Chapter 10 - The Garden on the River
By the summer of 2028, the ninety-ton limestone townhouse on the Upper East Side had changed its habits.
The front gates were still made of wrought iron, and the guards still stood near the entrance, but the small courtyard between the two buildings was no longer empty of dirt. Four massive stone planters had been brought up from the docks by Julian's transport trucks, each one filled with three tons of dark, rich loam from the valley near Cincinnati.
I stood in the center of the courtyard, wearing my old sneakers—the ones with the cheap laces—and an old pair of denim overalls that smelled of fresh fertilizer and rain. The sun was hot over Manhattan, the June air thick with the smell of asphalt and river water, but inside the stone walls, it felt quiet, cool, like the porch of our old house before the sickness took my mother’s voice away.
The green vines of the tomato plants had already climbed five feet up the bronze trellises Christopher had ordered from a designer in Milan. They weren't standard garden stakes; they were shaped like small, delicate vines that matched the grand staircase inside the house, but the fruit growing on them was real—heavy, green balls that were starting to turn that deep, bright red that means they’re ready for the knife.
Lupita—no, her name was Mrs. Gable's niece, Sarah, whom I had brought from Ohio to manage the household—walked out of the kitchen door carrying a large white ceramic bowl and a silver pair of scissors.
"The boys are here, Autumn," she said, her voice bright with that clean, midwestern lilt that always made Julian’s lawyers look around like they were lost.
Julian came down the stone steps first. He had his suit jacket off, his white shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing the long, pale arms of a man who spent his life behind glass, but his hands were steady as he reached out to help Adrian carry a large, heavy crate of digital equipment down into the basement entry.
Adrian was wearing a new hoodie—this one was white, with a small, embroidered red tomato over the heart instead of the digital snake—and his earpiece was out. He looked at the plants, his thumb tapping against his bare thigh out of habit, but his eyes were clear, free of the dark circles that had stayed with him for ten years.
"They're big, sis," Adrian said, leaning over one of the planters to sniff the leaves. "They smell like... like the stuff you brought in the bag that first night."
"They smell like our mother's yard, Adrian," I said, clipping a large, perfectly red tomato from the vine and dropping it into Sarah’s white bowl with a soft, clean thud.
Christopher came out last, wearing an old linen shirt that looked like it had been dragged through a costume trunk, his hair messy, his sunglasses hanging from his collar. He sat on the stone rail of the steps, his long legs swinging back and forth, looking at the three of us with that loose, golden smile that was currently on thirty-four billboards between New York and Los Angeles.
"Julian says the stock hit eighty points this morning, Autumn," Christopher called out, taking a small silver pocketknife from his pocket and cleaning his fingernails with the point. "The legal team cleared the final distribution of the Vane Trust. The Cincinnati clinic has its new wing opening on Friday. They're naming it the Helen Song Memorial Pavilion."
Julian stopped by the largest planter. He didn't look at the buildings or the street; he looked down at the dark Ohio dirt between his polished oxfords, then he reached into his pocket and pulled out the old blue hat with the sharks. He didn't keep it in the case anymore; the wool was soft, clean, smelling of the cedar chest where it had stayed for twenty-four years.
He laid the hat on the stone edge of the planter, right beside the stem of the oldest vine, where the sun could hit the rubber sharks.
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"The ledger is closed, Autumn," Julian said, his gray eyes turning to meet mine with a peace that hadn't been written into our father's trust agreement.
"It's not closed, Julian," I smiled, handing him the silver scissors as the rain began to fall softly over the high glass towers of the city, turning the dry leaves green under the afternoon light. "We're just starting the second row."
