Gardenia: A flowering shrub in the madder family with large white blossoms whose plush, peachy scent offers comfort to those who are grieving
That evening, as my dad and I walk out to my mother’s studio to retrieve her final painting, I ask him why my mother blamed herself for his estrangement from Fitz.
“It’s silly,” he says. “She thought I chose her over my father because of one of her paintings.”
“What do you mean?”
We’re in the studio now, and he nods toward the painting that my mother made of the meadow at the Oceanview Home. My mother must have painted it after she visited Fitz, when she was full of hope for what the future might hold for my dad and his father. Even seven months after her death, the painting still hums with her optimism, her certainty that everything would be okay. It will be good to have the painting in the living room, we think, where it will lift our spirits daily.
“This one makes us feel hopeful,” my father says. He says it in the way he has always spoken about our gifts—with a sort of wink in his tone, like he doesn’t quite believe his own words. “But it was another one that made me fall in love with her. That’s what she said, anyway. That she poured love into the painting, and the finished piece was so powerful that I fell head over heels for her when I saw it.” He shakes his head and chuckles. “Utter nonsense. I’d been in love with your mother for weeks by then.”
I’ve never heard this story before. “Do you still have that painting?” I ask.
“Oh, she destroyed it long ago. She thought maybe if I didn’t see it every day, I’d be released from its spell.” His expression darkens, some of his humor fading. “She always thought that painting of hers was why I chose her over my father when he gave me that ultimatum. A painting! She blamed herself for the fact that I never saw him again. Nothing I could say would change her mind about that.”
Be careful, I think.Every action has a consequence.
Wasthiswhy my mother warned me to be careful with my gift? Was this the root of the regret and shame that I sometimes sensed churning within her? Her fear that her gift had torn my father from his father? Her belief that her painting was the only reason my father loved her?
“If anyone tricked anyone into loving someone,” my dad says, “it was me who tricked her. How else but through some strange dark magic would an ordinary guy like me persuade someone as luminous as your mother to love me?”
He looks at the floor then. “I hate that she spent so much of herlife feeling regret over what happened between my father and me,” he says softly. “I wish I’d had the courage to reach out to him long ago—if not for me, then for her. I wish I hadn’t been so stubborn.”
I put my hand on his shoulder and he lays his hand on top of mine. “Mom would be so happy that you saw each other today,” I say. “Her plan took a little longer than she might have hoped, but it worked.”
My father nods. “I just hope she knew that even if I’ve been under a spell since the moment I laid eyes on her, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I would not change one single thing. I’m so glad I was able to love her the way I did. The way I always will. And if I needed the nudge of a little magic to stumble into the love I had with her, and the life I had withbothof you, Lucy, then all I can say is that I’m forever grateful.”
I squeeze his hand. “I’m sure she knew,” I tell him softly. And I really am sure.
We look around her old studio one last time before we head inside. We’ve swept the floors, dusted the shelves. All of my father’s tools are neatly organized on the walls, ready for him to grab when he’s called down to the community center to take care of this or that, or to use in demonstrations during the workshop he’s agreed to teach. The floor is still speckled with the colorful constellation of paint drops that my mother sprinkled, intentionally or otherwise, here and there and everywhere. The regret that had tainted the air is gone now, but a faint hint of my mother’s scent remains. Gardenia, sandalwood, linseed oil.
I suspect it always will.
EPILOGUE
Hydrangea: A flowering shrub with large spherical clusters of blossoms whose soft, honey-vanilla scent evokes feelings of both abundance and maternal love
ELEVEN MONTHS LATER
“Your mother used to say that there’s a bit of magic in every garden gate,” my father tells me as we walk down into the gardens of the Oceanview Home.
“Did she?” I ask, looking at him in surprise. “I’ve always thought that, too.”
“What a load of bologna,” my grandfather grumbles from my other side, making my father and me laugh.
I’ve spent the afternoon being beaten in chess, first by my father and then by Fitz. “I see there’s no mercy around here,” I said cheerfully. It turns out that Fitz did an excellent job teaching my father to play the game when he was a boy—those games were some of the few moments of connection between them for many years.
“No mercy at all,” my father responded, and then glanced meaningfully at Fitz. “But we do have a bit of a surprise.”
And so here we are, the three of us and Gully as well, walking past the reflecting pool as we make our way to the California garden. Beyond the western wall, the sun hangs above the sea, warming our shoulders and bathing the majestic expanse of the Oceanview Home in its golden light.
“After you,” my father says.
I reach out and push open the gate, thinking, as I always do when I see these gates, of Adam.
“Congratulations, Lucy!”
I draw in my breath. There, gathered in front of a long table that has been set up in the middle of the garden, are Adam and Sophie. There is Marjorie, glorious in head-to-toe purple. There’s Jill standing beside Donovan Pike, who has proven himself to be far more softhearted than any of us could have guessed. The two of them look so elegant and right together that I wish they’d finally see what I saw on my very first day here—that there’s an undeniable chemistry between them. There’s Louis and his granddaughter, Katie, whom I’ve become quite close to over the year. And there are Adele and Vikram, and Eva and Mario and Isobel and Noreen and Vince and a clutch of other residents and staff members—there’s been an influx of both over the past year, with the home’s newfound fame (the flowers, rumor has it, stir up the most wonderful memories). Jody is here, too, of course, and Roger, and Naomi, and a couple of my father’s friends from the community center.
