The flower beds are squared away, fragrant and neat as a pin. And then he notices it: the opening in one of the ivy-covered walls. He pauses, head cocked, listening carefully. Then he points his walker toward the wall.
When he steps through the opening, he arrives in an entirely different world, this one dark and lush and green. He remembers it from years earlier, but only vaguely, like a long-ago dream. His dog, Tad, had liked the cool shade provided by the birch trees.
Freshly pulled weeds are piled along the sides of the stone path that curves through the garden. Just as Fitz notices the weeds, Gully rounds a corner and comes into view, wagging his big tail so heartily that it sends the long feathers of nearby ferns waving, too.
“There you are.” Fitz maneuvers his walker so he can pet the giant dog. “Hello, boy. Yes, yes. It’s nice to see you, too.”
After a good long pet, the dog turns and walks back the way he came. A few steps on, he stops and looks over his shoulder at Fitz.
“I’m supposed to come with you? Bossy this morning, eh? Fine.” Fitz’s walker bumps over the path’s stones. He turns around a bend and has to duck below a branch. It feels like trekking through the Amazon.
“Good morning.”
Ahead, his wife kneels on the path, her beautiful, inquisitive face tilted up at him. Fitz’s mouth goes dry.
“Mr. Fitz?”
Her voice becomes soft, concerned, and Fitz blinks hard and sees that she is the gardener—of course she is!—not Millie. His wife’s eyes had been a luxurious shade of brown, like the pelt of a mink, and this girl’s eyes are a deep, true cornflower blue. She has paused from her work ripping weeds from between the stones to give him a welcoming, if wary, smile.
“Lucy,” Fitz says, finding his voice and nodding curtly. “I see you have found a new garden to lick into shape.”
“Isn’t it dreamy? I just started working in here so the path is still a mess. Please be careful.”
Fitz doesn’t need the warning—he has eyes—but he appreciates that she doesn’t try to stop him as he pushes past her. The path aheadistricky, and he feels a little sheen of sweat form on his forehead as he shoves his walker over clumps of weeds and uneven stones. Just out of view of the gardener, he notices a large mound off the side of the path that, as he nears it, turns out to be a bench overtaken by ivy. Fitz considers for a moment, then lets go of his walker. He grabs a fistful of ivy and tugs. A flutter of satisfaction moves through him as he rips the vine from the bench. Within a few minutes, he has cleared enough space to sit down with a sigh of earned pleasure. Gully reappears and lumbers right up to him and somehow tucks himself into a ball so close to Fitz’s feet that Fitz can feel the dog’s warm, slow breaths through his shoe leather.
Fitz looks out into the overgrowth. Here and there, light streams through the birch trees’ leaves. Pink and purple flowers dot the shades of green. Within the shadows, white butterflies seem to appear and disappear, though he knows that isn’t possible. They’re still there. He just can’t see them.
Why does he keep thinking he sees Millie? He has never believed in ghosts, never bought into anything supernatural, anything inexplicable. It’s not in his nature to do so. He is rational, sane, grounded.
He worries he is losing hold of himself. Regret can haunt you. Shame can. Guilt.This, he knows. But anactualperson, long dead? No. It is impossible. It’s only Lucy, who might look a bit like Millie from a distance, or in the shadows of a garden, but who has a depth ofkindness in her cornflower-blue eyes that Millie never had. Lucy speaks easily with everyone, but her voice is warm and sincere—it doesn’t have an ounce of the artificial quality of Millie’s brittle banter. And she is clearly comfortable with the sort of contemplative silence from which Millie always ran. Fitz has the sense that Lucy is beloved here at the home already. She’s probably never done one terrible, unforgivable thing in her short life—and she probably never would.
Not like Fitz had.
He isn’t sure how long he’s been sitting there when he hears voices. Lucy has worked her way along the path and is just in sight now, and she’s been joined by Isobel, the caregiver that Fitz dislikes the least, and Vikram Neel, who looks like a walking skeleton. Gully hoists himself up, casts one of his all-knowing glances over his shoulder at Fitz, and then meanders toward the newcomers.
Fitz leans farther back into the greenery, hoping to go unnoticed—or at least undisturbed.
He hears Isobel introduce herself to Lucy. “And this is Vikram Neel,” she says.
“It’s so nice to meet you both,” Lucy says. “My parents were big fans of yours, Mr. Neel. They loved your restaurant, Jackson Place.”
Fitz rolls his eyes. Does the girl not realize that she’s bringing up a sore subject? Is she unaware that the poor man can’t cook anymore? That he’s so distressed about it that he stopped eating? Despite himself, Fitz leans forward just a little, curious about how this conversation will unfold.
To his surprise, Vikram offers Lucy a gentlemanly, if weak, smile. “Thank you,” he says. “It was my pleasure to cook for them. And please, call me Vikram.”
He sounds exhausted. What was Isobel thinking dragging him out here? Fitz thinks she should either figure out how to get Vikram to eat, or leave the man to wither away in peace.
“I wish… I wish I could remember the name of the dessert that my mother loved so much at your restaurant,” Lucy says haltingly. Something in her voice has changed, become distracted. “She talked about that dessert for years. She… she never forgot it.” Lucy sounds unsure of herself… almost fearful.But that can’t be, Fitz thinks.What could she possibly have to fear?
There is a long pause, and when Lucy speaks again her voice has new strength, like she’s decided something. “Vikram, do you smell the viburnum?”
The old chef shakes his head.
Is the color in his face fading? Fitz clenches his jaw, wondering if he’s going to need to offer the starving man a seat on his bench. He’d only cleared enough space for himself.
“Viburnum?” Isobel asks.
Why is Isobel paying attention to Lucy instead of Vikram? It’s unlike her, Fitz thinks, to be so inattentive. The talk of flowers is distracting her from her job. He studies Vikram. The man is swaying unsteadily, he’s sure of it.
