The Unfinished Garden

“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 took 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 makes 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?

He tugged open the balcony door and sat heavily on a hard, wrought-iron chair, one of a pair he’d picked up earlier in Chapel Hill. He should have tried them out for comfort, but he needed, he came, he saw, he bought. He had relocated with nothing but essentials and too few even of those.

A fat moon as luminous as an Illinois harvest moon lit up the sky and unleashed a rush of adolescent memories. All of them involved sneaking out at night, but not to find pleasure. His ongoing mission had been to plant evidence. He had flung joint butts into the barn, abandoned Jim Beam bottles on farm machinery and placed ripped condom packets in the back of his dad’s truck. God Almighty, it was a miracle that he and his father hadn’t killed each other. Maybe that was the reason his dad had caved on the Kawasaki. Why else would a parent let his teenager buy a motorbike designed only for speed and danger? Although James had never taken risks with that bike, never gone near it when he was high or drunk, never let anyone else touch it. He still wheeled it out once a month to clean it and to reminisce, but he would never ride it again. He was many things but irresponsible was no longer one of them.

See, Dad? James raised his face to the moon. I’m a fully functioning adult, despite your predictions.

How many years since he and his father had exchanged words? James knew the exact time his garbage was picked up every Thursday, but he couldn’t remember how long it had been since he had talked with his dad. And now, of course, it was irrelevant. His dad was dead. Both his parents were.

The Carolina night skies were spectacular. He’d never seen stars like this. Maybe he should get a telescope. Isaac would like that, wouldn’t he? James groaned and buried his face in his hands.

Get real. Isaac isn’t your kid.

Fatherhood—another relationship he’d screwed up. Yes, Daniel took his phone calls these days, but he still refused to call him Dad, which was fair enough. James had done little to earn the title. In fact, he lacked the whole happy-family gene. That wasn’t self-pity; that was honesty.

James flipped his hand over and stared at his lifeline in the moonlight. He rarely looked at it, since it splintered into three. Nothing good ever came from an odd number.

It was time to shake off his preoccupation with Isaac and Tilly. A widow and single mother had enough to deal with; she didn’t need someone as demanding as him. And Isaac certainly didn’t need him as a male role model.

Maybe he should treat thoughts of Tilly and Isaac as if they were obsessions, tackling them with the big three of cognitive-behavioral therapy—boss back the thought, use logic, use disassociation. Or maybe he should give up the fight. Roll over and play lovesick.

He glanced at his watch: 9:00 p.m. or 2:00 a.m. in England. How many times had he checked the American Airlines website? Tracking them was easy, since there was only one flight a day from Raleigh to London. They would land in five hours, then clear customs and immigration. How long before they arrived at Tilly’s mother’s house?

Let it go, James. Stick with the plan.

But he couldn’t. Meeting Tilly and Isaac felt almost inevitable; he was incapable of resisting. For years, James had struggled with trust, a one-way street that led only to a dead end. But Isaac and Tilly had sneaked under his defenses, and he wasn’t sure how.

Those not-so-subtle hints he’d given Tilly at Maple View Farm were the closest he’d ever come to revealing his secret: “Hi, my name is James and I’m obsessive-compulsive.” Had he been testing them on some subconscious level? If so, they had both aced the quiz.

He glanced back up at the Milky Way. When light came and his day started, Tilly’s would be half over.

Chapter 7

Tilly breathed in recycled air, heavy on the antiseptic and burned coffee, and grinned. She loved night flights with the dimmed cabin lights, the stirring of passengers settling to movies or sleep and the constant thrum of engines. She and Isaac were submerged in airplane twilight, wrapped up in blankets in a row of two. Life didn’t get any better.

“I like James.” Isaac nestled into her, and Tilly fought the urge to tug him closer. “Do you like him, Mom?”

She mussed his hair with her nose. Just For Kids mango splash shampoo. Best smell ever. “I’m not good at meeting people, you know that.” Not exactly an answer, but then she hadn’t prepared for the question. She hadn’t given James a second thought since the ice cream incident. Although she was still miffed that he had asked her to sit on a towel for the short ride home. Who kept a clean towel, in a ginormous Ziploc, in the trunk of his car?

“But do you like him?”

The people in front had left their blind up. Tilly peered through their window, but there was nothing to see beyond the small, white light blinking on the tip of the wing.

“I guess.” She sat back. “Although I have no idea why.”

“Does that matter?”

“I suppose not. It’s just normally when you make a new friend you find common ground, a shared passion. Like gardening.”

Isaac scowled. “Ro hates gardening, and she’s your best friend.”

“That’s different. We’ve been on the same life raft since we were four years old. I could pick up the phone and say help, and she would catch the first available flight.” Just as Ro had done after David died, camping overnight at Heathrow to come standby via LaGuardia. Tilly remembered the cab speeding down the driveway, Rowena flinging open the door while the vehicle was still moving, her only words, Where’s Isaac?

Tilly twirled a lock of Isaac’s hair around her finger. “Besides, she spoils you rotten.”

“So—” Isaac picked a piece of fluff from Bownba, the once-fluffy FAO Schwarz teddy that now resembled a squashed possum. “You like James, then?”

“Clearly not as much as you do.” Should she worry that her eight-year-old still dragged his teddy bear to bed every night? Tilly attempted to squish her feet under the seat in front, but between the bottle of duty-free Bombay Sapphire, her canvas backpack and her floral Doc Martens boots, there was no room.

“Are we going to help him?”

Why was her son suddenly more tenacious than a Jack Russell terrier? Bugger it. She had been enjoying the growing distance between herself and James, herself and Sari, herself and the stings of everyday life. Thanks to Isaac, they rushed back, and all she wanted was a reprieve.

“You need to understand, Isaac—” Oh crap, now he looked crestfallen. “It’s not that I don’t want to help James, but he has that neat I-want-it-this-way thing that screams perfectionist.” Or worse, a Virgo, like Sebastian, and the last thing she needed was another Virgo. Although, technically, she didn’t have a Virgo in her life, not anymore.

“Cripes. Not like you and me, then.”

“Exactly!” Tilly wagged a finger. “Think of the trail of possessions you and I can leave across two continents. A woman as scattered as me could drive a man as uptight as James seriously nuts. You do the math. It ain’t gonna work.” She would be barmy to get involved with someone that persnickety. Which didn’t explain why she had agreed to talk with James in September.

“Well, I’ve been thinking about this,” Isaac said with great solemnity. “I hate hiccups. They scare me because I want them to stop, but nothing I do works. I need you to help me. That’s a horrid feeling, isn’t it? That your body won’t do what you want it to do.”

“Sounds like middle age,” Tilly mumbled.

“I bet it’s a whole lot worse if it’s your brain that won’t cooperate.” Isaac paused. “I think we should help James.”

“Nicely expressed, Angel Bug. I’ll consider your opinion, but right now you need sleep.” And I need peace and quiet. Tilly patted fleecy travel blanket into the gaps around Isaac.

“Tell me the story of how you and Daddy met.”

Tilly covered her mouth. At best, this story was happiness and despair tied up with a bow. At worst, it was a form of self-mutilation, a cut that bled with the life she had lost, or rather thrown away.

“Please?” Isaac looked up with huge Haddington eyes, as pale as her father’s had been. Thank God for genetics. Even a hint of them tethered you to the past.

Tilly smoothed down his bushy hair but it bounced free, sticking out every which way. “Our story begins one summer.”

“Just like now, Mommy.”

“Except this summer is a new chapter in the epic story of Isaac and Super Mom.” Tilly struck her Popeye pose and Isaac snickered. Given the turmoil in her gut, however, Tilly felt less as if she were about to write an exciting new chapter in their lives, and more as if she were free-falling without a parachute, waiting for the big splat when Sari destroyed her business, and Sebastian…. Great, now she had Sebastian to worry about as well as James.

Isaac poked her. “Mom? Are you asleep?”

“Miles away. Sorry.” She resumed stroking Isaac’s hair. “It was a beautiful Saturday in June.” Fourteen years ago last week, another notch on the totem pole of survival. Isaac wriggled into her, as if trying to crawl back into her womb. “I had run away from London and escaped to Bramwell Chase for the weekend. Grammy was off with the historical society, and Grandpa was due back from Northampton for lunch. We had the whole afternoon planned: work on the roses, then hike across the estate. I was propping open the gates for him when—” She didn’t want to remember this, not tonight. Tonight she just wanted oblivion.

“When you heard this funny noise because Daddy didn’t know how to drive a stick, and he’d borrowed some old banger.” Isaac over-enunciated the last two words using a perfect English accent. Tilly swaddled him into her.

“This MG lurched up the High Street, gears crashing. Your father said that was the summer he discovered his two great loves: MGBs and me. Of course, that was before you were born and became more precious than anything.” Isaac made a soft noise, like a kitten’s mew. “Daddy bought his MGB after he got home. The 1972 Roadster that will be yours one day.” If it survives being shrouded under a tarpaulin in the garage.

Her heart contracted at the memory of dark ringlets framing David’s face and his chestnut eyes sparked with ambition. She’d wanted to lose herself in those eyes, and she had. Watching David, as he enchanted a lecture hall or entertained a room of friends, could leave her paralyzed with love. And yet however large his audience, however far away Tilly sat or stood, his eyes always found her. She pushed the heel of her hand into her heart, but the pain tightened. How had she navigated three years without him, without his adoration, without his need to share every joy and every disappointment with her?