She was thinking about acquiring a piece of land to start a fruit orchard. Fruit trees did well in the area, everything from peaches and cherries to apples and pears. It would give a whole other dimension to her work. The basement of the ancestral Lee home was huge but not large enough for trees. Her backyard was filled with hundred-year-old oaks whose thick branches would keep smaller trees from growing. She wasn’t sure where the money would come from yet for the undertaking. It was probably just a pipe dream, but she liked planning it in her mind on nights like this.
She was placing a sentimental order tonight. John had loved sunflowers. He’d talked several times about planting the entire backyard with them. Only Peggy’s assertion that they wouldn’t grow well under the old oaks kept him from his dream. That and taking away his chain saw! It made her smile to think he’d actually cut those ten-foot tree circumferences. He loved the old trees as much as she did. Still, he yearned for a sunflower garden.
When she was approached to help out with the community garden Darmus Appleby’s Feed America group planned for Charlotte in the spring, she went out and bought a hundred pound bag of sunflower seeds. She was having a plaque made up to dedicate that part of the two-acre edible garden to John. She knew it would make her cry when she saw the golden flower heads turned toward the sun, but it would also help her keep his memory alive.
Sometimes in her rush to go on with her life after her thirty-year marriage came to an abrupt, terrifying end, she worried John would be forgotten. It wasn’t just Steve or the changes she made to her life or resuming normal routines she’d had before his death. It was realizing she could only really remember his face when she looked at a photo of him. He was so dear to her. How was that possible?
Shakespeare got up, stretched, and whined. Peggy glanced at her watch. It was seven a.m. She noticed the gray morning light spilling into the basement from the French doors that led into the backyard. “You’re right,” she told the dog. “It’s time to go out and face the world again.”
She barely finished showering when the phone rang. Shakespeare had already been out for his walk. He was at the bedroom door waiting to be fed. Every time she moved, he jumped up and started down the stairs, only to come back, disappointed, when she didn’t follow. “Take it easy! I don’t get ready as fast as you do. The food will still be there!” She patted his head and turned off the shower.
Peggy wrapped her heavy white chenille robe around herself, shivering a little in the chilly morning air. The furnace kept the basement warm but always had a difficult time reaching into the master bath and bedroom, even though she kept the other eight bedrooms closed off.
It was part of the price she paid for living in a rambling old house that had seen better days. Not that she’d think of moving. John’s family hinted occasionally that they’d like to pass the house to the next in line to inherit. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be Paul. The Lee family had the house set in trust for the oldest son in the family. John’s brother, Edward, had a son who would live in the house after her. Legally, it was hers until she died or couldn’t live there anymore for whatever reason. The young and impatient Lees were just going to have to wait.
“Hello?” She finally, breathlessly, answered the phone. She sat down on the bed to dry her hair.
“Peggy? Can you come over?” It was Beth. Her voice was strained and filled with sobs. “I need your help. Can you come over right away?”
Peggy glanced at her watch. She had an early botany class at Queens University that morning. She might be able to switch classes with another professor if someone could cover for her at the Potting Shed that afternoon. Selena was such a dear. She didn’t want to abuse her willingness to help. But this was a difficult time. “I just got out of the shower. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Thanks.” Beth hung up without another word of explanation.
There was a wealth of relief and gratitude in her shaky voice. Peggy knew it was the right thing to do, even if it was a tricky balance of time on her part. She wrapped the thick white towel around her shoulder-length hair and started punching numbers.
WARM, DESPITE THE CHILL, in a heavy autumn tweed sweater and brown pants, Peggy rapped on Beth’s door about an hour later. She’d maneuvered her schedule, dried her hair, settled Shakespeare, and called a taxi. No time to waste pumping her way on her bike that morning.
While she was waiting for her ride, she glanced in on her experiment in converting John’s father’s Rolls to a hydrogen-burning vehicle. It was a work in progress, hampered now by the cold weather. But she’d already been at it for almost a year. The Rolls was always at the bottom of the list. She looked at a few of the new hybrid cars but couldn’t bring herself to buy one. She horrified the salesperson by telling him how inadequate the vehicle was, particularly for the exaggerated price. So she humbled her principles and constantly promised herself to get the job done.
Between her part-time professorship at Queens and a growing customer base at the shop, she could scarcely find time to turn around. She was retired from teaching when John died, but financial concerns about setting up the shop drove her back to her twenty-year career. As the Potting Shed surged forward in sales, she knew the time was coming that she’d have to give up her teaching again just to remain sane.
“Thank God you’re here!” Beth opened the door and dragged her into the house. She took Peggy in the kitchen and poured some orange spice tea into two heavy glass mugs. “I thought you’d never get here. I never knew a night could be so long.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be here sooner.” Peggy took a mug and looked embarrassed when her stomach growled loudly. In her rush to get out of the house, she forgot to feed herself and Shakespeare. Poor dog. A victim of her haste. She silently promised him an extra dog biscuit when she finally got home.
“I have some muffins.” Beth shrugged and offered the box from Harris Teeter. “Someone brought them last night. Everybody brought food, of course. Isn’t that what we do when people die? It’s a strange custom, isn’t it?”
Peggy took a blueberry muffin, warm red spots on her cheeks. Beth must’ve heard her stomach growl. That probably shouldn’t embarrass her. It should’ve been left behind in her proper childhood with always wearing gloves on Sunday. But some things never changed.
She glanced around the cluttered kitchen. There were baskets of fruit and boxes of food everywhere. Casserole dishes and cake plates littered the counters. Beth was right. In the South, at least, the response to death was a smorgasbord of food. “Thanks. This is good. I was in such a hurry to get here, I forgot to eat. I guess people don’t know what else to do to express their grief. Food is pretty basic. We either forget it or overdo it.”
“I guess.” Beth sat down at the table with her but forgot her own mug of tea on the stove and had to go back for it. “Peggy, the police called me this morning and told me their official report is going to be that Park committed suicide. The insurance investigator already left Charlotte. That’s how sure they are. I don’t even have the funeral planned, but the report says that Park committed suicide because of some money. What kind of investigation is that? How can they know what happened so quickly? I don’t understand.”
Peggy sipped her tea to cover her sympathy for Beth’s problem as she let the other woman rant about the unfairness of the process. She didn’t believe Park committed suicide either, but if the police and insurance investigation proved otherwise, there wasn’t much anyone could say. “I’m so sorry. Maybe you could appeal it.”