The Sinners' Garden

  “I’ve been ignoring that little voice inside of me,” she said. “You know what I mean—the One that guides us. The One that knows and tells us what is right.”

  Rip smiled. “It’s the Spirit, Judi.”

  “I’ve always heard it, Rip. But I haven’t been listening.”

  “It’s not always easy,” he said.

  “Todd’s not coming back,” she said. The words just came out. They hurt for a few seconds, but then she could feel some of the pressure come off. “Not that I even want him to come back . . . It’s just that I spent so much time wondering what went wrong, Rip. So many years knowing the truth, but I kept lying . . .”

  “Lying to whom?”

  She felt peace and a connection with Rip that hadn’t been there since they were kids.

  “I’ve been lying to myself,” she said. She took what felt like the first full breath she had taken in months. “People lie all the time. But when we aren’t honest with ourselves, when we can’t trust ourselves—it’s the worst feeling in the world.”

  “Been there and done that,” Rip said.

  They sat there in companionable silence for a while, staring at the garden.

  “You know what can hurt just as bad as lying to yourself?” Judi asked.

  “What?”

  She shook her head and paused before saying it. “Telling yourself the truth.”

  Rip patted her on the leg and considered her words. “Do you remember what Pastor Welsh said about lies a few months ago?”

  She hadn’t paid much attention to anyone over the last few months. Heck, the last several years, for that matter. She shook her head again.

  Rip put his hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Welsh said that all lies have to change or die, because they are constantly haunted by the truth. And as much as we sometimes want to convince ourselves that we can . . . we can’t change the truth. Only accept it.”

  Judi glanced back at the flower garden and thought about the lies Todd had told her as well. But as she looked at all the different colors across the canal, the hurt was somehow gone.

  “Accept the truth?” she whispered. “Kind of like admitting that I spent so many good years with the wrong person?”

  “It’s better than your whole life,” Rip said. He stared at her and then squinted. “But I’m pretty sure that’s not what you really need to accept.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked. “Tell me what you think I need to accept.”

  They could hear Andy’s motorcycle coming out of the woods and into the corn. The sound of it reminded Judi of a bee that was getting closer to her ear.

  “Talk to God about it,” Rip said. “Then listen to that little voice. He’ll tell you.”

  “I want you to tell me,” Judi said as Andy came out of the corn and into the high grass. He sure got here quick for a motorcycle that only goes around forty miles per hour.

  Andy parked the bike in the grass and walked down the bank to join them. He and Rip tapped knuckles.

  “I can’t find Milo,” Andy said. He raised the visor and then took his helmet off. “I’ve been everywhere.”

  “He’ll show up,” Rip said. “Don’t worry.”

  Judi didn’t want the subject to change. She felt better than she had in such a long time.

  “I’ve been blaming myself for everything,” she said. “Everything.”

  Andy looked at her and she could see a rare look of concern in his eyes. She appreciated it.

  “What did you do that was so bad?” Rip asked.

  Rip’s question pierced her. And then something about the look on Andy’s face seemed to beg for a confession.

  “Why don’t you answer the question?” Rip said. “Now is the time, Judi. Tell me, tell your son, tell yourself what you ever did as a wife and mother that was so bad.”

  Judi just stared at Andy, thinking about what Pastor Welsh had said. Whether the truth made her feel good or not, it was still the truth. She could hear that little voice inside of her. She could feel it guiding her toward the answer. She knew exactly what she did wrong in her marriage and as a mother. She faced Rip and then looked back at that first section of wildflowers that so drew her, from the moment she’d first seen them. Something over there forced her to answer, but it only came out as a whisper.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” Andy whispered fiercely, pulling his hair off the side of his face. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “No, I’m not kidding,” she said. It was the truth.

  “Unbelievable,” Andy muttered, taking a step back. “You think you didn’t do anything wrong?”

  “No,” Judi whispered, as layers of weights seemed to fly from her shoulders. “I didn’t.”

  She felt bad for not protecting Andy. For not taking him and running from Todd after the very first night her husband hit her. But it wasn’t her fault that Todd had made the decisions he had on that fateful night. It wasn’t her fault that he’d taken to drinking again. It wasn’t her fault that he’d gone to other women.

  The truth was, Todd was just desperate. Desperately seeking solace anywhere he could. Like Judi had so desperately sought solace in her guilt and her grief ever since.

  I’ve been looking in the wrong direction, Lord. For so long. Clinging to the sins, the sorrow, rather than to You! The truth of it washed through her like a spring wind, washing away winter dust that clouded her vision.

  “You’re right,” Rip said, kneeling next to her. He put his arm around her and she put her face on his shoulder, choking on sobs long buried. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Andy said. “I can’t believe that you . . . What the heck?”

  Judi looked up at Andy and his eyebrows were hunched together and he was squinting, almost as if it hurt, utterly lost in his confusion.

  “What is it, bro?” Rip said.

  “Look,” Andy said, pointing to the other side of the canal.

  Judi followed his finger and quickly stood.

  There were now only three sections of the garden.

  Hers was gone.

  No high grass. No black soil. No flowers. What was there seconds ago was now just a bald patch of cracked and sunbaked mud that hugged unevenly at the rest of the garden like it wanted back in.

  Imperfection seeking perfection, she thought. Oddly, she didn’t feel a loss, even though it had been her section. She only felt peace. Wholeness.

  “How did that just happen?” Andy asked.

  Rip stood and craned his neck toward the garden. Then he looked around as if he wanted other people to have witnessed it before pointing across the canal. “Okay, we all saw that, right? All three of us? It was just there a second ago. That left section of flowers. Right?”

  Judi and Andy nodded.

  “It just happened,” Andy muttered. “It really just happened.”

  Judi laughed. “Yes, it did.”

  Rip held his hands up and then let them drop against his sides. “There is only one possible explanation. And it’s also the only explanation for what Andy’s been hearing in the iPod.”

  “What is it?” Andy said.

  “Him,” Rip answered. He went farther down the bank and stepped into the water. And then he smiled and pointed at the sky. “I think we just found out who the Gardener is.”

  Heather had spent most of the evening doing exactly what she knew she’d be doing—sleeping on the side of St. Paul’s for the better part of two hours with the window down, being eaten half-alive by mosquitoes—until Natalie came across the radio, telling her to get out to old Jimmy Keeler’s house. Heather figured Jimmy must have had a heart attack from stressing out about that “crook” dentist of his down in Monroe and the ever-increasing price of his health care.

  But that wasn’t it.

  Jimmy had had an encounter with an intruder.

  By the time she reached his house three minutes later, Jimmy was waiting in the driveway and complaining about h
ow long it had taken her to get out there.

  “What if I’d had a stroke or the missus had fallen down?” he barked. “My tax dollars don’t seem to be too hard at work.”

  “I got here as soon as I could, Jimmy,” she said. “Just be thankful those things didn’t happen.”

  “I didn’t hear your siren,” he added. “You couldn’t have been in too much of a cotton-pickin’ hurry.”

  “It’s late. And dispatch said the intruder is gone,” she said. “Are you sure he’s not still here?”

  “Positive,” Jimmy said. “I was in the living room, looking right out the window at him. He was standing right about where we are now.”

  “He was standing out here?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I think he knew I was looking at him too. My heart was beating so fast, I thought it was going to break my sternum.”

  “Which way did he go?”

  “He went that way.” Jimmy pointed to the woods near the end of the road. “Funny thing was, he walked. He didn’t run. You figure he’d be in a hurry to get out of here. I think it may be that Santa fella from the newspaper. Whatcha think?”

  “Tell me what he looked like.”

  “Just like the weekly paper said. He was all decked out in black. Face and all.”

  “Are you sure he was in the house?” Heather asked, for some reason thinking about the reporter from the newspaper. “Maybe he wants to get caught.”

  “Positive,” Jimmy said, making a fist. “I was getting ready to grab my bat and bust him up, and then I heard him leave the kitchen.”

  “Let’s go inside and see if anything is out of order. I need to make a report.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Jimmy said. “I already looked around, waiting for you to show up. Nothing’s missin’.”

  “Jimmy?” It was Mrs. Keeler. Her head peered around the front door. Her gray hair looked blue under the porch light. “There is a booby trap in here.”

  “Good Lord!” Jimmy cried. “Call the bomb squad!”

  Heather rushed to the door and Mrs. Keeler opened it.

  “Where is it?” Heather asked.

  “It’s in the kitchen.”

  The light was already on and Heather tiptoed to the edge of the room. Jimmy and Mrs. Keeler were behind her. She couldn’t see anything out of order. They both looked at Mrs. Keeler.

  “It’s right there,” she said, pointing a blue and shriveled finger at the cupboard above the kitchen sink.

  “Good Lord!” Jimmy said. “It’s a trip wire!”

  Heather wasn’t sure if it was a trip wire, but there was definitely some type of line that stretched from the cupboards into the refrigerator door. She slowly stepped closer and pulled out her flashlight. She went to the edge of the sink and studied the line.

  “Be careful,” Jimmy said. “Some of that stuff is motion sensitive.”

  “It’s dental floss,” Heather said, running her finger across it to where it was tucked inside the cupboard. She opened the cupboard door and a little wooden cross fell out. The dental floss had been taped to it. She picked it up and studied the balance of the line that went into the refrigerator. These people don’t need gift cards to Food Village. What are you up to now?

  She followed the floss, wrapping it around her finger until she reached the refrigerator. She slowly opened the refrigerator door, and directly in front of her, on the top shelf, the dental floss ran to a toothbrush that was on top of an egg carton.

  “A toothbrush?” Jimmy said, peeking over her shoulder. “He’s lucky I didn’t get down here while he was in the house. Sicko is making fun of me not having any teeth?”

  “I don’t think so,” Heather said. She lifted the toothbrush off the egg carton and it popped open. The eggs were gone, but they had been replaced with something else. “Uh . . . Jimmy . . . the other day at Bible study . . . How much did you say your new dentures were gonna be?”

  “Thirty-six hundred big ones,” Jimmy said. “Money I don’t have.”

  “I’m not sure about that,” Heather said.

  Inside of each little space where the eggs had been were three neatly folded one-hundred-dollar bills. Exactly thirty-six hundred dollars. She held it up and showed it to Jimmy and Mrs. Keeler.

  “Good Lord,” Jimmy whispered. “He was an angel.”

  Mrs. Keeler nodded. “That explains why he did this when he was out in the driveway . . . right before he walked away.” She made the sign of the cross.

  “He did that?” Heather asked.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Keeler said excitedly. “Jimmy couldn’t see it. He was hiding in the closet, yelling at me.”

  “Quit babblin’, woman,” Jimmy said, shaking his hand dismissively at his wife. “Pay her no mind, Heather. You know how the mind goes when you get to a certain age.”

  NINETEEN

  Andy leaned back against the worktable in the barn and waited for Uncle Rip to try to start the old motorcycle they’d been working on for the better part of the day. Uncle Rip had picked him up in the Pacer and they went back to his mobile home and hooked a chain up to the old bike. Andy had gotten on it and steered it as they slowly towed it all the way back home and to the barn. The bike was a little bigger than the one Uncle Rip had fixed up for Andy’s birthday, and according to Uncle Rip, in much worse shape.

  Uncle Rip had already tried to start it around ten times, and Andy could tell he was growing impatient. He even swore a couple times, but Uncle Rip said this time it was going to start.

  Uncle Rip coughed and winced. He seemed to have a hard time catching his breath before he jumped up and came down on the kick-starter. The motorcycle sputtered to a begrudging start and a sickly puff of blue smoke came out of the exhaust pipe.

  “Nice,” Andy said with a laugh.

  “I should be on the cover of Master Mechanic magazine,” Uncle Rip shouted over the noise, with the first smile he’d seen from him in hours.

  “Never heard of that magazine,” Andy said.

  “Me either,” Uncle Rip added. “But I should still be on it for getting this old girl going. Get on your bike and let’s take a little spin. Let’s go out on the road and then we’ll cut back up along the canal. If this thing dies, we’re leaving it out in the field for good and I’m riding back with you.”

  “If it dies, you gonna swear at it some more?”

  Uncle Rip wiped the sweat off his forehead and bit his lip. “You preaching to me?”

  “How’s it feel?” Andy said.

  Uncle Rip smiled. “Sorry about the language, bro. You just made me think of something Pastor Welsh told me. Just like this bike, I still need a lot of work.”

  As they went down the driveway toward the road, Andy didn’t want to go too fast and give away the fact that he had figured out how to adjust the governor on the throttle, reversing Uncle Rip’s work to slow the bike down. Andy charged out in front, but when his helmetless Uncle Rip passed him, Andy buried it, zipping past his uncle down the road toward the bridge that ran over The Frank and Poet.

  Uncle Rip yelled and Andy pulled the bike over.

  “Maybe you should be on the cover of Master Mechanic,” Uncle Rip said, shaking his head.

  “Why you say that?” Andy asked, trying to hide a smug smile.

  Uncle Rip looked like he was hiding his own smile. “I didn’t think it would take you long to figure that throttle out. Keep it between us and be careful, okay?”

  Andy grinned. It was a secret he didn’t mind keeping.

  “She’s running pretty good,” Uncle Rip said, tapping on the side of the older bike as if it were alive. “Before we hit the bridge, let’s hang a right and run along the canal until we reach the flowers. I want to take another look.”

  This would be the fifth time in the last couple days he and Uncle Rip had gone out to the flower garden to make sure what they thought happened, really happened. Mom had even gone with them on a couple of those trips, and they figured it would be best not to tell anyone other than Pas
tor Welsh and Heather how the garden had changed. Andy was pretty sure the reasoning behind the decision was to prevent people from thinking they were flat-out nuts, so he was cool with it. They already thought he was crazy, what with all the iPod stuff going on.

  “Let’s race,” Andy said.

  “Wake up, little boy, you don’t have a chance against your Uncle Rip.”

  Andy gunned it and laughed, knowing he had to have sprayed Uncle Rip with a fair amount of dirt and gravel as he peeled off toward the bridge. They were halfway there when he heard Uncle Rip catching up to him. Andy leaned forward and pulled back on the throttle as far as he could, but Uncle Rip still passed him.

  He was laughing.

  Despite its lack of upkeep, Uncle Rip’s bike was clearly more powerful, and Andy watched as his uncle beat him to the bridge before jumping down into the high grass that ran the length of the canal. Andy followed and they were flying alongside The Frank and Poet toward the lake. When they approached the sharp bend in the canal that would take them toward the cornfields across from the flower bed, Uncle Rip pulled on the brakes and slid around twenty feet, almost straight sideways, before stopping only inches from the bank that led down to the water.

  Andy slowed down and pulled up next to him. “I thought you were gonna get wet for a second.”

  “Checking the brakes at that speed wasn’t real smart of me. Good thing they work.”

  Andy nodded. “How did she feel?”

  “Not bad,” Uncle Rip said. “Still needs a little work, though.”

  Uncle Rip turned his engine off and Andy did the same. They pushed the bikes along the edge of the canal, neither of them saying much, until the side of McLouth Steel came into sight through some trees on the other side of the canal.

  “You really think God put that garden there?” Andy asked.

  “What else could it be?” Uncle Rip said. “You saw the same thing I did.”

  They had talked and talked about it, and Uncle Rip offered his theory—more like another lecture—that maybe God was trying to tell Mom something through the garden. And when she finally learned the lesson she needed, “her” part of the garden disappeared.