Elation vanished the moment he stepped from the car and discovered the out-of-order notice taped over the parking meter. Brilliant. He had timed his arrival perfectly—perfectly. Now he would have to take a diversion inside the Doris Duke Center to purchase a parking receipt. He would not only be a hated father; he would be a late hated father.
Parking receipt purchased, despite the painful negotiation with an elderly volunteer who appeared incapable of understanding his English accent, Felix consulted his map and strode toward the Historic Gardens. The path was covered in sand. Sand would stick to his shoes, track into his car, and necessitate another cleaning. He hated sand.
With a quiet harrumph, he tugged up the collar of his cashmere coat—now in its thirtieth year—and adjusted his scarf. If only he had his cashmere-lined leather gloves, too. There was a definite nip in the air, a bite of winter. Maybe even snow in those heavy clouds, which would mean school delays and closings. One snowflake, and the entire Triangle shut down. Really, it was preposterous.
Workers in beanies milled round, quietly purposeful; a young man drove past in a golf cart loaded with gardening implements and hoses; two young women silently shoveled compost out of the back of a small truck. Several dog walkers passed him and smiled. No one seemed in a hurry.
According to the map, he had entered the Mary Duke Biddle Rose Garden. If he wasn’t pressed for time, he might pause to admire the calm order of the artfully placed decorative urns and the well-spaced, well-labeled plants. Felix inhaled deeply, and the irritation over the parking dissipated into the icy air. Plant labels, what a marvelous idea. He would ask Ella to start labeling their plants.
Felix turned left onto a straight path lined with flower borders and trees. Most of the plants were dormant, but some pushed up through the soil: spiky black grass no more than an inch high and a low-growing plant with vivid, scallop-edged leaves. How unexpected to find color on such a raw, sullen day. He peered down at the labels: “Black Mondo Grass” and “Heuchera.”
He pulled out his phone and typed a note: Ask Ella about heucheras.
Through the trees to his left, an orange Bobcat whirred away as it dug up the ground, as it destroyed to rebuild. Intriguing that this garden, which had been established for decades, was still a work in progress.
Turning right, he spotted Eudora sitting on a metal bench under a huge pergola made of thin strips of iron and a gnarled old vine.
“My, my, don’t you look dashing, all dolled up for the world of high finance.” She pushed off from the bench seat, then wobbled and sank back down. Felix rushed to help.
“Are you unwell?” He had kept an older woman waiting in the cold. What inexcusable behavior.
Eudora waved him off. “At my age, things rust up if I’ve been on my rump for too long.”
Felix hung back, fighting the urge to tuck his arm under hers and haul her to her feet. “Apologies for being tardy. The parking meters were out.”
“Pfff. Late is a fact of life. I had hoped you were taking time to dawdle and enjoy this remarkable local treasure.”
“That too,” Felix said, surprised to admit to the dawdling. Dawdling didn’t fit his worldview. Of course, he no longer had a worldview, at least not one he understood. His job was in jeopardy, his wife was critically ill, his son hated him, and he was meeting a seventy-five-year-old spinster for parenting lessons under a pergola.
“I hadn’t appreciated before how much Duke Chapel looks like Maudlin College.”
“I’m not familiar with that—Maudlin, you said?”
“Spelled M-a-g-d-a-l-e-n.”
“Ah, Magdalen College pronounced the Oxford way.”
“Indeed.” Felix tipped back his head to glance up at the gray sky through the giant metal web covered in a latticework of sticks. Frozen precipitation was definitely heading their way. Should he check the school website and see if they were announcing an early dismissal?
“Asian wisteria,” Eudora said.
“I’m sorry?”
“You’re looking at Asian wisteria. Not up to much in the winter, but wait until the wedding season.” She gave a low whistle.
“They have weddings here?”
“Lord, yes.”