Free Rose's Garden by Carrie Brown Page A

delicately. He stood back and regarded her face.
    â€œWho are you?” he asked, taking a seat at the foot of the bed.
    â€œI thought maybe Lady Macbeth,” Rose said, turning back to the mirror. “The green is ominous, isn’t it?” She lifted one eyebrow with a finger, turned back to him. “I missed you,” she said. “It went all right?”
    Conrad looked at her through the gray cast of the mirror. He wished that she were not, at that moment, made up. He wanted to see her face as it was at night before they went to bed, freshly washed, a faint sheen of night cream glowing on her cheekbones, the satin ribbon of her nightgown tied in a loose bow.
    Rose stared at him when he failed to answer her. “What is it?”
    Conrad heard the alarm in her voice but could not think exactly what to tell her.
    â€œRose,” he said finally, “I almost died.”
    â€œOh, my dear!” She came and sat by him on the bed, her hand on his thigh, and listened quietly.
    When he finished, he raised his hands to her. “I couldn’t get enough to eat afterward,” he said helplessly. “I went to a diner and had lunch, a place nearby. And I’d lost my wallet somehow. I couldn’t even pay for it.”
    Rose put her arms around him. “It was a gift,” she said quietly at last. She caught his hands and held them to her cheek. “I’m so grateful.”
    A MOVEMENT ON the far side of the river recalled Conrad to where he was. He put his hands on the stone bulwark, felt its gritty surface. This close, the river smelled sour, and Conrad realized that he, too, reeked of neglect, abuse. He needed a hot shower, a haircut, a proper lunch with someone across the table for company. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had any of those things. No wonder Peak had thrown him out. I need to make an effort, he thought. See someone I know.
    And suddenly the thought of the Smile Market, Lenore’s voluble presence behind the cash register, the delivery boy’s loose-lipped grin, made him hungry for company, for food. He had not eaten much lately. The last mysterious basket had been delivered to his front porch a week ago—a curry so spicy it had made his eyes water, rich with currants and almonds and crimped shavings of carrot. It had come with a wax paper packet of thin, crisp breads and a little tin of chocolate truffles. Conrad had eaten the truffles in the dark of the arbor that night, as if he couldn’t wait, couldn’t get enough; he’d eaten all of them in a single sitting, a pair ofRose’s shoes in his lap, one hand fitted inside, nestled against the sole. When he’d finished, he had set her shoes down on the soft floor of the arbor, pointed them toward the horizon, the mountains now framed by the broad palms of the grape leaves. He had sat in the twilight, watching the shoes, until a rabbit had crept from the underbrush, inched forward, and touched its nose to the empty toe of Rose’s shoe. Conrad had held his breath against the grief.
    WHEN HE STEPPED up to the cash register at the Smile Market, carrying eggs and a box of cinnamon rolls, a net bag of oranges under his arm, Lenore snapped open the cash drawer, sized him up, and said, “Well, you don’t look any different.”
    Conrad startled, imagined May Brown on the phone to Lenore, hooding her eyes, looking out her kitchen window through the small dangling parachutists of her spider plant. “Lenore?” she must have said. “It’s me. May. You’ll never guess. Conrad Morrisey saw an angel last night. He showed me the exact place.”
    Conrad looked at Lenore suspiciously. Just what, exactly, had May Brown told her?
    â€œHeard you had a visitation,” Lenore said, lowering her voice.
    Conrad nodded at her, mute. His appetite for telling his story had waned in the face of this other, more urgent appetite, forkful upon forkful. He saw, for a