Ask Matilda, and she’ll offer you her velvet green blanket.
I follow Liza and spread the blanket out on the grass, smiling at the thought of my mother sitting on this very same patch of grass, looking out at the park toward Matilda—each of them with their secrets, and me with mine.
It was too soon for daffodils to bloom, so I looked around for other clues.
…but do keep an eye out for the foxes wearing gloves: They’ll show you the way to the little house. I’ll be waiting…
I hand Liza a croissant and help myself to one, too. “I don’t see a little house, or have any idea what foxgloves look like.”
“They’re purple,” she says. “But you won’t find them this time of year.”
“Oh,” I say, crestfallen.
“Wait,” she says, leaping to her feet and walking ahead. I follow close behind, watching as she kneels beside a thyme-carpeted garden bed and lifts up a pale brown twig. “Look, a foxglove seed pod.”
We found the foxgloves, but where’s the little house? I survey the soil around the garden beds, but there are only pine cones and shriveled leaves.
“Have you lost something, miss?”
I look up to see an older man in coveralls holding a rake, presumably a park gardener.
“No,” I say, quickly standing up and walking closer. “But I am trying to find something. Before my mother died, she left a sort of scavenger hunt for me, with one clue leading to the next. The most recent one led me here, to Matilda, and the flowers.” I pull the note card from my pocket, and when I show it to him, his eyes get big.
“Why, you must be her daughter,” he says, astonished.
“Eloise’s daughter, yes.”
His smile is warm. “She said you’d be coming. Your mother was a regular here. She loved this corner of the park.” He points to the blanket on the lawn where Liza is. “She’d sit there for hours, just like that, reading.” He extends his hand. “I’m Louis.”
“Valentina,” I say with a smile, before turning back to my mother’s note. “She wrote something about a ‘little house,’ see?” I point to the line. “Do you have any idea what she might have meant?”
“Ah yes,” he says. “Let me show you.”
I follow as he walks ahead, our collective footsteps producing a symphony of gravel crunching beneath our feet. He stops in front of an old oak tree, its trunk thick and knotted.
“Here we are,” he says. “The Little House.”
I shake my head, confused. “But what is it?”
“If your mum were here, I suspect she’d tell you to use your imagination,” he says with a wink.
And she would. I think back to my childhood, when we’d collected colorful rocks together on the beach in Santa Monica. I’d ask her where each one came from, and she’d encourage me to make up a story for every one of them, and together, we did. “This is Sam, the gray stone. He’s a very serious rock, who doesn’t like it when people pick him up. And this is Ethel, the beige rock. She has four children, and nine baby grand-rocks.” I can almost hear the waves crashing onto the shore as the wind rustles the branches of the oak tree, and it makes my heart ache.
I banished her voice from my heart for so long, but now I can hear it: “Use your imagination.”
Steadying myself, I survey the base of the trunk, where the tree’s roots bulge out of the soil, like octopus’s appendages. My childhood voice echoes in the breeze: “Mummy, do trees have eight roots like octopuses have eight arms?” I place my hand on the trunk, imagining a well-worn face in the jagged edges of its bark, before reaching higher up, where I press my finger against a large, rounded knot just above my head. To my surprise, it releases, as if held in place by a hinge.
When Louis clears his throat, I startle, expecting an owl to fly out, but then I remember the old oak tree in the yard of our home in Santa Monica—with a prominent knot, just like this one. My mother named it the “Little Fairy House,” where she left little treats, notes, and toys inside for me to find.
“You’ve found it,” he says. “The Little House.”
I reach my hand into the hollow of the tree and pull out the envelope inside. The paper is yellowed and weathered by the elements, but my name is written clearly on the front—in her handwriting. I tear the edge and pull out the note card.
My darling girl,
You’ve found me, and I’m so glad. Did you say hello to Matilda? She’s an old friend. When I was little, your grandmother took me to this very park, and I would sit and watch her for hours. I used to think that if I stared at her long enough, she might come to life and tell me her secrets. Alas, she never did. But maybe she’ll tell them to you. Look after her, please? Oh, Val, I have so much to say. And it gives me so much comfort knowing you’re reading this right now. As I’m writing you at this moment, my health is failing. It isn’t fair. In fact, it’s cruel. We have so much more life to share together, and I hoped we’d have all of those moments. But I’ll have to find another way to make you know how much you are loved. I’ll always be here, loving you, but I want to leave you with two more surprises. The first, you’ll find by paying attention to these words from Cicero (though, I’ll admit, I’m partial to libraries):
“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”
My sweet daughter, do you agree?
Come find me. I’ll be waiting.
Love,
Mummy
July 12, 1977
I held the vintage string of pearls to the nape of my neck, eyeing my reflection in the window. Nine years had passed since I moved to L.A., and, in some ways, little had changed since I stepped off that airplane. California still felt as strange as it did then. I’d thought about that earlier this morning as I took a cab to the ritzy Pacific Palisades neighborhood for an estate sale that had gotten a lot of buzz in the newspaper—and judging by the assortment of treasures I’d found, for good reason. In fact, it took all my self-restraint to stifle my excitement when I’d discovered a beautifully preserved copy of Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast that even bore the faint mark of the author’s signature on the title page.
“That necklace looks stunning on you,” a fellow bargain-hunter said, catching my eye. “Definitely, get it. Your husband will think you’re a goddess.”
I smiled at the kind stranger, but she had no idea how wrong she was. There was no necklace on earth, I feared, that would make Frank think I was a goddess.