Page 85 of Just Ten Seconds

I shake my head and look down with a laugh. I run a hand over the box. “Did you leave anything behind in Brooklyn when you moved here?”

She looks up at me with an understanding expression. “We left behind the bad memories. My Vincenzo, he had been a card shark when he was younger. It was what the guys did. But when you took a loan, it was from the bookies, and they weren’t the kind you wanted to owe money to. When he’d gotten into a hole, his father had bailed him out and told us to get out of town. So, we put the kids in the car and headed up north.”

I’m surprised by this revelation. Whenever she talks about Vincenzo, it’s of this upstanding man without a flaw.

She gives me a pointed stare. “Everyone makes mistakes. It’s what you learn from them that counts.”

“I suppose,” I say, working my lip in between my teeth.

“You don’t suppose. You know.” She is forceful with her sentiment.

I run my hands down my thighs and take a deep breath. “So, that was it? You moved up here, and life was perfect?”

“You know better than anyone that no life is perfect. We moved up here, and he was itching for some action. He loved his cards. That porch you’re sitting on? He built it. I told him, you want something to do with your hands, start building. And he did. He messed it up four times before it was level. Turned out, he was good at fixing things.”

Reminds me of Dean. A man who can fix things. Even when he was building a set for Amanda’s show, he tried and tried again until he got it right.

I hang my head in my hands, letting my elbows lean on my knees as my fingers run over my scalp.

“All bills?” She points her hoe at my mail pile, which is now sitting on the front porch beside me.

I shake my head.

She points to Benjamin’s letter at the top. “You going to open it up or burn it?”

I look to the side, scrunching my mouth with how ridiculous I am to believe no one can see just how much I hurt. “Burn it.”

“I don’t ask questions. What you do with your life, you do for a reason. I just make sure you’re not hurting yourself by burying yourself in the bad.”

I close my eyes and sigh. “I messed up, Rita. I don’t know how to get out of it.”

“Maybe you could start by talking.”

Her words make me want to laugh, but I don’t because that’s how I got into this mess. By talking.

“I lied,” I say and then wait for her to say something.

To her credit, she keeps her head down and plants the bulbs she has in a pot beside her.

“I lied about my past to someone I care about very deeply.”

She doesn’t flinch, except for the small shrug of her mouth.

“I’m afraid that when he finds out,” I continue and then restart by saying, “Strike that. I know when he finds out, he’s going to hate me. He doesn’t let people in easily.”

“Sounds a lot like you,” she surmises. “Come, take a seat.”

I move from the top step down to the bottom, right next to where she’s planting. Her flower bed that is usually full of blooms is now vacant of all color.

She digs another hole and plants a bulb.

“Some people say not to plant in the fall because the frost is on its way. What they don’t realize is the time when everything is dying is the best time to start new life.” She takes some dirt and covers the bulb. “There’re two different kinds of plants. Perennials and annuals. Some, you plant and enjoy for a season, and they die, so you get new ones. They’re superficial. But the annuals, those are the ones with roots. They grow beautiful, and in the fall, they droop. They get ugly, and they die. But in the spring, they come back even more beautiful. They’re like memories. It’s like the people in our lives. Some are fleeting, here for a moment. Others grow roots. Those are what I plant. In the dark of winter, they lie dormant until it is time for them to flourish.”

I let out a weak smile at the metaphor. “I’m not a flower. I don’t know how to thrive when the season is so long.”

She places her hand on my knee and looks back at me kindly. “I don’t know what brought on these new troubles for you, but the only way you’ll be able to move forward into your spring is to conquer your winter. No sunshine or rain will help or hurt you unless you fix your roots. Get down to your problem and the thing that keeps you from growing.”

It’s like the advice she gave me not too long ago. “Go to a group,” she said.