But now for the first time, her warning does not come.
If you can’t find magic, I hear my mother say instead,you must make it.
My pulse quickens. I know there is a reason I do not hear her warning, but instead hear her encouragement. There is a reason the catmint returned that memory to me, now. Just as I’m sure there is a reason that my mother’s scent has guided me here, to the Oceanview Home. Istill don’t know what that reason might be, but I can’t help feeling that it has something to do with this impulse within me now—an impulse not to turn away from Adele, but to lead her toward the flowers.
But what if I am wrong? What if the memory that the lavender stirs within Adele torments her the way that Jack’s memory so irrevocably tormented him?
I’ve never told anyone what I did to Jack. Not even my mother. I was too ashamed. I swore to myself that I would never use my gift in that way again, that I would move away from the place where the scents of my flowers were the strongest, that I would never form attachments that might tempt me to use my gift, even if it meant moving over and over again. My parents thought that heartbreak over losing Jack drove me away, but the truth is that it is fear and shame that have kept me running all these years. Running from Bantom Bay. Running from myself.
And yet, here I am, in a garden in Bantom Bay once again.
If you can’t find magic, you must make it.
My gift destroyed Jack, but I remind myself that my own memories, the ones the scents of my flowers have returned me to so many times, have only ever stirred within me a welcome sense of delight and clarity.
I so very much want Adele to feel that delight, too. Not “The Gloom” of the home, but the magic of the garden.
I take a deep breath and sense, braided with the scent of lavender, a new resolve strengthening within me. I kneel down on the path and look up at Adele. “Do you smell the lavender?” I ask, my pulse loud in my ears. Despite my resolve, my voice trembles. “It smells wonderful, doesn’t it?”
Adele seems to consider me for a moment before turning her face toward the bed of lavender. I watch, my heart pounding, as she inhales. The corners of her thin lips purse with disappointment. It occurs to me that one’s sense of smell might fade with age, weakening right along with sight or hearing.
“I think you need to be a bit closer to the flowers to smell them,” I tell her, standing up and dusting off my knees. “Can I help you?”
Flames of curiosity flicker in her eyes. “Yes,” she says. “Thank you.”
I glance at Mario. He looks uncertain but gives a small shrug. I move around Adele’s wheelchair and slowly push it right to the edge of the path. Still, the lavender grows beyond the row of boxwood hedges, and I’m not sure Adele is close enough to smell it.
I step back to Mario’s side. “Is she able to stand?” I ask quietly.
Mario nods. “Physically, yes. But lately, she refuses—”
“I can stand,” interrupts Adele, turning in her chair to gaze at us.
Mario opens and closes his mouth. “Really?” he asks finally.
She nods decisively. “Yes.”
Mario and I stand on either side of her. After we help her to her feet, she takes a couple of steps forward and leans over the hedge toward the nearest lavender plant. Her lips press into a determined line. She closes her eyes and breathes in several long inhalations, her nostrils flaring with the effort. The scent of the lavender sweeps around us in a great, warm, effervescent wave. For a moment, Adele is very still, and I know that she is far away. I watch her, my heart lodged in my throat.
It is only a moment before she straightens and opens her eyes. I watch her fearfully, waiting for her horror, her anger, heraccusations—but a slow, radiant smile spreads across her face. When she speaks, her voice is blissful in a distant, dreamy sort of way.
“Oh,” she says softly, “we had a lovely time.”
Relief floods through me. I glance at Mario, and see his head is cocked to the side as he watches Adele, his expression bewildered.
“A lovely time—?” I ask.
She looks at me, her eyes clear. She seems taller than she did moments earlier, and steadier on her feet.
“In France,” she explains with a wistful sort of excitement. “Wesley and I were on our honeymoon. We were in Provence, staying in a little château tucked within fields of lavender. I’d never traveled outside the country before, and every single thing I saw astonished me.Delightedme. I felt it just now—my own youthful delight at the world. How I wanted to devour it! And I did, practically!”
She laughs. “We ate the most delicious pastries for breakfast—croissants, of course, andpain au chocolatandchausson aux pommes,” she says, gliding through this list of pastries in beautiful French. “We read books by the blue swimming pool… and we ate dessert at every hour, plate after plate ofcalissonsandcaneléandtarte tatin… and Wesley threw a stick for a very funny scrap of a dog who wandered by.” She looks at Gully, who lies nearby on the path and watches these proceedings with calm interest. “A much smaller dog than yours, Lucy. She was white, with a little stub tail and the most darling eyes.”
Adele falls quiet for a moment before continuing. “I’d forgotten what Wesley said to me on that trip, but just now, I was… I waswithhim again. Isawhim—so tan and handsome with those beautiful green eyes I know so well. I could hear his voice.”
She looks at me. “He’s been gone for so many years,” she says, her voice now quivering with emotion, “but a moment ago—just a moment ago, it really felt that way—Wesley held my hand as we sat beside that field of lavender, practically bathing in its scent. I can still feel his hand in mine.” She holds out her hand and stares down at it. “And Wesley looked at me and he said, ‘Delly’?”—she smiles, suddenly bashful and blushing—“that’s what he called me.Delly.He said, ‘Delly, no matter what the future holds, some part of us will always remain right here, young and in love in a field of lavender, full of wonder, our hands entwined.’?” She sighs happily. “He was very poetic, my Wesley. I should have written his words down so I didn’t forget them.”
“They’re beautiful,” I tell her. “And you didn’t forget them.”
