Chapter Fourteen
Dani
“Keep the seeds of your garden watered.” —Tanya
IMAGE SEARCHES ARE NOW MY BEST FRIEND. THE PICTURE on the postcard turned out to be a community center in Richmond, Virginia, called Legacies that Tanya and George started. According to an online article, George’s niece Janine now runs it.
Tanya’s secrets are really piling up.
It’s relatively empty when we walk into the community center, only a few kids doing quiet activities by themselves. The loudest voice comes from a grown woman coloring and singing as she sits with one of the kids.
A little boy looks up from his Lego Sonic set and yells, “Ms. Janine, somebody’s here.”
Recognition takes over her face as she jumps up, brushing her floor-length boho skirt before coming over. “Dani and Micah.”
I guess she was expecting us too.
Janine’s the spitting image of George, just with softer features. She has the exact type of face you’d want on someone who works at a place like this: warm and inviting. She can’t be any older than her forties, yet she has the aura of a sweet old soul, capable of melting away all your problems.
“I’m sad that Tanya waited until after she was gone to tell you about this place, but I’ve heard so many stories about you two over the years.”
Why had she kept it from us until she wasn’t here to share it herself?
Considering both of our connections to the rec center back home and Micah’s connection to Our Place, she had to know we’d love it here.
Then again, I know all about wanting to keep a little slice of heaven all to yourself, and this was the place she built with George.
“Nice to meet you, Janine. Sorry we caught you right before you close, but we can come back tomorrow,” Micah promises.
“Oh, you’re right on time. Follow me back to the house.”
I’m sorry, what?
“Oh, we don’t want to put you out. We can stay at a hotel,” I offer.
“Nonsense. Family stays at the house,” she insists.
A house, it turns out, with one guest bed.
Janine lives with her husband and their two kids, so there’s only one spare bedroom, which has exactly one bed.
She wouldn’t hear of Micah trying to sleep on the couch, so he’s having a good old laugh while I’m stuck staring at this bed that’s almost too small for the two of us.
“Dani. I can sleep on the floor if it bothers you that much.”
“No, no. I’m fine. I just wasn’t expecting this. Janine is very pushy.” Very pushy.
“Mhm. Okay then, are you coming to sleep? Because I’m exhausted after all that food.” Janine ordered enough takeout to feed an army, and she insisted we eat until I thought the buttons were going to pop off of my pants.
Again, very sweet. Very, very pushy.
Tanya is probably having the time of her life watching all this.
“It’s been hours since we ate and I still feel like I’m gonna explode,” I complain.
“Same, but her son was about to kick my ass for beating him in Mario Kart, so I think I’ll stay in here.”
Her son definitely has Janine’s pushiness. He demanded we play so many rounds with him that I thought my eyes would start bleeding.
I really hope we find this next clue quickly.
I climb into bed next to Micah, lying flat on my back, until I feel pillows hitting my side. “What are you doing?”
“You’re acting very shady, so I’m protecting my virtue,” he says as he adds another pillow to the wall between us. I reach over it and pluck him in the neck. “Aht aht, stay on your side, ma’am. The goodies are locked up tight.”
“Hate you.” I turn away from him and then reach back, grab a pillow from the wall, and slam it into his head.
He laughs so hard he snorts.
The lights have been off for some time, yet sleep hasn’t managed to find me yet.
“You’re a very loud thinker,” Micah’s voice drifts over the mountain of pillows.
Shit. I thought he was sound asleep. “Have you ever considered that maybe you’re just a light sleeper?”
“Considered it. Determined it to be a lie.”
I roll my eyes as I lean over to turn on my bedside lamp. “Okay, so why are you up listening to me think, then?”
He turns so his arm is resting atop the pillow wall. “Because I’m thinking too.”
“What are you thinking about?”
“Tanya. Does it bother you? That she kept so many things from us?”
I turn my body to face his. “It did.”
“But it doesn’t now?”
I shake my head no.
“When did that change?”
“When we gave John that car.” Seeing him enjoying Tanya’s first car with his family made everything click for me.
“I kept thinking that maybe Tanya didn’t think we were capable of handling the rougher parts of her life.
I thought some part of her must not trust us enough.
But when I saw the joy on John’s face, I realized that she trusted us the most out of anyone.
She knew that her death would start a collision course of all her different worlds, and she trusted us to help them navigate through it. ”
This gala is just as much for all of us as it is for her.
“Hmm, that’s a good way to think about it.”
“How are you doing with all the secrets?”
He leans back to look up at the ceiling, keeping his arm pressed against mine. “It’s not that she had secrets. It’s knowing that she carried them all by herself. No one should have to do that.”
He and I are on the same page there.
“I’m really glad we’re doing this together, Storm. It doesn’t hurt as much when you’re around.”
We lock eyes and for a moment everything falls away. All the pieces of our puzzle that don’t fit suddenly do and every jagged edge feels smooth.
“I feel the same way.”
He smiles as he grazes my arm before moving it back to his side of the pillows. “Good night, Storm.”
This new nickname he’s bestowed upon me always makes me think of the day we met.
Forced into quality time by Tanya’s meddling ways, we spent one unforgettable day together that bled into a night spent chasing down the moon in his car.
To this day I have never been kissed the way he kissed me that night.
“Good night, Moonchaser.”
I didn’t get a wink of sleep. Every time I moved, I thought I was going to fall off the bed. Micah, however, seemed very peaceful. How nice for him.
He stretches his arms in the air dramatically as he opens his eyes.
“Well, good morning, sleepyhead. Proud of you for staying on your side.”
Lack of sleep is a dangerous thing; it brings out the worst in you. I guess that’s why I find myself in a full-blown pillow fight with Micah.
“Hello? Have you lost your mind? How dare you strike me?”
“Hello? I’m gonna do a lot more than strike you.
You and this fucking pillow wall. Take these damn pillows off my side.
” I slap him repeatedly until he snatches the pillow from me and does it right back.
We go back and forth until he blocks one of my hits and the pillow flies across the room, knocking things off the desk in the corner.
“Look what you did,” Micah reprimands.
A glint of silver shines in the sunlight peeking through the window. I jump from the bed to pick it up. A trowel. And underneath the pillow are gardening gloves.
“Doesn’t it seem strange to you to keep your gardening tools in a bedroom?”
Maybe the seeds of the garden Tanya mentioned are more literal than we thought.
After showering, brushing our teeth, and getting ready for the day, we run outside to Janine’s garden.
“We can’t just start digging in someone else’s garden, can we?” Micah asks. It’s barely a garden. It’s more a patch of dirt. Not a single flower, fruit, or vegetable is growing here.
I’m ready to leave Richmond, so whether it’s him or me, somebody is going to get to digging.
He holds up his hand to hide from my murderous glare and then starts.
I wish I had brought some water with us.
It’s such a nice day out I didn’t think I’d need it, but I also wasn’t expecting to be subjected to Micah on his knees in nature with every muscle he has bulging out of his clothes.
Jesus, why does he have to walk around looking like that?
“Oh, I’m so glad this garden is getting some love.
I really wanted to have a green thumb, but I just don’t,” Janine’s cheerful voice rings in my ear.
She’s watching us from the porch with her head in her hands.
“The garden’s been so popular lately, I think I’ll leave it up.
Maybe someone else can get something to grow. ”
“Who was here last?”
“Oh, Tanya’s friend. Victor. He came by a few months ago and asked if he could plant some things for me. I don’t know what he planted, but I hope his blooms turn out better than mine usually do.”
“Victor was here, you say.” Micah’s voice is full of amusement. So, we know we’re on the right track.
“Dig faster,” I mouth to him.
“Well, didn’t you know that? He’s the one that said you’d be alright sharing that guest bedroom and bought Mario Kart for Charlie so that you could play it with him.”
Oh, now Victor has a sense of humor.
“Must’ve slipped my mind,” Micah responds.
Janine leaves us to our “gardening” and Micah digs faster, coming up empty. He sits back on his haunches and wipes the sweat from his brow. I would clean that sweat for him with my tongue if he asked.
Get a fucking grip, girl.
“I really do feel bad digging up Janine’s garden like this. We could at least plant some stuff for her,” Micah says.
“What do you want to plant?”
“Really?”
“What do you think I am? A monster? She thinks she’s getting a garden back here, so we should make that happen.” I’m not sure if they’ll survive, but we can try.
We take a break from treasure hunting to peek in the shed where Janine keeps her gardening tools.
She has an abundance of seed packets here ranging from vegetables like cabbage, carrots, and radishes, to early season flowers like daffodils and pansies.
We decide to focus on the vegetables and take a nice haul back to the “garden” with us.
While Micah gets back to digging, I search YouTube for tutorials on planting because I don’t know a damn thing about it.
Ting. Micah’s trowels hits something hard and metal.
There in the dirt is a lockbox that requires a code and a large key with a strange owl symbol on it.