Chapter 12 Jack

Christine Livingston tried very hard to die at home with her four kids, but the pain management had proven too much for her husband and her mother. For the last two weeks of her life, Christine had been at Sanctum House.

Her singular goal before dying was to make sure her kids were set to go on without her. That meant dictating letters to be sealed until some future date, having private meetings with the spouses of her grown kids, and, in the case of her youngest, still in high school, making a dental appointment that had been neglected. Christine told Jack that she wasn't leaving this earth without a fight and firmly believed that her damaged heart was determined to go on.

When her heart began to lose its determination, she still fiercely maintained she would not leave until she knew they'd all be okay without her.

As if they could ever be okay without her.

Had she finally been convinced they would survive, or had the fight become too much? And where was Christine now? Did she have a to-do list in the afterlife? She struck Jack as someone who needed goals to thrive.

He was thinking about all of this at his garden plot on a blustery Sunday afternoon. He was weeding a raised bed, ostensibly getting it ready to plant some annuals, but really, he needed the task for his hands. Life was hard and unfair. Why would someone like Christine, in the prime of her life, with so much yet to do, be the one with a heart too weak to hold all the love she had to give?

And why would someone like him, with a strong heart, have no one to love?

Love had never been his luck. It wasn't that he hadn't tried for it, because he had. After Brandy, he'd dated a few women, but none of them ever amounted to more than a handful of dates. Were his standards too high? Was he too fearful of another woman delivering a body blow?

Byron's girlfriend, Tracy, was intent on setting him up with one of her friends, but Tracy had never introduced him to anyone who was his type.

Not that Jack had a firm handle on his type by any stretch. He only knew when it wasn't working. He thought about the woman he met in the corner store the night it was robbed. Her name was Nora, and he couldn't have asked for better in that situation.

Nora had appeared from thin air, reaching for the same salad as him, her hair the same color as the toffee candy Sandra brought to work. And she had some amazing crystalline green eyes.

Nora had had the same reaction to the ordeal that he'd had, which he figured was at least one way to know if someone had potential. And somehow Nora had made him laugh about the absurdity of it all.

He'd felt the thrum of attraction for the several hours they spent talking until Darth was taken into custody. The deluge of rain had closed some streets and forced water rescues from others, so the crime unit was slow to respond. He and Nora had sat cross-legged on flats of water in the aisle eating from cans of chili as they waited their turn to give statements to the police.

The bodega cat was in her lap. "What do you think?" she'd asked. "Was this fate? Or bad luck?"

Fate, he'd thought immediately. "Are they different?"

"Gosh, I hope so. Earlier today, when I asked the universe if this day could possibly get any worse, I didn't expect it to respond with a hold-my-beerroutine."

"But it could have been worse, right?"

She looked up from stroking the cat. "How?"

"For starters, we had a bathroom," he reminded her. "Imagine an all-nighter without one. Especially when you started feeling queasy from the Starbursts."

"Yikes. Excellent point."

"And we didn't have to drink mop water."

"But we came pretty close." She dug her plastic spoon into the chili can he held. "What would you say was the worst thing to happen to you before tonight?"

He didn't have to think twice—the memory lived every day in his thoughts. "My mom dying from cancer when I was fifteen. And then being sent across the country to live with an aunt I'd only met once or twice."

"Oh." Nora paused, her spoon in the can. "I'm sorry."

He waved her off. "No need." He never knew what to say to offers of sympathy. It had been traumatic, but it had also been so long ago. It had a hazy, otherworldly feel to it now.

She swallowed and removed her spoon without any chili. "My grandpa died recently."

"That sucks."

"Yeah." She glanced up, and her eyes had the sheen of tears.

"Hey," he said and put a hand on her arm. "You don't have to talk about it."

"Thank you," she said gratefully. "I wish I could talk about it, you know? I miss him so much." Her voice cracked a little, and she pushed a long lock of hair from her face that had fallen out of her bun.

Jack caressed her arm. "I get it. The loss gets easier in some ways, but in other ways, it gets worse."

She nodded and ran a finger under one eye. But she looked up and smiled, recovering. "Honestly? The first thing I thought of was the day my dad stabbed my basketball to death."

"Excuse me?"

"Crazy, right?"

So crazy he didn't believe it. "For real? On purpose? With a knife?"

"For real. On purpose, and with a very big knife."

"Why?"

She shrugged and resumed stroking the cat. "He didn't believe girls should play masculine sports. Especially basketball."

"Wow." So at least one Neanderthal still roamed the earth.

"I freaked you out," she said. "That sounds totally deranged, right?"

"Totally."

She laughed and shrugged a little.

"What's the best thing that ever happened to you?" he asked. "Please tell me you won an NBA championship or something."

"I wish!" In what he assumed was her Marlon Brando voice, she said, "I coulda been a contender! But the best thing?" She looked at him, and there was a new shine in her eyes. "Meeting new friends in the weirdest places."

A glittery swirl of pleasure wrapped around him. He took her hand, laced his fingers through hers. "Same here. So... bad luck? Or fate?"

Her smile sparkled. "Oh, it's fate."

Yep, that night still ranked as one of the more amazing things that had ever happened to him.

He and Nora didn't have paper, and both their phones were dead because they'd used them to look up YouTube videos of the dumbest things people did. He wrote his name and his number on her hand. Nora wrote her name and number on the back of a receipt. He lost the bit of paper with her number like a chump. But she'd had his, and for the longest time he waited and hoped she would call, convinced she'd felt the connection as strongly as he had. But she never did call. She probably assumed he'd ghosted her. Nothing could be further from the truth—he'd racked his brain trying to find a piece of memory that would help him find her number but had come up short.

If he dwelled on it, he could get maudlin. He took his spade and began to turn the dirt. Earth to earth, dust to dust.

"Excuse me!"

He glanced over his shoulder. It was a woman he'd often seen in here. Elderly, usually sitting in a wheelchair under the shade of a tree. But here she came, rolling her way down the gravel path toward him by digging her heels into the ground to propel her chair forward. Jack came to his feet. She'd piled her hair on top of her head like she often did, wore leopard-print earmuffs, and was dressed in a fur stole and thick, utilitarian sweatpants.

She rolled right up to his plot and peered up at him. "Goodness, young man, are you crying?"

"What? No," he said and hastily brushed his hand across his face. He hadn't even realized a few tears had fallen. "Perspiration."

"It's sixty degrees. I don't perspire when it's sixty degrees." She pulled her stole tighter around her neck, which, on closer inspection, looked more faux than fur. Two plots over, Jack spotted the thin, wiry man who was always with her, trimming some ornamental trees.

"I wondered when you were coming back," the lady said.

This remark confused him. He thought back to the times he'd seen her and couldn't remember them ever speaking. "Pardon?"

"Why haven't you introduced yourself? We all know each other in here."

"Oh. Sorry, it didn't occur to me."

"Hmm." She casually eyed him up and down. "So what's your story?"

"My story?"

"Your story. Like, why are you here? This was Hauser's plot. He never mentioned a son."

What was she after? "I'm not his son, but he left it to me."

"Obviously, but why are you here? Mr.Starr in Plot Six, he came to get away from his wife. She was a harpy, to hear him tell it. But she's dead now and his kids made him go to assisted living. I heard he was living on popcorn until he nearly burned his building down."

Jack blinked.

"Plot Two, that's Eileen with her two awful twins. Good Lord, don't get me started."

He made a mental note not to get her started.

"And then there is Plot Nine, just abandoned like it's worthless dirt." She pointed.

Jack looked in that direction. A plot near the back wall was overgrown with weeds. "What happened there?"

"I'll tell you what happened. She should have been here a long time ago. But that's what's wrong with America; everyone is too busy to take care of things. Now she's going to have to start from scratch."

Jack looked at the offending plot again. He wished he could have a crack at it. He liked the idea of starting fresh in a garden, building from seedlings up. Everything dies, but there is always something new growing.

"She thinks her husband is having an affair, you know."

Jack winced. "Maybe that's why it's in such a state."

"Not Plot Nine, Plot Two. The twins! He stays out all hours, takes calls outside. I told her those were classic signs of infidelity and she needed to hire a private detective. What do you think?"

Think? Impossible. He couldn't even keep up. "I think... you don't miss much."

"Well, I don't. I like knowing what's going on in our little community. I see it all."

That remark made his neck prickle with unease.

"We all look out for each other, you know. You never said what your story is. Don't think I didn't notice."

There was no danger of him thinking that. "My story isn't very interesting. Mr.Hauser left me this plot. I'm not really into gardening, but I like it here."

"Well, you're right—that's not very interesting. But that's how most stories start."

He didn't think most started by having a plot bequeathed to them by a former patient. "What's your story?"

She snorted. "You don't know who I am?"

"Sorry, no. Should I?"

She leaned forward and pierced him with her pale blue eyes. "Catherine Henry?"

He searched his mental data banks for anyone named Catherine Henry.

She sighed loudly as if he were being intentionally obtuse. "Broadway? Catherine Henry, star of productions such as A Chorus Line, Rent, Follies, and No, No, Nanette! And I headlined at Esther's Follies!" She suddenly stood up from her chair and did a step-ball-change to the right and then to the left, with jazz hands.

"Oh, wow," Jack said. "That's... that's surprising."

"Why?"

"Because of your chair. Most people in a wheelchair can't dance."

"Says you. Where there is a will, there is always a way to dance. Anyway, this was abandoned outside the gates. I like to use it while Walter works on our garden. You wouldn't believe how much time he spends on those prizewinning Venus flytraps."

"I see."

"You know what I see? That you don't see anything. You're too sad or depressed or something."

Because she saw everything. He smiled faintly.

She sat in the chair again and it rolled backward. She heel-toed her way closer to him. "I think you could use more joy in your life."

Jack couldn't help it—he laughed.

"What's funny?"

"I don't know. You don't even know my name and you're telling me what I need."

"Okay. What's your name?"

"Jack. Jack Moriarity."

"Pleased to meet you, Jack, Jack Moriarity. Now that we've got that out of the way, you need more joy in your life. Tell me I'm wrong."

This woman was a trip. "Okay, you're not wrong. But who doesn't?"

Catherine Henry suddenly smiled, and it was a lovely, warm smile. "I think we're going to be friends, Jack Moriarity. I was like you once, you know. I'd lost the lead role in Fiddler on the Roof to Bette Midler."

"You... what?"

"I couldn't pick myself up off the floor. What did she have that I didn't?" Catherine Henry settled back into her wheelchair that was not a wheelchair and launched into a tale about a brush with depression while he turned the earth and listened.

She was very entertaining.

He realized, after he'd said goodbye and left the community garden for the afternoon, that after he'd met Catherine Henry, former star of the stage, he hadn't thought about his job again.