The Garden of Happy Endings

by Barbara O'Neal

  “How are you doing, honey?” she asked, and slid an arm around him.

  He shrugged. “Somebody beat up my grandpa.”

  “I know. I talked to him, though, and he was really worried that he wasn’t going to be able to do the drumming. He said the spirits need that. Do you have a drum?”

  “Yeah.” He swiped an angry tear from his face. “I don’t know how to do what my grandpa does, not just like him.”

  “I think the spirits will understand that you’re a medicine man in training. They’ll just be glad you’re doing it.”

  He chewed on his lip. “Will I get beat up, too? I’m scared of those guys.”

  “You won’t be here by yourself,” she said. “I promise. Let’s go take a look at your garden, too, see what we can fix. Deacon will be here in a little while.”

  “Good.” He shrugged off her arm. “I gotta go to the bathroom first.”

  Elsa nodded, then turned back to Paris, who was carefully tying the beanstalk back to the stake. Calvin patted the earth at the base. “You think Father Jack would sprinkle some holy water on it?” he asked.

  “You can ask him.”

  Calvin jumped up. Hopeful. “I’ll be right back, Mama.”

  Paris nodded. “Stay in sight.”

  Elsa knelt in Paris’s garden and plucked leaves from a sunflower, and removed some broken bits of a tomato. The carrots and potatoes would be fine, hidden as they were under the earth. A swath of corn was crushed. Paris yanked out the little broken plants with fury. Elsa put a hand over hers. “I think if you leave those alone, they’ll be okay in a week or so.”

  Paris tossed the shoots aside, and Elsa saw that her hand was shaking violently. “My whole life, all I’ve been trying to do is have a little bit of comfort, to make things a little bit nicer than rock-bottom hillbilly shit.” She wiped at her jaw. “Just a little. And every time, some man takes it away, stomps on it, or gets himself killed, or ruins it. I’m tired of that.” Her blue eyes, so young and so old, met Elsa’s. “So tired.”

  “I know,” she said quietly, not looking away. “It’s evil, and it’s painful, and it doesn’t seem fair. But you are good and strong and smart and real.” Paris leaned toward her, soaking up the words. Elsa continued, “You’re also raising a boy who will grow into a man who will make the world better, not worse. I believe in you, Paris.”

  The girl stared at Elsa for a long moment, too ferocious, too angry. “I could just kill those boys. What were they thinking? They’re just as poor as we are. This is food.”

  “I know.” Elsa stood. “They’ve been damaged, too, somehow, or they wouldn’t want to do this. We can’t fix them, but let’s see what we can do about this fence.”

  All day, Elsa helped in the gardens. Her sister came and went, taking Charlie back home with her. Joaquin and Deacon worked, too, hauling rebar out of Deacon’s truck and patching the fences and digging out sections of damaged crops. A church member went to a garden shop and brought back three flats of mixed bedding plants to help replace those that had been lost.

  In the late afternoon, Elsa sank down at the picnic table in the center of the gardens, took off her gloves and slapped the dust from them. Her hands were shaking and she realized she had not eaten since breakfast. Someone had brought doughnuts and bananas and gallons of water. She’d gobbled down a strawberry-frosted doughnut, and poured a big paper cup of water. As she gulped that down, too, she thought again how efficient the volunteer system was in Joaquin’s church. Absently peeling a banana, she looked around for him, wondering how he kept the machine running. He was nowhere in sight. The bells began to ring, calling the faithful to Mass.

  Of course. It was Saturday afternoon. A couple of men in the garden looked up, dusted themselves off, and wandered toward the church.

  It had been like that in medieval times, before medieval times, with the same bells, the same Mass, the same words. That was something she missed about Catholicism, one of the many. There was all that time and history and ritual already in place, the weight and solidness of it a pattern to hold on to.

  Would she have been a priest if she could have? If it had been allowed? Would she have made the sacrifice Joaquin had made?

  “Hey, stranger,” Deacon said, sitting down next to her. He had two cups in his hands, steaming hot. “I thought you could use a little more substance. Tea for you. Two sugars and milk, not cream, right?”

  She grinned up at him. “Right. Thanks.”

  He faced the church, as she did, and they each drank in silence for a time. “I don’t think I’ve thanked you for the fried chicken,” he said. “It was delicious.”

  She smiled sadly. “You don’t have to lie, Deacon. Joaquin told me you gave it to him.”

  “I gave him half,” he said. “Not all of it.”

  Elsa turned.

  He looked at her, then looked down and put his hand over hers. “I’m struggling a bit with my loyalties, Elsa.” His fingertip traced the curve of her nails.

  She waited.

  He raised his head, looked at her mouth, at her eyes. “Joaquin saved my life.” His drawl seemed deeper, softer. His hand was hot and it pulsed over hers with a clear burning energy. A scent of grass came from his skin. Elsa had a clear and perfect wish to move closer and taste his mouth. Her heart was beating a little faster.

  “I was in prison and lost and he came into that place like—” He made a clicking noise. “Hope. Just hope. He spread it around all of us like fresh soil.”

  She forced from her mind all of the reasons they shouldn’t be together and looked up at him directly, letting her heart open to him. She sensed in him the things he needed, saw them in his pupils, and the beauty of his mouth.

  And she allowed herself to acknowledge her own wishes, too. “I think you should take me somewhere for dinner.”

  He hesitated still, but at last he gave in, and leaned forward and kissed her. Just a brush of his mouth on hers, but Elsa caught the back of his neck before he could draw away. She pulled him back to her. On his lips she tasted the future—music and laughter, things they would do. Places they would go.

  With a soft sigh, he pressed his forehead to hers. “What do you feel like eating?”

  She straightened. “A lot. I’m starving. Pizza?”

  “Let’s go.” He poured the coffee onto the ground and turned around to hold out his hand. With a sense that she was stepping across an invisible line, Elsa took it. Something like glitter seemed to burst in the air. She hummed under her breath and danced a little beside him.

  * * *

  They went to the Riverwalk and found a table downstairs on the patio at Angelo’s, where their dusty clothes wouldn’t be noticed. It was darker on the lower patio, close to the river flowing through a man-made channel. The sidewalks and paths along the river were busy on a Saturday afternoon, and the sound of fountains cooled the air. They ordered a pizza and root beers, and chips and salsa to tide them over.

  “The Riverwalk always amazes me,” Elsa said. “It’s so beautiful and it really has changed the look of this area, hasn’t it?”

  “I never saw it before. I only got here about four years ago. I was living in Denver when I got the DUI, and only came to Pueblo when I got out of prison. The Riverwalk was already here. Maybe not as developed as it is now, but they’d built the channel.”

  “Ah. Well, it used to be a pretty run-down area, and the river was over behind the levee. Safely, so it couldn’t flood.” She gestured with a chip, encompassing the entire area. “In 1921, there was a massive flash flood. Wiped out downtown, and this whole area was so deep underwater that you could only see the tops of those buildings.”

  “I’ve always kinda wondered about that. It’s a pretty small river by southern standards, but that’s a serious levee.”

  “Right. That’s why. This was the original channel of the river, but as you see, only a little bit of the water is allowed to come through.”

  “It’s pretty. I like it down here.” He l
eaned back and stretched out his long legs, then inclined his head and looked at her for a long moment. “I was watching you today. You were really in your element.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You were just tireless, and everybody looked to you for help and advice. You have a real gift for ministry, Elsa.”

  She shook her head ruefully. “It’s funny how that kind of event or need just”—she made a circle in front of her heart—“pulls me in. I feel like I’m a much better version of myself.” To her surprise and embarrassment, tears pricked the back of her eyes. She blinked hard. “I miss it,” she said honestly. “I was telling Joaquin that last night. I have to figure things out. This drifting is not what I’m meant to do. What any of us are supposed to do.”

  “You don’t have to be in a church, you know. There are a lot of ways to help people. You could work with the Red Cross or take up nursing or … a thousand things.”

  Before she could stop them, words came pouring out of her mouth. “But I love being a minister. In a church. I love church, period. All churches, pretty much, but especially when I have one of my own, a flock to look after.”

  He smiled. “Sounds like you have your answer.”

  Their pizza came and Elsa, ravenous to her very bones, picked up a slice. “We can keep talking about that in a minute, but I have to eat first.”

  They both dug in. Elsa concentrated fully on the pizza, with its Brooklyn-style crust, the salt and tang, the onions and greasy pepperoni. Across the river channel, a woman drifted out to a balcony to water pots of petunias. Elsa wiped grease from her lips, and gestured toward the woman. “That would be a nice place to live.”

  “Pretty,” he agreed, and pointed north. “You can see Pikes Peak.”

  “Imagine how gorgeous the world looks from up there.”

  “I’m sure you have to pay for the privilege.”

  “No doubt.” She admired his jawline against the light, the length of his neck, and thought of putting her mouth there, nestling in to smell him. Her skin rippled, like a cat’s, hungry for stroking. Beneath the table, she kicked off her sandal and put her foot on his.

  He cocked an eyebrow, very slightly, and that charming half smile flickered. He reached for her hand, tracing a circle on her inner wrist. His expression was bemused. “Are you coming home with me after this?”

  “I would like to.”

  He nodded, put down his pizza. Wiped his lips carefully. “I need to ask you a question, point-blank, and I need a clear answer.”

  “Okay.”

  “If Father Jack suddenly were not a priest, would you be his wife?”

  “No,” she said with some amusement and leaned forward so that she could speak quietly. “I have done everything I can think of to let you know that you are the one I’m interested in. No,” she said, interrupting herself, “ ‘interested’ is way too small a word. I was just sitting here thinking how much I’d like to bury myself in your neck and smell you. I keep imagining how you’ll look without your shirt on.”

  “That’s what I wanted to hear,” he said gruffly, and leaned over to kiss her, just once, with promise. “Finish up your pizza, sugar.”

  “I love it when you call me sugar.”

  “I thought you hated it.”

  “I don’t like the casual endearments you use for everyone. I want ‘sugar’ to belong only to me. Can you save it for me?”

  He chuckled. “That I can do.”

  “I have a question for you, too.” She picked up another piece of pizza. “I might well go back to my church, you know.”

  He nodded, meeting her eyes.

  “They need me, and I need to be busy again. Until I’ve sorted everything out, I won’t be the teacher they need, but it feels like I might be getting there.”

  “That’s good.”

  “You know what church life is like. Could you ever live around that again?”

  He leaned forward and picked up her hand. “I reckon I could, for the right woman.”

  The pocket of tension in her chest dissolved. “What do you believe in, Deacon?”

  He looked toward the west. The sun had fallen behind the mountains, leaving a jagged blaze of gold light on the horizon. “I don’t feel the need to be that specific. There’s something up there, out there, all around us, but I don’t necessarily know what to name it.” He lifted a shoulder. “I like it when Joseph says ‘Great Spirit.’ That seems as close to what it feels like to me as anything.” He took another piece of pizza in his long-fingered hand and looked at her with a level gaze. “You reckon you might be a touch too hard on yourself?”

  Elsa laughed. “Moi?”

  As they ate in companionable silence, she kept her bare foot on his arch, touching his ankle with her big toe. Anticipation, bright yellow and edged with heat, brewed between them, circling, tightening, sweetening. The water shimmered. It seemed that all of Pueblo was out enjoying the day, eating ice cream as they walked by, having a beer at Angelo’s, strolling along the walkways.

  Elsa became aware of a man behind her speaking in urgent Spanish into a cellphone. The accent pricked her—Spanish from Spain, not Mexico or Latin America—and then his words caught her attention. Her Spanish was rusty, and she listened shamelessly, translating laboriously. I cannot find her. The house is closed up. You need to find the address of her aunt.

  She turned. There in the corner, taking out a cigarette, then putting it back, was a young and very handsome man. He was dressed well, casually but expensively. For a long moment, she tested her recognition. Could it really be? He hung up the phone and flung his head into his hands, the curls tumbling in glossy, glorious disarray around his golden fingers. Fever rose around him in an orange cloud.

  It was the man she had seen in her vision, weeping over Alexa.

  “Carlos?” she said.

  He raised his head. “Do I know you?” he asked in English, beautifully accented.

  Elsa smiled. “You will,” she said. “Please, join us.”

  As he stood, a puzzled expression on his face, Elsa picked up her phone and dialed. When her sister answered, she said, “Bring Alexa to Angelo’s. We’re on the lower level.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Before the phone call, Tamsin was working on a new quilt. She had the base spread over the dining room table. It was an emerging landscape of a tall cliff overlooking a clear aquamarine sea. Bougainvillea tumbled in pink and salmon swaths down a craggy, dangerous cliff. She had only just begun to piece the flowers.

  She’d rescued her car and the money, but it made her jumpy. What if someone had seen her? What if the police found out about the cash? Her fear kept her from telling Elsa or Alexa about it. It also made her change the hiding place for the stash about every three hours.

  She did not have the nerve to be a criminal. And maybe it wasn’t right, having that cash when so many others had lost everything, but she …

  Well, she was keeping it anyway.

  Quilting helped. At this stage, the work was blurry, just big areas of color and a few layers and shapes. She could see in her mind’s eye what the finished piece would look like, but to the uninformed eye, it was nothing much.

  A song kept weaving through her mind as she cut hot pink paisley fabric into triangles, a French folk song, “Dominique,” a lively little tune that looped through her mind every time she started to work on the quilt. Something about the song nagged her. As if she should remember something about it.

  But whatever it was swirled away every time she tried to catch it. She would just keep working on the quilt. Eventually it would come to her.

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Tamsin saw that it was Elsa calling, and she picked up. “Hey, what’s up?”

  Alexa had only joined her mother reluctantly. She yanked her hair back into a ponytail, stuck her feet into flip-flops, and climbed in the car. Her mother drove.

  “Why are we doing this?”

  “She didn’t say. You haven’t been down there in ages�
�you might be surprised by how lovely it is. And anyway, it’s good for you to get out.”

  “I helped in the garden.” Alexa leaned back. “Never mind. I get that you’re both trying to make me feel better.” She watched the shops pass by, the storefronts with their small-town feel, clean and tidy. “I hope you know that I really am trying.”

  Her mother patted her hand. “I do.”

  They parked by a fountain and crossed the street, then wound around the path to the restaurant. A lot of people were sitting on the patios. Alexa wished, suddenly, that she’d taken a little more care with her appearance. It was something that mattered and she should be respectful of others. Not that a ponytail was so terrible, or her yoga pants and tank. But no makeup, the floppy shoes—she really should get her act together.

  She saw her aunt Elsa and her boyfriend, or whatever he was, sitting on the deck. And maybe because she’d just been thinking of him, she saw a man who looked just like Carlos. That thick hair. His beautiful face. He was standing up, almost in slow motion, and suddenly Alexa heard a roaring in her ears.

  He cried out, “Azul!” and dove around the tables, running toward her.

  Alexa spun around and ran down the Riverwalk, as fast as she could. He couldn’t see her this way. She couldn’t face him with so much disgrace piled upon her family. He thought he could be romantic and fix it, but romance and love couldn’t fix anything.

  She nearly tripped on her flip-flops, and kicked them off. One landed in the water, and she didn’t care—she kept running in bare feet. People moved out of her way, and she leapt over a skateboard. Carlos was a strong sailor and lacrosse player, but she thought she could outrun him, and he didn’t know the neighborhood. Her breath came in ragged gasps—and then she tripped over the hem of her yoga pants and tumbled into the grass.

  He tackled her, crying out her name. “Alexa, my Azul, stop! Stop.” He used his body to hold her down, and suddenly, Alexa realized how foolish it was, running away. The smell of his skin overwhelmed her, and with a cry, she turned in his arms and kissed him, tears running sideways over her temples. She grasped the back of his head and kissed him deeply, and he kissed her back, murmuring, “Why did you go, Azul? Why did you run away? What happened?”