Chapter Twenty
Damask rose: A fragrant shrub with thorned stems and ruffled pink blossoms whose powerful, velvety scent stirs intense passion
“It’s not a game you should expect to learn in one sitting,” Fitz tells me, wrapping up the lesson. “Chess takes time.”
Time. How little we have left of it together.
Hardly a moment has gone by since Jill told me the news yesterday that I haven’t been consumed with thoughts of the home closing.
Where will Fitz go? Marjorie implied that he has no family.
The whole time that he has been teaching me how to play chess, I’ve been distracted by the thought of him alone, navigating his uncertain future without anyone to help him, anyone to care where he goes next.
“Doesn’t it bother you that this job goes on forever?” Fitz asks as we put the chess pieces away. “You’ll never be done. Once one season is over, a new one begins, bringing with it another list of tasks.”
“Actually,” I tell him, “I don’t usually stay in one place long enough to watch the seasons change. I take on garden design projects all over and move around a lot.”
There is a pause, and then he says, “So you’re only here temporarily?”
He tries to hide it, but I hear the disappointment in his voice. I nod, afraid of what I might say if I open my mouth to respond. I wish that I could give him a different answer.
“Well, at least things will go back to normal when you leave,” he mutters, crossing his arms. “Everyone will stop blithering on and on about the things they’re remembering, thanks to you and your flowers.”
I’m not at all convinced by his gruffness. There is, I’m sure, a note of envy in Fitz’s tone when he speaks about the flowers. Does he wish to return to a forgotten moment from his past?
I breathe in, searching, and the scent responds immediately: the heady, almondy aroma of pink damask roses lifts into the air and races toward me. The fragrance, warm and golden, encircles us. Roses. My favorite scent.
“There’s one for you, too,” I tell Fitz. I nod toward the shrub with ruffled, ballet-slipper-pink blossoms that grows just a few feet from where we sit. “The damask rose. That’s your flower.”
Fitz stiffens. He follows my gaze to the roses. For a moment, he is completely still. Then, suddenly, he snaps the chess box shut.
“The last thing I want to be reminded of is the past,” he says, his face flushing.
“Nothing good comes from looking back—not for me, anyway.” He stands, wobbling slightly.
When I instinctively put out a hand to steady him, he shoots me a look of such irritation that I pull my hand back to my lap.
“I don’t want to spend another moment remembering,” he says angrily.
“Not one more goddamn second. What can I do to change anything? Not a thing. Save your voodoo for someone else.”
“Okay,” I say softly.
Already, he’s shuffling away in a cloud of anger, chess set tucked under his arm and his walker complaining loudly over the path.
He doesn’t even say goodbye to Gully. No, I think, watching him go.
That’s not just anger clinging to him. That’s pain.
That’s something so terrible that he can’t bear to revisit it—not even in his own mind.
“Thank you for the lesson, Mr. Fitz,” I call after him.
When Louis was young, he was creative. Vikram made wonderful pastries. Adele traveled with her adoring husband. What did Fitz do that was so awful that he can’t stand the thought of reliving it?
The next day, the voices of men drift over the wall into the rose garden.
I step down from the ladder on which I’d been standing and roll my head from side to side.
My entire body aches. I’ve been trimming and shaping the roses, weaving them back into place along the arbor, working myself to exhaustion so that I’m too tired to think about the sale of the home.
I walk toward the sunken garden with Gully, kneading one shoulder and then the other as I go.
Adam’s daughter, Sophie, appears in the hole in the wall. A shadow hangs over her, darkening her face… but a flicker of a smile comes and goes when she spots Gully. She’s burying her face in his neck when I reach them.
“Hello,” I say. “Have you come to take Gully for his exercise?”
Sophie nods, her face still hidden in his fur.
Gully leans into her, catching her by surprise, and she stumbles to the side.
“Careful, Gully,” I warn, but I can see from Sophie’s expression that she doesn’t mind.
I feel that tug of familiarity again when I look into her eyes; the knowledge that she has lost her mother weighs on me.
I pull Gully’s leash from my gardening belt, clip it on his collar, and hand her the end.
Through the opening in the wall, I see Adam and Vince slowly approaching, a gate held between them. Marjorie and Cynthia follow close behind.
“Another beauty,” I say, walking over. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” Adam says. Then he pulls his dark eyes from mine and looks around. “Did Sophie already run off with Gully?”
I nod. “They’re around here somewhere, exploring.”
“She’s taken a real shine to that dog of yours,” Marjorie says happily.
“Would you like my help putting the gate back in place?” Vince asks.
“I think we can handle it,” Adam says, looking over for my approval. I nod.
“Okay. I’ll be back in a bit to help carry the next gate to your truck.”
As Vince heads toward the home, Adam and I lift the gate into place.
“I’ve been telling Adam that the home has been transformed,” Marjorie says behind us, lifting her voice to be heard over Adam’s hammer. “It’s like the old days, but somehow even better.”
Adam glances at me and smiles. “I thought she was exaggerating, but I saw it for myself when I walked through just now. There was practically a party happening in the dining room. And then I stepped outside and saw all of the tables on the terrace, filled with residents playing games and chatting like long-lost friends who’d just rediscovered one another. It’s wonderful.”
Their words sink like splinters into my skin. I can only see the residents’ happiness through the veil of loss now, knowing how all of this will be taken from them in a matter of weeks.
“Lucy,” Adam says.
I blink. He’s finished—the gate is securely back in place, but I’m still pressing the wood so hard with my hands that my skin has turned pale. I step back and let my hands fall to my sides, feeling the blood rush through them.
“Are you okay, dear?” Marjorie asks. Both she and Cynthia are peering at me worriedly, and I find I can’t meet their eyes.
I nod, looking away. “I wonder what we’ll find in the next garden.”
“Oh!” says Marjorie, holding up one small finger. “Speaking of which! I’ve been thinking, Adam, about the dire state of your yard.”
Adam appears taken aback by this sudden change of topic. Then he laughs good-naturedly. “ ‘Dire’? I don’t know about—”
“It’s in terrible shape,” Marjorie says firmly. “I’m not even sure that yard is safe for Sophie.”
Adam’s smile falls. “It’s perfectly safe for Sophie.”
Marjorie seems to realize her misstep and holds up her hands in apology. “Safe, fine… but not… pretty. Not colorful. Not fun. That doesn’t seem fair to her, does it?” She looks questioningly at Cynthia, but Cynthia gives her a somewhat reprimanding stare and doesn’t say a word.
“What?” Marjorie goes on huffily. “All I’m trying to say is that I have a feeling that Lucy could help!”
Adam shoots me an apologetic look and gestures around him. “Grandma Marjorie, Lucy is clearly very busy.”
Marjorie crosses her arms and pouts. “I’m not suggesting that she transform your little yard into the gardens of Versailles.
I just thought she could swing by and give you some ideas.
Get you started.” She smiles innocently at me, practically batting her eyelashes, and adds, “Are you free this weekend?”
“Marjorie!” Adam groans, but now he’s pressing his hands over his face and laughing. “Whatever you do, Lucy, don’t look directly into her eyes. That’s how she gets you.”
I laugh. Marjorie swats his arm and shakes her head, but I can see that she’s struggling to keep a straight face.
There’s so much warmth and affection and teasing between them that it spills out over me, too, and for a moment I’m able to forget my sadness about the home’s closing. Other than spending time with my father, my weekend is entirely free.
I turn to Adam. “Where do you live?”
He peeks through his fingers at me, then drops his hands. “No, really, Lucy. You don’t have to—”
I cut him off with a shrug. “I’m happy to help.”
“He has a lovely home in San Francisco that he purchased a year ago,” Marjorie says.
“But it only has a little scrap of a city yard,” Adam warns me. “It’s not like this.”
“Well, of course not,” scoffs Marjorie. “There’s nothing like this. Nothing at all. I’m sure Lucy doesn’t mind.”
“I don’t,” I say. “This is actually my first time working on a property of this size. My usual jobs are much smaller.”
Marjorie raises her eyebrows smugly in Adam’s direction.
“Really?” he asks, tilting his head as though he’s filing away this new bit of information. “Well, thank you. I’ll pay you for your time, of course.”
I wave this thought away. “Will Sophie be there? Do you think she’d like if I brought Gully along?”
“I’m sure she’d love that.” Adam seems to relax a little at the idea, as though he’s only truly comfortable at the thought of me going out of my way to help him if it will bring Sophie happiness. We decide that I’ll stop by on Sunday afternoon, and he texts me his address.
By the time we’re through with this exchange, Marjorie looks very much like the cat who ate the canary. “Now that that’s all settled,” she says, clapping her hands together, “Cynthia and I can go on our walk.”