Was she crazy to come up here and try to ask that old lady questions?
In the yard of a tan frame house, she could see a faucet beside the steps. Crossing to it, she drank from it, getting her shoes wet, then ran because maybe they’d hear water banging in the pipes and come out. She thought she’d never reach Genelle Yardley’s number, but then at last there it was. She stood looking up at Ms. Yardley’s tall old house. It was the color of pale butter, its walls covered with round shingles like fish scales.
Above the windows were fancy decorations like a fussy old lady wearing lace. Victorian, Mama would say. The house stood close to the street and close to the house on its left. Its yard seemed to be all on the right behind a high wall that was shingled like the house, with fancy stuff on top. Gingerbread. A Victorian house with fish-scale shingles and gingerbread, but not a storybook house. Just strange, and different. Stepping close to the wrought-iron gate, she peered in-and caught her breath.
A faint glow washed across the garden from little lights down low among the flowers, mushroom-shaped lights like houses for tiny people, maybe forThe Borrowers.Maybe it was, after all, an enchanted place. She wanted to be in there. Safe, all safe like inThe Secret Garden,behind its locked wall. Far at the back, she could make out pale round boulders lining a little dry streambed. Suddenly, looking in, she felt a ripple down her back, and she spun around.
But there was no one on the street or in the other yards. Well, she’d heard nothing; just a feeling. She could make out no one standing in shadow, no movement, but she was not comfortable there.
Moving quickly, she lifted the wrought-iron latch. She felt a surge of excitement that it wasn’t locked. She slid inside, closing the gate behind her. Wishing shecouldlock it, she hurried down the stone walk between flowers and little trees. There were surprises everywhere, flowers among big boulders, benches tucked under the trees. A roofed stone terrace ran along the side of the house, and glass doors looked out on the garden. In one, a light shone. Did Ms. Yardley keep the light on all night? Maybe because she wasn’t well? When Mama was so sick, she didn’t sleep much except if she took pain pills, then she slept a lot.
The glass door was open, she could see the thin white curtain at the side blowing in and out. Maybe a nurse had come real early. When they took Mama to the hospital and Lori had to go to juvenile, she didn’t see Mama anymore. They wouldn’t take her to see Mama. Mama died alone. That hurt so bad. Approaching the glass, she paused.
Maybe the old lady was undressed in there, with nurses doing things to her that she didn’t want to see.
Maybe she should go away now. Go back to the library before it got light, hide in her cave again. She didn’t know what to say to Genelle Yardley, she didn’t know how to explain why she’d come.
Except, that old woman had worked for Pa for a long time before he got mean and silent. She would know things about Pa that she, Lori, didn’t know, that she needed to know. If she wasn’t too sick, maybe Genelle Yardley could help her understand why Pa had turned so mean. She wished her stomach would quit growling. She hoped Ms. Yardley wasn’t so sick thatshewas cross and wouldn’t talk, like Pa.
Drawing close enough to the glass to just peek in, she saw that the room was empty. The bedclothes thrown back, a wheelchair standing in the corner. She could smell bacon, and syrup warming. That made her stomach really rumble. Was Ms. Yardley in the kitchen eating breakfast? She stood looking in, wondering if she should knock.
“Good morning,” a voice said behind her. She spun around.
Down at the end of the terrace, in the shadows, there was a bench, and someone sitting there.
“Good morning,” the woman said again. “Have you come for breakfast, child?”
“I� I’m looking for Ms. Genelle Yardley.”
“I’m Genelle. Come sit down. Cora Lee’s cooking pancakes. She’ll make more than I can ever eat, she always does.”
The thought of pancakes was like a warm light in a dark cold room. Lori approached the woman. Drawing near, she saw the shiny metal tubing of a walker standing beside the bench where she sat, and a cart with an oxygen tank on it, like when Mama was sick. Was this Cora Lee a visiting nurse come to cook Ms. Yardley’s breakfast? Mama had had a visiting nurse, arranged for by the welfare people, but that nurse didn’t make breakfast, she’d been sour and unpleasant; Lori hadn’t liked her any better than that first welfare woman.
“Come, child. Come sit down.”
Lori went to sit beside the old lady. She was tall, you could tell that even when she was sitting, tall and very thin. She had dark hair with gray in it, cropped close to her head. Her eyes were so dark they looked black. Her face was lined and sagging and her eyes were red, as if she’d been crying. She was dressed in a pink satin robe and pink slippers. She had a wadded-up tissue in her hand.
Lori remembered her now, from the shop office. But she’d looked stronger then, not so frail. The old woman’s mention of pancakes and the smell of bacon cooking made her lick her lips. Ms. Yardley must have been weeping for a long time because there was a really big wad of tissues in the wastebasket beside the bench. Lori sat sideways on the bench, not quite facing her; she didn’t like to look at someone who was crying.
“I like to eat early,” Ms. Yardley said, tossing the tissue in the wastebasket. “I like to see the dawn come.” She looked hard at Lori. “Even this morning, I love the dawn. Especially this morning. You can call me Genelle.”
Lori looked at her with interest.
“You must like the morning, too, child, or you wouldn’t be out so early. Are you all right? Is something the matter?”
Lori nodded that she was all right, then shook her head. No, nothing was the matter. She thought it funny that Ms. Yardley didn’t askwhya child was out alone, so early, almost still the middle of the night.
“What is your name?”
“My� my name�” Lori could see, behind the old lady, a little table set for two, with a white cloth and wicker garden chairs. She listened to the comforting kitchen sounds from inside the house, the clink of plates and the scraping of a spoon on a pan.
The old woman squinted, leaning closer. “Could you be Lori? Lori Reed? Jack Reed’s child?”
Lori was so surprised she wanted to leap up and run away. “I� I’m Lori.” How did she know? Did Ms. Yardley remember her? She’d only been six, a baby. Now Genelle would start asking questions.
But she didn’t, she only smiled, and blew her nose, which was already red from blowing. “I’m sorry about the tears. A dear friend has died. But surely that isn’t why you have come?”
“Oh,” Lori said, embarrassed. “No, it isn’t. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not weeping for her, she was in her eighties. Though it was an ugly, terrible death. I’m weeping for me because I’ll miss her.”
Lori didn’t know what to say. She didn’t really know how to think about people dying. It was hard enough to think about Mama. She didn’t knowwhatto think about dying. Grownup talk about death made an emptiness come in her. “It’s a nice garden,” she said. “It’s likeThe Secret Garden.“Probably this old woman had never heard ofThe Secret Garden.
But Genelle’s face lit right up. Her wrinkles deepened into a smile and her eyes brightened. “That’s exactly what it’s like! That’s what I meant it to be when I planned this garden, when I had the wall built. A secret garden. You’re a reader, child.”
“I loveThe Secret Garden,I almost know it by heart. And have you read the Narnia books?”
“Oh, many times. I still read them every few years. I almost knowthemby heart! Sometimes Asian comforts me as no formal religion could ever do.” The old woman laughed. “I decided long ago that when I die, that’s the first place I’ll go. To sail with Reepicheep into Asian’s country and on, ‘beyond the end of the world.’”