Chapter 2 - The Undercurrents of the Garden
The afternoon sun climbed higher, casting sharp shadows across the impeccably manicured lawns of my mother’s estate. Seventy-five people milled about under the billowing white tents, a sea of pastel linen, glittering jewelry, and forced laughter. To an outsider, it looked like a scene straight out of a glossy lifestyle magazine—an idyllic family gathering celebrating generational grace and affluence.
To me, it was a pressure cooker with a failing valve.
I stood near the edge of the stone terrace, holding a glass of ice water that had long since gone tepid. A few feet away, Emma was crouched by a low boxwood hedge, carefully examining a beetle that was making its way across the dirt. Her yellow sunflower dress billow-spread around her like a bright corona of petals against the green.
David leaned against a stone pillar beside me, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, his gaze fixed on our grandmother, who was holding court near the grand fountain. Eleanor Pickett was currently demonstrating to a small circle of church elders how she personally managed her massive philanthropic calendar, though anyone who knew the truth was aware she hadn’t written a grant proposal or organized a community drive in thirty years. She simply lent her name—and her husband’s legacy—to committees that did the heavy lifting, then collected the plaques for her study wall.
“Look at her,” David muttered under his breath, his voice laced with a bitter cynicism that felt far too heavy for a sixteen-year-old. “She’s acting like she’s hosting a coronation.”
“Be careful, David,” I murmured, keeping my eyes on the distant crowd. “Ears are everywhere today.”
“Let them listen,” he replied, his jaw clenching. “I’m sick of pretending she’s anything more than a bully in a designer dress. You saw how she spoke to Emma about her dress. It’s never enough. Nothing is ever good enough for her unless it fits her stupid, archaic script.”
I couldn’t entirely disagree with him, but survival in the Pickett family had always depended on tactical silence. For decades, I had played my assigned role: the quiet, dutiful, slightly disappointing daughter who ran a modest charity while the rest of the family lorded over their corporate empires and country club memberships. They had no idea that the modest charity I ran—the Riverside Community Foundation—was actually a multi-million-dollar economic engine that quietly funded half the infrastructural redevelopment in the county. They thought I handed out soup ladles because it sounded suitably feminine and harmless.
Let them think it. Ignorance was a shield.
“It’s just one afternoon,” I said softly, resting a hand on David’s rigid forearm. “We eat, we endure her speeches, we smile for the obligatory family photo, and then we go home. That’s the deal.”
“It’s a bad deal, Mom,” David said, turning his dark eyes toward me—eyes that mirrored the sharp, unyielding spirit of his late father, a man who had refused to bow to my mother’s social extortion. “And you shouldn’t have to keep taking it.”
Before I could answer, a shadow fell over us.
It was Aunt Linda again, holding a refill of chardonnay and looking flushed from the heat and the gossip.
“There you are,” Linda trilled, giving David an appraising look. “You know, David, you’ve gotten so serious lately. You used to be such a sweet, talkative boy when you were little. What happened? Too much time studying?”
“Just thinking, Aunt Linda,” David said smoothly, his tone polite enough to pass muster while carrying enough frost to freeze water.
“Well, don’t think too hard, it’ll give you wrinkles,” she laughed, dismissing him before turning her attention to me. Her eyes dropped to my sensible shoes, then swept up to my hair. “Jennifer, honey, your mother was just saying how wonderful it is that you brought the little girl. Such a unique situation, adoption. I mean, I don’t know how you do it. Having someone else’s blood running around your house—doesn’t it feel a bit… artificial?”
The word hung in the humid summer air like a foul odor.
I felt David stiffen beside me, a sudden intake of breath rattling in his chest. I tightened my grip on his arm, warning him without words.
“Artificial, Linda?” I asked, my voice dropping an octave, losing its polite social cadence and sharpening into something cold and flat. “I wasn’t aware that love required a notarized genetic test to be real.”
Linda blinked, taken aback by the sudden edge in my tone. She offered a nervous, fluttery laugh. “Oh, goodness, Jennifer, you know I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just... well, blood ties matter in this family. You know how your mother is about lineage.”
“Yes,” I said, looking straight into her wide, slightly panicked eyes. “I know exactly how my mother is. And perhaps that’s why my children know what real family actually means.”
Linda cleared her throat, clearly regretting her approach, and backed away. “Well! I should go check on the canapés. The caterers are always dropping the smoked salmon.”
As she scurried off toward the main tent, David let out a slow, ragged breath. “You should have let me say something to her.”
“Words are wasted on people like that, David,” I said quietly. “They don’t hear logic. They only hear what threatens their little bubble.”
Over by the fountain, Emma had abandoned the beetle and was wandering toward the long banquet tables where the appetizers and early refreshments were being laid out under silver domes. She looked small amidst the towering floral arrangements and the gossiping adults—a bright, sunflower-yellow note in a world that preferred muted, bloodless tones.
May you like
My chest tightened with a sudden, fierce protectiveness. I had brought them here today because I thought it was time to bridge a gap, to prove to myself that I was no longer the terrified teenager who had fled this house ten years ago.
I was beginning to realize what a colossal mistake that was.
