Page 42 of Meet Me in the Garden

“I have my own place. I make my own decisions already. It’s a comfort to make them together with Al.” A car passes out front, the sweep of its lights through the curtains and across the room. She says, “You scare me sometimes, and you drive me crazy. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t admire you, too.”

We’re quiet. A couple minutes pass. I run my thumb along the side stitches of the dress. And then Adele says, “I wish I didn’t have to bring this up, but the social worker came by earlier. He’s asking—just in case, as a precaution—if there’s anyone in the family willing to adopt. I told him yes, of course. He went over the qualifications. Being married was the most important one.” A tightness in my throat. I swallow. Swallow again. “Considering that, Claire would be the most obvious choice. She’s waited so long for a child, and she and Bernard are all set up. But, of course, you and Delphine—”

“I don’t even know why we’re talking about this,” I say in a rush. “Delphine might get better.”

“I hope so,” Adele says. “But if she doesn’t?”

“I’m not married,” I say.

“But youcouldbe.”

I’ve waited so long for my life to come together. I’m on the precipice. My body in this dress, reminding me how ready I am for someone else to touch me. Someone who Iwant. “But I’m not,” I say, my tone final. “I’ll put on a new record. Something you haven’t heard yet.”

I find the new Ken Griffin single we just pressed. “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” on the organ. We listen, Adele humming along.

“You know,” I say, “we could really do this, go out together one night after the children are down. I’d love to take you to a place I’ve been to with some of the girls from work. There’s a piano player, and everyone sings.”

“I don’t know,” she says.

“That night at the Drop before we left home—it was one of the best nights of my life.”

“OhI miss that place. But it isn’t the same here. I’m just not really…” I picture her under the lights of the bar, beside the piano. Everyone’s watching her, enraptured. “It’s more fun to pretend,” she says, and squeezes my hand.

FOURTEEN

ON A TUESDAYthree weeks after Delphine was taken to Camarillo, there’s a tap on my shoulder, and Sally’s behind my spot at the conveyor, saying, “Phone call for you, in Bernard’s office.Go, go, go!” She dives right into my position, fumbling the first record sleeve, and I rush to the stairs, too risky to wait for the elevator. It’s Delphine’s doctor. It must be. I’ve called for updates every few days she’s been at the hospital, left Bernard’s direct line to reach me.

I climb the steps two by two and burst through the door to the third-floor lobby, the secretaries looking up from their typewriters as I race past them into his office. “Here she is now,” Bernard says into the receiver. He gives me his chair and crosses to the wet bar for his pack of cigarettes.

“Hello, this is Odette Laurent,” I say, breathless, and a man introduces himself as Dr. Jamison, Delphine’s psychoanalyst. I don’t know what he looks like, but his voice is kind, and I picture him as the gentle doctor fromThe Snake Pit. He tells me things I don’t want to hear. I force myself to hear them. I take notes. I ask the appropriate questions. I fall out of time. I hang up and look around and everything is unfamiliar. The curtains the wrong color. The furniture in the wrong places.

Bernard turns from the window. He’s only heard the questions Iasked, but that’s enough. “I’m so sorry,” he says. “I know how much you love her.” I go back down the stairs, relieve Sally, taking my place on the line. Roar of the conveyor. Crank of the levers. I wish it was louder. Wish the sound would swallow me.

That night, once the children are sleeping, Lionel comes and the six of us gather in the living room. I steady my voice, read from the notes in my hand. “She had a psychotic episode. A series of them, but this last one was the most severe. Her diagnosis is schizophrenia.” Lionel makes a sound like he’s been punched. “Her doctor says she’s predisposed to it. She also experienced a denial of identity. He says it’s most likely the combination of the two that led to the break from reality.”

“A denial of identity,” Adele murmurs. Delphine in Robinson’s, diamond earrings catching the light. The house on North Harper. Horse sculpture, cleaning girl, weekly card games with Linda. The last letter she wrote me.I have to become white now. A woman with no family besides my own little one.

I push on. “She’s receiving a variety of treatments. Electric shock therapy and insulin therapy and psychoanalysis. Balanced meals and walks on the grounds. At least an hour per day in the sun. He believes she’ll reach a stable state of mind, but it’s a lifelong diagnosis. Psychosis can reappear at any sign of stress.” At the next note the knot in my throat grows jagged, painful. “Her doctor says she’ll have to give Nathalie up.”

“Give Nathalie up,” Bernard repeats. “As in, she’ll be adopted?”

“Yes,” I say.

Claire lets out a cry. Her hands fly to her face, tears streaming down when she lowers them. “Poor Delphine,” she says. “It’s unthinkable.”

I want to cry, too, but I’d never come back from it. I dig my fingernails into my leg.

Adele puts her hand on Claire’s knee. “You’re going to take such good care of Nathalie.” A flare in my chest.Wait. Lionel, next to me, stiffens.“Imagine,” Adele says, “emerging from all this confusion and heartache, moving into that beautiful room you made.”

Claire tries to smile but the smile falters. “I have this terrible feeling. All the praying I did. All the envisioning. I saw a little girl and a baby boy. That’s the vision that kept coming to me. But I didn’t mean to… I didn’tcausethis, did I?”

“Oh no, honey,” Bernard says. “Of course not. Nobody caused it. It’s the way life goes sometimes, as brutal as it is.”

She buries her face into his shoulder.

“Is there anything else?” Al asks. He’s gone ashen, voice hoarse.

“No,” I say. “That’s everything.”