The Unfinished Garden (16 page)

“At least six times.” James grinned. “I like repetition,
remember?”

“I feel as if I’m the hero in that movie, constantly reliving
the moment I said—” Tilly shuddered. She was back in the room where her life had
stopped—listening to David slowly die.

“Your mind is stuck, like mine,” James said, his voice hushed,
the sort of voice you used in the middle of the night when everything around you
was quiet.

“No one can share what goes on in here.” He tapped his temple:
two fingers, two taps. “But if you’re lucky, you can find someone to help ease
the pain.”

With a deep sigh, he stood and stretched, his T-shirt rising up
to reveal the tattoo she’d glimpsed a few days earlier. A man who was scared of
everything had marked his body with a decorative, coiled snake. Why? Tilly tried
to draw her eyes away, but she was captivated by the white skin on his abdomen,
translucent against the black ink of the tattoo and much paler than the skin on
his arms and his face. She tried to picture James sunbathing on a beach,
listening to palm fronds clack in the breeze, but even in her imagination, he
couldn’t stay still.

“Tell me your story,” she said. “I need to know.”

* * *

He had tried to deflect the conversation from himself,
but she’d outsmarted him. How much should he tell her? What could he risk
exposing? How could he find words that didn’t scare her? James often imagined
himself trapped in a burning building where no one could hear him scream. But
Tilly was offering to reach in. Could he accept her hand? She had trusted him;
could he trust her? He picked at a small scab on the back of his wrist, and then
snapped his fingers away when he released a trickle of blood.

“You’re not turning bashful on me, are you, James?”

“I’m not good at editing my thoughts. I might say too much.”
And that was a terrifying truth.

“And bore me to death? Look around you…we’re alone in a forest
and I have nothing to do but listen. I told my mother and Isaac to forage for
lunch, that I’d promised the day to you.”

She’d promised the day to him. He didn’t dare look at her.
Didn’t want to see pity or horror. What he did want to see, he had no right to
hope for.

“It’s hard when you’re invested in the outcome,” James
said.

“But you’ve already made your impression, become a friend. The
rest is merely frosting.”

“Frosting?” He laughed, but kept his eyes lowered. If he looked
up, he might kiss her.

“Yeah. Sometimes it’s too sweet and you want to spit it out.
Sometimes it’s just sweet enough. Besides. I just told you something I’ve never
told anyone. It’s your turn to share.”

“I wish this
were
just frosting.
OCD is more like the basic ingredient of my life.”

“Would it be easier for you if we walked? We can go forward.”
She signaled with her arm, waving as if directing a jumbo jet on the tarmac. “Or
back. Even sideways. The choice is yours.”

What had he done to deserve friendship from this woman? She was
a karmic gift; she understood. He started walking, quickly, because the
alternative was worse than a kiss. His body was burning with need for her. Right
here. Right now. He couldn’t allow himself to slow down, or worse, turn and face
her.

A pheasant coughed and James strode ahead, his mind settling
into a rhythm that matched his gait. The shade grew deeper, the brightness
disappeared and the birdsong became less frequent. He drew strength from Tilly’s
presence, knew that with her behind him, he could speak words he had never
uttered outside a psychologist’s office. Still, it was, at best guess, ten
minutes before he talked.

“OCD creates fear in the absence of real threat. It bombards
you with unwanted thoughts and marshals your body to ward off danger no one else
can perceive. The cause may be an illusion, but the terror is genuine.”

That was pretty much his thesis statement, but where did his
story go from there? Should he start with his mother or with his father? And
then his memory stuck on the camping trip he and his dad took six months after
his mother’s death. It was supposed to be a beginning, and in many ways it had
been: the beginning of the end.

“A kid trips over a rotting log, says, ‘
Is
it poisonous, am I going to die?’
His dad laughs and says, ‘
Don’t be ridiculous, that isn’t poisonous.’
The kid
grabs at the reassurance and craves more, becomes locked in a cycle of
escalating fear, a belief that he
is
about to die.
But his dad sees only a rotting log. He loses patience, tells his self-absorbed
son to snap out of it. When that doesn’t work the father threatens, and
delivers, punishment. How long before this boy internalizes his fears and
transforms himself into a ticking bomb?”

“You were the boy,” she said softly.

James twisted around, using his torso to pin back a branch, but
he trained his eyes on the ground. When Tilly had passed, he resumed the
lead.

“Ten years old, split open by grief, yet nothing terrified me
more than my own thoughts, the uncertainty of what they’d tell me to do next.”
He sighed. “I masked my symptoms at school, but they exploded when I got home.
Dinnertime became a fiasco because I couldn’t stop washing my hands, and every
morning I missed the school bus because of my rituals.” Goodness, he could
summarize all that horror in one sentence? “I’m not sure Dad recovered from
either loss—Mom’s life or my sanity.”

“Dear God,” Tilly said. “How did you both cope?”

“He shouted, rescinded my privileges and retreated in Jack
Daniel’s, where he stayed. And I slammed into anything that gave release—the
speed of motorbikes, drugs, sex. I was casual with life, but for some reason I
survived.”

“Why do you twist your hair?” she asked. “I’ve been dying to
ask, but I was worried it was too personal. Sorry, I’m just curious.”

“Why apologize? Since we’re baring our souls here, I think all
bets on intimacy are off.” With every sentence he relaxed more. “It’s a
compulsion. The OCD tells me terrible things will happen if I don’t twist my
hair.”

“What things?”

“Irrational things.”

“Such as?”

“Catch cancer from you and die. Which sounds crazy, right?”

“No.” Her voice sounded like a spoken shrug. “So a compulsion
is a quick fix, right?”

“One as addictive as heroin.”
Keep going,
James. Keep going.
“Rituals start out small but become more complex
as the fear mutates. If you make a mistake, any mistake, you must start over.
Imagine how that translates for a kid struggling with homework. How can he
complete the assignment when he’s always checking, always erasing, always moving
backward?”

“How did you?”

“I was a straight-A student who never slept.” Shit, he didn’t
mean to turn and face her. Really, really didn’t mean to do that. But when she
smiled, he was pathetically glad he had.

Tilly put her hands on her hips and looked around. “I think
we’re lost.”

“No, I know where we are.” He wove his fingers together across
his neck and stretched. Nothing he had said—so far—had shocked her. “It’s good
to talk, Tilly. Thank you.”

A bird sang and her stomach gave a single, loud growl. God
Almighty, how could he be so thoughtless? It was way past lunchtime; she must be
starving.

“I’m sorry,” James said. “Once my brain starts tumbling I
forget everyone else isn’t on the same carnival ride. Let’s head back.” He began
walking again.

“Good plan. I’d hate to turn native and start eating
nettles.”

“You’re good at using humor,” he called over his shoulder.
“Laughter is a vital tool for diffusing anxiety. After all, the two are hardly
compatible, unless people are making fun of you. No one jokes about a broken
wrist, but you hear sniggers when you pick a dandelion with a handkerchief.”

“We didn’t laugh,” she said. “That day at Maple View Farm.”

“No.” He slowed, allowing her to catch up. “You didn’t.”

* * *

Tilly had a fleeting sensation, one long forgotten, of
relying on someone else to make decisions. Only minutes earlier she’d been
staving off the panic of being lost, but James had wheeled around with purpose,
and she had followed. She visualized him as a child, but shook away the mental
picture of a young boy alone with his grief. Unbelievable, she had just done
something James could never do: brush aside an unwanted thought. He was like a
person without facial muscles, a person marked by a difference few could
comprehend.

Despite the shade, the midday heat was building. She was eager
to hear the heart of his story and get back to the garden. What was driving her
impatience—hunger? Or was it the knowledge that her project with James was a
hiatus from life, a distraction, a conversation she had struck up with a fellow
traveler while stranded midjourney. It was a good conversation, but the kind
that never survived beyond baggage claim. After all, when you cared about
someone, you couldn’t rush the learning. It took ten years of watching David
with books to notice, in the last week of his life, that his lips moved when he
read.

James strode ahead, his shoulder-length hair licking the neck
of his figure-hugging T-shirt.

Tilly swallowed. “OCD must be hell on relationships.”

He hesitated. “By the way, you should warn Rowena that I’ve
reorganized her toolshed.”

Well, that wasn’t the answer she’d expected. In fact, it wasn’t
an answer at all. “She doesn’t have a toolshed.”

“She does now.”

Tilly laughed. “So you’re really a Virgo with a bit of extra
umph.”

“You’re a Virgo?”

“God, no. I’m organizationally impaired. Surely you’ve guessed
that by now. No, Sebastian’s the Virgo. Anal as they come. Even in school his
study had to be just so. If you picked up a Biro and didn’t return it to the
exact same spot?” She slashed a finger across her throat and made a gargling
noise.

James trailed his fingers behind as if reaching for her, and
Tilly almost skipped with joy. But when she leaned forward, he slipped his hand
into his pocket.
Oh.
Poor man was probably just
stretching again, or maybe she was hallucinating, thanks to hunger and heat.
Anyway, he didn’t hold hands. Tilly sighed. How she missed the everyday touches
of a life shared.

James spun around, and Tilly jerked back. “Is Sebastian ancient
history?” he said.

Why did James do that, ask questions that cornered her?

“I don’t know.” Tilly looked away, a flotilla of tiny black
thunder flies the only witness to a blush that rose up her neck and wrapped
itself around her cheeks.

“What about women?” She turned with a burst of brightness.

“What about women?” He smirked.

“Oh, you know.” Tilly put on her ditzy voice, the one that was
so useful when she wanted to hide. “Partners, lovers. Women—or men, if that’s
your fancy.”

“No men, sorry to disappoint. I’m boringly heterosexual. But
there have been a great many women in my life. Too many.” The laughter in his
eyes vanished. They began walking again, abreast this time. “Starting
relationships was never my problem. Keeping them was the challenge, and not
because of my compulsive behavior. My problem was the one my dad accused me of
as a kid. Being self-absorbed.”

“As a workaholic? Building your internet empire?”

“No, that came easily. I’m a stereotypical overachiever. Enough
is never enough for me. But once you start running, leaving others behind, it’s
hard to stop.” He flashed her a look. Was he talking about himself or issuing a
warning? “I’m determined to change that. With a garden.”

“But how?” Tilly heard restraint in her voice. She felt as if
she were sneaking up on a rare creature, one easily startled.

“I’ve been reading about exposure therapy, when you expose
yourself to your fears, starting with the smallest. Unfortunately, I don’t
function that way. I have to aim for the top.” He hesitated. “Gardening is the
main trigger for my obsessions. It’s the key to everything.”

“I mean no disrespect, but gardening is pretty benign.” Tilly
ran her fingers up the velvety flowers of a solitary foxglove, standing rigid
amongst the bracken. How she loved wildflowers. The ninth circle of hell was, in
Tilly’s mind, reserved for wildflower pickers. What was it her father had said,
that cut flowers smiled, but flowers in the ground laughed?

“How can anyone be frightened of gardening?”

“There’s no logic to OCD, Tilly.” James’s voice was flat, his
patience worn. “You conquer one fear…another detonates in your face. There’s a
viscous lump of anxiety inside me waiting to stick to anything I pass. I see
mold on a tree—it’s anthrax. I hear an alarm—it’s warning of nuclear war. I look
at a garden—I see cancer.” A twig snapped under his foot. “I see my mother
digging frantically, turning the soil with her handheld fork while my father
explains to me that she’s dying. And as she becomes sicker, and her garden
withers, I feel cancer breeding in the soil, destroying her life and ours. Dirt,
Tilly, is my greatest fear. I’m forty-five and terrified of dirt.”

He gave an uncertain smile.
He’s gauging
my reaction,
she thought,
like Isaac does when
he’s desperate for my approval.

“I’m a gardener who’s terrified of worms. How ludicrous is
that?”

He sighed, she assumed from relief, and continued talking. “I
thought I had broken the cycle of anxiety. I distanced myself from my father,
stumbled into yoga and threw myself into work, never allowing time for my
thoughts to catch up.”

“But something happened,” she said, “to upset the balance. Am I
right?” Oh crap, where were they going with all this?

He nodded. “Eighteen months ago my father died. We were
estranged, but his death brought back a rush of issues, issues I need to face.
Once again, my mind is under siege, haunted by images of dirt beneath my
mother’s fingernails, dirt she scrubbed off potatoes, dirt she trekked into the
house, dirt—the conductor of disease and death.” He stared at his hands as if
they had betrayed him. Then he reached up and tugged on his hair.
“Cognitive-behavioral therapy has helped, but it moves too slowly for me.”