She knew she wasn’t going anywhere until her mother was good and ready. Then they’d load the tools into the car and head home, and her mom wouldn’t even thank her for helping. She’d just tell her to scrape the dirt out from under her nailsbefore she sat down for lunch or not to wear her dirty shoes in the house.
And lunch would probably be a turkey and cheese sandwich on that dry-as-sand wheat bread. Jill would get apple slices or carrot sticks while Justin could have a mountain of potato chips. He could have whatever he wanted. Chips. Oreos. An orange Creamsicle. Grilled cheese on rye.
If Jill asked for any of those things, her mother would say, “Have a nice glass of milk.”
J.J. should be here, Jill thought, her anger building.It’s not fair.
A jagged rock poked out of a brown patch of grass close to Jill’s sneaker. She pried it out of the ground and hurled it toward the woods. It sailed over the fence and was instantly swallowed by the dense vines.
She heard a faint rustle when her missile struck the foliage, but although she waited for the muffled thud of the rock hitting the ground, it never came.
The silence was as dense as the woods.
Jill felt eyes on her. There was something behind the trees, back where the shadows stitched together. Something was there, watching her.
Mrs. Smith.
Fear knotted Jill’s stomach.
She took a step backward. She couldn’t see a thing beyond the tangled mass of vines, but she knew she was no longer alone.
Jill grabbed the garden trowel, clippers, and the garbage bags stuffed with withering weeds. Then she ran to the front of the house and told her mother she’d finished her work.
Behind her, the vines she’d cut were already healing.
8
Una
Una closed her book with a sigh of satisfaction.
“It was good?” asked Kristofer.
Una smiled at her husband. “Very good. It’s also the last one from my pile. I’ll have to go to the library today.”
“I’ll come with you. I want to get that book by Kissinger.” Kristofer folded his newspaper and drank the last of the coffee in his mug. “Are you ready for me to brush?”
Una nodded and pulled her chair away from the patio table and the protective shade of its umbrella. As the morning sun lit her face, she closed her eyes and raised her face to the sky.
“You look like a cat,” said Kristofer, laughter in his voice. “A cat with long, silver fur.”
Standing behind his wife of forty-two years, he began to brush her hair using gentle, rhythmic strokes. Una had washed it earlier that morning and left it to dry in the summer air. While Kristofer showered, she’d made breakfast and carried it out to the patio overlooking their garden. For the next hour, they ate, drank coffee, and read. A mystery novel for her andThe New York Postfor him.
Saturday mornings were Una’s favorite time of the week, especially during the summer. She and Kristofer would sitoutside in companionable silence broken only by birdsong. When he was done reading the paper, he’d pick up her brush and run it through her hair, which fell down her back like a curtain of silver water.
“Like Skógafoss,” Kristofer always said. To him, Skógafoss was the most beautiful waterfall in the world. It was where he’d asked Una to marry him, where he’d taken her hands in his and declared that he’d found the lost treasure hidden in the cave behind the falls. “You’re the treasure. I found you.”
Una had thrown her arms around him, dizzy with happiness. There’d been no silver in her hair when she’d kissed him on the rocks below the falls. She’d been young and glowing with promise. Her cheeks had been wet from mist and tears, and when Kristofer told her to look up, she’d seen a rainbow dancing across the sky.
Even though she’d been young and inexperienced with the ways of the world, she’d looked into Kristofer’s kind face and known that he would never take her for granted. He’d brushed out her hair on their wedding night, and he’d been doing it ever since. His touch was as tender as it had been all those years ago. He was still the kind, appreciative man she’d kissed by the waterfall.
She saw how time had marked the skin on his hands as he laid the brush on the patio table, but she loved him all the more for his brown spots and swollen knuckles. They’d earned their wrinkles together, the two of them. They were the lucky ones.
After dropping a kiss on Una’s forehead, Kristofer collected their breakfast plates and went inside the house.
Una stayed where she was, surveying her garden while she braided her hair into a long rope. She then wrapped the braid around and around into a bun and pinned it in place.
A bee hovered over the table, demanding something fromher, so she poured a little water into a saucer for it and turned back to her garden.
