Mary Anne and the Memory Garden

  Everything about Dr. Reese’s outer office is designed to make you feel safe and comfortable. The dark green carpeting and leather chairs, along with the mahogany desk and bookshelves, make it look more like a living room than a waiting room.

  I sank down in one of the big leather chairs and thumbed through a magazine as I waited for my name to be called. Classical music was playing softly from speakers on the bookshelves.

  Less than five minutes had passed before I was ushered into Dr. Reese’s office. She was sitting at her desk in her standard uniform of polo shirt, sweater, and chinos (yes, she’s pretty preppy). Dr. Reese barely seems old enough to be a doctor, especially when she pulls her dark brown hair into a ponytail. She looks more like a college cheerleader or a camp counselor.

  Anyway, it was good to see her.

  “Mary Anne.” She leaped up from her desk and gave me a warm hug. “Welcome.”

  All of my nervousness melted away and I remembered how good it felt being with Dr. Reese.

  “I was just making some hot chocolate,” she said, moving to the small microwave across from her desk. “Care to join me?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I think one of the last times I had hot chocolate was at your office.”

  Dr. Reese winked. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m addicted to the stuff. I’d drink it by the gallon if it weren’t so fattening.”

  Where Dr. Reese’s waiting room looks like a living room, her office is more like an old-fashioned sunporch. She has a chaise lounge upholstered in a cabbage rose pattern. That’s where she sat, clutching her cup of hot chocolate. I curled up in a wingbacked chair covered in flowered chintz.

  Dr. Reese opened our conversation with, “I was sad to hear about your classmate, Amelia Freeman. I know her parents. They must be devastated.”

  I told Dr. Reese that Amelia was my friend. Then I described the project we had been working on.

  “Mrs. Simon, my English teacher, assigned me to work with Amelia, Barbara, and Gordon and we really hit it off. The day we brainstormed at my house was wonderful! The great ideas wouldn’t stop coming. But it wasn’t all serious. We had fun and worked well together. We joked and laughed right up to the time Amelia had to leave. Her family was going out to dinner. To try out some new restaurant.”

  My eyes widened and my throat suddenly went dry.

  “Mary Anne?” Dr. Reese leaned forward. “What is it?”

  “I just remembered something,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “Amelia invited us to go out to dinner with her. We joked about her dad’s Volkswagen being too small to carry all of us. But Amelia genuinely wanted us to come with her.” I looked at Dr. Reese and shivered. “Do you think if we’d gone we would have been in that accident? Or do you think the accident would never have happened?”

  Dr. Reese sighed. “Those are things we’ll never know. And you only upset yourself worrying about them.”

  I set my empty cup on her wicker coffee table. “I didn’t think about the dinner invitation until just this minute.”

  “There are so many ‘what ifs’ in this world,” Dr. Reese said. “But don’t start torturing yourself thinking you could have changed the outcome of things. What’s past is past.”

  I sighed. “I guess you’re right.”

  Dr. Reese picked up my cup and took it to the small sink by her microwave. “You were talking about Amelia …”

  “Yes.” My mind continued to replay the events of the last time I saw Amelia. “When Amelia was leaving my house, she turned and smiled at me. It was a special kind of smile between two people who really like each other. I remember thinking in that moment just how happy I was to be working with her.” I looked down at my hands clasped in my lap. “I went to bed that night happy.”

  “The next day, you heard the news about Amelia,” Dr. Reese said.

  I nodded. “I couldn’t believe it.”

  “How did you feel?”

  I cocked my head, trying to be specific about my emotions. “Sad, of course. Shocked. And scared.”

  “Scared?”

  “I suddenly felt like everything was a joke. Locking doors, being careful crossing streets — none of that was going to protect me.” My voice grew louder and louder as I spoke. “I mean, if someone as wonderful as Amelia could get killed for no reason at all, then nobody is safe.”

  “You sound angry,” Dr. Reese said. “How have you handled your anger?”

  “Anger?” I blinked in surprise at Dr. Reese. “I haven’t been angry. Kristy is the one who’s been mad.”

  “What has she done about her anger?”

  “At first she kind of pulled into herself,” I said, remembering those days right after Amelia’s death. “Which was unusual for Kristy. Of all of us, she seemed to be taking Amelia’s death the hardest, even though I was closer to Amelia than she was. Kristy was acting so strange that I started worrying about her.”

  Dr. Reese nodded. “Mary Anne, the caregiver.”

  “I guess it helped me, too,” I confessed, “because for a while there I put my feelings aside, and only concentrated on Kristy.”

  “How is Kristy doing now?”

  I shrugged. “Couldn’t be better. She’s back to her old Kristy-self, organizing our school’s chapter of Students Against Driving Drunk. Which is also kind of weird. I mean, she seemed so devastated, but less than a month later, she’s completely recovered.”

  “It makes sense to me,” Dr. Reese said.

  “It does? Why?”

  “Well, as I remember from your descriptions of her, Kristy is a real ‘can do’ kind of person. If she sees a problem, she solves it.”

  “That’s Kristy.”

  “You mentioned that Kristy didn’t know Amelia as well as you did, and yet she was overwhelmed by her death.”

  “That’s right.”

  Dr. Reese sat back on the chaise. “Kristy, being a problem solver, was suddenly hit with a problem she couldn’t solve. One of her classmates was senselessly killed in a car accident and there was nothing she could do to change that.”

  I nodded. “She raved on and on about drunk drivers and how we should put them all behind bars.”

  Dr. Reese held out her hands. “Kristy finally found a way to channel her anger. She organized S.A.D.D. It wouldn’t bring Amelia back, but it would help thousands of kids your age change things. In her own way, Kristy is keeping those drivers off the streets. She’s avenging Amelia’s death.”

  “But I helped Kristy form the club. I’ve been putting up posters and making phone calls. And I feel worse than ever.”

  “But your grief wasn’t about controlling your life. It was about losing a friend.”

  I thought of Amelia looking back over her shoulder at me. “Yes, I did lose a friend.” My chin started to quiver and big tears rolled down my cheeks. Then I began to sob. I could barely talk. “It’s just so … sad,” I whispered.

  “Losing people we love is sad. It hurts,” Dr. Reese said. “And it’s okay to cry. For them and for ourselves.”

  When I left Dr. Reese’s office that afternoon I felt as though my entire body had been put through a wringer. But at last I knew what was wrong with me. I was in mourning for my friend. And as Dr. Reese pointed out, that sorrow just doesn’t disappear. It gradually lessens, but we have to allow ourselves time to grieve.

  For the rest of the week, I did just that. I looked at my class picture of Amelia and my yearbook from seventh grade. As Dr. Reese had suggested, I kept an Amelia journal, writing down my memories of her. I remembered her winning a spelling bee in fifth grade. I remembered her tripping in the cafeteria and smearing an entire tray of spaghetti down the front of her white blouse. I remembered Amelia doing the flexed arm hang the longest in gym class — and fudging on the sit-ups.

  On my next visit to Dr. Reese, I brought my journal.

  “Excellent,” Dr. Reese said. “You haven’t turned her into some perfect girl, you’ve kept her human.”

  I flipped open the journal
again. There were more empty pages than filled ones. And it somehow felt inadequate. “This has been a big help, because I was secretly afraid that I might forget Amelia.” I leaned back in my chair and sighed. “I just wish there was something more I could do.”

  Dr. Reese once again made us hot chocolate. As she handed me my cup, she asked, “Have you considered doing something to publicly memorialize Amelia? Barbara, Josh, and other students who were close to her might want to help you.”

  “But we already had a funeral,” I replied.

  “Something more personal,” Dr. Reese said. “Something just you and your friends would do.”

  I took a sip of my chocolate. “Barbara, Gordon, and I plan to dedicate our English project to Amelia.”

  “Something a bit bigger,” Dr. Reese said gently. “Something that might allow Amelia’s name or her memory to live on.”

  Hmm. I liked that idea. A lot. I left Dr. Reese’s office feeling hopeful for the first time in a long while.

  That night, I set to work collecting ideas for a way to memorialize Amelia. I called Dawn in California, then talked to Dad and Sharon.

  Dad suggested we start a scholarship fund in Amelia’s name.

  Sharon thought we could put up a plaque at the school.

  Dawn suggested we make donations to a green fund such as Save the Rain Forests, since Amelia was interested in ecology.

  Everyone’s ideas were good, but I decided I’d wait until the perfect one appeared. That night I went to bed feeling better than I had in weeks.

  I’d had a feeling even before I opened the mailbox that I’d hear from Dawn. And sure enough, there was her letter, written on blue stationery. She’d used purple ink. The outside of the envelope was decorated with little hearts and moon stickers. I could tell the letter was going to be a good one.

  It seems that Mr. Cruickshank never wrote back. Dawn had even written him two more letters after the first one. Finally she couldn’t stand waiting anymore. She marched over to Sunny’s house and rang the doorbell.

  “The trash is gone, the weeds have been pulled, and the kids are standing by ready to plant a garden. We need to get going.”

  “It’s making me crazy, too,” Sunny said. “Maybe Mr. Cruickshank never read our letters. Maybe he was out of town.”

  “Maybe he read the letters, but couldn’t care less about the lot,” Dawn countered. “I mean, look how he let it become a trash heap.”

  “You think we should just go ahead and plant a garden?”

  Dawn shrugged. “Why not? How mad could he be about a beautiful garden that didn’t cost him a cent?”

  “You’re right,” Sunny said. “Let’s plant it.”

  Dawn and Sunny rallied the rest of the We ♥ Kids Club and, although they didn’t feel quite right about their plan, they reminded each other that not three weeks before, the lot had been a health hazard and an eyesore. Their hard work was going to turn the ugliest spot in the neighborhood into the garden spot.

  The group kicked into high gear. Many of the parents helped out by hauling things for them. This time it wasn’t garbage; it was sacks of fertilizer, flats of plants, and bags of seeds. They even hauled wheelbarrowloads of pebbles.

  “Now tell me once more why you need so many rocks?” Dawn’s stepmother Carol asked as they stuffed her trunk with bags of gravel.

  “For the walkways,” Dawn explained. “You see, we drew up a garden plan. We want ours to be like the one in The Secret Garden. Where kids can walk through the lot and view the plants. We’ve even talked about adding a gazebo.”

  “A gazebo?” Carol gasped. “But won’t that cost a lot of money?”

  “Mr. Clune is donating it. He said he hadn’t seen his girls so excited since Christmas. And he was glad that instead of focusing on presents, they were creating something beautiful.”

  “I have a friend who makes birdhouses,” Carol remarked on their fifth trip across town. “Maybe I could convince her to donate a few.”

  “Oh, that would be wonderful!” Dawn cried. “Then we could put in a birdbath. Stephie really wants a birdbath.”

  It took the club, their clients, the kids, and several neighbors almost a week to collect the supplies they needed. But that gave the girls time to read a few gardening books and gather advice from their parents and local greenhouses.

  Sunny drew the final design of the garden, and Maggie Blume, another of the We ♥ Kids Club members, copied them at her dad’s office. Each little kid was given a design to color.

  They were lucky the Green Thumb nursery decided to donate so many large plants and bushes. They transformed the dirt lot practically overnight.

  It became a palette of pastels, with white alyssum, salmon-pink day lilies, pink geraniums, and purple petunias.

  Some of the adults agreed to help put in the gravel walkways after everything was planted. By then, it was Sunday afternoon, and what started as a work party turned into a neighborhood celebration. Families brought lemonade and cookies, and everyone who had contributed to the garden showed up to watch the completion of the walkways.

  Dawn had just taken a break and was standing next to Sunny, sipping a cup of lemonade, when a huge black car with tinted windows pulled up in front of the lot.

  “Uh-oh,” Dawn said, lowering her cup.

  “Do you know who that is?” Sunny asked, following Dawn’s gaze.

  “No, but I can guess.” Dawn crumpled her cup and tossed it into the metal can at the edge of the lot. “Mr. James L. Cruickshank.”

  Right on cue, the back door of the car swung open and a man in a three-piece suit and mirrored sunglasses stepped out.

  “Does he look happy?” Sunny whispered to Dawn. “I don’t think he looks happy.”

  “It’s hard to tell anything,” Dawn whispered back. “His sunglasses are hiding his eyes.”

  The man stood on the sidewalk and stared at his lot. He didn’t smile. He didn’t turn his head to acknowledge anyone. He just looked.

  “I can’t take it anymore,” Dawn finally said to Sunny. “I’m going to talk to him.”

  Sunny grabbed Dawn’s elbow. “Wait for me. I’m not letting you face that iceberg alone.”

  Dawn marched over to the man and said, “Mr. Cruickshank? I’m Dawn Schafer. I’m the one who wrote you all those letters.”

  The man slowly turned his head toward Dawn. He stared at her, his face absolutely expressionless, for a full minute. Finally he said, “I’ve been out of town.”

  “See? I told you,” Sunny mumbled out of the corner of her mouth.

  “I didn’t have a chance to read my mail until this morning. That’s why I’m here.” He looked back at the lot. “But I guess I’m too late to stop this.”

  Dawn let out a nervous laugh. “I guess so. Unless you want us to dig up the plants and dump all that garbage back onto your lot.”

  Mr. Cruickshank shot her a stiff look, letting her know he did not appreciate the crack about the garbage.

  “I mean, we can stop what we’re doing,” Dawn stammered. “If that’s what you want.”

  The man stroked his chin. “I’m not sure what I want. I never had any real plans for this lot.”

  “Well, it makes a wonderful garden,” Sunny piped up. “We’ve only been working a short while, and see how beautiful it is now? Imagine what it will look like when all the plants are in bloom.”

  Mr. Cruickshank turned and walked down the gravel paths. He occasionally stopped to study a tag still on a bush or shrub, but mostly he just walked. Very slowly.

  “I think this is worse than waiting for his letter,” Dawn murmured to Sunny. “Look at him — no smiles, no nothing. The guy has icewater in his veins.”

  “Shhh!” Sunny pressed her finger to her lips. “He might hear you.”

  “What’s he going to do, sue me?” Dawn asked.

  “No, but he could make us dig up that garden. And he could take us all to court for trespassing.”

  Dawn gasped in disbelief. “Are you sure?” br />
  “Cross my heart.” Sunny placed one hand on her heart and held up the other, palm outward.

  “Well, if you knew that, why didn’t you say something?” Dawn exploded. “Before we dug up the entire lot and did all of the planting?”

  “Because I never thought he’d show up,” Sunny retorted. “I mean, that lot looked like no one had gone near it in ten years.”

  The neighbors, thinking Mr. Cruickshank was just an interested passerby, continued their party, laughing and joking with each other.

  “This could be a total embarrassment,” Dawn murmured out of the side of her mouth. “He could throw a fit and we’d be forced to admit to all these parents that we didn’t have permission to do this.”

  Sunny’s eyes widened. “Did you tell them we did?”

  “Well, I did and I didn’t. Whenever anyone asked about it, I would tell them we’d written several letters to Mr. Cruickshank, the owner.”

  Sunny nodded slowly. “I see, and they’d think you had permission.”

  “Right.”

  Mr. Cruickshank was now walking in their direction.

  “What should we do?” Dawn hissed. “Beg him to let us keep the garden?”

  “Beg?” Sunny gasped. “We Winslows never beg. Plead, yes …”

  “It appears you’ve done quite a bit of work here,” Mr. Cruickshank said. “I must say, I’m extremely surprised.”

  Dawn couldn’t tell if he was surprised that his lot could look so nice, or surprised that they would have the nerve to do so much without permission.

  “I hope you like it,” Sunny said, with a cheery smile. “We loved working on it.”

  Mr. Cruickshank took a deep breath and said sternly, “You realize that, no matter what you do to this lot, I am still the owner.”

  “Yes, sir,” both girls answered meekly.

  “And all of these plants, bushes, and flowers are now my plants, bushes, and flowers.”

  They hadn’t fully realized that but they nodded anyway.

  “And as owner, I could choose to sell this lot tomorrow, and whoever bought it would be the sole owner of this garden.”