“Hungry like a wolf, too,” she goes on. “Why don’t I bring up something for you? An egg? Or a muffin?”
Fitz shakes his head. “No.”
“How about a walk down to the card room? Some of the residents are setting up for rummy.”
“God, no.”
Isobel’s eyebrows draw together. “Hmm. Well, you’ll call down if you change your mind?”
Fitz gives a noncommittal shrug and opens the newspaper. A moment later, he hears the door close.
Immediately he leans toward the window and looks down. And there she is! The gardener. Lucy. He sucks in his breath. Up close, she did not actually look much like Millie. Thank God for small favors. It’s only when he sees her from afar, when she stands among the flowers and the light seems to gather so unusually around her, highlighting her chestnut hair and bright, pretty face, that she looks so much like Fitz’s wife that those long-familiar, icy fingers of shame wrap around his neck.
Oh! And there he is! That dog that looks more like a small bear, trailing after her along the path.
Fitz feels a strange thudding in his chest.
For a long time, he watches the pair. The gardener is very kind to that big, slow dog. Even from Fitz’s apartment three stories up, he can see that they have an ease with each other—that mostly unspoken language of dog people and their dogs.
It has been years since his Tad died, but Fitz remembers just how the dog’s fur felt below his hand, and the exact weight of the dog’s snout on his knee. Fitz does not like people, but dogs—dogs he likes. He doesn’t mind admitting it. And Tad likedhimvery much. That’s the thing about dogs—they’re too loyal or dependent or just plainsimple in the very best way to care about all of the awful things you’ve done in your life.
Fitz’s stomach groans again. He runs his hand over his face and turns, at last, from the window.
Maybe he will go downstairs after all and hunt down that egg.
And then later, if he feels like it, he supposes he might see if he can get a closer look at that gardener’s giant dog.
Chapter Twelve
Lavender: A flowering herb in the mint family with needlelike leaves and wooly purple blossoms whose soft, woodsy scent bridges the earthly and the eternal, soothing anxiety
Weeding the beds of the sunken garden is a long, tedious, gratifying job. A sea of flowers in shades of violet emerge as I go, thriving under my attention. Lavender, catmint, salvia, phlox, and sweet peas all bloom in shades of purple. As sunlight pours over the blossoms, the sweet peas’ refreshing, gingery scent stirs the air, carrying a message of change. I pause, wondering, and then continue with my work.
I’ve been weeding for a couple of hours when I notice two figures making their way down the ramp from the terrace. As they get closer, I see that it’s a male caregiver in the home’s navy uniform pushing a woman in a wheelchair. The man is short and muscular, with a cheerful, open face and broad smile. The woman in the wheelchair is a tiny wisp of a person wearing glasses and a brimmed hat that casts her delicate features in shadow.
“Hello!” the man calls. “I’m Mario, and this is Adele Abrams. You must be Lucy.”
I nod and smile. “Hello. It’s nice to meet you both.” Gully stands from where he has been sunbathing on the path, stretches, and then lumbers over to greet our visitors. Adele reaches out a small hand to pet him.
“You know, you’re the talk of the home,” Mario tells me. “Everyone has been watching you whip this place into shape. It’s like having our own live HGTV show… but even better because now we get to visit you and walk through the garden.”
I look up toward the home, surprised to learn that I’ve been a topic of conversation. Mostly I’m glad the residents are talking at all. Maybe, I think with a small, inward smile, a crack is forming in the hard wall of the Gloom. I wonder if Jill is watching us now, if she’s about to storm out here and yell at me for chatting with Mario. I shrug off the thought.
“I hope people will start coming outside now that the paths are clear for walking,” I tell Mario.
“We’ll be the trendsetters. Won’t we, Adele? Everyone will want to explore out here after we do.” He pauses and then says to me, quietly, “Adele has been a bit down lately. I hoped some fresh air might help.”
Behind Adele’s glasses, her gaze swims slowly over the flowers.
“Thank you for coming to visit, Ms. Abrams,” I tell her, but she doesn’t seem to hear me.
Mario bends toward her, meets her eyes, and taps his own ear. “You might want to turn up the volume,” he says. She blinks at him, then lifts one elegant hand to her ear and fiddles with her hearingaid. I thank her again, and this time, her eyes rise to meet mine and I see something so adrift, so lonely, in her gaze that I feel my throat tighten in response.
“Please call me Adele,” she tells me. Her voice is thin, refined, and quivering with melancholy. Her eyes move slowly over my face and then back over the garden. “Everything,” she says quietly, “looks quite beautiful.”
Despite so many years of turning away from this part of myself, I cannot help immediately wondering if there is a scent among these flowers that might be meaningful to Adele. The impulse is ingrained in me, try as I might to ignore it. Even as I form the question, I know the answer—the scent of lavender, heady and soothing and warm, travels over my skin, whispering to me. A gossamer thread shimmers in the air, rising from the flowers and encircling Adele as though to draw her closer.
Even though I have spent ten years keeping to myself as much as possible, there have been moments like this one now and then with a client in one of my gardens. A moment when I’ve realized that the scent of a flower I’d grown would awaken something within them. And always, in that moment, I hear my mother’s voice, warning me to be careful.
