by Wall, Carol
I was sure we’d moved beyond the tipping point about the azaleas. I bit my lip, trying to call back the anger I’d felt a moment before. I should have been able to conjure it again, after all I was completely justified. But when I tried, the feeling didn’t even start to happen. There was something so innocent and endearing about this man who worked so eagerly. Or was he simply clever? Charming? Stubborn?
Endless seconds passed. Giles Owita maintained his stance, with one foot planted in a spot between the brittle branches of that first azalea, and the other settled firmly on a patch of the soggy moss that always seemed to flourish on this side of our house. A Leyland cypress separated us from the smaller house next door. As I looked up into the feathery limbs, I thought of Sarah Driscoll’s perfectly landscaped yard and of all the other yards on our street. Dick and I had a mess here. Maybe I had to relinquish control and let Giles Owita prescribe the solutions. I had the sudden fleeting, illogical thought that this moment with Giles Owita in my yard was something that I had been waiting for all of my life.
Still, I wavered. Stay firm, or give in?
Giles Owita glanced up at me. Concern was etched across his brow. He was going to plead his case, I feared. (“They will be beautiful!” I could almost hear him say.) Don’t let him win, I told myself. Stick to your guns.
“How are your parents doing in their new apartment, Mrs. Wall? My wife and I have prayed they would weather their move with a minimum of stress.”
I took in a sharp breath.
My parents? Giles Owita had time to pray for someone else’s parents?
I searched his face. He was either utterly sincere, or a very good actor. I took a small step back, but my foot began to slide as Rhudy’s leash zipped through my fingers. I started to fall. The azalea trembled as Giles Owita leaped to grab me by the elbow. My right hand grasped the sleeve of his navy work suit and my other hand found the roughness of brick on the side of my house. It was one of the few times I would ever touch Giles Owita.
“Oh. Thank you. I almost fell.” I let go of his sleeve. My balance had been restored, but my pulse was still racing. Rhudy was pacing nervously nearby, the purple leash trailing behind him. “You and your wife have prayed for my parents? That’s so kind. I’m humbled.” My voice broke as I said the word parents, and I thought of them grieving yet another loss in their long life together.
“It is our joy to pray for them,” Giles Owita said.
He seemed so sincere. I searched his earnest expression for signs of cynicism or duplicity. He continued staring off into the distance.
“I appreciate those prayers,” I said, “and I’ve been praying for Lok.” I added the last part with a liar’s special emphasis on every word. But even as I said it, I suddenly knew that I needed it to be true, and I resolved to get down on my knees on the subject, starting tomorrow, at Mass. “Was there any news of her this week?”
He shook his head. I gazed up again at the Leyland cypress and tried to conjure the delicate shape of the face of a faraway daughter who loved roses.
“Do you have a picture I could see?” I asked.
“At our house, there are many pictures. I will try to remember to bring one with me, next time. Our Lok is a beautiful girl. We have treasured her, from the day she arrived.”
“Of course,” I said. “I’m sure you have. Is there anything Dick and I can do to help? He’s a lawyer, you know. So, if you decide . . .”
“We will continue to wait and hope,” he said.
As I stood there watching him, Giles Owita continued his work on the azaleas, and I decided to let him do as he wished with them without further fight. His work on the second bush went quickly. He didn’t seem to mind that I hovered close by while he pinched off debris to find the healthy parts. I took advantage of the chance to ask him further questions about his family. He told me that his wife’s name was Bienta. His expression brightened as he spoke of her. They were of the Luo tribe, second largest of more than forty tribes in Kenya. Bienta’s name was “a Luo-cized version,” as he put it, of the French name Bernadette.
“She was born on the mainland, near Kisumu,” he explained. “While I was brought into the world in more rural circumstances on the tiny island of Rusinga, in Lake Victoria.”
“Well, I hope to meet Bienta soon,” I said.
“You will,” he quickly agreed. “Sometime, I will bring her by your compound. She is reserved and proper, but not shy.”
My envious nature bubbled up to the surface. I wondered if Dick ever wore such an adoring look when he spoke about me. I felt deflated to recall a petty argument we had had not long ago. We’d screamed at each other until our faces were red. Dick had made another of his misty-eyed comments to me about how many life lessons we had learned from my cancer treatment. Instantly, I’d wanted to slap him silly. We made up in the end—we always did—but no one won, and nothing, really, was resolved. In counterpoint, and as a form of self-torture, I imagined Giles Owita and Bienta holding hands before a meal. Their boys (as I pictured them) sat opposite. They all bowed their heads in prayer. Their house was small, but well kept. Roses magically bloomed at the door in all seasons. As they repeated their so-far-unanswered prayers for Lok, they remained generous of spirit, concerned for other people. I thought of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, where he instructed that we should “not grow weary in doing good.” The Owitas clearly did not tire of doing good. In fact, they took the time to lift two strangers, my struggling parents, to the tender mercy of God above.
Then I found myself wondering something. “Your Luo tribe has its own religion, true?”
Giles Owita seemed unhurried and relaxed, as if completely open to a teaching moment, even as our other projects waited. In fact, he looked pleased at this invitation to revisit the way of life he learned as a child. I brought him a bottle of water from the house and he paused in his work for a moment.
“Tribal beliefs are based on a reverence for ancestors,” Giles Owita began. “In our culture, the elderly, whether living or deceased, are revered. We’re taught that our ancestors live below”—he pointed to the ground—“and are our foundation. From this place, they offer special wisdom. If I were to dream about my father, I would not say I dreamed about him, but rather, that my father has brought a dream. Our ancestors are still actors in our lives, a source of wisdom and protection. Such dreams are shared with others in the village, with everyone giving an interpretation. In my father’s time, some food and drink would even be sprinkled on the ground before a meal. Given the state of medical care and the fact that disease and death are commonplace in our part of the world, it is considered an achievement to have reached the stage of life your parents have attained, Mrs. Wall.”
Like a concert pianist concluding the second movement of a flawless performance, Giles Owita lifted his hands from the leafy depths of the second azalea. As if on cue, a dull gray station wagon poked its dusty nose over the crest of Mount Vernon Road. It proceeded down the gentle grade in its usual painstaking way and the brake lights flashed repeatedly as if the vehicle’s shock absorbers were being tested.
Oh, my God. Not him, I thought.
“Don’t forget about that third azalea,” I prompted desperately, hoping to keep Giles Owita from noticing the dusty car and its irascible driver.
It was someone we all knew well and watched out for, the Reverend Gerald Jacks, a longtime widower. He was a Lutheran minister, retired, a neighbor from two streets over. His children, who lived away, had crept cautiously into town to give him a lavish eightieth birthday party several years ago, and then headed back to the West Coast, where they seemed to be hiding out. Their reticence was understandable, their father being one of those intimidating people who seemed destined to hold his power to the grave. His thatch of white hair took the shape of flames licking up from the pit of hell, and no one in the neighborhood had ever seen him without his thick black glasses. They magn
ified his unruly salt-and-pepper eyebrows and emphasized the harshness of his pale blue, peering eyes.
As the dusty station wagon crept along, the Reverend Jacks made a point to leer at Giles Owita. This rudeness happened just as I knew it would, and I felt responsible and helpless, all at once. Yet given how he’d responded to a similar insult from his manager at the grocery store, I wasn’t surprised when Giles Owita turned the other cheek with a respectful nod.
“He must be a relative of your boss at the supermarket,” I quipped halfheartedly. I noticed that Giles Owita’s eyes held a twinkle in response.
Reverend Jacks had truly tested my patience over the years. When our older son, Chad, was learning to drive, he was merciless in riding Chad’s bumper or tooting the horn to point out any small mistake. Far more unforgivable, he became the only person in the neighborhood who cast a menacing eye toward Phil’s young basketball teammates, especially those of color.
“Could you believe that when a pair of hedge clippers went missing from that man’s garage, the reverend called our house and asked me if any of Phil’s ‘colored’ friends had been around that afternoon?”
“Yes. I could believe,” Giles Owita answered calmly.
“I gave Reverend Jacks a piece of my mind, with no holding back,” I continued. “I called him a racist and a sinner, and asked him what on earth anyone would want with his rusty clippers. Later on, he found the clippers in the shrubbery, where he himself had left them when the sun became too much for him.”
Giles Owita clucked his tongue.
“At least he called to let us know,” I said as Giles Owita turned back to his work. “Perhaps I should give him credit for that. Growing old is an accomplishment, as you have said.”
“It is more difficult to contain our hurts when others are affected,” Giles Owita observed. “We are prone to speak out on their behalf, as you did for me, that evening at the store. That is a good thing, I believe. I certainly appreciated it, and told my wife about it. Such times can be lonely. There are times when no one is assumed to be a friend.”
“You must have had to confront that kind of bigoted, disrespectful treatment more than I can possibly imagine,” I said.
He gave a gentle shrug. “Most people are very nice, and the ones who aren’t, you can tell from the first time you meet them.”
At last he put the finishing touches on the third azalea. Then he pulled a white protective mask from the pocket of his work suit and slipped it on. His eyes shone brightly as he motioned that, for safety’s sake, I should step away. With Rhudy, I retreated to the top of the slight incline where I was content to sit on the grass, a safe distance away from where Giles Owita sprayed his chemicals. It amazed me the way he’d managed to find fulfillment in a world far removed from everything he most likely knew and loved as a boy. It was odd, but sitting in the grass in my own front yard, I felt a bit transported, too. My various lists seemed less important. What I needed was patience.
I tipped my face to the sky and breathed in deeply. Maybe it wasn’t just an excuse that Dick and I had been too busy with other things—such as raising our children and helping our parents—to care for our yard. Maybe we weren’t so awfully lazy as I not-so-secretly feared. Perhaps we were worthy people who were just a little scatterbrained. Perfect or not, in its present state, this tiny green slice of longitude and latitude was meant to be ours and had potential for beauty.
Perhaps it wasn’t too late.
I hadn’t thought so optimistically in a while.
My gaze fell on a single, promising blade of grass. Giles Owita was only slightly out of focus in the background. Maybe it truly was part of his mission in life, to work on each and every plant he encountered and make it healthier. And maybe that wasn’t so absurd.
What if this elegant Kenyan man with his knack for flowers was part of a larger plan for God’s work in the world? Would I dare to thwart that effort?
It was a stunning and sweepingly illogical line of thought. As I stood up to brush off my jeans, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the living room window. I looked pale, from overthinking things, most likely. Get a grip, I told myself. A man was working in our yard. He was interesting, thoughtful, pleasant to be with. I had made a point to show him respect. That was all.
After the promised tour of the yard, which turned out to be brief, Giles Owita and I agreed to let the azaleas bloom before discussing their fate again. Also, we planned to leave any notes for each other in the letter slot where he’d left his very first note to me. In parting, he promised to check his schedule regarding the pruning of my river birch.
But there was one more thing we needed to discuss, something that needed to be resolved. I turned to him. “Would you please call me Carol? Mrs. Wall sounds so formal.”
“You would prefer that?”
“I would, truly. You can call me Carol, and I will call you Giles.”
Giles smiled and looked past me, and in that moment I realized that he would never call me Carol, the same way he would never look me directly in the eye. The same way I would never strip myself naked and walk down the middle of our street. Such things just weren’t done in our cultures. Still, I hoped to convince him one day.
“Erokamano, Giles,” I said to him as we stood on the sidewalk in front of my house. “I have been practicing the pronunciation.”
“Wabironenore, Mrs. Wall,” he answered, and then turned to walk uphill to his car.
I went inside to my kitchen counter. I looked at the marble notebook and did my best to hold my breathing steady. From the windowsill, a small color photo of my sister Barbara smiled sweetly out at me. My nails were squeaky clean, but nonetheless I washed my hands, using a brush with stiff bristles to attack any grit or dirt that might have made its way into a crevice of my skin or underneath my nails.
I dried my hands on a clean paper towel and found a magic marker. GARDEN NOTES, I wrote on my marble notebook. I had much to learn from Giles, and I promised myself that I would write it all down so that I couldn’t possibly forget.
MONDAY
Dear Giles,
I hope you and your family have had a good weekend. I hate to make this type of request again, but could you possibly arrange to come for pruning of the river birch at a time when I can be present? If my van is in the driveway, just ring the bell. Or, if you know ahead of time, leave me a note here, per our agreement. I’m a little unsure of the shape I want and the degree to which I should curb the growth of that particular tree, so I hope it’s okay if I guide you in-progress. The librarian at school is helping me find a book on the subject, as I hesitate to approach Melanie or Sarah with requests for advice. As you know, it’s their busy season. I neglected to tell you that, long ago and with a rare burst of gardening enthusiasm, I planted the river birch myself. It was just after we moved into the house, a time when the tree was barely taller than the children. But, like my children, it has grown quickly, taking to the skies more or less without my permission, though I’m glad to see its roots have apparently sunk in deep beside this creek, where it seems to thrive.
I must admit the azaleas look better already. Sarah and I strolled around to the side of the house yesterday afternoon, and we were able to see the tips of their pink buds showing through the leaves. You’ll be glad to know that she encouraged me to listen to your advice, on all fronts, as you are “the best,” as she put it.
My prayers for Lok continue. Please always let me know if there is any news. Thank you for all your efforts, and be sure to leave your bill, from time to time. I look forward to working with you again soon.
Sincerely,
Carol Wall
WEDNESDAY
Dear Mrs. Wall,
My calendar is clear on Friday. Bienta and I have some business matters to attend to in the a.m., but I will check by your house after your school hours and will bring the appropriate tools.
&nbs
p; Lok’s case appeared to be nearing a breakthrough recently, but last evening’s phone call from Bienta’s sister in Nairobi (it was after midnight there) brought news of yet more entanglements with medical examinations, affidavits, and other paperwork. After so long a time has passed, some of the materials lapse out of date, and the process must be started again, with more funds due and waiting periods in effect. I am sorry to tell you that there can be corruption anywhere on the globe, and persons who are highly placed are often subject to temptation. A travel visa to the US is much coveted. Sometimes, even DNA tests are required to establish the applicant’s identity. We are in the midst of that process.
In any case, Bienta and I thank you for your prayers. She has always been very devout, and insists that, in any circumstance, prayers are needed even more than patience, more than funds, signatures, sworn statements, or anything whatsoever that a government run by human beings might be able to produce. As we “wait in joyful hope” for our daughter, I look forward to the pleasure of finding the best lines of your beautiful birch tree in among the overflourishing branches and copious leaves it has produced during the years of your children’s growing up. That day of cutting back will produce a clearer shape that will bring its own rewards. I will submit my first bill after that.
In closing, let me say that I am going to bring an extra pair of gardening gloves on Friday. Oftentimes, assistance is needed with larger garden projects, and I was delighted to hear that you will be on hand to help.
With best wishes,
Giles Owita
5.
Anticipated Blooms
A gentle breeze sifted through the branches of my backyard birch tree. Giles stood beside me, managing to look both serious and cheerful. His left hand grasped a pruning saw and pruning shears. I held out a clothbound book.
