Page 36 of Meet Me in the Garden

“Is there anything else you can tell me?”

“There is this one thing,” Naomi says. “It’s in the yard. You can come through the house.”

She leads me back to her door and it’s dreamlike, stepping inside this place where Delphine lived. It’s smaller than it appears from the street, a strained grandeur to it, decorative white pillars in the foyer, one of them cracked through the center. High ceilings, plaster walls. A bit like home, where things were old and crumbling and that was part of the beauty, but artificial in a way that home never felt. The shelves that line the living room are artfully arranged with display books and figurines and framed photographs. I imagine dirty dishes on the higher shelves. Out of Nathalie’s reach, I realize. To keep her safe.

Naomi leads me out the French doors to a patio shaded by an old maple tree. The ground is paved in slate and there’s a sculpture of a horse that catches my eye.

“Do you like it?” Naomi asks. “It was here when we moved in. I never can decide whether to keep it or not.” I wonder if Delphine chose it, orif it was there when she bought the house. I don’t remember Delphine especially liking horses, but then there’s so much I don’t know about her now. Maybe she invented a love for horses when she became white. “Anyway,” Naomi says, not waiting for my answer. “See this old tree? There are all these cuts in it.”

I go closer. A dozen or so gashes in the bark, haphazard, jagged, like they were made with a kitchen knife.

“It’s so strange, isn’t it?” Naomi asks. “The real estate agent didn’t know anything about it. It gives me the creeps.” She does a little shimmy with her shoulders, an attempt at a shudder. I hate her, this woman in her stupid headband, living in Delphine’s house. I thank her for showing me, leave before I say something I’ll regret, climb into Lionel’s car.

“Delphine doesn’t live there anymore,” I tell him.

The sun’s low in the sky by the time we get back to Compton. Lionel keeps the car running as he drops me off. “I’ll be back tomorrow to check on you,” he says.

I let myself in and Claire’s here, next to Adele on the sofa. They’ve been waiting for me.

“Come,” Claire says. “Sit.”

Adele says, “We got a call from the station. Delphine wandered into a stranger’s house. The police took her to the hospital.”

“Maybe she was injured,” Claire says. “Maybe they’re fixing her up and then they’ll send her home. Let’s not leap to the worst case.”

The house is so still. We’re all three on the sofa, but we’re also on the front porch on Louisiana Avenue, and there’s a car stopped outside and a man in white at the door, and he’s taking our father away.

“Claire,” I say. “Please. We know how this goes.”

TWELVE

ICALL CAMARILLO STATE HOSPITALthe next day and ask for Delphine Kelley. Hold my breath. She’s there. I can’t talk to her. They can’t share her information with me. If I’m to be Delphine’s primary contact, I’ll need Auntie Bertha to call the hospital and make it so.

“All right,” I say. “I will. I have a pressing concern, though, and I’m wondering if you might be able to help me.” Impatience on the other end. I tell the receptionist about Nathalie and her voice softens. She tells me she’ll look into it and let me know if she hears anything. She takes down my phone number and address, reads them back carefully, tells me to take good care.

I ride in Claire and Bernard’s car to Mass. “Camarillo,” Claire says from the passenger seat. “It’s a well-known hospital. I’m sure they’ll give her the very best treatments. Don’t you agree, Bernard?”

“I certainly do hope so.”

She turns to look at me. “I know it’s hard for you, thinking of Delphine going through all of this. But really, it’srightthat she’s there. It’s necessary. When a person needs psychiatric help, the only thing to do is to give it to them.”

All through Mass, my head is full of Delphine in the hospital, Nathalie alone somewhere in Los Angeles. How to find a five-year-old girl in acity of two million people? A handful of families from church follow us home, crowding the kitchen and the living room, spilling out to the yard. At just about five o’clock, as the last guests leave, the phone rings. Al answers, says it’s for me. I press the receiver to my ear, and the receptionist from this morning says, “I have Delphine here. It’s against policy, but she said she could tell only you. Wouldn’t give anyone a message. Hold on.”

“Delphine?” I say, and then a voice comes, so low I can barely hear it, guttural and slow. A voice I’d never recognize but maybe there’s something of Delphine in it, buried deep.

“It’s laundry night,” she says, each word an effort. “Santa Monica and Sycamore. She’ll be there.”

“Santa Monica and Sycamore,” I say. “All right. I’ll go now.” I hang up and Al is back with his hat and his keys.

As we near the intersection, I roll the window down to get as clear a look as I can, grip the door handle, and there it is, two buildings in from the corner, flanked by a donut shop and a barber: Clean as a Whistle Automatic Laundry. We park in the lot behind the building, enter through the back door. Inside is spacious, an orange-and-white checkered floor, pastel green washers and burnt-umber dryers, the air soapy and damp. Al and I scan the aisles between machines for a little girl, and a figure at the far end makes me catch my breath. A child, bent to collect the clothes from a dryer. But then a woman appears with a rolling metal basket and the child turns, her arms full of warm clothes, and she drops them in. She’s too young, too much like the woman she’s there with to be Delphine’s daughter. I walk over to them.

“Have you seen a little girl here this evening?” I ask them. “Five years old?”

Al follows my lead and asks the men and women in the various seating areas. No one’s seen her, so we wait. It’s possible that she isn’t alone, but as much as I hope for someone to be with her, I can’t picture it. No family. No friends from her old neighborhood. I’m watching the doors until I can’t stand it anymore—all the opening and shutting and no Nathalie. I lean forward, rest my head in my hands.

“Odette,” Al says, voice low. “Look.”

The street-facing door is open. I stand as a little girl holds it with her weight while dragging a bag over the threshold. She steps to the side and the door shuts behind her. She drags the bag across the floor to a machine in a near row of washers, scooping in clothes by the armful. She looks around, fixes her eyes to a box of laundry soap sitting on another person’s washer. She takes a small step toward it before changing her mind and reaching into her pocket for coins. The machine whirs to life and she closes the lid, and when she turns I get my first clear look at her face. Her eyes are sea green, her hair a warm brown, darker than I imagined it would be, and wavy. Her mouth is as soft and pretty as Delphine’s.