The lure of the study eventually proved irresistible for Anthony, and Laura heard him go in and shut the door behind him. She slipped the sheets of paper in front of her into their respective files and then went out into the garden to stretch her legs and feel the sun on her face. It was late afternoon, but the sun was still hot and the sound of bees on the honeysuckle throbbed in the sultry air. The roses looked magnificent. Blooms of every shape, size, and hue combined to create a shimmering sea of scent and color. The lawn was a perfect square of lush green and the fruit trees and bushes at the bottom of the garden burgeoned with the promise of late summer bounty. Freddy clearly had a gift when it came to growing things. When Laura had first come to work for Anthony, the only part of the garden which was lovingly cared for was the rose garden. The lawn had been patchy and ragged with weeds, and the trees had been left to outgrow their strength, with branches too spindly to bear the weight of fruit. But in the two years since Freddy had come to work at Padua, the garden had been brought back to life. Laura sat down on the warm grass and hugged her knees. She was always reluctant to leave Padua at the end of the day, but on days like this it was even harder. Her flat held little attraction in comparison. At Padua, even when she was alone, she never felt lonely. In her flat she only ever felt that way.
Since Vince, there had been no other long-term relationships. The failure of her marriage had knocked her confidence and mocked her youthful pride. The wedding had been arranged so quickly that her mother had asked her if she was pregnant. She wasn’t. She was simply swept away by a handsome Prince Charming who promised her the world. But the man she married was a flashy rogue who, instead of the world, delivered insipid suburbia. Her parents had done their very best to persuade her to wait; until she was older, knew better her own mind. But she was young and impatient, stubborn even, and marrying Vince had seemed like a shortcut to growing up. She could still remember the sad, anxious smile which her mother had fixed on her face as she watched her daughter walk down the aisle. Her father was less able to hide his misgivings, but fortunately most of the congregation mistook his tears for happiness and pride. The worst thing of all was that, on her wedding day, she too had feared for the first time that she was making a mistake. Her doubts were buried in a barrage of confetti and champagne, but she had been right. Her love for Vince was a callow, fanciful love, formed as quickly as the silver-edged invitations had been issued and as frothy as the dress that she had worn down the aisle.
That evening, Laura picked at her supper in front of the television. She wasn’t really hungry and she wasn’t really watching the flickering screen. Giving up on both, she unlocked the door and stood out on the cramped balcony of her flat looking up at the inky sky. She wondered how many other people in the world were looking up at the same vast sky at that exact moment. It made her feel small and very much alone.
CHAPTER 10
The midnight summer sky was a watercolor wash of darkness with a glitter of tiny stars thrown across it. The air was still warm as Anthony walked down the path toward the rose garden, inhaling the rich perfume of the treasured blooms that he had planted all those years ago for Therese, when they first moved into the house. He had been to the post box, his footfalls echoing softly through the empty streets of the village. The letter posted was the final full stop to his story. His solicitor would pass it on to Laura when the time came. And now he was ready to leave.
It had been a Wednesday when they had moved into the house. Therese had found it.
“It’s perfect!” she had said.
And it was. They had met only months earlier, but they had not needed an “approved” passage of time to bind them to one another. The attraction was instant; illimitable like the sky that hung above him now. At first it had frightened him, or rather the fear of losing it had. It was surely too potent, too perfect to last. But Therese had absolute faith. They had found each other and that was exactly as it was meant to be. Together they were sacrosanct. She was named after St. Therese of the Roses and so he planted the garden as a gift to her. He spent October in Wellingtons trenching the ground in the new beds and digging in well-rotted manure while Therese brought him cups of tea and unstinting encouragement. The roses arrived on a dank, foggy November morning, and their fingers, toes, and noses froze as Anthony and Therese spent the day setting out and planting the garden around a perfect patch of lawn. But the washed-out palette that painted the November landscape was rainbow-tinted by the descriptions Therese read aloud from the labels that named every rose. There was pink and fragrant “Albertine” to climb over the trellis archway leading to the sundial; the bloodred velvet “Grand Prix,” the pure white “Marcia Stanhope,” the flushed copper “Gorgeous,” the silvery-pink “Mrs. Henry Morse,” the dark red “étoile de Hollande,” “Mélanie Soupert” with pale yellow petals suffused with amethyst, and the vermilion and old gold of “Queen Alexandra.” At the four corners of the lawn they planted weeping standard roses—“Albéric Barbier,” “Hiawatha,” “Lady Gay,” and “Shower of Gold”—and when it was all done and they stood close together in the spectral drear of a winter twilight, she kissed him softly on the lips and placed something small and round into his cold-bruised hand. It was a picture of St. Therese of the Roses framed in gold metal and glass in the shape of a medallion.
“It was a gift for my first Holy Communion,” she said. “It’s for you, to say thank you for my beautiful garden and to remind you that I will love you forever, no matter what. Promise me you’ll keep it with you always.”
Anthony smiled. “I promise,” he solemnly declared.
Tears scored Anthony’s cheeks once again as he stood alone among the roses on a beautiful summer night. Alone and bereft as he remembered her kiss, her words, and the feel of the medallion pressed into his hand.