated over her body, and a beaded shawl. Her hair was her pride, long and thick and shiny, and she’d left it loose, curling over her shoulders.

  One of the brothers of the host family came over, bringing with him another man. “Alexa,” David said, “may I introduce my friend?”

  He rattled off a string of names, but all Alexa caught was “Carlos.” He had the long face and bedroom eyes of a Spanish actor, but his eyes were bright, bright blue, and his beautiful mouth smiled at her.

  Alexa thought, Oh! Here is the reason I have come to Spain. To meet my husband. It made her cheeks flush, but not with embarrassment. With anticipation. She smiled, meeting his eyes directly. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  He took her hand and kissed it with courtly grace, and there was a smell of sugar in the air, and a fine blue ring of enchantment that fell down around them. For a moment, they only hung there, suspended in the magic—at last!—and he asked if she would sit beside him at supper.

  “I’m afraid I am dependent on what our hostess has planned,” she replied.

  David laughed. “Oh, I think she will allow him to make the choice.”

  “Well, then, I would be honored,” Alexa said.

  It was only several days later that she understood he was a count, in line for the throne, obscenely wealthy and much too much for a girl like her to want.

  By then, it was too late.

  Chapter Two

  The phone call from Julia Peterson came in at just past eight the following Wednesday evening.

  Elsa had been to the YMCA for a long swim. She tried to get there every day. It was a moving meditation, a way of shaking off the world. In the pool, the world was silent and there was only her body, the water, her breath. Gliding. Tonight, she’d practically had the place to herself, so she felt good as she walked into her small house and dropped her gym bag on the floor in front of the stairs so she would remember to stick the wet towels and suit in the laundry.

  When the phone rang, Elsa reached for it automatically, and then halted, feeling the miasma seeping out of it. Her body went cold.

  She closed her eyes, let it ring one more time, trying to stay on this side of the change for one more minute. Automatically, she sent out a prayer for assistance—Give me what I’ll need for this—and taking in a single breath, picked up the phone. “Reverend Elsa.”

  “Kiki’s missing,” Julia said without preamble. The Petersons, mother, father, three teenaged daughters, and a seven-year-old son who’d been a happy “oops” baby, were one of the solid cornerstones of the church. Allen served on the board, and Julia taught the middle schoolers Sunday school, never the easiest job. Kiki was the fourteen-year-old who had painted Elsa’s face with a unicorn. “She never came home from school.”

  “You’ve called the police and her friends, all that?”

  “Yeah.” Julia’s voice was breathless. “Her English teacher saw her leave school at four, with her backpack. She was by herself. She’d been working on a chemistry project for extra credit. You know she wants to be a doctor, right, so …” Julia made a small, pained sound. “I’m so worried!”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  “Thank you. I’m freaking out so badly I can barely hold the phone. Allen took the other kids to stay with his mom and I’m just not sure what to do with myself.”

  “Hold tight.”

  By the time she arrived, there was a detective in the living room of the Petersons’ home. Evidence of supper was still on the table, and the carpet, which had once been very expensive but was now showing the wear of such a vigorous family, was scattered with books and toys. Elsa paused on the threshold, feeling a dense, dark energy swelling from somewhere, through her. Dizzy, she closed her eyes and put a hand on the door to steady herself.

  Bad. This was going to be very bad.

  And yet, in this ordinary room was a mother still on this side of the worst day of her life. Elsa sat down and took her hand. The long thin fingers, so much like Kiki’s, were ice cold.

  “The police say that a bunch of kids saw a guy hanging around the school grounds the past few days,” Julia said. “They think—” She halted, her fingers tight on Elsa’s. “One officer let it slip that there was a sex offender released from prison a couple of months ago.”

  She made a small moan, covered her mouth with two fingers. Her eyes looked triply blue against the red of weeping. “What do we do?”

  “What we need is to be out looking for her,” the detective said. “Can you give us something of your daughter’s, something that has her scent?”

  “Her scent?”

  “For the dogs,” Elsa said gently.

  “Oh.” The word came out on a waver, barely a sound at all. “Of course. Her coat is …” She tried to rise but couldn’t.

  Elsa stood. “I’ll get it. What color is it?”

  “Yellow,” she said.

  When the detective left, Elsa sat with Julia. They prayed. They waited. They prayed again. But nothing was discovered that night.

  Or the next.

  Or the next.

  On the fourth day, an army of community volunteers joined the police and state patrol and other professionals to sweep the woods behind the school.

  Elsa joined the search party, along with her dog. Charlie wasn’t a bloodhound or a trained beagle, just a mixed-breed black dog with a solid helping of flat-coat retriever. He had glossy, thick fur and patient, intelligent eyes. He’d been more than a handful as a pup, and now he was so tall he stood nearly to her hip, but she’d worked with him a long time and he behaved well as they combed through the bushes and undergrowth.

  They had been at it for an hour when Charlie caught a scent at the edge of a ditch and practically yanked Elsa’s arm out of the socket, pulling her toward a thicket. A pulse leapt suddenly in her throat.

  Elsa gave him the lead. He snuffled through wet leaves in a zigzagging line that probably broke all protocol, pulling so hard she could barely keep up with him. When he ducked under the protective branches of a pine tree, Elsa ducked with him, barely missing a slap of needles to the eye.

  Charlie halted at the body, tenderly sniffed her naked thigh, and sat down hard. He whimpered softly.

  Elsa did not move for a long, long moment. Kiki’s slim body lay naked in the leaves, her hair twisted and tangled with twigs. She barely had any breasts at all. Her skin was a waxy shade, and there were marks all over her—puncture wounds and blood and bruises. One hand was clenched into a fist, the earth marking the place where her nails had scraped across it. They still had blue star stickers on them. Her eyes were open to the sky, as if looking for help.

  Elsa fell to her knees and wished for something to cover the damage, the unholy evidence of a long slow death, and knew she could not. “Over here!” she cried, and her voice was too hoarse to carry. She staggered to her feet, vomited into the trees, and felt something shift in her belly.

  Strike three, you’re out.

  Her knees straightened. She cleared her throat and called, “I found her.”

  On the morning of the funeral, Elsa stood on her back porch, smoking a contraband Kool from a pack she’d bought at the local gas station. Rain poured in a hard gray sheet from the sky, making lakes in the yard and rivers in the streets. It had been at least a decade, maybe more, since she’d last smoked a cigarette. She’d bummed one
from a detective at the scene and had smoked it with hands shaking so badly she couldn’t even light it, not caring who saw her.

  She’d taken up smoking late, when she was twenty-three, the year she spent wandering around England after walking the Camino de Santiago. With other illegal immigrants, she worked under the table at restaurants, where she was badly paid, and slept in hostels, pretending she was a carefree backpacker. Everyone smoked, all the European youths she wandered with, and she took it up to be friendly, just as she drank to anesthetize her wounds, and slept with some of the men to ease the howling loneliness that had once been filled by Joaquin and God.

  A long time ago now. She smoked and stared at the gray rain, wondering what she would say when all those faces turned to her for some semblance of reassurance, some sense of hope or possibility in a world where something like this could happen. At the moment, she had nothing.

  Last night, she had pored through dozens of writings from every spiritual tradition she had studied over the years—and there were a lot. She’d culled quotes of bewilderment and howls of sorrow and a dozen platitudes that only made her furious, but none of them seemed right.

  She kept thinking of Kiki at the harvest festival, so long-limbed and pretty, sweet with the little ones, coy over the man her mother had lined up for Elsa’s next date, and it seemed impossible that she was gone.

  But gone she was, and Elsa’s job today, the only thing she had to do, was offer some tiny kernel of healing to the girl’s mother, her father, her siblings. She had to offer some small branch of hope to the congregation, which was stricken and horrified and deeply unsettled by the swath of violence. They were depending on her.

  It was going to be the hardest thing she had ever done.

  She inhaled the last acrid breath of smoke and put out the cigarette and thought of bubonic plague wiping out half the earth. It had seemed a visitation of evil, but it had only been a terrible accident of nature, a tiny, tiny bug. But what had those spiritual leaders thought? What must they have struggled with?