The Road to Amistad

by Ken Dickson

THE GARDEN

  When I left Jessie’s condo that evening, I felt positively giddy, but the closer I got to home, the more uneasy I became. By the time I ascended the stairs toward my bedroom, I wondered how could I let that happen? What started out feeling perfectly right was, in retrospect, wrong in so many ways. Over the next few days, I resisted the urge to repeat the incident. I avoided seeing Jessie and spoke to her only once over the phone. During that conversation, I reluctantly agreed to meet her for lunch the next day.

  When she arrived, she seemed her usual self—the same disarming smile, healthy glow, and cheerful demeanor. As we ate and spoke pleasantly, I gradually fell under her captivating spell once more despite my best efforts not to. Fortunately, a timely text from Conner brought me back to reality as I realized that I was now facing the same challenge as other resilients.

  any news on the problem? He asked, still concerned about his subordinates’ inappropriate behavior.

  found a solution, but complicated. working with merry, I replied.

  hurry, things not getting any better.

  got it.

  I had in fact met with Merry, discussed the predicament, and laid out the solution that Jessie and I had brainstormed the first time that I visited her condo. He wasn’t surprised by the problem, but he was intrigued with the solution and began crafting a presentation for BRI immediately.

  The following Monday, January 28, 2013, I met with Conner and his team. They’d obtained permits in record time and were assembling a crew to survey the rugged road leading to Primera. Improving it was paramount to getting in equipment and construction material. At 2:00 p.m., I received a call. Expecting Beth, who liked to call me around that time to see how my day was going, I was disappointed when the display said “unknown caller” but picked up anyway.

  “Hi, Ken. It’s Emma.”

  “Oh.” She was the last person I expected—I hadn’t heard from her at all since we’d met at the botanical gardens months earlier. Nevertheless, she was first on my list of people I most wanted to hear from. “You just made my day.”

  “That’s nice. I was wondering if we could get together and talk.”

  “Sure. When did you have in mind?”

  “Could you come over for dinner on Wednesday?”

  By coincidence, Beth would be at a cabin in Munds Park with her girlfriends that evening. “Anything that was on my schedule is officially postponed.”

  “That’s funny. Is six okay?”

  “Perfect, but no later. I’ll be starving by then. I’ll need your address and a phone number—in case something comes up.”

  “Okay, do you have a pen and paper?”

  I retrieved a mechanical pencil and a sticky note from a nearby desk.

  “Shoot.” I wrote carefully as she dictated and then repeated it back to her to ensure that I’d recorded it correctly. Afterward, she provided directions. I was shocked to learn that she lived just down the street from my home in a development built around several man-made lakes, appropriately named Lakewood.

  “Thanks. I’ll see you then.” Thrilled with my unexpected good fortune, I immediately added her number to my contacts list, officially making her a part of my life.

  ***

  Emma’s home was an unremarkable single story with a tile roof the color of red coral and a fresh coat of khaki-colored paint over stucco. However, among the cookie cutter yards of Bermuda grass and Mediterranean palms, her yard stood out like a rose in a dandelion patch. Mounds of gold crushed granite and clusters of foothills granite boulders seemed to shout “We live in a desert!” Young saguaro, organ pipe, golden barrel and white bunny ear cacti drove that message home even further. Completing the desert theme, like an exclamation point ending a sentence, was something that I’ve rarely seen outside of a national park: a Joshua tree.

  However, a harsh desert her yard was not. An umbrella-like, multi-trunked olive tree near the street seemed to invite passers-by to sit a spell in its shade on the oak and cast-iron bench beneath it. The back of the bench was a desert scene with the word “Welcome” woven into its ironwork. I couldn’t resist taking a seat. I felt right at home there, as if the bench were in the middle of Primera. From it, I had a panoramic view of the neighborhood that couldn’t be beat. A minute later, I arose and followed a meandering natural flagstone walkway to the front door. On either side of the door, knee-high Talavera flowerpots filled with seasonal flowers provided an unexpected splash of color, completing the masterpiece. I pressed the doorbell and waited anxiously. Moments later, Emma appeared, looking radiant and clearly in much better spirits than when we last met.

  “Hi, Ken. I’m glad that you could make it.”

  “Thanks for inviting me over. I absolutely love your yard.”

  “I’m pleased that you noticed. The neighbors were aghast when I bulldozed the grass and replaced it with tons of rock and cacti, but once I finished, I was the talk of the street. I kept that big, old olive tree, though. It’s been there since the house was built.”

  “I had a feeling that you had a hand in the landscaping. You know, it kind of reminds me of the Desert Botanical Gardens.”

  “That was my inspiration. I started it right after we had lunch there.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I never thanked you for that, by the way. It was just what I needed. Please, come in.”

  As I stepped into her home, I noticed the Golden Retriever sitting rigidly in the tiled foyer, despite an obvious desire to do otherwise. “This is Cameron,” she said, patting his head. “Good boy, Cameron. Do you like dogs?”

  “I love them. I have several of my own. He’s very obedient.”

  “He wasn’t this well-behaved a few years back, but he’s mellowed with age. Okay, boy.” Cameron approached me, but the smell of my own dogs on my clothing quickly distracted him. I ruffled the fur on his head as he sniffed my pants curiously, wagging his tail.

  “Where is everyone?” I asked, expecting to meet her family.

  “My husband and I are separated. My youngest lives with him.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. I hoped that everything would work out.”

  “We’re still trying, or at least I am. It’s been a little one-sided since I stopped going to church. That was a big part of our relationship.”

  “I didn’t know that you were religious.”

  “Yes, a real Bible thumper. Sunday worship, Bible readings during the week, the whole nine yards. However, that changed when I did. Things I’d never before questioned no longer felt genuine. I became more uncomfortable with my religion every day. When I finally stepped back to catch my breath, I thought I’d experience a moment of clarity and return to my former perspective. Instead, I was relieved. I no longer felt a need for it.”

  “I know what you mean. I used to be very spiritual. I never joined a church, though. Never found one that suited me. I have read the Bible—some parts more than once. After I changed, I didn’t feel a need for any of it any more. I felt at peace.”

  “That describes it perfectly. When I quit going to church, the trouble started. Thinking that I might lead our daughter astray, my husband left and took her with him.”

  “That’s heartbreaking.”

  “I’m learning to accept it. Enough of that. Dinner is almost ready except for the noodles—we’re having spaghetti, by the way. Why don’t you join me in the kitchen while I start them?”

  She escorted me to the kitchen with Cameron close behind. As she poured the noodles into a large pot of simmering water and turned it up to boil, I asked her how her job was going. She shared some interesting experiences, careful not to mention patient names. I listened intently, mesmerized by her stories. “One patient in particular shuffles around all day with an apple in his hand. I haven’t been able to break through to him yet.”

  “I knew a guy like that at Pinecrest: Carlos.”

  “Pinecrest, too? You really get around.”

 
; “That’s not the half of it—but those days are over. I just had a reaction to medication.”

  “That’s good. I mean, that it’s over.”

  “You should try high-fives. I did that with Carlos every time I saw him, and I talked to him even though he never responded. Eventually, he came around. The day I left, he shook my hand and said, ‘God bless you.’ That was one of the best days of my life.”

  “What a nice story. You have a big heart.”

  “Hmm.”

  “What?”

  “What you just said about a big heart reminded me of someone else: Nick.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “He was at Gracewood, too. Don’t you remember him?”

  “Sorry, I’m not good with names. I work in all the units—too many patients to keep track of and they change all the time. I even had to ask a PA who you were after you left.”

  “He came in high as a kite on something and had everyone scared half to death with his threatening behavior. He’s not a guy you’d want to mess with—over six feet tall and built like a pro-wrestler. At least four PAs tried to talk him down from a healthy distance. He ended up being my roommate.”

  “That must have been challenging.”

  “You’d think so, but we got along splendidly once he came off his high. Nicest guy I ever met. Had a real heart of gold. We spent most of our waking hours together talking, playing basketball, and working out with towels and chairs. I even took up swearing—he had a foul mouth at times. I really enjoyed being a man’s man around him. I’ve never felt like that before. After four days, they let him go. I got together with him a few times on the outside after my release, but it wasn’t the same. I could tell he was heading down a bad path again. Then we lost touch.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “The last time I saw him was right before Christmas last year. He gave me a big-assed Christmas card—that’s what he called it. It was eighteen inches high and fourteen wide. I actually measured it. Right after that, the phone company shut off his phone and his landlord evicted him. He disappeared. I still have that card. Someday, I’ll find him again. I sure miss him.”

  “Have you ever tried to locate him?”

  “Just on the Internet. I found his mugshot on a website. The police pulled him over for DUI after midnight last New Year’s with his teenage daughter, a minor, in the car. To make matters worse, they found drug paraphernalia and an open bottle of vodka.”

  “I bet that cost him. I hope that you two meet again someday under better circumstances.”

  “I said that to you when I left Gracewood: ‘I hope that if we ever meet again, it will be under better circumstances.’”

  “Really? I don’t remember that. I guess you got your wish.”

  Just then, the noodles finished. She emptied them into a colander to drain. “Dinner’s ready. Would you mind helping me carry some of this to the table?”

  “Okay.” I picked up the salad bowl and a plate of garlic bread, and she brought the noodles and Marinara sauce.

  During dinner, we talked more about her family. I started again to mention the other people who I knew were working through similar issues with their families and then, on a whim, changed the subject. “I have a theory about people like us.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I think that without jealousy, envy and other negative emotions, we could be intimate with more than one person.”

  “That’s radical. What does your wife think of that theory?”

  “I haven’t mentioned it to her. It’s just something I’ve been contemplating.”

  “I can see it from a theoretical standpoint, but I’m probably the wrong person to talk to.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because of my conservative upbringing, I’ve spent the better part of my life steering clear of temptation. In doing so, I’ve discovered that friendships with members of the opposite sex can be quite rewarding when you avoid the complexities of relationships and marriage. Speaking of which, when we marry, we pledge to be faithful and committed no matter what. That’s why I won’t give up on my marriage, and despite how I am now, being intimate with someone else is the farthest thing from my mind.”

  “That’s a compelling viewpoint. You remind me of Beth.”

  “In a good way, I hope.”

  “She’s been through hell with me and keeps coming back for more.”

  “Sounds like an exceptional woman—someone worth fighting for.”

  “I hope to make it up to her someday, but so far, it seems that all I do is make things worse.” All of a sudden, I regretted going so far with Jessie and ever considering being intimate with others.

  “Every journey begins with a single step.”

  “Or perhaps, a giant leap in my case. You’ve given me plenty to think about. If you don’t mind my changing the subject, there’s something else that I’ve been dying to ask.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “After dinner, could you show me your garden that you mentioned at Gracewood?”

  “I can’t believe that you remember that. Yes, of course.”

  ***

  When we finished, Emma opened the French doors to her back yard and we stepped onto a freshly laid travertine patio. Equal in size to the desert front yard, the back yard was by contrast an oasis.

  “When my husband left, I went a little crazy. I invited my landscape pals back—that’s what I call them now—and we continued what I’d started in the front yard.”

  “You really did go crazy. This looks like something from a landscaping magazine.”

  “Everything but the garden, pool and Mediterranean palms by the lake is new. I resurfaced the pool with mini-pebble, retiled it with travertine, raised the beam wall and added scupper spillways, and replaced the coping and cool deck with travertine as well, continuing onto the patio.

  “I love the spillways and the rope accent separating the different sized tiles on the beam wall. What kind of tiles are those blue ones near the waterline? They look like glass.”

  “They are glass. It lends a sort of a splash effect, don’t you think?”

  “It does. I’d die to have a travertine deck like this. My cool deck is falling apart. You might not believe it, but I designed my own pool. That was a long time ago, almost fourteen years.”

  “Really? Isn’t it fun? I designed the front and back yards and did everything I could myself to save money. I contracted out the big jobs, though. I guess you could say I was the general contractor for the entire project. I loved doing it so much that I wished I could quit my day job. As it was, I used most of this year’s vacation time doing it. I saved a pile of money, though.”

  She led me past new wicker patio furniture, across a flagstone walkway and onto neatly trimmed grass. The garden stood in the center of the grass. It was round, about nine feet in diameter and enclosed by a two-foot high stacked-stone retaining wall. There were not dozens of flowers as I expected—there were hundreds. However, the flowers weren’t the first thing that caught my eye.

  “Oh, my, look at all the butterflies!” I recognized a few: checkerspots, tiger swallowtails, yellow sulfurs, but I couldn’t begin to name the dozens of small ones that flitted from flower to flower.

  “Aren’t they amazing? There were more, earlier. This is the last of them. They’ll be gone for the night soon. Did you ever wonder where butterflies go at night?”

  “I never really thought about it.”

  “They go to sleep, just like us. They hang from leaves or hide in the cracks of tree bark or rocks.”

  “You’re a fountain of knowledge.”

  “I don’t know about that, but I know a lot about flowers. How about you?”

  “I just know about landscaping flowers: lantana, oleander, bougainvillea, you know.”

  “In that case, let me introduce you to some real flowers.”

  I listened intently as she spoke. “These are Af
rican daisies and these pretty blue ones are delphiniums. You have to have pansies. These Chinese pinks are my favorite. I love their complex color patterns.” She positively glowed while showing me each type of flower, and I again relished the kindred spirit that I’d felt while working alongside her in the gardens at Gracewood.

  “I recognize those—snapdragons.”

  “Yes, and these are sweet William. As the seasons change, I replace some flowers with new ones so that I have blooms year-round.”

  “I can’t believe that after all this time, I’m finally getting to know you and see all of this. It’s a far cry from when we met.”

  “Yeah, it sure is, and it’s been a very strange journey from then until now, hasn’t it?”

  “You can say that again. It is great to come full circle and be right back at a garden with you, though.” I smiled at her, remembering when we first met. “Thanks for showing me this. I’ve wondered about it for over a year.”

  “I’m touched.”

  After she finished showing me the garden, she led me back to the flagstone walkway, and we followed it down to where it widened into a small patio by the shore of the lake behind her home. On either side of the patio, clusters of Mediterranean palms jutted from a burst of color provided by fire lantana planted in gold crushed granite around them. In the center of the patio stood an ornate oak and cast-iron bench similar to the one in the front yard, but its iron back was a garden scene replete with butterflies and hummingbirds. The word woven into its ironwork was Peace. Two, earthy-colored glazed ceramic flowerpots filled with flowers sat on either end.

  “Have a seat,” she said, pointing to the bench. I sat and she joined me. “What do you think of my yard?”

  “It’s magnificent. You certainly have a gift. I’ve landscaped a few yards, and they ended up looking like an engineer did it. Once everything matured, though, I was pleased. You have to think long term when you landscape. I love doing it. Working with the earth seems to recharge my soul.”

  She nodded knowingly.

  I gazed out over the lake. Directly ahead of us, a covered paddle-boat rocked gently against its moorings at the shoreline. Behind the boat, the view across the lake included the main peak of South Mountain with its dozens of red blinking lights warning air traffic of the many protruding radio towers.