Vera
Our table is laden, rich with flavor, color, aroma. The large sideboard in Agnes’s generous dining room is covered from end
to end with platters of meats and cheese, fruit and salads. There’s Ana’s famous cassoulet, and the creamy, rich quiche that
Iggy brought. Potatoes au gratin and a sliced ham from Timothy.
This house that has stood empty for so many years is full of life.
Out in the yard, the kids run around, filled with the exuberance that can only be felt outdoors, in nature, after doing work
that seems like a chore and suddenly becomes the only thing you can imagine yourself doing with your day. Coraline has Noah
in a harness on her front, having taken him from Iggy as soon as they arrived. The baby smiles, overjoyed to be in the company
of the big kids—Ethan and Autumn, Dahlia and Grant. The sun shines on them; they all take the fresh spring air into their
lungs and their souls.
Ana and Iggy are in the kitchen. Timothy and Brad are carrying chairs into the dining room so that everyone has a seat at
this table, set with Agnes’s best stoneware and old silver, decorated with fresh greenery and votive candles.
We’ve spent the day tending the garden, readying for the fecund summer, when the earth bears all her gifts. Those that heal. Those that might harm. Many could do either, depending on the dose.
Iggy is still fragile, still struggling with her recovery. But when I look at her, I only see joy. When we discussed punishment
for April, Ana wanted her to pay the ultimate price; considering what they had planned for us, it was not unreasonable.
But it was Iggy who called for calm, for mercy. She reminded us that April was a broken person, harmed by her own mother.
That Lisander believed I was guilty of murder—Paul, Agnes, and my father. She thought she was doing the right thing by asking
me to take the cure.
I remember how Agnes loved her. So there has been mercy for Lisander, as well.
Outside, I see them both—Lisander and April—making their way to the garden in their beekeeper suits, like I used to watch
Agnes so long ago. Camille and Bree accompany them, carrying tools. They all work for me now.
“How can you stand the sight of them?” asks Ana.
“I feel sorry for them. I think they really believed that I was guilty of crimes that deserved the cure.”
Ana shakes her head. “Lisander has always been jealous of us. She wasn’t just dishing out justice. She wanted revenge because
she never forgave us for taking her place in Agnes’s heart.”
“Maybe.”
“How can you trust them?” Ana asks, still glaring at them as they disappear inside the garden.
“I don’t trust anyone,” I say, shooting her a grin.
Ana frowns. “They didn’t deserve your mercy.”
“Everyone deserves mercy,” I say. Well, maybe not everyone.
She pushes out a laugh. “Tell me that when they come for you in the night. Or poison your tea.”
Lisander and April have both have asked for my forgiveness and sworn to serve me and The Cove in whatever way I deem necessary for the rest of our days.
I have found work for them. And, so, it is.
I know how complicated motives can be. How something we do to protect ourselves might look like murder, or how sometimes violence is the only answer.
“Did you kill Agnes?” asks Ana, making her voice soft.
This is a question that has sat unspoken between us since the Wolf Moon.
The first strong feeling I remember experiencing is anger. Ana and I were small, I’m not sure how old. But I found myself
huddled in my closet with my little sister, while Mac and Sadie rowed outside our door. What were they fighting about? Who
hit who first? I don’t remember. What I do remember was realizing that what we were forced to witness and endure was wrong.
The light came in through the slats and Ana shivered under my arm.
“It’s okay,” I told her. “It will be over soon.”
And I knew on some deep level that I shouldn’t be the one protecting Ana, that Mac and Sadie were charged with protecting
us both. And they couldn’t, they didn’t, were always more consumed with the sick dance of their relationship than they ever were with concern for us.
My anger was a seed that took root in the pit of my stomach, expanded, filled me, informing my choices and my actions. Finally,
I only saw one way out—for all of us.
Ana was young and didn’t truly understand what we were doing when we replaced Sadie’s duxelles with mine. But when Mac fell
ill, Sadie knew for certain what we had done.
“You take care of her,” Sadie told me. “I can’t. I’ve never even been able to take care of myself. Don’t say a word. Don’t
ever say a word because then Ana will be all alone.”
I let them take my mother away. I let her take the blame for me. I kept my promise to her.
On the night that Agnes died, many years after I had turned down my seat, I went back to her to tell her the truth. That I had killed Mac, not Sadie.
I still remember the stricken look on her face. Not surprise. Just grief.
Why did I go to her then? Why that night? Who can say why a seed that has lain dormant finally finds the right conditions
to break through the earth?
But maybe it was because I was a mother myself then, and I knew finally how badly Sadie, Mac, and Agnes had failed us. I knew
because I had worked so hard to provide for and protect my kids, to do better.
No, I didn’t kill Agnes, not with any toxin.
But maybe I killed her with my words.
Or maybe it was her regret for not taking us away from Mac before their sick love destroyed us all. Or for delivering the
bouquet that my mother used to kill herself. Maybe Agnes would have died that night no matter what, her heart failing. And
there was something in the air that compelled me to share the truth with her before she left this earth, the garden, us.
But when I left Aunt Agnes, she was alive. I left her weeping at the kitchen table, that anger a wildfire inside me. By the
next morning, she was gone. Do I have regrets?
What difference does it make if I do?
I tell Ana all of this, and she stays silent, still looking toward Agnes’s garden. I wonder if she’ll judge me. I doubt it.
Finally, she loops her arm through mine.
In my pocket I find the rough texture of the protection effigy my daughter Coraline made for me, just like the one she left
on her porch to safeguard her family.
I think of the image of the doll found in the woods by Paul’s body. It was Iggy’s; she’d been carrying it around and it dropped
from her pocket when they were disposing of Paul’s body. Careless. I’ve asked her to be more careful in the future. She assures
me her days of revenge seeking are over.
But you never know.
“We’ll do better than they did,” Ana says.
The kids are all filing in to eat, laughing and free, protected and loved. Coraline, still toting Noah, gives a wave and in her I see the best of all of us.
“That’s the plan,” I tell my sister.
And we step inside to join them.