The Gardens of Covington

by Joan A. Medlicott

  Brenda and Molly shook their heads.

  “She took me out back and introduced me to her chickens.

  “Well, don’t tell. Introduced you to a chicken, did she?” Alma rolled her eyes.

  “Nine chickens and one rooster. The hens lay blue eggs.”

  “Blue eggs?” Amelia said. “I never heard of blue eggs.”

  Grace placed her elbows on the table and leaned forward. “They’re called Arucana chickens. Originally from Chile. They’re small, and some have furry feet. Miss Lurina says their favorite food’s watermelon, so now I bring her watermelon, just for them.”

  “Must be what we call Easter egg chickens,” Brenda said. “I’ve seen those blue eggs at Easter time.”

  Having captured the interest of those sitting closest to her at the table, Grace continued. “The chicks were one day old when Miss Lurina got them. She kept them inside, in the kitchen, for two months for fear of a fox getting them. They became like house pets.”

  Bob’s arm was about Grace’s chair, his fingers touching her back. Grace looked at him, noted the look of pride on his face, and was filled with warmth. “She’s got a favorite chicken she named Pee-Wee. It comes inside sometimes and sits on Miss Lurina’s head just like it did when it was a chick.”

  Harold slapped his thigh, threw back his head, and laughed. “That must be a sight. That old lady with a chicken sittin’ on her head.” Others laughed.

  Grace felt uncomfortable, as if she’d set Lurina up for ridicule. “I think it’s pretty terrific that a woman her age gets out there every day, rain or shine, to feed and tend her chickens. They’re like people, like friends to her.”

  “I didn’t mean to mock her.” Harold’s eyes were apologetic.

  “I like her.” Grace looked from one face to the other, her eyes serious.

  “Miss Lurina and Old Man probably got their schoolin’ in a one-room schoolhouse. The one-room schoolhouse was torn down to build the church.” Pastor Johnson helped himself to another slice of ham from a platter that Amelia passed.

  Frank Craine ran his hands across his thinning hair. “Good to know Old Man’s still alive and kickin’.”

  “Lurina told me his name’s actually Joseph Elisha,” Grace said.

  “If I ever knowed that, I forgot it years ago.” Frank chuckled. Heat and sunshine caused his high, bald forehead to glisten. A taciturn man with pockmarked skin rough as the surface of the moon, he had rarely spoken since his brief “Howdy” on arrival.

  It was a relief to Grace when Alma Craine suddenly began to prattle about the proposed stores for the new strip mall, the drugstore, the market, but especially the new beauty parlor. She came alive. Her face flushed and her eyes glowed. “Honey,” she said, addressing no one in particular, “it sure makes Maggie Anson mad, ’cause everyone goes to her beauty shop, back of her house, now. Wonder how many she’s gonna lose when a real beauty parlor opens?”

  Suddenly it was as if someone had uncorked the Craines. Frank leaned forward, slapped his hand on the table as if it were a gavel. “I been talkin’ to them fellas about a space in that there new shopping center for Billie and me to open us up an auto parts store. Billie,” he said, looking at Hannah, who sat directly across from him, “he’s my oldest boy. He’s gettin’ out of the Army next month. They trained him as a mechanic.” He beamed with pride.

  “How old is Billie?” Hannah asked out of politeness.

  “How old’s that boy, Alma?” Frank asked.

  Alma scratched her brassy red hair. “Let’s see. Tim’s twenty. He’s our young ’un. Junior’s twenty-two; that’d make Billie ’bout twenty-four.”

  Frank turned to Hannah and asked, “What you want to do with Anson’s land, Hannah?”

  “Preserve the land, hiking maybe, camping, a park.”

  Frank scratched his head and took the bit of twig he was chewing on from between his teeth. “Dunno why we’d want another park after we’ve got such a big piece comin’ from Masterson.”

  Amelia’s blue eyes danced. “We can never have too many parks.”

  Mike, who had been eating contentedly for some time, couldn’t resist mimicking Amelia’s lilting voice. “Never too many parks.”

  She swatted his shoulder. “Stop it, you monster.” They laughed.

  Hail falling from the sky on a sunny summer day could not have evoked the degree of shock and grim disapproval that transformed the faces of Frank and Alma Craine. My God, Grace thought, they just figured out that Mike’s gay, and gay is definitely not good in their eyes.

  “Claudia, call Paulette. We best be goin’,” Alma said, poking her daughter’s ribs.

  Claudia had talked with Mike earlier about taking his beginner’s photography class. The ladies knew, from Brenda, that under enormous family pressure, Claudia had quashed her aspirations to study art, taken a computer program at AB Tech, and now worked as office manager for an architect in Asheville. When her husband, a press operator at the Sony plant in Weaverville, left with another woman, Claudia, and her then four-year-old, Paulette, moved home, which probably, Grace thought, accounted for the resigned expression that settled into Claudia’s green eyes when she looked at or spoke to her parents.

  Alma drew back her shoulders, which further called attention to her ample chest and gaping blouse. Shiny patches of wet, dark against her blue dress, appeared under her arms. Seemingly unaware, she folded her napkin into a neat square and reached for her husband’s napkin and did the same. “We gotta go,” she said, standing. “Real good dinner.” She emphasized dinner.

  “There’s dessert,” Grace began, but Hannah’s quick look warned her to silence.

  Amelia stood. “We’re glad you came. It’s been nice visiting with you for a bit.” She focused on Frank. “And hearing about your plans for an auto parts store. We certainly wish you the best of luck, you and Billie.”

  As if making a statement to her parents, Claudia hugged Mike good-bye, slipped him a card with her work phone number, then called to Paulette that it was time to go.

  Paulette ran to her mother, pouting. “I don’t wanna go, Mama. Me and Tyler been catchin’ tadpoles outta the stream.”

  “Grandma’s ready to go. You can see Tyler in school.”

  After the Craines’ departure, Harold and the parson strolled off, Harold to smoke his pipe, the parson a cigarette. Brenda rose and began to scrape and stack dishes, but Grace took a dish from her hands and insisted that they sit and relax. Bob slipped his arm about Grace’s shoulders just as Russell, who had been very quiet all during the meal, pushed his chair from the table and crossed his legs.

  “Russell,” Amelia said. “Where is that Emily of yours?”

  “In Florida. She has a law practice there.”

  “I’m sorry. I’d have enjoyed her being here today. You’ve never even told me how you two met.”

  “Didn’t Grace tell you?”

  “That’s secondhand,” Amelia pouted. “You tell me.” She leaned toward him, her elbow on the table, and her chin set firmly on the back of her bent wrist.

  “It’s not a romantic story, Amelia. We were both getting gas at Buddy’s station.”

  Amelia sat back. “No, that’s not very romantic.”

  His eyes twinkled. “What if I told you I knew at first sight that I wanted to marry Emily?”

  Amelia clapped her hands. “Much better. Love at first sight. Comme c’est romantique, that’s marvelous.”

  “Amelia’s incurably romantic,” Mike chimed in.

  She turned to Mike. “Chéri! And you’re not?”

  Mike threw up his hands. “I am. Yes, I admit I am.”

  “We’re celebrating our two-month anniversary Saturday night. I met Emily on August seventeenth.”

  ‘Two months already? What will you do to celebrate?” Amelia asked.

  “Not sure yet, I . . .”

  “Oh, Russell, take her someplace special with music and soft lights.”

  “Leave Russell alone, Amelia,” Hannah sai
d.

  “It’s okay, Hannah,” Russell said. “Amelia’s well intentioned.”

  “I am indeed.” Amelia flipped her head toward Hannah. “Take her to the Poseidon Restaurant in Swannanoa. They have music some nights, and the food is très bon.”

  Mike nodded. “That’s a great idea, Amelia.”

  Moments later, Harold and Parson Johnson returned smelling of tobacco, and soon a conversation about football developed.

  “Want some help?” Bob offered as the women began to stack dishes on trays to transport to the kitchen.

  Grace kissed his forehead. “You stay here, love. We’re just fine.”

  Once the dishwasher was loaded, the women settled around the kitchen table and began to do a postmortem of the afternoon. “Alma, the old gossip, was dying to go upstairs,” Molly said.

  “How could you tell? She seemed uninterested,” Grace said.

  “She was interested all right, her eyes were everywhere at once.”

  “If I’d sensed she wanted to, we could have gone up.”

  “Not into my bedroom.” Hannah crossed her arms. “I don’t want gossips like Alma prowling about my bedroom.”

  “Well, Alma can’t say the table wasn’t beautiful, or the food wasn’t wonderful. You did so much work. The decor, the tables, the food, perfect.”

  Grace smiled. “Thanks, Brenda. We all did it. I’m just sorry more of our neighbors didn’t come, like the Maxwells.”

  Brenda studied her fingernails for a moment. “Bella Maxwell, well, she doesn’t bother much with folks.” Her eyebrows arched sharply. “Always ailin’, you know the type. One child. Spoiled that boy, Zachary, right proper.”

  Molly had taught Zachary in school, and found him to be shy, withdrawn, into art. She liked the boy, but had found his parents distant, though cooperative. She changed the subject. “I love what you ladies have done with this old farmhouse. Years ago I came here with Dad to visit Mr. Furrior. We sat on springy old chairs in the living room, and the dust flew up. I couldn’t see out the windows for the grime on them. Something, I thought it was a rat, ran across the floor, and Dad and Mr. Furrior ignored it, even when I yelled. Dad said, ‘Hush you up, Molly,’ and I did, but I sure was glad when we left.”

  “There were possums in the house when we first got here.” The ladies laughed, remembering. “Seems like we’ve lived here always.” Hannah’s eyes roamed about the kitchen and met Grace’s and then Amelia’s. They nodded and smiled at her.

  “Seems so to me, too,” Molly said. “Mom talks all the time about the work you ladies do at her school.” She looked at Hannah, into whose thick hair bits of tiny leaves had infiltrated. “Your gardening program’s the envy of other elementary schools around here, and, Grace, Mom’s always bragging about how you helped Tyler after his mother died in that awful car accident, and how great you are with all the children you tutor.”

  Suddenly, Amelia said, “Now, wouldn’t it be nice if Russell married Emily?”

  “I don’t know.” Brenda’s brows drew together. ‘Tyler’s just settlin’ down to life without his mother. It might take some hard gettin’ used to if things changed now. Be better a year down the road when he’s more adjusted and a little older. New woman takin’ his mother’s place could send him into a tailspin.”

  “Well, he has Grace, his adopted grandma,” Amelia said.

  But Grace agreed with Brenda. She knew how hard change was, and Tyler’s coping mechanism after his mother’s death had been to sullenly withdraw.

  9

  A Map of Covington

  Two nights after the lunch under the great oak, Grace and Bob returned from seeing a movie in Asheville to find the light still on in the kitchen. “Hi there,” Grace called.

  “Come on in here a minute,” Hannah called back.

  Hanging their coats in the hall closet, Grace headed for the kitchen with Bob towering behind her, his thick white hair windblown. Warm October days had bowed to forty-degree nights. A small fire glowed in the glass front of the blue ceramic-coated wood-burning iron stove in the corner of the room. Harold Tate had suggested they might need such a stove should a winter ice storm bring down power lines and leave them without electricity. A moist multi-layered Vienna cake, one of Grace’s specialties, baked mostly for special occasions, sat on the counter under a clear glass dome. Grace had had a yen for it, and made it earlier. A delicate whisper of vanilla remained in the kitchen.

  Hannah and Amelia sat at the kitchen table hunched over maps, both flat and topographical, and loose white paper, and colored markers strewn helter-skelter across the tabletop, leaving not an inch of room for a mug or a glass.

  “What are you two doing?” Grace asked.

  The mandarin neck of a kelly green pajama top stuck out above the lapels of Hannah’s homey gray bathrobe.

  Momentarily distracted, Grace asked, “New pajamas?”

  “From Miranda. Came earlier this evening by UPS with a letter that said, ‘Do not wait for Christmas, use them now,’ so . . .” She spread her arms wide. “You can assure my daughter when she calls that I’m using them.” Hannah wiggled her shoulders. “They’re silk pajamas. Prefer flannel. Don’t tell Miranda. Nice letter, though. Here, let me read you some of it.”

  She fished her daughter’s letter from the pocket of her robe and began.

  “What fun it was visiting with you and Grace and Amelia. Some special kind of companionable serenity seems to flow between you three ladies. It drew me in, made me welcome. You’re all so involved in life and busy, busy, busy. When do you ladies ever stop?”

  Hannah released the letter into her lap. “Never while life lasts,” she murmured in response to Miranda’s question. Then she said thoughtfully, “After all these years of estrangement, it’s good to feel cared about, appreciated by my daughter.”

  Grace understood. It had been the same with her son, Roger. After too many years of separation and chilly, rare comings together, Grace’s planned move to Covington had precipitated angry exchanges, explanations, apologies, and forgiveness for which she was grateful. And now Miranda and her husband, Paul, and Roger and his longtime companion, Charles, were business partners in Branston.

  “I remember,” Amelia’s voice cut in, as if she were reading Grace’s mind, “when both your children opposed your moving to Covington from Pennsylvania. For days I worried you would change your minds. Imagine, if we’d gone on living at Olive Pruitt’s dreary boardinghouse.” She waved her forefinger at the others, and grimaced as she mimicked their former landlady’s raspy voice. “For older ladies in good health, only.”

  “When we lived at Olive’s place life seemed stalled, a dead end. How different things are now.” Grace chuckled, then grew serious. “Imagine,” she said, looking at Hannah, “if we’d let our children dictate our lives.”

  “Here’s a part about you, Amelia.” Hannah fished Miranda’s letter from her lap and read aloud.

  “Amelia amazes me, beginning a new career in her late sixties. I’ve framed the photograph of hers I bought, and her lovely book’s on my coffee table.”

  “She’s so right, Amelia. You uncovered a latent talent. Look how successful you’ve been,” Hannah said.

  Praise from Hannah came rarely, and Amelia beamed with pleasure.

  As if embarrassed, Hannah looked down. “Miranda covers a bit of everything in this letter. Says she’s glad I sold the greenhouse to Wayne.” She paused to scan the letter, then continued. “Listen to this.”

  “I’m glad you’re volunteering at Caster Elementary School. You’re teaching a whole new generation of youngsters to garden, and to value and be caretakers of the earth.”

  “And it’s not just the kids you’re teaching,” Grace said. “There’s Wayne and all he needs to learn to run a plant business successfully.”

  “Wayne’s getting the hang of the business,” Hannah said. She smiled. “Such a character. Never on time, but. . . .” She shrugged. “He gets things done, in his own time. And perhaps, somed
ay, one of those young people from Caster Elementary will say to someone, ‘Hannah Parrish taught me about plants, started me thinking about a career in environmental education or horticulture.’ ”

  “Or one of them might become a senator from North Carolina who’ll fight for the environment,” Amelia said.

  “Read the rest of it, will you, Grace?” Hannah handed Grace the letter. From the evening that Roger deposited his sad-eyed mother at Olive’s boardinghouse, Hannah had liked Grace, felt that Grace was a good and honest person, a trustworthy person, and she had been right, and Hannah enjoyed the melodic, soothing quality of Grace’s voice, liked to hear her read.

  Grace reached for Miranda’s letter and began.

  “When I got home from work the other night, I found a message on my machine from Laura. Said she and Captain Marvin are sailing his boat south, to the Caribbean. She said that she plans to phone you before they leave.”

  “Well, she hasn’t.” Hannah sighed and stared into space. “So different, my girls. Laura’s a good person. Handful to raise, though. Frightfully rebellious and independent.”

  “Wonder where she got that from?” Grace smiled at Hannah, then read on.

  “We’ve been nothing but busy since the Gracious Entertainment Shop opened. People have plenty of money and no time these days. They delegate, and we plan their parties for them.”

  “Charles and Roger came up with this idea at just the right time, didn’t they?” Grace turned to Hannah. “Who would have imagined that your daughter, and my Roger, and his Charles would go into business together? They didn’t even know one another before we came to Covington that first time, and a few months later they were going into business.”

  “It seems to have turned out well,” Amelia said.

  “Your son, my daughter, in business. It makes us like a family,” Hannah said, unwittingly lassoing Grace’s meandering mind.

  Grace noticed Hannah’s broad, stub-nailed fingers curled lightly over the arm of her chair. Gently, she touched the taut, blue-veined skin of her hand. “Chosen family,” she said.