Mutual Future (Mungrove)

The Garden Where Love Grows

After Callahan dropped Billy off at The Hideout, Billy drove home, hoping to get some sleep since he'd laid awake in his cell all night. But no such luck. The light on his answering machine was blinking when he got home, and he sighed as he pressed play. Just one message. And he wasn't even surprised when he heard Mrs. Miller's timid voice on his machine.

"Oh, honey, I thought you were coming over today." He glanced at the clock. It was almost eleven and he'd promised her that he'd be there by nine-thirty to prune the hedges and trim the trees. It was springtime and she loved her garden, but she was too old to tend to it herself. "I've got to get to church; the ladies guild is hosting the fellowship luncheon after services. Then I have to go to the market. But I'll leave your money in the mailbox if you come by while I'm gone."

The last thing Billy wanted to do today was work in that old bat's garden, but if she wasn't going to be home, then he could at least take his shirt off and not have it clinging to him with sweat while he worked. He never took his shirt off in front of her. He had the first time she'd hired him, and he'd seen her eyes go wide as they moved over his golden brown skin and rippling muscles. She might be close to eighty, but she wasn't blind. But the look in her eyes when she saw the skull tattoo on his shoulder was almost enough to bring down the wrath of God on him. So, he'd put his shirt back on and never removed it in front of her again.

Billy changed into a baggier pair of jeans and an old t-shirt with a stretched out collar and headed to Mrs. Miller's house. Sure enough, her land barge of an Oldsmobile was not in the driveway. He checked the mailbox and found an envelope with his name on it, two hundred dollars, and a list of chores inside. The list was long, but two hundred dollars was two hundred dollars, and he wasn't going to turn his nose up at that.

Billy started in the front yard with the pruning shears and trimmed all the hedges along the front fence. By the time he was done, his shirt was drenched in sweat, so he took it off and hung it over a lawn chair to dry and he hauled out the lawnmower. He spent several hours working in her yard and garden. He checked on the beets, kale (whatever the hell kale was), broccoli, and carrots that he'd planted earlier in the year. They all looked to be coming along very nicely. And he planted a few rows of carrots and tomatoes in the empty space at the end of the garden near the back fence where they'd get plenty of direct sunlight. He also trimmed some low hanging branches off the white oak and red maples next to the house that shaded the driveway.

By the time he was done, it was just after three in the afternoon. Mrs. Miller would be home within the hour, so Billy put his shirt back on and went to the water hose that he used to water Mrs. Miller's vegetables and drank for a long moment. The water was cool and fresh and tasted good after all the physical work he'd done. He was just locking the last of the tools and the lawnmower back in the shed when he heard the gravel drive crunching under the weight of Mrs. Miller's Oldsmobile. He pushed his sweaty hair back off his face and made his way around to where she was. Her face lit up like a thousand candles when she saw him. Billy turned on his most flirtatious smile as he rushed to her and took the shopping bags from her hands.

"Let me get those for you," he said.

"You're such a kind boy," she grinned at him, patting his arm as she eyed the bruises on his face. But she said nothing about them, just led him into the house through the side door, directly into the kitchen. She peeked out the window over the sink at her garden as Billy unloaded her groceries and put them away. "Oh, the veggies look lovely, William." He winced. He hated being called that. But Mrs. Miller always insisted on calling him by his Christian name, as she put it. "Your green thumb is unbeatable."

"You might want to pick up some pesticide," Billy told her. "The warmer it gets, the more bugs you're going to have to fight off."

"No pesticide." She reached around Billy as he put a package of ham in the refrigerator and pulled out a pitcher of lemonade. "Would you like a cool drink? Of course you would." She sat the pitcher on the counter and went up on her toes to get two glasses from the cupboard. "I'll pick up some marigolds this week and you can plant them next weekend. They naturally keep the bugs away." She poured two glasses of lemonade and handed one to Billy.