Jack's Garden
A Special Short Story from Helen Scott Taylor

Emily Rose peered out the side window of her granddaughter Hayley’s car and admired the primroses dotting the banks beside the road. Sixty-four years it had been, to the day, since her last visit to Cornwall. Yet she knew the way to Jack’s garden as though it were branded on her soul.

Hayley stopped at a crossroads and glanced at her questioningly. Emily uncurled a finger stiff with arthritis and pointed to the lane opposite. “Down there, dear.”

“Grandma,” Hayley said, frowning, “it’s overgrown. There’s grass growing through the blacktop.”

Emily’s breath faltered. Had she travelled three hundred miles to fail within sight of her destination? “I know it looks bad, dear, but I’m sure it’s still passable.” She reached for Hayley’s hand and patted it awkwardly. “Please try. For Grandma.” She hated using emotional blackmail on her granddaughter, but with her silly weak legs, Emily knew she couldn’t get to the garden unless Hayley drove her to the gate and helped her into the wheelchair.

Scrunching up her face in concentration, Hayley maneuvered the car along the lane while weeds whipped against the paintwork.

A few minutes later, she pulled up outside the garden’s main entrance. Ivy and creepers covered the gate, hiding the ancient Celtic symbols Emily knew decorated the metal latticework. A rotting piece of wood suspended on frayed rope hung between two curlicues, sign-written in brash red letters: DANGER. KEEP OUT.

“There’s no way you’re going in there,” Hayley said. She waved a finger at the sign. “That warning must be there for a reason.”

Emily’s heart beat unevenly, leaving her breathless. She pressed an aching hand to her chest. “I must get inside.” Jack’s waiting for me. After all these years, she’d never doubted he’d still be there; still welcome her back.

“Go on a little farther, dear. There’s a smaller gate.”

Hayley gave a resigned sigh and drove on another half mile.

“Stop here. Look, do you see.” Emily tapped the car window as they reached an arched wooden door. Its peeling brown paint camouflaged it among the stones of the wall.

“It’s probably locked.” Hayley gave her a wary sideways glance. “Why’s it so important for you to get in there, Grandma? Mum’s going to freak when she finds out I’ve brought you all this way without telling anyone.”

Emily flapped her hand. “Leave your mother to me. I wrote her a letter explaining everything.” Not that Emily’s practical, efficient daughter Miriam would believe a word of it. She took after Emily’s late husband. Both father and daughter had always been skeptics. If they couldn’t understand something, they didn’t believe it existed.

Emily reached for the door handle, but Hayley laid a restraining hand on her arm. “At least let me check that the door in the wall’s unlocked before I help you out.” Hayley hopped out of the car, stamped away the straggly grass and weeds sprouting through the road in front of the gate, then gripped the rusty handle.

As her granddaughter struggled with the latch, Emily’s heart nearly stopped beating. What would she do if the gate was rusted shut and she couldn’t get inside? Already Jack teased at the edge of her awareness like the promise of a sunny day at dawn.

Hayley twisted the handle one way then the other and kicked the swollen wood at the bottom of the door where it dragged against the ground. With a creak of protest, the door shuddered inward, opening to reveal the narrow cobbled path that so often led Emily into her dreams.

Emily pushed open the car door, lifted her legs out, and waited impatiently as Hayley unloaded the wheelchair from the trunk. Before Hayley helped Emily out, she paused and bit her lip. “You sure about this, Grandma?”

“One hundred percent. I’ve waited a long time to come back.” Longer than her granddaughter could imagine. Since Emily’s husband had died six years ago, the longing to return to Cornwall had grown stronger every day. She’d given Jack up and lived the life her mother wanted for her. She had no regrets. Her two wonderful children and five beautiful grandchildren had given her joy. But since she’d had to move into the nursing home, she knew it was time—past time—to return to the place where she’d left her heart.

After Hayley helped Emily into the wheelchair, she pushed her through the gate into the garden and mumbled with concern as the chair bumped over the cobbles.

“Keep going,” Emily encouraged, gripping the armrests as best she could, ignoring the shooting pains in her joints from the jarring ride. She smiled as she remembered skipping eagerly along the path to meet Jack, the memory as fresh as if it had happened only yesterday. When they reached a division in the path, she pointed. “Straight on. There’s a clearing up ahead.”

As they neared the center of the garden, Emily lifted an arm to hold back the bushes encroaching on the path and strained forward to see Jack. Her breath caught at her first sight of him. He looked exactly the same as the last time she’d been there, tall and handsome with curls framing his face.

“Ooh, look at that,” Hayley breathed. She paused in admiration for a few seconds as they approached the white-marble statue of Jack. “How come the sculpture’s so clean and perfect when the rest of the garden’s obviously been abandoned for years?”

Emily covered her mouth with her hand and allowed herself a secret smile. “The statue’s special. Come on, dear. Park my chair beside the bench opposite him.”

When they stopped, Emily plucked at her floral blouse, suddenly self-conscious. Sixty-four years ago, he’d loved her although she was shy and mousy. Now she didn’t even have youth on her side. She tapped the arm of her chair in frustration. Inside she was still the young woman who’d danced with him and loved him. What would he see when he looked at her now?

“Do you want me to stay with you?” Hayley asked as she engaged the wheelchair brake.

“Oh no, dear. No.” Guilt and sorrow mingled in Emily’s chest. This would be the last time she saw her granddaughter. Although she’d left letters for her family explaining where she’d gone and assured them she was happy, they would still miss her. “Come down here and give Grandma a kiss.” She clutched Hayley close for a few seconds, then reluctantly let go and looked up into her granddaughter’s pretty cornflower-blue eyes. “I need to be alone now, dear. Just for a while. Come back for me in an hour.”

Hayley stared at Emily, little lines forming between her eyebrows. “Okay, one hour. Then we must go home. We mustn’t be too late back.”

Emily watched her granddaughter walk away until she disappeared behind the bushes, but already her awareness had moved to the statue a few yards away. She heard the echo of distant laughter, but she wasn’t ready to look at Jack yet. She was afraid. Afraid of what he’d make of her now. He was still so beautiful, and the years had taken a heavy toll on her.

“Emily Rose.” Her name whispered on the wind. Jack had always used her full name as though she were someone special. Her family called her Emily, her friends just Em, but Jack had never shortened her name.

The warm breeze carried the scent of strawberries to her. Emily’s heart thumped as though it would burst. “Jack,” she whispered.

“Open your eyes, my Emily Rose.”

Emily swallowed the tears tightening her throat and opened her eyes. Relief bathed her when she saw Jack sitting on the plinth where his statue had stood. Bare-chested as always, leather breeches to his knees, he grinned and swung his legs, thumping his heels against the marble.

“I knew you’d be back, lass. I’ve missed you.”

Hot tears ran down Emily’s cheeks. She pressed her hand to her mouth and sniffed. “I never wanted to leave you. They took me away.”

“I know, lass.”

Jack jumped down from his seat and walked toward her, golden curls bouncing around his shoulders. He halted before her and held out his hand in invitation.

“I can’t.” Emily shook her head as the tears came faster and her lip trembled. “My legs…”

“Aye, you can. Give me your hand, love.”

Emily put her hand in his cool, firm grip and he pulled her onto her feet. For a moment, she faltered; then barely remembered strength filled her legs. She looked down and her feet were bare as they used to be when she visited the garden. “Jack?” Fear mingled with wonder. “How?”

He smiled at her. “Don’t question, just enjoy.”

He eased her into his embrace and she closed her eyes. How she had cried for him when her uncle found out about her visits to the garden and sent her back to her mother in London. Months of dark, lonely nights bathed in tears.

His fingers brushed the wetness from her cheeks. “Forget the past, love. You had a life to live without me. I’ve waited for you all these years. Now you’re back, I’ll not let you go again.”

He cradled her head against his chest and twirled her around, slowly at first, feet brushing the cobbles, then faster, dancing to the distant echo of music on the wind.

Jack had been her first kiss, her first lover, her first everything. When she’d been inconsolable after her father’s death during the war, Jack had done what nobody else could; he’d made her realize she was a woman not a child, and her life would go on. With soft lips and gentle hands, he’d shown her how wonderful it could be between a man and a woman.

“I lost you, Jack. For years I made myself believe you weren’t real.”

“Quiet, lass.”

He stroked her hair, and Emily realized it was long and brown again, hanging around her shoulders as it had when she was sixteen. The pain in her hands had gone. She flexed her fingers, threaded them through the golden waves around his shoulders, stroked the warm skin of his neck.

He stilled and pulled her closer. “Come to my bower.”

He led her by the hand along a narrow path hidden behind his plinth, ducked beneath the trailing branches of a weeping willow, and pulled her into the sweet-smelling glade where they’d made love. Without a word, he laid her on the soft grass and pressed his mouth to hers. Strawberries. Jack always tasted of strawberries, and his skin smelled of sun-warmed flowers. As his hands caressed her body, Emily closed her eyes and sighed. She’d waited a lifetime to return to him. She would never leave him again.

Hayley paced back and forth beside her car and checked her watch. When the second hand clicked around to twelve, she marched back through the small gate into the garden. She wasn’t comfortable leaving Grandma alone for too long. A few months ago, she’d had to move to a nursing home because she couldn’t care for herself any longer.

As Hayley approached the clearing, she pushed aside the branches hanging over the path. Her mouth fell open. The white-marble statue she’d seen an hour earlier had definitely been of a lone man, now he held a young woman in his arms. 

She frowned in confusion as she hurried over to where her grandmother sat slumped in the wheelchair. She was probably just asleep in the sun, but worry skittered through Hayley as she dropped to her knees. “Grandma,” she whispered and peered up into the old woman’s face. Her eyes were closed; her lips curved in a peaceful smile. Then from somewhere deep in the heart of the garden rang the joyful sound of a young couple’s laughter.

More by Helen Scott Taylor: