And yet, Elinor was convinced that spindly seedling in the north corner might surprise everyone. No one would have expected that a garden could contain one of the native swamp roses that were only found in Unity, odd vines that were spied even when the first settlers arrived. Invisibles, people called them, for the swamp roses were said to wilt once seen by human eyes. But this one had flourished in the garden; if that could happen, then perhaps Elinor would have her blue rose at last. Perhaps all those other fools who had tried and failed before her would travel to this section of the Commonwealth, in awe of what had grown despite all odds, ready to sink to their knees and kiss the earth.
The possibility of success felt like a cherry stone in Elinor’s mouth, real and hard and true. For the past few months she’d had the impression that time was rushing past her, as though she were walking through a wind tunnel, with years streaming by on either side, days and night disappearing in a white blur. When it came right down to it, what did she remember most of her lifetime? The woods when she was a child, the way they seemed to breathe, as if they were a single green creature with one heart and mind. Her mother, Amelia, whose hands eased pain, sewing quilts in the winter. Love’s Lost. Honor’s Gone. Dove in the Window. The moment when she first spied Saul in the library of the state college where she’d been a student and he a new teacher, an instant when the whole world stopped on its axis. Her little girl, Jenny, seeing snow for the first time. The smile on her granddaughter’s face when she waved to Elinor at the train station. The rose she had always dreamed of, always blue, always unattainable.
When a rain shower began, Elinor went back to the house. She had in mind her granddaughter’s insistence that she wouldn’t die before snow began to fall. Was she relieved or terrified by this decree? Was she glad to know this timetable, or did she regret having asked for a date? Possibly the girl had been right: it might indeed be better to wake every morning without knowing what the day would bring, how the story would end, at what hour night would fall. Elinor was so preoccupied by these notions she hadn’t even realized she had blood all over her clothes until she went into the kitchen and noticed the look on the face of the boy who was, for reasons unknown to her, sitting at her table.
“You’re bleeding, Gran,” Stella said in a perfectly reasonable voice. There was quite a lot of blood, actually; some of it was still leaking from a cut on Elinor’s arm. The boy at the table looked as though he might faint, but not Stella. She had no fear of blood; in fact, she found it quite interesting, a strange and mysterious elixir. She brought her grandmother to the sink, where she ran cold water over the places where the thorns had gouged out pinpricks of skin, then went to the scullery for some bandages.
“It’s nothing,” Elinor insisted. She would have to tell Brock Stewart how the blood hadn’t bothered Stella in the least. How quickly the girl had reacted, as though caring for someone came to her naturally. In that regard, she clearly had not taken after her father.
“What’s he doing here?” Elinor nodded to Hap. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”
“We had half a day. Anyway, it’s four o’clock now. And this is Hap Stewart, the doctor’s grandson. I’m sure you know him, Gran.”
“We’re using a toxicology kit I ordered from the Fish and Game Department to test local water.”
Once he began to speak, Hap couldn’t seem to shut up. He couldn’t quite believe he was sitting in the Sparrows’ kitchen in a house that some people in town said had been known to rise above its stone foundation, especially on windy days.
“We’ve either found some pretty interesting microorganisms or a lot of fish poop,” Hap went on.
Elinor narrowed her eyes, but the boy still didn’t seem familiar. Interesting, but she could see that the boy didn’t have a single lie in him. A very rare condition, especially for the male of the species. In this way, he certainly resembled his grandfather. Of course, she had known Brock Stewart was lying to her that one time, when he came to tell her about the circumstances of Saul’s death. Elinor could see through an honest man as if his soul were a windowpane. Why, when old Judge Hathaway was still on the bench and Elinor was a girl, he’d often call her down to the courthouse to get her opinion, particularly in issues of domestic disputes. This girl knows her liars, the old judge would say. Try telling her a tall tale and see where it gets you.
And, indeed, she knew Brock Stewart was lying when he told her Saul was alone in his car at the time of his accident. Things were different back then, people listened to doctors and held high their opinions in all matters, not merely medicine. Dr. Stewart must have convinced Chip White, then chief of police, and several members of the Boston Highway Patrol to go along with his story. For they had all conspired to leave out a single fact: one of Saul’s colleagues, a woman new to his department, had died along with him in the crash. Once Elinor picked up the doctor’s lie, she phoned the college, but even they wouldn’t give out any information. Still, she understood now why Saul had often been late coming home in the evenings, why the telephone rang and, when she picked up, no one was on the line. How had she, of all people, not known of his disloyalty? Saul had never quite lied, that was the thing; he had only not told her the truth, and even Elinor Sparrow could not decipher emptiness and evasion.