August 2019
Gus was born at the beginning of August, a rainy summer afternoon, with his beautiful blue eyes. Jude had stayed beside Angie, holding her hand during the delivery, sleeping next to her in the hospital, taking them both home. His family. Nothing else mattered now but this amazing little human they had created together.
And Gus was indeed amazing. He had Angie’s lashes, long and full like palm fronds. He had Jude’s chin; his hair, too, more than on any baby he had ever seen. Jude swore the baby smiled at him. He was sure Gus loved the rock and roll Jude played, the Mozart Angie insisted on because she had read that it made babies brilliant. Andrew sent over a child-sized wooden rocking chair that Gus was far too young for, with a note that said he’d be happy to come visit when they wanted him.
Jude had no idea if that would ever happen. But in the meantime, he spent every second he could with Gus, because the baby seemed to change every day and Jude couldn’t wait to watch his son learning to walk, starting to talk, growing into his own unique little life.
He kept going to work, but while he loved being with Angie and Gus, the thought of continuing to spend eight hours a day at his IT job made his stomach roil. He began having migraines that forced him to sprawl on the couch for hours.
“Do something else,” Angie told him. “You could still go back to school and be a botanist.”
“I don’t know. That doesn’t seem right now,” he said. “That was an old dream. I need a new one.”
“I know you’ll find it,” Angie said, and dotted his forehead with a kiss.
ONE SUNNY DAY at the end of August, while both Angie and Gus were napping, Jude went out into the backyard to think. He surveyed the small space. He had never done anything with it, had let dandelions flutter through the grass, had never even tested the soil to see what might grow well there. He thought about how Helen had urged him to get back to gardening. He had created something really special in her yard—some kind of paradise.
Jude kicked at the grass, and then stooped and plucked a feather-headed dandelion, blowing on it, scattering the seeds. He made a wish for Angie to keep loving him, for Gus to be continually healthy and happy.
He had to figure something out, to untie this knot in his mind. He used to be able to do his best thinking when he was working with plants. But now he didn’t even have gardening tools. Still, he went inside and got a screwdriver and a big spoon. Even though he knew it was the wrong season, he desperately wanted to do something—anything—that might feel healing. In a sunny patch at the back of the yard, he jammed the screwdriver into the grass and started tearing up the earth, feeling that familiar satisfying resistance. Maybe he could plant something. Maybe he could be responsible not just for destroying what he touched, but for growing something instead.
The more he dug, the happier he felt. The soil looked and felt good in his hands. It smelled loamy and rich. He kept digging until he had a small square cleared, and then he felt something new: relief. He realized that he was humming.
He’d spent so much time doing things for other people, desperate to make up to them for his mistakes, every action an opportunity to ask and earn forgiveness. He hadn’t really thought about how he might forgive himself. But now, looking at the grass, glazed in the sun, he wanted to do what he felt he was born to do. He’d wait for Angie and Gus to awaken, and then pile them in the car and go to a gardening store. He’d buy a spade, soil and mulch, fertilizer, and seed. Here, right here, he could build a sustainable garden.
He sat back, lifting his face to the sky, shutting his eyes, at first dozy and then thrumming with excitement. Ideas buzzed in his head. It wasn’t too late to plant leafy greens and carrots. And over there in the corner—corn and garlic and who knows what else could be planted now.
The more he thought about it, the more he drifted into reverie. He saw himself standing in front of a farmstand with his arms crossed, smiling because everyone was raving about the size of his zukes, the quality of his dahlias. Then he saw himself standing in someone else’s yard, persuading them not to put in grass, but a native garden that would be full of butterflies and birds. It would look spectacular, and he could tell them just what to grow and how to make it flourish. Fantasy had ruined him once, but maybe now it could save him, because it was rooted in happy purpose.
He snapped up to a sitting position. That one guy at work, the one who was always asking him if he had seen some game or another the other night, was a website designer. Jude bet he could get his help. He looked across their yard and it began to transform for him. There it was, shimmering in the future, an oblong retaining wall made of perfect stones, a birdbath over in the corner. A bluestone patio. An oasis.
He heard the screen door opening and slapping shut, footsteps in the grass, and then there was Angie carrying Gus, coming toward him. He looked at her, her face half hidden in the bright sun.
“What’s all this?” she said, smiling down at the patch of dirt he had dug up, the scramble of soil. “Do we have gophers now?”
He poked at the soil and gave a rueful laugh. “I keep thinking—and I know this is going to sound nuts—but maybe I could start a business. A landscaping business. Small at first. Maybe in my off hours. I could get a truck with a sign, get a website. I could build something for us.
“Crazy, right?” he said.
For a moment he couldn’t read what was in Angie’s face. He was worried that she might ask him how. What would they do for money while he was cutting back his hours, trying to start a business? Instead, she crouched down in the grass beside him, Gus gurgling in her lap.
“You’re already a gardener, it looks like,” she said. “Look at you. I haven’t seen you like this since the day Gus was born.”
He felt a swell of relief washing over him. Of course she was on his side. “What will we call it?” she asked.
“Dig Deep,” he said, and then shook his head. “Grow On, maybe.” Because that was what they were doing, growing on.
He sprawled back on the grass, looking at the sky, and then Angie did too, balancing Gus on her chest.
“Could this happen?” he asked her. “Could we really do this?”
Angie leaned over and kissed him. “You’d be surprised at what we can do. Want to know the truth? I honestly never thought about having kids. Look at what you set in motion for me, for us. And how beautifully it’s all turning out.” She kissed him again. “Grow On is already happening. Now you just need to believe in it.”
Jude thought how every garden he built, every landscape, might make him remember Helen and Ella and their garden, the family they had made together. But all of that was over. Now he had something new and real. He had Angie and Gus and the idea for a new company that would truly be his. If he was lucky, it would grow and flourish just like the seeds he would plant.