Part 7: The Garden

In spring I visited June and Sam. Their garden contained a small table, two folding chairs, and a feeder that attracted more squirrels than birds. Sam insisted the squirrels were merely early. June said they had learned to read the schedule.

We took our mother's notebook outside and looked at the list of things she had wanted to do with us. Sam brought the bird guide. The first bird we identified was a robin. The second was a sparrow, although we needed the guide and several minutes of debate.

June asked whether I had read our father's letter. I said yes. She did not ask what it said until I offered to tell her.

“He acknowledged leaving me at the station,” I said. “He said he was wrong.”

“How did that feel?”

“Good and angry. I wanted it for years, and it didn't give any of those years back.”

She nodded. “You don't owe him a response because he finally wrote it.”

I asked how she had managed her own relationship with him. She said they spoke occasionally, mostly about practical matters. She had told him that she would leave a conversation if he criticized her for inviting me to the wedding. He had tested the boundary once, and she had ended the call.

“Did he call back?”

“A week later. He talked about the garden.”

I was glad she had found a way to make her own choices. Her relationship with him did not need to match mine.

Sam brought out the apple cake. The center was slightly uneven, and the kitchen smelled of cinnamon. We ate at the garden table while a squirrel inspected the feeder. June read one of our mother's notes aloud: “If the cake falls, serve it in bowls and call it pudding.”

That evening I decided to send my father a short response through his attorney. I wrote that I had read his letter and appreciated his acknowledgment. I was not ready for a meeting, and I did not know whether I would be. I asked him to respect that I would initiate any further contact.

The attorney confirmed receipt. My father did not reply directly. I felt relief, followed by a strange sadness that there was no conversation to continue. Both feelings were mine to hold.

Before I returned home, June and I visited Aunt Rosa's daughter, who showed us a box of photographs. We chose copies rather than dividing the originals immediately. One picture showed our mother standing beside a kite that had landed in a tree. Another showed June and me at a kitchen table, arguing over a board game.

“I thought you always won,” June said.

“I remember you changing the rules.”

“Maybe I did.”

We asked her cousin whether she remembered the game. She said she had been too young to know the rules but remembered the argument ending when our mother brought out cake. We wrote her account on the back of a copy, clearly marked as her memory.

On the train home, I looked at the photograph of the kite. Our mother's list had not recorded whether we got it down. I sent the picture to June and asked. She replied, Ask Sam. He knows about trees.