The Unfinished Garden (30 page)

He raised his hands as if to fend off approaching danger and
curled his fingers into talons. But Tilly didn’t flinch.

She grabbed his thigh and squeezed hard. “Whatever foxhole
you’re diving into better be big enough for two, because I’m coming in. You’re
not shutting me out. Not this time.”

Fingers still rigid at the air, he began rocking. Back and
forth, back and forth. “The plane, the plane crashing. Crashing and exploding.
Fire, fire everywhere. Flames. I was burning. But that wasn’t the worst part.
The worst part was knowing that you couldn’t hear me calling your name, knowing
that I would die without tasting you, knowing that I would die without hearing
you cry out in pleasure that I had given you. Me, not David, not Sebastian. Me.”
His voice cracked. “How could I face death terrified that you would never love
me?”

Without warning, he thrust himself at her. His mouth—cold,
hard, impenetrable—crushed her lips into her teeth and the force of his kiss
jammed her head into the headrest. She squirmed, desperate for air, and he fell
back. A thread of saliva joined them for a second, then disintegrated.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

Tilly touched her throbbing lips. No one had ever hurt her with
a kiss before.

James grappled with his T-shirt and started rocking again.
“People think OCD is a joke, Tilly. That we’re screwy because we line things up
in the fridge. They have no idea. No idea what it’s like to be haunted by your
own thoughts, always running but never escaping. Of being so exhausted by the
effort of dragging yourself through the checking, the rituals, the fear, that
some days you don’t think you can make it. I can’t get off the ride, Tilly, I
can’t. As a child, nightmares filled my days. At eleven I couldn’t go to a
movie…I was convinced the theater would burn down with me trapped inside. At
fifteen I thought every man I met wanted to rape me. At sixteen I believed
I
was the rapist. By seventeen I was so stoned I no
longer cared. Then I learned to hide my fears, learned that people wanted to
glide by, their lives uninterrupted by my darkness.
My
darknesss, the horror of
me.
” James
closed his eyes. “I’m frightened of life, Tilly, of death, of love. And failing.
I’m a failure. The OCD is right. I’m a failure.”

He had knotted his hands together, but Tilly pried them apart
and held one against her face. A long sigh leaked from his mouth and his fingers
molded to her cheekbone. For a moment she forgot who was comforting whom.

“Why, my love?” she said. “Why are you a failure?”

“Because I can’t plant one fucking plant. The OCD is telling me
that I’m a failure because I left before you showed me how to plant. See how it
adapts, how it contorts and perverts? It used to tell me not to garden, that if
I did I would die. Now it’s saying I’m a failure because I didn’t conquer my
fear.”

“Okey-dokey.” Tilly returned his hand to his lap. She started
the engine, and they shot across the road in a squealing U-turn.

“What are you doing?” James’s voice was weak.

“What are
we
doing. We started this
together, James, and we’re ending it together. We’re going to the Hall and
staying until you’ve buried your hands in dirt. This is my gift to you. And
you’re not leaving without it.”

* * *

Tilly crouched behind James, swaddling his body. Her
legs gaped around his thighs, and her right arm rested along his like a snake
sunning itself. One hip was numb, the other had begun to cramp, but she couldn’t
risk moving. Not yet. They inhaled in unison and she wound her bare fingers over
his gloved ones, tightening her grip until his hand was clamped to the trowel.
Before he could exhale, her hand sprang, shoving the trowel deep and then
yanking it free with a scoop of soil. He breathed hard, each inhalation rattling
through her body, and then he began to quiver. Small tremors in his hand at
first, but as she forced him to dig a second and a third time, his entire body
convulsed.

He mumbled an incantation, but Tilly didn’t listen. She
filtered out the world around her—his voice, the birdsong, the peaty smell of
earth, the dying sunlight heating her shoulders. She blocked it all and
visualized her border up by the road, the garden that had given them both hope.
The garden she had created out of grief, out of a need to find order in
chaos.

She would not lose focus, she wouldn’t doubt they could do
this. James had talked about being trapped in a burning building. Well, he
wasn’t staying in there alone.

She reached for the nicotiana plant, shaking potting soil from
its roots. Then she placed it in his gloved palm and cupping his fingers from
underneath, fused their hands into one. Together, they eased the roots into the
hole, brushed loose soil around them and waited. Only one task remained, a task
she could complete in seconds, without thought. But those seconds could stretch
into a lifetime of horror for James. Was this how a field surgeon felt operating
without anesthesia?

Tilly held her breath. She had coached James, prepared him for
what would follow, but could she inflict that much pain on another person? Could
she force him to touch, to feel, to confront the one thing that terrified him
beyond all reason? She could never pet a snake. Hell, she couldn’t even pick up
a worm.

Part of her wanted to reassure him, tell him he didn’t have to
do this. But that would be a mistake. If she retreated now, she would skew his
story to fit her point of view, to see his path through her eyes. And that was
shortsighted and wrong. She knew what James wanted and the role he hoped she
would play. He’d told her as much every day since they’d started work in the
garden, just as David had done with the living will. All those years, she had
understood what David expected of her if the unimaginable happened, and when it
did, Tilly had known instinctively what to do. As she knew now.

You can do this, James. I know you
can.

James released his fingers, like a coil snapping free. But she
was quicker than he was. Throwing her weight against his back, she grabbed his
right wrist, clamped down, and with her left hand, yanked off his glove.

He gave a strangled cry, more animal than human, but Tilly
refused to stop. She shoved his palm into the soil and held it there, pressing
the plant into its new home, forcing James’s exposed skin into the soil until
she was convinced he had left his mark.

“We’re done,” she said, and let go.

He collapsed into her, and her bottom smacked onto the gravel.
A shockwave of pain ran up each vertebra, but she held on as he juddered into
her—from relief or tears she didn’t know and didn’t care. His accomplishment was
their accomplishment; she felt it in every muscle.

She tugged him closer, gripping him to her chest, and closed
her eyes until she could see neither the past nor the future, just the
present.

* * *

“This is better than sex,” James said. He and Tilly had
shared something more intimate than making love, and when he was dying, this was
the moment he would retreat to. This was the moment he would hold on to as his
last spark of consciousness. This was the reward for three hours of
planting.

“The orgasm of gardening?” Tilly smiled. “I like that.”

“You knew all along I could do it, didn’t you?”

“Failure wasn’t an option.” She chinked her beer bottle against
his. “Besides. You overcame your fear of holding hands to help me at the
hospital. You got on two planes—”

“Also for you,” he said.

“The cause doesn’t matter, only the result. You really are the
bravest person I’ve ever met. I think you’re incredible.”

Her leg flopped against his, and James draped his wrist across
her knee. Everything he did with this woman felt so right, even if it was just
sitting side by side on a mossy path, legs pulled up as the two of them leaned
back against an old stone wall. And tonight they were bathed in the nocturnal
perfume of the nicotiana that he—he!—had planted.

James sipped from one of the bottles Sebastian had brought
them, but even warm beer couldn’t poison his euphoria, the incandescent joy
exploding inside. He had never experienced feelings this pure. Never. Is this
how it felt to be happy, to live without fear? Had normal finally entered his
repertoire? As if.

OCD would always shadow him; he wouldn’t delude himself about
that, but today he was victorious. Today, he had learned that he could wrestle
fear into a corner and keep it there. Today, he had learned that he could take
control of his life; he could win. And if he’d done it once, he could do it
again. This time, repetition really was the answer.

After thirty-five years, he’d also learned he didn’t have to do
this alone. He took another sip of beer and forced himself to swallow. “I hate
warm beer,” he said.

“I just hate beer.” Tilly took a long gulp.

“Sebastian didn’t know that?”

“I guess he did—once.” She picked at the label on her bottle.
“How quickly men forget.”

“I won’t, Tilly.” James’s head lolled against the wall. God
Almighty, he could never forget a single thing about Matilda Rose
Haddington.

“No. I don’t suppose you will.” Tilly inhaled. “Mmm. Smell
that? It’s the Gloire de Dijon, that buff-colored rose.” She pointed with her
bottle. “Isn’t it fabulous?”

Tonight was fabulous. His whole life had been leading up to
this scene of quiet celebration. There were no fireworks; there was no
champagne. There was dirt, warm beer, the scent of roses and a man who was
deeply in love. James had always worried that the best part of himself had died
with his mother, but Tilly had proved him wrong. Just looking at her, he knew he
could love as fiercely as his dad had done. He, too, was capable of sacrificing
his own happiness for that one person who meant everything. And he would. Tilly
had visited hell for him, and he wouldn’t ask for a repeat performance. He was
going to let her off the hook. Set her free. But not without a proper
thank-you.

James jumped up and used his wrist to brush the hair from his
face. “You are, without doubt, the best. Up.” He tugged her to her feet. “Since
we met you’ve asked me for only one thing, and I denied it.”

“A lift to the breast clinic?” Her smile flickered. Clearly she
was unsure of where he was going. God Almighty, she was beautiful. No makeup,
her hair a mess, a froth of beer on her upper lip.

“Other than that.” His arms slid around her waist, and he
sighed. He had held her once and it had felt so good. Twice was even better.
“You asked me to do something that I’ve fought against since I was ten years
old, since fear hijacked my life.

“You asked me to willingly live in the moment.” He bent toward
her. “To enjoy doing so.” Her body stiffened. She snatched back her head and
stared up at him, but he continued. “You asked for a kiss that led nowhere. A
kiss without expectations.”

Her chest was moving rapidly. “James,” her voice squeaked. God,
she was adorable. “You’re on a roll. You need to keep going, get on that plane
tomorrow. If you don’t, the OCD wins. A kiss will only complicate things, for
both of us. I—”

He shushed her then stepped back. There would be no
rationalizing, no listening to doubt. There would be nothing but instinct. “You
talk too much, and I think too much,” he said. “Enough. I want to meet you at
eye level. Jump.”

She did, and he caught her. She weighed so little. Not much
more than air. Slowly, she raised her eyes.

“Why are you trembling?” he said.

“Why aren’t you?”

“Because…” He paused. “I’m at peace.”

She wrapped her legs around his hips, and he tightened his arms
under her.

Would it be a first kiss or a last kiss? And did it matter? He
knew only one thing: He wanted to live in the moment. Their moment. He didn’t
know when he would see her again; he didn’t know if he would see her again. He
would slip her a scrap of paper with his cell phone number and his son’s address
and that would be his only concession. The rest was up to her.

Sometimes you had to take what life offered. Sometimes you had
to dare yourself to be happy and damn the consequences. And sometimes all you
needed was a kiss.

She pulled herself farther up his body, and he smiled as his
lips stroked hers.

“If we do this, how can I let you go?” she said, and he felt
the vibrations of her words.

“You will. And you’ll find me again, when you’re ready. Take as
long as you need.”

He swallowed her breath and tasted hops and the sweetness of
ripe strawberries. He whispered her name, even though he longed to scream it
into the night.

For this woman, he would get it right. For this woman, he would
be the person he always wanted to be: the son his dad could be proud of.

Chapter 30

Tilly ignored the scrabbling as Monty interred the
decapitated rabbit he found earlier under the raspberry canes. She bent down and
picked up a tuft of rabbit fur—soft, white, pure—and nudged it around her palm.
There was no blood, no hint of violent death. Strange, how deceptive the outward
face could be, how easy it was to look at a place, a person, and see what you
wanted to see. A garden, for example, might appear to be a gentle place of
harmony, but while you weren’t looking snakes gulped down frogs, praying
mantises hoovered up insects, and foxes munched the heads off baby rabbits. And
a man like James might appear successful and confident, but inside he was
battered and torn, a well-kept secret.

Rooks flapped on their way home to roost, marring the
robin’s-egg sky, and undernourished apples that had tumbled before their time
crunched and splattered under her clogs. Tilly stepped sideways, grinned and
stomped on another faller. Squelching apples was way more fun than jumping into
puddles.

Apples meant Halloween and Isaac’s favorite time of the year.
And then they would roll from one holiday to the next. Maybe this year they
would stay home for Thanksgiving, instead of schlepping up to New York to be
with David’s sister. And maybe they would have a Hanukkah tree decked out in
blue lights and dreidels. Maybe they’d start some new traditions this holiday
season. Maybes were good. She liked their promise of uncertainty.

Tilly circled the lilac tree and dialed. Finally, a connection.
She’d forgotten how little patience she had for the frustrations of life in
Woodend and poor phone service was top of the list. She flopped to the grass,
her heart beating so hard she felt each pulse in her throat.

“Sari, it’s Tilly! I’ve—”

The answer phone screeched, and Tilly jerked the receiver away
from her ear.

“Tils! Hang on!” Sari yelled. “I was about to call. Phone and
power back on within an hour! Jesus, I’m so excited I could lose my
Ann Coulter Eats Babies
bumper sticker and not bawl.
The house is fine, greenhouse—not a scratch. Garden’s a bit flattened, but
nothing you can’t fix. It’s so good to hear from you.”

Tilly smiled. “Is everything okay with Aaron, the boys? Your
house?”

“All tickety-boo, as you Brits say.”

Tilly knew what was coming. She could hear it in what Sari
wasn’t saying. “The old oak fell, didn’t it?”

There was a pause. “Smashed into the studio, hon. But the books
are fine, which is a miracle. And Aaron clambered up on the roof to secure a
tarpaulin.” Sari sighed. “My hero.”

Balancing the portable phone between her shoulder and her
cheek, Tilly yanked a Biro from behind her ear. Then she fumbled in the back
pocket of her jeans for a small, spiral notepad. Damn, her first to-do list. How
grown-up was that?

“Brilliant.” Tilly drew flowers down one side of the pad and
kept on doodling until there was no room left to write. “If a tree’s involved,
my homeowner’s insurance will cover it.”

“Tils? You’re scaring me. You’re still coming home, right?
Because I’m a sneeze away from going postal. I need a hot stone massage and
serious shoe retail therapy. Hey, want the kids to box up the books, move them
to the house?”

“No, thanks. I’ll deal with them. It can be my exposure.” She
was using her James language, words that made sense.

“Sorry, hon. No idea what you’re talking about.”

“I’ve made a decision.” Tilly chewed the end of the Biro. “I’ve
studied your five-year business plan and I agree about turning Piedmont
Perennials into a retail nursery with the studio as an office. But the plan
needs revising before I talk with the bank. You can start by contacting the
county planning department. Find out if we need to upgrade the site plan review.
Oh, and ask about parking.”

Sari gasped; Tilly continued. “I see mail order as a stage two
expansion. Mail order nurseries have a life expectancy of fifteen years, so I
want everything on solid ground before we throw in a catalog. Packing and
shipping plants? Dicey at best.” Tilly paused. “You can jump in at any
time.”

“I c-can’t. I’m in shock.” Sari sniveled. “What changed your
mind?”

Tilly slipped off her clog and fondled a clump of clover with
her toes. “I want this. And I can’t remember the last time I wanted anything
just for me.” She took a deep breath. “I’m selling David’s MG, too. Investing
the money in the business.”

“Now that’s a fucking smart move.”

Wo-oo-oh
a pigeon called from the
paddock, and Tilly’s mind drifted to James. She pictured him leaning against the
doorjamb at Manor Farm, watching as she walked backward to the car. He flicked
his mess of hair from his face, threw out a smile meant only for her and held up
his hand in a solitary wave. And after she pulled onto the estate road, she
turned for one final glimpse and realized he was watching the space where she
had been.

“And this has nothing to do with the cute James.” Sari’s voice
was heavy with irony, but quiet, as if she were thinking aloud.

Cute.
What an inadequate word to
describe James. Tilly turned the page on the pad, wrote
quote for studio,
and then dropped it to the grass. Suddenly, she
was cold. Freezing, in fact.

“He’s in love with you, isn’t he?” Sari said.

Tilly hugged herself. She was still reeling from the feel of
James, remembering his tongue gently exploring her mouth, then his lips, greedy
for more, moving down to her neck and her chest and back to claim her mouth. And
afterward, he closed his eyes and mapped her body like a blind man reading
Braille.

“Yes. He’s in love with me.” She was surprised at how
comfortable the admission sounded.
He’s in love with
me.
Tilly arched against the lilac tree. The bark grazed her right
shoulder blade, and she winced. Her back was wrecked from all the planting with
James, but the pain had purpose. It had led to the kiss of a lifetime, a kiss
she was glad she had waited for because in that one moment, she and James had
wanted the same thing—each other. “I’ve never met anyone like him, Sari. He’s
smart, quirky, compassionate, and he gets me.”

“Sounds like Aaron. Maybe we should make up a foursome one
night.”

Tilly stood and brushed off her jeans. “James isn’t going to be
around for a while. Right emotion, wrong time and place. But dinner…you and
me…might be nice?”

“I’d like that,” Sari said quietly.

“Sari, can I ask you a really embarrassing question? I ran the
washing machine yesterday without any clothes in. Have you ever done anything as
loopy as that?”

Sari guffawed. “Oh, hon. Wait till perimenopause. I don’t lose
the car keys, I lose the goddamn car. I reported the Passat as stolen from the
mall the other day. Turns out I’d parked by one entrance, exited from another.
Jesus.”

Tilly laughed. “Any chance you could pick us up from the
airport next Thursday?”

“You mean flight AA173, arriving at 4:10 p.m.? Already on the
calendar, hon.”

* * *

Tilly waited until the thrush began its dawn chorus and
then crept downstairs, avoiding the stair that creaked. In one hour she had to
wake Isaac, say goodbye to her mother and leave. But first, she needed to force
herself to do something alone.

Monty eyed her with suspicion when she entered the kitchen, but
rose and padded to the back door. She let him out and followed. Damp grass
tickled her feet, a pigeon cooed in the cherry tree and the air smelled of
lavender.

She would never return to Woodend. She knew that now. Sebastian
would move into the Hall and Woodend would pass to a stranger. And maybe that
was easier. A clean break with no backward glance.

Tilly ambled around the garden she had loved since she was a
little girl, committing every flower, every shrub to memory. She stopped to bury
her nose in the sweet peas, to stroke the Lucifer red crocosmia flowers, to
admire the spiky leaves of a huge acanthus, a plant famous for inspiring
Corinthian columns in Ancient Greece. She came to a small bed, half-hidden in
the shade of the summerhouse, and stopped. Matilda’s Rose Garden, her father had
called it, despite the lack of roses. Her mother had encouraged her to find a
sunnier spot, explaining it would be easier for a first garden. But Tilly had
refused to listen. She had set her heart on shade. Even as a child, she knew
what she wanted.

She practiced a few of James’s yoga breaths and then began
reciting words she memorized ten years earlier from Ecclesiastes. Words she had
last spoken at her father’s funeral:

“‘To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose
under the sun. A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time
to pluck up that which is planted.’”

And a time to go off script.

“A time to move on—” she turned around to face her childhood
home “—and a time to say goodbye.”