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Finally, after eight months of drifting, he’d come to the end of the line. There was only one thing that might make a difference. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the card Joe had given him.
Annie kept Izzy busy all day, but as the night began to fall, she couldn’t pretend anymore. She read Izzy a bedtime story after dinner, then pulled Izzy into her arms. “I need to tell you something, Izzy,” she started softly, trying to find the right words. “Your daddy is going . . . to be away for a while. He’s sick. But he’ll be back. He loves you more than the world, and he’ll be back. ”
Izzy didn’t respond. Annie didn’t know what to say, what words could soothe this situation. She held Izzy for a long, long time, humming tunes
and stroking her hair, and then, finally, she sighed. “Well, it’s bedtime. ” She pulled away from Izzy and got to her feet. She started to head for the stairs, but Izzy grabbed her hand.
Annie looked into the sad, frightened brown eyes, and it broke her heart all over again. “I’m not going anywhere, honey. I’m right here. ”
Izzy held on to her hand all the way up the stairs and down the hall, and into the bathroom. In the bedroom, she still wouldn’t let go.
Annie looked down into the girl’s huge brown eyes. “You want me to sleep with you?”
A quick smile darted across Izzy’s face. She squeezed harder and nodded.
Annie climbed into Izzy’s tiny twin bed, without bothering to brush her teeth or change her clothes. She left the Little Mermaid nightlight glowing next to the bed as Izzy snuggled close.
Annie stroked Izzy’s soft cheek, remembering suddenly how much she’d missed talking about her mom when she was young. After the accident, no one ever mentioned her: it was as if she’d never existed in the first place. And so, Annie had begun, day by day, to forget. She wondered if poor, quiet Izzy was facing the same fears.
She pulled up a memory of Kathy, concentrating until she could see Kathy, sitting in that old rocking chair on her porch. “Your mom had the prettiest blond hair I ever saw; it was the color of a ripe ear of corn. And it was so soft. When we were little, we used to braid each other’s hair for hours. Her eyes were almost black, the deep midnight color of a night sky, and when she smiled, they crinkled up in the corners like a cat’s. You remember that?”
Annie smiled. It was funny the things she could recall all these years later. “Yellow was her favorite color. She wore it in every school picture for years. And to her first dance—that was in eighth grade—she wore a yellow cotton dress with a deep blue satin trim that she’d made herself. She was the prettiest girl in the school. ”
Izzy twisted around to see Annie. There were tears in her eyes, but she was smiling.
“You’ll never forget her, Izzy. You remember her laugh? The way it used to spike up at the end, just before she started snorting? And the perfume she liked to wear? And the feel of her hand in yours? You remember how it used to feel to snuggle in her lap and hear her read you a bedtime story? All of that is your mom. My mom’s been gone a long, long time, and I still think of her every time I smell vanilla. I still talk to her at night, and I believe she hears me. ” She brushed a lock of black hair from Izzy’s earnest little face. “She hears you, honey. She just can’t answer, is all. But that doesn’t matter. You snuggle under your blankets with Miss Jemmie and close your eyes and remember one thing about your mom—just one—and the next thing you know, she’ll be in bed beside you. You’ll feel yourself getting warmer, or you’ll see the moonlight get a little brighter, or the wind will moan a little louder, and you’ll know. In her own way, she’s answering you. ” Annie took Izzy’s cheeks in her hands and smiled down at her. “She’s always with you. ”
She held Izzy close and talked and talked and talked, laughing every now and then, and occasionally wiping a tear from her eye. She talked of girlhood pranks and loves lost and found, and wedding days; she talked of babies being born and growing up, and of Natalie. She talked about Nick, and how strong and handsome he had been and how much he loved Kathy, and how sometimes grief sent a person into a deep, cold darkness from which there seemed to be no escape.
She was still talking when night fell and plunged the room in darkness, when Izzy’s breath took on the even wheezing of a deep and peaceful sleep.
Spring chased away the last vestiges of winter, threw its bright colors across the rain forest. Dainty crocuses, hyacinths, and daffodils bloomed in beds, along walkways, and in pockets of sunlight in the damp, needle-strewn forest floor. The birds returned, sat together on telephone wires, and dove for bits of string on the road. Jet-black crows hopped across the lawn, cawing loudly to one another, and used the driveway as a landing strip.
Against her father’s pointed advice, Annie had packed a small suitcase and moved into Nick’s house. It had proved to be a blessing, for although the nights were still long and lonely, she found that she now had someone to help her through it. She was no longer alone. When she woke in the middle of the night, her heart pounding from familiar nightmares, she climbed into bed with Izzy and held her tightly.
They spent all their time together, she and Izzy. They went to town, baked cookies, and made jewelry boxes from egg cartons. They concocted elaborate care packages for Natalie and mailed them every few days. They worked out of kindergarten and first-grade workbooks, to ensure that Izzy was still learning what she needed for school. And every evening, Nick called to say good night.
Today, Annie had special plans. It was time to revive Kathy’s garden.
She stood at the wobbly white picket fence that framed the garden, and Izzy was beside her. The earth was a rich brown, soggy to the touch from last night’s heavy rain. Here and there, puddles winked with a strange, silvery light.
Annie set down her big cardboard box and began extracting her tools: spades, hand shovels, trowels, scissors.
“I wish I’d paid more attention to the gardeners at home,” she said, spying a big lump of brown twigs that looked promising. “That must be something good—or it’s the biggest individual pile of weeds I’ve ever seen. And see how they’re growing in clumps—that surely must be a good sign. I think cutting it back will help; at least that’s what Hector at the Feed Store said. Come on, Izzy. ” She led her across the necklace of stepping stones that formed a meandering trail through the large garden. They stopped at the patch of dead stuff.
Annie knelt. She could feel the moisture seeping from the soil into her pants, squishing cold and clammy against her skin. Pulling on a pair of gloves, she attacked the dead plant and yanked a handful out by the roots. “Bulbs,” she said with a triumphant smile. “I knew it. ”
She turned to Izzy, gave her a self-satisfied look. “I knew it was a flower all along. Never questioned it, no sirree. ”
She separated and replanted the bulbs, then attacked the dead stalks of perennials with her clippers, hacking everything down to ground level. “You know what I love about gardening? Paying someone to do it for me. ” She laughed at her own joke and kept working. She pulled up everything that looked like a weed and divided and replanted all the bulbs. At last, she turned to the roses, carefully pruning the thorny branches. As she worked, she hummed. She tried to think of a song that Izzy would know, but all she could come up with was the alphabet song, and so she sang it in her wobbly, off-key voice. “A-B-C-D-E-F-G . . . H-I-J-K . . . L-M-N-O-P. ”
She frowned suddenly and looked down at Izzy, keeping her gaze averted from the tiny black glove. “My goodness, I’ve forgotten the alphabet. Not that it matters, of course. It’s just a song and I’m sure I’ll remember it in no time. “L-M-N-O-P. Well, there I go again, getting stuck on P. ”
Izzy reached slowly for a trowel. It took her a while to pick it up with only two fingers, and after the first fumbling attempts, Annie couldn’t watch.
She kept singing. “H-I-J-K . . . L-M-N-O-P . . . darn it. There’s that block again. Oh, well. I think we’re about done for a while. I’m starving. What do you say we—”
“Q. ”
