A Lily in the Light(85)
Esme sat alone on the plane because they hadn’t been able to find five seats together. Nick had taken one at the front of the plane, and Esme had worried he’d bolt before they closed the hatch, but he’d stuffed his duffel bag into the overhead bin and slammed it shut, popping headphones into his ears and squeezing into his seat, where his legs jutted into the aisle, proof enough that the rest of him was still there. Equine therapy was supposed to help them see each other in a new light, outside the norm of regular life, and Esme hoped it would be true. It was time, after so many years, to see Nick not just as the teenager he hadn’t been for a long time.
The sun came up slowly over the ranch in the morning, warming the sandy desert soil from lunar cold to scorching in only minutes. Esme woke up early and slipped out the back door. Her cottage sat behind the corral, where they would meet the horses, and next to the vegetable garden, where they would pick things for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There was a small chicken coop near the garden, too, with hens tucked inside, nestled against each other for warmth. “Explore. Find your special places,” their therapist, Diana, had told them last night. “Those will be the places you’ll go if you need to take a break.”
But the places she’d explored last night had faded in the afternoon sun to shadow shapes in the darkness beneath an endless sky of stars. In the morning, they were dusty and sun scorched, washed out under the bright white of the sun. She was glad they were here. They would all look different in this new place. It was refreshing not to be in their cramped apartment in Queens, cluttered with memories. She rounded the corner between rows of raised beds full of plants and found Lily, crouched in the soil, picking orange bell peppers, cradling a folded list in her lap. Someone had braided her hair, but it had come undone and covered her face. Or she’d braided it herself. Esme shouldn’t assume Lily could or couldn’t do things.
“Can I help?”
“No,” Lily answered without looking up. Esme swallowed away the lump in her throat, unsure if she should leave or stay while Lily twisted the stem of a pepper until it popped free. Esme sat on the edge of the next bed of mint and sage and herbs. She pulled a sprig of mint and traced the jagged leaf with her fingers. The moon was a sliver in the sky, fading slowly. The pepper plant rustled as Lily worked. Esme’d read something once about introducing pets through a closed door for the first time so they could become familiar with the other’s scent. This wasn’t the same, but if it took time for animals, it would take time for them too.
Esme busied herself picking sprigs of mint and cucumbers. She would slice them later in the kitchen, hopefully alongside Lily, and make them cucumber water for breakfast. The sun was warm on her shoulders, and as she worked, she stole glances at the curve of Lily’s back, the way she sat with her legs folded under her, ankles crossed, filling her basket with peppers and tomatoes. There were thin white lines on Lily’s ankles, long healed, but they had not been there before. Esme could not ask how she’d gotten them. The smell of mint was suddenly too strong, and Esme realized she’d crushed the leaves in her hands, ground them into a paste that left a green line under her fingernails. She forced herself to take a deep breath and let the anger pass.
Light fell unevenly over the taller plants, throwing shadows into the space between beds. Lily abandoned her basket and watched a shadow on the ground, tracing her finger through the soil to mark the shape of it.
The sun would move in an hour and make a new shadow somewhere else, but Lily’s sketch was proof that it had been there at all. It struck Esme then that Lily had seen only the same shadows from the light through the barred window in the basement. It’d been a long time since Esme had watched a shadow. There were so many things Esme hoped to show Lily, but she hadn’t considered that Lily might have things to show her, too, even if Lily didn’t have words for them yet.
Lily smelled a purple eggplant and then a bright-yellow squash flower. If Esme was not mistaken, she was whispering something to it. Esme wished her father was here to see this and imagined he would wake Lily up before the sun when they got home and invite Lily to join him in the garden across the street, where he would show her how to plant bulbs, pull weeds, clip herbs, and hang them to dry in the sun. Talking to plants might help them grow, but Esme suspected it would help Lily grow, too, whispering secrets in the garden. Esme pushed away the part of herself that wished Lily would whisper secrets to her. If Lily wasn’t ready to talk, at least she’d know Esme was there, patient and still as a shadow until the sun traced her somewhere else.
“Hold the reins.” Josie slipped the leather strap into Lily’s hand and drew a line in the sand with her toe, marking the end with an x. “When you’re ready, you can walk Diamond from here to here. The rule is you can do it however you want, but no one else can help you, Lily, unless you ask. Understood?”
Lily nodded. For as much as Lily’s new size still shocked Esme, she only reached the middle of Diamond’s speckled gray chest. Thick veins ran through Diamond’s neck beneath her shiny coat. Ropy muscles laced through her skinny legs, making Lily look painfully fragile. Lily’s face was already sunburned. The straw hat Josie had given her to block the sun left checkered light squares on her face and hid her eyes. Diamond toed at the ground and flared her nostrils. The rein tightened in Lily’s hand, but it was hard to tell what Lily thought about this whole experience.