There is only one person who lives there now, the widow Vickers. And while she no longer can tend to the rhododendrons, she still has Miguel, her gardener, who used to help her with just the minor, tedious work, and even though he has worked for Mildred for over 30 years, he can only copy from what he remembers. The walkway is raked, the grass is trimmed, but the projects, the inspired replanting and redesign, are slipping into the shadows of neglect.
Miguel still sweeps the deck on top of the boathouse, where Mildred and Edward would end their leisurely summer days as the sun fell behind Queen Anne, the sound of ice cracking in the glass, as tonic water fizzes with slices of time and gin. But the boathouse windows stay dark. Edward’s 1954 wooden Chris Craft Phantom rocks and sways in peace, shrouded, waiting for one last moonlight cruise – for Mildred.