“What do you think he wants?”
“Green beans?”
Michael Boni could sense she knew more than she was letting on, but the way she was looking at him now, it seemed she was thinking the same about him, that he was also holding out.
“I’ve been thinking of expanding,” Constance said, breaking the silence.
“I don’t really have time right now to be making any more beds.”
“Who asked you to?”
“I just figured,” he said.
“Who said I was even talking about the garden?”
“Okay,” he said, regretting now that he’d spoken at all. “All right.”
Constance picked up her shovel again. “Are you just going watch?”
Michael Boni turned back toward the sidewalk. “Later.”
She gave the soil a whack. “I won’t hold my breath.”
Later that night and into the early morning, Michael Boni sat in the chair by the bed, waiting and watching through the dead juniper branches, but the redhead didn’t show. The chicks kept him company, while down the hall Pricilla slept among the shredded remains of his grandmother’s drapes.
The chicks’ peeps had lost their urgency. Now they sounded something like music.
They looked almost like real chickens now, feathers and all. Still small, but they’d outgrown their last box, the biggest Michael Boni could find. He’d already built them a coop of sorts. He’d stuck with what he knew. Their new home looked a lot like the set of kitchen cabinets he was supposed to have made the previous spring. The birds could have moved in a week ago, but he wasn’t quite ready yet to let them go.
Through the window, through the bush, Michael Boni watched the first streaks of burned orange and gold spill above the garden. He’d been awake all night.
By the time the doorbell rang, sometime later, the morning shadows had retreated from the yard. But he didn’t feel the least bit tired, rising to his feet to peer through the peephole.
Darius stood on the porch in his wrinkled uniform, dark bags under his eyes.
“You’re early,” Michael Boni said.
Darius checked his watch. “I’m right on time.”
The morning had come more quickly than Michael Boni had expected. His mind felt as though it were still in the chair, watching, waiting.
Darius was looking past Michael Boni, into the interior of the house. He wore a strange expression. “This is where you live?”
Michael Boni realized he’d never let anyone other than Constance come inside.
As Darius passed the threshold, his eyes latched onto the foyer table, a burled walnut half moon holding a porcelain Virgin Mary.
“My grandmother,” Darius said. “She had something just like that.”
Michael Boni put a hand on his back, pressing him forward. “Down the hall. Toward the back.”
Darius took a step and lifted his nose, trying to make sense of what he was smelling.
It was a straight shot down the hall, but along the way they passed the bedroom. Inside, the chicks were chirping. A few feet farther, Priscilla was flinging what Michael Boni guessed were his grandmother’s earrings against the door.
“What is that?” Darius said, edging toward the far wall.
Michael Boni kept walking, never looking back.
With the lights turned off, the garage felt like a cave. Michael Boni led Darius into the far corner. There he lifted up the tarp.
Each of the components was in a separate crate, and in the middle was the sack. Michael Boni reached into the bag and pulled out a handful of small white pellets. “It’s not what I expected,” he said. “Like tapioca.”
Darius took a step backward, knocking over an empty can of acetone.
“Fertilizer,” Michael Boni said. “It’s just fertilizer.”
Darius squinted into Michael Boni’s palm.
“Go on.” Michael Boni came forward. “Touch it.”
“I believe you.”
“You think it’s going to explode?”
Darius cast his eyes over some unfinished cabinet sections sprawled on the floor. “You made these?”
“You’re afraid.”
Darius fell silent.
“You’re afraid,” Michael Boni said again.
Darius put his finger to his lips, tilting his ear toward the door. Outside, a robin was whistling unevenly in the hickory.
Then Michael Boni heard it, too. Footsteps, and they were just outside.
He froze.
Before he could think of what to do, the door to the shop was creaking open. A triangle of light cut across the floor. A shadow head poked through the opening. Michael Boni tried to make out the silhouette, expecting to find a mess of red curls.
“Hello?” she said. A girl, a woman.
Not Constance. Not Clementine. Not the other great-granddaughter, either. She was peering into the darkness, hadn’t spotted them yet.
Michael Boni reached out and picked up his hammer.
Darius took a step forward. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
The woman let out a gasp, reaching out for balance. “I wasn’t expecting a surprise party.”
Michael Boni looked from Darius to the girl and back again. “What the fuck is this?”
She moved in front of the window, a small figure but with a woman’s voice. It was impossible to make out her face.
Then Darius was standing next to her. “This is McGee.”
Turning to Michael Boni, she said, “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
He could feel the pellets turning to powder in his fist. “Are you crazy?”
Darius brought her closer, slowly, as if he were the father of the bride. “She wants to help.”
“You’re inviting fucking strangers—?”
“She’s not a stranger.”
Michael Boni tipped his palm back into the sack and dusted his hands clean. “She is to me.”
He could see her a little better now, a white girl — a kid. Hoodie, faded jeans. On a field trip from Ann Arbor, maybe. “What is it with you and teenage girls?”
“It’s not like that,” Darius said.
“I’m not a teenager,” she said.
Michael Boni could see that now, but so what? He set the hammer down.
“Don’t be mad at him,” the girl said. “It was my idea. I’m on your side.”
“This isn’t the Salvation Army,” Michael Boni said. “This isn’t a canned food drive.”
She was peering into the fertilizer sack. “I know what it is.”
The girl was standing among the crates, lifting the tarp with the toe of her boot. “Do you really know what to do with all this?”
“We haven’t tried yet,” Darius said.
Michael Boni tugged the cloth free and put it back where it was.
“I broke into HSI,” the girl said. “Me and my friends.”
“Right,” Michael Boni said, certain clouds parting in his head. Darius had mentioned it. The vague outline, at least, conveniently leaving out the part about knowing who was involved.
“And how’d that work out for you?” Michael Boni said.
Darius and the girl exchanged a glance, and there was no warmth coming from either direction.
But what it all meant, Michael Boni didn’t care. He said, “I’d leave that off your résumé, if I was you.”
“They got lucky,” she said.
“These photocopiers store everything now,” Darius said. “What’s being copied. When.”
Michael Boni leaned in closer. “They went to a lot of trouble to make you look stupid.”
The girl turned away, looking toward the window. “He told me about Constance, about the garden. About your grandmother.”
It was a good thing Darius wasn’t in arm’s reach, that Michael Boni wasn’t still holding the hammer. “You don’t know when to keep your mouth shut.”