The Stone Flower Garden

  She raised her head and pulled back from him. “This is the house in the picture,” she admitted. His skin chilled. So she meant that decades ago his grandpa had stood in the unfinished upper wall here, looking as if nothing could bring him down. But his smile, angled in secret at Matilda behind old Esta’s back, was already giving him away. The Hardigree women would destroy him, and he would let them.

  “If you want me to give up on you because you’re a goddamned Hardigree,” Eli said quietly, “I won’t do it. I’m making the rules, this time. I won’t end up like my grandpa. And you won’t end up mournin’ for me.”

  She rose, touched his face, ruined him with a look. “It’s too late to stop me from that,” she whispered, and left him there.

  I sat down at Swan’s library desk in the darkest part of the night, when the Hall was as quiet as a marble tomb. I took a stack of fine linen sheets of Hardigree Marble Company stationary from a drawer, and picked up the old-fashioned ink pen the Italian marble baron had given Swan when I was a child. And I began to write. Twenty-five years ago, I witnessed the murder of my great-aunt, Clara Hardigree, by her sister, my grandmother, Swan Hardigree Samples. And I have hidden that crime ever since.

  I wrote until dawn, relating every detail before and after Clara’s death, but leaving out any mention of Matilda. This confession would damn Swan and me, but no one else. When I finished I slid the thick stack of paper into a large manila envelope, sealed it, wrote the name of our local district attorney on the front, then carried the envelope to the library shelves and hid it high up, between two aging texts on geology. The science of bedrock and hard forces.

  When the time came, I wouldn’t ask for Eli’s silence and mercy.

  Because now I was certain he’d give both.

  “You’re abusing his kindness,” Matilda hurled at Swan in slow but fervent words. She stood beside her hospital bed, holding the pole of her IV unit for support, ignoring my efforts to make her lay down, and glaring at Swan, who sat demurely on her own bed, her legs curled beneath her in an almost girlish pose. I felt like a boxer who’d taken one punch too many. “You cannot accept millions of dollars from Eli Wade,” Matilda went on. “People believe he’s admitting his father’s guilt. I won’t have it. It’s not fair.”

  “I’m making a very public show of accepting the Wades’ into society. For your sake.” She glanced at me. “And for Darl’s sake.”

  “Eli’s donating money as a public apology to you,” I said evenly. “For a crime his father didn’t commit. I’m not going to let you do it.”

  “What would you have me do instead?” Swan asked. “Reject him and his family? Or feed his revenge by telling him the truth? Matilda, do you want Karen to know the truth about what we did?” An icy tinge colored Matilda’s face. “Look at my Darl. Look at her—so agonized, so bitter toward me. I wish I could erase the memory from her mind. You don’t want to infect Karen, as well. Not now that she’s come home.”

  Matilda moaned and shut her eyes. “But what am I doing to Anthony’s grandson? What kind of heartless monster have I become? I loved him, and he loved me. I’m betraying him.” She put a hand to her forehead and swayed against the side of her bed. I went to her quickly as she began to collapse. Swan sat forward with sudden urgency. “Matilda.”

  “Call for a nurse,” I said. I lowered Matilda to the bed.

  Chapter Twenty

  A pall of fear hung in the air. Swan spent most of her waking hours in a chair close beside Matilda’s bed, watching her with cat-like concentration, her hands folded in her lap, her shoulders straight. She’s afraid of losing the one person who understands her better than I do, I realized. Karen, her face often streaked with tears, gave up decorum entirely and laid down next to her grandmother, holding her left hand tightly. Matilda was awake and alert, but her right eyelid and the right corner of her mouth drooped noticeably, and she was very weak.

  “I’m dying,” she said softly, just managing to form the words.

  Karen flinched. “Please don’t say that. It’s not true.” Swan stiffened in the chair. She and Matilda held each other’s gaze as if transmitting lifetimes of shared experiences—this just another one—with a kind of tragic grace.

  “I want to go home,” Matilda said slowly, working at every word. “To Marble Hall.”

  Swan nodded.

  Eli sat with Mama and Bell in the handsome kitchen of the Broadside House, where Bell jostled Jessie beneath a thin towel as the baby nursed. Leon had just sent word that Matilda was failing. Eli turned his gaze from his sister when she put the baby to her breast, though she was smooth as butter when it came to hiding the process behind a baby blanket or burping towel.

  “Family recognizes family,” he said quietly, realizing that was an old saw and often not true, but it should be. Bell slipped Jessie from beneath the towel and wiped the baby’s pink mouth. Eli watched her care for her child, his niece, with a growing sense of finality, then met his mother’s somber eyes.

  Mama knew what he was thinking. “Whose family are we goin’ to hurt most with all this searchin’ for answers?” she asked. “The Hardigrees, Matilda, ourselves? Or is it all one in the same, if we’re all related one way or another. These people are Karen’s kin. And we’re Karen’s kin, too. I’ve prayed on this, and I keep asking the Lord, ‘Where does justice stop and mercy begin?’ When do we have to stop lookin’ for answers that only hurt the livin’?”

  “Here. Now,” Eli said. “We’re killin’ Matilda. We’re hurtin’ Karen. And Darl. And even Swan, damn her.” He paused. “We’re hurtin’ ourselves.” He looked at Bell gently. “I’m sorry, Sister. If there’s any truth buried in the earth or the water or the memories of people in this town, we have to just trust it’ll come out on its own.”

  Bell nodded but bowed her head to one hand, and cried.

  “Thank you for coming. Matilda asked for you.” I led Eli through Marble Hall, the cool rooms bright with warm light and fires in the hearths, to chase away the specters that evening. “Leon and Karen are out on the back patio. Come and speak to them first.”

  Eli put a hand on my arm. “Do I make you so uncomfortable you can’t talk to me alone?” We stopped in a shadowed hallway near a small portrait of Swan and my mother that Swan had displayed in recent years. Eli brought the chilly night air with him, washing over me along with the good scent of his hair and clothes, his warmth.

  “Yes,” I admitted. “I tend to throw myself at you. That’s not good for either of us.”

  “Maybe if you trusted me more you wouldn’t worry.”

  I glanced at my mother’s naïve eyes. She’d loved my father regardless of Swan’s opposition. She and he had died defying Swan. Have courage, she whispered to me.

  Trust him. Every instinct told me my only redemption was complete trust of Eli. A rush of dark fear filled me, fear of losing him, fear of hurting others, but also the fear of giving into an urge to take the easy way out and never tell him what was buried in the garden. I latched my hands in the front of the soft canvas jacket he wore. He reached for me. I let go and took a step back, trembling. “We’ll talk later,” I said. I turned numbly and continued outside.

  Leon and Karen stood in the edge of light from a lamppost near the pool. The pool’s heated water gave off a white fog in the cool autumn air, damp with mist. Karen hugged herself in a soft wool sweater, her face turned up to Leon’s above a cowl collar. Leon took off a quilted jacket he wore and offered it to her. She shook her head but he put the jacket around her shoulders, anyway. When they saw us approach Karen strode to me. “This is ridiculous.” She looked up to the second story window and its balcony. We glimpsed a pair of private nurses moving about. Matilda and Swan were there. “My grandmother needs to be in the hospital. I can’t accept this. In the morning she’s going back.”

  I put an arm around her. “Where did you get the notion th
at you can tell your grandmother what to do, anymore than I can tell mine?”

  “She’s sick, she’s not thinking right. Someone has to make decisions for her.” Karen sagged a little, her voice breaking. “I’m so worried.”

  Leon put a hand on her shoulder. “Your grandma has always said to me that a life without dignity isn’t worth living. She wants to be home. Leave her be.”

  Karen jabbed a finger at herself. “I’m her closest family, and I should be the one she—”

  “A life without dignity isn’t worth living,” Leon repeated firmly. “She raised you to respect her. Now do it.”

  Karen whirled toward him. “I need her. You don’t understand.”

  “I understand you’re mighty selfish.”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Stunned silence. She went on in a tearful, angry rush, telling him she was going to have another man’s child, a man who didn’t want the baby, and good riddance. It was brutal news, striking right at the heart. I watched them worriedly. Leon’s face tightened, and he got tears in his eyes. She saw them and said hoarsely, “Leon. I’m sorry. I’m not that sweet little girl you tried to protect. I am trying to make my life right, but not at your expense.”

  He exploded. “You do right by your grandma. That’s how you start fixing your life so you can raise a baby with the dignity your grandma taught you.”

  His tone stiffened her, humiliated her. She left us standing there and walked inside. Leon’s big shoulders slumped.

  There was enough misery to go around.

  Eli and I walked into Swan’s big bedroom, a room of soaring windows, heavy antiques, and delicate linens. I had rarely been allowed to enter it as a child, and never as an adult. Matilda lay in the middle of Swan’s own bedstead, a queenly thing with a headboard of mahogany and marble. The strange sight of someone else in grandmother’s private sanctuary completed the sensation that the world as I knew it was crumbling, that the bedrock was falling away beneath my feet. Swan sat up in a luxurious daybed nearby, her white gown and robe spread around her on a down comforter encased in soft pearl-gray silk. She watched Matilda.

  Karen stood near a window. She hugged herself and stared into the night. Swan shooed a nurse out of the shadowy room with a flick of one hand. I met my grandmother’s troubled eyes, which instantly hardened at the sight of Eli. He nodded to her but went to Matilda. Matilda struggled, then slowly raised her left hand. “The other one shakes,” she said slowly, her mouth a little twisted.

  He pulled a chair close to her side and sat down, holding her proffered hand in both of his. “My mother and sister send you their prayers.”

  “I want you to know something.” It made me ache to watch her laboriously form her lips around words. “Karen, come here. I want you to listen, too.”

  Karen moved slowly to her side. “Grandmother, you’re not going to die, so there’s no need for you to gather people around you—”

  “Be quiet,” Swan interjected. Her voice vibrated. “Listen to her.”

  Matilda looked at Eli. “Your grandfather was a good person. Not a lady’s man, not the way it sounded.” Eli stiffened with surprise. So did I. The last thing I’d expected was this. “He didn’t have many choices in his life. Not many choices for me, either. A colored girl.” She took several short breaths, running out of strength. Her eyes went back to Eli. “But I loved him, your grandfather. I loved Anthony Wade. And he loved me.”

  Karen picked up her right hand. “That’s the shaking hand,” Matilda said, frowning.

  “I don’t mind. It’s still strong.” Karen tucked Matilda’s hand in both of hers, and brought it to her stomach. Her throat worked. “Grandmother,” she said in a low voice. “Don’t talk yourself into deathbed confessions. You’re not going to die. You can’t. You’re going to be a great-grandmother. I’m going to have a baby.”

  Matilda’s face stilled. As Karen explained the circumstances, every word seemed to sink into Matilda’s heart then rise through her eyes, which filled with tears. “I was happy enough just to be a mother,” she whispered when Karen finished. “Are you?”

  Karen put a hand to her throat. Her face convulsed, and she nodded.

  “Then I’m proud of you,” Matilda said. In the sweet, tragic silence that followed, Karen bent her head to her grandmother’s hand, and all the years of estrangement faded away.

  “Miss Matilda, I’m going to ask her to marry me,” Leon announced from the doorway. We all turned, stunned. Karen gasped. “I’ve loved her since I was a boy,” Leon went on firmly, his fists clenched by his side. “I still love everything about her. I’ll take care of her and her baby. I swear to you, Miss Matilda. I swear to everybody here.” He looked at Karen. “I’ll be your husband. I’ll be your baby’s daddy. If you’ll have me. Just think about it and don’t say anything yet. We’ll talk later.” Karen stared at him in tearful shock until he turned on one heel and left the room.

  Matilda turned her head slowly toward Swan. The look they traded chilled me, awed me, made me want to cry. Silent communication, choices, battles, tragedy, strength—the click of time changing hands. “I want a future here for our granddaughters and their children,” Matilda whispered.

  Swan looked away.

  The house was quiet, late at night. Eli leaned by a fireplace in a small parlor off the main rooms, a half-smoked cigar in his hand. It was a place filled with books and thick reading chairs. Karen went upstairs to a guest bedroom and stretched out to sleep. Leon dozed in a kitchen chair. A nurse slept on a settee outside Swan’s room. Eli and I spoke very few words. Finally he tossed the cigar in the fire and sat down. We shared a couch at opposite ends. Sometime after midnight he said, “I want you to tell Matilda I won’t do any more digging.”

  I turned toward him. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m leavin’, Darl. Taking Mama and Bell back to Tennessee.” He paused. “I won’t hurt my family and yours. You’re part of me. You always have been. I’m only hurtin’ your people. Hurtin’ you. This was a sad plan from the start. There’s nothing I can do to save my father’s soul.”

  She’s won. Swan has won. If you let her. I got up, moved over, sat down. I was suddenly the calmest I’d ever been. Close beside him, I put my hands to his face, stroked my fingers over his skin, touched my fingertips to his mouth. He inhaled sharply. “You haven’t hurt anyone,” I said. “Everything that’s happening here started a long time ago.”

  He pulled me to him, stroked my hair roughly, held me. “Walk away from this place. Come with me. I’ll wait for you. I’ll make it all up to you.”

  “No, you come with me,” I said, quiet despair merging with victory. I would show him the truth. I would lose him. I would set him free. “We’re going to the Stone Flower Garden.”

  The rain had stopped. A cold high white moon cleared the mountains among scudding gray clouds, luminescent and ethereal. The forest’s heavy firs brushed us with their rough fronds and dripped their dew on our faces and hair like cold tears as we climbed the hills and followed the hollows. I still wore the day’s silk trousers and a soft gray sweater. Briars tore at the silk and clawed my walking shoes. I shivered. Long streamers of my hair clung to my cheeks and throat.

  Eli carried a shovel, and I carried a small pickax. He didn’t ask why and I didn’t say. His hair was damp with the forest, his face was strained. I beamed a flashlight across the ground. He held up a camp lantern, its hissing glow wrapping me in quiet horror. He didn’t know what we were about to dig up. I did.

  When we crested the ridge of the small cove that held the garden, I halted. Eli raised the lantern. Below us, the massive stone vase and its perpetual bouquet gleamed in the lights and cast long shadows. The old marble benches seemed to be sinking into the ground. Mired in loam and vine, their tops might have been the covers of small tombs. Children’s souls, trapped inside.

 
I walked down the slope, every step sinking me into that place, dragging me closer to Clara’s bones. I reached the bottom and staggered to the vase, shoving matted leaves aside with my feet, shaking. Eli stepped down behind me. “Where?” he asked grimly. I pointed to the space only inches from the vase’s bottom. He set the lantern on the ground and lifted the shovel from his shoulder.

  I shook my head. “Let me start.” I tossed the flashlight aside, took the pickax in both hands, and sunk its narrow blade into earth as wet and soft as flesh. Every muscle in my body pulled back from the task. I chopped at the ground, scraping, clawing, dragging clumps of rotted soil toward me. The soggy pile grew around my feet. The past was surrounding me. Keening sounds grew helplessly in my exploding breath. Every nightmare, every moment of guilt and despair for twenty-five years, was boiling up under me, exposed to Eli’s judgment.

  He clamped a hand on my shoulder. I was so dazed it took a moment to respond to the sensation. “Don’t,” I begged. But he pulled me upright and wiped my face, studying my eyes, his own face carved with bleak determination. “You’re not in this alone. That’s the big mistake in your thinkin’. Whatever’s in this ground, it’s my misery, too.”

  “You can’t imagine.”

  “Maybe not, but don’t tell me we’re not in this together.” He angled in front of me, levered the shovel into the earth, and began to dig. I scrubbed an arm over my sweating face and fell to my knees beside the small but deepening hole. I racked my brain for details I’d tried so hard to forget. The open grave had seemed like a bottomless cavern to me as a child, but I knew Swan and Matilda hadn’t buried Clara more than a few feet deep. I shivered with every movement of Eli’s shovel, every sharp scrape that might mean the tip had struck a rock—or a bone.

  I gagged on that thought, lurched forward, and grabbed the shovel’s shank. “No more. I have to do the rest with my fingers.” I hunched over the hole and reached down with both bare hands, shaking, sinking my fingers into the dirt. The nerves seemed to retract with revulsion as black topsoil gave way to clammy red clay. I clawed slowly. Eli dropped to his heels beside me. I looked up once, wild and disheveled, and he was looking at me as if I were ripping his heart out. His face flooded with pain. “Stop. Stop right now. I don’t know what you’re doing to yourself, but I’m stoppin’ it. You saw my pa bury something of Clara’s here, didn’t you? You saw something happen. That’s what you know. That’s what torments you.” He reached down and clamped both hands to my wrists.