The Garden of Happy Endings (33 page)

As if he sensed her need for him, Charlie dashed out of the darkness and plopped down, panting. She chuckled and scrubbed his side. “All tuckered out, are you?”

He made a talking noise, looked into the darkness, and jumped up, bowed, and danced in a circle, giving a playful yip. He raced in a circle, dashed toward the edge of the clearing, danced back. “What is he doing?”

Deacon said, “He sure acts like he’s playing with somebody.” He looked at Joe. “What do you think?”

The old dog only panted in a smile, uninterested in anything but Deacon and getting his head scratched.

Charlie barked, and bowed again to the empty space, then ran in the peculiar racing way of a dog happily being chased. Elsa laughed.

So did Deacon. Charlie kept playing with his invisible friend, and the boys noticed and started laughing until all four of them had tears streaming down their faces.

At last, Charlie, worn out, came over and fell beside Elsa, panting hard and very pleased with himself. He leaned on her thigh and she rubbed him. “What were you playing with, you silly dog?”

Calvin and Mario came over and sat down. “We want hot chocolate now, please.”

“You got it. Then I think it’s time to head home, boys. It’s getting late.”

“Oh, not yet!” Calvin said. “I want to look at more stars!”

“They’re not going anywhere.”

“Maybe,” Elsa said, “you can ask your mom to help you find a book about the stars the next time you go to the library.”

He nodded, and only then did she see how sleepy he was. Tenderly, she ruffled his curls. “You’re a sleepyhead.”

To her surprise, he leaned into her, and she put her arm around him, pulling him close. His frame was slim and strong, and he smelled of the outdoors, of wind and sunshine and play.

I want this
, she thought fiercely, surprising herself. A boy to read to, a girl to sing to, a child to tuck under her arm, to bake cookies with. To love. She thought of the day Kiki had painted her face, and the little girls played with her hair. She had breathed a prayer of longing as their hands patted her face.
This, please
.

In everything that had happened afterward, that simple prayer had been lost, but now she looked at Deacon over Calvin’s head.
Deacon, who had lost his daughter and now filled the emptiness with little boys and old dogs.

He was perfectly still, watching her. Next to him, his dog gazed up at her, too, a smile on his snout.

The night air began to smell of roses and possibility.

T
hey loaded the telescope into the back of Deacon’s truck and helped Joe into the cab, then walked the boys home. Charlie tagged along quietly, as ready for his bed as the boys were for theirs. Mario let himself in, and they peeked around the corner to see Joseph sleeping in his recliner, hands tucked over his belly.

Paris opened the door to Calvin, smiling when she saw Elsa. “Did y’all have a nice time?”

“The best,” Calvin said, and turned to hug first Elsa, then Deacon, who was taken aback a little. “Good night!”

Which left Deacon and Elsa to walk back down the stairs together. The halls were lit with harsh halogen bulbs, but the stairways were dark, the lights broken out, and it gave her the creeps. “Why doesn’t the landlord fix this?”

“Absentee. I hear he’s trying to sell.” He took her elbow, guiding her, and let it go again when they left the building. “Where’s your car?”

She pointed. “East side.” The depth of the shadows struck her again. “What happened to the lights?”

“Knocked out with rocks. I have to get screens to cover the fixtures.”

“It really is dark without them.”

“Are you scared?” He reached for her hand. The calloused palm and long fingers engulfed hers. She laced her fingers through his, and he tightened his grip ever so slightly.

“Maybe a little.”

Just before they reached the pool of light spilling over her car, Deacon stopped. Elsa stopped with him and looked up, aware of her body again, all of it, her breasts and thighs that had not been
touched in so long, the length of her spine, rippling with the desire to be stroked. He smelled of hot chocolate and cinnamon, and she could tell he was nervous, which was touching in some strange, human way.

She raised her hand to his face, a finger tracing the high angle of his cheekbone, her palm against his cheek. His jaw was smooth, and the idea of him shaving before he came out tonight gave her a sweet swelling tenderness. He lifted his hand and covered hers, his calloused palm rubbing against her knuckles. Without breaking eye contact, he pulled her palm over his mouth and kissed the very center.

Charlie had been leaning against her leg, and now he barked suddenly. Fiercely. Elsa and Deacon broke apart, startled. Charlie growled, low and menacing, at two youths sauntering along the sidewalk. One of them smoked a cigarette, blowing smoke out in a gust illuminated by the streetlight.

“Evening,” Deacon said.

Neither of them said anything, just stared as they walked by. Charlie kept rumbling, and as they passed, he leapt up and gave a deep, businesslike warning, barking savagely. Elsa reached for his collar.

“He’s never done that before.”

Deacon inhaled. “Maybe he never had reason before.”

She looked after them. “Maybe not.”

“Let’s get you to your car,” he said, and just like that, the moment had passed. He opened the door and stepped back. Charlie jumped in and Elsa paused for a moment, wondering if she should do … something. But neither of them did.

“Good night, Deacon,” she said finally, and got in the car.

“Good night, Elsa,” he said, and snugly closed the door.

A
t home afterward, Deacon eyed the box of paper on his table. It was a stationery set he’d bought at Hallmark, light blue paper with matching elements. Classy, he thought, and the simpleness
made it masculine. Over the past three years, he’d written a lot of letters on that paper. All to Jenny.

Who didn’t want his letters.

Now he took out the lined guide he’d made to keep his handwriting straight and put a sheet of the thin blue stationery over it. Using a fountain pen he’d bought specially for this purpose, he began to write, concentrating on keeping his letters clean and legible.

He folded the letter, put it in its envelope and carried it over to the stove. He flipped on the gas burner and stuck a corner of the letter into it. When it caught, he swiveled to hold it over the sink, letting the carbon curls fall to the old porcelain.

Eased, he could finally go to bed.

E
lsa and Tamsin waited for Alexa at the center of the Denver airport. Midday sunlight poured through the high windows. They had been lucky enough to snag a bench, and they drank coffee out of paper cups.

“Why doesn’t Starbucks recycle more?” Tamsin said, frowning at her cup. “They’re supposed to be so hip, and yet how many cups do they go through in a day, do you suppose? Ten million? Not to mention these little finger protector thingies. Why don’t they have recycling bins in every single Starbucks in the country?”

Elsa had been thinking of Deacon again, reliving that moment when she could have invited him to bend in and kiss her. She had wanted it. Why hadn’t she?

Why hadn’t
he
?

“They should definitely have recycling,” she said.

Tamsin gnawed on a plastic stirrer. “This is so weird. The last time I saw my daughter, absolutely everything in my life was different. Everything. It’s kind of bizarre, how everything can flip over in a second.”

“Like a tsunami.”

“Yeah. Or a tornado.” She sipped her latte, eyes trained on the door from which exiting passengers would emerge. “It’s funny how we expect things to be stable and they never really are.”

“Yeah.”

Tamsin looked at her sister. “You aren’t listening to me at all, are you? Where’s your head this morning?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m just sleepy.” She wiggled a foot, thinking of Deacon’s wrist, a flat rectangle with scatters of dark hair. She thought of the shape of his mouth.

Let it go
.

She took in a breath and blew it out. To redirect the conversation, she said, “Honestly, Tamsin, you are so much less—wrecked—than I would have expected.”

She puffed out a bemused laugh. “I know. Me, too. I saw a friend of mine yesterday and she said I looked happier than I had in years.”

“Were you unhappy in your marriage?”

“No,” she said, slowly. “But I’m not sure I was happy either, you know? He was gone all the time, traveling for work, for pleasure. I—” She pursed her lips. “I think I was lonely. I think I’ve been lonely for a long time.” She gave Elsa a perplexed little smile. “How is that possible, that you live with someone for all those years and you don’t even know them, really?”

“I don’t know. There’s only one person I know like that, and, honestly, he probably is exactly who he seems to be.”

“Joaquin, you mean.”

“Who else?”

Tamsin took a breath, blew it out. “Yeah, that’s true.” She shook her head. “You were always his only weakness. Still are, if you ask me.”

A memory floated through her, Joaquin kneeling in the gold-drenched cathedral at Santiago. Her body had still smelled of his lovemaking as he declared his intention to be a priest. “No,” she said. “He loves God.”

“How did that all happen, anyway?”

“It doesn’t matter, Tamsin. It was a really long time ago. We’re different people now.” A trickle of people began to emerge from the international terminal. “Here they come.”

A long line of people poured through the doors, their faces wearing the glazed and greasy mask of an overnight flight. It was more than five minutes before Alexa emerged.

“Oh, my God,” Tamsin said, covering her mouth. “She looks awful!”

“Don’t tell her that,” Elsa said.

But it was true. Alexa had the wan look of a terminally ill patient. Her eyes were ringed with purple and her lips had been bled of color, and she’d dropped at least fifteen pounds from her already slender frame, making her collarbones and cheekbones too prominent, her arm bones awkward. She spied her mother and broke into a run, dashing through the crowd unerringly. “Mommy!” she cried, dropping her pack and flinging herself into Tamsin’s arms. She burst into tears. “I just want to die.”

Tamsin grasped her daughter powerfully, putting a hand on her hair, the other around that tiny waist. She gave Elsa a look of alarm over Alexa’s shoulder. Elsa stepped forward and put her hand on her niece’s back and leaned into her from the other side, making an Alexa sandwich. “We love you,” she said, putting her cheek against the bony back. “We love you.”