Leota's Garden

  When she finally went to bed at eleven o’clock, she lay awake another hour or more, her mind whirring with all the dire possibilities of what could happen to a beautiful girl in an evil world.

  Annie arrived safely at nine. She was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt with a tan jacket. Her hair was loose and curly, framing her pretty face and flowing over her shoulders and down her back. Leota thought she was the most charming girl she had ever seen. Prettier by far than any of those anorexic models on the covers of magazines.

  “I hope you haven’t eaten yet,” Annie said as she came in, two bags in her hands and her purse looped over her shoulder. “I couldn’t resist the Danish rolls.”

  Leota had been too worried to eat breakfast. She’d kept looking at the clock, wondering if Annie was all right. “Did you have any problems getting here?”

  “None at all. Traffic was going the other direction. It was clear sailing through San Francisco and across the bridge, and you’re just a hop-skip off the freeway. Shall I put the Chinese food in the fridge?”

  “Put it anywhere you want.” The house felt different with Annie here. She filled it with life. “Would you like some coffee to go with the rolls?” Leota said, following at her slower pace.

  Annie put the bag of Chinese food in the old refrigerator and closed the door. “That would be perfect.”

  “Plain or fancy?” Leota smiled, filled with the assurance that she was stocked for any possibility. Whatever her granddaughter wanted, she had.

  “Whatever you’re having, Grandma.”

  Leota was dismayed by her lack of interest in libation. She thought of the outrageous price of that fancy coffee—and suddenly wanted to tell Annie how much it cost for no other reason than to let her know how much this visit meant. However, she thought better of saying anything. She hardly knew her granddaughter. What if Annie misunderstood and was offended?

  Instead, she said, “How has your week gone?” She was eager for any information.

  Annie told her about her two classes, one in art history and the other in sketching. Both sounded interesting, as well as time-consuming. Lots of reading for one and projects for the other, but Annie seemed excited about all of it. Leota sat, enchanted, at the kitchen table, just listening to her talk. The room fairly hummed with the girl’s youthful enthusiasm. Leota decided that Annie was a levelheaded young lady who intended to make the most of life. How refreshing! Instead of seeing the foibles of those she served at the restaurant as faults, she found everything about her customers interesting. No doubt they liked her equally as well. How could they not?

  Leota rose once to spoon the sweetened powdered coffee into the cups she had taken from the china hutch yesterday. She poured hot water; then, with the coffee ready, she stood undecided. Perhaps it would be more polite to serve Annie elsewhere than in her small, cluttered kitchen.

  “Would you like to have the coffee and rolls in the dining room?”

  “Could we just stay here?” Annie’s smile was sweet. “It’s so nice to look out at the garden.”

  Leota’s defenses came down completely. “I like it in here, too. I always have preferred this room to the front.” She folded up the newspaper and set it aside. So what if it was a little untidy? Annie didn’t seem to mind. “Though it’s been a bit depressing the past few years.” She put the two cups on the table.

  “Why, Grandma?”

  “I can’t work in the garden anymore. I haven’t the strength to do the work. There’s a lot to properly keeping up a garden.” Remembering the Danish rolls, she added two of the plates Cosma had given her years ago. They were hand painted with gold rims and so lovely she had never dared use them. Just the thought of breaking one kept her from taking the risk. She had few precious things, even fewer from loved ones. Well, it was high time she used them. Though Annie didn’t know it, this was a celebration day. Only the best would do, and if anything was broken, so be it. What good would pretty china do when the owner was dead and buried?

  “These plates are beautiful, Grandma.”

  “A friend gave them to me years ago. She brought them back from one of her trips. France, I think.” She told Annie about Cosma. They sat at the tiny kitchen table sipping coffee and eating sweet rolls.

  As Annie sat in the little kitchen, she found herself thinking about her mother’s hands as she looked at her grandmother’s. Her mother kept her nails perfectly manicured, often going to the salon to have them tipped with acrylics and painted some pretty shade. Grandma Leota’s nails were neatly trimmed and natural. Her fingers were slender and graceful despite the effects of arthritis. She still wore a wedding ring. It was a simple gold band, worn so long it appeared to be part of her finger.

  “Mom doesn’t like gardening.” Annie sighed. “She likes having a beautiful yard, but she prefers to hire someone to look after it.” Marvin Tikado’s gardening service came once a week to mow the lawn around the house, trim the bushes, and make sure there were no weeds anywhere. Periodically he replanted new border flowers along the cobblestone walk to the front door.

  “I loved gardening,” Grandma Leota said, gazing out at the back. “I spent hours out there.” It had been a place of refuge. She had started when she first moved into this house with Mama Reinhardt. Mama didn’t want her in the kitchen, and she hadn’t felt comfortable sitting in the living room with Papa Reinhardt, reading the paper or some book. So she had taken on the responsibility of the victory garden. She had gleaned knowledge from neighbors who would give her cuttings to start in jars or seeds to start in egg cartons. She had loved watching things grow and had been surprised and delighted to find she had a green thumb.

  “Now, you can’t tell that anyone ever spent time out there.” Enough of that, Leota told herself. The last thing a young person wanted was to visit an old person who did nothing but complain. “I found Great-Aunt Joyce’s drawings. Some of them are just advertisements . . .”

  They went into the front room where Leota had left the portfolio on the dining room table. Annie untied it carefully and opened it. The first picture was an advertisement for a coffee grinder. There was another of a cast-iron woodstove for the kitchen. Another was of a farm wagon, still another of some kind of farm machinery. There were advertisements of lawn chairs and china cabinets, tooling and buggies, lanterns and sleds. Pretty soon the table was covered with pen-and-ink drawings on paper yellowed by age.

  “These are wonderful!” Annie said, looking from an advertisement of a man’s watch with its chain to a book cover. Fairy Tales and Funny Frolics, proclaimed the sheet with a girl sitting beneath a gnarled tree trunk watching a grasshopper dressed in a tuxedo and holding a lantern. Setting it aside, Annie lifted another drawing of swirling leaves and flowers and shapes with Menu printed in black, Gothic letters.

  “Look at these beautiful borders, Grandma Leota,” Annie said, admiring several large sheets that had samples ranging from grape leaves and grapes to intricate Celtic knots and Moorish designs. One looked like latticework with climbing roses. One sheet was a drawing of a lady in Victorian dress, standing amid sunflowers. The picture was bordered by trumpet vines and flowers with Sensible Holiday Gifts printed almost primly beneath. Annie studied a page with the letter H in all sorts of styles, from the simplest block to the most ornate style.

  There was an advertisement for a rocking chair with elaborate arms, a wooden frame, and cushions that looked like tapestry. Great-Aunt Joyce had experimented with people as well, doing numerous drawings of men and women wearing everything from work clothes to wedding attire.

  “I love this one.” Annie held up an ink drawing of a woman sitting on a piano stool. She was wearing a high-waisted, floor-length dress with puffed sleeves. Her back was turned so that you could see the elegant curve of her neck and her hair drawn up into a bun. Soft curls escaped at her temple. Her hands were poised as though she were about to play a piano that was not there.

  There were sheets of animals. One page was a study of a workhorse wearing blin
ders—front right, front left, straight on. Another was a study of a milk cow—standing, walking, grazing. Annie lifted and observed page after page of machinery.

  “Her bread and butter, I think,” Leota said, thinking they were probably not very interesting. But Annie’s eyes widened.

  “They’re amazing, Grandma. Look at the detail! Every nut and bolt. I could never draw like this.”

  “Never say never.”

  “Oh, my . . .” Annie said, lifting one from the dozens. It was a pen-and-ink drawing of a flowered rug, so detailed it looked like a black-and-white photograph.

  “Her real interest comes through in the pictures toward the back.” Leota sat at the end of the table and watched her granddaughter’s face. Annie loved everything she was seeing. Her pleasure gave Leota pleasure as well.

  Annie lifted the thin sheets of paper carefully and found page after page of buildings: a simple country church, a cathedral, a three-story Victorian house with a veranda, a four-story brick office building, a tree-lined street with quaint shops, an adobe mission, a Queen Anne cottage with a rose arbor and picket fence, a log cabin, a lean-to in the redwoods with a fire blazing. All in pen and ink. All drawn with the finest details. Roses on a lattice. An upstairs stained-glass window. A bird on the porch rail. The cross on a steeple.

  “Mother never mentioned Great-Aunt Joyce at all,” Annie said.

  “Eleanor probably—” She stopped and then corrected herself. “Your mother probably didn’t know anything about her. We never talked about my side of the family.”

  Annie glanced up in surprise. “Why not?”

  Leota shrugged.

  “Were you close to your mother, Grandma Leota?”

  She thought it a strange question. Close in terms of proximity or affinity? What did it matter? “My mother died when I was twelve. I remember very little about her other than she was ill for a long time.”

  “What about your father?”

  “I didn’t see very much of him. He was in the Merchant Marines.”

  Annie forgot all about the drawings. “What happened to you after your mother died? Where did you go? Did you have any brothers or sisters? Any relations?”

  The questions came so quickly, Leota didn’t know where to start. Or whether to talk about it at all. She thought for a moment.

  Annie blushed, looking uncomfortable for the first time since her arrival. “I’m sorry, Grandma. I didn’t mean it to sound like an interrogation. It’s just that I know so little about you.”

  “I don’t wonder,” Leota said sadly, then added quickly, “but there’s not much to tell. I had an older sister. She died of consumption in her early twenties. And I had a brother who went to sea like my father. He was fifteen when he left. I never heard from him after that.” She frowned slightly. “Strange. I haven’t thought about him in so many years . . .”

  “What happened when your mother died?”

  “One of the ladies from the church took me in. Her name was Miss Mary O’Leary. Irish as Irish comes.” She gave a soft laugh, closing her eyes as the memories surged sweet. “Oh, I haven’t thought about her in years.”

  “Were you happy with her?”

  “Oh, yes. She was very robust, very healthy. She loved to take long hikes in the hills on Saturdays. I think she did it at times to wear me out. She kept me too tired to get into mischief.”

  Annie laughed. “Were you prone to it?”

  “On occasion. I pulled a few pranks in my day. Miss O’Leary taught at the high school. She made sure I settled down enough to complete my education. I did very well under her tutelage.” She smiled. “Or else.”

  “Did you go to college?”

  “Oh, mercy, no. There was no money for a venture like that, and very few women went to college in those days anyway.”

  “Do you wish you could’ve gone?”

  Leota felt pulled back to those days when her future had stretched out like dawn on the horizon. Life was full of possibilities. It was an unfolding adventure, something new around every bend in the road. “I wished for many things. I wished for more education. I wished for home and family. I wished for travel.” She smiled at Annie. “Wishing doesn’t cost anything.”

  “Do you still wish for things?”

  “Not as much. What I wish for now is far different than what I wished for when I was young.” Reconciliation. Oh, yes, Lord, I wish for that with all my heart. Yet, Leota knew she might as well be wishing for the moon where Eleanor was concerned. Reconciliation wasn’t in her daughter’s vocabulary. She had all the stubborn pride of her German ancestry. God help her.

  Leota didn’t want to follow those thoughts further and decided to change direction again. “Maybe you have Great-Aunt Joyce’s talent.”

  “I can only dream of such a thing.” Annie gazed at the drawings she had spread across the table. “They’re so good.”

  “Of course, they are. These are the drawings she kept in her portfolio. These are the best of her work, probably the pictures she was most proud of doing. Keep in mind there’s no way of knowing how many she threw away. She must have had years of practice.”

  Annie smiled at her. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

  “People don’t usually think about those things. They look at a van Gogh and stand in awe. Most people never know about the years and years of painting he did, and that he sold only one painting while he lived. They read about the millions a museum will pay for one of his paintings, and yet van Gogh died a poor man.”

  “You know some art history.”

  Leota chuckled softly. “I know a little about a lot of things.” She tapped a drawing. “Besides that, Annie, this may not even be the kind of artwork you’ll do.”

  Annie looked dejected. “I have no idea what kind of work I’ll do.”

  “Why should you know? You’re only eighteen.”

  “I should have some idea.”

  “Well, you do. You’re going to study art. You’ve just started down that road. Enjoy the landscape while you’re going. The signposts will come soon enough.”

  They talked about the pictures. Leota favored the drawings of people, while Annie was fascinated by the elaborate designs and borders. She said she wanted to sketch them so that she could experiment with colors later. She said she could imagine swirls of vibrant colors, reds flowing into oranges and yellows, deep indigo blues to purples and lavenders streaked with sparks of gold.

  Leota watched her face and saw the wonder there. Oh, she’s so young, Lord. Don’t let life stamp out that light in her eyes.

  “You can tell a lot about a person by what they draw,” Annie said. “She loved people and architecture.”

  “What would you draw?”

  “Flowers.” Annie smiled up at her. “I’d love to paint an English garden someday.”

  Leota sighed, stricken with regret. No wonder Annie remembered the backyard.

  “What’s the matter, Grandma? Did I say something wrong?”

  “Not at all. It’s just that I wish you’d seen the garden a few years ago when it was all I had hoped it would be.” Afraid her granddaughter would see the sheen of tears building, she rose stiffly and headed for the kitchen. “I’ll warm up our lunch.”

  They ate Chinese food together at the kitchen table, with the sounds of children playing in the backyard next door. Leota thought about the sparrow the children had buried and the flower plucked between the slats of her fence. Maybe Annie would come and put a flower on her grave. There was some solace in that thought, for it carried the hope that someone would care when she passed on.

  Annie picked at her food and gazed out at the backyard. Leota wished she hadn’t said anything about the garden. Yet she couldn’t help thinking about how Annie would have loved it a few years ago when it had been in its glory. Everything had come together in a blaze of color that was a wonder to behold. But Leota had been the only one there to enjoy it.

  Was that when she lost her desire to work in the sunshine? Had it been
the grief that no one cared enough to come and see the work she had done and how it had turned out? It was the last Easter she had invited her children to come for dinner. It was the last time they had told her they had other plans.

  The sorrow came up inside her, and it took all her determination to press it down again where it wouldn’t break through and show. If it did, Annie might never come back. Why would she want to spend time with a maudlin old woman who couldn’t let go of the hurts of the past?

  “Mother never let me work in the garden,” Annie was saying. “She didn’t want me interfering with Mr. Tikado’s work. She said he had planned everything to have a certain effect and planting other things would only spoil it. And with piano lessons and gymnastics and school, I really didn’t have much time left over.” She turned her gaze from the window.

  Leota looked into those clear, blue eyes and saw the hurt in them. “I’ve spoiled your visit. I’m sorry, dear.” What more could she say?

  Annie’s eyes filled with tears. “You didn’t spoil anything, Grandma. I was just thinking of all the times we could have come to see you and didn’t. It wasn’t right. It isn’t right. Mother is . . .” She pressed her lips together and looked away again. Leota saw her swallow and felt the girl’s pain as though it were her own. “So unforgiving,” Annie said finally.

  Leota caught a glimpse of Annie’s fears. She wanted to be able to reassure her that Eleanor would forgive her for her rebellion, but she couldn’t be sure. She didn’t want to offer false hopes to this hurting child. Eleanor had proved intractable where her mother was concerned. Might she be the same way with her own daughter? What a terrible loss that would be.

  “I wish I understood my mother.”

  And I, my daughter.

  Annie put trembling hands around her coffee cup and stared into it for a moment. When she raised her head, Leota saw the desperate unhappiness there. Had she been covering it up for her sake? “I need to know,” Annie said softly. “What does Mother hold against you?”