of planting things, the rigorous discipline of learning the Latin names of the plants I buy, learning what they need to survive. My happiest moments in the last eighteen months have largely been spent at Clifton Nurseries, where I can browse for hours, testing myself with my plant knowledge, daydreaming of the day I might have a garden big enough for everything.
I go out to the garden now, with a glass of iced tea. In the old days, it would have been a bottle of wine, but as long as I have something cold, I am fine.
I dug up the old paving stones that made the terrace, and created a Japanese zen garden with gravel, a water feature, and long exotic grasses. A large stone Buddha reminds me to be mindful, and even though I am not a Buddhist, not an anything other than a recovering alcoholic with faith in a Higher Power, I take enormous comfort in my serene, beautiful Buddha.
There are two wicker chairs out there, where Annie and I often sit with our books, where I try to meditate a few times a week, although I am still a work in progress. More often than not, just as I close my eyes to meditate, I will have spied a few weeds, and how can I possibly relax and meditate until I have pulled those weeds out, and nine times out of ten, before I know it, an hour of weeding later, I no longer have time to meditate because I have someplace to be.
Tonight I have no place to be. Tonight it is just me, with the evening stretching ahead of me. I put my drink down, take a few deep breaths, settle into the chair, and close my eyes, focusing only on the breath coming in through my nostrils, cool and sweet; going out, warm and soft.
And I feel hopeful that life can be good.
Nineteen
The buzzer rings and I go to the door, expecting Sam, only to hear my mother’s voice ringing through the intercom.
“What are you doing here?” I ask when she walks through the door.
“I was just passing on my way home from Hampstead. I saw a scarf there that I thought you’d love.” She passes me a bag, and I pull out a beautiful shimmery blue scarf that I do, instantly, love.
“Mum! You didn’t have to do that! It’s gorgeous!”
“Of course I didn’t have to do it. I wanted to do it. Where’s that delicious girl of mine?”
She isn’t talking about me, she’s talking about Annie, and I call for Annie, who whirls down the corridor and into her grandmother’s arms.
One of the gifts of my newfound sobriety has been my relationship with my mother. It was always good, but when I was drinking, when I was married, it was marred by the disappointment and judgment I saw in her eyes.
For a very long time I would try to avoid her. No one could have hated me more than I hated myself, and I really didn’t need to see that reflected back at me. I knew I was a terrible wife, a terrible mother; the more I felt judged by someone, the less inclined I was to see them.
Now, not only do I delight in my own relationship with my mother, I delight in Annie’s relationship with her. I never realized how much my mother loves children, how warm she can be. For most of my childhood she was in a deep depression, but now, as a grandmother, and despite having lived in the UK for years and years, her American warmth comes out.
I know that sounds odd, but I have always felt that the English love children as long as they are polite, quiet, and well behaved. Americans seem to love children however they behave. There have been plenty of times I’ve been in restaurants and seen American children run screaming around the room, and all the English people are filled with horrified indignation, while the Americans just smile indulgently as if to say, oh, aren’t they cute?
However Annie behaves, my mother adores her, and accepts her. If Annie is in a bad mood, my mother still loves her, is still loving and affectionate, waiting for it to pass. I, on the other hand, am a disaster. If Annie is in a bad mood, I struggle not to take it personally, not to strike back, not to berate her for not being happy.
“Something smells good,” my mother says, poking her head into