“Also that.” Eleanor pushed the sugar bowl toward her own cup. “Monday is book club. Tuesday is garden club. Wednesday is watercolor with Diane—you remember Diane, she did that series on pelicans?—”
“I remember Diane.”
“Thursday is wine tasting at the new place on PCH, and Friday is Circle night as always.” Eleanor folded her hands on the table. “Five days. Structured. Purposeful. We discussed itand we all agreed—retirement needs a framework or it becomes a void.”
Margo set the Schedule on the counter and looked at it the way she might look at a parking ticket. “Eleanor. I’m eighty, not dead.”
“Nobody said you were dead. We said you were unstructured. You’ve been wandering around this house for two weeks painting the same corner of the same canvas and eating crackers for lunch.”
“I eat more than crackers.”
“Vivian saw you eating crackers over the sink on Saturday.”
“Vivian should mind her own kitchen.”
“Vivian’s kitchen is immaculate and she has opinions about yours.” Eleanor took a sip of coffee. “The point is you gave the Shack to the grandchildren. Which was right, and brave, and we’re all proud of you. But now you need something to do with your days that isn’t standing in your studio staring at a canvas you won’t finish.”
Margo looked at the canvas through the kitchen doorway. A half-finished landscape — the view from Heisler Park at the hour when the light went copper. She’d started it three weeks ago. The sky was done. The ocean was close. The foreground kept defeating her because the foreground was where the Shack would go, and every time she picked up the brush for that section her hand found an excuse to stop.
“Garden club,” she said. “Tuesday.”
“Petunias this week. Nancy Ogden is hosting. She has that yard with the stone path and the koi pond.”
“I know Nancy’s yard.”
“Then you know it’s lovely.”
Margo knew it was lovely. She also knew that Nancy Ogden could talk about soil pH for forty-five uninterrupted minutesand that the koi pond attracted raccoons that Nancy had named and spoke about as if they were tenants.
“Fine,” Margo said. “Tuesday.”
Eleanor beamed — she’d won a negotiation she’d probably expected to be harder. She finished her coffee, kissed Margo’s cheek, collected the empty plastic sleeve, and left.
Margo stood in her kitchen and looked at the Schedule on the counter. Five days a week. Color-coded. With a legend.
She poured herself more coffee and took it to the studio.
The canvas waited. The foreground waited. She picked up a brush, held it over the palette, and set it back down.
She drank her coffee instead.
Garden club was fine.
Nancy’s yard was as lovely as promised. The stone path wound between raised beds, each one labeled with hand-painted markers that Nancy had made herself during what she called her “pottery phase.” The koi pond glittered in the September afternoon. Three women Margo didn’t know were arguing about bulb placement. One had a diagram.
Eleanor handed Margo a pair of gardening gloves and a small trowel. “We’re doing the border bed today. Petunias and marigolds.”
“I can see that.”
“Nancy says the trick is spacing. Two inches between each plant.”
“I’ve been gardening longer than Nancy’s been alive.”
“Not competitively.” Eleanor knelt at the bed and started digging. “This is collaborative gardening. Different energy.”
Margo knelt beside her. Her knees complained. She ignored them the way she’d been ignoring them for a decade — they had opinions about everything and she’d stopped consulting them.
The petunias were purple and white. They came in plastic trays, roots bound tight, waiting to be loosened and set into new ground. Margo worked one free, turned it in her hand, pressed her thumb gently against the root ball the way she’d taught Anna to check tomatoes. Different plant. Same instinct.
