The Stone Flower Garden

  I said nothing as I wheeled her through the doors of the cardiac intensive-care ward. She guided me to a curtained area, curving a shaky hand at the nurses who looked up from their station. They all straightened as if for inspection and spoke to me politely in their melodic mountain voices, as if I might threaten their jobs or demand special treatment. My stomach twisted. Was that my image now?

  We went down a line of cubicles where half-drawn curtains offered wrenching glimpses of cardiac patients dozing among lines and tubes and monitors. Outside the cubicle windows a magenta sunset gathered over the mountains towering around us, and a low, silver mist began to settle like smoke on the hills. Our home, our birthplace, was impossibly beautiful and lonely. “This one,” Matilda said. We stopped. I pulled the curtain back slowly.

  The lights had been turned down, so that Swan’s face was illuminated only by a small lamp above the head of her hospital bed. She was hooked to a half dozen wires and IVs. A clear, slender oxygen tube curled beneath her aquiline nostrils. Her eyes were closed. I eased Matilda’s wheelchair close to the bed then went to the other side and stood, not touching Swan, just looking down at her and steadying myself. Her face was ashen and lined, but still compelling. Her beautiful hair was now silver-gray. She defiantly wore it longer than most ladies of a certain age would dare, the thick silver strands curling around her shoulders. I touched a fingertip to the lace collar of a white silk robe tied at her throat. Matilda whispered, “Of course she wouldn’t wear a hospital gown.”

  “Of course not.”

  She bent to Swan’s ear. “Swan, she’s here. Darl’s here.” My grandmother breathed deeply in sleep and didn’t respond. Matilda bent closer. “Sister,” she whispered as if it were a command, then gave a poignant glance toward the curtain in case someone might overhear—as if most of the town didn’t already know. That nearly broke me. She and Swan were so much alike, guarding their old ways and secrets, their tangled reputation.

  My grandmother opened her eyes abruptly. There had never been any half measures in her nature. She was either in hibernation or fully alert. Her blue eyes were dulled by medication, but her gaze went straight to me. I saw a flash of pleasure followed by quick self-control. She cleared her throat. “If you’ve come to see me die, I’ll disappoint you.”

  I leaned over her. My voice barely a whisper, I said, “I’ve come to take care of you while you recuperate. If that’s what you want.”

  “What have I done to earn such sudden devotion?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Was this the only way you’d come home for good?”

  “I haven’t come home for good. I’ve come to see my sick grandmother. There’s a difference.”

  “Duty, not devotion.”

  “You expect me to be sentimental? You hate that kind of thing.”

  “Absolutely. So you’ll stay?”

  “Until you’re well.”

  “Perhaps I’ll become a chronic invalid. Then you’ll be forced to smother me with my own pillow.”

  “I’ll give it some thought, in that case.”

  Matilda gasped. The cruel banter between Swan and I had become a routine over the years, but we’d never indulged in front of anyone else. I looked at Matilda apologetically, then back down at Swan. “I’ll be staying at Marble Hall. I’ll visit you again early tomorrow morning.” I paused. “Did someone upset you yesterday? I heard you had a visitor at the office, and you weren’t yourself after that.”

  Her eyes flared. “Leon is spying on me?”

  “Oh, please. He told me a young woman came by and you shut yourself away with her. And that you didn’t look well after she left. He was worried. That’s his job. Who was she?”

  “That’s my business, for now. I’ll discuss it with you later, when I have a private room. In the meantime, tell Leon I want you to oversee the company business while I’ll ill. If anyone’s going to spy on me, it might as well be my own granddaughter.”

  “Leon’s doing a perfectly fine job. He doesn’t need my interference.”

  “He’s a hired manager, not family. He’s not one of us.”

  I could have laughed, if the sound would have gotten past my locked throat. In Swan’s terms, one of us wasn’t about race, but about Hardigree status. I bent closer to her and whispered, “Good for him. We tend to kill our own kind—or let others die for the crime. So don’t joke about me smothering you. It’s a little too close to our family traditions for comfort.” Matilda heard every word, and moaned.

  Swan stared at me with a kind of fierce pride. “Come back tomorrow. We do have to talk. I have something very important to tell you. We’ll see how strong you are, then.”

  I frowned at her. “No games, Grandmother. I’m not in the mood.”

  “This is no game, I assure you.” With that, she turned her head and ignored me. “Now go and be the lady of Marble Hall. Go on and take Matilda to her own room. I need my rest. I intend to recover in record time.” She gazed at Matilda sternly. “You go and rest, too. I’ll be checking up on you. Tomorrow I’ll insist they move me to your room.”

  We had been dismissed. Matilda touched her hand in good-bye, and Swan acknowledged her with another quiet look. Matilda nodded. They held silent conversations, like twins sharing an unspoken language. I quickly wheeled Matilda from the ward, moving like a woman on a tightrope. Small, shooting pains began to creep up the back of my neck and into my scalp. My temples ached. As soon as I cleared the ICU doors Matilda looked up at me. Her mouth worked to form the words. Her eyes glittered. “How could you speak to her so cruelly about . . . the past?”

  “I’m sorry. It’s our way of counting coup on each other.”

  She clenched a thin fist to her chest. “Why? Why?”

  I leaned toward her, quivering. In a hoarse whisper I begged, “Don’t the memories stab you a little every day? They haunt me. And lately it’s been nearly unbearable.”

  “It was an accident.”

  “You know what I mean. Not just Clara.”

  “An accident, all of it. How can you blame Swan after all these years?”

  I sagged with defeat. “Matilda, you’ve always looked the other way.”

  “Can’t you—just once? You are the only family she has. You cannot treat her badly.”

  “The only family? Times have changed. The rules have changed. Isn’t it time this town learns you’re her sister?”

  “Half-sister. Her colored half-sister.” Matilda was trembling so hard it frightened me, but she drew herself proudly. “And I will never have the world know how I came to be born a colored Hardigree. It would humiliate Karen and cause gossip in her career.”

  “I’ll call her in New York and tell her you need her.”

  Matilda’s lips moved faintly. “I won’t ask her to come.”

  “I came back for Swan. She’ll come back for you.” I pressed my fingertips to my temples. “Can’t there ever be a time when we simply tell the truth and accept what we did and who we are?”

  Matilda looked at me with the restraint of an old lioness. “No. Hearts are broken for the sake of the truth. Keep your truth, and I shall keep mine.”

  Burnt Stand. Blood and death and Darl. Eli felt all three fighting for his soul as he waited in the hospital lobby. A few miles from there Pa had died on the ground in front of the Stone Cottage, his eyes searching Ma’s face for some kind of forgiveness as she cradled him in her arms. If there was any chance in hell of proving Pa didn’t kill Clara Hardigree, it meant someone else had. Probably someone who knew her. Someone from Burnt Stand. That person could be within the sound of Eli’s voice right now.

  Leon asked Eli a few questions about himself, which Eli circled without really answering. That brought a look of acidic scrutiny into the big man’s black eyes, and soured Eli’s stomach. He wasn’t accustomed to hedging
his words, and he wanted Leon’s respect. “Well, I better leave you to yourself,” Leon said without sparing another slicing look. “I’ve got a little girl and boy at home, and an old daddy who’ll overcook the collard greens and yell at the kids if I don’t get there.”

  “You have kids. That’s good.”

  Leon studied him hard for that curious remark. “Yeah. My wife died a few years ago, so I’ve got kids to raise alone. Good kids.” He tossed him a set of car keys. “Use that Explorer I drove here. It’s a company car. I’ve got a man bringing me another one.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “Hope you’ll be around later for more questions. We’re pretty nosy about strangers.”

  “You’re out of luck. I don’t have much to say.”

  “It’s what you don’t say that’s got my curiosity.” Eli chewed his tongue. “Well, Mr. Solo, I’ll be talkin’ to you again. Good evening, you hear?” Leon nodded to him curtly and turned to walk away.

  “Leon, wait.” The man halted, frowning at the familiar way a stranger used his name. “Yeah?”

  Eli held his gaze evenly. “The name’s not Solo. It’s Wade. Eli Wade.”

  For a moment Leon stared at him, scrutinized him, shock and disbelief stamped on his face, then a slow merging of recognition and inevitable resemblance. Eli saw the decision on Leon’s face even before the big man raised a finger to his cheek and touched the scar. Slowly he walked back to Eli, then thrust out a massive hand, one stonecutter to another.

  They shook on the past.

  The two most important women in my life were old and sick and now both lay in hospital beds. When I reached the lobby, Solo met me. My stomach crowded up beneath my breastbone. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. My head throbbed. “I have a good deal of work to do tonight. Phone calls to my grandmother’s friends and associates. Business files to read. You don’t have to stay with me. There are several inns around town, and two chain motels.”

  “If you’re kickin’ me out, Darl, you’ll have be blunt. I’m fairly dense. Some people take a hint. Some people take the cake. Me? I need to hear, ‘Get outta my sight, you big hick bastard,’ before I understand.”

  I stared at him. “All right. I want you to stay. I’ll take you to my family’s dark lair.”

  “Marble Hall?”

  “Yes.” I must have mentioned the name to him. I couldn’t remember. “We’ll have more privacy there.” I told him the driving directions. Pain shot through my head. I abruptly had to shut my eyes and hold my face, as if it would burst. He put an arm around me. “Talk to me. What’s wrong?”

  “Headache,” I admitted. “I have them. This is a bad one. I’ve got medicine in my luggage.”

  “You don’t need a pill. You need to cry.” He slid an arm around me with ferocious support. “Want me to make you cry?”

  “No. You’re the only part of my life that doesn’t hurt. Let’s keep it that way.”

  Solo chewed his lower lip, looked like a man caught between two trains, and simmered with some misery of his own. “All right,” he said finally. “You’ve got your wish for tonight.” He led me outside, where I threw up in the meditation garden my own grandmother had donated to the hospital. He held my hair back and wiped my mouth with the back of his own hand when I tried to turn away. My homecoming complete, I walked to Leon’s SUV two paces ahead of him, numb but determined to preserve some dignity. He let me. During the drive I laid my head back on the passenger seat and tried to forget where I was and why. I hoped he could find Marble Hall without my further help.

  Surprisingly, he had no trouble at all.

  The pink mansion existed as it always did in my dreams—looming above me as we drove up the front lane of crushed marble rock, waiting for me to be swallowed inside its cool grandeur. Hooded by firs like enormous Christmas trees and surrounded by manicured shrubs, it made a dark obelisk against the fading light of the sky. Deep woods rose around it on the hills, and mountains behind that. To our left, beyond the back gardens, the pool, the terrace, and the old koi pond, a short walk through those woods, I could always visit Clara’s secret grave at the base of the moss-speckled statuary of the Stone Flower Garden. Beyond that garden, the Stone Cottage sat empty in its deep mountain hollow, its boarded-over doors and windows sagging under the weight of the wild muscadine vines that shrouded it. Those vines would be turning bright gold soon, and jewel-toned autumn leaves would sift down gently atop the old yard, the lost garden, Clara’s buried bones. I knew exactly what I would see if I had the guts to walk through those woods.

  I didn’t.

  “Home sweet home,” I managed through a veil of nausea and pain.

  Solo took a key from my hand and strode up the wide steps of the portico as I climbed leadenly behind him. Gloria, Swan’s South American housekeeper, had left the portico’s chandelier burning and lamps turned on in the mansion’s lower windows. We entered the central foyer, our footsteps hidden on Swan’s antique Persian rugs. A note from Gloria, written in careful English on a slip of Hardigree Marble Company stationary, said I’d find roast beef, cold salads, and casseroles to microwave in the kitchen.

  But I hurried straight to the back of the house like a trapped animal seeks air, staggering in the dark past every fine piece of furniture and object d’art, every portrait of Swan, Esta, and my mother. I flung open the row of tall French doors that led to the back gardens and the pool, then sank down on the front end of a plush wicker lounge. I heard Solo’s footsteps behind me. “No lights,” I said. “Please. Just give me a moment and I’ll take a pill.”

  He sat down behind me on the lounge. “Let’s try this first.” Slowly, he rested his broad hands on the tops of my shoulders, then hooked his fingers in the jacket of my suit and pulled it backwards. I stiffened. “I’m not tryin’ to undress you for my own interests,” he said quietly, his voice laced with dark humor. “I’m tryin’ to get you cleaned up. There’s one thing you don’t do real well. You’re not neat when you heave.”

  I straightened. Prickles of embarrassment crawled over my skin. I let the soiled garment slide down my arms. “Aren’t you lucky to be the man who gets to see me—and smell me—this way? You’re the only one who’s had the privilege.”

  He tossed the jacket aside. “I bled on you just yesterday, so now we’re even.” He slid his hands over my shoulders again, puckering the soft material of my white blouse. “I’ve been inside you. I’ve tasted you. I’ve held you around me. There’s not a part of you I mind knowin’ all about.”

  I uttered a low sound then reached up, grasping one of his hands. Together we gazed out into the ghostly silhouettes of the forest. His fingers knotted in my blouse. He gave off an energy as bleak as my own. What made him so in tune with my unhappiness? God, I needed him, this intimate stranger. But I had no right to drag him deeper into the pit of complications and old tensions that made up my life. If there was any chance for us, I had to save him from myself. “I want you to leave tomorrow,” I announced. “In a week or so, when I have this situation under control, I’ll visit you. Somewhere. You pick the place. I’ll come there. And we will talk about ourselves. I swear to you. But I already care about you too much to let you stay here and get involved.”

  He said nothing for a moment. Then, “We’ll talk this over tomorrow.” He sank his fingertips into the bound muscles along the nape of my neck. I moaned with the exquisite pain as he probed and rubbed, forcing the sinews to let go. The massage seemed to go on forever. Tears came to my eyes. I forced them back. It hurt. It helped. Release was never easy. I wouldn’t give in. Finally he worked his hands up the back of my skull, cradled my head beneath the jaw, and lifted gently. I felt my spine stretch, and then some of the pain in my head seemed to flow backwards down an open channel, evaporating. I turned, astonished, and stared at him. “What did you do?”

  “It’s just something I learned along the
way in my world travels. I unblocked your chakras or called up your spirit guide or hell—I don’t know—changed your brain oil. Whatever. Who knows about the mysteries of universe. However it works, it does.” He stood, walked around in front of me, and held down a hand. “That pool out there has a mist over it. It’s heated?”

  “Yes. My grandmother swims for exercise all year. She loves the water. When she was a child there was a fire in town. Water has made her feel safe, ever since.”

  “Then let’s go. There’s no mystery about soakin’ in water. That’ll feel good, too.”

  I got to my feet unsteadily. He bent and picked me up. “I don’t want to be this dependent on you,” I said.

  “Let me do what I can. I can’t dance, but I tote well.”

  When we reached the poolside he set me down. We undressed each other as awkwardly as teenagers, then stepped into the warm water, holding hands. We sank down on a low step in the shallow end. I eased between his spread thighs with my back against his chest, then rested my head on his shoulder. I cupped water to my face and rinsed my mouth while he curved his arms around me. He rested one hand atop my left breast, idly stroking a nipple with the rough pad of his thumb.

  I sighed as pleasure mingled with pain. The dark, soothing water encased us. His erection prodded the soft spot at the base of my spine. I adjusted the soaked bandage on his arm. “Not hygienic,” I said. He brushed his jaw along mine. “Stop thinkin’.” He pulled lightly on my nipple in rebuke. I sank closer to him, arching my back against his penis. It was good to be wanted by him, amazing to be this comfortable. I turned my face into the crook of his neck and shut my eyes. He kissed the bridge of my nose.

  In the darkness behind my eyes I searched out the tainted place that always kept me by myself. It was in me but out there, too, in the earth of the deep mountain woods beyond the terrace. I opened my eyes guiltily and twisted to gaze across at the marble swans that still guarded the terrace walls. They looked back, relentless.