Free Driftwood Point by Mariah Stewart Page A

of the Cannonball Island General Store and watched Ruby water her flower garden, which along with the family graves was enclosed by the newly painted white picket fence.
    After a few moments of silence, Lis asked, “So what do you have growing this year, Gigi?”
    â€œMuch as every year,” Ruby replied. She turned off the hose. “I started this garden when your mama was younger than you. Added on over the years. I like to think of it as my memory garden. When I see my flowers come back every year, makes me think of where they came from. There’s a little bit of this from one, a little bit of another from someone else. Some folks gone now, but a piece of their garden still be blooming right here on the island.” She turned the hose back on and continued with her task.
    â€œNice that your friends shared their plants with you.”
    â€œI did in kind.”
    â€œWhat did you share?”
    Ruby turned off the hose again. “Some of that red hollyhock be growing over at Hedy’s these days. She passed on seeds to her daughter and her granddaughter who lives over to Annapolis. Gave some to Jenny Painter four years back. You go past the Painter place, you’ll see ’em growing like weeds out front of their fence. Those black-eyed Susans, them come from Libby Allen. Grow so fast and spread so far I have to pull some out every summer. Take over the whole yard, if I had a mind to let them.” She leaned over to check the buds on an airy-looking plant with lavender blue flowers. “This here is geranium,” she told Lis. “Got a shoot of this from Mother Bristow when I first moved here from the old house on the point. She was the widow of Reverend Bristow, who used to preach at the chapel over to the village.”
    Ruby picked a flower and handed it to Lis as she straightened up. “She passed not long after giving her plants away. Some to me, some to Abby Turner, a bit to Virginia Larson. You walk around the island with your eyes open, you’ll see this blue geranium growing here, there, and everywhere.”
    â€œIt doesn’t look like any geranium I ever saw.” Lis held up the flower. “And I’m sure I never saw a blue one before.”
    â€œWell, that’s what it be.”
    Ruby went back to her watering.
    â€œWhich one’s your favorite, Gigi?”
    Off went the hose. “All of them. Can’t pick a favorite amongst your children.” She started to turn on the water, then looked over her shoulder at Lis and asked, “You ’bout done with your questions now?You got anything else you need to know right at this time? ’Cause I would like to finish up here before the store gets busy. Right about two or three, folks start to stop by for this or that.”
    â€œI’m done.” Lis nodded. “For now.”
    Ruby watered the flower bed on the far side of the porch, then turned off the water for good. She wound the hose around her arm and carried it to the hose bib, where she left it coiled on the ground.
    â€œThat’s a neat-looking hose,” Lis observed. “What’s it made of?”
    â€œSome sort of soft thing,” Ruby told her. “Not near as heavy as the old rubber kind. Easier to carry, easier to put away.”
    â€œYou buy that at the hardware store in St. Dennis?”
    â€œCarl down to the store don’t carry these, best of my knowledge.”
    â€œYou send for it?”
    â€œI thought you were all over your questions for today.” Ruby planted her hands on her hips.
    Lis made a zipping motion across her mouth.
    â€œGuess then it’s my turn.” Ruby dried her wet hands on her apron. “You find what you be looking for over to St. Dennis this morning?”
    Lis’s jaw dropped. How could Ruby have known . . . ?
    â€œLess my eyes be failing me, that be ice cream on your shirt.”
    Lis looked down at the front of her T-shirt. Sure enough, there,