The First Gardener (41 page)

“Welcome back!” Anna pulled Mackenzie into a hug. “We held the fort down.”

Mackenzie leaned her head on her friend’s shoulder. “I had no doubt.”

Eugenia pushed Mackenzie and Anna toward the elevator and up to the kitchen, where Harrison had already put Berlyn, Sandra, and Dimples to work. Berlyn was slicing tomatoes. Sandra was putting silverware out. And since Dimples wasn’t allowed to play with sharp objects, she was wiping off dinner trays.

But Dimples was sneaky. When Sandra wasn’t looking, she grabbed a fork and snagged a carrot from one of the steam trays.

“If you take another one, I’ll fork you.” Sandra held up her own utensil and turned it in her hand, making sure Dimples saw it no matter which eye she was looking with.

Harrison looked at Mackenzie. “How’d you come out so normal?”

She pulled a plastic cap over her hair. “Who knows?”

Eugenia brought a large tray of lettuce to the serving line. “Girls, if you can’t act right, I won’t take you out anymore.”

Berlyn put her knife down. “Well, I vote that the next time we go out, we at least go to a place where there are men—preferably men with jobs.”

“Yeah,” Dimples said. “Social Security is
tight
.”

“Y’all don’t need men. You need to be put in a home,” Sandra quipped as she patted the bobble necklace that hung in the deep
V
of her blouse.

Berlyn giggled. “As long as it’s a home with men.”

Harrison stuck his fingers in his ears and started singing.

Mackenzie laughed. “You’re scaring him.”

“Scaring him?” Eugenia flailed her hand in Harrison’s direction. “They’re scaring
me
.”

“Hey, you brought them,” Mackenzie reminded.

Berlyn turned to Sandra. “Why are you acting so self-righteous, anyway? We finally got you set free from high-collared shirts. Now it’s time to find you a man.”

Eugenia nearly gasped when she saw Dimples’s good eye wander toward Harrison. “Dimples, don’t even think about it,” she whispered sharply.

Dimples lowered her head quickly and scrubbed hard at the tray in her hands.

“I just started going through the change,” Sandra said. “That’s why I had to wear cooler tops.”

“Change-schmange, Sandra. You’re practically the same age as me,” Berlyn shot back. “You haven’t had the use of your girl parts for as long as I’ve gone without sex.”

Eugenia could see Dimples trying to do the calculations in her head. If she didn’t stop her, she might hurt herself. Berlyn must have seen it too. “It’s been fifteen years, Dimples. Herbert died fifteen years ago.”

Berlyn raised her eyebrows at Eugenia. Eugenia shook her head. She could only hope it had been fifteen years.

“I have all of my parts, for your information,” Sandra said.

Harrison glanced at the clock. “Oh, looky there—we’ve got to go to work.”

The doors opened, and women and children began filing in. A little girl with black curls was at the front of the line, balanced on her mother’s hip. Eugenia looked up just in time to see Mackenzie disappear around the corner.

And her heart stopped.

Mackenzie knew what she had to do. It was one of the reasons she’d wanted to come to the mission tonight—to get it over with. One more first time among all the first times that remained ahead of her.

The first visit to an elementary school for a curriculum meeting.

The first movie with Gray and without Maddie.

The first warm spring day without a child to go to the park with.

One at a time, she was determined to tackle them all. It was all about going through. In fact, she was beginning to realize that it was in the going through—not the avoiding—that God had promised to be with her.

Letting the kitchen door close behind her, she approached a young woman in the front of the line, the one with the beautiful black-haired baby. “Can I hold your little girl while you fix your tray?”

The woman studied Mackenzie and finally nodded. Mackenzie took the little one in her arms and pulled her close to her chest. Her friends serving in the line all seemed to be holding their breath, waiting for her to collapse, scream, do something that they thought looked like the face of grief.

But this was grief too. She was doing grief, doing it the way she had to do it in this particular season. She was holding the very thing she didn’t have and realizing that babies were still going to be born in this world. Every day, someone was going to have one. She was going to encounter them in grocery stores and gas stations and here at the mission. And those babies would never be hers. She had no choice about that. She could only choose to run from them or run to them.

“Hey, pumpkin,” she said, bouncing the baby on her hip.

The girl reached up and pulled at Mackenzie’s long hair. “Yeah, that’s my hair. I wish I had your curls, though,” she said, fingering black ringlets.

The baby jumped in her arms as she spotted her mother coming with a tray, her little face lit up with excitement. Mackenzie followed the mother to a table and settled the little one in a high chair. For the rest of the evening, she did this with baby after baby after baby.

There were a couple of moments when all the what-ifs wanted to rage to the surface. But she mentally set them aside, knowing the what-if game would rob her of the ability to live in the what-could-bes.

This was her life.

And she had chosen to live it.

“Thank you, Lord,” Eugenia whispered under her breath when she saw Mackenzie walk into the cafeteria. She had feared for a brief moment that they might be carrying her daughter out on a stretcher, and without thinking, she had started after her. But then she stopped, feeling strongly that she wasn’t to follow her. That this was now about Mackenzie’s journey to her own healing.

Besides, once they started serving, she was too busy to worry about Mackenzie. It was her job to fix the salads. Berlyn dipped the whipped potatoes and gravy. Sandra served the veggies. Harrison served the meat, and Dimples passed out rolls, most of which actually made it to the plates, while Anna and the other volunteers kept them all well-stocked with food.

From her vantage point, Eugenia could see bittersweet delight on her baby girl’s face and tears that she swiped throughout dinner. She felt a lump rise in her throat at the thought of all that the last year had brought her and her family. Then she looked at the faithful friends beside her and felt how truly blessed she was. She also thought about Jeremiah, the steady and faithful man who was as kind as she was ornery. How he had been so steady in loving her family. She might even find it in her heart to cut him some slack about that garden.

A loud clang came from the end of the line and stirred her thoughts back to the present. She looked down the aisle to see Dimples pop up from underneath the counter. She rose with two rolls in her hand. “It’s all good!” she announced.

And it was. Their hearts would never be the same. Broken like that never heals completely, and Eugenia wouldn’t want it to. She didn’t want to be the same.

She wanted to be better.

She was standing here with her good friends, serving food to people who needed it. And looking out into the dining room, watching joy and sorrow and determination do their dance on her daughter’s face as she ran headlong into her healing. And she had just given Jeremiah Williams a box of handkerchiefs. Blue handkerchiefs.

If that wasn’t a sign of
better
, she didn’t know what was.

Chapter 57

Lights had taken over the living room, along with three cameras that had been set up to deliver Mack and Gray’s story to Tennesseans. Dan Miner, an anchor for the NBC affiliate, adjusted his lapel mic and checked his notes, preparing for the interview.

It had been a long week. Kurt, Fletcher, and the rest of the staff had been working on the launch of Gray’s unusual campaign—making plans, talking to donors and supporters, as well as trying to keep the business of state rolling along. More importantly, Gray and Mackenzie had been to see Ken Jantzen three times this week. The sessions were exhaustingly painful, yet hopeful too. Getting out pain that severe could wear you out, but it also freed you.

Every night that week, he and Mack had crawled into bed at nine. The first couple of nights, he’d been afraid to close his eyes. Afraid that in the morning she would decide it wasn’t worth getting up anymore. But every morning, there she was.

There were tears, of course, and anger, but she was getting up and facing each day. And he was too. They were doing it together.

Mack walked into the living room, her spring-green dress moving softly against her hips. She was still too thin, but her beauty was undeniable, and he loved seeing a hint of color in her cheeks. She extended her hand to the news anchor, and a wide gold bracelet dangled from her delicate wrist.

The reporter turned to him. “Well, Governor, we’re ready if you are.”

Gray looked at Mackenzie. “You ready, babe?”

She nodded, apprehension evident on her face. He leaned toward her, his voice low. “We don’t have to do this. It is not too late for us to change our minds.”

She shook her head firmly. “No. We can do it. Like Ken said, this can be part of our healing.” She straightened his baby-blue tie. “Did you wear this for me?” She smiled. “Because it makes your eyes look electric.”

He nodded. He had. He loved to wear blue for her, and he loved it even more that she was finally noticing him again.

“Okay, then.” He took her hand and led her to two chairs that sat in front of a large window overlooking the gardens. Gray unbuttoned his khaki sports coat and pulled at the bottom of his tie as he sat. Cameras started rolling, and Dan began.

“Governor, the people of Tennessee know that this has been a difficult year for you and your wife. And we are here today because you requested this. What is it that you and Mrs. London want to share with the state of Tennessee?”

Gray and Mackenzie simultaneously let out deep exhales. Then he began to tell their story. He covered everything from Maddie’s death to the miscarriage to the counseling to their decision to run for reelection without a traditional campaign.

“And are you concerned about the lawsuit from the Victims’ Rights Association that goes to trial in a few weeks?” Dan asked.

“We are confident the court will see that we were making decisions based on what we believed was best for all Tennesseans. And we had been left with few options.”

“What about the new budget that the General Assembly has passed? Do you plan on vetoing any of it?”

“I am committed to my original statement. If the Assembly has kept in earmarks that I believe are detrimental to this state and its budget, I won’t let them remain, and I believe we have enough votes for my vetoes to stand. And then these grown men and women will be left to face the voters as well for the decisions that they have made.”

“And your opponents?”

“My opponents are formidable and, I believe, capable. I can tell you, moreover, that this will not be a campaign of mudslinging from my camp. I will engage in open and honest debate, and my team will not respond to anything other than that.”

The anchor turned his attention to Mackenzie. “Mrs. London, as we wrap this up, are you sure you’re ready for this campaign?”

She looked at Gray, then back toward Dan. She shook her head. “No. Honestly, Dan, I’m not sure what I’m going to feel like ten minutes after you leave, much less what I’m going to feel like tomorrow. I’m just at the point where I’m making myself get out of bed every morning and not wishing my life away. I have no guarantees for anyone.”

She reached down and clasped her husband’s hand. “All I know is I’m alive. For some reason, I wasn’t killed in that car accident that day, which in and of itself is a miracle. My grief didn’t kill me, though sometimes I wished it would. But it appears I’m going to live. And right now, in this moment, that is what I’m doing. I’m living.”

As the interview ended, the cameras shut down, and the room emptied. And thus began a new kind of campaign.