“Where would you like the girls to settle in?” Emily asked her hostess.
“Well, wherever they’d like!” said Clary, waving her arm at the living room as if she were a fairy godmother with a wand. “The couch, the divan, the carpets. Wherever they’d like!”
Emily recalled John’s invitation at the office-the way he had stressed that there was a playroom upstairs where the twins could escape the grown-ups. The last thing Hallie and Garnet wanted this evening was to sit like dolls on the divan. And so, even though it was awkward, she said to her hostess, “That’s really very sweet of you, but I know the girls are tired. They had dance in the morning and were doing yet more unpacking this afternoon. John said something about a playroom. Would it be okay if they just curled up there and dozed in front of a movie? They brought some of their DVDs.”
“Oh, of course. Just let us have them for a few minutes,” Clary said, and she smiled at the children. Her eyes hadn’t wavered, but in those two short sentences her voice had lost its saccharine lilt and grown demanding. Just let us have them. The words echoed in Emily’s head, and they sounded vaguely threatening. This was, she understood, a ridiculous and completely unhealthy overreaction. Still, she wanted her children to have a quiet evening upstairs. It was what she had promised them-and what she had been offered.
Reflexively Emily turned toward Chip for help, because the old Chip would have found a diplomatic way to have the girls excused as soon as John returned with their drinks. But the moment she saw him with that odd new posture of his-his left arm dangling down at his side, his right arm bent across his stomach, and his right hand cradling his left elbow-she knew there would be no cavalry approaching from that direction. He was still gazing at that bizarre chandelier. And so she grinned at her children and did nothing as Sage pressed her palm behind Garnet’s back and Clary did the same with Hallie, and the two older women guided the girls into the living room. Emily followed them, feeling a little obsequious and a little put upon. For a second she was afraid she was going to have to escort Chip into the room, but abruptly he pulled himself together and followed her.
“No one asked you two what you would like!” Peyton said to her. “That’s John for you-always the grandfather. Oblivious to adults when there are children present whom he can spoil. Would either of you like some wine? I brought a couple of very nice Malbecs from Sonoma.”
“That would be lovely, thank you,” she murmured.
“Chip?”
He waved his hand as if brushing a fly from his face. “Oh, that’s fine.”
Peyton nodded approvingly, clearly pleased to have a task, and went to the kitchen, where John was concocting the Shirley Temples.
“Now,” Clary was saying, sitting both Hallie and Garnet down on a round velvet pouf the color of a raspberry in August. “Tell me how you’re enjoying New Hampshire.” She and Sage sat on the floor before the children, as if the girls were storytellers or-and when the word came to Emily, she thought it, too, was an unhealthy connection- royalty. Clary was sitting with her legs straight before her while Sage had curled hers underneath her. Emily was impressed with the woman’s elasticity. She contemplated recommending to her daughters that they offer their hostess and her friend the pouf, but there were plenty of other places where these ladies could sit. They had chosen to sit on the floor before her daughters.
Hallie and Garnet glanced briefly at each other, deciding who should answer, and then Hallie rocked forward a bit and replied simply, “I like the greenhouse.”
“Me, too,” said Garnet.
“I am not at all surprised,” Sage said.
“Why?” Emily asked. She realized the moment the word had escaped her lips that it sounded like she was cross-examining the woman. But Sage didn’t seem to be disturbed by the tone.
“What’s not to love in a greenhouse?” she answered. “Think of the beauty and the magic inside and the fact the world is always new in a greenhouse. It can always be spring. You can have flowers every day.”
Emily noticed Hallie looking at her and nodding. She was reminding her of their conversation in the car ride home from dance that morning: Bethel had more greenhouses than the neighboring communities.
“Well, I’m not sure that’s why the girls love the greenhouse. We’ve discussed what we will and won’t do with the building, and Hallie and Garnet are pretty clear about this: It will be their playhouse, not my greenhouse,” Emily said. “Besides, I think this village must have enough greenhouses already devoted to tomatoes and phlox and whatever.”
“Tomatoes and phlox,” Sage said slowly, pondering Emily’s response. She didn’t seem especially happy. “We do grow both. At least some of us. But we also grow a fair amount of… whatever.”
“Really, why are there so many greenhouses in Bethel?” Emily asked. “There must be a reason.”
“There might be more than in some towns, but there’s no mystery to it,” Clary answered, jumping in. “There used to be a very active garden club in the village-women from Bethel won embarrassing numbers of blue ribbons at the county fairs for flowers and herbs and vegetables-and Sage’s father-in-law happened to own a construction company that specialized in them.”
“In greenhouses.”
“And solariums. And sunrooms. And he gave us all the ‘friends and family discount.’ ”
“But whatever it is that we grow,” Sage added, still smarting from Emily’s offhand dismissal of what they cultivated in their greenhouses, “more times than not it tends to be more interesting than mere tomatoes and phlox. Some of us bring in cuttings and seedlings from all over the world. I have all sorts of things thriving in my greenhouse right now that most Americans have never even heard of-would never even have dreamed of! And Anise? Her work is even more extraordinary. Anise is brilliant: You simply can’t imagine. The things either of us could tell you about the power of herbs and tinctures and blood and-”
“Yes, Sage,” Clary said, squeezing her arm and cutting her off. “We all know that you grow some remarkable things. But we don’t want to bore the girls!”
“What do you mean by blood?” Emily asked. “I presume you don’t put blood in tinctures or potions.”
“Oh,” Sage said, her voice more measured than a moment ago but still edgy, “I only meant the effect a natural remedy can have on the blood-on a person’s health.”
“Herbs and tinctures and blood,” Chip said, and because he had barely spoken since they arrived, everyone turned to him expectantly. Even the girls. He sat down in an easy chair upholstered with images of honeysuckle vines. “Sometimes I think I could use a good herbalist these days.”
Emily could tell there was a subterranean layer of sarcasm in his remark, but only because they had known each other so long. She was confident that only she had even an inkling that he might be mocking the need for an herbalist. Moreover, she also believed that it wasn’t precisely that he lacked faith in herbal medicine; rather, it was that he had problems of his own that in his opinion far transcended the powers of cohosh and ginseng.
“Tell us, Hallie: What specifically do you like about the greenhouse?” Clary asked, not exactly ignoring Chip but not responding to his remark, either.
“Well, it’s, like, Garnet’s and my own special place,” the girl answered.
“It is your own special place, isn’t it? Places have auras, and I am so glad you appreciate the aura of that greenhouse.”
“We haven’t spent a lot of time there yet,” Garnet added. “It’s kind of cold right now.”
“Of course it is. But Sage and Anise and I will be happy to help you decide what to grow there. We can bring by seedlings and starters and roots. We can-”
“I was serious,” Emily said, careful to smile as she interrupted Clary. “I think the girls want it to be a playhouse. Dolls and games and secrets-that sort of thing.”
Sage stared at her, the woman’s eyes narrowing just the tiniest bit. “You know that Peyton’s father built that greenhouse. You know it was on land that was carefully dowsed.”
“I didn’t know that. But, still, it seems to be metal framing and big pieces of glass with a good southern exposure. It’s beautifully built, and your father-in-law’s company did very good work: I don’t know much about greenhouses, but I can tell that for sure. You can be very proud. But, well, it’s a greenhouse-not a nuclear power plant.”
“No, it’s certainly not. But tell me, Emily: Could you design a greenhouse?”
“No, but I could call a company that makes them and order one.”
“There was more to it than that,” Sage told her, her tongue clicking hard on the last word, and Emily was just about to say she agreed, she understood, she was just being glib. It wasn’t that she actually believed she had said something that might merit an apology; rather, she simply wanted to deescalate the conversation. But before
