The Things We Keep(46)

“I’d owe you one,” he says. His eyes rest on mine long enough to make me uncomfortable. “In fact, how would you like to check out one of the local wine bars, say Friday night? We can share a good bottle of red? My treat.”

I blink.

“Just two single people, hanging out,” he says, smiling. “No big deal.”

I imagine myself at Emilio’s with Eric. The redness of his cheeks, his teeth stained black, his belly peeking out between buttons. I’d almost certainly run into someone I knew. Andrea or Romy would be overjoyed. Karma, they’d whisper to each other, it’s a bitch.

Eric watches me, eyebrows raised. He thinks he’s a shoo-in. There’s a cockiness about him, I realize. He thinks that whatever he wants, he can take.

“I’m busy Friday,” I say. “Perhaps some other time.”

*

That afternoon, it’s time to work on the vegetable patch. It’s warm and still, and the sky is pale blue, mottled with cloud. A perfect planting day.

“Okay,” I say to the residents. “Who’s ready?”

Gwen and Clara stand before me in wide-brimmed hats and floral gardening gloves. Clara was an avid gardener, she tells me, with a thriving vegetable garden in her yard that used to win her plenty of prizes at the community fair. Gwen isn’t quite so experienced, but her enthusiasm makes up for it. Anna and Luke have also joined us, and while I haven’t been able to assess their level of enthusiasm, they certainly didn’t put up a fight.

Our patch is in a lovely sunny part of the garden. Angus has already loosened the soil and worked through the compost and limestone, not to mention built a retractable canopy that’s every bit as good as the ones in the stores. Now he’s in an adjacent garden bed, weeding and mulching and watering. Angus and I have made some headway since that fateful day at Houlihan’s. We’re not best friends, but the long cold stares, at least, are a thing of the past. He even gives me the odd wave if he sees me through the kitchen window, and the other day he showed me how to make a special nonchemical spray to keep the bugs off my vegetables.

“Clara,” I say, “since you are the expert, why don’t you take this quadrant of the bed and transfer the started plants. You can show Gwen what to do. Anna and Luke, we can take this section and scatter the seed.”

I’ve given this a lot of thought. Luke and Anna can follow simple instructions, so scattering seeds and watering will be perfect for them, and easy for Anna to do from her wheelchair. While Clara and Gwen get to work, I get out my packets of seed.

“Okay—Luke, Anna. We’re going to plant arugula seeds. The earth is all ready, all we need to do is open the packet like this … and then scatter it.”

I sprinkle a few seeds, then check to see if Anna and Luke are following. But Anna’s eyes are on Clara and Gwen, who are digging holes for the transferred plants. Luke is watching Anna. After a moment, they both look back at me.

“Try to spread them thinly and evenly,” I say, turning back to the garden. “Now, who wants to try?”

When I look back, Anna has wheeled herself over to Clara and Gwen.

“You need to go deeper or the roots won’t take,” she tells them, gesturing at them to dig. They do as she says. “There,” she says, nodding. “Like that.”

“She’s right,” Clara says to Gwen, “we were being lazy.”

“I didn’t know you could garden, Anna,” I say.

“Did you know I was a champion boxer?” she says, not looking up.

“No.”

“That’s because I’m not,” she says, and everyone bursts into laughter.

Anna tells us her mother was a gardening enthusiast and she had spent many summers with a trowel in her hand. As she talks, I notice she is so much more than her Alzheimer’s. She’s funny. Witty. Warm. And something else. A leader? Whatever it is, as we all move and shift and clamber around the garden bed, she always remains in the center of the group.

After a while, I pick up my packets of seeds. “Well,” I say, “how about I scatter these seeds?”

Anna looks up at me and gives me the biggest grin. “Go on, then,” she says. “Get busy.”

*

When everything has been planted, I head inside to make a jug of lemonade. I return a few minutes later and pour everyone a glass, then take one over to Angus. He’s wiping his forehead with the hem of his T-shirt, exposing a tanned, muscular stomach.

A flash of Richard, shirtless in Hawaii on our honeymoon, comes to mind. Richard’s body was nothing on Angus’s, but it was broad and taut. I remember watching him brush his teeth one morning, a crisp white towel at his waist. I thought to myself that one day, that body would be old and wrinkled and sagging at the elbows. I remember that the thought had made me smile.

“For me?” Angus says when he lets the T-shirt fall.

I shrug. “It’s warm out here.”

“That it is.” He drops his trowel, grabs the lemonade, and takes a sip, then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “It’s good.”

I know it’s good. My homemade lemonade is famous in these parts. Last year, the school practically begged me to run a stall at the fund-raiser, and I was told it was the most lucrative stall of the day.

This year Romy and Andrea were running an orange-juice stand.