Beth Couture

The GardenWhaley has gotten strange since it happened. Richard tries to ignore it, but he hears him talking to himself in his room late at night. Richard watches from the window sometimes when the boy goes outside. He always goes straight to her garden—what is left of it—and sits in the dirt. He talks to himself then, too, but mostly he just sits, digging into the ground with his fingers. He is fifteen and gangly, taller now than his father and already stoop-shouldered. When he comes into the house he goes straight to his room. Sometimes he looks at Richard as he passes him, but most of the time he doesn’t.

Whaley has always loved dirt, just like his mother used to. Those two would be out in the garden for hours, digging and weeding and planting seeds Richard would buy from the Burpee catalog as a surprise. He would watch them from the window, like he watches Whaley now, would wave to them as they wiped their faces on their sleeves and squatted in the soil. Jenny had always loved to garden, as long as he’d known her, and the first thing she did when they bought their house was start digging in the backyard. He had helped her then, had bought spades and shovels and rakes at the feed store, and dirtied his hands with the rich dark soil they bought in fifty pound sacks to spread over the ground. Pretty soon the garden covered half the small yard, and then there was almost no free ground left. Richard had never seen a garden so full. Jenny planted every kind of vegetable that would grow in North Carolina, and roses, sunflowers, tulips, violet-puffed hydrangeas, tiger lilies, and flowers he had never seen before and whose names he still didn’t know. At night she read gardening books, and as soon as the sun was up, she was outside with new seeds to plant and baskets to collect the ripe vegetables. She was always out there, summer through fall, and there were even plants she grew through the mild winters. She was happier there than anywhere else, and sometimes Richard thought she was only happy in the garden. She paced like an animal when she had to be indoors.

In the first years, he would come out with her in the morning on Saturdays and Sundays and not leave until late afternoon. He bought a wide-brimmed hat and thick gloves, and his hands ached from digging. Later, he would watch her as she worked, would yell to her from the kitchen window or the screen door to come in for lunch, then to come in, it was getting dark—but early in their marriage he helped her, and he was glad to do it. He had wondered sometimes, even in the first years, if she still loved him, if she ever had—if she loved anything but her garden. She never seemed to notice anything but seeds and dirt. After she had planted everything she could think of, everything the yard would hold, Jenny built a low stone wall around the garden. She modeled it after pictures she had seen in her landscaping books, and called it her English wall. It took her three months to build, and when it was completed, she set up tables and chairs on the back porch and hung paper lanterns in the trees, and gave a garden party. She put on her best sundress and served wine and tiny sandwiches and stuffed mushrooms to all the neighbors. She told them all that they were welcome to visit the garden any time they liked, but none of them ever did after that night.

When Whaley was born, Jenny would take him out into the yard with her, would put him in the bassinet, then the playpen, then the little wind-up swing they’d bought at a yard sale, and she would kneel in the dirt while he gurgled and smiled at her. When he was old enough to walk, he would help her, patting the ground with his fat fists, grasping weeds and throwing them at the wheelbarrow next to where they knelt. The boy could stay out as long as she did, never complaining or crying or getting tired. In the evenings sometimes, they wouldn’t even want dinner when they came in. They would bring cucumbers, peppers, onions, and tomatoes in with them, wash them and cut them up, and eat them, with milk to wash them down. Jenny would laugh at Richard, tell him he could have his pork chops or hot dogs or whatever he’d made, but she and Whaley would have their salad. If he was sullen because he had cooked and felt rejected, she would feed him slices of tomato until she forced him to smile at her. Later, he would sit at the kitchen table by himself and eat his food until he couldn’t hold any more.

In the daytime, he would watch them from the kitchen window. Jenny never worried about Whaley getting sunburned, and so Richard would pay close attention to where the sun was in the sky, and just before it was directly overhead, he would go out into the garden and slather his son with sunscreen. Whaley hated the feel of it on his skin, the smell, would squirm and cry and pull away, into his mother’s arms. Jenny always rolled her eyes when he came outside, would cuddle Whaley close and tell him not to worry about his worrywart daddy and the nasty smelly stuff, and she would glare at Richard, tell him he was a fussy old grandmother. They argued over this at night, and over so many other things. Over Whaley. Jenny screamed at him sometimes, said he was just jealous of her bond with their son, that he couldn’t stand seeing them having fun together.

“Look at me,” she’d yell, pulling up the sleeve on her nightgown to show him her brown skin, “Whaley will never have to worry about skin cancer, so just leave him alone! He doesn’t want you touching him.” Richard would stare at her—he remembers thinking in those moments that she was crazy, the way her eyes were so cold and so hateful—and finally she would calm down. She would put her hand on his face and say she was sorry, she knew he was just trying to help, but he was doing more harm than good.

***

And now he and his son barely speak to each other, except when Richard gets into one of his moods. Then he can’t do anything but talk.

“Do you know what they said before the trial, when they confessed?” he asks Whaley, when the two of them are eating dinner. “Those men. Have I told you?”

And Whaley gazes in front of him, then down at the table. “Yes, you’ve told me.”

“They weren’t even sorry,” Richard says, and his face feels cold, like rubber, “the lawyers said you could tell by their eyes.” He hates himself for this, for telling Whaley everything he wishes he didn’t know. And he knows Whaley hates him—he must—but he can’t help feeling it must be worth it somehow.

“Do you know what they said?” he asks again, “They said she shouldn’t have been out there by herself, if someone had been with her they would have just let her go on by. They said her husband should have been with her. She was by herself, such a pretty woman out late at night, and they couldn’t help themselves. They didn’t mean to do it, but they just couldn’t help it. They said it was as much my fault as theirs.”

He tells his son everything about that night. His quiet son, who had always loved his mother best. He doesn’t want to say the words he says, but he’s afraid that if he doesn’t say them, he’ll never say anything. He can’t imagine living in the house in complete silence, and it is this that makes him talk.

“Whaley,” he says, “she was hit over and over until you couldn’t even recognize her. They hit her with their fists, then with rocks they found. They hit her until they were out of breath, until they didn’t even know what they were doing anymore.”

Whaley listens, his blond head turned toward the floor, muddy brown eyes never meeting his father’s. He always listens, never says a word in return, and when his father is finished, he looks at the empty space next to him, then at the table and then down at his hands and nods gently. This is the way it has been since it happened, now almost two years ago. Richard hates himself for telling his son these things, hates himself for the pictures that creep into his head when he looks at the boy. Jenny, screaming and struggling, her arms held over her head. Leaves and twigs in her hair. A man, younger than Richard, handsome and stupid and sinister, leaning over her, gripping her wrists and panting. He shakes his head, and the image clatters against his skull. He feels like he’s conjuring her. When he talks about her, it’s like she comes back, just for a moment. He can’t stand it. Sometimes he thinks he sees her sitting beside Whaley as he talks. Whaley doesn’t look at him, he never looks at him, and Richard would swear someone else is in the room the way the boy concentrates on the spot next to him. He watches his son and his throat clenches, and he can’t not speak.

***

His father is talking again, running his hands through his thinning hair, scratching the stubble on his chin, and talking. He talks so much sometimes that Whaley thinks he must be losing it completely. He goes on and on and on until finally he’s worn himself out, and then he just sits there staring at the wall. He has told Whaley a hundred times, a thousand, about the night his mother was killed, and every time he does it Whaley wants to hit him, to beat him until he shuts up, but instead he sits quietly, except when he whispers to her.

He asks his mother, “Did it really happen that way?” and she, sitting beside him the whole time his father tells his stories, nods her head.

“What did you think about?”

“I didn’t think about anything. I wanted to go home.”

“But you were leaving us. That’s what Dad told me. You needed time away from him.”

“But as it was happening, all I wanted was to come back.”

His mother is beautiful, just like always. She and Whaley have the same blonde hair, the same tanned skin. When they would go out somewhere together, when she was alive, everyone would comment on how much they looked alike. “His mother’s son,” they called him, and his mother would put her hand on his head and smile.

Finally, it’s over for the night. His father is tired and quiet. The dishes are still out from dinner, and he sits with his head in his hands over his empty plate. Whaley gets up and begins to clear the table. He scours the dishes under hot water, and his mother stands behind him with her hands on his shoulders and her face pressed into his back. He can barely feel her breath.

He goes into the garden, where nothing remains but the stone wall. Whaley tried to take care of it after she died; he watered it every day and pulled weeds and tended it just like she had, but one day his father tore it up. Whaley came home from school and it was gone, the tomato vines and pepper plants and flowers and herbs torn out of the ground and thrown into a metal barrel. The soil had been trampled, heavy boot marks carved into its surface. When he went into the house, his father was sitting on the couch, holding a handful of dirt. “She loved it so much,” he said. “I just couldn’t stand it anymore.” Whaley sits in the middle of it, where the summer squash and cucumbers used to be, and runs his fingers through the soil.

“Whaley,” his mother says, and he knows she is standing over him. He looks up at her. “It’s time to start planting again.” She walks through the garden and squats on the ground, looking at him. “We could start small, maybe just some tomatoes, a few squash. Some marigolds, stuff that doesn’t take much care. The compost in the bucket over there’s probably lost some of its nutrients, but we can always add to it. Why don’t we go down to the feed store tomorrow and pick up some seeds?” She walks through the garden and measures, plotting out the land. She tells Whaley to write down the numbers she calls out, and he writes them on his hand. Later, when he gets ready for bed, he washes his hands and blurs the numbers so he can no longer read them. He holds his hands up to his face and tries to remember what he wrote, but he can’t remember anything.

The next day Whaley sleeps through most of his classes and only wakes up for gym in the afternoon. He runs around and around the track, his chest and legs and arms burning, until his teacher sends another student after him to tell him it’s time to quit.

“You look like shit,” Greg says as he jogs up to him. “You’re running too hard.”

Whaley ignores him and keeps running until he can’t breathe anymore, until his legs practically buckle underneath him. He sits down on the track, certain he’s going to faint, but he doesn’t. He keeps his head between his knees, and his breath finally slows down. Greg is still standing in the spot where Whaley left him, and when he sees Whaley sit down, he walks over to him.

“You’d be a good runner if you paced yourself,” he says, then reaches down and grabs Whaley’s arm to help him up. Whaley nods at him, and they walk back to the gym.

His teachers have complained to the principal about him, but Whaley overheard him telling them they should just leave him alone. “You know what his family was always like,” Mr. Wilkens said, “and then his mother…” Whaley had been listening at the door of the office, but he ran as fast as he could back down the hall and out the doors. He remembers wanting to never come back, and he wouldn’t have if she hadn’t begged him, if she hadn’t told him he would break her heart if he didn’t.

***

Richard has put away the pictures from their wedding, from vacations and day trips and just regular days, and has donated her clothes to the Salvation Army. He went through her jewelry, the small gold earrings and bracelets, the emerald ring he gave her the day Whaley was born. His fingers were rough and callused, and he could barely feel the chains and bands he held. This was the hardest part. He didn’t know what to do with all of it. He could give her clothes to charity, so he forced himself to stuff them into garbage bags, to pull them off hangers and not bury his face in them. He forced himself to forget that she had worn them. But the rings, the necklaces. She never wore jewelry when she was alive, but she would take it out sometimes, clean it with a cloth and a gray bottle of polish, drape it against her skin like playing dress up. He buried her with her wedding ring on her finger, though she wasn’t wearing it when she died, and put the emerald in his dresser drawer. He sent the rest of the jewelry to her sister in Louisiana without a note.

The house is free of everything she owned, but sometimes Richard can still smell her. He still finds her hair at the bottom of the washing machine and in the sheets and pillows on their bed. He wakes up with it wrapped around his fingers, in his mouth. It was only two years ago. He remembers when the police found her. Three in the morning, and the deputy came to the door the night after she disappeared. Richard had even gone to look for her, driving back and forth on Mill’s Creek Road, stopping every few feet to look through the weeds on the side of the road, but he didn’t go far enough. Just eight more miles, and he would have found her himself. Deputy Calloway said her car had been pushed into the overgrowth, but he’d known what he was looking for and saw it from the road. She was lying in the woods, naked and bloody. If Richard had driven just eight more miles he would have seen her himself. He tells his son he could have found her.

He knows he has to get away. In two days it will be exactly two years since she was found. He doesn’t know if he can be in this house when the day comes. He is afraid of what might happen. His boss at the insurance company has told him to take as long as he needs—to go for a week, maybe even two, if that’s what he wants. Richard knows they all think of him as fragile, but he doesn’t care. He keeps his mouth shut because they have been kind to him, but all he wants is for someone to know what he knows.

He has put everything away that could remind him of her, but he’s afraid one day he’ll come home—from work, from this trip he hasn’t planned yet—and find it all back again: her dresses and blouses hanging in the closet, her shoes, the prints by Van Gogh and Monet that he hated, but which she insisted on hanging on the walls, their photographs. He’s afraid that one day the bathroom will be filled with dark green bottles of honeysuckle scented bubble bath, with jasmine shampoo. It scares him more to think of her coming back than it does to think of her gone. He can’t imagine what he would say to her.

***

When Whaley comes home, she’s there waiting for him, as always. He has asked her why she doesn’t follow him to school, why she always stays at home, but she never answers. He goes into his bedroom and lies down, and she sits in the chair next to the window.

“How was your day?” she asks, and he shrugs. She comes over to sit on the edge of the bed, and strokes his hair. She used to do this to get him to sleep when he was younger, and it still works. Her fingers are cool, and Whaley sleeps.
***

Richard calls his sister Melinda in Raleigh when he gets home from work. She and her husband would be happy to have him stay a while, as long as he wants, and Whaley too. They can even come tomorrow if they want to.

“Do you think Whaley will come with you?” Melinda asks, and Richard knows she thinks he won’t.

“I’ll ask him,” he says, “but he probably won’t. Why would he want to go on vacation with his old man?” Richard laughs, trying to sound casual. “Besides, he has school.” He knows what Melinda is thinking, and he doesn’t want to talk about it. When they are off the phone, though, he can’t stop thinking about his son. They could talk during the three-hour drive, and maybe being around his aunt and uncle would do Whaley good. Jenny’s death can’t possibly be the only thing he can talk to his son about. Maybe, Richard thinks, this change of scenery would be the beginning of something new for him and his son. Maybe they could just forget about Raleigh and just drive until they find somewhere completely new. They could even move there if they both liked it enough and start everything over. It’s time, he knows, it has been time for months now.

Whaley is asleep in his room, and Richard knocks on the door. “Whaley,” he calls through the thick oak, “can you come out here?”

There’s a pause, and then Whaley opens the door. “What is it?” He looks confused, like he looked when he was a little boy and Richard would have to wake him up when he fell asleep on the couch before bedtime. His face is red and lined with pillow marks.

“Let’s go in the living room for a minute,” Richard says, and his mouth feels so pasty his tongue can barely form the words. He swallows.

“Uh, sure. Give me a second, okay?” Whaley rubs his eyes and goes past his father into the bathroom.

Richard gets a glass of water from the kitchen for himself, and one for Whaley. He goes into the living room and waits on the couch. When Whaley comes out of the bathroom, his face and shirt are damp, but he looks more awake. He sits down in the armchair across from his father.

“What’s up, Dad?” he asks, and Richard is surprised by how casual he sounds.

“Listen, Whaley, I know you know what tomorrow is, and I know you don’t want to talk about it. That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Whaley looks at him and nods. “Okay.”

“I want to get away from here for a little while, maybe even a couple weeks,” Richard says, watching his son. “Your Aunt Melinda and Uncle Paul have said we could come down to Raleigh and stay with them for as long as we wanted, but I was thinking maybe we could just go on a trip, like the road trips my friends and I used to take in high school, you know, just driving until we decide to stop. I think it might be good for us both to get away from here for a while.”

Whaley watches him as he fumbles, and finally says, “I’ve got school, Dad. I can’t just leave for two weeks halfway through the year.”

“I’m sure I could talk to your principal and your teachers,” Richard says, “that wouldn’t be a problem.”

“I don’t know,” Whaley says, not looking at Richard, “I really don’t think I want to. No. I don’t want to go.”

“But we can go wherever you want,” Richard says, and his stomach starts to hurt. “We don’t have to go to Raleigh, or even anywhere in North Carolina. We can go to Virginia, or Tennessee, or really wherever you want.”

“Why don’t you go, Dad, if you want to? Without me. I don’t want to leave. I don’t need to.” Whaley seems nervous too. His face is pale and determined, and he won’t look at Richard at all anymore. He stares at the air next to him. Richard knows he won’t convince him, but he can’t stop.

“Please, Whaley,” he says, trying to keep from raising his voice, “I really want you to go.”

“No. I can’t. I’m sure you’ll have a better time by yourself.” Whaley stands up and turns to go back to his room.

“It’s one day away,” Richard says, “two years ago when they found her. Do you remember that night, Whaley? The police officer at three in the morning, and I thought she would be home in a few days after she cooled down, but those men stopped her and then they did those things…they took turns…” He’s just talking now. He can’t help it. He knows he’ll never be able to stop. He hears the door to Whaley’s room slam, and he knows it’s over.

***
His father left a note saying he would be at Melinda and Paul’s for a week or so, and left their phone number. Underneath the note, Whaley finds an envelope with a hundred dollars in cash in it. “In case you need it” is written on the envelope. Whaley shows the money to his mother. “What do you think he wants me to do with this?” he asks her.

“I don’t know,” she says, “I don’t understand him anymore.”

Whaley looks through the kitchen cabinets, and then the refrigerator for something to make for breakfast. He finds his father’s packages of cookies and Nabisco cheese and crackers and potato chips, a chicken pot pie in the freezer, but nothing he can eat. Nothing that wouldn’t make his stomach hurt. “I’m going to the store,” he says, “I’ll be back in a while.”

It’s a warm day even though it’s the end of October, and he decides the two mile walk to Baylor’s Grocery will be good. His father should already be in Raleigh, and Whaley wonders what he has told Melinda and Paul about why Whaley isn’t there.

At Baylor’s, he picks out cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, and green and red peppers—almost a week’s worth. The elderly cashier talks to him as she rings him up.

“I remember you,” she says, squinting at him over her thick glasses, “you’re Jenny Tate’s son. How are you and your poor daddy doing?”

“We’re fine,” Whaley says, holding out the money for the groceries.

“We were all so shocked by what happened,” she says, “I still can’t believe it. Your mother was such a pretty girl.”

“She’s beautiful,” Whaley says.

The cashier looks at him, and then goes on. “Well, if you ever need anything, all you have to do is ask. I know it’s been hard for you, but we’ve all been through our tragedies.”

Before she can say anything else, Whaley has taken the bag of vegetables, put his ten dollar bill on the counter, and has left the store. He is halfway home before he stops running.

When he gets back to the house, he puts his vegetables away in the refrigerator.

“Don’t you remember what I’ve always told you?” his mother says, behind him when he straightens up, “they’ll lose their nutrients. Not that any of that stuff has any nutrients left, anyway.”

“Sorry, Mom,” Whaley says, and takes the bags back out of the crisper and puts them on the counter. “Mom,” he says, “why did you want to leave Dad?”

“I don’t know,” she says, “it’s complicated. Your father and I used to fight a lot. You’ve asked me this so many times before, Whaley. I don’t know anymore now than I did before.”

“Did you love him?”

“I don’t know. I wanted to. At first I did.”

“When?” Whaley asks as he pulls out a tomato and a cucumber from his grocery bag.

“I don’t know, Whaley. Early. Before you were born.” His mother doesn’t look at him.

“Why before I was born? What changed after I was born?” He stops what he is doing and looks at her. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened, honey, I just started feeling differently toward him. It’s hard to explain.” She twists her hair between her fingers and looks at the floor.

He doesn’t really want to talk about it anymore, but he can’t stop. “Try. Please.”

“I don’t know. It didn’t happen right away. When you were a baby, I was really happy. I loved your father, and of course I adored you. I think we were really happy. But later, as you got older, I started to think maybe I had made a mistake. Maybe being a wife and a mother wasn’t what I really wanted. Your father couldn’t understand why I felt that way.” She touches his arm.

“I loved you, but I was just so scared.”

“Did my father love me?” Whaley asks. “Did he love me as much as you did?”

“I don’t know, Whaley. I think he did, but it was always so hard to tell with him. You know how he is.”

Whaley cuts a tomato, a cucumber, a pepper, and an onion, and eats them at the kitchen counter with a glass of milk. They taste like plastic, watery and bland and nothing like the vegetables he used to eat with his mother, but he forces them into his mouth and chews. His mother watches him while he eats, and rolls her eyes.

“I remember when we had real food around here,” she says, and Whaley nods.

“I think we should start planting while your father is gone,” she continues. “It’s the perfect time to do it, while the ground is still warm. It’ll be easy with both of us.”

“Sure,” Whaley says. “We can start tomorrow.”

The next day they dig and till until Whaley’s hands are blistered and his back is sore from bending over. His mother doesn’t get tired, but she tells him to rest whenever he needs it. They dig until it is dark, until Whaley can’t see what he is doing, and then they stop for the night.

“We got a great start on things,” she says as she follows him into the house.

After Whaley has showered, they sit on the couch together watching television until Whaley falls asleep. When he wakes up, his mother is leaning over him.

“Whaley,” she says, “there’s someone at the door.”

Whaley hears the knocking, and looks at the clock. It is 1:30 in the morning.

“Are you Richard Tate’s son?” the police officer asks when Whaley opens the door. Whaley looks at his mother before he answers. “Yes.”

“There’s been an accident. I’m sorry, but your father was involved.” The police officer looks like he isn’t sure what he should say.

“Is he okay?” Whaley asks, and the officer shakes his head.

“He hit another car head-on,” he says, “I’m so sorry to have to tell you this.” The officer puts his hand on Whaley’s shoulder and squeezes. “Is there anyone you’d like me to call? We’ve contacted your aunt and uncle, and they’ll be here in a few hours. In the meantime, you can come to the police station with me and wait for them.”

Whaley shakes his head. “I want to stay here,” he says. He looks at his mother, and she nods. He can’t tell what she’s thinking.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” the police officer says, frowning at him. “You’re too young to be left alone right now.”

“I’m not—” Whaley starts to speak, but his mother puts her finger to her lips. “I’d really rather just wait for my aunt and uncle here,” he says. “They should be here pretty soon. I want to be here when they get here.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s a good idea. You better come to the station with me.”

Whaley puts on a pair of jeans and a t shirt, and slips on his sneakers. His mother brushes her hair and follows him into the car.

“He must have been on his way home,” she says, “he must have left early.” Whaley nods.

“Maybe he was coming back to get you.”

“Probably.”

“It’s a terrible thing,” she says.

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