The First Gardener (33 page)

Gray nodded. “Got it. Real lemons, real sugar. No fake stuff.”

“Get on ’em, Governor!” And with that, Oliver was off.

Gray eased himself up from the grass, groaning slightly from the effort, then looked at Sophie, who was already whining for Oliver to come back. “We’ll be millionaires by bedtime, girl. Budget crisis solved.”

He started toward the house. She gave up and followed. And as they walked, a little piece of his heart felt like it was headed home.

The lemonade sale had been a success in so many ways. Oliver made forty bucks in the span of two hours. Of course one of his customers had given him a twenty just to get him to quit talking. And a little girl who stopped with her mother in their minivan had given him five dollars mostly because she thought Oliver was cute. And two troopers from Gray’s security detail had drunk two glasses apiece just because they had to stand out there with them.

Oliver was clueless about those dynamics, of course. As far as he was concerned, he and Gray were bona fide lemonade tycoons. Gray let him think it. The whole experience had done his heart good.

They had just begun to tear down the stand when a black van pulled up. “It’s a buck,” Oliver said as he extended a plastic cup.

Gray recognized a familiar clicking sound and looked up to see the zoom lens of a camera extending from the back window. The driver stuck his arm out, something black clutched in his fingers. The troopers moved in quickly. “Hey, hey,” the kid behind the wheel protested. “It’s just an iPhone.”

One of the officers jerked it from his hand. Gray stepped forward quickly as he moved Oliver out of the way, lemonade splashing on the pavement as he did. “It’s okay, Clint. Give him back the phone. He’s a kid who didn’t have anything else to do but come check on the governor today.”

The officer handed back the device, and the young man extended it toward Gray. “Governor, any comment on the budget that the house and senate are about to pass?”

Gray knew the phone’s recording function was on. He had a phone just like it. He shook his head.

“So is this what you do with your respite—play at a lemonade stand with neighborhood boys?”

Oliver bowed out his chest. “Hey, I’m not a boy. I am a young man.”

Gray bit his lip, trying his best to hide his growing anger. “I’m doing what people do when they take a break. I’m relaxing.”

“Do you really think this is a time for the governor to take off? People are losing their homes. You’re asking everyone to cut back, and you’re getting a paid vacation from the taxpayers.”

Gray felt his pulse quicken. “For over three years I’ve held this office, and I’ve taken a total of only twenty-one days off to be with my family. Frankly my wife needs me right now. And I don’t have to—no, I won’t apologize to you or anyone for it.”

“So making lemonade is taking care of your wife?” The question came out snide and smart-alecky.

“It’s time for you to go,” Gray said calmly.

“Yeah, if you ain’t giving us a buck, you need to get to the getting,” Oliver announced. Then he added with a wave of his hand—accurately, for a change—“Au revoir.”

The two young men drove off, and Gray made sure Oliver was okay before he sent him home. He could only imagine what stories the boy would come up with from this or what the reporters would do with what they’d discovered.

But Gray knew what he’d gotten from the afternoon. For the first time in more than six months, he’d actually had fun.

Chapter 44

Eugenia brushed the thick black hair that fell across her daughter’s back as she’d brushed it a thousand times. “Baby girl, you’ve got to eat. Rosa has told me that your plates are coming back untouched, and you can’t do that. Your body needs food.”

Mackenzie’s head tilted back slightly as Eugenia pulled her hair into a ponytail. Eugenia glanced at a vase filled with white violets. It was all Jeremiah had brought Mackenzie since Eugenia had told him that he could start giving her flowers again. They meant “let’s take a chance.”

Eugenia knew what he was trying to say with the violets. He was trying to call her daughter back out, encourage her to take a chance on living. And in the depth of her soul, she appreciated him for it. Mackenzie had never once bothered to ask what they meant. But Eugenia made a point of telling her anyway.

As Eugenia pulled the ottoman out, Mackenzie shifted her feet to make room.

“You can’t survive this way, and I need you to survive.”

Mackenzie turned her face toward her mother’s. Her eyes were sunken dark circles. “I don’t want to survive.”

Eugenia felt her breath leave her. Hearing Mackenzie say it out loud caused fear to race through her like blood through her veins.

“You can’t say that!” She grabbed Mackenzie by the shoulders. “If you were supposed to die, you would have died. But you didn’t. And I’m not going to let you. Do you hear me?” Eugenia’s tears broke loose with such force that she threw her head across Mackenzie’s lap, wrapping her arms around her daughter’s bony legs.

Mackenzie didn’t move. Eugenia’s dam of strength burst and seeped out across her daughter’s bedroom. But she didn’t care. She no longer cared. If it took her daughter seeing her heartbreak, she’d let her see it.

She finally raised her head and saw that Mackenzie wasn’t even looking at her, just staring out the window. She stood and quietly walked to the bathroom.

She heard the bedroom door open. “Mom?” She could hear concern in Gray’s voice.

“In here.”

He came around the corner, relief apparent when he caught sight of her. Then his face fell. “What’s wrong? Did Mackenzie say something?”

“No!” Eugenia didn’t care who heard her. She pointed toward the bedroom. “She doesn’t say anything! She is dying, Gray. My daughter is dying.”

Gray pulled her into a hug, and she let her head fall to his chest. “You’ve got to get her some help. We can’t just let her shrivel up and die.”

He held her tighter. “I know. Thad and I have already talked about it. He’s arranged for a wonderful psychiatrist to come evaluate her on Monday. He said that what he’s had her on doesn’t seem to be working, and he wants to bring in a specialist.”

He pushed back and held her shoulders, looking into her eyes. “I don’t know what will happen. The doctor may try another medication—and give her a little time to see how that works. Or he might think she needs to be in the inpatient program at Vanderbilt. But I’m committed to doing whatever it takes to get her back. You know that, don’t you?”

Eugenia studied his clear blue eyes. They looked so different now than they had just a couple of weeks ago. Calmer. More focused. More
there
.

“Of course I know that,” she said quietly. “I’ve never doubted how much you love my girl, Gray.” She rubbed her eyes. “All that psychiatrist stuff—I don’t know much about it. But I know my baby is sick, and I’m for anything that will get her well.”

He nodded and released her. “I know you are. Now, you go home. I’ll take care of her tonight. But come back tomorrow because I have someone I need to go see.”

Eugenia wiped her nose. “Okay, but please get her to drink or eat something.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Eugenia walked into the bedroom to her daughter. She leaned down and pressed her head to Mackenzie’s. “I will not let you die. Do you hear me?” When Eugenia raised her head, she saw a tear roll down one of Mackenzie’s sallow cheeks.

A glimmer of hope seeped through her. If Mackenzie could cry, she was feeling something. Tonight Eugenia would take that.

Chapter 45

Mackenzie didn’t try to stop the tears. Her mother’s words were true. Mothers did everything in their power to help their babies live and not die. She knew that. And she also knew that she was the ultimate failure.

She had heard Gray and her mother talking and knew what was being planned. But she didn’t care. If they put her in a hospital room and pumped drugs inside her for the rest of her life, she would be grateful. Anything to help her forget.

Gray lifted her from the chair. He carried her into the closet and began undressing her so he could put some pajamas on her. He had done this every night since her breakdown. She had done nothing, felt almost nothing. In fact, this was the first tear she had shed since that day.

Gray lifted her T-shirt over her head. “You remember when we first met? You would always fall asleep in the car on the way home from our dates, and I would carry you inside your apartment?” He didn’t wait for her to respond. He knew by now she wasn’t going to. “You could fall asleep anywhere. And the car was like a drug to you. Kind of like it was to Mad—”

He stopped himself, and his eyes darted to hers as if he expected her to break down. She didn’t. But she knew. Maddie could fall asleep anywhere. Anywhere . . .

He apparently decided he was willing to continue on that track. “Maddie was like that, too, wasn’t she?” He slipped off her bra and helped her put her arms in a cream silk pajama top. He talked as he buttoned her up. “I miss her so much, Mack. I miss her laugh. I miss her in my arms. I know you miss all that too. And it’s okay to miss it, you know. It’s okay to cry over it, yell over it, all of that. But we need to go through it. Experience it. Not just shut the pain out.”

He pulled her jeans off and helped her into the matching pajama pants, then raised his face up to hers. She looked at him, but she couldn’t see him. Not the way she used to. Not in that knowing way.

“We can’t go on like this, Mack,” he told her gently. “
You
can’t go on like this. So this is what needs to happen. If you don’t do something to pull yourself out of this, then we’re going to have to call another doctor, maybe even put you in the hospital. Do you hear me?” He wrapped his hands around her arms. She felt his fingers press into her flesh.

“I know what is inside of you. And if you could just talk to me or go with me to see Ken or something, I think we could walk through this healthy. But you are drifting to a place that I am petrified you’re not going to be able to return from, so I’ve got to get you some help.”

He cupped her face in his hands. “I’d love you back to life if I could, but at some point you’ve got to want to live. I can’t do that for you, Mack. I wish I could, but I can’t.”

She simply stared at him. She could see the pain in his expression and hear the desperation in his voice. But she couldn’t reach out to it, respond to it even if she wanted to. The parts of her that did such things seemed to have been ripped out of her.

He stood and stretched out his hand. She took it and let him lead her to the bathroom.

“Need me to brush your teeth?”

She shook her head, found her toothbrush, and brushed her teeth. When she climbed into her side of the bed, Gray’s body came up behind her, warm and encasing. But she had no energy to move to him. She just lay there.

At some point in the middle of the night, when he had retreated to his side, she moved her fingers until they barely touched his arm. It was a move that took everything that remained alive inside her. And way down deep, in places where the unspoken and often-untouched things of the soul resided, it was her heart’s last attempt to survive.

Because it felt as if one more drop into despair would prevent her from ever coming up again.

And Mackenzie London would be gone . . . forever.

Chapter 46

Gray had no idea what he would get behind this door. He lifted the knocker of the renovated farmhouse off Hillsboro Road. Debbie Green answered, a red-and-black dish towel hanging from her hand and a warm smile spread across her face. Without a word, she wrapped him in a big hug. He let her. When she released him, she said, “He’s out on the deck.”

He stayed on the front stoop, his feet on the large
G
in the center of a sea-grass doormat.

“Is he going to hit me?”

She laughed. “If he does, I’m going to let him.”

“I’m sorry, Debbie.”

“He understands. We both do.”

“It’s no excuse.”

She pointed to the back door. “You’re right. Now, go tell him.”

Gray kissed her full cheek as he stepped inside. “I love you.”

She patted his arm. “I love you too. And, Gray?” Her hazel eyes showed concern. “How’s Mack?”

He shook his head. “Not good.”

She closed the front door, then nudged him toward the back of the house. “Go.”

The pool area could be seen from the foyer through three French doors that lined the rear of the house. Kurt sat in a chair underneath an umbrella, his glasses propped on the end of his nose, a newspaper in his hands. His son, Tyler, sat on the edge of the deck, throwing a tennis ball for the family’s Labrador puppy.

Gray walked to the French doors and let himself outside. Kurt looked up, his gaze instantly conveying a welcome. He set the paper on the table in front of him and moved his chair back to stand and greet Gray.

Gray caught sight of the front page. A picture of him and Oliver stared back at him. “That was quick.”