The Garden House

by Linda Mahkovec

  “No – I’m late, actually.”

  Miranda glanced at the clock. “I didn’t know it was so late. I was just reading that book Paula gave me and getting some ideas.”

  “You look all fired up,” Ben said.

  “I am. I feel awake. You’re right. It’s time for me to make some changes, start making things again.”

  Ben smiled. “These are the kinds of dreams I like you to have.”

  She was about to object to his remark, but his warm smile told her that he was sincerely happy for her.

  Chapter 7

  Miranda drove home from the seminar filled with a sense of defeat. From the beginning, everything had gone wrong. She had arrived late because she couldn’t find parking and had to park ten blocks away. Then it began to drizzle, and unable to find her umbrella in the car, she had shown up damp and disheveled, and flustered from her rush. Then just as she made her way to a seat, bumping knees and apologizing, her phone rang, earning her a sarcastic reminder from the lecturer about house rules.

  Nevertheless, once the seminar got underway, Miranda enthusiastically jotted down notes on strategy, goals, and objectives. But when the subject shifted to market analysis and competitive analysis, operations and management, her eyes began to glaze over. At one point, she realized that she was sketching flowers in the border of her notebook. She crossed them out and tried to focus.

  After lunch, they formed breakout groups and began hammering out their business plans. Miranda was thrown when they went around the table and introduced their product or service. Unprepared, she said, “I make things. I recently sold a mosaic planter.” The group smiled politely.

  From that point, she felt outside the discussion, a spectator watching the other participants. Everyone was several stages ahead of her, clear about their goals, brisk in their calculations. Feeling both overwhelmed and discouraged, Miranda left the seminar early, her feet hurting, and more confused than ever about what direction to take. At the root of everything was frustration with herself, that she hadn’t planned her life better.

  When she arrived home, she caught a glimpse of herself in the hall mirror. The drab black suit and burgundy blouse looked awful on her, harsh and stiff. And it didn’t help that the speaker had worn the same colors.

  Miranda kicked off the shoes that pinched her feet, promising herself that was the last time she would ever wear anything so uncomfortable. How – and why – had she ever worn such shoes? They were almost as high as the stilettos the speaker wore, clacking about the stage.

  The suit was going to the Salvation Army, she decided, tossing it on her bedroom floor. Along with the shoes. She wondered why she had so quickly abandoned her resolution to be herself, to dress how she wanted, say what she wanted. Instead, she had sat through the draining seminar uncomfortable and silent.

  She pulled on her jeans and an old sweatshirt, took off her “office” earrings and set them on her dresser. She opened her jewelry box and looked at her vintage pieces. Then she lifted out a long strand of gray and gold crystal beads that she bought long ago. I should have worn them, she thought. And a spangled skirt. That’s what the woman by the pool would have done. She slipped the necklace over her head.

  While she boiled water for tea, Miranda called Clara. Then Michael. Voicemail for both. Just as well, she thought. What news did she have anyway? She left a message for Ben saying the seminar was not what she expected and that she had left early and was now at home.

  She looked out the kitchen window. The morning rain was long gone; sunshine filled the garden with a gentle, dappled light. All she wanted was to sit in her garden. She would take her tea out there, and do nothing.

  Her habit, when she felt far from herself, was to latch on to the things she loved: comfortable clothes, her pretty things, her garden. She reached for her favorite teacup – an antique with pink roses, green leaves, and dots of gold paint along the rim – and took out a tin of loose, black tea. She poured the water over the tea and let it steep until it was strong and dark, and then added honey and cream. Any idea of dieting and working out could just wait.

  Miranda took her tea out to the garden. The ground was still damp beneath her bare feet, but the bench with the little table next to it was dry. She curled up on it, and took a sip of the rich, fragrant tea. That first hot, sweet sip was always heaven. A sigh released from deep inside. Home. She was home and everything would be all right.

  She cradled the teacup in her hands. Preparing her tea with honey and cream always reminded her of the early days on her own, when she had moved to the University District and found the upstairs of an old house to rent. It had a small deck surrounded by tall bushes that bloomed over the railing – long arcs of purple butterfly flowers, white snowball bushes, melon-colored quince in the spring. She used to snip off the blooms and put them in vases in her kitchen and bedroom – sometimes even in the bathroom. That still seemed like the ultimate indulgence – fresh flowers in the bathroom. Ironic, she thought. Now that she had a garden, she rarely did that. Only when guests came. What had changed in her? When had she stopped living in that poor, but extravagant manner?

  Or had it simply been the excitement of having her own apartment that inspired her to live so richly? Though she never had enough money to properly furnish the space, and it remained largely empty, she had loved that old house. She sketched and painted the flowers she picked, and hung the drawings on the wall, so that even in winter she was surrounded with color and blooms.

  Little by little, she had added to her place. At a neighborhood thrift store, she found a charming wooden table and chairs set, and a dresser that she painted in a color she always thought of as seaside cottage green. From an odds and ends shop, she bought an old wrought iron mirror encircled with ivy; she then set a vase of peacock feathers in front of it, doubling the iridescent blues and greens.

  One day, in front of one of the beautiful old homes in the neighborhood, she saw a pile of furniture with a sign that read Free/Salvation Army. She carried home the black iron head-and-footboards and made another trip to get the bedrails. Then she spray-painted the bed gold and thought that it was beautiful.

  For the living room, she bought a Victorian floral rug that covered most of the floor. There was a worn spot in the middle, but she covered it with a small table draped in an old lace tablecloth – and was amazed at the transformation of the room when she set a vase of flowers on the table, and turned on the lamp.

  Those were lean days, going to school, working at various jobs – waitressing, the department store, office temping. But those were the days when she had discovered the little indulgences that made her feel rich, indulgences that she had taken with her through life: a pot of strong black tea, fresh flowers, long walks, hot baths. She remembered the walks through the neighborhood she used to take, over Ravenna bridge and down through the park. That beautiful park with paths crossing down to the bottom. Sometimes she would go there barefoot, in a simple sundress, and imagine that it was some sort of magical land.

  Probably not a good idea, she now thought. I could have gotten tetanus. But back then she was free-spirited, naïve, and romantic. With a shudder, she remembered how one afternoon, she caught a small movement out of the corner of her eye. She glanced up the hill, and saw that a man had been watching her, from behind a tree. On being discovered, he slowly slid back behind the tree trunk. The magic of the park had vanished that day, and she never went back there alone.

  She remembered carrying her laundry several blocks away, up and down the steep, slatted sidewalk. Miranda sipped the last of her tea and thought how hard it was back then. And yet she had found time to read and draw, to dance in the living room, to dream. What happened to that old self, to that open, wondrous way of living?

  She looked down at the dregs in her cup. Age had happened. Responsibilities. Creepy men in the park. The few friends she had back then, artists mostly, had moved away, or she had lost touch with them. When the landlord sold the house, she moved into
an apartment, and got rid of the beautiful old rug that she could never get the dust out of. Somewhere along the way, she had learned that the dust motes she romanticized about when the afternoon shafts of light poured through the living room windows, were actually dust mites – another illusion dashed. One by one, the dream bubbles of youth had vanished – either popping on their own, or floating away beyond sight.

  Now, here she was, fifty. The struggle and day-to-day difficulties of life were gone. She was grateful for the laundry room in the house, for her garden, for the comforts and beauty of her home. She had Ben to thank for that. Though money had always been an issue, they had managed. There had been some difficult periods, but they had gotten through them, and were able to give the kids a happy childhood.

  She looked out at her garden and could almost see the kids hunting for frogs and chasing butterflies, Clara helping her find sticks for her rosebud topiaries, Michael and his friends digging in the soil, picnics spread on blankets.

  So far away now, the kids. She missed their rambunctious ways, missed the gratification of fulfilling even their tiniest needs, missed listening to their stories and adventures, and encouraging their dreams.

  All gone now – her youth, their childhood. She swallowed and her vision blurred, and when she tried to set her teacup on the table, she missed the edge and it fell, shattering on the flagstone. With a gasp she knelt down beside it, seeing the pink and green and gold shards as a symbol of her life.

  “Good afternoon!”

  Miranda jumped up, unreasonably startled by William.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to – I seem to have a way of coming upon you by surprise.”

  Miranda couldn’t help thinking, well if you would make a little more noise. “Hi, William. I thought you were gone.” She turned away and used the neck of her sweatshirt to dab at her eyes.

  “No, I was just writing down below and thought I’d cut through the garden and walk to the park.” He hesitated a moment. “Is everything okay?”

  Miranda tried to laugh away whatever impression she had made. “Yes – just – thinking of stuff.” She didn’t want to talk about youthful dreams and missing the kids. “I went to a seminar and it didn’t go very well. I mean – it wasn’t what I thought it would be.”

  “Well, maybe there’s one that would suit you better. What was it about?” he asked tentatively.

  Miranda sat back on the bench and motioned for him to have a seat. She really just wanted to be alone with her thoughts, but William had such a gentle way about him, and so rarely initiated a conversation, that she wanted to welcome him.

  “I won’t bore you with the details. I’ve been thinking about – I’m trying to figure out what it is I want to do with my life, you know, now that I have a little more time,” she said, planning to leave it at that.

  “Do you have any ideas? What sort of things do you like?”

  “Well, part of the problem is that I really don’t have anything – any skill – that’s marketable. I’ve always been a bit of a dabbler. I didn’t finish college...” She let her words trail off, feeling that she was underrating herself, yet also feeling that it was the truth.

  “What did you study?”

  “Art. Art history. I thought I wanted to be a teacher. But…”

  “Would you like to go back to school?”

  She leaned her head to the side, and considered once again the option she had always decided against. “I don’t think so. Not now. I guess I should have earlier. Though to tell the truth, I was always a bit at odds with it.”

  William smiled. “School isn’t always the answer. The secret is to find what gives you the most satisfaction, the most meaning. Don’t you think?”

  “Yes, I do. I think that’s why this business seminar just didn’t click.” She looked out at the garden, as if pondering something. “I’ve been a mom for so long. That’s how I see myself. I keep drawing a blank when I try to remember what I was going to do with my life. I used to want – so many things. But I didn’t really follow through with any of them.”

  “Maybe you just need to find a way to reconnect with your earlier dreams.”

  Miranda turned to William, surprised that he understood. “That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking.”

  She looked back out at the garden. “The thing is, I liked being a mom. That’s something I was good at,” she said, her voice quivering.

  “There’s no reason you can’t be a mom and still do other things.” He lifted a leaf from a nearby bush and examined the front, the back. “Someone wrote that mothers are the caretakers of the world.”

  Miranda laughed. “You don’t have to glorify it for my sake.” She gave him a sidelong glance. “Isn’t that a rather old-fashioned idea for a young college professor to have?”

  “I don’t mean that women should be confined to the home – far from it. What I mean to say is…” He looked away.

  “What?”

  He shook his head, as if it was just an idle thought not worth saying. “Just something I was thinking while I was sitting down there in the garden.”

  “Tell me. I’d like to know.”

  He gazed down towards the lower garden, as if gathering up his thoughts from there. “Well, I was sitting – actually, lying there – in the hammock. It was so peaceful. The wind chimes ringing, the mild breeze. And I was thinking that in all my studies and teaching and research, in all the books I’ve read, there’s nothing that quite compares to the idea of home.” He turned to Miranda when he said the word home, as if referring to an abstract concept, rather than to something immediate and familiar, as it was for her. “I mean, it’s so simple and something we take for granted but…” Again, he let his words trail off.

  Miranda faced him, intrigued by what he was getting at. “Go on.”

  “What I mean to say is – there are a lot of beautiful ideas out there, but, at its best, the idea of home is hard to top.” He lifted his eyes to the garden and the house. “When it’s a place of refuge, a place of love and meaning where memories are born and nourished. When it becomes a part of you that you carry through life.” He became suddenly self-conscious and waved away the idea.

  Miranda looked down. Those were her feelings too, about home, the garden, family – though she had never thought about them in that exact way. They sat quietly for a few moments.

  William reached down and picked up a tiny pinecone from the ground and began turning it around in his fingers, examining it intently. “Last night, I was out walking. It was dark and drizzling. And I passed your house on my way back. The light was on. I heard laughter and the smells of cooking, and I thought: ‘How beautiful! How simple, and how beautiful.’ To be raised in such a way must make a person secure and hopeful, to be rooted in a place so full of meaning.” He stopped speaking and shrugged, and tossed the pinecone back down.

  Miranda thought about his words and looked out at the garden. “You know, as a mom, you spend a good chunk of your life raising your kids. You get so involved with their lives. Then, poof! All of a sudden, they’re gone. But if I’ve helped to create a place of home inside of them, as you say, that they’ll always have – well, that’s enough.”

  With a smile, Miranda remembered the home of her youth. “I guess I had that to a large extent growing up. We didn’t have much money, but there was always good food, music, laughter. I feel sorry for anybody who didn’t have that.”

  “Yes,” William said. “To miss out on and never know something so fundamental.”

  Miranda sat up and faced William, ready to fight against such an idea. “Oh, I hope not! Surely it’s never too late to create that place for yourself – at any age. Surely it’s never too late to surround yourself with the things you love, the people you love. To make new memories. Isn’t that a lifelong process?”

  William considered the idea. “I’m not so sure – ”

  They were interrupted by the sound of a car pulling in the driveway, and saw that Ben was home. />
  William rose to his feet. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get all philosophical.”

  Miranda also stood. “No, I’m glad for our conversation. You’ve made me see things from a different angle. You kind of validated everything I’ve been feeling.” She waved over at Ben. “Why don’t you come up to the house – join us out on the deck?”

  William picked up his notebook. “Thanks, but I need to run a few errands. I didn’t realize it was so late.” He raised his head in greeting to Ben, and then went back down through the garden.

  “Feel free to stop by anytime, William!” she called out, hoping he didn’t think that now Ben was home, she was no longer interested in talking with him.

  She walked up to the house and met Ben just as he was coming out of the garage.

  He gave her a quick kiss and lifted the antique strand of beads. “Interesting look,” he said, causing Miranda to laugh. “So the seminar wasn’t what you thought it would be?”

  “No, it wasn’t. Though I have to say, it matters less after my conversation with William.” She looked back at the garden, seeing everything differently. She had lost sight of some of her earlier dreams, but the essence was still there, an integral part of her life.

  “It looked like you were deep in conversation. What were you talking about?”

  “Nothing in particular. But he really lifted my spirits. He’s such a nice guy.” She linked her arm with Ben’s. “Come. I’ll get dinner ready and tell you all about it.”

  They sat out on the deck and over dinner Miranda related some of the advice William had given her. Then she described the disastrous morning, how it had started with arriving late, the rain, and then her phone ringing.

  “Sorry,” Ben said. “I thought you said it started at 10:30.”

  “I thought it did. I must have read it wrong.”

  “Well, there will be other seminars.”

  “I know. That’s what William said.”

  Ben couldn’t help feeling slightly put off. It seemed that William had a sudden, and unearned, influence over Miranda.