The Garden of Small Beginnings, page 25
I laughed. “Isn’t that my job? What are you worrying about?”
She held up her hand and folded her fingers down one by one. “Richard. Maggie and Berto. My butt. My skin, particularly my neck skin. My job, and will I ever have the balls to leave it. You and the kids if I move to Paris.”
I was surprised. “Are you planning on moving to Paris?”
She shook her head. “No, but what if I did?”
I turned away. She was obviously beyond help. I could see Mike sitting next to Angie, chatting away, laughing. I realized that he was one of those people, to me at least, who keeps revealing new sides of themselves in a never-ending unfolding of niceness. Everything I learned about him made me like him more. Based on the way Angie relaxed around him, I was far from alone.
Nearby Frances and Eloise were bickering gently over something, and Gene was shoveling manure onto an empty patch of earth. He caught my eye, and I waved and called out.
“Salad not enough for you, Gene? Expanding your base of operations?”
Eloise and Frances looked up.
“I hope you’re not planning on annexing our area, Gene.” Frances was jokingly stern. Gene shook his head.
“No, just helping out a bit. I like it.” He pulled off a glove and wiped his brow with his sleeve. “Hot work, though.” He was dripping sweat, but it didn’t seem to bother him. Made a change, I guess, from yelling “Buy! Buy!” and “Sell! Sell!” for forty years.
I checked on the kids again. Annabel was lying on her back, which freaked me out for a second, but then I saw her sneaker bobbing up and down in time to the tune she was singing.
“All right there, Bel?” I called over.
“Yeah, just watching the clouds and stuff.” She carried on singing, happy as a little clam.
On the other side of the kids’ garden, Lisa was helping Bash and Clare transplant more strawberries into their plots, presumably to jump-start their crop. Clare suddenly stood up and whirled around in big circles, her arms out, and then plonked back down again. I shook my head. Honestly, who knows what that was about? That kid didn’t just dance to her own tune; she’d hired her own orchestra.
I was just turning idly back to my own planting when I heard a cry and looked up. Everyone but me was on their feet and moving. Mike and Angie were scrambling, Eloise and Frances were stooping down, and Edward was turning and running toward the main entrance of the park. I stood up as Rachel shot past me toward the kids. I was confused, alarmed, and then I saw what was going on.
Gene was lying on the ground, his shovel next to him. He was totally still. Totally pale. And totally in the hands of Angie, who was pulling open his shirt and starting to perform CPR.
I froze. I had often wondered, in the years since Dan’s accident, whether I would react better the next time someone died in front of me. I cannot tell you the number of nights I’ve dreamt about saving my husband, about running out and pulling his body from the crumpled car, of lifting a truck off him, of pulling a crying baby from a burning house, of leading frightened horses to safety—you name it, I’ve rescued it. In my dreams. Now that I was faced with another emergency, it turned out I was even more useless than last time. If God had been watching from above, or from the Goodyear blimp (assuming he could get a ride), He would have seen two points of stillness: me, one, standing about twenty-five feet away from Gene, two, who was lying exactly the way you’d expect a dead body to lie. Around the two of us people moved like ants around a doughnut: busy, busy, busy. Rachel had led the kids away to look at something else, although Annabel kept turning back to look. Eloise and Frances were forming a shield, while Mike and Angie were taking turns performing CPR. The sun shone. The birds sang. Trees waved, uncaring. I could just see one of Gene’s shoes, loosely tilted to one side. I stood very still. If I moved, I would shatter any chance he had.
Suddenly Edward blew past me doing about ninety. He was carrying a case, and it wasn’t until Angie pounced on it that I realized it was one of those portable paddle thingies you see all over the place these days. The thing where the doctor yells “Clear” and the body jumps up and down. I still didn’t move. I realized tears were dripping down my face. I should go to my kids. I should call 9-1-1. I should start digging a grave.
“Clear,” yelled Angie, and I saw Gene’s shoe jump.
A pause.
“Charging.” Angie’s voice wasn’t her usual voice. It was a working voice.
“Clear,” she yelled again, and again Gene’s shoe jumped.
I heard running behind me and realized the ringing in my ears had been sirens. Show’s over. Nothing to see. I sat down slowly on the ground and waited to be taken away.
Rachel touched my shoulder.
“Come on, babe. Time to get out of the way, yeah?” She knelt and looked me in the face. “He’s going to be fine. We need to take the kids home now, OK?”
I shook my head. “He’s dead.”
She shook hers back at me. “No, Angie brought him back. Edward got the paddles, Mike did CPR, and Angie shocked him back to life. He’s going to be fine.”
I looked up. The EMTs had loaded the body onto a gurney and were bumping it across the ground. As I watched, I saw Gene raise his hand to Mike, who was grinning down at him. Not a body. A person.
Reality snapped back into place with the roar of an earthquake in a drum factory, and I got to my feet. Rachel was watching me closely.
“You’re OK, Lili. You’re OK, too.” She was holding my hands and squeezing them, I realized. Edward came up, and they exchanged glances.
“Are you all right, Lilian? That was very shocking.”
I looked at him. “You saved him. You knew what to do.”
He grinned, obviously still a bit freaked out himself. “Actually, the city of Los Angeles saved him. You can’t teach a course on city land without taking a CPR course. I knew we had paddles, and I knew where they were.”
“Wow. And they taught the kids about worms.”
He and Rachel both laughed, apparently relieved I wasn’t about to go nuts.
Speaking of the kids, they were suddenly there, too. I pulled them into a hug.
“Gene fell down!” Clare was amazed that she wasn’t the only one to whom these things happened.
“Gene had a heart attack, Clare,” Annabel informed her, little M.D. that she was.
“And he fell down. How unlucky is that!”
Bash was there, too, watching his mom follow the gurney toward the ambulance. His expression was clouded.
“Are you OK, Bash?” I knelt down next to him.
He looked at me, and his eyes were brimming with tears. “My mommy saved him, didn’t she?” I nodded. He smiled. “That’s even cooler than chasing bad people.”
“It’s totally awesome,” said Clare. “And that is even more awesome.” This was because the ambulance had pulled away, sirens and lights screaming.
She turned to me and Edward and Rachel, and put on a very serious expression.
“You know, I thought gardening class was going to be a little bit boring. But it isn’t at all! It’s better than TV!”
How to Grow Corn
Plant seeds outdoors once a few weeks have passed since the last frost. Corn likes warm soil.
• Plant them 1 inch deep and 4 to 6 inches apart, in rows 30 to 36 inches apart. See, your mother was right: Math did turn out to be useful after all.
• Water well after planting.
• Harvest when tassels begin to turn brown and the cobs start to swell. Pull ears downward and twist to take off the stalk. (The corn ears, not your ears, silly.)
• Corn cobs lose their sweetness very quickly after picking, so eat or preserve them immediately.
Chapter 20
Once Isabel showed up at the hospital, Angie and Mike headed over to my place to pick up Bash and calm down from the excitement.
When Angie walked in, we all cheered—the whole class had come to my place and were waiting for the inevitable pizza, the shorter ones among us with less patience than I would have liked.
“Mom! You’re a hero! You saved Gene!” Bash ran up and threw his arms around her.
She hugged him hard and looked around at us. “It was a team effort, Bash, like always. Edward and Mike helped to save him, too. None of us could have done it alone.”
Bash looked like he was going to argue the point, but the doorbell rang just in time. Yay, pizza.
“Isabel was amazing,” Mike said, giggly, probably with delayed shock. “She burst into the emergency room, yelling for Gene and taking no prisoners.” He laughed. “Gene heard her and yelled back. It was like Romeo and Juliet.” He shook his head.
Angie was grinning, too. “We just backed away and left them to it. He’s in good hands, and seems pretty stable for a guy who was dead for two minutes this afternoon.”
“Was it just a heart attack?” Edward said.
Angie nodded. “They think so, but they’re running tests. He’s got some residual problems. Basically, as he himself said back when we all met him for the first time, he’s in pretty bad physical shape, and he was shoveling shit, literally, in the hot sun.”
Edward frowned. “I should have been paying closer attention. He seemed fine.”
Angie shook her head. “He was fine. And then he was dead. That’s how it goes.”
Several of them turned and looked at me. I turned up my palms. “She’s right. That’s how it goes. In my experience, that’s the only way it goes.”
“Well, hopefully, you’ll have a long, lingering death, with plenty of time to prepare.” Rachel squeezed my arm. “That didn’t come out right, but you know what I mean.”
I grinned at her. “Actually, I totally do. And thanks. I hope your death is long and lingering, too.”
She held up her hand. “Nope. I want to go quick, laughing my ass off, sudden aneurysm and immediate ruination of whatever dinner gathering I was at.”
Eloise looked at her and raised an eyebrow. “You are officially uninvited to my party.”
“Oh, come on. A young and lovely body like mine has years to go.”
I said nothing. I’d seen a young and lovely body get squished like a bug, but this probably wasn’t the time to mention it.
• • •
Although I felt fine, that night I had a nightmare for the first time in ages. I was standing in the street outside my house, and it was totally empty. I could hear cars coming, and then they were there, one on either side of me, moving fast. For a second, the street was filled with emergency vehicles and people staring, but then it was deserted again and still the cars were coming. I could see Dan’s face, and the girl’s face at the same time. She wasn’t paying attention, and Dan was oblivious, as he must have been to get hit so hard, and head-on. I yelled and shouted and screamed, but they weren’t listening. I tried to pull my feet out of the asphalt, but they were buried to the ankle, as if it were mud. In the next instant, the cars were crashing around me, the sound battering me even though the twisting metal and smoking engines and scalding gasoline were bending around me, leaving me untouched. From where I stood, in excruciating slow-motion, I saw Dan’s arms fly forward and hit the windshield, his hands crumpling like paper, his wrists snapping instantly, his forearms shattering, bones bursting through his skin, tugging their tendons with them. His head snapped down and back, and I saw blank terror in his eyes, an animal in a slaughterhouse. The dashboard rippled like silk, the airbags unfurling like giant obscene mushrooms, and then I saw the piece of metal, something from behind the airbag, piercing it, a harpoon straight to Dan’s chest. He never saw it, but I did, and reached for it. I grabbed it as it came through the bag, but it ripped through my hands, leaving them like ribbons of raw meat, fluttering tentacles at the ends of my arms. I screamed again, this time in horror for myself, forgetting about Dan in my own fear, and when I looked over again in the dream, he was gone. Edward had taken his place, the harpoon sticking him to the seat, so tightly wedged that three firemen had to pull on it to get it out, and bits of Dan had come out with it when it finally wrenched free. And then it was Clare and Annabel, huddled together, pinned like butterflies, dead and terrified, and my shredded hands were useless to help, all slippery with blood, and I screamed and then it was over.
• • •
Dr. Graver made space for me the next afternoon. Her room never changed, the sun slanting in across the bookcases, the dust motes moving gently, supportively.
I was distressed, on the verge of hysteria. I’d held it together all morning, with the kids, because it’s not like there’s a choice, but the minute I stepped away from them, my throat had tightened and I’d basically run to Graver’s. “I dreamt about the accident again, and it was just like it used to be, seeing it happen and not being able to do anything about it, but this time it was Dan and then it was Edward and then the girls.”
“Is it ever you?”
I frowned. “How do you mean?”
“Is it ever you, in the driver’s seat?” Her dark bob was always perfect, her stylish, slightly ironic retro suits elegant. She was the most contained person I’d ever known, and I wondered if she ever freaked out, ever, about anything. Now she was regarding me calmly but with interest, as if we were discussing the importance of a gluten-free diet, rather than my potential readmission to the loony bin.
I thought about it. “No. It’s always Dan, or the kids, or Rachel. Edward was new, but that’s because he is new. To me.”
In classic psychiatrist mode, she said, “What do you think your dreams mean, Lili?”
I sighed, my tears dry now. “That I want to be able to save everyone? That I feel powerless to protect the people I love?”
She nodded. “That’s the obvious interpretation, right? It makes perfect sense. We’re all afraid of it, actually, unless we’re sociopaths. You have a concrete example and experience of a time when you failed to prevent something bad from happening, so you frame everything in terms of that one traumatic event. But what’s interesting is you’re never scared for yourself, and that’s actually what worries me. It’s like you don’t exist in your own subconscious.”
It struck me differently, and I said so. “Maybe I just think I’m invincible.”
She looked at me, hard. “Or maybe you’re worried you’ll be left behind. Dying in an accident might be the easier option, right? No afterward to deal with.”
I nodded, slowly. “I’ll be the last one standing.”
She pointed at me, half-irritated. “Why standing, Lili? Why always standing? You always frame your response to disaster in terms of strength, but actually what happened after Dan died was you fell apart. And that, I think, is what really terrifies you: Not losing someone, but being weak again. You’re scared that if you fall in love, you run the risk of losing that love and going crazy again, and that is really terrifying.” She sat back and put her palms up. “But yesterday something bad happened and what did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“Right. You stood there and waited for it to be over. You protected yourself. You survived it. You lived through it without losing your mind. It’s no wonder you dreamt again last night. Your subconscious is freaked-out.”
I was totally confused. “But is that good or bad? Isn’t it OK to be scared of going crazy?”
She nodded. “Of course. If you weren’t scared, you’d probably already be mad.”
I laughed, suddenly. “You’re very strange, do you know that? You’re making me even more unclear than I was when I walked in.”
She laughed, too. “And that, dear Lilian, is how you know you’re alive. Welcome to the real world.” She stood up. “Now, carry on. You’re doing great.”
“You mean apart from the nightmares and the back-and-forth about Edward and everything?”
“Yeah, apart from that. Go take care of the kids. They’re probably freaked-out, too.”
• • •
I actually went to visit Gene next, because Graver’s office was next to the hospital. Isabel was there, sitting silently by the bed. Now she looked her age. Gene was sleeping, attached to machines that occasionally beeped in time with one another, then drifted out of phase. Nurses came in and out, not looking at anyone, just communing with the machines. Tending them, and by extension, Gene.
“Hi, Isabel,” I said softly, not wanting to surprise her.
“Hi, Lilian,” she replied, obviously completely unsurprised.
“Gene looks very calm,” I said, pulling a chair up and sitting next to her.
“Looks are deceptive.” Her ebullience had faded. She seemed terribly depressed.
I took in the stillness of the bed, those perforated cotton blankets folded at the foot, the superwhite starched sheets, the pale gray cords everywhere like bloodless arteries. “What do the doctors say?”
She still hadn’t looked at me, just kept watching Gene’s face. “They say he’s not out of the woods. They say his heart is very damaged. And they say he may not survive a surgery, even though that’s the only option. I think they’re saying he’s going to die, but I’m not sure.” She leaned forward and squeezed his hand. When she let go, the fingers stayed stacked for a moment, then drifted apart. Wherever Gene was, he was apparently not home.
I sat silently. After a moment, she went on.
“So I have decided I will simply believe that he’s going to live, and I will sit here until everyone else is as sure as I am, and then I’ll go home.”
“And what can I do to help?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
I knew from experience that that wasn’t even slightly true. I looked around for clues. A tray of food sat nearby, untouched.
“Isabel, have you eaten?” She shook her head. “Are you hungry?” She shook her head again. “Look, if you don’t eat and drink, you’ll get weak and they’ll make you move. If you want to stay next to Gene, you need to eat and drink.”
