“That,” Adam says, smiling, “would be very generous. Before wego out there, can I get you something to drink?” He opens the fridge and peers inside. “Water, lemonade, iced tea, chocolate milk, apple juice, beer… a glass of wine?”
I laugh. “Are you stalling for a time?”
He looks over his shoulder and grins. “Anything to put off seeing the look of horror on your face when you step outside. But I wouldn’t mind a glass of wine if you’ll join me.”
“Sure,” I say. “Thanks.”
Adam pulls a bottle of white from the fridge, and as he pours two glasses, the bright apple-and-citrus scent of the wine dances toward me. “What should we toast to?” he asks, handing me a glass. He tilts his head, thinking. “?‘A work in progress’?”
I smile and clink my glass against his. “To ‘a work in progress.’?” I take a sip of the deliciously crisp, cold wine and then nod toward the back door. “Let’s go,” I say. “Time to rip off the Band-Aid.”
Adam sighs. “Fine. But consider yourself warned.”
He opens the door and I follow him out of the kitchen and onto a wooden landing. Stairs lead down to two small, terraced patches of land with a few stone steps rising from one to the next. A handful of shrubs grow among the parched weeds and dirt. On the top terrace, an oak tree spreads long branches over the yard. The fence around the yard is covered by a jasmine vine that is green in some places and brown in others.
“I think the shrubs might have been doing better before we moved in,” Adam says, looking vaguely embarrassed. “There’s not much to work with, is there?”
“It’s a nice amount of space,” I say diplomatically as I follow him down the stairs to the yard. Sophie had been tossing a stick in theair for Gully, but now she walks toward us. “What do you think, Sophie?” I ask. “Do you have any ideas for what you’d like to do out here?”
She looks around, then slowly shakes her head.
“It’s hard to know where to begin, isn’t it? I sometimes feel that way, too.” Remembering that she is in art therapy, I ask if she has any paper. “I wonder if it might be easier to sort out our ideas by drawing them,” I say. “Maybe you have some crayons or markers?”
Eyes brightening, she turns and jogs up the steps to the house and disappears inside. Gully follows her up the stairs and sits just outside of the door, waiting.
I take a sip of my wine and turn to Adam. “How about you? What would you like to see out here?”
He looks around, thinking. “Well, it would be great to have a place that Sophie loves,” he says. “When Faye showed me this house, I thought it was perfect. I thought it could be a fresh start for us.” He pauses. “It hasn’t felt that way lately, with Sophie suddenly becoming so quiet. But I’d love for this yard to be a place where she could come to feel safe, to relax, to be a kid… to just breathe.” He sounds a little more decisive. “A place that brings her joy.” He looks at me, one dark eyebrow raised. “No pressure at all.”
“The stakes are quite low,” I agree, and he laughs.
I walk over to the ailing jasmine that climbs along the fence and pluck some of its dead leaves, letting them fall to the ground. I feel the vine awakening at my touch, its silky, sweet scent growing stronger in the air.
I turn back to Adam. “How did Marjorie take the news about the home?”
“Oh, she’s devastated. And outraged. Some terrifying combination of the two.Deva-raged?I’ve asked her to move in with Sophie and me. We have plenty of room.”
“What did she say?”
“That she’d be bored to tears with me at work and Sophie in school all day.”
I smile. “I’m glad the news hasn’t dampened her spirit.”
“If anything, it’s done the opposite. I meant it when I said she’s outraged. She’s not going to accept any of this easily. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s devising some sort of sabotage right now. I might be posting bail for a vigilante octogenarian in the near future.”
“Well, I hope she’ll loop me in,” I say, lifting my glass in the air. Maybe it’s the wine taking effect, but I feel a flicker of optimism that I refuse to squelch, no matter how absurd it is. “I’m ready to help her carry out whatever plan she cooks up.”
“The timing of this news is particularly terrible,” Adam says. “Marjorie has been so happy lately. She says it’s all because you’ve brought so much excitement to the home.” He takes a sip of his wine. “She says the scents of your flowers stir up old, lost memories, helping people remember themselves.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“I know,” he says, smiling. “But actually, her comment made me think of something I read in college, a book I haven’t thought of in decades.In Search of Lost Time.It’s by Marcel Proust, the French writer. Have you read it?”
I shake my head. “My reading taste runs more toward cozy fiction than French philosophy.”
“I can’t say it’s to my taste, either,” Adam admits. “I can’t evenpretend to have read very much of it. My English professor just printed out a few excerpts for us. But what I remember of the little bit I read,” he says, holding my gaze, “is that Proust writes about how the taste and scent of a certain cookie—a madeleine—dipped into tea, brought him right back in time to visiting his grandmother as a child. She’d served him madeleines, and when he smelled them again, he was swept back through his life, back to his childhood, for a moment.”
“How beautiful,” I say softly, looking up at him.
