SAM
Mildred kept a garden.
And apparently a pretty serious one.
Sam leaned back into his deck chair on this sultry night and used his left thumb to deftly scroll through her Instagram feed.
Mildred, face half hidden by a honey-colored sunflower. Mildred, long-stemmed blossoms over her shoulder—walking away. Peeking from behind a huge golden flower. What in the world was it? He squinted in the dim light: Dahlia. Never heard of it. There she was, face buried in Chinese tangerine roses. Another with a daisy behind her ear. Rubbing noses with a tiny hound puppy, some kind of lacy white blooms crowning her hair.
A puppy! He scrolled through photo after photo of bright florals and vegetables: tomatoes, snap peas, radishes, pole beans. Mingled throughout were glimpses of Mildred. Mildred with her moon-face and that luminous smile.
He kept scrolling until he arrived at the picture of them.
The one time they’d met. It was at the Mountain Stage show in January. She and her friend Cindy were lingering at the merch table. Usually he didn’t mingle with the fans, preferring to slip away after finishing his set. But Mountain Stage was always different. It was his third time on the show and it felt like a homecoming. The Stage had a kind of family feeling—an artist’s village. Everyone celebrating everyone else. Making music and life.
It was good. And so he was feeling safe. He wandered out to the front while a bluegrass trio was doing their thing on stage. What was the name of that band? He couldn’t remember. They were talented—all about the three-part harmony. Cute lead vocal. But he was feeling like one more banjo and fiddle number would do him in. So he slipped out.
When Mildred saw him she froze, a vinyl copy of Another Time Around the Sun in her hands. Behind her, Cindy held up a T-shirt with the Oddbird album cover art on it. At Mildred’s sudden paralysis, she, too, looked up and in his direction.
“Oh, my gosh!” She tossed the shirt and tugged Mildred toward him.
He took off his hat and inclined his head at their approach. “Hello, ladies.” Cindy did all the talking. Mildred beamed.
We’re your number one fans. Well, Mildred has always been you’re your number one fan. She’s followed you since Paper Lanterns, how long has that been anyway? She has all your stuff, even when you were with The Robber Barons. We love Oddbird! Mildred says it’s a little more contemplative than your others ...
On and on Cindy chatted, while he—amused—nodded and smiled, until he looked up and was caught by Mildred’s almond eyes. Finally, Mildred—never breaking his gaze—pressed a hand on Cindy’s forearm. Then she reached out to him, slender ivory fingers extended. When she opened her mouth, all he heard was something like birdsong—a lilting melody that made his heart hurt. He took her hand and lifted her fingers to his lips, struggling to hear words in her voice but failing. Her skin smelled like apples, sweet in the sun. At the slight pressure of his lips, she blushed and dipped her head to the side—dark hair falling like rain across her shoulder. She smiled and a dimple appeared in her left cheek, making his breath catch. He blinked into the song of her voice. He felt like he was being sirened.
But he was bound to the mast of the ship of the show and when Paul, the stage manager, hailed him, the spell was broken.
“Gil! Time to warm up. You’re on deck.”
“All right, man, I’ll be right there.”
The women quickly snapped a couple photos with him and he returned backstage to get ready for his set, softly cradling against his chest the hand she’d held—reluctant to let go of the feel of her skin.
Later, Mildred tagged him in this shot: she, dimpling into the frame and he gazing down where her fingers encircled his. He liked the picture and impulsively followed her stream. When she requested to follow him back, he hesitated.
His Instagram feed was private. Facebook was for his fans but Instagram was the place he reserved for those who knew more of him than his music. It was the place he kept up with his nieces’ lives—gawked at Abby’s pictures of Peter the Oversized Rabbit and Della’s ballet poses. It was the one place his little sister Sher knew she could say what needed saying. Like, “It’s time to come home.” Or, “When was the last time anyone grilled you a steak as big as your plate?”
He didn’t post often, only when he wanted to share something specific with someone specific. There was the string of ex-girlfriends, and his posse from high school; his philosophy professor from the one year at University...and Heather. Of course, Heather. He’d only had to block a couple people he’d let in. Instagram was private. The place of the inside joke and the tired out reference.
But he accepted Mildred’s follow request.
Sam studied the picture, noting every detail already memorized. They could be brother and sister—dark hair, just a hint of the Far East around the eyes. For the millionth time he wondered about her story. She was obviously of mixed heritage, like him. Was she adopted too? Or did she grow up in the culture that gave her such disquieting beauty? As with his, there were no clues in her feed about her background.
He scrolled back up. Mildred’s pictures left him with a gaping hole somewhere inside. No, that wasn’t fair. The hole was already there. Her pictures only made him more aware of it.
Just then, a new post popped up in her feed. It was a black and white photo of Mildred standing barefoot in a sea of red poppies. The poppies were the only color in the image. Mildred was holding a plain poster-board with a large black question mark on it. Her head tipped downward to read the sign along with him. The accompanying comment said, “Big announcement coming soon!”
Sam breathed deep of the night air and studied the fast-appearing comments.
sologirl Is it what I think it is???
gregthebear About time!
taniaflorist Can’t wait!
mom2four Yay!
He thumbed a quick one. “@mildredsgarden Moonflower, what are u up to?”
Mildred rarely replied to her comments, but she almost always answered his. “@giltheguitarman you’ll just have to wait and see ;)”
~
Sam’s phone vibrated on the bedside table. He opened his eyes and stretched his arms above his head. The sun burned through the flimsy curtains, exposing the room-air for what it was: all stale, silver bits of floating dust. The phone stilled. But he knew she’d call right back. He rolled over and picked it up just as it started again.
“Yeah.” There was no use avoiding.
“Great show the other night.” Her smoky voice tickled his ear.
“Thanks, Babe. I’m glad you came.”
“But where did you go after? I lost you and then you were just...gone.”
“I was tired, Heather. I’ve done five shows this week. This tour is a killer. All I want to do on these two weeks off is sleep.”
There was silence on the other end. Then: “I just missed you, that’s all.”
He took a long breath in. Closed his eyes and he was a kid again, wearing that ratty baseball cap his dad had given him. And he was mad. He couldn’t hit the ball the way he wanted. Whenever he lined up, he swung the bat with all his might, but it never struck true. Always too high or too low—in the wrong place to make a ball fly. He threw down the bat. “I quit! I hate this stupid game!” He stalked off and plopped down in the dugout. In his mind he waited. This was his favorite part. His dad’s image was so clear. He remembered every detail of Thom Gillenwater’s face that day: the five o’clock shadow, the way his brow crinkled, that one out-of-control cowlick swooping back from his forehead...
His dad sat beside him. “Shh,” he said, leaning in and holding his index finger over his lips. When he had Sam’s attention he would ask, “Do you hear that, Sammy?” He fell for it every time. “Hear what, Dad?” Thom would lean in even closer and whisper, “Your heart, son. If you breathe real slow and quiet you can hear it better. Listen.”
Sam listened now. He’d been practicing listening to his heart all of his life—until the listening was a part of him. Right now, just the memory of his dad left his heart in a slow, steady thrum. He imagined love like a golden balloon lifting him into the sky.
It never took long.
“Gil? Why did you leave without me the other night?”
He came back to the dust-filled light.
“Seemed like you had other things going on.”
“What are you talking about, Gillenwater? Just because I was looking for Joe doesn’t mean what you think. He had something for me. I just needed to pick it up, that’s all.”
“I thought as much.”
“Gil! I wasn’t taking anything! I swear.”
“You know how I feel about that guy. About that stuff.
I don’t want any part of it.”
“I know, Babe, but you’ve been on the road for three months now. A girl’s gotta pass the time somehow. I’m all done now.
I swear. And I really want to see you. I need to see you.”
Sam sighed. “It doesn’t work like that.”
“I’m on my way over. I’ll make you a good lunch. You’ve probably been eating nothing but crap. I’ll stop at the market and pick up some fresh eggs and spinach. We’ll have a frittata. I saw some beautiful heirlooms the other day. They would be perfect.”
His stomach growled as she talked on about red onions and feta cheese. Who was he kidding? When she started talking food, he always gave in. She was his best friend. And the sex was good. He just couldn’t trust a damn thing that came out of her mouth anymore.
“Or maybe goat cheese? Would you rather goat cheese?”
“All right, all right. Give me time to get cleaned up.” He hated himself as he said it. “You know I can’t stand goat cheese.”
After she hung up he couldn’t move. This endless loop, this constant repeat—when would he quit this thing? He swung his legs over the bed and collected the elastic band off the table, pulled his thick hair back into a short ponytail. Then he crouched down to look under the bed.
The orange crate was still there, same as always, same as the first day he moved into this place. Maybe the only relic left of his childhood, it had followed him from his parents’ house, to the failed attempt at college, the six months in New York and then here, Nashville.
He slid it out and rummaged around the bottom. It had to be here somewhere. He’d stashed a pack before Christmas.
He hadn’t smoked since January, but just the thought of Heather—here at his house—set off an alarm of craving in his entire body. There!
He pulled the pack out from under some long-abandoned song lyrics, tapped it firm against the palm of his hand and pulled out a single. He stuffed the rest back under the papers and slid the crate into its hidey hole. He found some matches in the bedside table drawer and walked out onto the balcony, phone in hand. Leiper’s Fork wasn’t too close or too far from downtown—tucked away in a sweet piece of woods his builders carefully pruned to stay wild, but not too wild. He loved this little cabin. The country rolled right up to his back door, but he was still convenient to the recording studio and the clubs he played on weeknights.
The Nashville noise felt far away as he leaned on the railing and breathed in the quick-disappearing dew of late morning.
A doe teetered at the tree line, white tail flicking nervously.
She edged forward cautiously and two spotted fawns emerged behind her. She approached the salt-lick he had put out last year and soon her tail stopped worrying. One of her babies kicked up its heels and frolicked across the back lawn. Something stirred inside him and Mildred’s face came to mind.
He’d almost forgotten: her big announcement! He dropped down in his watching chair and tapped up her feed.
Welcome to The Gardens: Bed and Breakfast and Retreat Center.
It was a series of shots, a story in images. A picture of Mildred and Cindy, arms across each other’s shoulders, heads leaned together, both with happy smiles.
We’ve been dreaming and working for two years and finally, our dream is coming true!
A rustic farmhouse, a large pondish-like lake, flowers, flowers, and more flowers.
If you want the details, read our interview in this morning’s Sunday Gazette. Link in profile.
He scrolled up to the profile and clicked over.
“Local Activist Settles Down.”
Was Mildred an “activist?”
He skimmed through the article. It was Mildred’s family farm, left to her when her mother passed away three years ago. Mildred’s mother loved flowers and had cultivated five acres surrounding the farmhouse with both native and rare varieties of blooms designed for color in every season.
“When my mother left her birth country of Vietnam as a young bride and made the United States her home, the only thing she brought with her was a love for all growing things,” Mildred said. “Well, that, and her cousin, who I called uncle, Van Minh. Over a lifetime—together—they created these gardens of the four qui, or the four seasons, so they would always have a little piece of their homeland with them.”
Mildred’s mother was Vietnamese. Sam let that sink in, feeling as if the bottom had dropped out of his world. He scrolled back to her Instagram feed.
“@mildredsgarden Congrats on your new venture, Moonflower. Next #mountainstage, save me a room.”
He thought to say something about her mother but didn’t know what. So he hit “share” and sat with the pictures of Mildred’s beautiful world for a minute.
The response was almost immediate.
“@giltheguitarman you have an open invitation. Any. Time. I’ll fluff the pillows even.”
This made him smile. And blush a little. But before he could respond, the phone started to buzz in his hand, his sister’s name blacking out the images of Mildred’s new endeavor.
“Hey, sister, what’s up?”
“Hello, brother, I miss you.”
“I miss you more.”
“I’m serious, Sam Gillenwater. I don’t want to wait until Thanksgiving to see you. Will you come and do a house concert for us? I have skills. I can do a GoFundMe to pay for it. We could even give part of it to your favorite charity. After I pay for your ticket and your time, that is. I’m sure it’s not a conflict of interest.”
Sam laughed.
“It sounds like the beginnings of a brilliant plan. I haven’t seen the girls in six months. I bet they won’t even recognize me.”
“I know, right? What is that stuff on your chin I saw on the Facebook post from last night? You know the girls hate facial hair. It scares them.”
He laughed. “Tell the girls not to worry. I couldn’t grow a full beard if I tried. Laziness is all this is.” He cupped his stubbly chin in his hand and ran his fingers through the bare beginnings.
A knock at the door. Damn. He hadn’t even gotten a shower.
“Let me think about it, Sher. There’s that show in Boston. It’s only an hour or so from you. I’ll look at the schedule. But I have to call you back. Heather’s at the door.”
“Heather? Are you still messing around with her?”
“Careful, now. You know she’s a good friend. She’s my best friend.”
“You be careful. Have you forgotten what happened over Christmas? Besides, I thought I was your best friend.”
“You’re my sister. That doesn’t count.”
There was bustling in the kitchen, the rustle of grocery bags. Heather still had her key.
“Look, I gotta go. I’ll call you tomorrow, and we’ll figure something out.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Okay. I love you, big brother.”
“Love you more.”
He hung up and went back inside, stashing the unsmoked cigarette in the side table drawer before heading into the kitchen. Heather was dicing onions. She looked up when he walked in, pointed at him with the knife.
“You look like hell.”
“I know, I’m sorry. Sher caught me on the phone and I haven’t even gotten a shower yet.”
“Sher, huh?” She eyed him dubiously, then shrugged offhandedly. “Well, I guess she’s still your sister.” She picked up the onion and resumed chopping. “Why don’t you go ahead and shower while I make lunch?” she said, glancing up and over him. The brown skin under her eyes was rimmed in purple and she looked like she’d lost weight. Her usually tame, tightly kinked hair was a frizzy halo around her head. It was always awkward between them when he’d been on the road for a while. He stood in the doorway, arms overhead, fingers gripping the top of the door frame. He shifted from foot to foot, conscious of his bare chest. She was too, he could tell, and he saw her eyes move down the length of his body. A too-short lock of hair slipped the band and fell into his eyes.
“Okay,” he said, finally. But he didn’t move until she put the knife down, held his eyes with hers, moved slow toward him, smoothed back that wayward lock of hair with her fingers, pressed herself against him until they were one.
~
In the night, he felt her body warm against him and pulled her closer. He slept better than he had for months.
~
He awakened to the smell of bacon and he smiled. Something about her stirrings in the kitchen slowed his heart rate and evened out his breathing. He listened. She mused a song as she worked, and he recognized the title track to Oddbird.
Oddbird, she said, why don’t you
fly away, fly away, let
the ripening of August
steal your song;
the world is made of dew
and I am a blade of grass—
tremble
tremble
beneath your stare, it goes
through me
like the sun
shines through
clear glass
Oddbird, she said ...
Her voice dropped and she made a little choking sound. He felt her standing still in the kitchen. Then he heard her feet pad away.
He let out a long, slow breath and rubbed his eyes with his fingers.
It was music that had brought them together. When they met, she was working as a studio vocalist. She did some backing vocals on his first album. That was almost sixteen years ago.
They were just kids. He remembered how excited she was to sing with him. She had met him at the door of the studio that first time nearly bouncing out of her skin.
“Your songs are amazing! I can’t wait to get these tracks down!”
Sweet, that’s what she was. She was all goodness and big heart. He was just starting then, so her excitement meant a lot. He had a little buzz from a couple competitions he’d won regionally. Two of his songs had been picked up by some big names. He’d been in town for a year before the break came.
He didn’t know many people except a few musicians he’d played with around town. When she met Sam at that studio door it opened doors inside him. For the first time, he believed. He believed he could make it.
Heather grew up in Connecticut but came to Nashville to go to school. She was working on a B.A. in voice from Vanderbilt when their paths crossed. She’d been singing in clubs—mostly covers. But she was starting to write too. Her voice was like no one’s he’d ever heard. A cross between Allison Krauss and Macy Gray. Bluegrass soul, that’s what she was. And when she would sing with him, she made him better. She was dating a guy she’d been with all through high school who was finishing up his second year of med school. She really loved that dickhead, who knew nothing about music. The guy was always studying, or working, or had some other reason not to be with Heather.
So she and Sam ended up hanging out most days. Heather showed him the best of Nashville—all the cool local spots the students knew. And she cheered him on with his songwriting—sang with him, played the keys when he needed her to. She even went on a few gigs with him when he wanted more vocals. They told each other everything.
Two years later, the boyfriend had left her for another resident and Heather was sharing Sam’s bed. He stared at the ceiling and listened inside himself. A wave of something big and heavy rolled over him and he closed his eyes and let the truth become still water: he missed the way they were back then. He missed the simplicity of their friendship. He didn’t want to cross that line, even then. He knew better. But her heart was broken and he was lonely too. They’d been on and off ever since. He knew he loved Heather, but he also knew it wasn’t the kind of love it takes to make a life together. They stayed with it because they didn’t know what else to do.
Heather wasn’t singing anymore, which broke his heart. She’d lost the drive. Scrubbing clubs every night wore her down. She’d taken a more reliable job, teaching voice and piano at Belmont University, a small liberal arts college in town. It was just how things worked out. Only she was miserable teaching. The smoking and the drugs...they weren’t a part of the Heather he knew back then.
Remembering, he must have dozed off because when the smoke alarm sounded, he startled awake. The bacon was burning. Sam jumped out of bed and ran in the kitchen. No Heather. But the pan was smoking like crazy. He turned the fire off and lifted it from the stove, reached up and pulled the battery from the alarm.
A familiar fear licked his insides. “Heather?” No Heather in the living room. He opened a window as he continued looking, trying to clear the smoky air. The bathroom door off the entry was closed and locked. He knocked loudly, leaning his forehead against the door.
“Heather? You okay?” He shouldered the door but it wouldn’t budge. Think, Sam, think! He ran out to the garage and frantically rummaged through his toolbox. He found a thin nail and ran back inside, threaded it through the narrow hole on the doorknob and pressed gently until he felt the lock release. She was on the floor up against the door.
“Heather!” He pushed in, shoving her body with the door so he could squeeze by. He checked her pulse. It was slow. So very slow. He smoothed her hair out of her face, bent closer and listened to her breath. Her eyes were open but she wasn’t there. The skin around her mouth was a blueish-gray, purple in spots. He shook her roughly. “Heather! Wake up! Oh, God, oh God, oh God...”
He ran back in the bedroom and grabbed his phone, dialing 9-1-1 as he ran back to Heather. “Hello? Yes, I have an emergency! An overdose, I think. 52 Moonrise Drive. Leiper’s. What? I don’t know, I...” He spun around, took in the leather strap trailing loose around her forearm, saw the needle on the floor beside her, spoon and lighter on the sink. “Heroin, I think. Yes, she’s still breathing. Please hurry! Oh, God, she’s vomiting.”
The operator talked him through what to do until he heard the sirens. It all seemed to be happening in slow motion.
He opened the door for the gurney, the black and white uniforms, the oxygen mask, the injection in her thigh. A buzzing sound in his head. They wouldn’t let him ride in the ambulance. He stood in the driveway in his boxers, shaking, watching flashing lights move farther and farther away.
~
