BY THE TIME Gabe came to the garden, the sun had warmed. The mulch steamed and the smell of boxwood filled his nose. He was always first in the garden although Sorrel thought she reached it only minutes after he did. The truth was that Gabe was often alone for as much as half an hour before she arrived. Sorrel thought he waited for her every morning before entering, and he did, mostly. Sometimes he stood just inside the gate or a few steps onto the path and watched the garden wake. He, like Andrew, saw what Sorrel had brought forth from nothing, less than nothing, really, and he too knew that what she did with her hands was unlike what any other gardener could do. If Andrew was unsettled by the way Sorrel’s plants flourished beyond expectation, or nature’s laws for that matter, Gabe believed her abilities were a gift to them all. To Gabe every luminous green shoot, every unfolding blossom and scented breeze, spoke of life returned, of a past rewritten and a future of promise. He felt lifted up with optimism, such an unfamiliar and surprising feeling that he laughed aloud.
Emboldened, Gabe ventured farther into the garden, brushing his fingertips over the plants as Sorrel did, pausing to see that Andrew was right, there were no thorns on the roses, no aphids on the slender dahlia stems or leaves, no beetles, not a single bit of blight to sully the orderly beds. The box had been placed some inches apart to ensure that they would grow uncrowded, each with just the right amount of space to fill in with time. This sunny morning it seemed that the glossy leaves and sturdy branches had reached toward each other and now presented a deep green ribbon that framed each parterre. The entire effect was of a garden that had spent years becoming and was now ready to be admired like a lady at the top of the stairs before a fine party. He came to the center of the paths where a square hole had been made to hold the sundial. Just before it was placed he would fill it in with enough concrete to keep it plumb and solid for the years and Kirkwoods to come. He bent to settle the canvas tarp over the hole, the last raw spot in the garden.
The bird looked as if it had been laid gently into the ground. Its eyes were closed, and its wings folded against the tiny body. Gabe squatted down by the hole. He was overcome with sadness and a chill had set up so quickly that he rubbed his hands together. Here it was then, the ruin returned. Was it the first sign of a new darkness or the last of the old? Gabe suspected the former. He felt it like a blow, this little death. He reached in and gathered the bird, nearly weightless, in his hand. With a speed and stealth born of practice Gabe wrapped the tiny thing in his handkerchief and walked swiftly to the tool shed. He stooped to slip it into an old steamer trunk where he kept his own secrets. The lock was newer; he’d installed it himself and kept the key on a chain around his neck along with the St. Francis de Sales medal Delphine had given him when they became friends. Patron saint of the deaf, she’d told him as she folded his hands over it. Gabe didn’t believe in a saint of anything. but he wore it anyway and now he looked at it with a kind of affection simply because Delphine did believe.
In the trunk Gabe made a nest of his handkerchief for the bird. He knelt down and lifted a little house made of woven willow and long-dried lavender stalks. The scent remained, as did the memory of Mathilde’s high, sweet voice singing as she sat with Gabe carefully bending and twisting until her fairy house was done. Gabe replaced the house carefully so as not to jostle all the others he’d placed in the trunk the week after Mathilde died. Delphine had instructed Gabe to burn them all. In her grief and misplaced guilt she’d seen the houses only as reminders of her daughter’s absence, of the very day she collapsed in the wildflower meadow gathering bachelor’s buttons for her mother. Gabe saw them as talismans, more powerful than any saint’s medal. So he had hidden them away as if they might find their purpose again.
Gabe decided he would not tell anyone about the bird. He’d have to dispose of it soon, but now the estate was stirring and Sorrel would be arriving shortly. He locked the trunk and jogged back to his cottage to make her tea.
The dog was waiting for him at the door. Gabe had finally named her Maggie. It was clear that he would not be giving her up, or she him. She was a comfort, and Gabe found that on this morning he needed comfort. Maggie followed him around the small kitchen as he boiled the kettle and filled the paper cups with strong, sweet, milky tea. He slipped a worn collar around her neck in case she made a run for it and let her follow him to the garden. She never went in; Gabe had taught her to stay by the entrance, and Sorrel had come to enjoy seeing her little face peeping through the gate. The Shakespeare Garden was no place for a snuffling, digging puppy, and now Gabe was glad he’d never let little Maggie in.
Sorrel appeared, smiling with her hand outstretched for tea. She’d brought a baguette filled with butter and jam and laid it in her lap on some parchment paper as they drank.
“Well, here we are, Gabe,” she said and handed him half the baguette.
Gabe smiled and held his cup up in a toast. Sorrel tapped hers against it and checked her watch.
“Right, we’ve got a couple of hours before the family stirs here. Let’s give everything a blessing and a water.”
Together Gabe and Sorrel walked the garden, straightening a plant here, tucking another handful of mulch around a bush there. The hawthorn tree was small but sturdy, and Gabe was surprised to see it in full bloom weeks after it should have dropped its petals. He pointed it out to Sorrel.
“Well,” she said, “we could hardly have it bare, could we?”
They came to the back corner of the garden together, drawn by the bare patch just inside the wall. Gabe held out his arm, barring Sorrel from getting too close. Poppies lay on the ground, their stems softened nearly to mush, and the little eglantine rose was furred with mildew, dusted with thorns. The checkered lily Sorrel had planted because she couldn’t resist its dipping purple blossoms looked as if it had been eaten down to the skunky bulbs.
“What the hell happened here?” Sorrel asked. She ducked under Gabe’s arm and squatted down beside her failing plants.
“Gabe?” she asked. “Do you know what’s causing this?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? Gabe didn’t want to have an answer for Sorrel, or he didn’t want the answer he had. He shook his head and tried to pull Sorrel away, but she was already wrist deep in the soil. It was dry in the spot, the dirt already grainy and gray.
“Shit,” Sorrel spat. “It’ll all have to come out.” She began pulling the poppies, which gave without resistance, coating her hands in milky ooze.
Gabe knelt beside her, offering his gloves but she waved him away. He dug around the roses with his own hands, feeling for something that might have spoiled this corner. Grubs, he hoped, grubs could do damage beyond their size or numbers. But there was nothing but knobby roots and ashy soil.
They gathered their dead and carried the pile out of the garden. As soon as Sorrel hipped open the new gate, Maggie dashed in. Gabe couldn’t drop his plants; he was too afraid they’d poison the rest of the garden. He could only watch as the puppy headed straight to the corner and began to dig.
“Get her out,” Sorrel snapped.
Gabe threw everything over the wall and ran back in. He nearly lifted the dog off her feet by her collar. He held her with both arms and wrestled her out, the sound of her whining as cutting as a scream. He grabbed a length of baling twine and looped it around the stack of pallets by the shed and tied it to her collar, leaving her scrabbling against the weight of the pallets.