The Garden of Happy Endings

by Barbara O'Neal

  “Elsa Montgomery.”

  “Elsa. That was the lion in Born Free.”

  She grinned. “Gold star. My mother loves cats.”

  His eyes crinkled. “Are you really named for that lion?”

  “Yes. At least I’m not Thomasina, which is my sister’s name.”

  “Is that a lion, too?”

  “No—a cat. You mean you’ve never seen the movie?” Elsa covered her heart mockingly. “It’s a Disney film from the sixties, about a cat that gets lost and finally found.”

  “Missed that one.”

  A man wandered into the basement wearing a ragged coat. She recognized him from the soup kitchen, an old man with a greasy baseball hat pulled over his hair. He only had his bottom teeth, which made him look like a pug. Seeing Elsa, he waved. “Good morning, Reverend.”

  “How are you, Hank? How’s your foot?”

  “Better, thank you.” He lifted it as if to show her.

  “Glad to hear it.”

  Hank yanked off his hat and worried it in a circle. “Coffee made yet?”

  “I’m just about to get on it,” Deacon said. “We’ll talk later,” he said to Elsa. “Don’t forget to save me some soup.”

  “Done,” she said. “I’ll see you after lunch.”

  The church served soup and bread every Thursday, taking up the slack from the main soup kitchen downtown. They served between seventy-five and a hundred lunches, depending on the time of the month, to a mixed group. There were the homeless, of course, wearing too many layers of clothes, none too clean, and the young drifters and runaways, pierced and tattooed, their eyes hungry.

  But there were also women and children from the rent-assisted apartments on the other side of the vacant lot. The church had set aside a special area at the back of the fellowship hall for the family groups, to keep them apart from the more unstable population, and the children loved the corner that was filled with books and toys. They drank milk instead of the tea and coffee served to adults, and Joaquin made sure they had cookies, too.

  It took a small crew to make it work. Elsa created the menus, organized the volunteers, and did much of the cooking. A rotating pair of men in their forties and fifties from the men’s fellowship group provided security. A team of mostly retired seniors assisted with cleanup, service, and preparation.

  Although other places offered more variety of food, the menu at San Roque was simple and plentiful. They served soup, vats of it, with bread they made from scratch, and then whatever dessert or bakery goods might have been donated by the local groceries or parishioners. It was day-old or more, all of it, but it was gobbled up eagerly.

  On a snowy day like this, people lingered over their empty bowls, eyeing the dark skies, and as always, Elsa wondered where they would sleep. Many would go to local shelters. Others would camp beneath a bridge or in a protected copse of trees somewhere. As a young and idealistic woman, she would have worried about every single one of them. Maturity had shown her you did what you could. She fed them.

  A crew of volunteers cleaned up, banging pots and gossiping about a marriage that was in trouble, and why. Not knowing the players, Elsa let the gossip wash over her as she bent over an egg and tried to balance it on the counter. According to legend, it should balance on one end at Equinox. “Is it supposed to be raw?” she asked the room at large. “Or cooked?”

  “Raw,” called out one of the guys.

  “Cooked,” said another volunteer.

  “It’s raw,” said a ragged, southern voice. Elsa looked up to see Deacon, carrying the coffee urn up from the basement. “But it’s not Equinox, it’s Solstice.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Is it working?”

  The egg rocked sideways. “No.”

  “There you go.” He set the urn on the counter, and waved away a volunteer who scurried over to take it from him. “I’ll wash it out. You’ve got enough to do.”

  The woman was middle-aged, her hair fading from red to orange. She brushed at invisible crumbs on her chest, and took possession of the coffeepot. “Don’t be silly. We’re doing dishes already.”

  “I saved your soup,” Elsa said to him. “Cornbread?”

  “Absolutely.” He ducked between two of the women and washed his hands quickly. They made room for him with indulgent smiles. “Thank you, ladies, for all you do.”

  “It’s our pleasure.”

  He gestured toward a table in the back and said to Elsa, “Come sit with me while I eat?” He tapped the clipboard under his arm. “We’re gonna have to get moving pretty fast if we’re going to have a garden this year.”

  Elsa grabbed a cup of coffee and followed him.

  He was already eating when she sat down. “Damn, this is really good, sweetheart.”

  “My name is Elsa.”

  He looked at her. “Got it.” Taking her cue, he flipped open the clipboard. “I wrote some notes, and I can send them to you in an email. We’ll need to get that Dumpster first, and organize a cleanup day. I’ll get the Dumpster. You organize the volunteers, the sooner the better. I want to plant by tax day.”

  “I thought Mother’s Day was traditional.”

  “You’ve been away awhile, haven’t you? Not in Pueblo. It’s warm enough here that we should be able to get away with planting earlier, and that’ll give us more yield at the end of the season.”

  She wrote notes of her own. “I’ll talk to Joaquin in the morning about getting the call out for the garden volunteers. Let’s aim for two weeks from Saturday?”

  He buttered the cornbread lavishly. “Too late. One week from Saturday.”

  “We won’t have enough people.”

  “Sure we will. Get the kids to paint some signs, put them up on the boards, and at the apartment buildings.” He mopped the bottom of his bowl with the bread, ate the last bite, and closed his eyes. “Mmm, mmm, mmm,” he said, and licked a finger. “That sticks to my ribs.”

  Elsa took some pride in cooking, and eyed his empty bowl with a sense of satisfaction. “It’s meant to.” She made a couple more notes. “Sounds like you’ve done your share of community organizing.”

  “A bit.” He drank from his coffee cup. “How do you know Father Jack? You’re the only person who calls him Joaquin, you know.”

  “Yeah, it’s hard to make the transition.” She skirted the vast history she shared with Joaquin Gallegos, and said only, “We grew up together, right here in Pueblo.”

  “It’s good to have a young priest.”

  “Young?”

  “Well, not old.”

  “I suppose that’s true. Are you Catholic?” Elsa asked.

  “Oh, no. I’m a plain agnostic. My church is the outdoors, but I like Father Jack a lot. He’s the real deal.”

  A sting of regret needled through her. She’d once believed herself to be the real deal, too. “He is that,” she said, and stood. “I’ll get this going. Let you know.”

  “I might need some contact information, sw—Elsa.” He winked.

  It was not the kind of thing she ordinarily responded to, and she hadn’t exactly been in touch with her emotions lately, but something about that single wink, the direct way he met her eyes, and the slight, charming quirk of his mouth caused a stir at the base of her neck.

  She made her expression blank, then reached for his clipboard and scribbled her email address and telephone number on the page. “There you go. See you soon.”

  He put his palm over the information, as if to keep it from jumping up and running off the page. “Nice to meet you, Elsa Montgomery.”

  “You, too, Deacon.”

  Once she made sure the kitchen volunteers had things under control, Elsa headed for her sister’s house, anxious to pick up Charlie and get home before the roads got too bad. Tamsin lived in an exquisitely updated Victorian made of enormous blocks of red stone, complete with a tower and a deep porch. It was Tamsin’s joy.

  Elsa wanted to like it more than she did. Despite the beautiful lines and the d
etail work Tamsin had poured into it, Elsa always felt as if there was some evil presence looking out of those tower windows. A ghost. A demon. Something noxious.

  Charlie greeted her at the door, barking his big, deep bark, wagging the whole back half of his body. “Hey, buddy,” she said, and held her hands out, waiting.

  He sat politely, his black tail sweeping back and forth across the hardwood floor. “Good job.” She gave him the reward of her hands on his body, scrubbing his back, rubbing his ears. “You’re the best. And I missed you every single second.”

  “Hi,” Tamsin said, fastening an earring. “I’m glad you’re here. I was going to have to start worrying. The weather is supposed to be terrible tonight. Do you want to just stay with me?” Tamsin’s husband was away on business, her daughter in Spain for the year. “We could open a bottle of wine and find something to watch on Netflix. I’ll even cook.”

  “Thank you, but I really need to get home.” She kissed her sister’s cheek. “You can come to my house if you want.”

  Tamsin shrugged. Shook her head. “I’m just kinda bored. I haven’t heard from Scott for days and my daughter can barely find time to write three lines to me.”

  “Where is he now?” Elsa tried to skitter away from the bleat of warning that ran over her nerves, a picture of Scott in a dark bar, with soccer on the television and a drink—

  She blocked it.

  “Europe. Working with some bank presidents on investments.” Tamsin shrugged. “At least it’s not Argentina for three months, like last year. Alexa saw him for dinner a few nights ago, not that I got many details.”

  “Oh, you know how it is at that age. She’s in love. And you’ll have her all summer.” Charlie leaned on Elsa’s knee and let out a heavy sigh.

  “For now.” Tamsin put her hands in her back pockets. “I guess I do need to think about what to do with my life now that she’s finished with college. I love being a mom, but I guess I’m kind of redundant now, aren’t I?”

  “That’s a good thing. It means you did your job well.” Glancing out the window at the increasing snow, she shifted slightly, unwilling to leave when Tamsin was feeling so blue—it lit the air around her like a halo—but concerned about the roads. “I know one way you can stay busy—we’re going to be pulling together the community garden you suggested to Joaquin.”

  Tamsin crossed her arms. “Did he rope you into that? He tried to get me to do it last fall, when you—”

  Elsa looked down, threaded one of Charlie’s ears through her fingers. Lost it. “I know.” She tossed her hair out of her eyes. “But I need your help. You love to garden, and I know next to nothing.” She thought of Deacon. “There’s a good-looking landscape guy you’ll be flirting with in ten seconds.”

  “I’m not a flirt.”

  “Yes you are, and so is he. You’ll get along famously. C’mon. You know you want to do it.”

  “Maybe.” She peered at Elsa. “Does this mean you’re not going back to Seattle?”

  Elsa shrugged. “There’s still time. They won’t let me come back until the end of June no matter what happens.”

  “I’ll think about it. When are you starting?”

  “We’ll clear the lot next Saturday. Now, I love you, but I don’t want to sleep in your haunted house, so I have to get out of here.”

  Tamsin waved a hand. “I get it. I’ll be fine. I have a quilt I’m working on. You get your baby home.” She bent and took Charlie’s face in her hands and kissed him, one two three. “See you next time, sweetie.”

  “You could get a dog yourself, you know.”

  “Maybe.”

  Chapter Six

  A dog wasn’t going to help.

  Tamsin stood at the big front window and watched her sister’s car disappear into the blizzard. Loneliness fell on her like a shroud. She went to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of wine.

  What she had not told Elsa was that she had not heard from Scott in three weeks, not three days. He was on a business trip in Europe, and the time zones were sometimes difficult to work around, but still. Three weeks? He wasn’t responding to emails, either.

  The only thing that kept her from total panic was the fact that he had stopped in Madrid to see their daughter only five days ago. Alexa had been thrilled to take him to a restaurant she knew, to be the adult showing her father around. Tamsin hadn’t wanted to say, Hey, did he mention that he hasn’t returned any of my phone calls?

  A blast of wind slammed into the windows, and upstairs something rattled. She glanced in that direction, but really—this house was the warmest, most loving place she had ever been. She did not understand why Elsa disliked it so. If there were any ghosts—and in a house this old, there probably were one or two—they were friendly. She’d never had a sensitive bone in her body, unlike Elsa, who’d imagined seeing ghosts and angels and demons their whole lives. Tamsin had never seen one thing to evidence any kind of life beyond this one, and frankly, all that devotion seemed like a waste of time. More practical to be a good person and try to make the world a better place while you were in it.

  She cut some cheese and bread and carried the plate and her wine up to the third floor of the tower. The room had windows in a circle all the way around it and a big table in the middle. Shelves with piles and piles of fabric in a thousand colors and patterns filled the space beneath the windows. She protected the fabric by drawing the shades whenever she left the room, but tonight she tugged the strings to raise them. It wasn’t possible to see much, only snowflakes swirling and turning in the darkness. Beautiful.

  And lonely. She sipped her Sauvignon Blanc.

  “I’m tired of winter,” she said aloud into the silence. “Tired of the quiet.”

  A computer in the back of the room was hooked up to a good set of speakers, and she turned Pandora radio to a Celtic list, cheerful, upbeat music to keep her company as she worked.

  On the table was a quilt just beginning to take form, a collage of bright reds and yellows and shiny gold. It was a woman, of sorts, with long hair and a triangular skirt. Some days, Tamsin thought it was her mother. Other days, it made her think of her daughter. There was whimsy to it, falling stars and dancing shoes. A woman dancing in a forest, like a fairy. She tilted her head. Or a princess under a bad spell, like the girl in the red shoes.

  Hmmm. She squinted, forgetting about the cheese, and fell into the emerging story.

  The sky and trees were next. Tamsin picked up a grayish green patterned square and cut it in half to make two equal triangles, and placed them loosely on the table.

  Why hasn’t he called?

  She cut long narrow rectangles of three different shades of brown fabric—sienna and mahogany and tan—and stacked them unevenly against the background, making a tree trunk. A cottonwood, with that wild depth of texture. Whenever she saw a cottonwood she wanted to stop and press her whole body against it, tuck her fingers into the rivers of the trunk. When she quilted it, she would add deep dimension. The idea gave her a skittering sense of excitement.

  With long stickpins, she fastened the rectangles to the base, then stepped back and narrowed her eyes to test the layout. Last year, Scott had sometimes been out of touch a lot, too. It was an unfortunate part of his travels, and it was nothing to worry about. She was being silly.

  Everything would be all right.

  She took another sip of wine, turned the triangles this way and that, testing them.

  Everything would be all right.

  Chapter Seven

  Elsa arrived at the rectory at eight on Friday morning. She had walked the two miles from her small house to the church with Charlie, who loved snuffling along the Bessemer Ditch, which carried irrigation water from the reservoir to the dwindling farmlands on the eastern plains.

  It was a quiet, overcast morning. Until she’d returned to Pueblo, she had not really realized how much she minded the endless gray in the northwest. This little gloom would burn off by lunchtime and the sun would arrive to coax ne
w tendrils from the earth, even now poking up through the muddy ground along the route. Globe willows, like lollipop trees in a child’s drawing, showed the first glaze of green. She inhaled, exhaled, thought of the garden. Broccoli and lettuce and peas before it got too hot, cantaloupes and honeydew melons, carrots and corn, potatoes, and, of course, tomatoes. Lots and lots of tomatoes—little yellow cherries, striped heirlooms, a bunch of romas for the Italian dishes the church loved. It was a heavily Italian and Spanish parish.

  The church was over a hundred years old, built in 1889 of large blocks of the same red sandstone as Tamsin’s house. On one side was the levee, built to keep the Arkansas River in place. A railroad bridge crossed it, bending angled industrial knuckles into the sky.

  The church’s front doors faced a block of houses, narrow and tall, middle-class Victorians with deep front porches. Other houses had been built later, filling in the lots between—a few pale brick with arched windows that had been built in the twenties; a handful more that dated to the postwar fifties, utilitarian boxes with picture windows. All of them had seen better days, as had the neighborhood. The place wasn’t exactly run-down, just weary. Most of the houses could have used a fresh coat of paint. Many needed some lawn work.

  Tall trees and wide sidewalks gave the area grace in the summertime. Now, in the last days of winter, it wore the downturned mouth of an old man. Doors stayed tightly closed. All activity was carried out indoors.

  The church, however, was well tended by its parishioners. The bricks were tuck-pointed by a mason, a man who also made sure the trim stayed a pristine white. The lush lawn and carefully tended flower beds were looked after by another volunteer. It was a healthy parish, a solid thousand families who loved the old wood and famous stained glass windows.

  Walking around the side toward the rectory, Elsa paused at the edge of the vacant lot behind the church. Charlie immediately sat on her foot, looking up at her for instruction.

  “I’m just wondering what I’ve gotten myself into,” she said, scratching his big solid head. It looked like a dump, overgrown with last year’s weeds, cluttered with tumbleweeds and junk of all kinds, much of which she didn’t want to examine too closely.