The Night Garden (29 page)

She had just finished cleaning up—some of the boarders settling in for the evening with books and games of cards—when Sam arrived. His hair was darkened and his skin was rosy and flushed, as if he’d just got out of the shower. He stood beside
her and touched her hair in greeting, tugging a strand below her ear, igniting a familiar heat, and she smelled the strong scent of aftershave.

“Going somewhere?” she asked.

“No. Why? Does it seem like I’m going somewhere?”

She gestured to his nice pants—khakis, in the heat—and his white dress shirt, which still bore a triangular mark at the shoulder as if it had just been ironed. “You look nice. I mean—you always look nice. But, you look
really
nice.”

“Let’s go for a walk.”

She laughed. “Do I need to change, too?”

“Only if you want to.”

She looked him over, his brown leather belt and nervous, darting eyes. He was up to something. “Give me five minutes,” she said.

She hurried to the silo, where she freshened up and slipped into one of her mother’s long dresses. It was softly yellow, a backless halter bearing all of her shoulders and some of her chest, and it flowed like water down to her toes. She brushed her hair, put on soft perfume, and was pleased by her reflection. She looked like a woman about to go for a walk on a summer evening with her lover. She looked like what she very nearly was.

Sam was waiting for her at the door; he seemed oddly nervous. Her mind raced with possibilities, but she could think of nothing that might have made him appear so fidgety and excited. Ever since he had found her having fainted in the Rainbow Garden, it was as if all the second-guessing and negotiating about the terms of their relationship had become unnecessary. There was so much to talk about, to catch up on, and they spent hours talking or not talking as the world went by. Olivia had insisted they refrain from touching in any way because he was
so exceptionally sensitive to her. And though she thought all the time of what it might be like to be his lover in more than name, she felt no loss, only gladness for his company and for the way he looked at her sometimes, as if she were a big, juicy apple hanging on a branch.

But then, something changed. Yesterday evening, Sam had brought her to the waterfall at the far end of Solomon’s Ravine, and though it was not much more forceful than spray from a garden hose, he watched while she took off her clothes and stood under the water. He’d brought dark leather gloves with him that creaked when he made a fist, and they spent a long, satisfying time learning each other’s bodies. She couldn’t have put a stop to it if she’d wanted to.

Afterward, when they lay in the grass together, she did not see how making love the old-fashioned way could offer her all that much more than the pleasure they’d discovered in the spray of the waterfall. She could not hold him to her afterward, could not stroke his hair, but still—she saw there was pleasure for them, deep and satisfying and uniquely
theirs.
Secretly, she worried about Sam’s sensitivity—that it could increase. But as she watched for signs that being with her affected him, she was relieved to see nothing noteworthy. The moment it seemed that being close to her—breathing the same air, standing in the same square of sunlight—was dangerous, she would have to let him go. But with any luck, it would never come to that.

Now Sam led her across the farm until they were in the orchard, and she wondered if he had some new erotic game in mind. They walked between rows of soft-looking trees, where hundreds of small apples were waiting to ripen into the full fertility of early fall. Because he seemed so agitated, she kept up an idle chatter about the dinner she’d made for the boarders, about how the peacock had got into the chicken yard that morning
and looked pleased as a king among peasants, and about the coming orchard harvest—anything to put him at ease. But Sam seemed only half dedicated to conversation, making perfunctory noises that lifted and dropped his Adam’s apple, and then gazing out to the trees.

“Sam.” She stopped. He looked down into her face. How she longed to lift her arms, twine them around his neck, feel the flex of her calves as she stood on tiptoe to kiss him. She remembered yesterday, his hands smoothing over her, the water running down in droplets that he traced with his gloved fingertips, and she shivered. “What’s on your mind tonight?”

“The orchard looks great.”

“Yes. Thanks.” She glanced into the old, gnarled branches of the trees. The apples were small this year, unable to glut themselves on rainwater, but they would be exceptionally tasty—even by Olivia’s standards. Rumor had it that none of Olivia’s apples ever made it as far as a tart or pie: They were all eaten fresh, straight from the hand. And the orchard itself was beautiful, too, serene and fragrant, hung with the faintly violet haze of high summer. But Olivia doubted that Sam had brought her here to point out the pretty setting. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

“I always wanted to get married in this orchard. Did you know that?”

“No.”

“I thought it would be a great spot for a fall wedding.”

“It would be a nice spot,” Olivia said.

He turned directly toward her. His face was freshly shaven and she wondered what it might feel like under her hand.

“Olivia. I …”

“What?”

He pressed his lips together. Then dug into his pocket and handed her a small box. She opened it slowly, suspecting.
And there, settled in green velvet, was her mother’s wedding band.

“Sam—”

“Wait. Don’t say anything.” He took the box back from her, pulled the ring from its emplacement, then lowered himself to one knee.

“Sam, don’t—”

“I know I haven’t been in Green Valley that long. That we haven’t had a lot of time together. But when something’s right, it’s right. I love you, Ollie. I always have. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Starting right now.”

Olivia’s eyes stung. Her heart was flooding with happiness. She clasped her hands together at her breastbone.

“Will you say yes?”

The word was on her tongue, sweet as a drop of candy. The stones of her mother’s ring gleamed with familiar warmth, and it occurred to her that her father must have played some part in this. He’d given the wedding his blessing. In spite of his feelings about love and loss, Olivia had told him that
Sam
was what she wanted, what would make her happy. And now, here Sam was, proposing exactly the thing she was afraid to allow herself to want.

Sam’s eyes were dancing. “We’ll get married tomorrow. Right under this tree. What do you say?”

“Tomorrow!”

“Why not? I would marry you right this minute if I could. I would have married you thirteen years ago. Or yesterday. Olivia—you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to hear you say yes.”

Above them, a bird flew against the dimming sky. The night was coming alive. Olivia knew she was taking too long, and with each passing fraction of a second, the worry on Sam’s face increased.

“Sam,” she said softly. “I love you.”

He breathed out hard.

“Everything about you makes sense to me. You being here makes sense. Please believe me—I want you by my side every day for the rest of my life.”

“But …?”

“But this is all so, so
fast.
”

“No,” he said, a pinch of annoyance in his voice. “It’s not fast.”

“It’s fast for me.”

He struggled to right himself, so he was once again standing. “Are you saying no?”

Her back teeth clenched together—if she could touch him, take his hands in hers, she was certain she could make him feel how much she loved him. “I’m not saying no. I’m just saying, not right now.”

“I don’t understand this. You’ll marry me later, but not tomorrow?”

“We have our whole lives ahead of us together. There’s no rush.”

A flash of anger crossed his face. “You don’t think I’m serious.”

“I know you are.”

“You think I’m going to change my mind and run away.”

“That’s not it at all,” Olivia said.

“Then, what? You love me?”

“Oh yes. You know I do.”

“Then what’s going on?”

“I just … I don’t know how to explain. It just feels fast. I wasn’t expecting this. Not so soon.”

“I know how I feel about you. I know what I want.”

“But, do you understand what you’re
asking
?”

He lifted his hands and dropped them in frustration. “This is what I mean. You think I’m going to get tired of you and break your heart. I won’t—Olivia. I promise. Look, I know a lot of people have disappeared from your life. But I’m not going to be one of them.”

“I know that,” she said softly. She did not doubt his love for her, his resolve to stay. Once Sam made a decision, he stood by it—just as he would stand by her. But
she
would feel better knowing that she’d done her part in making it easy for him to release himself from her
if
he did want to—which, of course, he wouldn’t. But they could not predict the future. Perhaps his sensitivity to her would increase someday. If it did—or if something else began to feel unsatisfying to him—she could promise there was an emergency exit for him, an open door he could walk through anytime without having to feel even a little guilty about it. Given her condition, she thought it would be miserly and mean to
not
give him an easy out. He had her love, all of it, everything she was. And because of that, she would protect his future with sensibility and caution, even if he would not.

“Here,” he said, holding up the ring for her. “Take it.”

Her stomach flipped. Was he retracting his offer? “I want you to hold on to it. For safekeeping. So you can ask me again.”

“I’m asking you
now.
And the offer will always stand. I know you think I don’t know what I’m getting into with this. But I do know. I know perfectly. And if I have to prove it to you—if I have to prove that I’m serious for you to marry me—then I will.”

“You don’t have to prove anything,” she said. “I believe you.”

“But you don’t believe
in
me.”

“Sam—”

He was walking away. She stood, bewildered, and watched him go. They’d had a fight. Their first fight. He’d asked her to marry him, and instead, they were fighting. How had it even
happened? How had she gone from being so happy to so … confused. The sun was fading, the wind lifted Olivia’s long hair off her bare back, and she felt on the breeze the first chilly kiss of the coming autumn.

“This isn’t over!” Sam called without turning around, loud enough so she could hear.

“Good,” she said quietly. “I don’t want it to be.”

Bet the Farm

It was morning when Olivia found him.

She was walking with Mei to the beehives when something in the field caught her eye and she thought,
How odd that someone would leave a bundle of clothes on the ground like that.
Mei was going on and on about how she wasn’t going to take some stupid job flipping burgers or taking movie tickets because she would rather have no job at all than get paid so little, and Olivia listened politely with half an ear. But then as they got closer, she saw that it was not just a heap of clothes on the grass in the distance, but a heap of clothes with a man inside them. She took off running with her heart in her throat, and a fearful, desperate wish:
Please oh please let it not be Sam.

She’d spent the whole night dreaming of him. And though some of her dreams were of entwining bodies and tangled sheets, most of her dreams were … well … they were just
floating.
She dreamed she was being carried along by some current—a fast, warm current that should have scared her but didn’t. She was happy in an easy, unstriving way that she’d never quite known before. She was not
trying
to be happy; she just was—a full surrendering to easy contentment. And though Sam was not technically with her in body in the dream, she knew he
was all around her, that he was the current, and she no longer had to be alone.

But as she ran toward the khaki-and-white lump on the grass, all the peace of her dream was gone—instantly and fully evaporated by fear. Sam was lying with his face in the grass, his arms at his sides as if he’d made only the most modest effort to stop himself from falling. She crouched beside him, holding her hands over him, trying to decide what to do. If she touched him, would she make it worse?
Oh God,
she thought.
Please, please no.

Mei, who had arrived at Sam’s lifeless body only a moment after Olivia, was dancing from foot to foot, asking what to do.

“I need you to roll him over.”

“By myself? I don’t think I’m strong enough …”

“Just
do it,
” Olivia commanded. “Come on, Mei. Get on your knees and push!”

Mei lowered herself to the ground, then heaved Sam’s shoulder. With some difficulty, she got him rolled onto his back. Olivia gasped. Mei leaned away. Sam’s skin was shiny and pale, but flushed deep red across the cheeks. She could see small hives covering his neck. He was having some kind of allergic reaction.
Please be breathing,
she told him, unsure if she’d just thought the words or said them aloud. She lowered her ear to his mouth, careful not to touch him.
Was
he breathing? She couldn’t tell. On any other day, she would have dialed 911 on the phone that she kept in her pocket. But all the rituals and systems of her life had been thrown off in the last few days, and her phone was sitting in her bedroom, plugged in to charge.

“Check his pulse,” she told Mei.

“Me? Why me?”

“I’ll talk you through it. Please, Mei. I know this is scary. But we have to help him.”

“
You
do it if you know how!”

Olivia balled her hands into fists. “This isn’t a question. Check his pulse. Now.”

Mei looked at Sam with a hint of disgust. “But … what if he’s dead?”

“Then you won’t feel a heartbeat. Do it!”

Reluctantly Mei reached out. She moved her fingers around Sam’s neck, and when Olivia began to ask “Well?” Mei shushed her. She closed her eyes. Olivia felt like she was going to throw up.