The Things We Keep

It’s hard to describe the joy I feel when I pull my first carrot out of my Rosalind House vegetable patch. It’s a sunny day, and despite a brisk breeze, the whole gang is out here—Clara and Gwen, Luke and Anna. I’ve come to think of the vegetable patch as “our patch,” and I think they have, too. We’ve been working hard all morning, and now Anna and Luke sit on the edge of the garden bed, enjoying the sunshine while Clara and Gwen drink lemonade under the tree. The air smells of earth and herbs. The only sound of significance is the shear of the secateurs as Angus cuts stems.

Clem is out here, too. I think of her yesterday, clawing at Miranda. It was so out of character. Apart from when she was a toddler (and even then, it was only with good reason), I’d never seen Clem hit another child. Now, looking at her, it’s hard to imagine. She watches Angus intently as he explains the different kinds of flowers and how to make them last. Whenever he is around, she seems to gravitate toward him. He is sweet to her, but it makes me wonder—what is she lacking? What can I do to help fill the hole?

I’d spent the previous night searching for a child psychologist for Clem, and I’d managed to get an appointment next week, but in the meantime, her mental health was in my hands. And it wasn’t only her mental health in jeopardy. I couldn’t stop thinking about how Ms. Donnelly looked at me as she recited my address. Did she know something? If she did, I could only hope that she was too distracted by everything that was going on with Clem to figure out what.

I pick some sprigs of rosemary for the roast lamb and some mint for the ice water. Bert won’t like it; he told me off last week for “fancying up the water” (with lemons, that day), but he’s going to have to live with it. It’s a minty-ice-water kind of day.

“Is this enough flowers for you, Eve?” Angus asks. His arms are laden with chrysanthemums, lilies, and hibiscuses—enough to fill an auditorium.

Angus doesn’t laugh, but his eyes crinkle in the corners, and I guess this is the best I’m going to get. His cool, silent thing is starting to grow on me. Richard was quick to smile, to compliment. After a while, with someone like that, it starts to lose its value. “If there are leftovers,” he says, “just take them home. Put them in your bedroom.”

“My mother used to say that a woman should always have flowers in her bedroom,” he says.

A sudden flash of movement to our left steals our attention. An enormous dog has bounced into the yard with its owner on its heels.

Angus puts down the flowers and goes to help. The dog seems to think it’s a game. It bounds this way and that, like a toy attached to a spring. Luke, who’d been sitting on one edge of the garden bed near Anna, stands, while Anna shrinks behind her hands. That’s when I remember: Anna is afraid of dogs.

Angus has herded the dog toward the gate, but just as the owner is about to grab its collar, it bounds away, across the lawn. Anna lets out a shriek. The dog heads toward her but before it gets there, I leap, catching the dog around its waist. I roll to the ground. I might as well have tackled Angus. It’s heavy—really heavy—and wriggling. I pull tight around its belly. My breathing is ragged, and something doesn’t feel quite right in my elbow, but I’m not letting go.

Angus helps me to my feet. I glance over toward the vegetable patch to see how Anna is faring and my breath catches.

“Angus,” I say. “Remember when you told me that Luke used to protect Anna from the dogs when the pet therapy people came to visit?”

“You also said you weren’t sure if people with dementia were capable of having real feelings for others.”

I point at the vegetable patch, where Luke is crouching in front of Anna. His arms are outstretched and she is tucked in, safely, behind him.

After the dog commotion, Clem asks if she can head inside and watch some TV. Once she is settled, I get out the cleaning cart and get busy. I spritz, wipe, dust, and vacuum until my arms feel like a pair of noodles. And the whole time, I’m thinking about Luke and Anna.

What I would give to know what was going on inside their brains! Eric said “Falling in love requires memory, communication, reason, decision making,” but did it, really? After seeing Luke today, I can’t help but think that love is more like a river—it wants to flow. And if one path is blocked off, it simply finds another.

By the time I get to Anna’s room, I’m exhausted. I get out the duster and idly wander around, pushing dust this way and that. It’s on the lower shelf of her dresser, under a carpet of dust, that I find her notebook. I recognize it—it’s the one Anna had stuck my photo in on my first day. My instinct is to open it, but with my fingers on the inside of the cover, I hesitate. I ought to respect her privacy. I return the newly dusted notebook to the shelf.

Maybe I’ll just read the first page and see what it says? Then, before I can change my mind, I toss it open.

Today you made a promise. You promised the young guy with the tea-colored eyes that you would stay with him until the end. No cutting out early, no taking the fast exit. It’s hard to believe you agreed to that, right? I can hardly believe it as I write this.

You agreed because this guy is the one you didn’t know you were waiting for. You agreed because, as it is, you’re not going to have long enough together. And you agreed because this guy is a pretty good reason to hang around.

Soon you won’t remember this promise—that’s why I’m writing this down. And if you are reading this now, there’s something else you should know: Anna Forster never breaks a promise.

Anna

There’s a tap at the door and I jump.

“Just me.”

It’s Angus, holding up my basket, which contains precisely one carrot. “I thought you might be needing this. Sorry, did I scare you?”

I point at the notebook. “Look at this.”

Angus comes closer. I give him a minute to read.

“See!” I say. “She does love him. And he loves her, that’s obvious after today.”

Angus frowns. “You know … I did read once about a woman with dementia who didn’t remember that she’d ever been married, but when someone showed her her wedding dress, she burst into tears. The article said that the memory center of the brain is right next to the emotion center, so the emotional power of the dress was still there, even though the memory was gone.”

“So maybe Luke knew he had to protect Anna from the dog, even though he didn’t remember why.…”

“Blows your mind, doesn’t it? The way it all works—the heart, the brain.”

“It does,” I say. “It really truly does.”

Angus’s gaze floats over my face, and the twinkle is replaced by something … more intense. A frisson of energy runs through me. “Angus—”

“Shh,” he says, and then Angus’s arms circle my waist and we are kissing. He smells of the grass. His arms hold me upright, and it’s a good thing because I’m a feather in a cyclone—powerless, light, swept away. It feels so strange, and so, so right.

“Mom?”

I stumble backwards. Clem is in the doorway. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” I push back my hair, straighten my ponytail. “Angus was just … returning my basket.” My head is spinning, and the proximity of Angus isn’t helping. “Are you hungry, honey? I was about to go make a snack, would you like to—?”

“Were you kissing?” Clem asks.

I flick a glance at Angus. He looks apologetic, and also a little dazed. Like I feel.

“Why don’t we go into the kitchen?” I say to Clem.

“Were you?”

I don’t know what to say. My head feels full of air; my mouth is suddenly dry.

“You were,” she says finally. “I saw you.”

“Yes,” I admit, “I was.”

Clem’s jaw becomes tight. It occurs to me that this is the opposite of how things were supposed to go. I am her mother. In six or seven years’ time, I am supposed to catch her kissing a boy. I am supposed to give her the third degree.

“I don’t want you to kiss anyone,” she says. “Ever. Again.”

I feel a surprising urge to cry. Mostly because her request, unfair as it feels, is wholly appropriate. Her father died only four months ago. Four months. Did the fact that he had done terrible things reduce my mourning period? Or the fact that I found Angus impossibly attractive?

“Okay, Mom?” she says.

“Clem—”

“It’s Alice.”

“Okay, Alice.”

“So you won’t kiss anyone ever again?”

I glance at Angus, and he shrugs. It’s a shrug that says, Don’t worry about me. Do what you need to do.

I wish there were a handbook for parenting daughters whose whole world had been turned upside down in the past few months. A girl who had been having trouble at school and who, in time, would have to come to terms with the fact that her father wasn’t the man she thought he was. Then I realize I don’t need a handbook, because I already know what it would say. “Yes. Never again.”

I take Clem’s hand and lead her out of the room, leaving Angus standing there. And, no matter how much I want to, I can’t bring myself to look back.