Fifteen

Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned.

—PETER MARSHALL

MELISSA

I picked up Mrs. Schweiger yesterday afternoon and took a bag of jalapeño chips to Josh in the hospital. Mr. Schweiger answered the door looking bald and much shorter than I remembered. His eyes nearly disappeared when he smiled and latched on to me with the strength of someone years younger. They were always so good together, these two with their fine German stock and sensible ways.

Before we left for the hospital I relived Jodi’s voice mail for them about finding my sibling, and they sat on the edge of their chairs as if I was the most interesting storyteller they’d ever heard. When I told them my sibling turned out to be the woman next door to me, Mrs. Schweiger threw her hands in the air and yelled something in German. “It was destiny!” she says, holding both my hands. “I told you it was destiny!” Her eyes are watery as she looks at me. “You could have gone your whole life and never known your sister, but your mother wanted you to know that.”

“Not really. If we hadn’t found the note in her apartment I would have never known.”

She pats my hand too hard. “You don’t know that. She wrote the note. She wanted you to know. She was trying to do the right thing for you.” She is nodding, waiting for me to believe. Although she and my mother said very little to each other the three years we lived next to them and Mrs. Schweiger would have no reason to defend her, I know that she saw something in Ramona that only another mother can see.

“I know,” I say, believing her.

*   *   *

I don’t have to be at Wilson’s until ten this morning and decide to do some laundry when I hear voices outside. I move the blinds and see Phillip and Miriam standing in the yard, so I open the door, folding my arms against the cold. Miriam is wearing a long camel-colored coat with black leather gloves and a furry hat, and Phillip wears a red-and-black-checked coat with a Pittsburgh Steelers hat. “Morning!” I yell, waving.

Phillip gestures for me to come closer. “Melissa! Come decide for us.” I reach for my coat out of the closet and close the door. Five shrubs sit in black plastic tubs near the front of the condo. “I was trying to plant these this morning, but Miriam dropped in to boss me around and tells me I have them all wrong.”

“I did not say that Phillip. I said if that’s how you want to order them, then fine, but I wouldn’t do it that way.”

“I apologize. My translation was way off,” he says, looking at her. “Melissa? What will look good? Those three are heather laurels and these two are azaleas. I thought the azaleas would be a good background for the laurels.”

Miriam is shaking her head, and the way the fur on her hat moves around it looks like something alive is on her head. “You don’t put a flowering shrub behind a big green thing, Phillip. You put the green and then the shorter flower bush in front of it.”

“Azalea,” he says.

“Whatever! You don’t put the thing of beauty behind a wall of green.”

Phillip looks at me for help. “She’s right,” I say, sheepish.

Miriam gives Phillip a smug eye roll. “When you told me you were going to do this I just knew that I must come here to see that this is done properly.”

“Where’s Gretchen?” I ask.

“She dropped the kids off at school and was going to two different dental offices that are looking for hygienists,” Phillip says. “One is thirty minutes away. I told her to eat lunch out and enjoy the day. I’m hoping I can get this done while she’s gone.”

Miriam marches to the door. “I’m going to find some proper clothes. I’m sure Gretchen has several grubby things I can wear.”

Phillip is digging out the old shrubbery, which is so small and dead that it can practically be pulled up rather than dug, while I prepare the empty holes for the new plants when Miriam opens the front door. Even in Gretchen’s “grubby” clothes she looks like a million bucks. “Besides his poor design judgment, Phillip has always had a green thumb. We had yard of the year one year. When was that, Phillip?”

“In ’72,” he says. “Miriam picked out all the plants and flowers. She’s always had an eye for beauty. Beauty attracts beauty, though.”

Gretchen would laugh watching Miriam’s face turn flame red. I keep my head down as I help pull out another dead shrub so they won’t see me grinning.

“People slowed down just to see our yard,” Miriam says, pouring some bagged soil and fertilizer into a hole.

“Half the time they were slowing down to look at Miriam,” Phillip says, serious as a news report.

Miriam laughs and reaches for some peat moss. “Oh, Phillip, really!”

“I can see that, Miriam,” I say, loosening a heather laurel from the plastic container.

She laughs again and Phillip leans on his shovel. “People are still slowing down to look at her. Just look there.”

Miriam and I turn behind us to see the mailman in his car. “The mail carrier!” Miriam says. “Do be quiet, Phillip.”

“Look at him! He can’t take his eyes off you.”

Miriam laughs harder than I’ve ever seen her, and she uses her trowel to swipe at Phillip’s leg. If I didn’t know better, I would say they’re getting along. I would say they’re teasing each other, flirting even!

By the time I leave for Wilson’s, Phillip and Miriam are heading inside Gretchen’s for a coffee break, and something tells me the shrub planting might take them all day.

*   *   *

For the first time in years I look forward to going to work. The streets and storefronts seem to have their own energy. They’re pulsing or buzzing or ringing out some melody that I’ve never been able to hear before, and thoughts rush through my mind. Ramona. Gretchen. Josh. Mrs. Schweiger. Layton and Associates. “We pass everything off as coincidence,” Mrs. Schweiger had said. I stop at the square and look at the gazebo and the three decorated fir trees. Why would anyone take such effort to make those trees beautiful? Why would anyone go to so much trouble? Something in my chest catches and I swear I hear a finger snap from heaven.

*   *   *

Before I clock out at Wilson’s, Jodi calls from the law office and says the computers are down. Since that’s the bulk of my work there, she tells me to take the day off, which I’m happy to oblige! I race home and smile at the sight. Phillip and Miriam are in my yard planting what looks like the last of some new shrubs. For the first time since I’ve known her, Miriam looks worn and ruffled. I get out of the car, grinning. “What are you two doing?”

“One condo couldn’t look that good and this one look horrible,” Phillip says. “So we went and bought some matching shrubs.”

“But I…”

Phillip puts his arm around my shoulder. “Just so you know. This is my gift to our newest family member.”

“I never know what to say,” I say, frustrated with myself. “This is so great!” I hug them both and stand looking at them. “Will you both help me with something?” Honest to goodness, I’ve never had a brainstorm before. Seriously, I haven’t. But this is a good one and it’s bigger than me.