The Garden of Last Days Read online

  The hose connection at the wall had been emitting a fine spray against the house for hours. She stepped into the puddle, stuck her head under the outdoor stairs, and patted around till she grasped the wet knob and turned it off. All was quiet. The dark garden at her back felt like a benevolent presence. She could smell the bougainvillea and hibiscus. She was still hungry.

  Inside the kitchen, she stood at the open fridge and allowed herself a plum. The number of the Puma Club for Men was taped to the side of her refrigerator. Maybe she should call ahead? Tell April she was on her way. But what if April tried to talk her out of it? Tried to convince her this house mom had everything taken care of?

  Jean switched on the front and rear floodlights and backed the DeVille out of the driveway. It was the last car Harry had ever bought, and whenever she thought of selling it, she could see his face looking hurt, and now she steered it past the dimly lit stucco and tile homes of her neighbors, people she’d yet to meet.

  It was 12:17 on her digital clock, the numbers glowing blue-green across her lap. She wished she’d thought to ask the cabdriver for the call numbers of the station he was listening to; the jazz had calmed her, but she no longer felt calm; she was breathing fast, and a band of sweat had come out on her forehead. Maybe she had had a heart attack and was completely foolish to have left the hospital like that.

  At the end of the street she stopped at Heron Way, the traffic lights of downtown on her left, to her right the empty street lined with towering palms all the way to the Gulf. She turned left, her breath caught somewhere high in her chest: What was she going to do when she arrived at this place in the darkness north of here? Just walk in and wade through what she imagined would be a smoky room full of raucous men, their eyes on her dancing naked tenant?

  She stopped at the intersection of Heron Way and Washington Boulevard, looked out her window at the lighted Mobil station and convenience store where she bought her gas. A gray sports car was at the self-service pumps, and it was full of young people talking and laughing with one another. The driver’s seat was empty. A lovely young woman stood at the trunk, one hand on the gas nozzle trigger, the other wrapped around a cellular phone she held to her ear. She was smiling, her long hair straight and shiny, her jeans tight the way they wore them now. She had youth, beauty, and that air of physical confidence that came from money.

  A horn sounded behind Jean. She accelerated and turned north onto Washington Boulevard, her headlights sweeping over the turquoise glow of a motel’s lighted swimming pool, and she knew that one day, perhaps one day soon, she wouldn’t be leaving the hospital at all, a thought that, strangely enough, didn’t frighten her so much; what frightened her more was not doing enough before then. Enough for Franny.

  AJ’S TRUCK LIGHTS glinted off his mailbox and the corrugated roof there. Clay dust coated the post but the letters of his family name stood out clear and black, just the way he’d painted them. Lights shone in the house. Deena’s Corolla was parked close to the front steps, and the plastic John Deere Santa’d brought Cole was facing the road, its decals catching the light from AJ’s truck.

  He switched them off and edged slowly, quietly, he hoped, up behind the Corolla. Over its top and into the curtained window was the flicker of the TV, though he could see only some of Deena’s leg on the couch, a leg that stood with the other one, and he killed the engine, opened the door with his left hand, a fire flaring up through the bones of his arm into his shoulder. And the pint. Goddamnit but it turned over and clattered to the ground and now his pants were wet and whatever the Tums in his mouth were supposed to do about the smell was useless now.

  Deena peered between the curtains out into the driveway. It was lit only by the light from the TV room, and she couldn’t see past her own car, he was sure. He didn’t want to spook her. Left his door half-open and moved fast around the front, his bumper almost touching hers, his legs squeezing between both as he slid through and stepped past Cole’s toy and up onto the brick steps he’d laid himself as she flicked on the outdoor light he’d wired, and now her voice through the door he’d hung. Her fat, scared voice.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Me, hon.” He bit down on the Tums, chewed quickly, swallowed.

  “AJ?”

  “I want to see you, Deen. No hard feelings, ’kay? I just want to visit.”

  He heard TV voices. A fan going. “You can’t.

  You know you can’t.”

  His wrist hurt more hanging like it was, but he left it there. His pants were wet against his leg, and he breathed deep through his nose, felt more tired and alone than he had in a long time. Maybe since he was a boy. Maybe then.

  “AJ?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You hear what I said?”

  “I heard you.”

  “You gonna leave?” TV sounds. A siren. Fake sounds filling up his real house.

  “I’m hurt, Deen.”

  She didn’t say anything. He pictured her standing there with her arms crossed looking down at the floor he’d installed, at the threshold he’d cut and fit and nailed.

  “Deena?”

  “Hurt how?”

  “A disagreement.”

  She was quiet again. Just that damn TV and the faint hum of the air conditioner he’d put in Cole’s room. The only one in the house and it cooled it all. A Sears Coolsport.

  “AJ, don’t make me call the cops.”

  The tightening again. This time a cord that seemed to pull straight up from his balls. He didn’t know how much more he could take, and now his throat swelled and his face felt funny. “Deen? I need to put some ice on this. Something. I don’t know. I need to see my family.” His eyes began tearing up and he tried to fight them but they came anyway. Uninvited, unplanned for, a surprise to him and a shame and humiliation and he wasn’t going to try and stop them or keep them quiet, just let them come because after five weeks away, five weeks pretending he didn’t mind having all that weight fall off his shoulders, didn’t mind being a single man again who didn’t have to worry how unhappy she was and what she didn’t do all day, who could stay out late running up bills at the Puma for a lying whore, who worked harder than ever all day and lied to himself that he wasn’t going broke living this way, who lied to himself that he only missed his boy and not that woman standing on the other side of this door set in its frame in this cinder-block house they’d made into a home, then goddamnit let them come if they had to because they were real and it wasn’t just a show.

  Still, she wasn’t opening that door. A door he could kick in with one shot because he never did put that dead bolt in—meant to—it was on his list—he just hadn’t. And now this moaning and whining was coming out of him, and his wrist hurt so much he raised it up to get the blood out of it, and he was tired. Just so goddamned tired. It was like the weight had never left and now it was stacked on him high and heavy and he just had to lie down somewhere, but he was goddamned if he was going to let her hear any more of this, and he held his wrist and left his wet face unwiped and stepped off his stoop and missed the lip of the brick tread and stumbled forward, a sound still coming out of him as he got his balance, the hood of her Corolla glossy-looking.

  “AJ?”

  He turned. There she was in the doorway, the kitchen bright behind her. Her hair was curly now, a curly halo around her head. He wiped his eyes on the back of his good arm.

  “You promise you won’t start anything?”

  He nodded, his throat a closed pipe in his sorry neck. She stood there looking at him, at his wet pants and swollen wrist he held up in the air. His eyes. She was barefoot and wore jeans and a big, loose T-shirt, her breasts hanging free underneath.

  “Thank you.” His voice broke on him. He was ashamed of himself and climbed back up on the stoop, was going to kiss her cheek or something but she backed into the house, holding the door like she didn’t know if she’d shut it in his face or let him all the way in. Then he was inside, and he’d stopped his crying and just stood ther
e in the kitchen’s fluorescent light sniffling, taking in how clean everything looked, cleaner than when he’d been here—the dishes washed and stacked in the drainer, the countertops cleared and wiped down, the floor swept.

  Deena looked closely at his wrist he’d forgotten he still held up. She touched it lightly with her fingertips, a soft burn. Her face was clean and free of makeup, her hair blond and fake at the ends of her curls. He could smell her; beneath all those new hair products that always smelled the same—was her smell, some woman-sweat center of her he’d never stopped loving. Never did.

  “Place looks good.”

  She said something as she turned for the freezer door and pulled out an ice cube tray. He didn’t know what she’d said, but it didn’t matter. He’d forgotten the smell of his own home and now here it was like a gift somebody might jerk away any second—her good, greasy cooking, the fruity scent of the bubble bath she always gave Cole before bed, and something like cotton from who knows where: the pillows on the sofa, the clean sheets of their bed. The hallway was dark. He could see Cole’s open doorway, the night-light stuck in the outlet there, a green and yellow palm tree.

  Deena started dropping one cube at a time into a plastic Glad bag, the same kind she used to seal his sandwiches in. Behind her T-shirt her breasts swayed heavily and he felt that old desire for her, felt the dark hallway behind him, and he wanted to see his boy too, to kiss his forehead and kneel by his bed, to say a prayer for him, the kind he said every night from his mama’s in Bradenton: Dear Lord, forget about me if you have to, just take care of Cole, would you? Just please watch over him.

  “I’m not supposed to be doing this, you know.” She zipped the bag shut and handed it to him. There was that tightening again. He was going to ask her, Why? ’Cause that order said he couldn’t? She’s the one took it out on him, didn’t she? But he said nothing, took the ice bag and pressed it to his wrist, pressed all the words inside him back into their dark corners, too.

  The ice felt good on his skin. He watched her turn on the faucet and run water over the half-empty tray. Her ass and hips were even bigger than before, and he felt sorry for her. Felt, too, as if he’d abandoned her, not just his wife but a friend, a friend in need.

  “I am sorry for what I did, Deena. You gotta know that.”

  She turned off the faucet. “What?” She balanced the tray on her way to the freezer, glanced over at him, her round, sometimes pretty face studying him, her eyes narrowed.

  “I said—”

  “You said that the first time, AJ. I’m scared of you now.” She opened the freezer door, pushed the tray in, said behind it: “I am.” She shut the door and looked at him. “I’m scared of my own husband.”

  She looked like she might cry then but shook it off and moved by him to the small living room whose walls he’d framed and Sheet-rocked, had mudded, sanded, and painted. Did it all so they wouldn’t have to look at painted concrete block, so it’d be more like a home. She sat herself down on the couch they’d bought new with the credit card he wouldn’t be able to pay off for a long, long time, her eyes glancing back at the TV he hadn’t paid off yet either, everything here from him and only him and she was scared? How about grateful? How about goddamned grateful? There was a sudden tightening in his gut and across his sternum, the back of his neck. A tension only a deep holler could unwind, but he wasn’t here for that; nope, there’d been enough of that.

  He turned and walked down the hall to Cole’s room.

  “AJ?” Her voice high and nagging like it always was and she better not get up off her ass and try to stop him from looking in on his own son. The TV went silent, his hand cold against the pack on his wrist, just the drip and hum of Cole’s air conditioner as AJ stepped through the doorway past the tiny lighted palm, Cole’s bed right there in the shadows. A junior sleigh bed that had been Deena’s when she was a girl, and they’d both painted it together on a tarp in the sun, listening to the radio, and now his son lay there on his back under a sheet and a bedspread covered with dinosaurs, his small chest rising and falling beneath the T. rexes.

  His face was turned toward him, his eyes closed, his mouth half-open. It was like seeing the inside of himself somehow, the deepest center of who he, AJ, really was. He knelt on the floor. His knee pressed one of Cole’s sandals. He dropped the ice pack and leaned forward and ran a finger along his son’s forehead. Cole’s eyes squeezed more tightly shut. He turned his face away. Cold fingers. AJ wedged them under his armpit, waited for them to warm up. Didn’t want to wait. With his hurt hand, he reached out and ran a finger down his cheek.

  A shadow fell over him, Deena’s voice a whisper: “Please don’t wake him up.”

  Why not wake him up? He doesn’t want to see his own daddy? Doesn’t miss him?

  But she was right—he knew she was right. Wasn’t worth much of a shit for a wife but she was a good mother, and maybe if he stood right now and did like she said, they’d get somewhere together. Somewhere better than this.

  He stood. Couldn’t see Cole’s face too well now because of her shadow. But it was good standing here in this room. Just the two of them. Him and his boy. A man does everything he’s supposed to-times ten—and fucks up once, maybe twice, and he loses it all.

  All.

  “Don’t forget your ice.” Not a nagging voice this time, not warm either but helpful. He squatted for it, took one last look at his son—his trusting profile as he slept—and backed out. She was just getting to the living room, her ass big and white under her T-shirt and shorts. He remembered how it felt in his hands, the warm womanly mass of it. He wanted her, hoped she might want him a little, too. She turned and crossed her arms and stood there on the linoleum he’d laid between the kitchen and TV room. Like she was stuck there and didn’t know what to do or where to go next.

  The Wild Turkey was starting to wear off. He pressed the ice to his wrist, wanted a cold beer but didn’t want to ask for one in his own house.

  “Your pants are wet.”

  “Yeah.”

  She gave him that look. Like he wasn’t the man he tried to be and on good days felt he was. “I spilled something, Deen. That’s all.” He could hear the hardness in his voice and she looked a little skittish in the face of it, her shoulders hunching slightly. Like he’d done her a lot worse than he ever had. It wasn’t fair she was scared of him. It hurt that she was.

  “Do you mind if I sit, Deen? I just want to sit and talk, ’kay?”

  Her eyes were on him as he walked over the blue rug he’d bought on sale at Home Depot, that he’d unrolled and tacked down and pinned with baseboards. The coffee table was covered with magazines, most of them the trashy kind full of movie stars. She had the stand-up fan going in the corner, its phony breeze rippling some of the pages, and next to the remote was a bowl of half-eaten ice cream, the spoon sitting in it.

  “Go ’head, finish your ice cream.”

  “You want some?”

  “I guess not.” He wanted to ask her for a beer but she was already making her way to the couch and he didn’t want to push it, so sat down where he always used to up against the arm under the lamp near the window. From here he could always see everything: the TV; what was going on in the kitchen; Cole playing on the floor; whoever might turn off the road into their driveway. The wind from the fan cooled him. The ice had killed the pain in his wrist. She took the ice cream and sat on the opposite end of the sofa, her eyes on the muted TV, a movie or one of the shows she liked, a bunch of good-looking doctors and nurses in an emergency room saving people and sometimes failing at saving people. He’d watched it with her a few times but didn’t like seeing all the hurt everybody went through—car wreck and gunshot victims; cancer-ridden men and women and those with bad hearts; the drunk and insane, the stabbed, burned, and fallen. It was like watching your worst fears reeled out in front of you and he’d get up before it was over, check in on Cole, wash up, and check in on him again.

  “You watching this, Deen? You can turn it back
up if you want.”

  She looked over at him. Her mouth was set in a straight line, and again, he didn’t mean to sound the way he did, as if he was giving her permission to do what she was already doing. She picked up the remote, clicked off the TV, sat there with her ice cream in her lap.

  “You smell like a barroom, AJ. Is that where you’ve been going these days?”

  Strip club, maybe. Not a barroom. “No. I haven’t. Just spilled some on me.” Her eyes were blue, a duller blue than Marianne’s but blue all the same.

  She raised a spoonful of ice cream, then lowered it back down, put the bowl on the table.

  “You’re behind in your payments, you know.”

  “Yes. I do know.”

  “My family’s helping, but I hate going to them, AJ.”

  “You’ll get it.”

  They were both quiet now. The fan whirred softly.

  “Why don’t you go to those anger meetings, AJ? You could see Cole then.”

  She was talking sweet, but that old bad feeling was rising up in him. He hated her right now sitting there with her hands in her wide lap, her ice cream melting in front of her. He rested the bag of ice on the back of a TV Guide. “Have I ever hit Cole, Deen? Or yelled at him? Or even raised my voice?”

  She stared at the floor. Her back was straight and she looked scared, but he didn’t really give a good goddamn except he wouldn’t get anywhere with her like that, would he? He took a breath, let it out. “I’m just asking, Deena. Have I?”

  “No. You’re a good dad; everybody knows that.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yeah.” She glanced over at him, then away again. Shy, maybe. Maybe not. He could see her nipples behind her shirt. The wind from the fan was warm, and he scooted over, put his good hand on her bare knee. It was smooth and clammy and fleshier than Marianne’s, but it was as familiar as anything he’d ever owned and worn or drove a long time and for a moment it was hard to remember how he’d ever been pushed away from its constant use. He touched her arm, let his fingers rest there lightly. “Except for what I did, I’m not a bad husband, am I?”