Page 102 of Meet Me in the Garden

Later, I’m panic-stricken, thinking of my sisters. Already distanced. Already missing Sunday dinners. I call Adele and then Claire, asking them to come by on Saturday. We sit together on my patio, drink cold beers to take the edge off. I say, “Al and Bernard are going to need sometime, I imagine.” Adele bites her lip. Claire straightens her posture, sips primly from a glass. I say, “We need to remember that we’re sisters. This is ourfamily.”

“Try telling that to Bernard,” Adele mutters.

Claire pretends not to hear her, says, “Of course. Nothing could change my devotion to the two of you. And there are bound to be some hard feelings between the boys during this time, but it will be for the best in the end. How many years have they been going on about this union business? Soon they’ll have new things to talk about. A fresh start for everyone.”

“My husband is out of a job with a wife and three children to support.”

“Yes,” Claire says. “And I hope you know that Bernard had nothing to do with that decision. But a smart, professional man like Al? He’ll be employed again in no time. He was hired on the spot when he interviewed at Columbia, remember. A man with his intellect and charm and job experience—only a fool would turn him down.”

Adele sighs. Acquiesces. “He has an interview with Dootsie Williams on Monday.”

Claire beams. “See?”

“He’s building a music center next to the Sportsman Bowl. Two fine, Negro-owned businesses for the community, side by side.”

“That’s wonderful,” I say. “Al’s always admired Dootsie Williams.”

“And he’s sure to get the job,” Claire says. “How exciting.”

Al does, in fact, get the job. Weeks pass. Round after round of layoffs come, a sense of doom settles over the plant. I miss Lionel, catch him on the phone when I can. He’s doing fine in Oakland. He’s keeping an ear to the ground. “Those bird men sure know how to hold a grudge,” he says. He and Clément have weekly conversations, Clément on the phone at the kitchen table, going over notes, discussing each of the birds and how they’ve been faring. When summer comes and Clément and Nathalie go to New Orleans, Lionel’s friend Maurice comes to tend to the pigeons. I watch from the window as he fills their water and replenishes their seed, as he sweeps and carries the soiled hay to the street.

And then summer’s over. In the evenings, the kids come home from school with barely a hello. They toss their backpacks on the sofa, breeze past me, talking only to each other, wrapped up in the complexities of their senior year. I sit through dinner as they go on. I don’t say a word and they don’t notice and heat rises and there’s a sourness in my stomach, a taste I barely recognize. In the mornings I pack lunches, make breakfast. Nathalie wrinkles her nose at a pan of fried eggs and says, “You never make French toast anymore.” Clément brings friends home after school to see the birds; they stay for hours; I never know how much dinner to fix. One evening Nathalie’s waiting for me when I get home after drinks with Elise. She says the Jefferson High music teacher has offered her an old piano. “Just a little upright, perfect for learning,” she says. The only thing is she’s measured and the one place it will fit is right in front of the fireplace. Our winters by the fire. My living room, each painstakingly chosen piece of furniture in its right spot. I tell her yes, it’s fine, she can accept it. The next morning they graze kisses on my cheek on their way out the door, don’t bother clearing their dishes, and I don’t express my hurt or my frustration, don’t remind them to help me, just tally up each letdown like an answer marked wrong on a test.

After Thanksgiving we return to work to find, hanging on the lunchroom wall, a large-scale drawing of the plans for the new plant: an eighteen-acre campus with long narrow pools and low-roofed buildings, rows of eucalyptus trees and fountains and walls of windows. Alongside the plans are the words:Join us in Santa Maria!December comes and Columbia breaks ground, construction officially underway. The same month, on Central Avenue and 135th, just two miles from his house, Al supervises the letters going up on the Dooto Music Center’s marquee:GRAND OPENING, DEC. 23, ARTISTS & CELEBRITIES. I host Christmas—my house neutral ground—heat the gumbo Claire made the day before. Al and Bernard haven’t spoken in months. They nod to each other on my patio, keep their distance all night. In the kitchen, Claire says she and Bernard are talking about moving out of Compton. Southwest from here, she says, there are new developments being built. They couldhave more space. Maybe even a swimming pool. The neighborhood isn’t what it used to be. They could sell now while the prices are still good.

“What’s wrong with Compton?” Adele asks. “From my vantage point, it’s thriving. You should look at the Dooto Center’s calendar. Not only concerts and banquets but NAACP meetings and fundraisers for Negro candidates. Kids’ dance classes. I only wish it were here when the children were younger.”

“Sure,” Claire says. “But if you askmethere’s a reason Dootsie opened the center a couple milessouthof here. Farther from Watts. Odette, you should really consider moving, too. You’re even closer to that mess.”

“I love my house,” I say. “My yard and my studio. I’m perfectly happy where I am.”

“With the shopping district half boarded up? All those people out of work?”

“Claire, why do you even need more space?” Adele asks.

Claire stiffens, takes it as a dig, a reminder of her only child, how much she’d hoped for two or three, and the mood grows tense and everything feels cast in red. The things we don’t say, the resentments and hurts, they’re thick around us. For the rest of the night the cousins laugh together and open their gifts, and Nathalie and Al pore over liner notes, and my sisters alternate helping me in the kitchen, no longer able to be in that tight space together. And in the days after, in my studio, late into the night, I paint a vase of tulips and two water glasses, a stack of Claire’sMcCall’sand Adele’sJetmagazines, everything in shades of red.

I let Elise through the gate on a January afternoon. “I have terrible jetlag,” she says, dropping her purse on my chair and kicking off her shoes.

“What would help?” I ask her. “Coffee? A drink?”

“Coffee sounds nice,” she says. “I love how you make it.”

She follows me to the kitchen, sits at the table with her feet up on a chair as I fill the glass percolator with water, set it on the stovetop andlight the burner. “Tell me about the trip,” I say, measuring the coffee grounds.

“We spent Christmas in San Francisco. Joan’s moved on to self-portraits.” All these years later, just the mention of self-portraits makes me heavy with shame. I still can’t untangle them from the dizziness, the mess, the children’s fear. Elise says, “The work is magnificent. Maybe her best yet.”

“I hope to meet her someday. And see her paintings.”

“We’ll arrange it. You’d love each other.”

“And then you went to New York?” I say, crossing to the fridge for cream.

“Yes,” she says, a secret in her voice. “Finish making the coffee and I’ll tell you.” She’s moving to New York. I can feel it. My family is fracturing. The children leaving, the plant leaving. Now Elise, too. I take down two blue-rimmed cups with saucers. Pour the cream into a small pitcher. On the stovetop, the water is deepening to brown. I might cry. I pour the coffee into our cups and sit. She sips. “Delicious.” All I can do is wait for what she’s about to say. “So you know how I’ve been wanting to open a gallery. Espen’s finally in. We rented a space in New York, a nine-month lease. We’ll put on a great show, see what kind of interest we get, hopefully make a bit of a splash. And if we enjoy the experience, we’ll open up shop here in LA.”

“LA,” I repeat, to be sure.

“Sunset or Melrose, most likely.”