Theo of Golden: A Novel by Allen Levi - 51

Theo looked at his calendar. The date in March was circled.

“It’s been a year? Already, a year?” And so it had.

One full year he had been living on floor number three, Ponder House.

His plan for the day? A walk of celebration.

He put on his hat and a sweater and inspected himself in the mirror. His was an undeniably old face, but even to him, it lost decades of age when he smiled. And so he did.

“Don’t fool yourself, Mr. Theo,” he teased himself as he looked at his reflection. “You are an old man. But you look quite dapper today, if I say so myself. Happy anniversary, idoso .”

He opened the back door, greeted the morning, bowed slightly to the river, and headed for the street. The Promenade was brimming with students and business folk.

As he walked, Theo stopped at every familiar face to express his gratitude for the year that Golden had given him. Simone the cellist. Shep the barista. Derrick the prosecutor. Katherine the journalist. The gaggle at the Verbivore.

“Top o’ the mornin,’ Mr. Theo.”

“Tony, it is a glorious day indeed! I am on an anniversary walk. Today I have been in Ponder House for exactly one year. Tony, my boy, at this very spot, you told me about Ponder House. So, I came to thank you, for being my friend and neighbor. It has been a good, good year, and I hope you can remain open for at least one more week. ”

“Wishful thinking, Theo, wishful thinking.”

He bumped into Minnette at the Chalice. He had not yet seen her since his return from the holidays. They hugged and then stood facing each other, holding hands.

“Hello, my dear. How is Asher’s favorite niece?”

She smirked playfully. “His only niece is doing just fine. And I’m glad to see you again. I was afraid you would never return to Golden after the way my father behaved at Thanksgiving.”

Theo waved it off. “Nonsense. That was an unmistakably wonderful evening. So, so good. And Minnette, I will continue to believe that even your difficult dad is capable of saintliness.”

Minnette raised her eyebrows and snickered incredulously. “Well, if he gets there, it will belong in the ‘miracle’ column.”

Theo nodded. “Indeed, that is the only column there is, my dear, for any of us. So, Minnette, I’m on my way to the Boughery. Do you know if your Uncle Asher is at his studio today?”

She nodded. “He is. I went by there just a little while ago to deliver his tax return. He could probably use a bit of friendly company about now.”

Theo leaned toward Minnette. “Strong,” he whispered. “Brave. Kind.

It’s all still there. I see it even more clearly.”

She smiled. “A miracle?”

He grinned.

Leaving the Promenade and walking south, he continued past Symphony Hall and into the Boughery. He would make the loop, walking down the east side of the street, crossing the median to the west side, and stopping by Asher’s on the way back to Ponder House.

To stroll through the Boughery on a spring day like this one was to walk through a gauntlet of azalea blossoms — ten thousand mouths opened wide in laughter or song.

Theo had once assumed that these abundant blooms would be a gift to local beekeepers, until he learned that their nectar, and that of other flowers in the genus rhododendron , was toxic and unsuitable for honey. So toxic, in fact, that, once upon a time, receipt of a black vase filled with azaleas was to receive a well-known death threat.

Had Theo known of that practice earlier — on the awful afternoon when the jealous boyfriend destroyed the portrait of Mia — he might well have sent a very black vase filled with a large number of azalea blooms to Cleave Torber. But no longer. That venom had diluted by now, and Theo felt more pity than anger toward the young man.

Life was too short for azaleas in black vases.

The phrase “poisonous beauty” formed in his mind. He wondered if there might be other things that, like azaleas, were beautiful and toxic at the same time.

Let me think . . . rattlesnake, jellyfish, hemlock, black widow, words without wisdom, power without compassion, appetite without boundaries, pleasure without gratitude, art without humility.. . . I wonder if Basil could write a song called “Poisonous Beauty .”

In the journal where Theo kept lists of birds and trees and bestowals, he also had a section he captioned “plants in common.” In it, he recorded varieties of flowers that grew both in Golden and in or around Pinhão. The list had quickly grown from fifteen to forty. The latitudes of the two cities, 32N and 42N, and their proximity to the ocean were one probable explanation. Regardless of the explanation, the lawns and gardens of South Broadway were replete with reminders of his childhood home in Portugal.

Was it possible that, at some time in the distant past, before Morning Glory appeared on American soil, one small, hard-shelled seed from that elegant vine had departed the Douro Valley, hitchhiked or floated down the river, into the ocean, through the West Indies, across the Gulf, up the still-unnamed Oxbow River, just in time to settle down in the soft mudbank and begin to grow? Or maybe it had happened in reverse, the Oxbow to the Douro? Probably not .

Still, like so many other notions that passed through Theo’s mind when he took his daily stroll or sat beside the river, it was a pretty thought and a subject of contemplation — of journey — as he walked through the Boughery to Asher’s studio.

He spotted Asher’s bicycle on the porch, a sure sign that the artist was somewhere nearby.

He walked up the steps and knocked on the door. A voice responded from the side of the house. “I’m around here.”

Theo retraced his steps and found Asher on the south lawn, kneeling beside a flowerbed, busy with the ritual of spring planting. He was wearing faded jeans and a flannel shirt, rolled up to the elbows. His ungloved hands were covered in dirt.

“Hello, Theo, this is a nice surprise.” He rubbed his palms together and wiped them on the front of his jeans. “I’d shake your hand, but I’m a little messy.” He stood, walked a few steps to the back of the house, and returned with a lawn chair.

“Have a seat, Theo. If you don’t mind, I’ll keep planting. What brings you this way?”

They made small talk, took note of the one-year anniversary, commiserated about the necessary evil of taxes, and paid tribute to the splendor of the season. Asher pointed out the varieties of flowers he was planting: speedwell, echinacea, coreopsis, all chosen with pollinators in mind.

Asher held up three small plants in a terracotta pot. “Here’s a new one.” Theo leaned forward for a closer look as Asher explained. “I noticed these in the woods up in Harris County last summer when Brooke and I were hiking. The guy who owns the land let me mark them, so I could dig them up during the winter when they were dormant. I don’t know if they’ll survive here or not, but I brought lots of soil from that spot to put around them. And the partial shade ought to help. I figure if I plant them now, maybe they’ll have time to get comfortable before they’re supposed to bloom. Hope springs eternal, right?”

Theo nodded. “Indeed it does. Especially for gardeners, and especially at this time of year. Let me guess what you have there. ”

Theo bent over to examine the three plants. Eight or so inches tall and obviously still growing. Strong stems. Leaves opposite, oblong, heavily veined.

“I believe these are asclepias of some kind. In New York, these are quite rare.”

Asher smiled. “Exactly. They are native here but still not very common. Asclepias variegata . Milkweed. That might well be the most inaccurate common name in all the plant kingdom. I don’t know how anyone could categorize it as a weed. Have you ever seen one in bloom?”

Theo nodded. “Breathtaking. If not milkweed, what would you name it?”

Asher had an answer ready. “Since you’ve obviously seen one, you’ll understand. Crown of Many Crowns. Or Globe of the Kings. Maybe Globus imperialis ? Right?”

Theo grinned his approval. “Very good, Asher. That’s perfect. You should contact the flower police and make your case. That would be perfect. Crown of Many Crowns. I hope they do well here. You would both be in very good company.”

Asher stopped planting, straightened up, put his thumbs in his back pockets, and cast his eyes over the bed of flowers. “This is the sort of thing I learned from my mom. She enjoyed using native plants for her garden. Glissen House is full of things she dug up in the woods or down by the river. Plant nurseries would go broke if everybody was like her. The likelihood of these surviving would be a lot better if she were here. Spring planting always brings her back to life for me somehow. I wish she could be here with us right now.”

Theo nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “I’m sure it would make her quite happy.”

The two men held a brief silence. Then Theo stood to leave. “Well, let me not distract you from your children any longer. If it’s alright with you, I’ll check on them from time to time when I’m walking by.”

Asher nodded. “I hope you will. Maybe speak to them in Portuguese.”

“Yes, by all means. I shall indeed. Now, before I go, Asher, I want to thank you again for being so kind to me this past year. It has been a crown of many crowns for me. I can never repay you.”

“That goes both ways, Theo. It has been quite a good year, hasn’t it?

You ready to resume the bestowals?

“Of course! Next week I begin again. I’m so happy.”

As Theo closed the gate behind him, Asher waved. His dirt-covered palm brought to mind the fisher-painter of long ago, the dark river mud of Pinhão, and the tireless effort that some expend to cultivate beauty in the world.

Theo walked to the riverside.

Sat.

Watched.

Walked home.

Full.