moving, and when I finally hear the words, they sound like gibberish or another language and I’m overcome with frustration that I can’t understand anything my grandmother is trying to tell me. And then I’m back in my body on the ground, feeling again the agony, and I’m screaming, screaming, screaming.
My throat felt raw as my eyes opened in the bedroom of my grandparents’ house, the sound of my screams still settling into the four walls like ghosts. I sat up in bed, shivering despite the warmth of the summer night. I stayed like that in the dark room for a long time, listening to the occasional car and tracing the headlights against the far wall. It was only as I was drifting off to sleep again that I realized what my grandmother had been saying to me in the dream. Dum vita est, spes est. And by the time the sun began to poke holes in the morning, I had almost come to believe that maybe my life wasn’t over yet and that it might be time to finally listen to what my grandmother had to tell me.
By mid-June, the asphodels in Lillian’s garden had shot through the earth and were pointing at the sky like bright yellow spears. They’d never been her favorite flower but she’d felt obliged to cultivate them in a nod to her ancestors, who’d named their plantation for the flower and for the Greek mythological meadow where indifferent and ordinary souls were sent to live out eternity after death.
The heat of the day simmered up from the soil in waves as she squinted under the large straw brim of her hat at the sound of tires on gravel. She watched as Tucker’s Jeep approached through the alley of two-hundred-year-old oaks, and straightened as he pulled up into the circular drive, stopping in front of the large Roman sundial that had marked the time at Asphodel Meadows since 1817. Lucy and Sara, in identical eyelet sundresses, scrambled out of the backseat. The older of the two, Lucy, wore her somber expression like an accessory and held tightly to her little sister’s hand.
Sara jumped up and down, creating a cloud of dust around her anklet socks and white patent leather Mary Jane’s. “Malily! Daddy said we could have supper with you and Aunt Helen tonight.”
Lillian smiled at the girls, then rubbed her lower back as Tucker approached. It was getting harder and harder to move anymore and she’d known since the beginning of that spring that these would be her last gardens. Even with Helen’s help, it was beyond her physical limitations now. Her twisted and curled fingers couldn’t hold a clipper any better than she could kneel or squat for any length of time and she grieved for her garden like the moon mourned the night sky at sunrise. But grief, she’d learned in her ninety years, was as much a part of life as breathing, and disappointment and regret its eager companions. So was guilt, which she tried not to think about anymore. Especially now, after receiving Piper Mills’ letter. If only she’d been able to throw away the guilt with the letter. But guilt, she’d also learned, was a lot like tree sap: it stuck to everything and after a long time it hardened to stone, trapping unsuspecting creatures inside of it.
Tucker stopped in front of her, looking at her solicitously. “You shouldn’t be out in this heat. Women half your age would have had heat stroke by now.”
She smiled up at him, seeing the dark smudges under his eyes and noticing that his hair needed cutting. “We’re from hardy stock. It would take a lot more than heat to knock me over.” She ran a curled knuckle over his cheek, trying to erase the lines that had no business being on the face of a man just past his thirty-second year. Quietly, she said, “You know I love having the girls, Tuck. It would just be nice to have a little advance warning, that’s all.”
He glanced away. “Yeah, sorry. I just . . . Well, the new nanny—Emily—takes classes at night and couldn’t stay. I figured you and Helen could keep them
My throat felt raw as my eyes opened in the bedroom of my grandparents’ house, the sound of my screams still settling into the four walls like ghosts. I sat up in bed, shivering despite the warmth of the summer night. I stayed like that in the dark room for a long time, listening to the occasional car and tracing the headlights against the far wall. It was only as I was drifting off to sleep again that I realized what my grandmother had been saying to me in the dream. Dum vita est, spes est. And by the time the sun began to poke holes in the morning, I had almost come to believe that maybe my life wasn’t over yet and that it might be time to finally listen to what my grandmother had to tell me.
By mid-June, the asphodels in Lillian’s garden had shot through the earth and were pointing at the sky like bright yellow spears. They’d never been her favorite flower but she’d felt obliged to cultivate them in a nod to her ancestors, who’d named their plantation for the flower and for the Greek mythological meadow where indifferent and ordinary souls were sent to live out eternity after death.
The heat of the day simmered up from the soil in waves as she squinted under the large straw brim of her hat at the sound of tires on gravel. She watched as Tucker’s Jeep approached through the alley of two-hundred-year-old oaks, and straightened as he pulled up into the circular drive, stopping in front of the large Roman sundial that had marked the time at Asphodel Meadows since 1817. Lucy and Sara, in identical eyelet sundresses, scrambled out of the backseat. The older of the two, Lucy, wore her somber expression like an accessory and held tightly to her little sister’s hand.
Sara jumped up and down, creating a cloud of dust around her anklet socks and white patent leather Mary Jane’s. “Malily! Daddy said we could have supper with you and Aunt Helen tonight.”
Lillian smiled at the girls, then rubbed her lower back as Tucker approached. It was getting harder and harder to move anymore and she’d known since the beginning of that spring that these would be her last gardens. Even with Helen’s help, it was beyond her physical limitations now. Her twisted and curled fingers couldn’t hold a clipper any better than she could kneel or squat for any length of time and she grieved for her garden like the moon mourned the night sky at sunrise. But grief, she’d learned in her ninety years, was as much a part of life as breathing, and disappointment and regret its eager companions. So was guilt, which she tried not to think about anymore. Especially now, after receiving Piper Mills’ letter. If only she’d been able to throw away the guilt with the letter. But guilt, she’d also learned, was a lot like tree sap: it stuck to everything and after a long time it hardened to stone, trapping unsuspecting creatures inside of it.
Tucker stopped in front of her, looking at her solicitously. “You shouldn’t be out in this heat. Women half your age would have had heat stroke by now.”
She smiled up at him, seeing the dark smudges under his eyes and noticing that his hair needed cutting. “We’re from hardy stock. It would take a lot more than heat to knock me over.” She ran a curled knuckle over his cheek, trying to erase the lines that had no business being on the face of a man just past his thirty-second year. Quietly, she said, “You know I love having the girls, Tuck. It would just be nice to have a little advance warning, that’s all.”
He glanced away. “Yeah, sorry. I just . . . Well, the new nanny—Emily—takes classes at night and couldn’t stay. I figured you and Helen could keep them
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