Winter Garden

Meredith walked slowly forward, past the cold samovar and the empty fruit basket on the counter and into the dining room. The large oil painting of the Neva River at sunset had been taken down and propped against the table. Wallpaper had been torn away in huge strips. In places, dark blotches stained the blank walls. Dried blood? Had her mother worked so feverishly that she’d scraped the skin off her fingertips? Ragged strips of wallpaper had been placed in a bowl on the center of the table, like some weird wilted floral arrangement.

Behind her, the pot on the stove continued to boil over, water sizzling and popping. Meredith rushed to the stove and turned it off, seeing now that the pot was full of boiling water and strips of wallpaper.

“What in the hell . . . ?”

“We will be hungry,” Mom said.

Meredith went to her mother, gently took hold of her bloody hands. “Come on, Mom. Let’s get you washed up. Okay?”

Mom seemed hardly to hear. She kept mumbling about the money in the bank and how badly she wanted it, but she let Meredith lead her upstairs to the bathroom, where they kept the first-aid kit. Meredith sat Mom on the closed toilet seat and then knelt in front of her to wash and bandage her hands. She could see several precise cuts—slices—to the fingertips. These wounds hadn’t been caused by feverish scraping. They were cuts. Slices. “What happened, Mom?”

Her mother kept looking around. “There’s smoke. I heard a gunshot. ”

“It’s the smudge pots. You know that. And you probably heard Melvin’s truck backfire. He’s here to make sure the pots are all working. ”

“Pots?” Mom frowned at that.

When Meredith had her mother cleaned and bandaged, she put her into bed and pulled up the covers. That was when she noticed the bloodied X-Acto knife on the bedside table. Mom had cut herself on purpose.

Oh, God.

Meredith waited until her mother closed her eyes. Then she went downstairs and just stood there, looking at the damage around her—the boiling wallpaper, the ruined walls, the freaky table arrangement—and fear settled in. She went out to the porch just as Melvin drove away. It took every scrap of willpower she had not to scream out loud.

Instead, she pulled the cell phone out of her pocket and called Jeff at work.

“Hey, Mere. What is it? I’m just about ready to—”

“I need you, Jeff,” she said quietly, feeling as if she were coming apart. She’d tried so hard to do everything right, to fulfill her promise to her father, and somehow she had failed. She didn’t know how to handle this alone.

“What is it?”

“Mom has gone way around the bend this time. Can you come over?”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes. ”

“Thanks. ”

She made a call to Dr. Burns next and told him she needed him to come over immediately. She didn’t hesitate to use the word emergency. This definitely qualified as one in her book.

As soon as the doctor said he’d be right over, Meredith disconnected that call and dialed Nina’s number. She had no idea what time it was in Botswana or Zimbabwe—wherever her sister was now—and she didn’t care. She only knew that when Nina answered, Meredith was going to say, I can’t do this alone anymore.

But Nina didn’t answer. Instead, her perky recorded voice said, “Hey, thanks for calling. God knows where I am right now, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you when I can. ”

Beep.

Meredith hung up the phone without leaving a message.

What was the point?

She stood there, the phone in her hand, staring through the slowly dissipating smoke. It stung her eyes, but it hardly mattered. She was crying anyway. She didn’t even remember when it had started, her crying, and for once, she didn’t care.

True to his word, Jeff showed up in less than ten minutes. He got out of the car and came toward her. At the top of the porch steps, he opened his arms and she walked into them, letting his embrace hold her together.

“What did she do?” he finally said.

Before she could answer, there was a loud crash in the kitchen.

Meredith spun on her heels and ran back inside.