Page 123 of Meet Me in the Garden

“Really,” Delphine says, but she’s distracted. It’s possible that she’s forgotten all about the drawings.

“My brother and I, we’re both about to be juniors at UCLA.”

“Oh?”

“I’m studying music. Composition. Clément’s considering veterinary medicine.”

“You weren’t anywhere near the violence, were you?”

Another squeeze. “It was happening all around us.”

But Delphine’s frowning, not listening. “I’ve been wondering if you remember me.” She looks down at her lap, so she can’t see Nathalie’s reaction, and rushes to add, “But I wouldn’t ask you such a thing. Please, don’t say a word.” She pulls her handbag onto her lap and unclasps it. “I had a feeling this might happen. That I’d get here and be tongue-tied. I wrote a letter for you, just in case.” She hands a thick envelope over the table. “Please read it. Talk it over with Odette. Write me back or don’t write me back. It’s all up to you. Gosh. I’m sorry. I’m afraid I won’t be able to stay for dinner.” She finally looks at our faces again, mine and then Nathalie’s. As she’s standing, she says, to me, “You look just the same.” And to Nathalie: “You’re more beautiful than I could have imagined. And very strong. I can tell.” Nathalie blanches, watching her edge away from us.

“No,” she says. “We came all this way. You’re notleaving?”

“I’m sorry,” Delphine says again. And she’s gone.

Nathalie and I look at each other—dazed, silent. She’s pale, shaking, and the waitress is back and all I can think to do is order food for us. I choose off the menu at random. Soon our table is filled with fried oysters and abalone and crab legs and a baked potato. All of it, delicious. We stay seated next to each other, say nothing through the meal, just pass the plates of food back and forth, reach to pluck bites with our forks. We’re ravenous. We finish everything. Order strawberries smetana for dessert. Exhaustion descends before we even pay the bill. We trudge up the hill to the inn, squinting against the wind, and we take off our jackets and fall into the bed. She’s holding Delphine’s letter.

“Do you want some time alone?” I ask.

“No,” she says. “I don’t think I’ll read it tonight. I’m going to read for class instead.” She sets the letter on her bedside table, opens her textbook, falls fast asleep within minutes. It’s barely past nine o’clock. I turn off the lights save for the one by my bedside. I try to read the novel I brought, wish I was already in the middle of it, keep reading the first page over, unable to sink in. I set it down. Camera obscura in my mind’s eye. The slow spinning motion of it, the ever-shifting horizon.

Near midnight, a soft rap on the door. I ease it open and the nightreceptionist tells me he’s sorry to disturb me but there’s a woman downstairs, waiting in the restaurant. I expected it, somehow. It’s why I kept myself awake for these hours. I tiptoe past Nathalie, pull my shoes back on, smooth my hair in the bathroom.

Delphine’s the only person in the restaurant. The kitchen is closed but there’s a pot of coffee on a hot plate, a pitcher of cream. “Want some?” she asks.

“I’ll fix it for myself,” I say. My hand shakes as I pour, coffee splatter on the white cloth. I carry my cup to the table.

“Did I wake you?” she asks.

“No.”

“Good.”

She studies my face and I’m nervous, mind racing. Just to break the silence, I say, “So you’ve been here ten years. And you’re doing well?”

“I am.” I wait for her to tell me more, watch her as she decides on what to say. Finally: “The last time we saw each other, I had lost everything. But step by step I built a new life.” I nod. “I never got to hear what happened. How you and Cyril ended up married.”

“No,” I say. “You didn’t.”

There’s a pause, an opening for me to tell her, but I stay quiet. I’ll let the expanse of my years remain as much a mystery to her as hers are to me. It’s not out of spite. Or maybe it is. But then she says, “If there’s anything you want to ask me, go ahead. I’ll tell you,” and I don’t stop myself.

“That day when I saw you in the road. What were you doing there?”

“I had to get away from the trees,” she says. “I had this idea, that if I could get away from the trees, I could keep living my life.”

“I went to your old house. I saw the lines cut in the maple tree.” She swallows, says nothing. “And then a couple years ago, Nathalie and I went to the attic of the laundromat and I saw them again, cut into the windowsill.”

“There’s a logic,” she says. “When you’re inside of a delusion. Thosenotches were a way of protecting myself. It doesn’t make sense when sane, of course. But when you’re inside of it…”

“No,” I say. “I think I understand. There are no trees in the middle of Crenshaw Boulevard.”

Behind her eyes, something catches. A recognition, maybe. Like she’s seeing me through time. She nods.

“Do you still have delusions?” I ask.

“It’s been ages. About a year ago I had a period of detachment.”