Jimmy could smell the earth here, the high musk coming off all the plants. With the bees working through the garden, it felt as if you could see things growing. The carrot had been sweet. He stood, happy to be out of the rigid chair, and felt how dangerously tall he was for a moment, and then he walked carefully to the pooling squash vines. He bent with no dizziness and lifted the broad leaves so he could see the squash and melons in the lambent green shade. He walked around the perimeter and then into a short passage. “This one will be mine, right here.” He knelt and tapped a zucchini for his mother to see. It was as big as a football. “It is going to be vast. This squash will outweigh me.”
“They grow fast,” she said. “I can hardly keep up. We’ll come out next week and take a load down to the church.”
He lifted his hands to his face and smelled them, the green world. “I know this is tough on you. And on Dad. If I can get my strength up, or if there’s someplace else you can think of, I could—”
“No, you can’t. We’re doing this. I’m your mother, and you’re home. Your father and I have our differences on this, and that also is simply the way it will be. Really, Jimmy, hear me. I’m glad you’ve come. We won’t talk about the other. You’re here. That’s it.”
With Jimmy home, Mr. Brand went out as much as he could. He went to the Elks twice a week for cards and coffee and an occasional Canadian whiskey, and he still had cronies at the district maintenance warehouse, and he could spend the day there fooling with somebody’s truck and talking to the boys. He’d been chief there when he retired and had run a good shop.
Yesterday, the first day that Jimmy had felt good since his return, he sat with his mother in his guesthouse suite, as he called the garage with a smile. She had brought him a bowl of pears. All the caretaking had allowed them not to talk, and now things were sorting themselves out. Jimmy fumbled through his last bag and withdrew a copy of his new book and handed it to her. His mother took it in her hands and looked at the cover. The title Blue Elements was in dark blue lettering over a watercolor of a rainy city street. On the back she saw his photograph, his hair gone, his eyes bright, younger than the face.
“I sent you the others. You got the others, right?”
“I did. I have them, Jimmy.”
“I wrote six books, Mom. And I wrote for the paper. It’s how I made my living, mostly. This is the last, another novel.”
“You’re a good writer,” she said.
He waited to respond because she’d startled him with this, and he wanted the words to last, to remember them. Your mother tells you that you’re a good writer.
“This is the last,” he said. “It’s about Daniel before he was sick. It’s about New York.”
“You’ve got Oakpine in some of the books,” she said.
“I do. It’s my take on all of it, Mom. I know that wasn’t any fun for you.”
“Some was hard to read. It’s all behind us now.” She took the empty bowl, the spoon.
“Did Dad see the books?” Jimmy lay back on the bed.
“He didn’t.”
“Does he know that I was a writer?”
“I’m sure he does. He does. He’s confused, Jimmy. But I know he’s glad you’re here. He can’t say it.”
“Has he ever said my name?”
“He has, at times. He has said it in his sleep.”
Later that day Jimmy heard something that woke him, his father’s raised voice in the house, and Jimmy stood by his door in time to see his father in the overalls he’d worn forever come onto the back porch and throw the blue book into the yard.