Winter Garden

Winter Garden Page 4

“I love you, too, Meredoodle.” He grinned. “And think about grapes. Maybe I can still be a vintner before I die.”

She hated jokes like that. “Very funny.” Turning away, she went to her car and started the engine. Putting the SUV in reverse, she swung around. Through the lacy snow on the windshield, she saw her parents through the living room window. Dad pulled her mother into his arms and kissed her. They began to dance haltingly, although there was probably no music in the house. Her dad didn’t need any; he always said he carried love songs in his heart.

Meredith drove away from the intimate scene, but the memory of what she’d seen stayed with her. All the rest of the workday, while she analyzed different facets of the operation, looking for ways to maximize profit, and as she sat through endless management and scheduling meetings, she found herself remembering how in love her parents had looked.

The truth was, she had never been able to understand how a woman could be capable of passionately adoring her husband while simultaneously despising her children. No, that wasn’t right. Mom didn’t despise Meredith and Nina. She just didn’t care about them.

“Meredith?”

She looked up sharply. For a moment there, she’d been so lost in her own life that she’d forgotten where she was. At her desk. Reading an insect report. “Oh. Daisy. I’m sorry. I guess I didn’t hear you knock.”

“I’m going home.”

“Is it that late already?” Meredith glanced at the clock. It was 6:37. “Shit. I mean, dang it. I’m late.”

Daisy laughed. “You’re always staying late.”

Meredith began organizing her paperwork into neat piles. “Drive safely, Miss Daisy”—it was an old joke but they both smiled—“and remember Josh from the Apple Commission will be here at nine for a meeting. We’ll need donuts and coffee.”

“You got it. Good night.”

Meredith got her desk ready for tomorrow and then headed out.

Snow was falling in earnest now, blurring the view through her windshield. The wipers were moving as fast as they could, but it was still difficult to see. Every pair of oncoming headlights momentarily blinded her. Even though she knew this road like the back of her hand, she slowed down and hugged the shoulder. It reminded her of the one and only time she’d tried to teach Maddy to drive in the snow. The memory made her smile. It’s snow, Mom. Not black ice. I don’t have to drive this slow. I could walk home faster.

That was Maddy. Always in a hurry.

At home, Meredith slammed the door shut behind her and hurried into the kitchen. A quick glance at the clock told her she was late. Again.

She put her purse on the counter. “Jeff?”

“I’m in here.”

She followed his voice into the living room. He was at the wet bar they’d installed in the late eighties, making himself a drink. “Sorry I’m late. The snow—”

“Yeah,” he said. They both knew she’d left late. “Do you want a drink?”

“Sure. White wine.” She looked at him, not knowing what she even felt. He was as handsome as ever, with dark blond hair that was only now beginning to gray at the temples, a strong, square jaw, and steel-gray eyes that always seemed to be smiling. He didn’t work out and ate like a horse, but he still had one of those wiry, rawhide bodies that never seemed to age. He was dressed in his usual style—faded Levi’s jeans and an old Pearl Jam T-shirt.

He handed her a glass of wine. “How was your day?”

“Dad wants to plant grapes. And Mom was in the winter garden again. She’s going to catch pneumonia.”

“Your mom is colder than any snowfield.”

For a moment, she felt the years that bound them, all the connections that time had created. He’d formed an opinion of her mother more than two decades ago, and nothing had happened to change it. “Amen to that.” She leaned back against the wall. All at once the crazy/hectic/hurried pattern of her day—her week, her month—caught up with her and she closed her eyes.

“I got a chapter written today. It’s short. Only about seven pages, but I think it’s good. I made you a copy. Meredith? Mere?”

She opened her eyes and found him looking at her. A small frown creased the skin between his eyes, made her wonder if he’d said something important. She tried to recall but couldn’t. “Sorry. Long day.”

“You’re having a lot of those lately.”

She couldn’t tell if there was a hint of accusation in his voice or just a simple honesty. “You know what winter is like.”

“And spring. And summer.”

There was her answer: accusation. Even last year she would have asked him what was wrong with them. She would have told him how lost she felt in the gray minutiae of her everyday life, and how much she missed the girls. But lately that kind of intimacy felt impossible. She wasn’t quite sure how it had happened, or when, but distance seemed to be spreading between them like spilled ink, staining everything. “Yeah, I guess.”

“I’m going to the office,” he said suddenly, reaching for the jacket he’d draped over the back of the chair.

“Now?”

“Why not?”

She wondered if it was really a question. Did he want her to stop him, to give him a reason to stay, or did he want to leave? She wasn’t sure, and really, she didn’t care right now. It would be nice to take a hot bath and have a glass of wine and not have to try to think of what to say over dinner. Even better not to have to cook dinner at all. “No reason.”

“Yeah,” he said, kissing her on the cheek. “Th at’s what I thought.”

Two

It had taken two weeks hiking through the jungle to find the kill.

Bugs had alerted them; and the smell of death.

Nina stood beside the guide who had led her here. For a terrible instant, she experienced it all: the flies buzzing in the clearing, the maggots that turned the bloody carcass almost white in places, the stillness of the African jungle that meant predators and scavengers were nearby, watching.

Then she began to compartmentalize the scene, to see it as a photographer. She pulled out her light meter and ran a quick check. When that was done, she chose one of the three cameras hanging from around her neck and focused on the ruined, bloodied body of the mountain gorilla.

Click.

She stepped around, kept focusing and snapping shots. Changing cameras, adjusting lenses, checking the light. Her adrenaline kicked in. It was the only time she ever really felt alive, when she was taking pictures. Her eye was her great gift; that and her ability to separate from what was going on around her. You couldn’t have one without the other. To be a great photographer you had to see first and feel later.

She paused long enough to put a little more Vicks under her nose and then squatted down closer to focus on the severed neck. From somewhere, she heard the sound of vomiting; it was probably the young journalist who had accompanied Nina. She could hardly worry about that now.

Click. Click.

The poachers wanted only the head, hands, and feet. The money items. There were places in the world where a gorilla’s hand was an ashtray in some rich asshole’s library.

Click. Click.

For the next hour, Nina framed and shot, changing cameras and lenses as often as she needed to, putting used film into canisters and labeling them before tucking them into her pocketed vest. When dusk finally fell, they began the long, hot, slippery trek back down through the jungle. The air was electric with sounds—bugs, birds, monkeys—and the sky was the color of fresh blood. A tangerine sun played hide-and-seek through the trees. Though they’d all chatted on the way up, the descent was quiet, solemn. The immediate aftermath was always worst for Nina. It was difficult sometimes to forget what she’d seen. Often, in the middle of the night, the images would return as nightmares and waken her from a dead sleep. More often than she liked to admit, she woke with tears on her cheeks.

At the bottom of the mountain, the group came to the small outpost that served as a town in this remote part of Rwanda. There, they climbed into the jeep and drove several hours to the conservation center, where they asked more questions and she took more photos.

“Mrs. Nina?”

She was standing by the center’s door, cleaning a lens, when she heard someone say her name. Putting the camera away, she looked up and saw the center’s head guide beside her. She smiled as brightly as she could, given how tired she was. “Hello, Mr. Dimonsu.”

“I am sorry to bother you when busy things are happening, but we forgot to give you most important phone message. It from Mrs. Sylvie. She say to tell you to call her.”

“Thank you.”

Nina took the bulky satellite phone out of her bag and carried all the gear to a clearing in the center of the camp. A quick compass check identified the satellite’s direction. She unfolded the dish part of the sat phone, set it on the ground, and pointed it at sixty degrees northeast. Then she hooked the phone up to the dish and turned it on. An LCD panel blinked to orange life, giving her the signal strength. When it looked good, she made the call.

“Hey, Sylvie,” she said when her editor answered. “I got the poacher photos today. Sick bastards. Give me, what, ten days to get them to you?”

“You’ve got six days. We’re thinking of the cover.”

The cover. Her two favorite words. Some women liked diamonds; she liked the cover of Time magazine. Or National Geographic. She wasn’t picky. She actually hoped someday to get the cover and about sixteen pages for her photographic essay titled “Women Warriors Around the World.” Her pet project. As soon as she was done—whenever the hell that might be—she’d submit freelance. “You’ll have it. And then I’m meeting Danny in Namibia.”

“Lucky girl. Have sex for me. But be ready to be back to work next Friday. The violence in Sierra Leone is escalating again. The peace talks are going to fall apart. I want you there before Christmas.”

“You know me,” Nina said. “Ready to fly at a moment’s notice.”

“I won’t call unless a new war breaks out. I promise,” Sylvie said. “Now go get laid while I try to remember what it’s like.”

A few days later, Nina was in Namibia, in a rented Land Rover, with Danny at the wheel.

It was only seven in the morning and already the December sun was bright and warm. By one o’clock, the temperature would be somewhere around 115 degrees, and it could well be hotter. The road—if you could call it that—was really a river of thick reddish gray sand that sucked at the car’s tires and sent them careening one way and then the other. Nina held on to the door handle and sat up straight, trying to make her body work like a shock absorber, rolling with the motion.

She used her other hand to steady the camera that hung around her neck so that the strap didn’t bite into her flesh. A T-shirt was wrapped around the camera and lens—not a very professional way to battle dust, but in all her years in Africa, it had proven to be the best compromise between protection and use. Here, sometimes you had only an instant to grab your camera and take the shot. No time to fumble with straps and cases.