Chapter 17
Sawyer
The sun shines overhead when we park outside Morgan’s chosen destination. It’s hot—Hollywood Hills hot. Over the door, the nursery’s logo depicts a child’s crib entwined with flowering plants.
I follow Morgan inside, starting to sweat immediately.
The place reminds me of Zach’s family’s store.
The enormous gravel parking lot leads into the high-ceilinged metal warehouse, where flora crowd the verdant space.
There’s a fresh hopefulness in the uncomplicated hues of the young leaves on each plant.
It’s ironic, I suppose. To commemorate and possibly help the dead, we’ve found ourselves in a place of new life.
We pass quick conversations and customers hauling heavy pots or packages of soil, heading directly through the space and out the back doors, where the sprawling garden extends in every direction.
Endless varieties of swaying stalks, low shrubs, and pinprick flowers combining in a kaleidoscope of green.
I notice how everyone seems to know exactly what they’re doing here.
Morgan is no exception. While she points out plants on the shelves surrounding us, I struggle to keep up with her observations.
Some plants will flourish on the north side of my yard, she explains, where there’s more sunlight.
Others should be tucked closer to the porch, where overexposure to sunlight won’t ravage them.
I feel some kinship with those plants. I don’t make this observation to Morgan.
Instead, I follow her unrelenting stride. I have six inches on her, but still I find myself struggling to match her eager pace. The exertion combined with the hot day has sweat prickling incessantly over my heating skin.
Morgan is unstoppable. It’s like being here has brought her to life even more. She seems somehow to capture the sun, radiant with light. I’m soon out of breath, and I’m not convinced the summer weather is solely responsible.
Suddenly, she whirls. “So?” she demands. “Which will it be?”
I stumble and halt. “What?”
Morgan presses her lips together, looking impatient. Her hair has started to come free from the clip on the back of her head. Her sunglasses reveal a shadowed glimpse of her eyes. “Which plants?” she says. “Were you even listening?”
My shoulders slacken. Is she serious? I’ve heard auctioneers less loquacious. “Morgan,” I start. “You—”
You belong among foliage. You love it here so much it’s infectious. You have a wild strand of chestnut-gold hair falling into your face.
I startle. Where did those thoughts come from?
“You talk really fast,” I say, recovering.
Morgan pauses to return the rogue strand to her clip. Seeming unsatisfied with her efforts, she releases the clip, letting her hair fall free.
I divert my gaze to the greenery.
“Sorry,” Morgan replies. She sounds, well, not sorry. “It’s just always inspiring being here. I wish I could plant everything. One day,” she muses.
“Do you have a garden of your own?” I ask.
My uneducated stare settles on the largest nearby plant—a cactus, limbs pointed resolutely up from the enormous round pot where the plant stands.
I imagine Morgan ensuring the spiny megalith receives just enough water, not too much, or pruning unwieldy growth to ensure the stalk stands straight.
Morgan laughs. “I have a concrete walkway in front of my apartment,” she replies. “I tried to put some plants out, and the landlord told me I couldn’t have them. Fire hazard,” she adds, sounding understandably dubious.
When she shrugs, I catch disappointment flicker in her expression. In the mere days I’ve known Morgan, one thing I’ve started to notice is how instinctually she fends off discouragement. Or hides it.
“It’s fine,” she insists. “I just like to look at them. That’s what’s so wonderful about gardens. They aren’t just for you, are they? You don’t have to own them to enjoy them,” she goes on.
She surveys the plants, her stare lingering on one with clusters of purple flowers under an awning. I don’t need to have known Morgan long to recognize her rapture, either.
“All your neighbors will get this gift. So if I design enough beautiful gardens and yards in the world, it’ll be like they’re mine,” she says.
Hearing her explanation, I can’t help huffing a “Huh.”
Of course, Morgan looks up, expectant. “Now what?” she demands, deadpan.
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
What I would say, if I wanted to share, was how I feel like I’m starting to put the pieces of Morgan Lane together.
I’m realizing she doesn’t just have commitment issues—no, Morgan doesn’t need much stuff when the stuff that brings her joy doesn’t have to be owned to be enjoyed. Gardens. Loud music. Mac and cheese.
New friends.
No, I’m flattering myself now.
Unsurprisingly, my nonanswer does not satisfy Morgan. She lifts her glasses to peer at me, questioning. “Nothing?” she repeats.
I hesitate. I don’t want to share what I’ve observed.
I don’t want to resurrect our conversation—our resentful, wounded accusations, which have receded into the shadows on this sunlit day—and even more than that, I know my commentary would come off as too intimate.
Morgan is someone who lives in my guesthouse.
If she becomes someone I know, someone I want to keep getting to know, she’ll be the first person in years who I’ve let in. I don’t know what that means.
So I divert. “Use my yard then,” I offer spontaneously.
Morgan cocks her head, not following.
“Pick whatever you want to plant most and design around that,” I elaborate. “Anything you’d enjoy seeing.”
Now her eyes widen. Her expression turns giddy. She may be evasive with disappointment, but she’s wonderfully open with her excitement. “Really?” she asks.
I nod firmly. “Really. You’re right. For too long my yard hasn’t brightened anyone’s days. I’d like to change that,” I say. “Starting with you. I want it to make you happy.”
Morgan takes in my words. Then she hugs me.
The warm impact of her surprises me. She smells like flowers. The corner of her sunglasses presses into my chest. She’s so—solid. So real.
For a heartbeat, I put my arms around her.
We both withdraw quickly. The moment has made me bashful, but I’m not expecting the same shyness on Morgan’s face. Smiling past pink cheeks, she shoves her hands in the back pockets of her overalls.
“I think it won’t just make me happy,” she says of my future garden.
“Of course. I’ll enjoy the view, too,” I assure her. Shit, if Morgan manages to capture half of her own relentless vibrancy in the palette of petals she uses on my home, I’ll have the loveliest yard in the neighborhood.
Morgan laughs. “I’d hope so. But that’s not what I meant,” she replies. Her voice softens when she continues. “I think it’ll make Kennedy happy. She built a dream home with you. It deserves better than a nightmare yard.”
I feel myself stiffen. The sunlight feels suddenly cold on my skin.
I guess my face falls, because Morgan instantly looks guilty. “Sorry. Sorry,” she repeats. “I just mean…it’s nice what you’re doing. That’s all. I’m not trying to reopen everything we said last night.”
I shake my head. “No, I know,” I say. “That’s not—I’d just…forgotten for a moment that that’s why we’re here.”
Feeling my throat thicken, I pull my gaze from Morgan, who doesn’t deserve to know how her kindness has wounded me. Instead, my eyes find the immense cactus, lonesome in the corner.
“I’d forgotten this should make me sad,” I confess.
The reminder is punishing. Everything, every fleeting hope and fond observation I’ve had this morning, is crushed under its enormous weight.
I shouldn’t be excited to see what Morgan does with the yard.
I should be mourning. Funereal veils instead of flourishing color. Planting the yard is moving forward.
I don’t want to move forward. I don’t.
“It’s okay to forget your grief for an hour,” Morgan replies gently. “It doesn’t mean you aren’t always carrying it. That it isn’t inside here.”
She reaches forward to touch my chest, then stops herself.
“She’ll always be with you,” she says instead.
I nod. It’s not not what I needed to hear. It’s just hard to content myself with consolation, even if consolation is all I have now.
Morgan offers me a comforting smile, then wanders off toward the plant with the purple flowers.
Suspecting she’s just giving me privacy, I don’t follow. I just stare into the bright sky behind her until my eyes water.