The Garden of Small Beginnings, page 8
Once we got home, Clare wasn’t interested in the book about plants.
“I’m going to plant strawberries, I already said.” She headed off to her bedroom, Frank close behind.
“And nothing else?”
“Nope. Strawberries.” The bedroom door closed. I wondered at which point her charming single-mindedness would turn into OCD.
Annabel was more interested, although she, too, was up for strawberries.
“Is it just vegetables, or can we plant flowers?”
“Whatever you like, I think.”
“Can you plant flowers in a pattern?” she asked. She was flipping through the flower guide.
“Sure, I guess. I don’t think they’ll put up a fight.” I was making coffee while she sat at the table.
“I want to make a heart in red flowers with blue flowers around it.”
“Okeydokey. So, let’s look for red flowers and blue flowers.”
We flipped, she picked blue violas (“painted porcelain” they were called, a pale blue with darker blue edges, very pretty, ) and something called a “chocolate cosmos,” which was more burgundy than red, but still, it’s her garden.
“Are they actually chocolate?” asked Clare, who had come back for a snack for herself and a rawhide chewy for Frank.
“No, but it says here that they smell of chocolate.”
“Hmm.” She’d fallen for that one before.
They went off to play, and I started looking through the book for myself. There were beautiful photos of vegetables growing in that organized yet organic way they do in photographs, and I have to admit it was very appealing. I was looking, too, for flowers for our back garden. The book was helpful, clearly laying out the information about what kind of soil each plant liked and how much sun was ideal. I realized we had several different kinds of environments in the garden—some shade, some sun—and it was hard to keep it all straight.
I think better when I’m drawing, so I grabbed one of the kids’ sketch pads and started on a rough plan of the garden. There was a nice shady part at one end, which might be a good place for the kids to play when it was hot. I sketched in a bench nearby, so I could sit and watch them, or read. Maybe a hammock would be better . . . I got up, rootled around in the “art area” (corner of the living room, a bucket of pencils and broken crayons and markers with missing lids) for a bit, and came back with colored pencils, an eraser, and more paper. I started drawing a garden I didn’t even know I had in my head. I went back for the garden book, and began looking by color, making notes as I went. I lined the back fence with salvia (kind of a blue-purple color) with something called Scabiosa “summer berries” (kind of pinks and purples, including one that was almost black—so cool, a gothic flower) in front.
I closed the book and rested the paper on it, just drawing the garden. I put in a flagstone path that wandered across the tiny lawn, ending up at the shady end, and drew the kids, kneeling down in the corner, playing with something. The bench—I had decided against the hammock, as apparently this imaginary garden of mine was more “English cottage” than “Hawaiian exotic”—was simple and tucked into a grove of lavender. Before I knew what I was doing I’d drawn in a pond, with a heron standing in it (Aquatic Birds of the Pacific Coast, 2006, 3rd ed.). I kept drawing happily, coloring and shading, until Annabel touched me on the shoulder. I leapt about nine feet in the air, which is hard from a seated position.
“Eek, you scared the crap out of me. Could you be a little more clompy?” I stood up and stretched a little, holding my pad.
Annabel frowned at me. “Mom, I called you, like, five times, including once from right behind you. You were in a world of your own, like Clare.”
Huh, interesting. I smiled at her. “Sorry, honey. I was thinking about the backyard.”
“Can I see what you drew?” I handed her the pad and went to look in the fridge to see what marvels awaited us for dinner. Ooh, pork chops. Be still my beating heart.
From behind me I could hear Annabel turning pages. “Is this supposed to be our garden?” She sounded somewhat skeptical.
“Sure, why not? Remember, the teacher said all gardens had possibilities.”
“Yeah . . .” She still didn’t sound convinced. “Is that why you drew him in?”
I paused. I hadn’t drawn him. She showed me the picture.
“See? You put him here, on the bench. But he isn’t really tall enough. The teacher’s very tall.”
“Everyone is tall to you.”
“And his hair is darker than this. But I guess he can sit on the bench, seeing as he’s teaching us how to make the garden.” She started to walk out. “Can I keep this picture, or do you need it?”
I looked at her. “You can keep it if you like.”
She smiled and wandered out. I stood there a moment, not sure what I was feeling. It wasn’t Edward on the bench. It was Dan. I hadn’t even known I was doing it, really, but when she turned the picture toward me, I saw it right away. Dan, with his foot crossed over his knee, a book open on his lap, hanging out near the kids, same as always. I felt guilty, suddenly, for changing things without his input. Not that he’d given a flying dog’s crap about the garden.
I sighed, and started the dinner. Frank was under the table, so I asked for his counsel.
“Tell me, Frank,” I said, making his tail thump. “Is it OK if I plant a garden, even though I can’t get Dan’s input on it, and even though he won’t see it?”
Frank pointed out that I didn’t know for certain that Dan couldn’t see it. In fact, if heaven was above us, as was traditionally held to be true, then he would get a great view of it.
“Maybe, in that case, I should follow Annabel’s lead and write something in flowers that only he can read.” Well, him and the ten thousand news helicopters that buzz low across the Los Angeles sky all the time. Frank asked what I would write.
“I don’t know. Maybe, ‘I Love You’. Or, ‘We Miss You’. Or just, ‘Hi, there’.”
Frank laid his head on his paws. How about Fuck You For Dying, You Bastard, he suggested.
• • •
That evening I sent an e-mail to Edward Bloem, listing the flowers we had picked out. I also impulsively scanned and sent him the drawing I’d done, having retrieved it from Annabel’s room. I wrote:
Dear Dr. Bloem,
Here are the flowers that Annabel would like to plant for the class. She says she would like to make a heart shape—is that possible? If not, let me know so I can prepare her emotionally for the disappointment. Clare wants to grow strawberries, and I can’t get her to go beyond that. However, I was dreaming about flowers for my garden at home: I drew a plan and have included it attached to this e-mail. I don’t suppose you could take a look and let me know if I’m delusional or not? Yours, Lilian Girvan, mom of Annabel and Clare.
Then I sent it off and sat there for a moment, wondering when I had morphed into “Lilian Girvan, mom of Annabel and Clare,” rather than just Lilian. Dan had called me Lil, Rachel and my parents called me Lili. I suddenly remembered the experience of giving birth to Clare, when the nurses just called me Mom and Dan Dad. As in, “More ice chips, Mom?” Or, “Get out of the way, Dad.” They didn’t say that last bit, of course. Dan spent the whole time Clare was being born sitting on a chair eating an enormous doughnut. Every time I pushed, he was there, next to me, but when the mists cleared, he would be back on the ugly chair, chewing. Three seconds after he cut Clare’s cord, he reached into his little bag, pulled out another doughnut, and handed it to me, crumbs on the baby be damned. And that is what makes a great husband. Appropriate application of baked goods.
Ping. New mail.
Dear Lilian,
This list looks fine, and Annabel can plant flowers in any shape she wishes. If she’s fortunate, they will come up neatly, but you should prepare her not for devastating disappointment but the need to moderate her goals. Nature sometimes decides to go her own way, and resists straight edges in general. But it should be pretty, I think. Your drawing is beautiful—you are an artist, I see. But to know if it will work or not, I would need to see the garden itself. Maybe I can come to your house after class and take a look. It would be a pleasure to give my opinion.
Yours,
Edward Bloem
Huh. Well, that gave me something to think about.
As I sat there, thinking about it, Rachel called. She sounded stressed.
“You told Mom I was taking a class with you?”
I frowned. “Yes, because you are. She was trying to insinuate that you were the better daughter because you would go for brunch with her on the weekend, and I was trying to preemptively stop her from harassing you by telling her you weren’t available.” I paused. “That was wrong?”
She sighed. “No, of course not. But she just called and told me I was wasting my life hanging around with you and the kids instead of going out and hunting for a husband.” She paused, and answered the obvious question. “Yes, she was hammered, but she mostly is, right?”
I sighed back at her, supportively. “Bitch. Did she also manage to get a dig in about being out in the deadly sunshine?”
“Of course. Every ten minutes in the sun . . .”
“Is six months on your face, I know.” I went into the living room and started kicking small toys toward the baskets. My lower-body workout for the week. “You know, I have no idea where she even got that from, I’ve never heard anyone else say it. I think she made it up.”
“Or maybe some early magazine editor told it to her and she fastened onto it like a crab. Who knows?”
“Don’t let her get to you, Rach. You know she lives in a dream world.”
“I know.” There was a silence. “She’s just . . .”
“I know.” Now I was silent. There wasn’t anything to say, really. Our father used to say our mom was like a child. “She sees things very simply,” he would say. “She takes great joy in small things, and lives very much minute to minute.” He liked that about her, because he himself was very cerebral, worried about the future, about money, about the state of the world. Our mom couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the world, as long as most of it was looking at her. I could see, as an adult, that their relationship worked because she didn’t complicate his life. He could fix her bad moods with gifts of jewelry, flowers, flattery. For him, she was easy. Unfortunately, like most narcissistic, childish people, she looked on other children as either followers or competition, and by preschool Rachel and I had our labels. It had taken Rachel a lot of bad experiences, and a lot of good therapy, to get where she was. My breakdown had been an annealing, a hot forge of character that finally showed Rachel how strong she was. But even now the old witch could catch her alone, or late at night, and kick a few foundation stones out of her battlements.
We slipped into old rhythms.
“Ignore her, Rach. She’s an idiot.”
“I know.”
“You have a great life. You’re beautiful, smart, far more capable than she ever was. She just can’t take it.”
“I know.”
I finished in the living room and wandered down the hall to check on the kids. “She’s just getting old.”
“I know.”
“Wrinkled and droopy.”
“I know.”
I pushed open their door and looked at them, sleeping in a tangle of sheets and stuffies and special blankies, faces like angels. “She doesn’t know anything about your life.”
“I know.” Her voice broke. “So why do I still let her get to me?”
I closed the door on my own daughters, praying with every strand of my DNA that this wasn’t a conversation they would ever have. Knowing that long after my flawed and piss-poor mother died, my sister and I would still be having it. When you dig a deep enough conversational groove, it’s awfully hard to see your way out.
How to Grow Carrots
Make sure your soil is fluffy and free of stones; carrots have a hard enough time pushing through as it is.
• Plant seeds 3 to 4 inches apart, in rows that are at least 1 foot apart. Side note: No need to pull out the tape measure for this stuff, just eyeball it. They’re not going to get pissy and refuse to grow just because you’re an inch out. Unless you plant those fancy multicolored carrots; they take that shit really seriously.
• Mulching will help to keep the ground moist, speed up germination, and protect the roots from too much sun. Use wood chips, shredded rubber bits, or the tiny shoes of dolls. If you’re like me you have enough lying around the house to mulch a freaking field.
• Once plants are 1 inch tall, thin so they stand 3 inches apart. Snip them with scissors, instead of pulling them out, to prevent damage to the roots of other plants.
• Carrots taste much better after a couple of frosts. Following the first hard frost in the fall, cover carrot rows with an 18-inch layer of shredded leaves to preserve them for harvesting later.
Chapter 7
The Second Class
On Saturday, we arrived at our part of the botanical garden and for a moment I thought we’d gone the wrong way. Where the open field had been was now, clearly, a garden. Impossibly Handsome Bob was standing there, looking proud of himself, and he had every right to be. The children’s garden was outlined in terra-cotta tiles and divided up like the spokes of a cartwheel. In the center of it was a larger, tiled area, making a sweet spot for them to work or play. Four cedar benches, just like the ones I had drawn for my home garden, were arranged around the cartwheel, making it easy to sit and watch the kids. The larger vegetable plots were more soberly outlined, with raised beds, two to a plot, with woodchip pathways between. Apparently, it had been quite a week.
Rachel had driven with us this time, as she was planning on coming to our house after. I had boldly written back to Edward that he was more than welcome to come over and advise me on the garden, and she wanted to be along for the ride.
“Besides,” she added, her feet up on the dashboard, “I’ve barely seen the kids since last weekend, and who knows what damage you’ve done to their delicate psyches in that time.”
I looked in the rearview mirror. Clare had completely painted her face with red marker that morning. When she’d walked into the kitchen, I had momentarily freaked out, because I thought she was covered in blood. It turned out she was being a ladybug, the better to get down and dirty with her strawberries. She was a method child. There really wasn’t anything an amateur like me could do to a psyche like that, but I didn’t say anything. Better to let Rachel think I had some influence. Annabel was just gazing out the window, presumably pondering the inherent mortality and futility of life. Then I realized she was singing the SpongeBob theme song, so probably not.
I thought about what Rachel had just said. “Hey, that’s true. Where have you been?”
“Around, just not around your house.”
“You’re being secretive.”
“I’m not. I’m avoiding the question, it’s entirely different.”
Now that I saw Handsome Bob blushing as he looked at her, I thought maybe I could hazard a guess who she’d been around. But hey, she’s an adult. I would quiz her later.
We were the first to get there, apart from Bob and Edward, who was off to one side, fiddling with some boxes, so we sat on one of the benches. It was surprisingly noisy in the botanical garden. Birds were yelling their heads off, bees were buzzing around in a beelike fashion, and butterflies were flapping about swearing and jostling one another for the good flowers, like tiny teenage vandals in garden-party frocks.
As ever, my kids were on the ball.
“The birds are much louder here than they are at home, why is that?” asked Clare. Along with her red face, she was wearing a polka-dotted Minnie Mouse dress—sorry, ladybug dress—and while it wasn’t my first choice for gardening clothes, it was certainly a look.
Annabel answered her. “I don’t think they’re any louder. I just think everything else is quieter here.” Annabel was sitting on my lap, wearing overalls and sneakers, being the more practical child. Only she and I knew she’d forgotten to put on underpants.
Clare frowned. “You mean they’re always singing this hard, we just can’t hear them properly?”
“Yeah, you know, the cars are loud and stuff.” Momentarily Bel rested her head on my shoulder, making me swoon. I’m like a teenage boy sometimes: Their hair! Their hands! The smell of their clothes! Other times, I just want to run for the hills. Clare looked thoughtful.
“Huh. That must be annoying for them. I don’t like it when I’m trying to say something and no one is listening.” She was very empathetic, Clare. A sweet kid. “No wonder they poop on the cars all the time. I would, too.” Empathetic but vengeful.
The other people started to arrive. Frances and Eloise were today not dressed in similar sweaters, although they still managed to look alike somehow. I wondered if eventually I would have started to look like Dan, had we been together our whole lives. Then I wondered if Frances and Eloise had been together a long time, or if I was just making an assumption. I try not to judge books by their covers, but I do it all the time. Lack of imagination, that’s my problem. Gene stumped up, and then blew us all away by smiling at us.
“Good morning, all!”
“Good morning, Gene,” Eloise replied. “You seem very chipper this morning.”
He threw himself down on the bench across from us. “I am chipper. My wife, bless her heart, baked me a coffee cake before she had to go away for a bit. This morning I sat in the garden in perfect peace and ate half of it in one sitting. Delicious.” He looked at us, his smile fading in case we thought he was a soft touch. “I like cake.”
