Piled high and wide and tight with every belonging they owned, Brett’s Silverado pulled away from the apartment with a billow of dark, poisonous smoke streaming from the dual exhaust tailpipes. Willow refused to look back at the place, her home for a whole six months, focused instead on their new apartment, which Brett had secured through his always sketchy connections. Dejected by yet another failure, she let herself drift off, longing for a time when they could make the rent on a regular basis, pay their utilities, and maybe, maybe have enough money left over to dine at a fancy restaurant, perhaps a Longhorn Steak House. She had almost dug them out of their deep financial hole, pulled extra shifts at Value Shopper, picked up an iffy telemarketing gig from a Facebook post she’d seen. But then her daddy succumbed to drawn-out cancer and his bitch of a wife had washed her hands of the arrangements, leaving Willow to dole out every dollar she’d saved to satisfy the funeral home. Another month, another crisis. She stared into the stratosphere wondering what disaster would descend upon her next. Who knew where her mom was? Jewel had fled the family drama long ago to California. And Gage still had two more years before possible parole. Brett was all she had, and she felt lucky, most of the time, sometimes, to have him, despite everything: his temper, his side hustle dealing marijuana, his aversion to real work, and his addiction to the virtual world. He could be sweet and kind, funny and entertaining. They enjoyed putt-putt and bowling, bean bag toss tournaments at Rocky’s on Thursday nights in the summer. She had a stash of pleasant memories with him, her only serious romantic partner. Yes, he could be demanding, especially when he’d been drinking, and yes, she’d concealed too many cuts and bruises from the world after disagreements and misunderstandings gone awry. But he could be affectionate too, had sat with her at the hospital when her appendix burst and bragged about her “bangin’ body” to his friends. They had been together for three years and, as Brett’s beloved truck rolled along, Willow rolled over their troubles in her mind, aware they had been the most stable of her nineteen.
The new apartment was located, Brett had warned her, in Shawnee Settles, a ramshackle collection of dilapidated duplexes and mobile homes along the railroad tracks near the municipal sewage plant. Most locals called it Stink Town because of the gag-inducing odor on hot days. Believed to be the site of an archeologically significant Shawnee Native village, informed residents knew their days there were numbered, that the government would likely seize the area for excavation in the near future, making Willow and Brett’s latest move as temporary and uncertain as all the rest. This was the train wreck of her life. The Silverado backed up to the front door and Willow dragged herself out, tugged on her jeans, pulled her hair into a pony, and steadied herself to unload their raggedy clothes, broken-down furniture, Goodwill pots and pans, and Brett’s brand-new big screen television he’d scored from a mysterious guy named Skittles.
“The one on the end,” Brett nodded as he unlatched the tailgate. The once-white siding sagged under layers of soot, likely deposited by the nearby glass factory. A mass of yew trees jutted in all directions, encroaching even on the walkway. Two rusted wrought iron posts propped up a tired porch cover. Inside the pair found peeling paint and dirty floors, carpet that might have been green but was now the color of mud. Willow’s heart sank, a dart of doom shooting through her body as she surveyed this rat’s nest, fissures in the walls, broken kitchen cabinet doors, drippy faucet, a window covered in sheet plastic to keep out the rain. But then she saw a most unusual object sitting atop a spindly side table against the far wall, a gold-flecked statue of a woman, head bowed, arms open, flowing sleeves rippling down as if she was mourning. She stood on what looked like a ball or orb, a snake slithering beneath her bare feet. “What the hell?” Brett stopped and dropped a garbage bag full of shirts onto the floor.
“I guess the last person left it behind,” Willow supposed.
“Well, this shit goes in the dumpster double-time.”
“No, wait. I kind of like it,” she reached out as if to protect the weathered statue.
“Whatever,” he continued toward the bedroom.
A pair of Brett’s friends from his drug-dealing business stopped by and helped unload the rest of the truck, lugging a mattress and bedframe, a futon, and a dresser missing two handles that Willow had bought at The Neighborhood Closet secondhand store. Then the boys sat on the living room floor and siphoned cheap beers Brett had purchased as payment. She sorted through her meager cooking supplies, set up the coffee maker to avoid listening to him rant about it in the morning, and emptied a box of condiments, a six-pack of Red Bull, and some hot dogs into the refrigerator. Finally, she moved to the sliding glass door on the back wall of what could be considered a dining area. She stood for a long moment surveying an enclosed patio area, a little oasis surrounded by a wobbly privacy fence, a row of three dormant rose bushes along the back. The area was gray and gloomy but seemed to have once been tended and alive. Willow stood, completely oblivious to Brett and company’s crude conversation about women’s body parts and imagined the possibilities this slight space held. She walked to the golden statue, cradled it in her arms like a baby, and carried it outside in the chilly wind, placing it on the ground amidst the rose bushes. This puny patch, she thought, could be special. It just needed some work, some old-fashioned TLC like on those home improvement television shows.
“Hello,” Brett startled her with sarcasm. “We’ve got work to do. What are ya screwin’ around out here for?” He waved her in.
As they settled into their new apartment, Brett hanging Bob Marley and Snoop Dogg posters and raging at his X-Box, Willow found herself spending her free moments in the garden, developing a plan, etching a mental schematic. She found herself googling information about rose bushes and gardening, soil, and plant food. She stopped one day at the nursery and floral shop on the other end of the strip mall where she worked, cruising the rows of plants and asking questions. She watched You Tube videos seeking tips and tricks for newbie horticulturists. As the weather broke and the world began to turn green, the hills coming to life, locals taking to the outdoors, bicyclists weaving in and out of traffic, jackets and sweaters shoved to the backs of closets, Willow found herself at the hardware store, stalking yard sales, thumbing eBay looking for deals. She bought marigold seeds online, impatiens and asters from a roadside stand, and found a damaged container of plant food in the dumpster at the local farm store and loaded it into the Silverado on the sly. She stopped in at an estate sale at a bungalow on the edge of town and scored an old watering can and a canvas tote filled with gardening tools. At garage sales she trolled for lawn décor: a birdbath, a statue of a child knelt in prayer, a windchime. She dug around her rose bushes, aerating the soil, watering, fertilizing, pruning, spraying to ward off fungus and bugs. She skipped a few lunches and bought a dozen clay pots using her employee discount at work and painted them bright colors, planting, sunning, turning, watering their occupants. The clematis along the west fence sparked to life, the rose bushes shot buds into the fresh air like jewels for a princess. At the center of her miniature paradise, Willow placed the statue of the Gracious Lady. She had learned from some internet research she was called The Blessed Virgin Mother by Catholics, Jesus’ mother, but Willow had already named her the Gracious Lady, had even taken to greeting her each day, “Good morning, Gracious Lady.” She painted the statue white so she would stand out against the dark wooden fence and red roses. She found a plastic bench, probably once a child’s toy, next to the apartment dumpster and set it across from the statue and started her days sitting on the bench, eating cinnamon Pop Tarts, and drinking Diet Mountain Dew as she ushered in the morning, Brett usually groaning in his sleep, hung over from a late night of Mortal Kombat.
She often set her soda on the bench, nibbling from her pastry treat, peeling back the silver pouch, studying her creation, her hidden patch of bliss. She would drink in the quietude, the fragrance, the sense of solitary oneness with her efforts. Here, and only here, she could breathe, really let down her defenses. She could relish the opportunity to feel whole, like a real person with goals and hopes and dreams. She could close her eyes and replay the garbage heap that was her life with new objectivity, new perspective. Her parents’ arguments, her sister’s suicide threats, her brother’s addiction all melted away. The times she let Aubrey convince her to skip school, her aborted semester at community college, Buck Listerman mounting her in his parents’ barn, yanking her panties to her knees, Willow not really sure what was transpiring, all of it faded. She remembered those weeks she and Brett slept in her father’s Kia while Brett worked his network to find them a home, embarrassed sojourns to the food pantry, lifting essentials from the shelves at work and slipping them down her pants, staring fearfully at a pregnancy test stick. Somehow, when she sat in her garden the sharp needles seemed dull. The angry eyes softened. The hunger pangs satisfied.
Too often, she would steal into her personal spa to find Brett’s cigarette butts strewn around the base of her Gracious Lady, rose petals stripped from their stems and crushed on the ground. She would gather the refuse, rake the soil, and reset herself, refusing to be brought down, forcing herself to float above it, a new-found sense of forgiveness. “Please don’t toss your butts at my Gracious Lady,” she pleaded one day.
“Why, does it mess with your witchery?” he cackled. “Is she your voodoo doll?”
As summer moseyed along, as she toiled in the garden, trimming, weeding, pruning, adoring, Willow came to see her fenced-in refuge as therapy, her personal spiritual haven. She had never been indoctrinated with any specific religious beliefs, her family focused solely on surviving. Her only exposure had been a few Sunday School sessions with neighborhood families who took her on as missionaries do. She remembered a picture of Jesus in one of the classrooms in which he looked kind and gentle and a little like Harry Styles. But unlike Hot Jesus the Gracious Lady calmed Willow, brought her a sensation of tranquility, of comfort, of safety.
“Damn it, get in here,” Brett stuck his head into her sanctuary one warm August evening. “I’m hungry. Whadda we got to eat?” he questioned.
“Not much,” she informed him. “Why don’t we spring for Taco Bell?”
“You got the money for that, ‘cause I don’t,” he snarled.
“I don’t know what to tell you, then,” she tipped her watering can onto a pot of pink impatiens.
He slid his body out onto the patio and puffed his chest, his finger pointing at her like a gun. “Listen. This fairy garden shit’s gotta stop. You spend all yer time out here dreamin’ yer life away. It’s stupid, a fucking waste of time.”
“It hurts nothing!” she raised her voice, forgetting how dangerous that could be. “I’ve got one good thing in my life that’s all mine” she shouted. “One!” She faced him with determination and bravery she’d never known she possessed. “It makes me happy, and I intend to enjoy it while I can, so just deal!”
Her words hung in the air like stale smoke, the cool evening soaking them up.
“We’ll see about that,” his voice lowered, teeth clinched. He moved back inside, kicking over a pot of geraniums, and Willow sat on her bench staring at her Gracious Lady, lips moving without sound, tears hanging in her eyes but not falling, hands trembling, her heart constricted. She sat in the garden long into the night, coming inside only to grab a quilt her grandmother had constructed from old clothing scrapes and some Cheez-Its. She stared at her garden, smiled at her shadowy conglomeration, let her mind meander through its enchantment, its possibilities. She wrapped herself in the quilt like a shroud and floated off someplace where hope resided at a permanent address, a real home. Eventually she rose, touched the Gracious Lady on the head like a mother leaving her sleeping infant, and, finally, surrendered to sleep.
After a few fitful hours, the first light of morning called Willow, bleeding around the yellowed sheet tacked over the window. She rose, adjusted her sloppy nightshirt, and stared at Brett, sprawled on his back, mouth open, arms across his face, legs tangled in the sheet. She scrutinized him for a full minute, attempting to eke out some feeling for him other than disdain, a reason to continue their charade. She stumbled as if a bit tipsy into the living room and found herself before the sliding glass door, surveying her peaceful garden, her escape. For the first time, perhaps, she allowed herself to feel a sense of pride in the hard work, the dedication she held for her project. It had been, she believed, her greatest achievement, the first time she had ever set her mind to a project and followed through with something worthwhile, and it made her happy, clearheaded, focused, resolved.
She slid through the track door ignoring the screech of its bent hardware, the torn screen, the NRA decal a previous tenant had plastered in the corner, and inhaled her little paradise, the sweetness of the budding rose bushes, resurrected from dormancy, the marigolds, popping up like toddler toys, the impatiens in their colorful pots, the metal hummingbirds on sticks, a ceramic frog nestled in a bed of mulch, a tumble of clematis falling over the back fence like a glorious purple waterfall. She sat on the unstable plastic bench and let her thoughts cleanse themselves, her shoulders relax, her tension evaporate. She gazed with admiration at the statue, bidding her, “Good morning, Gracious Lady,” and let the world fade away like the end of a movie. The unwelcome pressure of Brett’s forceful hands, his hateful words, mounting issues at work, her grief, her self-doubt, her financial worries evaporated like morning fog when she offered them up to the petite statue, surrounded by thorny branches with delicate crimson flourishes bursting forth. She felt a breeze tickle her face, her neck. The early morning sun washed her like a warm cotton cloth. Off in the distance she heard the sparrows, robins, and finches twitting and tweeting, life reborn. For the first time in her adult life Willow understood what peace felt like, how contentment felt like comfortable clothes. She smiled at the statue, gratitude for its gifts. Then her smile melted away because, she knew it sounded crazy, but she thought the Lady moved her arms. But of course, she didn’t. And did her flowing gown maybe cinch up a smidge? Willow blinked to clear her disbelieving eyes. Could the Lady’s head, perhaps, have nodded just a tad, an almost imperceptible dip? No, that’s preposterous! Willow took a breath and adjusted her body on the bench. Then she sensed soft humming, like a lullaby, but couldn’t place its origin. It couldn’t be Mrs. Chambers, next door. She was away visiting her daughter. Brett was in the bedroom still sleeping, the window closed. And yet, she heard the lilt of a soft voice. A tiny blue bird lit on the top of the fence, its head darting left and right as if searching for danger or a rendezvous, his nervous twitch did not reveal which. Willow began to feel lighter, like a ballon, as if she were somehow lifting from the bench, which was of course, ridiculous. She grasped the bench for stability. The humming sound, the hue of a woman’s voice cooing, grew louder, clearer, and Willow found herself mesmerized, entranced by it. Was she dreaming? Had she lost touch with reality? She began to hum along, harmonizing with the phantom voice as if they had rehearsed a duet. She sensed her body disassembling, somehow separating from the very air around her. She felt transmuted somehow, reconstituted in an unfamiliar but not unwelcome ephemeral state of buoyancy, as if gravity could no longer hold her. Suddenly a warm sensation, like bathwater, washed over her and she felt completely untethered to this world, surrendered to serenity.
Brett jolted awake as if from a nightmare. He tossed his arm across the bed but did not feel Willow’s body. He felt urgent, wanting, adrenaline coursing through his tattooed body. He glanced around the room. “Willy!” he shouted as if summoning a servant. “Where in God’s name are you?” He wiped his hand across his mouth and cleared a spittle deposit. When she failed to reply, he rose from under the sheet and plodded, naked and semi- erect, into the hallway, through the living room, bobbed his head into the kitchen, glanced to see the truck keys on the counter next to her purse, her shoes at the door, and stood before the sliding glass door. He stepped onto the little concrete patio, rubbing his chest, the sunshine blinding him for a brief time, streaming in like a searchlight. He glanced around Willow’s tiny retreat, that stupid reclaimed statue and the assorted bric-a-brac, the brightly colored pots, the explosion of flowers, yellow, orange, purple, pink, red, and white, the windchime, the frog, the praying child, a garage sale sign nailed to the shabby wooden privacy fence that said, “Welcome Home”, so much crammed into this miniscule space. But he did not find Willow. He squinted into the new day, confounded, deflated, agog. An eruption, probably a bird, from behind the statue of the Gracious Lady startled him and soared into the wide blue expanse.
