Chapter 18: Eleanor's Garden
The walled garden behind Harrowmere Hall had waited two years for someone to believe in it again. Eleanor's sketchbook still held her plan for it. Julian had kept it on his desk, untouched.
Now, at half past five on an October afternoon, twelve bare root rose bushes lay wrapped in burlap in the back of his truck by the garden gate.
"You're sure these are the right ones?" Claire asked, hopping down from the truck bed. "Mom wrote 'the yellow ones by the bench.' These all look like sticks."
"They're bare root. They're supposed to look like sticks." Julian handed her the sketchbook. "She wrote the varieties in the back. I ordered exactly what she listed."
Claire read the page and went quiet, and then she looked up. "Dad. You've been weird all week. I know about the Open Gate. But why roses, why today, and why did you ask me to come home?"
Julian set the first rose on the gravel path. "Because there's something I haven't told you. I should have told you first."
She crossed her arms. "Okay."
"Three weeks ago I walked out of the north service gate dressed like a drifter," he said. "Old coat. Cap. A name I made up. Jake."
Claire stared. "What?"
"Nolan was feeding a tabloid, and I needed to know who inside this house was lying. So I became someone nobody would notice. For three days I was Jake. I slept in the boathouse. I ate Marisol's soup through the kitchen window."
"You ate soup through a window," she repeated, flat.
"She was the only person who fed me. Royce threw me out of the courtyard on the first morning. Nolan had her fired for it. For feeding a hungry stranger."
Claire's arms dropped. "Marisol? Fired?"
"For two days, yes. She's back now. Head of the household kitchen, and she runs the noon meal at the gate." Julian picked up a shovel. "Royce is suspended thirty days. He apologized to her. Nolan is gone."
"Wait." Claire held up a hand. "You, my father, who wears loafers indoors, slept in a boathouse for three days?"
"I slept in a boathouse," he said.
"And nobody recognized you?"
"A baseball cap and a limp are apparently a very effective disguise."
She laughed, one sharp startled sound, and then the laugh broke into something else. "Dad, that's insane. You could have been hurt. Royce threw you out. What if he'd done worse?"
"He nearly did worse. That's the point, Claire. I needed to see it from the ground. I needed to know what this house does to people who can't fight back."
Her eyes were bright now, and she blinked fast. "I hate that you did it. I really do. But also." She swallowed. "Also I think I understand. You've been so quiet since Mom died. Like the house was running and you were just watching it. I think you needed to get inside it again. From the outside."
Julian had to look away for a moment. "Your mother would have seen through the disguise in four seconds."
"She'd have taken one look at the coat and said, 'Julian, darling, you smell like a lake.'" Claire's voice wobbled on the impression, and she wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "Did you see me? While you were Jake."
"You came home that weekend. I watched you from the drive. You looked right at me and didn't know me."
"I thought there was a drifter hanging around," she whispered. "I didn't know it was you."
"He told me. That's part of why he's running the east wing now."
Claire was quiet a long moment. Then she walked to the center bed, where Eleanor's plan showed the first rose going in. "Is Marisol angry? At you? For getting her fired?"
"She fed me again after she came back," Julian said. "She said some people are worth feeding twice. I think that's her way of forgiving me."
"That sounds like her." Claire knelt on the path and pushed her hair back. "Okay. Let's plant Mom's garden. But you're digging. I have a manicure."
He laughed, the first real laugh in months, and drove the shovel into the bed. The light was going gold across the lake.
They worked in a rhythm. Julian dug, Claire unwrapped the burlap and settled each rose into its hole, firming the soil with her hands.
"She drew this the October before she died," Claire said, sitting back on her heels. "She told me she was finally going to do it in the spring. She said the house needed something that was only beautiful. Not useful. Not impressive. Just beautiful."
"She said that to me too," Julian said. "I told her we'd do it together. Then the spring came and she was gone, and I couldn't look at the sketchbook without feeling like I'd failed her."
Claire looked up at him. "Do you still feel that?"
He set the shovel down and knelt beside her. "Less today. Today I feel like she'd approve of the Open Gate. She always said a house this big should feed more than the people inside it."
"She fed everybody." Claire's hands were dirty now, the manicure forgotten. "Remember when the caterer's van broke down before the Christmas party and she had the kitchen make soup for the drivers?"
"I remember."
"She would have loved Marisol," Claire said. "She would have adored her."
"She would have." Julian helped her settle the last yellow rose where Eleanor had drawn it, and Claire pressed the soil down gently. "Dad. Can I say something?"
"Always."
"When you were Jake, and Marisol fed you through the window, and you were nobody." She looked at him, tears finally spilling over. "Mom would have fed him herself. She wouldn't have needed a window. She'd have brought him inside."
Julian put his arm around his daughter, and they stood like that among the new roses as the light faded.
"She would have," he said. "And now we will."