From the Terrace

 I poured a glass of sun tea and went out onto the back terrace.  It was the season of the pale purple flowers, her favorites—plumbago, Costa Rica nightshade, agapanthus, blue hibiscus. 

As soon as it cooled down a bit, I'd water the yard.

And "very treasure."  Buried treasure? 

Of course, buried treasure could mean anything.

It could refer to the coins buried on the hillside.  She knew about them—and if she understood that Father was dead, she might be worried.

Or she could be referring to something else, close to the same idea, some metaphor.

In the last year she had actually spoken, her words had emerged more and more from a ruined labyrinth.

If she spilled a bit of iced tea on the cushion of the porch lounge, she might say,

"Oh, I wet the bed."

To the sound of sirens off in the distance, "The ships are coming."

Later, she would stand puzzled and immobile for a long time and then, "Baby cry."

So she could have meant anything, I reasoned—anything that she feared I might leave undone or not understand like bank accounts.  Or Aunt Rosalind's jewelry.  All those faithfully-enshrined records of future ambitions, present disappointments.

The more the California dream eluded the SummerlandsName=Summerland Tree; HotwordStyle=BookDefault; , the more determined we were to surprise ourselves with a fortune.

A perversion of serendipity: bury your own gold.

Or I might have misunderstood her altogether.

It didn't matter much, really.

Impossible to dwell on my mother imprisoned there, her mind as stiff as organdy. 

And much as I wish her free, that is impossible, too.  But such an expensive jail.  I'll need a boxcar of buried gold to finance the Paradise Home Convalarium bills.

How long would it be for her? I wondered.

How long would it be possible to come up with more money than I make—if I should manage to make any—each month?

First, though, I had to see what Father had been up to.

Finished watering the plumbago and went into the study.

Perhaps the end of everything would require digging up the entire hillside.  But for now, the prudent person could assume that the rubber tube was in a predictable place and that Father had left a diagram in the desk.

The room was still in disarray—uncharacteristic of Father, as Calvin kept reminding me.  But the police investigation had reported no signs of forced entry.  No foul play.  So, I replaced the contents of the desk drawers, stacked the folders in neat piles beside the desk.

Taking a suitable pile, I sat down at the desk to begin re-organizing everything.  The papers didn't seem to be what I needed—a journal written by my great grandmother, Pretinella Walker Summerland, HotwordStyle=BookDefault; another diary belonging to my great, great-grandfather, Samuel Walker,HotwordStyle=Frame;  relating his travels in Baja CaliforniaHotwordStyle=Frame; , some deeds to property in Lancaster and Kern County. 

Tucked inside Pretinella's journal, though, there was a brochure from a company called WindPower and a letter to Father, dated in July, from a man named Milton Kramer.  I put them aside for further examination.

Sitting there, in my favorite place, by the open doors, I felt the loss of my father and mother.  The loneliness seemed almost a part of the landscape.

A landscape of time as much as space.

Off to the left is the side yard—eucalyptus, scarlet bougainvillea, and bird of paradise etched against the hills—a landscape of the RanchosHotwordStyle=Frame; .

Looking directly west, you lose sight of the city in the smog and think instead of the ancient plain stretching to the sea—all that prime property slumbering empty in the old days, in the late afternoon light.

To the right, the view gives onto Calvin's blue-tiled swimming pool against a backdrop of classic Boulevard landmarks, Grauman's ChineseHotwordStyle=Frame; . 

Hollywood of the Stars. 

It is a California diorama.