She looked enchanted. “Who taught you to grow flowers?”
He hesitated. “My uncle Freddy,” he admitted. “I lived with him for a while. Until I was fourteen. He was heavy into organic gardening.”
“He grew flowers, too?”
“You could say that,” he answered.
She lifted an eyebrow. “What do you mean? He did or he didn’t.”
“Uncle Freddy specialized in cannabis. Various strains of specialty marijuana. Very profitable for him, for a while. It was a different era.”
“Oh,” Vivi said. She looked startled, but not unduly so.
“The principles are the same,” he said. “He loved plants. He knew how to give them what they needed.”
“Oh,” she said again.
“I prefer flowers,” he went on, blandly. “More color. Less stress.”
“Is your uncle still…um, never mind.”
“It’s okay. I doubt if he’s still in business. It’s more dangerous these days. And he had to leave the country one night twenty-some years ago. Haven’t seen him since. Don’t even know if he’s still alive. He’d be pushing seventy by now.” He kept his gaze averted and stroked a Campanula aurita bud. They were gearing up to bloom at any minute.
“That was when you were fourteen, you say?”
“I’m thirty-seven now. That would make it twenty-three years ago.”
“Were you there when he ran away? Was it a drug bust?”
His discomfort surged up, turning into irritation. “Yeah.”
“How awful,” she said. “What happened to you?”
He walked into the fluttering poppies. “Nothing happened to me.”
“Did he just vanish?” she persisted, following him.
“I’m fine now,” he said tightly. “Let’s leave it.”
“Excuse me,” she said. “It’s none of my business.”
Fuck. He felt like shit, but he did not want to talk about it. He was a dick-for-brains for bringing it up. Ruining their excellent mood.
A distressed yelping came from the trees. Vivi picked her way hastily through the flower beds toward the pine thicket. He caught up with her as she plunged into the trees. Her dog was whining and pawing at her muzzle.
Vivi grabbed her collar and knelt down, holding the trembling dog still. “Easy, girl,” she soothed. “Oh, God.”
Porcupine quills stuck out of Edna’s nose and jaw, like long, crazy whiskers. Jack crouched down and took the dog’s shivering head in his hands, examining it. “Only twelve,” he said. “I’ve seen worse.”
Vivi bit her lip, searching through Edna’s coat for more quills.
“Let’s go to the house,” he suggested. “I’ve got scissors. Pliers.”
“I don’t want to bother you with this,” she murmured, not meeting his eyes. “I’ve got pliers in my jewelry toolbox. I’ll deal with it.”
He gave her a look. “Get real.”
Edna slunk between them, tail down, through the woods. Their camaraderie, that perfect elusive glow of joy, gone. Such a fucking mystery. He wished he knew how to hang on to it.
When they got back to the house, he led her and her dog into his front room, and got the scissors and the pliers out. He knelt down beside them on the floor. “Hold her,” he said.
Vivi held her dog firmly as he snipped off the ends of the quills. Edna made high-pitched whining noises in the back of her throat.
“Why are you doing that?” she asked.
“I’ve been told that if you trim the end of the quills, the vacuum inside collapses and the barbs should let go more easily,” he explained. “Theoretically.”
Vivi blinked, and swallowed, hard. “Oh,” she whispered.
They clenched their teeth and powered through the unpleasant job. It didn’t take all that long to pull out the quills, but it felt like forever. Vivi winced with each shrill yelp and jerk, although her low voice never stopped murmuring low encouragement.
Jack tried to be brisk, but by the time he was done, Jesus. He sagged back against the side of his sofa, limp as a wet rag. Inflicting pain on an innocent animal was fucking horrible, whether it was for the animal’s own good or not. Thank God he worked with plants.
Edna curled up in Vivi’s lap, still trembling. Vivi was bent over her, her face hidden against the dog’s silky golden shoulder.
Leaving him all alone, with memories that were coming back, weirdly sharp and clear. Taking over his whole goddamn mind.
That June night when a wild-eyed Uncle Freddy had slapped him on the shoulder. “Sorry, kid. I’ve got to run. They got Pete, and Pete’s such an airhead, he’ll give me up for sure. I gotta leave the country.”
Jack’s stomach heaved. “Where are you going?”
“I’m not going to tell you where. It’s safer that way. Here.” He thrust a handful of limp, grimy bills into Jack’s nerveless hand. “Take this. I wish it was more, but it’s all I can spare.”
“Can’t I come with you?”
“I wish you could, Jackie, but you don’t have a passport. Shit, I don’t even think you have a birth certificate. I’ll be an outlaw, see? I can’t have a kid. Keep your head low and your mouth shut, okay?”
“Sure,” he said bitterly, pocketing the money.
“We shoulda drilled for this, but it was going so well. I got sloppy.” Freddy gripped Jack’s skinny shoulders in his big, work-stained hands. “Lemme give you some advice. Don’t mix it up with the police, the social workers. Hit the road, go out and seek your fortune. You can do better for yourself outside the system.”
“Like you did?” Jack muttered.
“Hey, don’t hold this against me. Come on, chin up. You’re, what, sixteen? Seventeen? You’ll be fine. You’ll land on your feet.”
“Fourteen,” Jack corrected, in a toneless voice.
“Fourteen? Jeez, kid. I thought you were older.” Freddy tugged on his beard, looking annoyed that Jack was not older. “Tavia’s number is on the fridge. And your mom—where is your mom, anyway?”
“The ashram. In India,” Jack reminded him.
“Oh, yeah. The ashram. Damn. I guess Tavia is your best bet, kid. Oh, hey. You could always call Mrs. Margaret Moffat. Your mom and Tavia and I stayed with her one summer when we were kids, in Silverfish. Dad was working the carnival, and Mom had to go into the TB hospital, so she took us in for a couple of months. Nice lady. Baked great cookies. Call her, if you get in a tight spot. But try Tavia first.”
Jack stared at his feet, mouth trembling. Uncle Freddy tousled his hair. “Sorry, Jackie. But you know how it is.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. He knew how it was. Better than anyone.
And after a flurry of packing and a rough, sweaty hug, Jack stood in the driveway and watched Freddy’s taillights disappear into the dark.
He tried calling Aunt Tavia in L.A. A guy answered, and said she hadn’t lived there in four months, and no, he didn’t know where she was. He’d heard somebody say she’d gone to Baja. But it might have been Boulder. Or Bali. Then the guy told Jack that he seemed stressed, and should practice “letting go.” “Hanging on” caused all the suffering in life. In fact, if Jack would tell him the date and hour of his birth, he would be happy to provide Jack, for a small fee, with a mantra calibrated to attain the serenity of nonattachment, and also—
Jack hung up on him. He took the tattered envelope off the fridge, and dialed the long string of numbers written on it for the ashram.
The guy who answered spoke only Hindi, and maybe German. Jack struggled with that for a while, and then hung up on that guy, too.
He stared dully at the phone. Finally, he picked up the receiver, dialed information for Silverfish, and asked for Margaret Moffat.
“I have an M. Moffat in Silverfish. Do you want the number?”