9 Willow Street

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

When I open the pink wooden gate with the sunburst pattern—it squeaks a little and needs to be oiled—and step into the garden of 9 Willow Street, I burst into tears for the first time since Nana Ellen died. I couldn’t even cry on the one-year anniversary of her death last month, but here, in her garden, I finally let go.

Nana’s beautiful garden, her pride and joy, is terribly overgrown and neglected, and if she saw it, she’d be so angry. My darling, spitfire great grandmother, who’d passed away peacefully and unexpectedly in her sleep three days after her hundred-and-ninth birthday, did not approve of neglect in any way shape or form, especially not for the things in life she valued the most, like me or her garden.

She had a temper until the day she died, and as I look around with tears streaming down my face, assessing the damage, I can almost hear her spitting and hissing. I knew you fools would contest the will of a poor, old woman, but the least you could have done while my lawyer kicked your behinds was make sure my garden was taken care of.

The grass is so tall, it looks more like a meadow than a lawn. The flower beds and the gorgeous flower-shaped pebble mosaic pathways she’d spent hours and hours keeping in check are taken over by weeds and barely visible. The bushes are screaming for a trim, and the early apples have already started falling from the trees and are littering the lawn.

I don’t even want to go around to the back of the house and look at the herb and vegetable garden, where I spent so much time with Nana, learning everything about plants and their medicinal properties. My heart hurts just trying to imagine the state of it, and I can’t do it just yet.

Instead, I make my way to the porch and sink onto the top step, curl myself into a little ball, and let my tears fall freely, allowing myself to grieve properly, finally able to let go of the stoic mask onto which I’ve clung the last year.

Thirteen months ago, when my father had called and told me Nana was dead, I thought he’d lied to me at first. I’d spoken to her on her birthday, sad and heartbroken that I couldn’t visit her, bake her a cake, and give her the present I’d already bought. All the flights had been canceled because of a terrible storm and I’d had no way of getting to her.

But she wasn’t upset. “Pish-posh, my dearest Hannes. You’ll be here when you can, I know it. Just text me a picture of your lovely face and I’ll be happy.”

So I did. I took a selfie with my hands shaped like a heart, and before I texted it to her, I wrote Nana And Hannes Forever on it. That’s what she always used to say whenever I was upset over being misunderstood by my family, or other teenaged woes.

Nana sent me back a picture of herself with her head tilted back, her hand pressed against her forehead in a dramatic fake swoon, and the ever-present twinkle clearly visible in her eyes. I promptly set the picture as a background on my phone.

So was it really so weird I didn’t believe Father when he told me she had passed away?

“Are you sure?” I’d asked, thinking it couldn’t be true, considering the last time she’d even had a common cold was fifteen years earlier when she was ninety-four.

“I am a real doctor…unlike some people,” Father replied. “Obviously I know what I’m talking about.”

Great. Even when he called me with terrible news, when his own grandmother had died, he still found the time to mock my career choice and remind me of my status as the family outsider. The “herbalist quack”—as though we were offering to cure cancer with herbs!—in a family of real doctors. My father’s a surgeon, my mother an oncologist, and my three older sisters and brothers are all doctors, too. Then there’s me. The black sheep. The heathen among scientists.

When we’d hung up, I called Nana’s phone, only to be met by Father’s tired voice. “I knew you wouldn’t take my word for it, Hannes.” He was less condescending than usual; I had expected that put-upon sigh at which everyone in my family excels when talking to me.

“I wish he would grow up sometime. Is he happy now?” my mother added in the background.

My father gasped, then exclaimed, “Malin.”

I hung up without saying “goodbye,” unable to listen to them anymore.

Is he happy now?

What kind of thing is that to say about someone who’s just gotten the most dreadful news of his life? Mom was never very fond of Nana—except for when it came to her money and the house—but this was low even for her. At least Father seemed to agree.

Nana and Hannes forever.

Not anymore.

Now, my tears keep rolling down my cheeks, wetting my sweater. My heart is like an open wound, infested with puss and sorrow, and sitting here at Nana’s house—my house now, I guess, after thirteen months of fighting for it—I feel like it’ll never heal again.

With a stuttering breath, I wipe my eyes on my sleeve. I get to my feet, square my shoulders, and walk around to the back.

It’s not as bad as I’d feared, yet at the same time, it’s worse. Nana died before she had time to harvest last year, and it shows. The biannuals and the perennials have self-seeded, and not in orderly, organized rows. Whatever annual plants she’d planted last year had died, leaving behind brown dead flowers and vegetables.

The herbs growing in the raised beds have fared reasonably well; the mint has loved to be left unsupervised and is trying its best to make its way out of the contained area and down onto the grass.

But everything else…

I sigh, fall to my knees, and randomly start pulling weeds. There’s no method to my weeding, but I need to do something with my hands. I work and I cry and I work and I cry until my eyes are so puffy I can hardly see what I’m doing anymore. I sit on my heels and dry my face with the back of my hand, not caring if I leave behind traces of dirt. “Oh, Nana,” I sigh. “Why did you have to leave me?”

I pull a carrot out of the ground and wipe off the dirt on the grass before I take a bite. My parents would faint with apoplexy and probably pop a vein or two in their brains if they saw me now—do you know how much bacteria there are in soil, Hannes?—but I don’t care.

When I was little, Nana always took me out to the garden and harvested tiny, tender carrots for me to eat, even though they still had much growing to do. My parents had lectured her on how unhealthy it was, and she’d promised she’d never do it again, but her eyes twinkled, and I knew she was just saying what they wanted to hear with no intention of obeying their orders. What they don’t see won’t hurt them, Hannes.

The carrot is sweet and tastes of sunshine and the earth and makes me miss Nana even more. When I’ve eaten it all, I throw the haulm on the compost, and fish the house key from my pocket, entering through the back door, leading into the utility room.

The house smells musty, and I leave open the door to let in some fresh air. Except for the odor, everything seems normal. Nana’s rain boots in the garish flower pattern stand neatly in their usual place, waiting for her to shove her tiny feet into them. Her straw hat that made her look like a film star from the fifties hangs on its hook, and in the basket next to the door are the little bits and pieces she’d needed to have nearby when outside, like gloves, kneepads—“for my creaky old knees”—and the homemade lavender-arnica salve she always used on her hands. I unscrew the lid and inhale. The beeswax and the floral scent bring more tears to my eyes, so I quickly close it again and try to shake off the overwhelming grief.

A basket of dirty laundry is still atop the washing machine, and the sight of her favorite cardigan—lavender-colored, her favorite scent and favorite color—lying on top, undoes all my efforts to stop crying.

I grab it and bury my nose in the soft fabric, desperate to get a whiff of her, but there’s no trace of her after all this time. If only my stupid relatives—my grandfather, Nana’s younger children, my uncles, and even my mom—hadn’t tried to contest her will in which she left me the house, then maybe I could’ve still caught her scent one last time.

If I didn’t resent their actions before, I do now.

After putting back the cardigan in the laundry basket, I wash my face and hands in the sink. Then I walk into the kitchen and open a couple windows in the hopes of airing out the house.

My plans are to move in right away. I could stay in the room I’m renting while I give the house a good clean and fix whatever needs to be fixed, but I can’t stand being away from it for another second. The waiting, the legal bullcrap, and the overwhelming amount of calls from angry family members wilted my spirit like it was an unwatered plant, but now my roots are back in the soil where they belong, and I’m not leaving.

So I run up the stairs all the way to the third floor and open the window in the guestroom, the room Nana always referred to as mine. I bring a set of sheets with me downstairs and throw them into the washing machine.

As the machine starts the cycle, I jog out to the car I’d parked on the street too eager to finally see the house again to have the patience to park it properly in the garage hidden away behind the house, so it won’t “ruin the esthetics”—Nana’s words, not mine. After the car is safely tucked away, I carry my things inside.

I’d sold most of my stuff before I’d moved back to town after Nana’s death, and what I kept is crammed into the tiny room I’ve been renting from my boss, Margot. Today, I brought only necessities: clean clothes, toiletries, and groceries to tide me over a few days.

When my suitcase is put away in the guest room, I return to the kitchen to take care of the food before it perishes.

…And am met by a surprise—a rabbit huddled in the middle of the kitchen.

I do a double-take and come to a halt. “Well, hello there.”

The rabbit stiffens at the sound of my voice, and after a moment’s hesitation, it hops away. But instead of heading for the utility room and still-open back door, it ends up in the corner of the U-shape created by the counters and the breakfast bar, and the bunny is trapped. With its side turned to me, it flattens itself on the floor, ears pressed against its head, glued along its back.

Carefully, I sit cross-legged on the floor at a safe distance. “Where did you come from, little one?” I soften my voice to keep from frightening it even more. “Did you sneak in through the back door? Didn’t you want to stay in the garden and eat all my carrots, huh?”

Its nose wiggles furiously and it makes itself even flatter. The rabbit is mainly white but has black ears, black markings around the eyes, and black spots running down its back all the way to the tail. The coat is shiny, and the bunny looks healthy and well-fed.

“You’re a beautiful one, aren’t you?”

As carefully as I sat, I get back up on my feet. Without taking my eyes off my new friend, I grab a small bowl, fill it with tap water, and set it on the floor. Then I retake my previous position, making sure not to sit too close to the bowl.

“Don’t be afraid. I know I probably look big and scary to someone as small as you, but I promise I’m nice. I won’t hurt you. And look!” I point at the bowl, then roll my eyes at myself for talking to the animal as though it can understand what I’m saying. “There’s water if you’re thirsty. And when you’re not as scared of me anymore, I’ll go into the garden and dig up a carrot for you. Would you like that?”

One of its long ears twitches.

“Aha, you like that, don’t you?”

It doesn’t make any other movements, but I keep chattering.

“I love bunnies. I wanted one when I was a kid. My friend, Mitchell, had a rabbit and a cat, but I loved the bunny more. Hopper, that was his name, wasn’t as beautiful as you, though. He was gray and was a big fluff-ball, looking like someone had forgotten him in the dryer. His ears weren’t as long and pretty as yours.”

I reach back to the box of groceries I’d put on the floor earlier and grab a bottle of water for myself. I don’t want to get up again and worry the poor thing more. I down half the bottle in one go.

I’m not sure if I’m imagining things, but I don’t think the bunny is as flat as before. Its chin hovers over the floor, so I keep talking. “That was yummy. Running around is thirsty business, don’t you agree? You better come drink some.”

The rabbit’s nose slows from its frantic pace, and the movement looks less like panic and more like the bunny is trying to smell me. Or maybe the water.

I rest my elbows on my knees and lean forward. “Anyway. I begged and pleaded with my parents to give me a rabbit for my sixth birthday, but they refused. They said pets are unsanitary and they didn’t want animal poop lying around the house.” I huff and shake my head. “You see, little one, my parents are smart and successful, but not particularly warm. And not at all fond of animals. They even told Nana she wasn’t allowed to buy a bunny for my birthday even if she kept it here. They said I wouldn’t be allowed to come for sleepovers again if she went behind their backs.”

I close my eyes and sigh, remembering the argument so clearly. Not that it was an argument in the sense that they were shouting; my parents never raise their voices—“our family is not plebeians, Hannes.” They’re all reason and politeness and control, and I just want to scream sometimes.

Nana knew better than to raise her voice, so she agreed with their ridiculous demands while her usually so-warm eyes shot lightning bolts at them. And when they left, she stomped into the garden and pulled weeds so furiously, she splattered soil all over me and herself, muttering between clenched teeth.

I heard her anyway.

“Nana?” I asked after she calmed down. “If Mother has a stick up her butt, can’t Father take it out? He operates on sick people.”

That made Nana splutter out a cackling laughter, and tears leak from her eyes. “Hannes, my boy, your father isn’t a butt doctor, he repairs people’s hearts.” Then she bribed me with extra sweet hot chocolate and three cookies as she made me promise to never repeat what we’d talked about to my parents.

To this day, twenty years later, I still haven’t told them.

When I open my eyes again, the bunny has inched its way closer to the water bowl. I pretend not to look at it as it hops forward, but when it starts drinking, the corners of my mouth turn up in the hint of a smile.

“My nana would have loved you,” I say in a low voice. “She loved all animals. She used to feed the birds so they wouldn’t freeze to death in the winter. I wonder why she never got a pet.”

My eyes start stinging again, and I hang my head. “Oh, little bunny. I miss Nana so much. Why did she have to die? She wasn’t sick.”

When I’d said as much at Nana’s funeral, my father blinked back tears and sighed. “She was old, Hannes.”

“I’m surprised she clung to life this long,” Mother had added loudly, making people around us look at her with displeasure. “But then again, she always was the most stubborn creature in this universe and next.”

That comment earned her a disappointed glare from my father, and I was somewhat relieved that even he had a limit to what he could accept on the day of his grandmother’s funeral.

My grandfather—Nana’s oldest child and the one making the decisions in the family—didn’t want an autopsy, and that was that. They were all convinced she’d died of natural causes, and it’s not that I don’t believe them, but I don’t like uncertainty and unanswered questions. I never did.

“Good Lord, Hannes, you ask so many questions my head is spinning,” Nana said often, at least before I was old enough to discover Google.

A tentative nudge of a rabbit’s nose against my fingers pulls me back into the here and now, but I manage not to jerk away. When I glance at the bunny, it looks at me with big round eyes, and for a moment I imagine I’m seeing understanding in them.

“Are you here to comfort me, friend?” I whisper.

The bunny replies by pressing its little face against my hand. And when I carefully stroke my fingers over its fur, it lets me.

We stay on the floor for a long time, and eventually, the bunny trusts me enough to let me pick it up, and with my face buried in its fur and his nose pressed against the inside of my wrist, the piercing edge of my grief starts to soften.