Marjorie blinks rapidly behind her glasses. I’m about to step in and say something consoling when a woman in a navy caregiver uniform comes rushing through the automatic doors.
“There you are!” she cries, breathless. “I’ve been looking everywhere for all of you. You know you really aren’t supposed to come outside without—”
“Oh, Eva, we’re fine,” Marjorie cuts in impatiently. “We’re better than fine! We were just enjoying some fresh air and saying hello to the new gardener. That is, untilFitzand his thundercloud appeared.”
The aide turns to me. “Hi. I’m Eva,” she says distractedly. Her nails are long and painted purple with what appear to be tiny white flowers. She’s younger than me—maybe right out of college, or even younger than that.
“I’m Lucy,” I tell her.
And then Marjorie announces loftily, “We’d like the tables placed back on the terrace.”
Eva turns toward her. “The… tables?”
“The tables that used to be out here! If we’re fixing up the gardens, we’d like to be able to sit outside and enjoy them again. That’sthe point, isn’t it? I’m sure the tables are in some storage room. Jill will know. You know what? I’ll ask her myself.”
Marjorie and Cynthia, arm in arm, head as one toward the doors. As they sweep past me, Marjorie holds out her hand for the glass that I only then realize I’m still clutching. When I return it to her, I’m certain I see a hint of amusement in Cynthia’s face.
Eva looks at Fitz with a pleading, uncertain expression. “Mr. Fitz, will you, um… would you come inside, too? Mr. Fitz? Please?”
The old man shakes his head.
“Oh, but,” Eva tries, looking out toward the bright sea as though hoping to find a solution written there, “aren’t you… cold?”
“Cold?” Fitz mimics sneeringly. “I’m perfectly fine. I’ll be in when I’m good and ready and not a second sooner.” The way he stands there, like a statue, his chin lifted skyward as though he’s trying to see anything but the garden, makes me fear he might never leave, just out of spite.
Eva twists her hands together and glances over her shoulder at the home. When she looks back at Fitz, a mild sort of panic has spread over her face.
Before I can think better of it, I quietly tell Eva that I’ll wait with Fitz. “Until you’re able to send someone else out,” I say, “or he goes inside on his own.”
Eva’s expression floods with relief. “Would you? Thank you.” Almost before she has the words out, she has turned and nearly sprinted inside.
Once she’s gone, Fitz takes up his low grumbling again. “You think I was rude to that Marjorie Swenson woman. Well, Iwasrude!” he says and rattles his walker for emphasis. “But, you see, I’vebeen rude to her since the moment we met, and she keeps trying to befriend me. It’s maddening. If you don’t give a woman like that boundaries, she’ll walk all over you.”
I feel myself bristling a little on Marjorie’s behalf. “I thought she seemed very nice.”
“People who are nice tend to want something from you.” Fitz’s eyes are an extraordinarily icy shade of blue, and when they rake over my face, a shiver moves through me. “Didn’t your mother teach you anything?”
I immediately straighten. “That’s not the sort of thing my mother would have believed, let alone repeated.”
Fitz looks away and doesn’t respond.
“I think—I think that if Marjoriewantsanything, it’s simply companionship,” I say once I’ve collected myself. “Friends.”
Fitz rolls his eyes.
I give up and look out over the grounds, working through a mental list of all I need to do, and turn toward Fitz again only when I hear the sounds of his walker complaining over the slate terrace. I watch until I’m sure he’s made his way safely inside and then, relieved, turn my attention back to the garden.
Chapter Seven
Snapdragon: A flowering plant in the plantain family with long spikes of tubular flowers whose fruity, sugary scent encourages strength and positivity
At dinner that night, I watch my father push his food around his plate. It seems to me that Marjorie Swenson at the Oceanview Home has more spirit, more zest for life, in her pinkie toe than my father does in his whole body. I fill the silence, telling him about the rotting garden gates and how I haven’t been able to see what lies beyond them yet. I tell him how lifeless the interior of the home seems, and that the residents call this feeling “The Gloom.”
“It doesn’t seem like a place your mother would enjoy visiting,” he says eventually, looking up from his plate. His voice sounds cobwebbed, like he hasn’t used it all day.
“No,” I agree. “Unless she hoped to cheer the place up. Oh—I did find out that Vikram Neel, the chef from Jackson Place, lives there. Do you think Mom was going to see him?”
My father’s brow furrows with confusion. “Why would she do that?”
