The Garden of Happy Endings (37 page)

Alexa pushed herself to a sitting position. “You shouldn’t let yourself get into a position like that in the first place. He can’t be the person I thought he was.”

“No,” Tamsin agreed. “Probably not.”

Alexa hung her head. “What am I going to do?”

“The next thing. And the one after that.” Tamsin thought about reaching for her daughter again, but she kept her hands in her lap. “Today, you need to take a shower. And get dressed, and take a walk.”

“And go where? Do what?”

“I don’t know. That’s up to you. What you have to stop doing is only sleeping and crying. Now you have to get up and get dressed.”

“Whatever.” She pulled herself upright, a collection of bones.
Tamsin half expected to hear skeletal clattering as she walked to the back room. “You don’t understand.”

“Elsa does,” Tamsin said. “And so will Father Jack. Go talk to him.”

“What does a priest know about a broken heart?”

“He wasn’t born a priest, you know. He’s still a man. He can help you. He helped me.”

“I don’t want to talk to anybody.” She slipped into the other room.

Tamsin made herself a pot of coffee and some oatmeal and toast, trying to be quiet. Instead of getting dressed, Alexa had gone back to sleep, snoring quietly through her congested nose, and since Elsa still had nightmares, Tamsin hated to wake her when she was sleeping in apparent peace.

She carried her breakfast into the dining area of her childhood home, feeling oddly content. Safe, in this little pocket of time when crisis had thrown her together with her sister and her daughter, the two people in the world she genuinely loved. Calamity had brought her a measure of company, revealing just how lonely she’d been before.

But this time would not last. Alexa would heal. Elsa would find out if she still believed in God, and would return to her church or find something else to do. What would Tamsin do? Work in the fabric section of Walmart forever, living in her childhood home until she became an old woman?

Maybe she needed to start thinking about her own future. How to live, what to do, what kind of work she might want to pursue.

She took a bite of toast and oatmeal together, and slid her finger over the center of the tracking square on the laptop. Alexa’s email account was on the screen, showing a list of emails from the same person, Carlos Galíndez.
Please!
one subject line said.
I love you, please call me
, said another.

Tamsin scowled, sorely tempted to open just one of the emails to find out what was going on. All this time, she had assumed that Carlos had broken up with Alexa, not the other way around. But before she could follow through with her snooping, she clicked to sign out.

What was the breakup about? Was Alexa ashamed? Was it about money?

Maybe Tamsin should send Alexa back, to work things out or at least give it a try.

A cold slap of reality doused that idea. A trip to Spain would cost more than a thousand dollars. Tamsin didn’t have two hundred, and even if she sold all the quilts she’d taken out of the house, she wouldn’t have very much. The best quilts, the ones she could sell for real money, were still locked up there.

For a moment, she felt the unfairness of her situation again. After so many years of comfortable living, she had nothing now. Not even a thousand dollars for a plane ticket for her brokenhearted daughter.

The burn rose and Tamsin slid her finger over the track pad to bring up the screen again. She signed on to her quilting boards, needing the distraction of her compatriots to blot out the heavy questions of the morning. The questions of what to do with her life and how to save her daughter were too big to answer just this moment.

What could she do
today
? She could quilt. She could make something beautiful. She might not have much control over her life right now, but she could have control over those scraps of fabric. She could create order out of disorder.

And then it hit her. The earrings Scott had given her. The giant diamonds she’d tucked into the secret stash in her bread box last fall and completely forgotten about.

Holy cow. She laughed, and then clapped her hands over her mouth. Beautiful!

She’d left that window open. She would sneak back in and get
the earrings, and while she was at it, she’d steal the rest of her quilts, too. She would steal back her own property and then she would sell them on eBay.

But the earrings. The earrings could make a big difference. Energized, she finished her breakfast, gulped down her coffee, and headed for the shower. She had to be at work soon, but she’d go by afterward.

And tonight over dinner, she’d get to the bottom of what had happened between Carlos and Alexa.

Which reminded her to leave a note for Elsa.

Humming quietly under her breath, she headed for the shower herself. It was only as she stuck her head under the spray that she realized that the tune was “I’m in the Money.” She laughed aloud. Oh, life could be so sweet!

I
t was Friday morning, almost time for Elsa’s standing date with Joaquin. She was half-tempted to skip it, and the thought rolled around in her mind as she roused Alexa and made her take a shower, then sat with her while she ate some scrambled eggs. “You’re making me eat and you’re not having anything?” her niece asked.

“I have plans for breakfast.” She sipped her coffee. “In fact, I want you to come over to the church in about two hours and find me in the rectory. We’ll do some gardening.”

“I don’t feel like doing that.”

“Well, I’m sorry. You have to come anyway.”

“How will I get there?”

“Walk.”

“It’s miles!”

“Maybe two miles, I guess. It will be good for you.”

“No.” She shoved her plate away. A small pile of eggs remained on it. “I’m not walking.”

Elsa pushed the plate back. The point was fresh air and exercise, which they would find in the garden. “Eat the rest of your eggs and I’ll leave you the keys to my car.”

For a moment, Alexa scowled. Then she picked up her fork. “Fine.”

Elsa stood and kissed her head. “My keys are on the hook over there. See you in two hours.”

Alexa nodded.

“Promise?”

“Yes,” she said with exasperation. “I promise.”

E
lsa had not actually spoken with Joaquin after the odd moments on the levee yesterday. The conversation had been strange enough, but then Deacon had followed it with his weird … what? Accusation? Insight? Skewed loyalty?

Whatever. She was irritated with men in general, and it was good for her to walk. She and Charlie wound through the sleepy, morning-lit streets. She could suddenly taste summer in the air. The trees were no longer clothed in the delicate pastels of spring, but had donned the vigorous palette of summer. Roses and peonies had replaced lilacs in the yards along her route. She passed a stout woman in a housedress, waving a hand sprinkler back and forth across the beds. “It’s gonna be a hot one today,” the woman called.

“That’s what I hear.” It had been a long time since she’d spent summer in Pueblo, and she looked forward to it. The long evenings alive with crickets and the calls of children, the afternoons so hot and bright you found the coolest spot in the house and curled up for a nap.

The door to the rectory was standing open, and Elsa called through the screen door, “Knock, knock.”

“Come in,” Joaquin called.

She pulled open the screen door, a sturdy wooden one, and let Charlie run in ahead, but he looked over his shoulder and whined. “Okay,” she said, “you go run in the field.” She unleashed him and he took off with a happy little yelp, as if he were off to meet a buddy. “Funny dog.”

Joaquin stood at the sink, filling the coffeepot. He had not yet changed out of his running clothes. “Sorry,” he said, “I’m headed for the shower right now. Just fell a little behind this morning.”

His shirt was an old turquoise running tank, so old the letters were worn off across the front. It showed the long length of his throat and his arms, the color of pecans. He must smell sweaty, but to Elsa he just smelled like Joaquin, heady and sharp and real. “Go,” she said, waving her hand in front of her nose as if he stunk. “I’ll take care of getting things started. What’s on the menu this morning?”

He backed from the sink, not quite meeting her eyes. “Hadn’t really thought about it yet. What are you in the mood for?”

“I don’t care. Did you run a long time? Maybe you want pancakes?” She poured water into the coffeemaker. “Are there some frozen berries?”

“Yeah, okay, that sounds good.” He still had not met her eyes, and she was suddenly aware of a thick awkwardness between them.

“Is everything okay?”

His head came up. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. You’re just acting kind of weird.”

A flush of color touched his cheekbones—embarrassment or secrets or something—and she inclined her head. “Walking? What’s up?”

But he just shook his head. “I’ll be back down in five minutes.”

“Pancakes?” she called after him.

His voice was muffled as he dashed up the stairs. “Fine.”

So Elsa turned the radio on to the local pop station and started taking out the ingredients and utensils they would need—flour and eggs and milk and berries, the scarred electric griddle, pancake turner, and a glass bowl, blue with red and yellow stripes, that had probably been there since the second world war. As she turned the griddle on, a thought tickled her imagination, and as she stirred the ingredients together, she spun a scenario of what this place might have been like seventy years ago, when there had been two priests and sometimes a seminarian for the summer, and a flock of nuns who lived in the convent across the street who taught in the old school. Bustling, busy, vital.

It still was. Sunlight splashed through the windows, and she could spy San Roque in the courtyard. Roses grew up a trellis behind him, sending their scent into the air, and a big white cat sat nearby, grooming himself in the sunshine. His fur was glossy and beautiful. On impulse, she went to the door. “Here, kitty kitty,” she called.

He lifted his head, his pink tongue still sticking out the tiniest bit, which made her laugh, and put his paw down. She didn’t think this was the same cat she’d seen before. There was a gaggle of them, a pack of feral strays who lived on the smaller creatures who populated the riverbanks. “Come on,” she called. “Come here, kitty, kitty.”

He thought about it, then decided she might be all right, and sauntered over, a big healthy male. Elsa stepped into the courtyard and he bumped against her leg with an arched back. She bent down to pet him, finding his fur thick and silky. “What’s your name, baby?” she cooed. “Do you want some breakfast?”

He chirruped, his tail high, and she said, “Just a minute. Let me find you something.”

She dashed into the kitchen, looked in the pantry and found
a can of tuna, and opened it. The cat stood on the other side of the screen door, tail waving back and forth across the ground like a snake, but his posture was otherwise patient. “You’re so pretty,” she cooed, spooning half the can onto a plate. He bent over it with delicate intent.

“Are you feeding that cat?” Joaquin asked from behind her. He’d tucked himself into his clerical clothes. His collar was tightly in place against his neck. Even his hair was slicked back from his face. “He’ll never quit now.”

“Is he a stray? He seems well tended.”

“I think somebody abandoned him.”

She gave him a sideways smile. “Ah, so this is not the first time he’s been fed at this door.”

“Maybe not.” He clapped her on the arm. “Come on, let’s get breakfast going. I have a busy day.”

“Anything interesting?” She checked the heat of the griddle with a few drops of water. They danced across the surface, so she ladled out pancake batter.

He poured coffee for both of them, splashed milk into hers and set it beside her. “Not really. Or not more or less interesting than most days. Just a lot going on. Wedding season is upon us.”

“Ah.” She sipped her coffee, and spilled some onto one of the pancakes. “Dang it. I’m so clumsy this morning! I stubbed my toe stepping up to a curb.” She scraped up the bad pancake and stepped on the lever of the trash can to lift the lid. It was quite full. Right on top were the remains of a chicken breast and drumstick, along with a tangle of foil. “Chicken for dinner?” she asked, feeling airless.

“Yes. Deacon brought it to me. Some woman made it for him, I think.”

Still holding the spatula, she looked back at him. “Is that what he said?”

Joaquin had been sorting through a stack of mail, and now
raised his head to look at her. For a long, long moment they were silent, knowledge passing between them, back and forth, back and forth.

At last, Joaquin said, “Not exactly. I made the assumption. Women are always bringing him things. Food, socks they’ve knitted.”

Elsa carefully, precisely, flipped a pancake. “I see.”

“Did you make it for him?”

For the first time in their entire relationship, Elsa lied, too humiliated to say yes. “No. Who has time for that?”

A
fter breakfast, Elsa headed to the garden. Alexa would be there soon. They could do a little weeding, then she’d let the girl off the hook to go hibernate. Elsa didn’t know what she would do with herself, though. She felt restless—irritable, even.

The cat had curled up beneath a rosebush at San Roque’s feet. She stopped to pet him, and he purred but didn’t open his eyes. A pink climbing rose curled around the saint’s pedestal. Absently, Elsa plucked one and laid it at his feet, thinking,
A dog for Calvin, home for a stray cat
.

It was beginning to dawn on her that she didn’t have enough to do. For more than a decade, she’d been involved in a demanding career, part counselor, part teacher, part shepherd. The variety and constantly shifting roles of the job had appealed to her most of all. For a minute, she looked up at San Roque, his kind eyes. “You have any thoughts on this?”