Chapter 41 commovente
commovente
I screamed in frustration and sank down into a crouch. I pressed the palms of my hands into my eyes until I saw stars, hot tears prickling.
I’d failed.
I’d failed.
I wasn’t sure how long I sat there, wanting to be so small, so insignificant, that I blew away in the next gust of wind.
“Hey! Sunny!” Wykofski startled me as he came over.
He’d probably gone to make sure his shed was closed for the coming storm.
I raked my palms against my eyes, sniffling, as I got back to my feet.
He planted a flower crown on my head. “Gorgeous! Oh . . . hey, that’s not a happy look. Is everything okay?”
“I tried everything,” I mumbled, a sob choking me. “And nothing worked.”
He hesitated. “What do you mean? Hey—hey, it’s okay,” he said, gathering me into a tight bear hug. It was probably meant to comfort me, but all it managed to do was crack the last bit of resolve I had.
I’d failed Rus, and that was most of it.
But really—I cried because today had been so much, between missing Harrie and confronting a man who no longer knew me and trying my hardest only to fail.
I had to face the one thing I hated the most: the fact that I was still here.
That I carried Harrie with me wherever I went, and how awful that was, and how rending, right to my core.
But how lovely that was, too, to have had her as my best friend for as long as I did.
After the funeral, Mom often asked me if I was okay because I hadn’t cried.
Not really cried. Not deep, gasping, howling cries.
I hadn’t let myself, because I was afraid that if I let myself come undone, I’d never sew myself back together—I didn’t know how to.
Harrie had always helped. She’d always been there to tuck in my stuffing and knit closed the tears.
Without her, if I let myself come undone, I’d just be this woman who didn’t know how to fit herself back together.
But I was tired of keeping myself tied together. I was tired of choking on half sobs. I wanted Harrie. I missed Harrie. And even though Wykofski was here, rubbing circles onto my back, I just wanted Harrie’s shoulder to cry on. And I could never cry on her shoulder again.
“Come ’ere, Sunny,” Wykofski said gently, patting my back. “Let it out. It’s good for you. It’s been a big summer. We’re almost at the end. It’s hard, friend. It’s hard.”
I sobbed, loud and snotty, into his white button-down shirt. He hadn’t put on his suit yet, probably because he didn’t want to mess it up, and I was afraid I was getting his shirt all gunky with my tears.
“Don’t worry about it, I’ll just say I dribbled,” he said, and I choked on a laugh that was also a sob.
After a few minutes—I wasn’t sure how long—I finally pulled away from him and wiped my eyes. “Th-thank you, Ned.” My eyes were still blurry, and I kept wiping away tears, but I felt better regardless. Even if my chest ached from the sobs.
“Anytime, Sunny,” he replied, and righted the flower crown he’d placed on my head.
I finally got a good look at it—full of honeysuckles and baby’s breath.
He’d really perfected the art. “Hey, you know those honeysuckles we can’t get rid of?
They’re the sweetest ones all year, and most of ’em are right in the middle of ding-dang Central.
Strangest thing! They just sprung up all out of nowhere right near the big oak. How did we miss all of those?”
“That’s just Lilymoor,” I said, repeating the invocation that was told to me so often these last few months. It was too late to try to trim them back. I wasn’t on the clock anymore, anyway.
And tomorrow I would leave, if I didn’t sign the contract to stay on longer. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
I sniffed and rubbed at my eyes again, until he took a hand-kerchief out of his pocket and handed it to me.
He really had cleaned up nicely. Pomaded his hair back into a refined mullet and trimmed his mustache.
He looked very handsome, and he would do great tonight.
“Hey, you know why I call you Sunny?” he said, watching me wipe away my running mascara.
“Because it’s ironic with my last name?”
“No. Because no matter what happens, you tend to shine. Remember the first day you came to Lilymoor, and Damnit had chased you three times already, and we’d found a wasp nest in the shed, and there was a squirrel family living in the cottage?”
“Regrettably,” I mumbled.
“You remember what you did?”
“I probably tried not to cry?”
“You laughed, Sunny. So chin up,” he said, giving my shoulder a squeeze. “And whatever’s got you sad, punch it in the nuts.”
I burst out laughing despite myself.
“What, you think this was some after-school special?” He stood, making a face. “I’m a goose dad, not a dad dad.”
“Thanks, Ned. You’re a good friend.”
He grinned bashfully and rubbed his nose. “Don’t make me weepy, I got a crowd to impress. Now,” and he held out his arm to me, “let’s go impress ’em.”
With one last glance back at the wall of boxwoods where the door no longer was, I curled my arm around his and left.
The whole town had come out for the party.
I recognized the firefighters, and most of the families who visited every weekend, and the counselors from the regional summer camps. There was the bartender, and the grocer, and the small tackle box of fishermen huddled together by the beer table, talking about fish. Eula’s entire guest list.
And Oliver had been right—they all brought a plus-one, or more.
“Say it,” Oliver singsonged to Juliette, eating another olive from the catering buffet. “Saaay it.”
Juliette threw up her hands. “Fine! You’re right.”
“Say I saved the party.”
She gave him a look.
“I saved a little bit of the party,” he amended.
I shook my head and finished picking through the buffet table, and moved over to stand under a willow tree.
The night was warm, and fireflies glittered in the distance, and the wind was soft and cool, and if I listened to the chatter of the party, I could swear Harrie’s laughter rose above the din, bright and sharp and good.
And Rus wasn’t here.
My mom came over to stand with me, and we stood in silence and watched the party unfold.
Eula was standing still, dancing, in the middle of a circle of firefighters, throwing her head back in wild, voracious laughter.
She’d found a flower crown of her own, bright pink to match her sparkling dress, and no one could miss her even if they tried.
Petals blew across the dark grass like afterthoughts of snow, the rain holding off but the sky dark with clouds nonetheless.
Onstage, Wykofski struck up a sweet and bright melody on his mandolin.
“Garden Song” by John Denver. Once he escorted me to the party, he’d grabbed his rainbow sequin jacket from under a table, where he’d also stashed his instrument, and donned it with a flourish.
The sequins now sparkled in the iridescent lights hanging from the willows.
Everyone grabbed someone and started a soft and slow dance. Oliver walked Juliette out into the soft grass, and they swayed. He’d never looked at me with the adoration he gave her, and she didn’t even see it as she looked down at her feet to make sure she didn’t step on his.
Mom said, “You look a little lost, sprout.”
I glanced over at her. “I’m fine,” I said, though she could tell I was lying.
“You did it. Aren’t you proud? I am. This garden is beautiful. Eddie and I took a stroll earlier, and now he’s taking a stroll to go find a bathroom, but no one’s perfect,” she added with a sigh. Then she bumped her shoulder against mine. “You did good, sprout. I’m so proud of you.”
“Thank you for coming.”
“I knew I had to—Eddie did, too. You’ve never talked about someplace the way you’ve talked about Lilymoor, and Eula, and Juliette, and that bear of a man—what’s his name?”
“Wykofski.”
“Right, Wysocki.”
Close enough. Despite the stone in my stomach, I fought back a smile. “I can’t believe you drove all the way here.”
“We started a week ago,” she said. Which meant that the last time I had talked to her, she had lied about getting her hair done the next morning.
Sneaky. “I thought if my only child can drive up to Maine, then I could, too. And you were right about it all—it’s so lovely up here. I don’t see how you could leave.”
I thought about the contract on Eula’s desk, and the will, and I felt sick to my stomach.
Mom put a steadying hand on my arm. “Tell me what’s wrong?”
“There’s someone I made a promise to, but I don’t think I can keep it,” I managed to say, looking down at the grass. My eyes burned with frustrated tears, but I blinked them away. “I don’t know how to. I thought I did, but …”
But clouds got in the way, and then time, and now it was too late.
“You’ve never given up before,” she said slowly, thinking.
“Maybe this is a first.”
“I doubt it,” Mom replied. She squeezed my arm tightly and gave me a knowing look. “You’re not one to break a promise, sprout. You didn’t break your promise to Harrie, and you won’t break this other one, either.”
Mom just didn’t understand, but I appreciated her confidence in me, even though I refused to have it within myself.
Suddenly, the microphone squealed.
Mom and I jumped, startled, and spun toward the stage.
The music came to an abrupt stop, and Wykofski cleared his throat. “Erm, sorry, sorry. Still gettin’ used to this mic. Euls?” he called, looking down. “Take it away!”
At first, I couldn’t see anyone else at the microphone, but between the bodies of people was the glimmer of a sparkly pink dress.
She sat at the corner of the stage and waved at everyone.
“Well! What a fine group of people on my lawn tonight. I’m not sure why all of you are here.
It seems like a waste of such a pleasant evening! ”
The crowd rippled with laughter and with mock-boos.
“But,” she went on, holding up a cracker full of Brie noir, “Juliette did make a perfect cheese board, so I can understand why you all stuck around.” More cheers.
I laughed. Eula found me in the crowd, and winked, before she turned her sights on the party at hand.
“Though I am very offended by the lack of debauchery at this party. What, Juliette, just because I’m old, you think I wouldn’t like a good show? ”
Someone—probably one of the firefighters—shouted, “We’ll give you that for free, Euls!”
“I’ll keep you to that,” she replied happily.
And then with a deep breath, twining her fingers around the microphone’s wire, she said, “Joking aside, thank you for being here, and for celebrating everything that Henry and I spent years learning to grow. Since his passing, I’ve felt lost—too afraid to move forward and too stubborn to look back, and so because of that the gardens haven’t changed, either.
But recently, I remembered a saying he always told me when I got too deep in the weeds.
He’d say, ‘Eula, a garden is for growing.’
“What he was saying was a garden is meant for change. It’s meant to become something new, over and over and over again.
And Lilymoor has been in winter since Henry died.
Though lately, I’ve been wondering if maybe I should let it go into spring again.
So I reached out for help, and the universe sent me Sophie Drear.
” She found me again, standing by the willow in the back, and raised her glass of champagne to me.
“Everyone should thank her when you get the chance. She saved this place, and did more for it than I have done in a decade. Which is why I am retiring, and I’m sure that’s why you all are here, and what better night than on Lilymoor’s loveliest two hundredth birthday? ”
The crowd cheered. And the wind blew through the willow trees.
“Henry and I never had any children, but every summer of their childhood, my great-nephews, Ollie and Rus, would come visit, and it was the most magical time. I wasn’t really a children kind of person to begin with, but I liked being the fun aunt, and Henry loved being an uncle.
We didn’t think about legacy. We planted flowers, and he watched his favorite—honeysuckle—grow.
” She sank into silence, her fingers still nervously twisting the microphone cord through them, over and over again.
“But gardens are strange things. They can be full of flowers, or trees, or herbs, or food, and I think Henry’s best garden isn’t a place.
I think it’s the people here at Lilymoor, and I think he would agree.
And I’m so thankful to share it with all of you.
He crafted the gardens of Lilymoor with one simple thing in mind: that no matter where you walk, where you wander, all paths will lead you back home. ”
Home. I knew what that looked like now.
And despite it all, I didn’t regret anything that led me here. It didn’t matter whether I liked Rus, I would have helped him anyway. I was the master of impossible tasks, of wasted time. I tried even when I already knew the outcome.
No matter what I chose, I would have still been here regardless.
Even if I hadn’t loved Lilymoor as much as I did, when Jeff came to me asking about the position, telling me I was the best for the job, I would have come despite it all.
If I hadn’t gotten to know Rus, I still would have promised to help him.
I still would have wanted to reunite Oliver with his best friend.
I still would have tried to convince two nephews that Lilymoor was worth the time.
There wasn’t a single thing I would have done differently.
All paths in the garden led here.
All paths in the garden—
I sucked in a breath.
“Sorry, I—I have to go,” I said to Mom in a rush, as I spun on my heel and raced out of the Willow Grove.
I needed a sledgehammer—and fast.