The Why of Things: A Novel (29 page)

A
nders wakes the next morning to the sound of Eve getting ready for the day. He lies awake, listening to the sound of water in the hallway bathroom as she brushes her teeth, of the toilet being flushed; he smiles to himself when he imagines her discovering the note that finally awaits her at the bottom of the hamper. Soon he hears her disappear downstairs, and shortly after that he hears the slam of the kitchen door; he imagines he can almost hear the crunch of gravel as she pedals off barefoot down the driveway, probably bareheaded.

Though it is yet early, there seems no point in falling into the brief sleep that Anders knows would only leave him groggy when, in half an hour, the alarm goes off. Quietly, so as not to wake Joan, he slips out from beneath the sheets and walks as lightly as he can over the creaking floorboards into their own bathroom. He changes into the clothing he has left on the chair by the sink, where Joan has also left her clothing, and the same pocketbook
she’s used for twenty years—one of his most successful gifts to her, he thinks, though at this point it shows its age. He gazes down at the pocketbook as he brushes his teeth, wondering if it might be time for a new one, even as he knows that Joan would never have it. The strap by which it hangs from the back of the chair is worn and slender, the leather of the purse itself soft and creased with age, and the clasp, he sees, no longer holds; it hangs open, revealing the myriad contents inside: wallet, planner, change, notebook, hairbrush, emery board. But something else inside the pocketbook catches his eye, a pamphlet that is wedged between the wallet and the planner; rising from behind the wallet he can see the printed etching of a steeple and a spire.

Puzzled, he sets his toothbrush down and rinses out his mouth, dries off his hands, takes the pamphlet from the purse. He recognizes the church on the front as the large one downtown—St. Ann’s, the printed name beneath the etching tells him, which further text informs him was where James Favazza’s funeral was held the other week. Anders frowns, trying to remember where he might have been that Wednesday while Joan was at the funeral without his knowledge, but the days here seem to blur one into the next, and he can’t recall. Slowly, he opens the program, scans the contents inside. They are what he’d expect—hymns, readings, eulogies, though there is no picture, nor a summary of James Favazza’s life.

He closes the program and returns it to Joan’s purse, precisely where it was between the wallet and the planner, guilty to have committed such a violation, as unwitting as it was; it wasn’t his intention to unearth a secret. He finds himself unsettled, not by the fact that Joan went to the funeral, but by the fact that she felt she had to keep it from him, and he wonders what else he might not know. He bends down again and takes the program out, then
puts it back between the hairbrush and the notebook instead, so that if Joan was even aware of where it was, she will know that he has found it.

*  *  *

E
VE
stands barefoot in mulch still cool with night, hose in hand as she makes her way methodically down the nursery’s rows of plants, one row of tables at a time. Dew glints on the foliage and beads atop each table, and the air holds a faint chill untempered by the sun, which has not yet climbed above the treeline; aside from the narrow strips of sunlight that filter through the trees, the lot is still in shadow.

Although conversation between them has been limited to brief questions and Latin names, Eve feels a growing sense of kinship with Nestor, who works with her among the rows. They are an efficient team, she thinks, early risers, tending quietly and carefully to their tasks, Eve testing soil moisture and watering when needed, Nestor pruning and staking. He stands across the table from her now, staking what he has told her is a coreopsis to a cage. As she waters, Eve watches him work, worrying his hands around a plant as if casting a spell.

There is something about Nestor’s hands that Eve finds fascinating. The way they are perpetually stained, covered with a layer of dirt even at this hour of the morning. The way the skin, stretched taut and smooth across his knuckles, gathers in leathery folds between the joints; when he holds his hand out, it seems to Eve that you could read the lines in his fingers as you would a palm. They are big hands, and despite their arthritic look, dexterous; he tucks twine into careful knots around vines and stems with impossible speed, plucks shoots and wilted leaves with quick snaps of his ridged and brittle nails. She eyes the scar that runs
from wrist to elbow, white and wide; though she is curious, she doesn’t ask where it came from.

“What’s this?” she asks instead, of the last plant left for her to water. It is an unruly little bush, about a foot and a half in height, with gray-green foliage and drooping conical clusters of tiny purple blossoms. If plants had personalities, she thinks, she would get along well with this one. “I kind of like it.”

Nestor glances in her direction. “That,” he says, “is a Buddleia davidii. Of the Lamiales order and the Buddlejaceae family.”

“The Buddleia davidii,” Eve repeats.

Nestor reaches for a pair of clippers and snips a length of twine. “More commonly known as the butterfly bush.”

Eve studies the plant, searching its blossoms for some resemblance to butterflies. They put her more in mind of little doilies, the edges wavery and uncertain. “Why?”

“Look over there.” Nestor gestures with his chin toward another similar plant; three or four large, black and yellow butterflies are alight on its blossoms.

“They attract butterflies?”

“The tiger swallowtail, particularly.”

“How is swallowtail different from any other butterfly? Like a monarch?”

“Take a look. They’ve got forked tails. See that? Just like the forked tail of a swallow. Hence swallowtail.” Nestor frowns down at the plant before him, assessing his work.

“How come they like the butterfly bush so much?” Eve inquires.

“The nectar. Hummingbirds love the nectar, too.”

“They attract hummingbirds, too?”

Nestor nods. “Keep your eyes open, and at some point you’ll be sure to see one.”

Eve looks toward the butterflies on the far bush, their wings
beating in slow motion as they gorge themselves on nectar. “How much do you charge for a butterfly bush, anyway?” she asks.

“How much?”

“Yeah. If I wanted to buy one. How much?”

Nestor regards her seriously. “For you?” he says. “I’d say a morning’s work.”

The sputtering sound of a car engine encroaches on the sounds of birds, the trickle of hose water, the hum of bees; both Eve and Nestor look toward the entrance to the parking lot, waiting for Josie Saunders to appear in her old, beat-up Omni. Eve can’t help but feel disappointed that her time alone with Nestor is up, that Josie is here and the nursery will open and customers soon will begin to appear. And sure enough, Nestor clears his throat, wipes his hands against his thighs. “Well,” he says. “Time to get down to business.” And without another word to Eve, he turns to go inside. Eve watches him, bowlegged and lean, his hair lifting with each step. When she turns back to the butterfly bush, Josie is halfway through the rows of plants, walking in her direction; Eve feels herself stiffen in an inexplicable and reflexive self-defense.

“Hey, Eve,” Josie says.

Eve keeps her attention on her watering. “Hey.”

“How was your weekend?”

At this, Eve glances up. “It’s Tuesday.” The words are out before Eve can stop them, and she feels herself blush; she has nothing against Josie, and the petulant tone was not what she intended.

Josie looks at her. “I know it’s Tuesday,” she says. “I just didn’t see you yesterday. You were gone before I got here.”

“Sorry,” Eve says. “I know. It was fine. The weekend. How was yours?”

Josie shrugs. “It was okay.” Absently, she deadheads a petunia. “Listen,” she says, “the bonfire for the Thunder Moon is tonight,
down at Lanes Cove, and a bunch of us are going to go, set up some chairs, and grill.” She looks at Eve questioningly. “You want to come?”

Eve imagines the massive pyramid of lobster pots and wooden pallets that they pile each summer at the water’s edge and set alight on July’s full moon—the Thunder Moon; she hadn’t realized that tonight was the night, and of course she wants to go. At the same time, she is acutely aware that this invitation would never have been extended last year, or for that matter any year before, that Josie is motivated not by an interest in Eve herself, or her friendship, but by a pity Eve is weary of. Sometimes this is why she resents Sophie the most; she is tired of the new, pitiable identity she’s saddled with. She shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says. “I mean, I think have to baby-sit my little sister. Thanks, though.”

Josie shrugs. “Well if you don’t,” she says. “Or when you’re done? We’ll be right down the hill. You know where to find us.”

*  *  *

A
FTER
breakfast, Anders carries his coffee out with him to examine the Buick’s antenna. He called Rowley Auto Salvage this morning, and they are fairly sure they can find him a replacement; if he’s going to drive Eve over to Rowley anyway, he figures he may as well make the trip worthwhile. The antenna is a particularly tall one, of a sturdy, thick gauge; before Anders unscrews it he strums it with a finger, and diminishing waves continue to ripple its length for several seconds, emitting an eerie cosmic sound. Then he opens the hood to see if there are any rusting parts inside, if there is anything loose or failing that might also need replacing while he’s at it.

He scans the coils and wires of the engine, the belts and fans, though in truth he doesn’t really know what he’s looking at. All of it is fairly rusted and old aside from the air filter, which he’d
had to replace last year; the winter before, mice had made a nest beneath the hood and chewed through the filter completely. Otherwise, nothing has lately been replaced. Most of the parts are original, the same parts that took him and Joan thirteen thousand miles around the country the summer before they were married—although at the time, he remembers now, he didn’t think that would ever happen.

In a minute, Anders hears footsteps coming up the driveway behind him; when he turns, he sees Eve on foot, her face partially obscured by the plant she’s carrying in her arms. “Hi, Dad,” she says, from behind the leaves.

“What do you have there?” he asks her, lowering the hood. “And where’s your bike?”

“I had to leave it at the bottom of the hill. There was no way I could ride all the way up trying to balance this on the handlebars.” She sets the plant down on the gravel.

“And I assume that came from the nursery?”

“Yeah. I earned it. It’s a Buddleia davidii. Aka a butterfly bush.”

“Ah.”

“I’m thinking of maybe starting a garden. A creature garden, where I only plant things that attract creatures. Eloise’ll be excited. Butterflies and hummingbirds and things.” Eve turns around, surveys the lawn. “But where?”

Anders scans the lawn himself; all along the edge, where there aren’t things already growing, like the lilies, are rocks and slabs of granite. “I suppose I’ve monopolized the best gardening space, haven’t I?” he says. He nods toward his rose garden. “Tell you what,” he says. “Why don’t you plant it in there?”

Eve follows his gaze. “In your rose garden?”

“Sure. There’s room. And at least one of them needs a replacement anyway.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

They look across at the failing garden, where a squirrel is making its furtive way along the top of Anders’ wall. It heartens Anders to imagine the spot alive with winged color, resurrected. “If you want,” he says, “I’ll help you get it in the ground right now.”

Eve nods. “Cool. Okay.”

“And after that,” he says, “we can get going, if you’re still interested.”

Eve gives her father a puzzled look. “Get going?”

“Yes. To Rowley. Remember? I thought we had a deal.”

*  *  *

J
OAN
is passing through the kitchen with an armful of dirty sheets when she glimpses Eve and Anders out in Anders’ garden; at the sight of them, she pauses there in the middle of the room, still, just looking out. Eve is watching her father intently as he works, standing on the blade with all his weight to sink it deep into the earth, once and then again, moving in a circular direction around a dying rose bush. After a few minutes, the circle is complete, and Anders hands Eve his shovel. He bends down and grips the rosebush by its base, and with the help of a spade, uproots it. Then he stands and tosses it from the garden; father and daughter follow its trajectory with their eyes.

Joan frowns, feeling deep within her chest the vague, fluttering sense of despair she sometimes has when she sees the two of them together, if only because it makes her think of how she fears her own relationship with Eve has suffered by contrast. It isn’t that Eve is unkind to her mother, or prickly, or rude, at least not most of the time—Joan would almost welcome these as inevitable signs of adolescence. It is instead her daughter’s ostensible indifference
that Joan finds troubling, the arm’s length at which Eve lately holds her mother at bay. Joan believes she understands; she thinks of the days immediately following Sophie’s death, how until Anders had returned home Eve had stubbornly refused to leave her mother’s side; Joan worries that it might have been too much. She fears she may have shown too much; she worries that Eve fears the same.

Joan gazes out the window for a moment more and then continues into the laundry room. She is folding the clean load, trying to forget her niggling unease by focusing instead on the thunk, thunk, thunk of the wash, when she hears Eloise behind her. “Mom?” Joan sets a shirt down and turns at the sound of her daughter’s voice; Eloise has appeared in the kitchen, ready with her things for camp. “You forgot something
really
important.” Eloise thrusts her arm out; Joan sees, to her dismay, the old pig-shaped dog toy of Buster’s that Eloise had dug out of the closet for Henry the other day. She drops the shirt she’d been folding onto the dryer and steps into the room. “His
pig
,” Eloise says. “He
loves
his pig.”