Winter Garden

Backing away from the bed (she had to, had to make herself move, leave, now before she completely broke), she picked up the phone to call Danny but hung up before she’d even heard a tone. What would she say to him? How could words ease a pain like this? Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a blur of movement in the yard; dark blurring across white.

She moved to the window.

Mom was out there, in the snow, trudging toward the greenhouse.

Nina hurried downstairs and slipped back into her borrowed coat and wet boots, then walked across the porch, passing the kitchen window. Inside, she saw Meredith talking on the phone, her face chalky, her lips trembling. Nina didn’t even know if her sister saw her pass by.

She went down the side steps and into the thick snow at the corner of the house. Aftera few feet, she picked up Mom’s trail and stepped in her footsteps.

At the greenhouse, she stopped just long enough to gather courage and then opened the door.

Her mother was in her lawn nightgown and snow boots, kneeling in the dirt, pulling up tiny potatoes and throwing them in a pile.

“Mom?”

Nina said it twice more, and got no answer; finally, sharply, she said, “Anya,” and moved closer.

Mom stopped and looked back. Her long white hair was unbound and fell in tangles around her pale face. “There are potatoes. Food will help him. . . . ”

Nina knelt beside her mother in the dirt. It scared her to see her mother this way, but in a strange way, it soothed her, too. For once, they were feeling the same thing. “Hey, Mom,” she said, touching her shoulder.

Mom stared at her, slowly frowning. Confusion clouded those brilliant blue eyes. She shook her head and made a sound, like a hiccup. Fresh tears glazed her eyes and the confusion lifted. “Potatoes won’t help. ”

“No,” Nina said quietly.

“He’s gone. Evan is gone. ”

“Come on,” Nina said, taking her by the elbow, helping her to her feet. They walked out of the greenhouse and into the snowy yard.

“Let’s go inside,” Nina said.

Mom ignored her and walked into the calf-deep snow, her hair and nightgown billowing out behind her in the slight breeze. At last she sat on the black bench in her garden.

Of course.

Nina followed her mother. Unbuttoning her own coat, she took it off and draped it over Mom’s thin shoulders.

Shivering, Nina drew back and sat down. She thought she knew what her mother loved about this garden: it was contained and orderly. In the sprawling acreage of the orchard, this one square felt safe. The only color in the garden, besides summertime and autumn leaves, belonged to a single copper column, simple in design and accentuated with scripted decorations, that supported a white marble bowl that, come spring, would be filled with white, trailing flowers.

“I do not want him buried,” her mother said. “Not in ground that freezes. We’ll scatter his ashes. ”

Nina heard the familiar steel in her mother’s voice again, and she almost missed the craziness of a minute ago. At least the woman in the greenhouse felt things. This woman, her mother, was back in control. Nina longed to lean against her, to whisper, I’m going to miss him, Mommy, as she might have done as a little girl, but some habits were so ingrained by childhood that there was no way to break them, even decades later. “Okay, Mom,” she said finally.

A minute later, she stood up. “I’m going to go in. Meredith will need some help. Don’t stay out here too long. ”

“Why not?” her mother said, staring at the copper column.

“You’ll catch pneumonia. ”

“You think I could die from the cold? I am not a lucky woman. ”

Nina put a hand on her mother’s shoulder, felt her flinch at the contact. As ridiculous as it was, that little flinch hurt Nina’s feelings. Even now, with Dad’s death between them, Mom wanted only to be alone.

Nina went back into the house and found Meredith still in the kitchen making calls. At her entrance, Meredith hung up and turned.

In the look that passed between them was the realization that this was who they were now. The three of them—she and Mom and Meredith. From now on they’d be a triangle, distantly connected, instead of the circle he’d created. The thought of that made her want to run for the airport. “Give me a list of numbers. I’ll help with the calls. ”

More than four hundred people filled the small church to say good-bye to Evan Whitson; several dozen of them had come back to Belye Nochi to show their respects and raise a glass. Judging by the dishes Meredith had washed, a lot of glasses had been raised. As expected, Nina had been a marvelous host, drinking easily and letting people talk about Dad; Mom had moved through the crowd with her head held high, rarely stopping for longer than a moment; and Meredith had done all the heavy lifting. She’d organized and set out all of the food people had brought; she’d made sure there were plenty of napkins, plates, utensils, and glasses on hand, as well as ice; and she’d washed dishes almost continuously. There was no doubt that she was doing what she always did when stressed: hiding out behind endless organizing and chores. But honestly, she wasn’t ready to mingle with friends and neighbors yet, to listen to memories about her father. Her grief was too new, too fragile to be handed back and forth in drunken hands.