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The Garden of Mistakes	By : Alucinor Category: G through L > The Joy Luck Club Views: 1370 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own The Joy Luck Club, nor make any money from this story

Chapter List
- 1-The Garden of Mistakes
- 1
AN: Yes I know...this isn't an "original" story...but I couldn't find anywhere else to put it...not very many people have heard of The Joy Luck Club...and by the way...you will understand this story even if you've never read the book...I promise...the Title has a lot of Symbolic meaning...feel free to comment and tell me what you think it means! ^_^

It was seventeen years ago when Rose and I made the decision to start dating. It took that many years for me to realize how exceedingly different the two of us really were and still are. Sometimes, I get this sinking feeling in my chest that taunts me and suddenly, I understand that our relationship was doomed from the start. Once again, I had made a horrible mistake. The consequences of which became uncannily alike to a tsunami; wave after wave of mishaps and mistakes crashing mercilessly against my tired and battered body.

It started out well enough. We met in a politics of ecology class during college. I think I offered her two dollars for the week’s notes. It was almost my sly way of breaking the ice since I had never actually missed a day of school. She, of course, refused the money but after a quick discussion, agreed to a cup of coffee. This was during my third year in pre-med; a choice I made after dissecting a fetal pig in the sixth grade. It was disgustingly grotesque and extremely interesting and I fell in love with the idea immediately. Rose was in her second semester at UC Berkley as a liberal arts major. She had the talent and eventually changed it to fine arts.
She was quite attractive with a delicate sort of beauty and yet, at the same time, she would never stand out in a crowd. I’m not sure what it was about her that made me fall so hard, really. The two of us were exact opposites and I guess at the time, we were the paradigm of that famous expression, “Opposites attract”. She never seemed completely sure about anything and lingered on the same thought for ages. She was the kind of person that thought carefully about every detail and every consequence. She was a perfectionist and at first I found it humbling.
As much as I cared about her, my mother wasn’t as understanding. I remember inviting Rose to our family picnic, the annual clan reunion held by the polo fields in Golden Gate Park. I wasn’t sure how my family would react to me having a female friend so I told everyone we were dating. To me, it was better for my parents to think she was with me and me only; they had this bad habit on judging people according to their love interests or lack-there-of.
Later, my father took me over to play volleyball with the others. It surprised me slightly when I saw my mom take Rose’s hand and lead her off. Whatever they were talking about, it was too far away for me to see either of their reactions and I was slightly worried at the time. What worried me more, however, was the way my father was acting. He refused to even glance their way and was evading any talk concerning them. Of course, I always just assumed I was imagining the worst; I wanted so badly for my parents to accept her. Now, I look back and wonder if maybe I should have taken my thoughts with a grain of salt.
I drove Rose home that night and she seemed quieter then normal. After a few miles she finally spoke up, which would have been comforting if not for her words. She told me we couldn’t see each other any longer. When I asked her why, she only shrugged her shoulders in a cold manner that reminded me of her mother. I tried to think of everything I could have done wrong but was drawing blanks, so I kept pushing her for an answer. She finally told me what my mother had said to her on that walk. She made no comments on whether my mother was right or wrong she just spoke in that chilly and calm way she often did and it stunned me.
“And you’re just going to sit there! Let my mother decide what’s right?” I was hurt. It was as if everything to that point had been for naught. I didn’t understand how she could be so accepting of someone she had only just met. She was letting a stranger tell her what was right.
“What should we do?” The softly spoken words touched me deeply and I soon felt like a knight in shinning armor. I wanted nothing more then to protect her.
Within the first few months, we grew immeasurably attached to one another. There was nothing stopping us from seeing each other but we had already let our imaginations get the best of us. We saw our lives as a sort of, Shakespearian tragedy; Romeo and Juliet reborn but without the bloodshed. She was my damsel in distress and I was saving her constantly. It was addicting and for once in my life, I felt I had found my worth.
“What should we do?” She continued to ask me this seemingly innocent question. I started medical school at UCSF and a month later, we were living together. We were married in the Episcopal Church and despite of the earlier problems, my parents both seemed happy for us; my mother crying in the front pew. I finished my residency in dermatology and the two of us bought a run-down three-story Victorian with a large garden in the Ashbury Heights. I loved that garden because no matter how rocky my life got, no matter what happened between me and Rose, that garden was still as beautiful as the day I started tending it.
Over the years, I made all the decisions. I decided were we would go on vacation. I decided what furniture we should buy. I was also the one that made the decision to move to a better neighborhood before we had any children. In a sense, I was making all the life choices the two of us should have been making together. It didn’t start out that way. We used to sit down and talk over those issues, but in the end it always came down to her saying, “Ted, you decide.” After a while, it seemed pointless to ask, so I didn’t. She really never appeared to mind.
Last year, however, something happened that made me change my attitude about who should be making the decisions. I had a patient come in asking me what to do about the spidery veins on her cheeks. I thought I would just be able to suck the red veins out and I told her I could make her beautiful again without a problem, she believed me. Unfortunately, I accidentally sucked a nerve out and caused the left side of her face to droop. She sued me and I lost my first malpractice lawsuit.
Since I obviously wasn’t the best decision maker, I started pushing Rose into making more of the choices. Should we buy an American car or a Japanese car? Should we change from whole-life to term insurance? What did she think about that candidate who supported the contras? What about a family?
Honestly, I think it started out as me trying to prove a point. I wanted her to see that these life decisions needed to be made together. It wasn’t fair to pin it on just one of us. But the more I asked her these questions, the more I saw just how undecided she was in everything. It took her ages to think the questions over and she would always come back to me. It was as if she wasn’t capable of having her own thoughts, her own beliefs. So whenever she said, “You decide,” or “I don’t care,” or “Either way is fine with me,” it irked me and I started to snap back, “No, you decide. You can’t have it both ways, none of the responsibility, none of the blame.” It wasn’t fair of her to think that I could make all the choices for the rest of our life together.
It wouldn’t have taken a rocket scientist to see the huge rift that was growing between us. The more I pushed her, the more confused she seemed to get. It wasn’t just the life decisions she seemed to have problems with. I thought at first that maybe she was only afraid of messing up those especially important choices. I wanted to test this and started asking her about the most trivial of matters, everyday choices most people don’t think twice about making. Italian food or Thai. One appetizer or two. Which appetizer. Credit card or cash. Visa or MasterCard. Simple choices and she was incapable of even those. I had suspected the worst and she had followed through just as I had imagined.
Last month, I had a two-day dermatology course in Los Angeles. Without thinking, I asked her if she wanted to come with me but quickly thought better of it. Before she could say anything, I added, “Never mind, I’d rather go alone.”
“More time to study,” She agreed.
“No, because you can never make up your mind about anything,” I said.
And she protested, “But it’s only with things that aren’t important.”
“Nothing is important to you, then,” I said and at first I almost regretted my cutting tone but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.
“Ted, if you want me to go, I’ll go.”
That was it, I couldn’t take it anymore. Everything was up to me and no matter how many times I tried she was never going to think for her self. She was like a robot that catered to everyone’s whim. I could have asked her to jump off a bridge and I wouldn’t have been amazed at all if she had. “How the hell did we ever get married? Did you just say ‘I do’ because the minister said ‘repeat after me’? What would you have done with your life if I had never married you? Did it ever occur to you?”
I knew my words had stung, but I was starting to see just how true they rang. Later that evening, I called from Los Angeles. I had thought all day about our relationship and it was clear to me what had to be done. I wanted a divorce.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It took almost a month to get all the papers set up, or rather; it took that long for Rose to decide what to do with them. I would never say that I didn’t care about her. She still means a lot to me but it would never have worked out between us.

I think I wanted the divorce to be over as quickly as possible because I was scared of what leaving her would mean. I knew I had made mistakes before in my life but I had never intended for her to be one of them. When I collected the divorce papers to send to her I attached a small note to the front of it. It simply read, “Sign 4x where indicated.” In a sense, I suppose I was letting old habits die hard. It was almost as if I was trying to play the Knight in Shinning Armor one last time. I was helping her make the decision by telling her exactly what needed to be done.

I sat there for a long time, the papers folded neatly in front of me, ready to be placed in the envelope. I don’t know how long I stared at the wall in front of me, just reminiscing. I recalled all the good times we had spent together. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed almost unfair to me. I had been making life choices for the both of us for such a long time, that I had once again taken control; only, this time, I felt that Rose was the one dealing with an injustice.

Nothing could make up for the pain I knew she must have been going through and I knew there was no going back. The only thing I could offer was money for her to start over. Without the house, I assumed she would have ended up back with her mother. The least I could do was give her enough to get back on her feet. I wanted her to be able to live happily without me. All I ever wanted, in fact, was for her to be happy, and I knew she would be much closer to that without me.

I pulled out my checkbook and considered what would be a good offer. As I reached for the ballpoint pen I had used earlier on the quick note, my hand brushed up against a box. It held my favorite possession; a fountain-pen I had received from Rose a year earlier on Christmas.

I remembered so vividly the excited look she had when I began opening the gift. It was wrapped carefully in a glistening gold foil. I felt that the wrapping was only marginally less important than the gift inside due to the immaculate and seemingly planned way it cradled the box. When I lifted it out of the box I couldn’t help but smile at her thoughtful and rather expensive act of devotion. I remembered telling her, “I’ll use it only to sign important things,” and I meant every word.

So, as I sat there, planning to write her a check that meant more then just money to me, it seemed only natural to use her gift. I signed a check for ten thousand dollars and placed it in the envelope as well. Attached to the check was another note, this one in the same fountain-pen blue ink as the check, “enc: check, to tide you over until settlement.” I was more then hoping she would understand
the double meaning.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It had been two weeks since I sent Rose the divorce papers, and unsurprisingly, I hadn’t heard inch or foot from her the entire time. To say I was surprised when she finally answered her phone would have been an understatement; I was starting to suspect she had no intentions of signing those papers at all.
“Where’ve you been?” I asked crankily when she finally did pick up.
“Out,” just one word, nothing more. I’m not sure what I had expected; an excuse maybe? But no, that wasn’t her style.
“I’ve been trying to reach you for the last three days. I even called the phone company to check the line.” There was still no word from the other end, so I continued.
“You know it’s been two weeks,” I said, rather irritated. If I had been having doubts before, the past two weeks had resolved them well enough, reminding me why we were divorcing to begin with.
“Two weeks?” As if she wasn’t capable of keeping track of the days.
“You haven’t cashed the check or returned the papers. I wanted to be nice about this, Rose. I can get someone to officially serve the papers, you know.” I didn’t want to hurt her but I knew how hard it was for her to make decisions. I only wanted to get everything situated once again.
“You can?” I was tired of her questions and tired of her not understanding. I wanted the papers signed and returned. I wanted my house back and I wanted this whole ordeal to be over; the sooner, the better. I wasn’t sure how to get this through to her so I just told her these things outright. Then, as an afterthought, I told her I wanted to get married again, to someone else. Maybe the reason she hadn’t signed the papers yet was because she was still attached to me. If telling her I was getting re-married would help her sign those papers, I could afford a little white lie.
“You mean you were doing monkey business with someone else?” She gasped. I choked slightly on my tongue. Monkey business? It was almost humorous but then I could see how things would point to that. Then she did something rather unexpected. She started to laugh and it was rather unnerving.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“Sorry,” she said. “It’s just that...” and then, instead of explaining, she began to laugh harder. I was shocked, to say the least, and waited for her to calm down enough to speak. “Listen, Ted, sorry...” she started after she had gasped a few more times. “I think the best thing is for you to come over after work.”
“There’s nothing to talk about, Rose.” my mind was still reeling from her outburst.
“I know,” Her calm and chilling voice was back, the one that reminded me so much of her mother it was alarming. “I just want to show you something. And don’t worry, you’ll get your papers. Believe me.” I have no idea what possessed me to agree to the meeting.

She ended up leading me into the backyard. A fog had rolled in and it was rather chilly outside with just my sports jacket on. I was distraught at the site of my prized garden in mangles. I had been so caught up in our divorce I had mistakenly forgotten about it.
“What a mess,” I muttered to myself as I surveyed the damage. A blackberry vine had wandered onto the walkway and I shook my pant leg loose reflexively. There were weeds winding in and out of cracks in the patio and along the side of the house. Some were even pushing their way toward the roof.
“I like it this way,” She said. I barely glanced her way as I began plucking plums from the ground and tossing them into the neighbor’s yard. The garden was not unsalvageable, but it would take ages to fix the chaos.
“Where are the papers?” I finally asked after I had pulled my thoughts back to the current situation. She handed them to me immediately and I stuffed them into the pocket of my jacket. This mess was finally over and we could both be happy again. I looked at her and let myself fall into routine. “You don’t have to move out right away,” I said. “I know you’ll want at least a month to find a place.”
“I’ve already found a place,” she said quickly. I was surprised and my face reflected it. I smiled at her, but she said something next that left me baffled completely, “Here.”
“What’s that?” I said sharply. There was no way I had heard her correctly.
“I said I’m staying here,” She announced rather stubbornly. It seems she had finally made a choice but that just didn’t fit with her.
“Who says?” Someone had to of put her up to it. Rose just wasn’t the kind of person to make such a brash decision. Actually, she wasn’t one to make a decision at all.
“I say I’m staying, and my lawyer will too, once we serve you the papers,” she said. Completely bewildered, I pulled out the divorce papers and riffled through them haphazardly. My x’s were still there, the blanks were still blank.
“What do you think you’re doing? Exactly what?” I asked, exasperated.
“You can’t just pull me out of your life and throw me away.” Like a weed. The unspoken words rang through my mind and I once again realized that I had made a horrible mistake...
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The Garden of Mistakes