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9

Of all the memories Hart had of his dad, none of them was set in the Wish Garden. Hart could always picture him at the dining room table with the day’s paper, or in the circular drive, getting into his car, or behind his computer screen, busy with work. But never surrounded by flowers.

And as Hart sat in the tufted leather chair on the opposite side of his father’s massive desk, he wondered if his dad was having the same thought about him, but inverted. Hart was sweaty, with soil beneath his fingernails, pants stained with dirt on top of the paint splatters from the times when Rose would wear them while she worked on her art. Hart definitely didn’t look like he belonged in this setting, surrounded by the hundreds of books that lined the walls of the study.

Mr. Hargrove pulled back on the first metal ball of the Newton’s cradle on top of his desk and let it go. Hart never understood why people had those. They were like fidget toys for adults. Its only purpose now seemed to be to give Mr. Hargrove something to occupy himself with, a focal point to look at instead of his son’s face. Maybe it served as a metronome too, a timer. This conversation would last only as long as the balls kept clicking. That was fine by Hart. The continuous motion of the pendulum was hypnotic, and he was perfectly happy to look at it instead of at the person behind the desk.

“Do you know why I’m here?” Mr. Hargrove asked.

Because you have an obligation to see your kids , Hart thought. “Because my girlfriend died.”

He felt instantly pathetic, being obviously wrong on both counts. He could see it in the way his father’s eyebrows rose subtly. Hart was stupid to think his father would actually come home because of an earth-shattering occurrence in his son’s life.

The cradle’s orbs clicked along, and Mr. Hargrove brushed right past Hart’s words so easily you’d never think they were laden with all the world’s sadness. “I’m here because your school called. Nearly two weeks of unexcused absences. They wanted to know if you’re ill.”

Hart slumped back, the chair too overstuffed to comfortably cushion him. “I’m not going back to school.”

His dad’s laugh was devoid of any joy. “Are you kidding?”

Hart shook his head and ran the pad of his index finger over a stiff pink paint streak on his knee. “No. I don’t really see the point.”

“You’re acting like a child.”

“Technically, I am a child.” It felt to Hart like he was constantly reminding his father of this fact. As in, You can’t just travel the world and leave me and Heather here—we’re minors .

Mr. Hargrove sighed, brushing past this statement, too. “I’m sorry you lost your girlfriend. But you can’t blow off all your responsibilities because of that.”

“Why not? You did.”

Mr. Hargrove’s lips settled into a tight line, his jaw flexing. Hart’s dad was a typical New England WASP all the way—he’d never raise his voice, but his face was perpetually masked with disappointment. In the silence, the metal balls continued their monotonous clicking.

“I’ve always traveled for work,” Mr. Hargrove explained. “That wasn’t going to stop just because your mother died.”

“Maybe it should’ve stopped,” Hart said. “Maybe Heather and I need a parent here with us. One parent.”

Mr. Hargrove tilted his head, eyes piercing right through Hart. “Is that really what you want?”

Even after all this time of not having a relationship with his father, of not really caring about him one way or the other, Hart could still find himself wilting under his dad’s gaze. He was right, too. He was glad his father hadn’t been around. It gave Hart more time and space to freely be with Rose. But Heather might have benefited from some parental guidance.

“I didn’t think so,” Mr. Hargrove said. “Don’t compare what I went through with your mother to what you had with your girlfriend. Your mother and I spent a lifetime together—”

“You don’t know anything about me and Rose—”

“You had, what, a five-month romance?”

Without fully realizing what he was doing, Hart was on his feet, the strings and balls of the Newton’s cradle tangled between his knuckles one second, then smashing against the bookshelves across the room the next.

“Settle down, Hart!”

Finally, Mr. Hargrove had raised his voice, and to Hart that was worth having smashed the useless fidget toy. Hart breathed hard through his nostrils, planted both his hands on the edge of his father’s desk. “I’m not going back to school, so…” He shrugged. “Sorry you made the trip.”

“What is your plan here?” Mr. Hargrove asked. “You’re going to quit school—great. Then what? Use the garden to wish your girlfriend back to life?”

Hart let the icy words wash over him. It was bizarre hearing his father reference the magic of the Wish Garden. He didn’t know of any instance in which his father had ever used it. In fact, Mr. Hargrove seemed to recoil from the Wish Garden. If Hart didn’t know better, he’d say a large part of why his father never spent any time at Hemlock Hill was because he wanted to be as far away from the Wish Garden as possible.

“You know you can’t do that,” Mr. Hargrove went on.

Hart shook his head, refusing to look at his dad, refusing to listen. “I know there’s a way.”

“The garden doesn’t grant wishes in matters of life and death,” Mr. Hargrove said, a practiced line he’d fed his kids many times before. “The rules are clear. You can’t wish anything on anyone else. Not death. And especially not life.”

“I know the rules,” Hart spat. “And I know there are work-arounds to those rules.”

He only realized his father had been sitting forward because of how he suddenly slumped back, as though Hart’s words had pushed him into the armchair. “You do,” Mr. Hargrove said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes,” Hart said.

“Then you know the so-called work-arounds will never be good enough,” Mr. Hargrove said.

Hart shook his head. “They can work—I can make this work.”

“No, you can’t.”

“I just have to find the right wish,” Hart went on, not listening. “The right wish will bring her back to me.”

“Maybe,” Mr. Hargrove said.

One word was all it took for everything in Hart’s body to stop, like the hands on a watch that ceased to tick forward. He looked his father straight in the eyes, after avoiding them all this time. He tried to collect his thoughts, but they dissipated as soon as they formed, and all he could do was keep looking, slack-jawed, dumbly, at his father. Maybe.

“So you admit it,” Hart finally said. “It’s possible.”

“It’s a magic-wish garden,” Mr. Hargrove said, his tone matching the ridiculousness of that string of words. “Anything is possible. For a while. Hart, I grew up here. I’ve experimented with that garden more than you can ever know. I’ve tried to warn you about it, but maybe it’s something you can only learn by experience. You will come to the same conclusion that I came to a long time ago. That garden will take everything from you if you let it.” Mr. Hargrove leaned forward again, with a piercing gaze identical to his son’s. “You can try all your work-arounds, but in the end… Nothing. Will. Ever. Work.”

“Why not?”

“Because it goes against the natural order of things. When someone dies, you can’t bring them back. Not permanently.”

This was the most that father and son had ever talked, about anything. Let alone the inner workings of the murky rules of the magic in their backyard. And it felt monumental. Not least because Hart had the sense that his father was keeping something from him.

“If anything is possible,” Hart said, “why didn’t you try to bring Mom back?”

The mask of indignation and disappointment started its slow slip off Mr. Hargrove’s face. Now when father looked at son it was with nothing more than a deep sadness. “Who says I didn’t?”

Something transpired between them then. Hart had never cared for his father, never thought they had anything in common. They might have had similar features, but just the way they were dressed now—one in dirty work clothes, the other in a pristine suit—said so much about their differences. About their values. About the things they each believed in. But all of a sudden, Hart had the distinct feeling of looking in a mirror. Seeing a person who’d also loved and lost. And though he’d never been able to imagine his father on bended knee, planting seeds and making wishes, now Hart suddenly saw that very image, clear as day. He could see his father in the Wish Garden, planting flowers over and over again, for years. Maybe for lifetimes.

But it had all been for nothing. Justin Hargrove was here and his wife wasn’t. He was still absent all the time, still miserable. Nothing he’d tried in the Wish Garden had worked.

“Hart, you have to trust me,” Mr. Hargrove said earnestly. “I’ve tried every wish imaginable. It won’t work.”

Mr. Hargrove’s words were like a fist in Hart’s chest, every syllable another squeeze around his heart. But Hart wasn’t going to let his father get to him. The difference between him and his father was that Mr. Hargrove didn’t know the garden—not like Hart did. His father didn’t take care of the grounds like Hart did. His father didn’t revel in the beauty of it. And his father clearly hadn’t figured out the right wish to make. But Hart would. Hart would get his love back. He had to.

Because he had already figured out that he wasn’t going to see Rose again by wishing her back to life.

Hart was going to see Rose by making a wish to turn back time.