Chapter 10 - The Garden at Sunrise
Six months later, the morning frost had turned the grass beside my small cedar-shingled cottage into silver needles that crunched pleasantly beneath the soles of my work boots.
The cottage sat three miles outside of town, at the end of a dirt road that wound through forty acres of second-growth birch and sugar maples. It wasn't an eight-million-dollar estate with iron gates and hooded gables. It had a screened-in porch with two wicker rockers, a chimney made of river stones that drew clean when the wind was out of the northwest, and a vegetable garden behind the shed where the winter cabbage was still green beneath the mulch.
The kitchen smelled of sourdough biscuits, black pepper bacon, and dark roast coffee being brewed in an old enamel percolator on the cast-iron stove.
Emily was standing at the butcher-block table by the window, wearing a heavy cable-knit sweater with the sleeves rolled up, kneading a ball of rye dough with hands that were strong, brown, and entirely free of marks.
On the floor beside the woodstove, sitting on a patchwork quilt that had belonged to my mother, was Leo.
He was seven months old now, fat-cheeked, with bright, gray-blue eyes that tracked the steam rising from the kettle with intense, investigative curiosity. In his right hand, he clutched the silver acorn rattle Clara Hensley had sent him from Pittsfield; in the crook of his left arm, tucked securely against his flannel overalls, was the blue teddy bear.
The bear had been through the wash four times. The sky-blue ribbon was gone, replaced by a strip of soft brown leather that Emily had cut from an old work glove, and the synthetic fur had matted down into that comfortable, ancient texture that only belongs to toys that have been held through the dark and survived into the morning.
"Dad," Emily said, turning from the table with flour on the tip of her nose. "Hank Ross called while you were out at the woodpile."
I set two split logs of dry red oak into the woodbox beside the hearth and wiped the bark dust from my palms.
"What did the old pirate want?" I asked.
"He said the appellate court denied the last motion for a new trial," she told me, her voice calm, easy, without a single tremor of the old fear that used to make her drop her chin whenever a phone rang. "The judge signed the transfer orders. Mark was moved to the state prison in Shirley this morning. Ten to fourteen years before he’s eligible for a parole hearing."
I walked over to the stove, poured two mugs of the black coffee, and handed one to my daughter.
"And Linda?" I asked.
"She took the plea," Emily said, taking a sip from the heavy ceramic mug. "Four years at Framingham. The restitution trust paid off Clara’s parents' mortgage on Tuesday, and the state transferred the deed of the Oak Ridge house to the Berkshire County Children’s Advocacy Center. Hank says they’re turning the formal dining room into an art therapy clinic for girls who need a place to sleep when the sun goes down."
I looked out the window.
The sun was just cresting the ridge of the eastern hills, cutting through the bare branches of the maples, sending long, golden spears of light across the garden where the frost was already melting into diamond drops on the cabbage leaves.
A car door slammed out in the driveway.
Leo let out a loud, wet crow of delight, dropping his silver rattle and pushing himself up onto his hands and knees, rocking back and forth on the quilt with that urgent, clumsy enthusiasm that baby boys have when they know someone has brought them a treat.
The back screen door opened with that familiar, rhythmic squeak that I had deliberately never oiled.
Clara Hensley stepped into the kitchen.
She was wearing a thick red wool mackinaw, her cheeks flushed with the mountain cold, carrying a basket of late-harvest apples from her father’s orchard in North Adams. Behind her stood Elena Torres, dressed in jeans and an old corduroy jacket that smelled of woodsmoke, holding a cardboard flat of cider doughnuts from the mill down by the river.
"We brought the cider," Clara said, setting the apples on the table beside the rye dough and immediately dropping to her knees on the quilt to let Leo grab the silver zipper of her coat. "And Hank Ross is behind us in his truck with three boxes of files that he says the district attorney’s office doesn't need to see until Monday morning."
Elena Torres laughed, leaning against the counter and taking the mug of coffee I handed her without asking for cream or sugar.
"Arthur," Elena said, looking at the old ledger resting on the top of my breadbox. "You know Hank’s going to make you read through every single one of those cold case files before he lets you go fishing in the spring."
"Hank’s seventy-six years old, Elena," I said, leaning down to scoop my grandson off the quilt and lifting him up onto my hip, where he immediately began trying to investigate the horn buttons of my tweed vest. "He doesn't have the patience to read three pages without falling asleep in his rocker."
Leo reached out with his small, warm hand and caught the frame of my glasses, pulling them crooked against my nose with a triumphant gurgle that set the whole kitchen laughing.
Emily walked over, wiped the flour from her cheek with her apron, and rested her head against my shoulder, her arm wrapping around the small of my back, right where the old tweed coat had kept the wind off through thirty years of county winters.
"Dad," she whispered, her breath warm against the collar of my shirt.
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"Thank you for bringing the flowers," she said.
May you like
I looked out through the glass into the garden, where the morning sun had finally chased the last of the blue shadows from the fence line, leaving the whole valley bright, silent, and clear all the way to the crest of the mountain.
"I’ll always bring the flowers, Emily," I told her, tightening my arm around her and the boy. "That’s what the morning is for."
