Pruning the Dead by Julia Henry

Author:Julia Henry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2018-11-13T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

Getting from the back of Lilly’s house to the front yard was not a simple feat. That was on purpose. Though the house itself was situated on a double lot, Lilly had used up every square inch. Standing in the backyard, to the left were the garage and the driveway. The garage was at the end of a large retaining wall that didn’t have any steps up to the backyard. The side of the garage had a door that led into the gardens, with steps down to the garage itself. Thanks to some engineering and a few well-placed drains, the garage never got flooded, even though it sat at the bottom of the driveway. Because of the angle, it had a second floor of storage. Back in the day it had been the chauffeur’s apartment.

To the right of the house was Lilly’s greenhouse. The greenhouse butted up against the garden wall on one side and Lilly’s house on the other. Again, it blocked the entrance to the back. This back garden had been the pride and joy of generations of the Jayne family. It was her private sanctuary, open to the public once or twice a year during garden tours and to friends and family more often. But usually it was just her private place, and Delia’s.

“Let’s walk through the garage,” Lilly said. “It’s easier than traipsing through the house.” She opened the back door of the garage and stepped aside to let Roddy in. She reached to the right and flipped on the light. Though she knew the space so well she could have walked through it in the dark, she also knew that it could be a minefield for the uninitiated.

Roddy stopped, gobsmacked. The garage was huge, and there were two cars, with room for a third. Two Vespas were parked toward the front. There were hooks, shelves, and pulley systems on all three walls, with detritus everywhere. Roddy wondered if there was order in this madness. If there was, it wasn’t clear. But still, it was a marvelous cacophony of color and texture and unexpected bibs and bobs. There were outdoor decorations for different seasons, large gardening implements, ladders, step stools, a snow-blower, and more tools that he could not fathom the purpose of but that seemed well used.

“This is marvelous,” he said, and he meant it. Roddy had lived a very ordered, compartmentalized life. He aspired to have meaningful chaos. Perhaps he could spend time sitting in Lilly’s garage for inspiration.

“Don’t look too closely, Roddy,” Delia said. “This place has magical powers. A few weeks ago, I came in here looking for a shovel, and the next thing you know I found a box with nothing but hinges from a hundred years ago, with little tags attached to each one indicating exactly where it came from. That box of hinges, and those notes, have become an obsession of mine.”

“Anything that has to do with history, or research, becomes an obsession of Delia’s,” Lilly said. She walked toward the front of the garage and hit a button on the side.

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