The Garden of Happy Endings

by Barbara O'Neal

  This, she thought, was the kind of place you’d imagine a young girl’s body would be found. Not in a sylvan forest.

  At the other end of the lot was a bank of unremarkable apartment buildings, three in a row, three stories tall, all rent-assisted. Elsa wondered why city housing always had to look so gray. At least the garden would improve the view from those windows.

  “Come on, Charlie. Let’s get some breakfast.”

  He jumped up and trotted toward the back door of the rectory, and before she could knock, Joaquin opened it.

  “Good morning!” His voice was deep and hearty, exactly the kind of voice you’d want a priest to have. This morning, however, he did not much look like a priest. He wore a dark gray sweater and jeans, and his shiny black hair had grown a little long, so that it fell over his forehead. She knew every inch of that face, the scar across his left cheekbone that he’d received when Ricky Carleo hit him with a rock in a seventh-grade game of war; the heavy dark brows that could signal wrath or disapproval or amusement with the slightest shifts; the prominent eyetooth that had never been fixed.

  Elsa pulled off her pink wool hat and kissed his cheek. “I brought eggs,” she said, because he’d been eating only egg whites for a couple of months and Elsa couldn’t bear them by themselves.

  Joaquin took the eggs. “I’m way ahead of you. We’re having tortilla España this morning.”

  “Really?” Elsa loved the potato and egg dish, a standard in northern Spain.

  “You can peel the potatoes.”

  The rectory kitchen was generous, a leftover from the days when two or more priests lived on the premises. A multi-paned window looked over the rose-filled courtyard where San Roque himself presided, then toward the stained glass windows of the nave. Sparrows and wrens fluttered around a feeder in the crabapple tree. Elsa rubbed her arms. “I can’t wait for real spring to get here.”

  “We don’t actually have spring, remember? You’re going to wake up one morning and it will be full summer.” He poured a cup of coffee and handed it over to her. “Sugar there behind you.”

  Elsa stirred in the sugar, and milk. The radio played quietly, a ballad by Sheryl Crow, and Joaquin hummed along as he stirred baking powder into flour. “Are we having biscuits or pancakes?”

  “Tortillas, mi amiga,” he said, and flashed his wolf grin, filled with big white teeth.

  She shook her head. “Don’t make me speak Spanish. I’m too tired, amigo.” Opening a utensils drawer, she found the potato peeler.

  “Bad night?” he asked lightly, not looking at her.

  “Yeah.” She started peeling the potato. “I’m worried about my sister’s husband. There’s something not right there.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know.” She moved her shoulders, forward and back, up and down. “Just have a feeling that there’s trouble coming.”

  “Ordinary feeling or feeling feeling?”

  She met his eyes, raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh. Sorry. Anything I can do?”

  “No. I guess we’ll just be here for her whenever the shit hits the fan.” She rinsed the potato, set it aside. “Didn’t we figure out last time that we could microwave the potatoes and then take off the skins and they’d be done faster?”

  “Aha! It’s true.” He pointed with a spoon. “Go for it.”

  Elsa scrubbed the potatoes and put them in the microwave. “Do you think we should grow potatoes? I love red potatoes, but I’ve never grown them. How do you know when you’re supposed to dig them up?”

  “Good question.” He added water to his tortilla mix and stirred vigorously. His forearms showed ropy muscle, born of a hundred tasks he undertook in the church—moving benches, tables, chairs, desks; helping to wash windows, changing lightbulbs. He took seriously his responsibility to visit the homebound, and he also did household tasks for shut-ins on a regular basis. In this light, it was possible to see the ghosts of his measles scars. “I’ve never had a garden, so it’s all new to me.”

  “Never?”

  “Where would it have gone?”

  “True.” He and seven siblings had grown up in a house on a tiny lot not far from here. “My mother liked her fresh tomatoes,” Elsa said, “and I did garden when we went back East to stay with my grandmother.”

  A knock at the back door surprised Charlie into a rough bark. “Shall I?” Elsa asked.

  “Sure.”

  When Elsa swung the door open, she saw the quickly hidden dismay on the face of the woman standing there with a casserole dish. A trim woman in her forties, wearing jeans and a red sweater. She said, “Oh, good morning! Is Father here?”

  “Yes. Come in.” Elsa stepped back, and waved the woman into the kitchen.

  Joaquin turned, brushing flour off his hands. “Good morning, Mrs. Rivera!” he said in his hearty voice. “What a nice surprise! What have you brought me?”

  “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.” She glanced over her shoulder at Elsa with the faintest frown of censure, then offered the casserole up to Joaquin. “I just brought you some home-baked chicken pot pie. I know how much you like the crust when I bring it to potluck dinners.”

  “That’s very nice of you. I’ll just put it in the fridge.” He relieved her of the dish and gestured toward Elsa. “Have you met my old friend Reverend Elsa?”

  “Oh. Reverend.” The woman held out a long elegant hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Elsa and I have a standing meeting for Friday breakfast. Would you like a cup of coffee? We can hold off on our discussion of theology for a while if that’s not to your taste.”

  “No, no. Heavens.” Waving her hands, she backed toward the door. “I’ll just … I wanted … well, you know, Father, we’re all so grateful to have a young priest here in this parish. We’re so lucky and we want to make sure you always feel well taken care of.”

  He smiled gently. “I’m not going anywhere, Mrs. Rivera. But thank you so much for your thoughtfulness.” He saw her to the door, waved again, and closed it behind her.

  Elsa plucked the potatoes out of the microwave. “Still got it.”

  He shook his head. “This is not a part of the vocation I ever foresaw.”

  “Yeah, yeah, Walking. I know.”

  On his way past her, he touched her back, high between the shoulder blades.

  “Men are definitely turned off,” she said, “when they find out I’m a minister. Why are women so excited by you being a priest?”

  “Forbidden fruit,” he said matter-of-factly, plunging his hands into the tortilla mix. “Women want to be the one who brings a priest to his knees with desire.”

  Startled, Elsa paused to look at him. “You’ve thought about this.”

  “Yes.” Pinching off a piece of dough, he rolled it in his palm. “I am young as priests go. It’s something I’ve had to work out.” The dough became a perfectly round ball between his palms, and for a moment, it made her think of a breast. She looked away. “Has it really been so hard to find men to date?” he asked.

  “Sometimes.” She pulled out the cutting board and skimmed thin sweaters of skin from the microwaved potatoes. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not like either of us was given a choice.”

  “God doesn’t force you to do anything,” he countered. “We both chose.”

  She wanted to say, You chose, but she was unwilling to go there this morning. “I know,” she said. And that was true, too.

  “It’s good to have you back, Elsa.”

  “Just another woman to adore and spoil you.”

  He gave her his best grin.

  * * *

  “All right, everybody, listen up!” Deacon stood in the bed of his pickup truck in the vacant lot, calling through a megaphone. The snow had melted in two days, leaving the landscape muddy. “Father Jack wanted to be here, but he had to conduct a funeral in Rocky Ford.”

  The milling group gathered at the back of the church turned toward his voice, Elsa among them. She wore a ratty
sweater and old jeans with boots and gloves, her hair tied back beneath a bandanna. Everyone around her was similarly attired in the cool morning. The sun shone, but winter lingered in the soft purple shadows. People sipped coffee out of paper cups, steam curling around their noses.

  It was a better turnout than Elsa had expected, probably forty-five or fifty people. A Teens for Christ group, some volunteers from the high school who would get community service hours toward graduation, the usual church regulars who showed up for everything. Every church in the world had that little knot at its solid center, and if they dispersed, a church would die, plain and simple.

  There were also a surprising number of people from the apartments lining the lot. Mothers and children, mostly, eager to have a garden they could call their own. Each family who helped wouldn’t have to pay the registration fee for a 4 × 6 plot.

  “We have gloves and shovels and rakes over here—use them,” Deacon said. “Everything goes in the Dumpster, and I do mean everything. Careful when you scrape things up—there’s liable to be needles and broken glass and God knows what else. Parents, supervise your kids, all right?”

  A boy of about eight raised his hand. “What if you ain’t got your mama with you?”

  Elsa stepped forward and took his hand. “You can work with me. Anybody else?”

  A couple other boys, also around seven or eight, peeled away from the crowd and came toward her. So did Tamsin, bundled up in jeans and a turquoise fleece jacket, her long hair tugged back into a swingy ponytail. “Sorry I’m late,” she said, and handed over a pink-frosted doughnut. “I brought you this.”

  “That was nice,” Elsa said, eyeing the hungry eyes of the boys next to her. How to split a single doughnut three ways? “Do you have any more?”

  “No,” she said. “But I could get some. It would only take a jiffy.”

  The first boy who had spoken up laughed. He had two enormous front teeth with the edges still rippled, and two missing spaces on either side. His nappy hair sparkled with early morning moisture. “Jiffy? What’s that?”

  “In a minute, in a second, quick as a wink,” she said, and illustrated winking. “You want me to go get some?”

  “Later.” Elsa split the doughnut into bite-sized pieces and offered them in her open palm. “One per customer, please.”

  Tamsin sipped her coffee, finally noticing that Deacon was still giving instructions. “Mmm. That’s him, huh? The hottie?”

  “Do you have to talk like you’re nineteen?”

  Tamsin grinned. “You like him.”

  “Don’t be silly. That’s Deacon McCoy, the heavy-equipment guy. Runs a landscaping company here in town.”

  “And he’s my Big Brother,” said one of the boys. He was chubby, with long black hair braided into a rubber band at his nape. His coat was too big for him, the grubby sleeves hanging down to his knuckles. “He takes me all kinda places.”

  “How’d you get a Big Brother?” the first boy asked.

  “I dunno. My mom put me on the list, I guess because she says my dad is a dickhead.” He sidled his glance at the women to see if they’d freak.

  Elsa shook her head. “No swearing. I don’t like it. What I do need are names. You,” she said, pointing to the first child.

  “Calvin.”

  She pointed to the boy with the braid. “You.”

  “Mario.”

  A dusky, skinny boy who would be very tall one day. “Tiberius.”

  Elsa paused. “Really?”

  He nodded sadly.

  She mentally pinned names to details, and herded them over to the truck to put on gloves. The small size fit most of them pretty well, and she put on a pair of smalls herself. Tamsin chose the large, and shaded her eyes to look up at Deacon. “Hi!” she said. “I’m Elsa’s sister, Tamsin.” She stuck a hip out, and Elsa felt a twinge of annoyance. Ridiculous.

  But Deacon didn’t fall under Tamsin’s blue-eyed spell. He only gave her a polite nod. “Good morning.” He jumped down from the bed of the truck, and greeted the children. “Tiberius, my man,” he said, slapping his back. “Mario, we on for supper tonight?”

  Calvin tugged on his sleeve. “Hey, how do I get a Big Brother? I want to go out to dinner.”

  Deacon chuckled. “Is that right? Tell you what, I’ll look into it for you, kiddo. How’s that?” He patted him on the back, and called out at a pair of volunteers struggling with a mattress. “Put it all the way to the back!”

  “Come on, kids,” Tamsin said. “Let’s get to work.”

  “How are you this fine morning, Miss Elsa?” Deacon asked, pulling on his own gloves. “Pretty good turnout, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I’m amazed. You’re a natural at community organizing.”

  “Nah, that’s you.” He waved a finger at the people. “Father Jack told me that you’d called everybody, got all this in motion. I knocked on some doors, that’s all.” He eyed her. “That color red looks good on you.”

  Elsa flicked her fingers over the hem of her sweater. “This is the oldest, raggediest sweater I’ve ever owned.”

  “I don’t care. It’s still a good color.” He held her gaze steadily, and in the bright clear morning, his eyes were as blue as the sky behind him. “Say thank you.”

  “Save all your charm for the others, my friend,” she said. “I like you just fine without all that embroidery.”

  He laughed. “I meant it!”

  She nodded, waving as she walked toward the children. “I’m sure you always do.”

  Elsa gathered the children just after one. Most of the debris had been cleared, and people were bringing dishes into the kitchen, a potluck arranged by the San Roque knitting club. “You guys hungry?” she said to the boys. “I need to get into the kitchen and help.”

  “I’m starving!” Tiberius said. “I could eat a horse!”

  “I could eat a horse and a cow,” Mario said.

  Calvin rubbed his belly. “I could eat a horse, a cow, and a pig.”

  Elsa laughed. “C’mon, guys. Let’s go get washed up. Not sure there will be any horses, but if I know this group, there will be plenty of pie.”

  Tamsin slapped her dirty gloves together. She had a smear of dirt across her forehead, and a sweaty ring around her neck. “I’m just going to run home and grab the salad I made. You want me to get anything else?”

  “Doughnuts!” Calvin shouted, poking a fist in the air.

  She laughed and put a hand on his shoulder. “You got it. I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”

  Elsa herded the children into the boys’ room and ordered them to wash up. After they came out and showed her their hands, one by one, they all trooped into the kitchen, where the knitting club was setting out the feast. “Not yet, young man!” one scolded Calvin as he reached for a deviled egg. “Let the adults get theirs first.”

  “He’s done an adult’s share of work this morning,” Elsa said, stepping forward. “They all helped. The adults are on their way, too.”

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said. She had a pair of rectangular blue glasses perched on her nose, and she peered over them. “Do I know you?”

  Elsa stuck out her hand. “I’m Reverend Elsa Montgomery. I’m running the garden project for Father Jack.”

  “Oh.” She shook hands limply. “The ex-minister. Not Catholic, though, are you? Something metaphysical or the like, isn’t it? Unitarian?”

  “Go ahead, kids,” Elsa said, putting paper plates in their hands. “Not ex, actually. I’m on sabbatical, and it’s Unity.”

  “Huh.”

  Elsa moved on, filling her own plate with the bounty—the eggs, of course, but this was a heavily ethnic community, Italian, Mexican, and African American, so there was manicotti and lasagna, tamales and a pot of green chile, pulled pork and lemon cake. By the time she reached the end of the line, her plate was bending in the middle. She sat down with the boys.

  Tiberius popped his eyes. “You gonna eat all that?”

  “Yes, I am,” she
said. “Look at you.”

  “Yeah, but I’m a boy. Girls ain’t s’pposed to eat like that.”

  “Girls who work hard get to eat just as much as boys who work hard.”

  “My mama’s always trying to lose weight,” Calvin said, and slurped the meaty center from a tamale. “She don’t eat no meat and no sugar. She say they bad for you.”

  “Not my mom,” Mario said. “She cooks everything so good you couldn’t help but eat.”

  Elsa let their conversation flow around her, realizing it had been a long while since she’d been in the company of children. It was one of the things she missed about her job, the kids.

  One of the many things.

  Firmly, she clamped down on that line of thinking. She would eventually have to sort out her thoughts in order to be ready to go back when the board allowed it. But not today.

  Not today.

  Tamsin drove to her house, thinking she might change her shirt as well as pick up the salad. She was sticky and a little stinky after the morning’s work. Her blood fizzed with the unfolding summer—gardens, gardens, gardens! A chance to create beauty in a very ugly spot.

  As she came around the corner, she was humming under her breath, so it took a long, long minute for her to comprehend something was wrong.

  Very wrong.

  At first, it just didn’t make sense. There were several cars parked in front of her house, two more in the driveway. Two of them were patrol cars with lights blinking on top.

  Cops.

  Tamsin parked crookedly at the high curb and slammed out of the car, crying, “What happened? Is someone hurt?”

  No one paid her any attention. She hurried toward the front door and came face-to-face with a man in a black suit and that little squiggly thing going from his ear down into his coat. Black sunglasses masked his eyes. He carried a box of papers and files. Behind him came a man awkwardly carrying a computer monitor. Post-it notes were attached to the side, and she recognized that it was the computer from the family room.

  “What are you doing?” Tamsin cried. “Stop right now!” She lunged for the cord, trying to grab it. The man easily swung away from her. There were others behind them, and she heard the staticky sound of a conversation on the two-way radios. “What do you think you’re doing?”