The Unfinished Garden Read online

  Tilly made plenty of excuses for his lack of contact in the years that followed. He had a new wife, a new baby; they moved and had another baby. But then her world imploded. David died, grief eviscerated her, and Sebastian mailed a condolence card signed by his family like a corporate greeting. And for that—Tilly tugged open the greenhouse door—she would never forgive him.

  * * *

  A basketball pounded the concrete and a man laughed. No, absolutely not. Tilly curved around the giant red oak and groaned. Tucked between Sari’s bumper-sticker-covered Passat and the tumble of logs that passed for the log pile, was a sparkling Alfa Romeo convertible. Oh, this was too much. She had a thousand things to do, half of which she couldn’t remember, but would if she wasn’t being harassed by a wealthy retiree who was giving her son advice on free-throws and encouraging her only employee to giggle like a sixteen-year-old on date night.

  Tilly paused at the end of the driveway, hands on hips. She was, if no longer a Haddington in name, a Haddington in heart. One never has an excuse for rudeness. Although James Nealy was testing her on that particular philosophy.

  Since the conversation with her mother two weeks earlier, Tilly had developed a strategy for handling James: ignore him. She figured by the time she left for England, he would have lost interest. No one could be that persistent. No one, it seemed, except James.

  “How many times do I have to say, ‘I can’t help you’?” She kept her voice light, jovial even, but anger foamed inside.

  “I like repetition.” He grinned, flashing even, white teeth. So, James thought he could whittle her down, did he? Big mistake, because she could play a mighty fierce game of chicken.

  “Well, gotta run.” Sari headed to her car. “James? It’s been real.”

  “Want to tell me why you’re here?” Tilly said to James. She could take him, no problem.

  “Want to tell me why you don’t answer your messages?”

  Tilly threaded her thumbs through her belt loops and gave her bring-it-on smile. But as the Passat squealed onto the driveway, she glanced at Isaac, and the fight drained out of her. Poor love, even the promise of hostility brought a flush of dread to Isaac’s cheeks.

  “Now I feel as if I’m the one who’s always apologizing,” Tilly said. And how unreasonable was that, since James was at fault? “But I’m sorry. As Isaac told you last week, I have a family emergency to handle in England. We leave tomorrow. That makes me kinda busy.”

  There was a difference between persistence, which Tilly applauded, and pestering, which she abhorred. When someone pushed too hard, her instinct was to hunker down. It was a Tilly thing. And if her resolve had wavered with James’s admiration of her garden, it had hardened the moment her life had started circling the family drain and he’d begun leaving phone messages that started with “Maybe you didn’t receive my previous message.”

  And why was he wearing a black long-sleeved shirt in ninety degrees? Maybe he preferred air-conditioning to nature. A person, in other words, who had nothing in common with Tilly.

  James crossed and uncrossed his fingers in a silent jig. “I believe Maple View Farm’s ice cream is nationally acclaimed. And since you live two minutes away, I was hoping, if I promised to deliver you back here in half an hour, that you and Isaac might accompany me to their country store?”

  “Could we, Mom? Pretty please with Cool Whip and sprinkles on top?” Isaac’s grin stretched until he resembled The Joker.

  “I’m a little grubby for socializing.” Tilly brushed a cobweb from her T-shirt.

  “You look beautiful.” James sounded as if he were stating a historical fact. Okay, so she warmed to him. Not because he had thrown her a compliment, although that was appreciated, but because she was certain James would have said, “Yes, you look like shit,” if he had believed it. And honesty at all times was another Haddington trait, Tilly’s favorite.

  “Shall we take my car?” James asked Isaac, who punched the air with enough excitement to spontaneously combust.

  * * *

  The forest often closed in around her, but on the farm shop porch, Tilly could breathe. When the real estate agent had first driven her by the farm, thirteen years ago, Tilly’s heart had skipped at the lowing of a cow, the stench of livestock and the sight of a fox ambling across a plowed field. How excited she’d been to discover this yawning landscape of green space that reminded her of the Bramwell Chase estate.

  The view hadn’t changed in thirteen years, which was perfect. Monotony was Tilly’s life preserver. Maybe that was why gardening fed her soul. She loved the predictability of seasonal change, the certainty that redbuds heralded spring, that lantana was the belle of summer, that Coreopsis integrifolia lit up her garden every Halloween. And yet—she shifted and her cutoffs chafed against her sweaty thighs—gardening, like life, was about the unexpected.

  She eyed the stranger sitting next to her, his waffle cone mummified in layers of paper napkins. Now that Isaac had run off to tumble over the hay bale, James had retreated into silence, licking his two scoops of black walnut into a smooth, dripless nub with a single-mindedness that she had come to associate with him after only two meetings. How did she get here, sitting on a rocking chair next to someone she was trying to avoid? A stranger who projected complete focus while eating ice cream but whose constantly moving fingers hinted at something out of control.

  James rose, opened the garbage can flap with his elbow, and lobbed his untouched cone inside.

  “Why spend so long deciding which cone to have if you weren’t going to eat it?” Tilly nibbled through the end of her sugar cone and sucked out double chocolate chip ice cream.

  “Life is in the details, Tilly.”

  When they were talking, she forgot they weren’t friends. “You’ve got something against cones?”

  “Ones that have been sitting out in the air all day, yes.”

  “Worried you might catch a deadly disease?”

  “Possibly.” His eyes were hidden behind mirrored sunglasses, but he appeared to stare at her. Silence pressed on her chest, the silence of strangers who had no understanding and no shared history. “I need to go inside and wash my hands,” James said and vanished.

  A mud dauber hummed under the porch roof, and a memory tumbled out, so vivid Tilly had to gasp. Swear to God, she could hear Sebastian’s giggle, the giggle that fizzed like soda spilling from a shaken bottle. Her memories must be scrambled if she was confusing wasps, Sebastian and laughter. He was terrified of wasps. Always had been, always would be, because he refused to acknowledge it. She took a huge, gulping breath and nearly choked on a lungful of clotted, late-afternoon heat. Sebastian didn’t deserve her thoughts. She wasn’t allowing him to steal them.

  She waved to Isaac, who was tumbling around with two smaller kids, making buddies with ease thanks to equal doses of his father’s charisma and his grandfather’s canny way with people. She had never been as open and trusting as a child. Of course, she had been painfully shy for most of her life. Amazing how widowhood had knocked that out of her.

  The shop door jangled and James reappeared. He shook his hair from his face and smiled at her. She grinned back; it was impossible not to.

  * * *

  Her smile, her smile doused the swell of anxiety.

  “This is very noble of you,” James said as he resettled next to her. He tugged at a loose thread on the hem of his shirt. “Going to look after your mother.”

  “My mother doesn’t need looking after.” Tilly to
ok a tiny, birdlike bite from her cone. “I’m merely helping out.”

  James stopped moving. He recognized self-talk when he heard it, the belief that positive words could lead to positive thoughts. How he wished that were true. In an instant, he wanted to know her hopes, her fears, her family story. The works.

  “Do you have siblings?” he said.

  “I have two sisters, twins. Eight years younger than me. They were preemies, so it was a case of join in the mothering or fall by the wayside. And then my father died and—” Tilly strained to keep Isaac in her sights. “Boring family stuff.”

  Of course, that explained the big-sister bullishness, the duty run back to England. Finally, he had context within which to place her. “You’re the family glue.”

  “I guess so.” Her approval gave him a kick of triumph, the pride of being a kid with his first gold star—hell, his first trophy! When was the last time he made someone feel good about herself, paid attention long enough to want to make someone feel good?

  But her expression suggested sadness, and failure swamped him.

  “We used to be closer.” Tilly paused to chew a fingernail, and James suppressed his revulsion. “Truth is, I’ve distanced myself. Widowhood’s streamlined me. What you see today is the leaner, meaner Tilly.”

  Shit, he didn’t see that one coming. “I assumed you were divorced.”

  “I wish. God, no, I didn’t mean that. You’re not…are you?”

  “No. Never married.” Thankfully, one mistake he hadn’t made. But Tilly, a widow? Had he become so self-absorbed that he no longer recognized the emotion he understood better than any other: grief?

  “How long?” He tried to make eye contact, but she was focused on another fingernail. She wasn’t going to chew that one, too, was she? Couldn’t she see the speck of dirt down by her cuticle? Anxiety curdled inside him, waiting to contaminate his thoughts. James shifted and silently counted six cows in the field opposite.

  “Three years.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. The bottom may have fallen out of my world, but I have two passions, motherhood and gardening, and I get to indulge in both.” Her voice was overly bright. “Hey, who needs Prozac when you can get down and dirty in the soil?”

  God Almighty, how could she say that? James shot up and jabbed his hands into his hair. The chain that anchored his rocker to all the other rocking chairs clanked, and Tilly stared at him. He should try and explain, but he couldn’t. His mouth was dry, and words wouldn’t form. All he could hear was his father’s voice, slurred with Jack Daniel’s and his Irish heritage: You fucking eejit, James. This, this was why he stayed away from women, why he’d expelled desire from his life. It was too hard, too fucking hard.

  Isaac waved and James tried to walk toward him in a straight line, but the impulse was too strong. He had to step on every other dandelion, otherwise he’d die, die from the cancer breeding in the soil. Tilly was watching; he could feel her eyes on him. Don’t do it, she’ll think you’re crazy. But he could smell disease and death waiting in the soil, ready to pounce. Fuck, he must look like a kid zigzagging through a game of don’t-step-on-the-cracks.

  The panic eased, shifted like a rusted-up gear moving again. James’s pulse slowed to its normal beat, but nothing mattered beyond his failure. Once again, he had succumbed to the compulsion. And what of Tilly? He glanced over his shoulder. Was she embarrassed, shocked, or scared to be out in public with a freak?

  * * *

  Did she miss something? One minute they were talking, the next James shot up and began weaving toward the hitching post in the most bizarre manner, like a child playing a game of don’t-step-on-the-cracks. But that wasn’t nearly as weird as him glancing at her and then turning away before she had time to respond. Embarrassed. He was embarrassed, which made her want to run after him, arms wide-open for a big hug. And that might be a little kooky for both of them, so best not. It was sad, however, that he had such a low opinion of her. She may be strung out on her own needs, but the day she became judgmental, someone should bonk her on the head.

  What had he said on the phone about “one of my more annoying habits”? Was this goofy walk another one? Some kind of tic, like his twitching hands? Maybe he had a muscular problem. Okay, so now she was flat-out intrigued.

  Tilly pushed up from the rocking chair and followed James quietly.

  “Hey, James.” Isaac rushed toward him. “Why’re you walking funny?”

  Excellent question, Angel Bug. Wouldn’t mind hearing the answer myself. Tilly stopped and made a big deal out of scratching a no-see-um bite.

  “It’s a habit I have, one I can’t stop,” James said. “Does that make sense?”

  Bingo.

  “Sure. My best friend says that when he gets into trouble at school.”

  “What habits does your friend have?”

  “He jumps up and down. It helps with his sensory integration. If he bounces out his wiggles—” Isaac demonstrated, and Tilly smiled “—he feels less buzzy. Do you feel less buzzy when you walk funny?”

  “For a moment. Then I feel worse. More buzzy.”

  Fascinating. Buzzy sounded more mental than muscular. So James had some psychological thingy, like sensory integration, that caused him to act a little doolally? Sweat trickled down her armpits, but she didn’t dare move.

  “If it makes you feel worse, why do it?” Isaac said to James.

  The answer slammed into her: he doesn’t have a choice. Man, she knew how that felt, to be stuck going through the motions, trapped in a life you were never supposed to live. Behaving as a widow, when every instinct screamed that you were still a wife.

  James took two folded tissues from his pocket, arranged one and then the other over his hand and bent down to pick something. “I do it because I have to step on every other dandelion.”

  “Why?”

  “My brain tells me I have to.” James handed Isaac the flower.

  “Can’t you tell your brain you don’t want to?” Isaac chewed on the inside of his cheek, the same way he did when working through an advanced math problem.

  James tossed back his hair, twice, and laughed. Some women would likely find him attractive. Rowena would label him a sexy beast. The stunning eyes helped, the kilowatt grin, that deep, warm laugh. But it was also the way he spoke—carefully, as if he’d given life a great deal of thought. Or maybe, like Tilly, he’d seen too much of it.

  “Do you ever get hiccups?” James asked Isaac.

  Isaac rolled his eyes. “Allllll the time. Especially after eating little carrots. Yum.”

  “Yum indeed. Little carrots are my favorite snack. Fortunately they don’t give me hiccups, which is good, because I get terrible hiccups. But mine are silent. No one can hear them except me.” James paused, and Isaac nodded. James still hadn’t hinted that he was aware of Tilly, but she sensed he was talking to her, too. “You see, I have a hiccup in my brain. My brain hiccups out the same thought, again and again. Let’s say you get this idea, to step on a dandelion. You do it and then skip off to the hay bale. The original thought, to step on the dandelion, has gone. But if I have the same idea, my brain repeats the message—step on the dandelion, step on the dandelion,” James said in a booming, theatrical voice, and Isaac giggled. “There’s a technical name for my hiccups, but the easiest explanation is that my thoughts get stuck.”

  My thoughts get stuck. Tilly nodded slowly. A phrase that make
s sense.

  “You mean like getting stuck on the idea of my mom doing your garden?”

  “Exactly.”

  Isaac sucked in his breath. “How do you get unstuck?”

  Good question. Do I have an out clause if I end up working for this chap? Of course, going to England the next day made that whole scenario pretty unlikely. James seemed to be on a mission to start pronto and she couldn’t commit to anything before the school year started.

  “How do you get rid of your hiccups?” James asked.

  “My mom drops an ice cube down my back.” Isaac gave an exaggerated shiver. “Yuck.”

  “Well, if your mother can help me create a garden—” James tugged off his sunglasses and gazed at Tilly “—that will be my ice cube.”

  “Cool,” Isaac said, and reached for James’s hand.

  James hesitated. “I’m not good at holding hands. Another bad habit.”

  “No biggie.” Isaac slotted his arm through James’s, and they smiled at each other.

  Poor James. She couldn’t imagine not being able to hold hands. She loved that feeling of being weighted to another person. Holding hands was the best of the best, and the one thing she missed most about her marriage. More than sex, more than kissing. David had been a hand holder. He couldn’t even sit next to Tilly on the sofa without reaching for her.

  Tilly flattened her hand over her heart…and shrieked. Her sugar cone had collapsed, and icy sludge oozed down her legs.

  Chapter 6

  James paced the apartment with his hands clasped behind his neck, and tried to ignore the irritating flopping noises his leather slides made on the wood floor. He could take a Clonazepam, that might help. But there was no specific anxiety to dull, no chemical that could alleviate the tumble of emotions racking his mind, half of which were contradictory. The silhouettes of furniture surrounding him were exactly where they had been the day before. Nothing in this room—including the stack of week-old New York Times in the corner and the four remotes lined up on the right side of the coffee table—had changed, so why did the world around him feel so different? Was it because Tilly had gone, or was it because the hope of her had gone?