Chapter 27 #2
The garden in every season. Millhaven main street on an ordinary Tuesday. The inside of Bellamy's at closing when Mags turns off the case lights. Beck's hardware from the street. Elm Lane in snow.
Ethan Mercer's back porch field, it says, near the bottom. In Elise's handwriting.
I look at this for a long moment.
"She wrote it," Delaney says. "I don't know when. The ink looks the same as the rest of that section, which I think is from her last year." She pauses. "She photographed your field."
I think about Elise at Bellamy's, at the town events, at the church where I saw her across the room before she died. Quiet woman. The warmth of someone who noticed things carefully and didn't require much in return.
"She never mentioned it," I say.
"She photographed a lot of things she didn't mention," Delaney says. "Mags has the prints." She looks at the list. "I want to do this. All of these. The same subjects, different year. Her eye and mine."
"That's a long project."
"I like long projects," she says. "I have a pear tree on a three-year training schedule."
"You have a pear tree that I put on a three-year training schedule."
"We," she says. "We put it on a three-year training schedule."
"Technically I identified the espalier potential."
"Technically I own the tree."
"Technically, you told me you weren't going anywhere."
She looks at me over the notes book. "I'm not," she says.
I look at her.
"That's a long project list," I say again.
"Yes," she says. "It is."
I need to go home at some point.
Practical truth. I have a crew meeting at eight Monday morning, materials to confirm for the Castellano handoff, the Maple Street bathroom to close out this week, and three quote requests in my email I haven't answered because I spent Thursday evening through Friday morning in a better way.
I go home at noon.
She walks me to the gate — the same gate, the same ritual, the same Elm Lane — and we're in the January cold with the frost on the garden behind her and the light doing the specific afternoon thing it does in winter, honest and low.
"The greenhouse," she says. "February."
"I'll confirm the day."
"Ruth texted me this morning about the soil amendment. She has opinions."
"She always has opinions about soil."
"She's not wrong about soil."
"She wins the county fair every year," I say. "She's never wrong about soil."
Delaney looks at the garden. "I want to have dinner with your parents. Next Sunday. Not Beck's — your parents' house. With Frank."
I look at her.
"I want to tell him about the espalier progress. He'll want to know about the wires." She pauses. "He asked me about it at Thanksgiving. He'll want to know it's started properly."
"He will," I say.
"And—" She stops. Considers. "I want him to know I'm here. Not at Sunday dinner, which he knows. I mean — I want him to know I'm staying. The full version." She looks at me. "Is that?—"
"Yes," I say. "That's exactly right."
She nods. Like the plan is settled.
She kisses me at the gate, brief and warm, the way she does it — unhurried, deliberate, completely present. Then: "Goodnight."
"It's noon," I say.
"I know," she says. "Go. You have three quote requests."
"How do you?—"
"You mentioned them Tuesday."
I look at her.
"I pay attention," she says.
I walk four houses.
I don't look back, no matter how badly I want to.
I sit at my kitchen table and I look at the correctly-positioned window and I think about long projects.
Three-year espalier schedules. A woman who wants to have dinner with my father so he knows she's staying.
She said: I want to be here for all three years. The first lateral and the second and when it's established. She said it out loud because she wanted to.
I have property information in my phone I haven't looked at in a week — half an acre, valley view, south-facing slope, good light. The kind of place you'd build a house for two people who both know what they want a house to mean.
She said six months. It's been two. Four more.
I can wait four months. I've been waiting fifteen weeks and the sequence was correct. Four more is spring. The espalier first lateral. The rosebushes.
The wonderful is louder than the terrified.
I answer the three quote requests and confirm the Castellano materials and do the work of a Friday afternoon, and underneath all of it is the low steady warmth of knowing exactly what I'm working toward.
She texts at three.
Gerald is insufferably pleased with himself today.
He has a lot to celebrate.
He keeps making excellent coffee. I think he knows.
Gerald always knows.
This is becoming a situation.
He's thirty-seven years old. He's earned the right to a situation.
The notebook has a whole page about photographing February. Elise apparently photographed February specifically because she said it was the month most people forgot to look at.
She was right.
She was usually right. Except about the library's book return system. Mags has strong feelings.
I'll confirm the greenhouse date.
Ruth already texted me three more thoughts about soil amendments.
That's her love language.
I know. I love it.
Ethan.
Yeah?
Thank you. For last night. For everything that got to last night.
Thank you. For being exactly who you are.
That's very efficiently stated.
I'm efficient.
You planned a declaration for March. You're not always efficient.
I was waiting for the right moment.
You had seventeen of them.
The espalier would have been a good moment.
January was better.
January was better.
Good. March is still coming.
What's happening in March?
I look at the window. At the January light doing its afternoon thing. At the four houses between us and what's building at both ends of them.
I'll think of something.
I know you will
I'll have a good one.
You always do.
Also.
Hi.
Hi baby.
I put my phone down and sit in my kitchen in the January afternoon, and I don't smile at the window for no reason.
I smile at it for a very specific reason.