Susan Feeney loved her garden. Each clear morning, before her children woke, she would pour herself a cup of coffee, go outside and walk slowly around her well-tended yard, checking on the progress of all the flowers she had lovingly planted. In the three years they had lived in this, their second and much bigger house, she had managed to plant hundreds of seedlings and bulbs selected so that from late winter through autumn, a large number of plants bloomed gaily.
Around Valentine’s Day, the tiny white snowdrops and yellow and purple crocuses bravely poked their heads up first through the drab winter soil. Then the showy daffodils trumpeted the real arrival of spring as they swayed in the March and early April breezes. Bright red tulips planted where they would get warm sun and blue phlox planted in the shady spots weren’t far behind. Susan’s spring garden too quickly transformed into beds of happy Oriental poppies in May and bushes of pink-and-white peonies in June.
The Shasta daisies she had planted ensured that she had cut flowers from June until the first frost. Black-eyed Susans and orange daylilies, totally self-sufficient, had multiplied on their own. Yellow yarrow planted in the dry parts of the yard bloomed all summer as well.
Now, in late August, Susan watched for the chrysanthemums. The year they moved in, she had planted pots and pots of yellow and deep-orange mums. Each year they had bloomed again, better than the year before. The buds were on them now, almost ready to burst open.
She was glad they had moved to HoHoKus. HoHoKus—such a funny name for a town. There were so many Native American names in the northern New Jersey area. Pascack Valley, Mahwah, Kinderkamack Road, Musquapsink Brook. The area’s original inhabitants were long gone, but their legacy remained.
Susan was cutting some of her beloved flowers to bring into the house when James popped his sleepy-eyed, five-year-old head out from the side door that led from the kitchen to the garden.
“Hi, sweetheart, did you have a good sleep?” Her heart burst at the sight of her firstborn. He was such a dear little boy and the thought that he would be starting kindergarten soon astounded her. She could remember so clearly the day he was born, the nurse rolling him into her hospital room in his Lucite bassinet, the wonder of holding her perfectly formed miracle in her arms. The time had gone by so quickly. First James, named for his father; then, two years later, Kimberly; and a year after that, Kelly.
As she walked toward her son, she thought about how good God had been to the Feeney family. They were all healthy. And James’s cable business had skyrocketed. It was hard sometimes, his traveling so much, but the couple had agreed that it was something they could endure now, knowing it wouldn’t be this way forever.
James was looking inquisitively at the bunch of flowers gathered in his mother’s hand. “What are those flowers named, Mommy?”
“Black-eyed Susans, honey.”
The little boy’s green eyes widened. “Just like you?”
Susan laughed with delight at the observation. “You’re right, James. But my eyes are really just a very deep brown.”
“And mine are green,” he stated solemnly.
“Mm-hmm.”
“And so are Kelly’s.”
“Right. And what about Kimberly? What color are her eyes?”
“Blue,” he declared proudly.
Susan got a kick out of the fact that none of her children had inherited her dark eyes. She knew it was genetically improbable, but the surprise of it stared her clearly in the face each day.
“How about some French toast?” she suggested to her son, knowing in advance what his response would be. “Let me just get these flowers in some water and I’ll make your favorite right away.”
As Susan went to the kitchen sink to fill a vase with water, her feeling of well-being suddenly evaporated as her eyes trained out the window toward the Richardses’ empty house. Those dear, sweet people who had welcomed her so warmly into the neighborhood had died such a sad and senseless death.