The Wishing Garden Read Online Free Page B

as a buyer for an electronics firm all his life, but I always thought he must have doubled as a spy. Whenever I slept beneath his roof, I never felt the slightest threat. I thought he was made of lead.”
    Emma jerked her hand off. “Well, goody for you. You had a dad around.”
    “Emma—”
    Emma folded her arms across her chest. “Let me stay at Diana’s. I’m fifteen. You know I can handle it. Trust me.”
    “I do trust you,” Savannah said quietly, then turned away before her daughter could see her eyes. Obviously, she’d taken up lying without warning. She’d given Emma unqualified devotion and as much freedom as she thought safe, and she’d still ended up with a daughter she could not predict. Emma had taken up smoking just when Savannah thought she’d sign up for track. She’d picked friends Savannah would never have chosen in a million years.
    But that wasn’t what frightened Savannah most. No, what scared her was how much energy Emma put into being miserable—reading only suicidal poets and watching the movies where everyone dies at the end.
    Savannah had never monitored the foods Emma ate or what she wore out in public, but she’d made sure her daughter knew luck was everywhere. Heads meant a wish would come true and tails gave you three more wishes. Sudden rain always brought good fortune, a penny in your pocket was a sign of a visitor, and three clouds in the western sky meant you were about to fall in love.
    Now it turned out it had all been wasted effort. Emma hadn’t believed a word she’d said.
    “Then let me stay,” Emma said.
    “I need you with me. This is important, Emma. It’s family.”
    “Great. Fine. Let’s uproot our lives for the sake of some family you can’t even stand to visit. I’m calling my dad.”
    She walked into the house. Savannah heard the beep of the phone, then a long pause, then Emma crying.
    Savannah hung her head, but not before she saw the shadow of that wolf again, first rearing up, then lying down at her feet. She stood up and walked into the house.
    “I can’t believe this,” Emma was sobbing into the phone. “I thought you, of all people, would be on my side.”
    Savannah walked past her and started packing. Every day, she thanked God for something, and today she decided it would be for Harry, for the fact that he had never given in to spite.
    By the time Emma got off the phone, Savannah had stuffed most of her dresses and a few hats in a suitcase. Emma walked into her room and threw herself on the bed.
    Savannah snapped shut the suitcase, then walked into Emma’s room. She looked at her sobbing daughter,then out the window. “We’ve got a life here,” she said. “We’ll come back.” Emma only cried harder, as if she’d seen what Savannah had just seen—Savannah’s shadow getting up after that wolf, then following him west, as far as he would go.
    Savannah called the office and arranged a leave of absence. Emma did not say a word for the two-day drive to Arizona. Her only pleasure came from the Holiday Inn in Barstow, which had free HBO and conditioner. Somewhere in the Mojave Desert, the sky got so wide and light, bees could not spot land. Crows sat on the tops of telephone poles and plucked the frustrated insects, one by one, out of the air. Outside Needles, the temperature hit one hundred degrees and kept climbing. Savannah licked her lips and tasted salt.
    Once in Arizona, she stopped the car to point out the first saguaro. Emma just shrugged. She would not get out of the car.
    “There’s a story about these trees,” Savannah said, stepping out of her light blue Honda.
    “Here we go,” Emma said.
    The sun took up half the sky and was the color a child might use, Lemon Yellow or Tangerine Dream. It was scorching and added a tang to the air. Even if a woman broke her heart, it would be too hot to cry.
    “A long time ago,” Savannah said, “the saguaro lived on the edge of the forest. Believe it or not, he had skin as smooth as silk