The Garden
Chapter Four
As I walked home from the grocery store, I thought of how it had been one month and two weeks since Tornado Kylie had passed through the west side of Luck Mark City. A lot had changed since then, so much it almost seemed unreal.
Luck Mark City East Middle School transferred some classes to Luck Mark City West Middle School and others to the West Luck Mark City Rec Center. Since my original house had been right in the transition between east and west side Luck Mark, I had barely made the cut off to be able to attend Luck Mark City East Middle School in the beginning. Unfortunately, that had been the school that was destroyed, so everyone attending the east side school had to move, meaning they would have to drive farther and attend bigger classes. The teachers from the east school had transferred over, some to the west school and some to the rec center. We got along fine, everything and everyone was very accommodating. The west Luck Mark citizens didn’t seem to mind that we kind of invaded their school. Charles and I seemed to mind more than the west students. We liked our first school, we liked the walking distance to our old school, we liked the structure and the architecture of our school, we just liked our school. Mostly it was ironic that the east side was the part of Luck Mark that didn’t get demolished, but the east side school did and the west side school stayed up perfectly fine. Position at the right time and place was all that mattered then, I guessed.
Charles and I had made up the next day after our small fight, Charles understanding my feelings. Alice and her family had come back from their grandpa’s funeral, as well, in the few days following, her house in tact.
Apart from the school, the busyness of my assignments, after school activities, and taking care of Nana had allowed less room in my mind for my parents. Every night I thought about them before I went to bed, but other than that, homework, vocal lessons, painting class, cooking, shopping for food, and minimally dusting so Nana and I wouldn’t sneeze kept me on my toes and in the moment.
Speaking of Nana, she had more time to think about Ma and Pa than I did. Since she was retired (with a teaching pension), she spent most of her time at home, watching judge shows and flipping through her weekly picture magazines. She was most busy the first few days of me living in her house, canceling her home delivery grocery truck and registering as my legal guardian for school.
But once those few days had passed, I would see Nana often wipe tears from her eyes when I walked in the door, which led me to believe she had been thinking about Ma and Pa again.
About a week after Tornado Kylie, I went back to my house and sorted through all my things. My room in Nana’s house had my desk chair, my bedspread, my bedside lamp, and my clothing. Everything else we had no room for and Nana, in her exact words, said, “If there’s another human being in this house, we’re gonna hafta have some money!” Therefore, we sold my old furniture. Ma and Pa hadn’t written out a will, automatically leaving everything to me, so therefore I had all their money in their back account. But still Nana refused to keep anything in her house that was my Ma’s and Pa’s. It wasn’t a money issue, I knew. (I had all of Ma and Pa’s money!) It was a nostalgic memory issue. Nana even hired someone to sell my old house, turning everything over to the real estate agent. She told the agent, “whatever they want to buy it for, give it to them.” Not a money issue, at all. I mean, Nana paid (even though it was barely willingly) for my painting class and vocal lessons.
And lastly, meanwhile, Nana’s house was still an overwhelming mess. At least I bothered to keep my bedroom clean.
“I’m home, Nana!” I called, nudging my way into the living room, three brown paper bags of groceries in my arms.
“I’m right here, you don’t need to yell!” Nana snapped, flinging her weekly Dresses in the Making magazine on the crowded coffee table. A head of lettuce rolled from the tip of one of the bags and dropped to the floor. Used to Nana just looking at it, but not picking up to get it for me, I stepped over it, deciding to come back for it later after I had set down the other bags.
Even though Nana didn’t help out much around the house, I didn’t blame her. She had taken me in without question or fuss. She had her own way of doing things. And most of all, her weight limited her from doing much more than moving around.
“How was your day, Nana?” I asked, going back for the lettuce.
“Fine, did you get my Bacon Pockets?”
“A whole week’s worth,” I said, unpacking the bags into the wooden cabinets of the kitchen and into the fridge and freezer.
“Are you going to trim the hedges this afternoon?” Nana asked. Tossing the Bacon Pockets into the freezer, I silently groaned. Trimming already ugly hedges was not how I wanted to spend my Saturday afternoon. I had been hoping to catch up on a painting class project that we had to turn in that coming Tuesday. Although painting class was my favorite after school activity which I took with Alice, I didn’t always have time to finish what I needed to. Hopefully, by the end of the course, which ended right alongside the school year, I would be in a routine such that I could make time to paint everyday.
“Yes, Nana…” I said.
“Good.” Nana replied, picking up her Dresses in the Making picture magazine again.
“Not that you go anywhere but that couch,” I muttered to myself, slamming the freezer door closed.
Mad, I tried to suppress my anger, keep calm. Maybe I could push down my anger, but feelings of disappointment were harder to shove away.
As I put away the last groceries, a knock sounded at the door. The vibration of the screen seemed to startle Nana.
“Who is that?” Nana growled, twisting around to see out the window. I hurried to the door and when I opened it, I saw Alice and Charles.
“Hi!” I exclaimed, excited to see them.
“Who is it?!” Nana repeated, stationary in her spot. Annoyance danced from the hairs on her eyebrows down to the grooves in chin.
“Alice and Charles,” I answered, opening the door to let them in.
“Don’t let them in!” Nana hollered, loud enough for not only Alice and Charles to hear, but the rest of the neighborhood, as well. Alice and Charles took a few steps back. Mortified, I looked back at Nana who was still sitting on her couch, looking like the Grinch of Saturday.
“They’re my friends, Nana!” I hissed, narrowing my eyebrows at her. Nana looked me straight in the eye and pursed her crinkling lips.
“I don’t want them here,” Nana said.
“Nana, I want to hang out with—“
“You need to trim the hedges,” Nana interrupted me. I could see her throat take in her swallow. Nana wasn’t yelling, but sometimes her quietness was worse than her yelling…she was scarier in silence.
I turned back to my friends and gave them a sympathetic smile.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t hang out right now,” I apologized, upset that my Saturday had to be spent dodging sticks and leaves with huge, rusty clippers.
“You said that on Thursday,” Alice said, fingering the straps of her red and white plaid jumper. I looked at her curly locks and remembered how I had painted her hair in our first painting class and how Alice had painted my hands then too.
“I know, but I have to trim the hedges,” I responded, feeling terrible. Ever since I had been living with Nana, I had been turning Alice and Charles down left and right. I only ever saw them at school for lunch, Alice at painting class, and Charles in between our vocal lessons.
“Well, can we come by tomorrow afternoon?” Charles asked.
“How about at one?” I suggested, making sure to reserve the time for them.
“Perfect!” Alice chirped and so Charles and Alice were off. I slammed the door shut.
“I hope you’re happy,” I muttered as I stomped past Nana and to the kitchen to find the clippers.
“What was that?!” Nana yelled from her couch.
“Nothing.” I yanked the giant sized clippers from the hardware closet and returned to the front of the house. Before I went out into the front yard, Nana and I looked at each other, without saying a word.
“You might as well weed the front while you’re at it,” Nana added right as I walked out to the front porch.
It took me two full hours to finish trimming the hedges and weeding the garden. By the end, my hands were chalked with bleeding blisters, my arms scraped from the elbow down. My finger nails were broken, and sweat poured from my forehead to the back of my knees. My hair was matted and itching at the back of my neck.
After I threw all the chopped up greenery in the green trash can in the back of the yard, I put away the clippers, and headed for the shower. Nana wasn’t in the living room when I finished, she wasn’t in the bathroom, or the kitchen.
“Nana?” I called as I started the water running. When there wasn’t an answer, I knocked on her bedroom door. Peaking inside after no answer and not seeing her in her own bedroom, I headed to the backyard.
There Nana was. She was leaning her hand on her lawn chair, her hip jutted out to one side. She was staring at the back wall, where the half painted mural was. She didn’t seem to hear me coming.
As I watched her from inside the house, I thought about not why she was out there, but why she looked so lonely when she did.
The Sun wasn’t shining for Nana anymore. The sun just wasn’t shining. Nana had been living by herself in a messy, overcrowded, unfinished house for years with minimal visits from distant family. She was crabby and old and letting her chance at good looks go. Nana had given up and she regretted it. And no matter how much Nana talked bad about the world, took her bitterness out on me, and woke up on the wrong side of the bed, I knew Nana felt she had spent her time living and was ready to move on to another world. I hoped for Nana. I hoped for her because I wanted her to find the happiness in her life she used to feel when Pop was alive.
“Nana…”
“Tammy, can you get…um…” Nana started, turning around as she spoke. She didn’t even seem to mind I had been there. She looked from the ground to me.
“Yes, Nana?”
“Uh…” Nana put her frail fingers to her head as she tried to remember. “My pills. They need refillin’ at the pharmacy. I need…um...” Nana didn’t seem to be forgetting, just too distracted to think of the names and of what she wanted.
“Mobic, Nana?”
“And…the other one…”
“Elavil, Nana,” I said. Elavil was her anti-depressant. Maybe it was time to up her dosage of that.
“Yes. Yes, that’s right, Tammy,” Nana answered me and dropped her hand from her head. She looked worn out.
“Anything else, Nana?” I asked, still standing in the kitchen inside the house.
“Will you get a calculator at the corner store down the street?”
“Yes.”
“And dinner from the Farmer’s Market,” Nana added.
“The Farmer’s Market is on Fridays only, Nana,” I responded.
“Is that so?” Nana said, looking up at me. “When I used to go, it was on Saturdays….it’s been a long time, Tammy.”
“Yes, Nana,” I replied, not too sure of what the response to that was. Nana laughed a little to herself, almost a snort. Old times seemed to have caught up to her.
“Well, then, that’s all,” Nana said, grunting as she toddled back to the back door. I opened the screen door for her and helped her up.
“Nana?”
“What is it?”
“Can I hang out with Alice and Charles tomorrow after lunch?” Hoping all my work would be done for Nana by that time, I anticipated her answer.
“Charles and Alice?” Nana asked, her gruff coming back.
“Yes, Nana.”
“Let me tell you something, Tammy,” Nana started. “Charles is Christian.”
“He is…”
“Pop was a Christian, you know. I’m Jewish. Your Pop converted to Judaism after we got married, decades after we got married. It did no good, you see. No good at all,” Nana continued. I had never heard much about Nana and Pop’s marriage, I didn’t even know how they met.
“Look, you might as well just stay right where you are. I’m not saying Christianity is bad, it’s not. But with you being Jewish, Charles being Christian…well, it’s just better to stay involved with people your own religion. It’s a lot less complex, you see,” Nana said, limping through the kitchen, leaning her weight against the chipping counter.
“But what about Alice? I think she’s Lutheran…” Why hadn’t Nana mentioned Alice?
“I’m talking boys, Tammy. Ones you might marry,” Nana snapped, flinging herself on the sofa in the living room.
“Marry?!” I practically hollered. “Nana, me and Charles are just friends! Nana, I’m only in seventh grade.”
“That don’t make a difference,” Nana responded and picked up her Dresses in the Making magazine. You would think she would have finished looking at all those pictures by then.
“Nana, you don’t really mean that I can’t—“
“Is that water running?” Nana interrupted me. I glanced into the bathroom down the hall and then back at Nana. I made out to say something, but nothing came to mind. Discrimination against religion was the last thing I thought to be on Nana’s mind. I headed for the bathroom and showered up.
Once I was dressed and cleaned up, I gathered the money for the items Nana asked for and headed out to the pharmacy first. Then I would head onto the corner store, then back home to fix dinner. I felt like a mother.
Walking around town was a much different experience than it had been a month ago, or even before the tornado. All the debris had been shoveled up and taken away from our street, the busted sidewalks and porches had been repaired, buildings in the center hub that had been knocked around were gradually getting rebuilt, all the telephone lines were back up, the TV and electricity dishes were working once again, and crewmen were constantly passing by through the east side to get to the west side with large trucks filled to the brim with repair supplies.
At the pharmacy, I aimed to refill Nana’s medicines, handing over her prescription to the clerk. The man behind the counter, in a white coat and thick, gray glasses, peered at the prescription paper dubiously.
“Miss,” he said, giving me back the paper. “These prescriptions can’t be refilled for another week.”
“What?” I asked, looking down at the paper. Every third week of the month it stated and I knew perfectly well, it was only the second. Nana had made a mistake. Had she forgotten?
“Third week of every month. Is there anything else I can do for you?” I slowly looked up at the clerk, gathered my bag and shook my head.
“No thanks,” I replied and walked from the store. After heading out for the calculator, I walked back home.
“It is the third week, Tammy,” Nana said, looking at the prescription paper. I sat on the armchair opposite of Nana, unwrapping the new calculator, a pot of pasta sitting on the stove.
“Believe me, Tammy. I didn’t forget this, this wasn’t a memory thing. I know it is the third week of the month,” Nana pressed. Annoyed at the ongoing conversation we were having, I ripped the calendar from the fridge and brought it to Nana. I pointed to the week we were on and counted how many weeks we had left. Two.
“See, Nana? It’s the second week,” I stated, jabbing my finger at the white packet of papers. Nana glanced at the calendar nonchalantly and shrugged.
“That’s impossible. I know my weeks,” Nana continued.
“Didn’t you notice that your pills weren’t up?” I asked, returning the calendar to its rightful place.
“I don’t pay attention to that sort of stuff. I go by my inner clock,” Nana replied. I took in a deep breath and let it out. I had something on my mind that I thought Nana should hear. I needed to spit it out.
“Nana,” I said rapidly, rushed. “Do you think that maybe you didn’t what week it was because you don’t get out much.” I hurried on as Nana looked up at me from her magazine.
“All I mean is that maybe if you had a scheduled class or gathering you went to every week, it’d be easier to keep track of the days of the week.” Nana didn’t say anything at first, so I zoomed my eyes in on the packaging. There was a double crease at the top and what was that? Oh, a rip in the left corner. If I could just cut the left side with my scissors—
“Tammy.” She didn’t seem offended so I looked up. “I used to cook you know. Good things too, I won awards at auctions, at fairs.”
“No doubt, Pa always said--“
“And I gardened,” Nana continued on. She didn’t seem to mean to interrupt me, she wasn’t on a ranting rage or anything. She just seemed to want to tell me a story about herself, let me know about her. In fact, it was almost like she was telling herself, reassuring herself.
“I gardened like there was mo tomorrow,” Nana announced proudly, laughing. “Rows and rows of vegetables, every day I could pick something new to put into my soup or stew. And Joe would love it!” Then I knew Nana wasn’t talking to me, but to herself, because she called Pop by his first name.
“We were going to paint a mural on the back wall together, me and Jo, but…uh…Joe get to see the finished one before his heart attack…” Nana looked up at me and snapped out of her reverie. “New things bring back old memories, Tammy.”
I was guessing she meant Ma and Pa’s death.
“Nana….” I began. “Would you like to garden sometime?” I set down the calculator package, giving up on the tough wrapping.
“Garden? Aw, honey…” Nana replied, obviously still in memory mode. “All has gone to hell in this old body. I wouldn’t be able to bend up to pick up the shovel.”
Your characterization of Nana is authentic. Tammy's attempts to understand her, despite her own problems, are very moving. You write with such a flair, Maddie. Thoroughly looking forward to the rest of the story.
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