Garden of Stones - By Sophie Littlefield Page 0,100

on the side. That’s how I learned, in my free time, helping out with the grunt work at first before they let me do my own projects.”

“And you met Patty’s father there?”

“Jay,” Patty said sharply.

“I’m sorry,” Jay said quickly. “It’s none of my business—”

“No, it’s all right.” Lucy smiled at Jay, taking a sip from her wine. It was the first time Patty remembered her mother having more than one glass. “I did meet him at the motel. He did maintenance on the grounds. It was one of those things, both of us too young to know what we were getting into. Luckily, as soon as she figured out what was going on, the lady I worked for brought me here and took care of me until Patty came. Her name was Mary.” She looked down at her hands. “She changed my life.”

“Wow, Mrs. T. That must have been tough,” Jay said.

Patty didn’t want to break the fragile thread of her mother’s recounting, but she had to know.

“What was his name, Mom? The boy?”

“Hal,” she said. “His name was Hal.”

Patty tested the name in her mind. Hal, her father. She waited for some thrill of recognition, some sign that he lived on inside her, that his blood beat in her veins. But she felt nothing.

“Did you ever see him again after that?” Jay asked. “Do you know what happened to him?”

“I found out later that he died in a car accident, not long after Patty was born.”

“Oh, that’s awful, Mrs. T.” Jay covered Patty’s hand with his own. “I’m so sorry.”

Lucy waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t worry, it was a very long time ago. I was so busy in those days, working and taking care of Patty. She was a good baby, though. Such a good little baby.” Lucy beamed at Jay. “Just think, soon you’ll have kids too. Grandchildren!”

As Jay and Lucy went on about the future, Patty remembered that earlier in the day, in the police station waiting room, she had thought that the first thing she would do when Lucy was released would be to ask her point-blank if she had gone to Reg’s Gym that morning. If she’d taken his life. Patty had felt she was owed an answer, that she’d earned it.

Now she was content never to know. Her mother had been caught in life’s crosshairs and she’d survived it all—and made a life for Patty too. Patty was ready to call all her mother’s debts settled.

Let the future come, she thought. Let it come.

“I love you, Mother,” she said. Her face flushed—she’d had a little more rosé than she realized. “I love you, Jay.”

“Okay, okay,” Jay laughed. “How about I let my two best girls get to bed.”

He kissed Patty in the doorway to her room and she got into bed without undressing. She could hear Jay joking with her mother, saying good-night. She heard him push the chairs back under the kitchen table and stack the dishes in the sink. Finally, she heard the front door close, and the house was silent, and she stretched deliciously and let sleep take her.

36

San Francisco

Saturday, June 17, 1978

Lucy pulled up to her house as the last rays of the sun pierced the clouds over the rooftops, landing in untended lots and lush gardens and the row of carefully chosen stones lining her front walk. The setting sun turned them pale gold. On warm days the stones baked in the surrounding earth. In spring they glistened wet and gray like the bodies of the sea lions down at the pier.

Lucy was anxious to get out of her high heels and girdle, and the polyester dress, the tag of which had been itching her neck since ten o’clock this morning when the photographer arrived.

All the discomfort was worth it, though. Patty had been a beautiful bride, unexpectedly graceful in her confection of a dress, her hair in curving waves around her face, a thin sequined band holding back her bangs. She rarely let go of Jay’s arm, and the two of them never stopped smiling. They were happy. Truly happy, and Lucy had spent the day swept up in their delight and love.

As she watched Patty dance with Jay on the candlelit dance floor, Lucy had thought about the first hours of Patty’s life. Lucy had waited alone in the chilly halls of Saint Francis Hospital while Mary recovered from childbirth. Lucy listened to the screams echoing up and down the tiled halls, and finally, exhausted by the