Chapter Thirteen
Rhododendron: A flowering shrub in the heath family with large sprays of vibrant, bell-shaped blossoms whose sweet and spicy fragrance denotes both protection and warning
By the end of the day, the sunken garden looks immaculate—tidy boxwood hedges edge orderly beds of purple flowers and neatly shaped lemon trees.
Before I leave, I walk along the paths, admiring the tapestry of flowers that surrounds me and feeling, I realize, a twinge of melancholy that I am finished.
When I take a deep breath, the fragrance of rhododendron blossoms travels toward me through the opening in the wall.
The scent is warm with pepper and clove—a warning.
My skin prickles with the sense that I am being watched.
I think of what Mario said this morning about the residents watching my progress, but when I look up toward the home, it’s Donovan Pike that I see standing at the edge of the terrace.
He’s wearing sunglasses and a dark suit with a bright white shirt open at his neck, and with the Oceanview Home as an elegant backdrop, he looks like a cross between an aristocrat and a movie star. I lift my hand in greeting and he does the same.
“Lucy, you’re a marvel,” he says as I walk up the steps to join him. “I had to take a moment to stop and get my bearings. This is an entirely different garden.”
“Oh, I hope not,” I say. “Your great-great-grandmother did a wonderful job designing it. I wouldn’t want to change a thing.”
He takes off his sunglasses and squints at me, smiling. “Too late. I barely recognize the place. Wasn’t this a mess of weeds just last week? I can’t believe the transformation. It’s like stepping back in time.” He looks down at my side and then actually does step back, sucking in his breath.
“This is my dog, Gully,” I say, looking down. “He’s friendly, I promise.”
Donovan stares from Gully to me and then back to Gully. “He’s… huge.”
“And totally harmless. I did ask Jill if I could bring him with me. She said it was fine.”
“Ah,” says Donovan, still eying Gully warily. “Of course she did.” When he holds out his hand for Gully to sniff, I can’t help thinking of a king resignedly allowing his subject to kiss his ring. Gully of course, obliges, absolutely delighted.
“Jill told me that some of the residents used to have dogs,” I say.
“That’s true,” Donovan admits with a frown. “I suppose it’s fine to bring him, so long as he doesn’t get in the way of your schedule—which, clearly, he isn’t.”
I nod. “I’ll start work in the woodland garden tomorrow.”
He gives me a blank look.
“It’s the one beyond that wall,” I say, pointing.
“Ah. Well, good. I’m glad things are moving along.”
I think about Donovan’s strict timeline for the restoration of the grounds, and the spring party that Marjorie told me used to be a tradition.
I wonder again if he is planning to revive the event.
I’m hesitant to ask outright—Donovan seems like the type to tell you what you need to know and nothing more.
Instead, thinking of Marjorie’s fond memory of sitting on the terrace with Cynthia, the two of them looking down into the pool and seeing the reflected sky, I ask Donovan if he’s planning to fill the pool again.
He cups his hand over his eyes and squints toward it. “I should, shouldn’t I?” he says slowly, thoughtfully. “I wonder if it needs a bit of repair first. I’ll get Vince to take a look.”
I tell him that I think it’s wonderful he’s restoring the grounds. “I have a feeling,” I say, “that your great-great-grandmother would be very grateful.”
“Grateful?” he repeats, one eyebrow raised.
“Well, she clearly put so much of herself into designing the gardens. They’re her legacy. Along with the home. I have to think that she’d be grateful to know that you’re working to keep that legacy alive.”
Donovan looks out at the horizon. For a moment, he doesn’t speak. “She was a remarkable woman,” he says eventually. “Full of big, beautiful ideas.” He looks back at me then. “Can you imagine expecting your family to carry out your wishes for eternity? What an ego! You have to admire it, really.”
The possibility that the home might be a burden on Donovan had not occurred to me.
“Has it been difficult?” I ask. “Taking over everything after your father passed away?”
“I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t been a challenge,” he tells me.
“My father always had a very tight grip on this place. He never brought me in on any of his decisions. That was just his way. But I would never have let it get to this point. I’d never have let the property go the way he did.
Now there’s so much to do that it feels…
” He trails off as though searching for the right word.
“Impossible?” I supply. It’s not a word that holds much weight for me. I think of the scent of lavender returning Adele to a forgotten moment from her past. Some might say that flowers can’t do this, that I can’t do this—and yet.
Anything is possible, my mom used to say, that knowing, mischievous glint in her eye.
“Well, yes,” Donovan says.
“But it’s not,” I tell him. “It’s not impossible. The grounds aren’t in as bad a shape as you might think. Maybe that holds true to other aspects of the home—things might appear worse than they actually are. I have a feeling you’ll have this place looking great sooner than you think.”
Donovan gives me a look of tolerant bemusement. “You’re awfully optimistic, Lucy.”
I think about this for a moment, and then say, “Maybe that’s because in gardens, storms always pass. The season eventually changes and flowers grow again.”
Donovan smiles. “How different our worlds are,” he muses.
I give him a questioning look, and he goes on.
“I spend all of my time cleaning up other people’s messes,” he says.
“That’s what my firm does—the work I was doing long before I took over this place.
We buy troubled companies and figure out how to turn them around—or how to fold them in the neatest, most profitable way possible.
There tends to be a lot of firing involved.
A lot of dream crushing. It might just be the opposite of gardening. ”
“Why do you do it?” I ask before I can think better of it.
There’s a beat of silence, and then he laughs. “I have a feeling you’re not going to like my answer.”
“You make a lot of money,” I say, answering for him.
Donovan flashes his smooth smile. “Well, yes. But there’s more to it, too. There’s an efficiency to what I do that I find gratifying. I look at a complicated maze that at first glance seems impossible to escape, and then I find the fastest way to break free of its barriers.”
“So you’re used to it, then,” I say.
“Used to…?”
“Making the impossible, possible.” I smile. “Anyway, if my presence is any indication, it seems like you’re doing more hiring than firing around here. And getting the grounds in order is a wonderful thing to do for the residents.”
Donovan lifts one eyebrow, leans toward me, and says, “There you go with that optimism again.”
I laugh. “I guess you can take the gardener out of the garden, but you can’t take the garden out of the gardener.”
Donovan nods toward the home. “Are you heading out for the day? Can I walk with you?”
We walk inside together. It’s only half past four, but the residents are already making their slow, silent way into the dining room for dinner. The air is warm and thick with that starchy, bland, antiseptic amalgam of scents that makes my temples throb.
In the lobby, Donovan stops. “I should give you my number. That way, if you think of anything else that would improve the property, you can text me.”
After I put his number in my phone, we part—he turns down a hallway, and Gully and I cross through the lobby.
I’m pulling open the front door when I hear my name and turn to see Jill walking toward me at her usual brisk pace, her heels clicking ominously against the marble.
I have the disquieting thought that she is being propelled by anger.
“You had a chat with Donovan,” she says, stopping in front of me and crossing her arms over her chest.
I have a vision of Jill in her office, watching Donovan on the terrace as he watches me in the garden. It’s no wonder I felt eyes on me.
“I think he wanted to check on my progress,” I tell her.
Jill eyes me. “Is that all?”
I nod.
There is a long, tense beat while Jill scowls and drums her nails against her biceps.
“Well,” she says finally in a low, bitter voice.
“I’m sure you think he’s very charming. I used to think so, too.
” Suddenly she leans toward me and whispers, her voice an urgent hiss, “Just be careful, Lucy.” The words are spoken so quickly, so quietly, that they seem to evaporate in the air.
I stare at Jill, thinking of my mother. Be careful, Lucy.
A tremor of foreboding moves through me.
“What do you mean?” I ask, lowering my voice. Noreen, I’m aware, is openly staring at us from her station behind the reception desk, her face taut with the effort of eavesdropping.
Jill hesitates. Then she shakes her head. “Nothing,” she says at normal volume. “Forget it. Is the restoration going okay? Do you have everything you need?”
I feel like I have whiplash. I also sense that no amount of prodding will get Jill to release whatever secret she is holding.
“Actually I did have a question,” I say. “I’m starting work on the woodland garden tomorrow. The plants in there are overcrowded, and I’ll need to remove some. What would you like me to do with them?”
“Just have Vince carry them down to the compost pile,” Jill says with a shrug.
I frown. “I’d rather find them new homes. I’ll transfer them into pots and take them with me, if that’s okay with you.”
“Fine,” Jill says. “Anything else?”
I think for a moment. While I have her attention, it can’t hurt to ask….
“Have you given any thought to Marjorie’s request to put tables and chairs out on the terrace again?
Now that the paths are clear, they’re safe for walking.
Putting tables on the terrace might inspire more residents to come outside, even if only to enjoy the view…
” I trail off as I watch Jill’s expression tighten.
“That’s not a good idea.”
“But… can I ask why?”
Jill sighs. “Lucy, I told you this already. You must leave the residents, and what is best for them, up to me. Your job is gardening. Only that.”
I clench my jaw. How can she not see that the gardens and the residents are inextricably linked?
I think of Adele, and the way she seemed to blossom, the very cells in her body rearranging, as she spent time outside this morning.
The way Marjorie brightened when she spoke of how beautiful the property had once been.
Even the crotchety Mr. Fitz seems to reluctantly crave a few stolen moments outside.
“But why restore the grounds,” I say, “if not to—”
“Just do what you were hired to do!” Jill interrupts. “Focus on your work and only your work. Trust me on this.”
After a long moment, I nod. In the end, Jill’s right: I was hired for a job. And despite her mood swings and secrets, I sense that Jill cares deeply for the residents here and wants what is best for them. Whatever her reasons are for discouraging me to interact with them, I can’t begin to guess.
Jill wasn’t there when Adele remembered that moment in time with her husband, or when Marjorie and Cynthia reminisced on the terrace, or when Fitz planted himself on that bench and told me about his wife.
Maybe she simply doesn’t have any idea how much these gardens mean, and could continue to mean, to the residents.
I’ll just have to show her.
That night, I ask my dad if he’ll go to the movies with me.
“Oh, Lucy,” he says tiredly. “I’d really rather not.”
Even with the house now stocked with food, even with the meals I’ve been making for him, there is a hollowness to his cheeks that is echoed in his eyes.
“When’s the last time you went into town?” I ask.
“I’m comfortable,” he says, shrugging. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
“But what about your friends? Don’t you want to make plans to see anyone?” My father has always been content to spend a quiet night at home, but he never used to be a hermit.
“Tell me about your friends,” he says. “We never hear about your friends. Your relationships. Only your work.”
I flinch to hear him use the word “we.” It’s still a reflex for him.
He’s right, though. I have not made a new friend in years.
I don’t allow myself time in any one place to put down roots.
This has suited me for a long time, but with my mother gone, nothing feels the same.
There was enough love, enough friendship, in my life when she was alive.
Her voice, her humor and optimism, were always just a phone call away, and we spoke almost daily.
We sent each other books we loved. I told her about my gardens; she told me about her students.
Without her—what will I do? It’s difficult for me to open my heart to others, to allow others to truly know me. The last time I did so ended disastrously. I’ll never be rid of the regret that I feel for what I did to Jack. That sorrow will live within me forever.
Now, though… I think of Adele breathing in the scent of lavender, her face filled not with recrimination or fear, but with wonder and delight. I don’t know quite how to wrap my mind around the fact that I might have been wrong all these years.
“You’re right,” I tell my father. “How about this. If I work on making friends, will you go into town to pick up breakfast with me this weekend?”
I sense that he feels he has backed himself into a corner. Eventually, expression resigned, he nods.