Meet Me in the Garden

Set in the mid-twentieth century and spanning two decades, the novel follows Odette Honoré, a young Creole woman from New Orleans. In this context, Creole refers to a mixed-race community with French, African, and Spanish heritage whose members occupied an ambiguous position in the city's racial hierarchy. The story traces Odette's path from New Orleans to Los Angeles as she navigates family loyalty, colorism, suppressed desire, and her emergence as an artist.

In 1944, nineteen-year-old Odette meets her cousin Delphine in a hidden courtyard garden in the Marigny neighborhood, where they practice contour drawing, sketching each other's faces without looking at the paper. They confide their secrets: Delphine is having an affair with Bill, a white photographer who hung her portrait in his shop window beside a Whites Only sign. Odette is secretly involved with Hattie Laurent, a seamstress five years her senior; their Thursday afternoons together are the center of Odette's emotional life.

Odette is grieving her father, Louis, who was committed to the East Louisiana Hospital for the Insane by their mother (Maman) and died of tuberculosis there. She now sleeps on the sofa in her elder sisters' half of the family's shotgun house, a narrow double home, where she lives with Claire and her husband Bernard, Adele and her husband Al, and their baby, Rudy. Colorism runs deep: Al was once turned away from a Creole dance for being too dark-skinned, and Maman comments that Baby Rudy is "getting darker every day." When Bernard, a master carpenter with a war-injured hand, receives a commission to build restaurant tables, the family begins planning to relocate to Los Angeles.

Delphine reveals she is pregnant by Bill. Because interracial marriage is illegal, her mother, Auntie Bertha, threatens to have her committed to the same institution where Louis died. Delphine and Bill flee to Los Angeles, where she plans to pass as white. A first letter brings relief, but a second devastates Odette: Delphine must sever all ties with her family to maintain the fiction of whiteness and instructs Odette never to contact her.

On New Year's Eve, Hattie tells Odette she loves her, then insists there is no future for them. Hattie asks Odette to marry her younger brother Cyril, who is about to be drafted, framing the marriage as a way to keep them connected. Heartbroken, Odette agrees and marries Cyril within days in a dress Hattie sewed. Before the family departs for Los Angeles, Odette visits Louis's grave and discovers Maman never claimed his body: He lies in an unmarked grave in a charity casket, his burial attended only by hospital staff. She confronts Maman at their final dinner. The morning of departure, Hattie ties a box of gifts, including a chartreuse silk dress, to Odette's suitcase. They share a brief embrace, and Odette leaves New Orleans sensing she will never return.

Part Two opens in 1948. The family has settled in Compton, and Odette works at the Columbia Records pressing plant. Cyril was killed in a training accident before the war ended, and Odette is raising their son, Clément. At a backyard gathering, she meets Ginny, a woman from the plant who dresses in men's clothing and wears a gold lion-head medallion. The attraction is immediate and unwelcome. At Ginny's going-away party before she moves to Montana, they share a kiss outside the building.

Months later, Odette spots Delphine barefoot and disoriented in the middle of Crenshaw Boulevard, smearing lipstick across her face. Delphine does not recognize her and runs. Through Hattie's connections, Odette traces Delphine's married name and finds her former house, where neighbors describe a woman who fell apart after her husband left. Delphine has been committed to Camarillo State Hospital. Odette finds Delphine's five-year-old daughter, Nathalie, at a laundromat where Delphine had a routine. Nathalie recognizes Odette's name from a story her mother told about a woman who made paintings and lived in a blue house with two sisters.

At Camarillo, Delphine has a diagnosis of schizophrenia combined with a "denial of identity," the psychological toll of years spent passing as white. Barely responsive, she demands Odette tell Nathalie that Delphine is dead. When Odette refuses, Delphine threatens to reveal Odette's sexuality to Claire, endangering Odette's custody of her children. Claire, who had planned to adopt Nathalie, recognizes Odette's deeper bond with the girl and steps aside, but unmarried women cannot legally adopt. Odette proposes a marriage of convenience to Felix, an old family friend from New Orleans who is gay and works as a Pullman porter on the railroad. She offers him a home and family in exchange for mutual freedom, and Felix agrees. Adele and Claire tell Nathalie that Delphine has died, excluding Odette from the conversation. Furious, Odette creates a private funeral ritual with Nathalie, throwing flower petals into the Pacific, and formally adopts her.

Part Three spans 1951 to 1959. Odette resumes drawing with a sketchbook Felix gives her as a wedding gift and befriends Elise Eriksen, a wealthy art enthusiast who teaches her to stretch canvases and introduces her to galleries. At the plant, she transfers to the Listening Department, testing records for flaws and drawing in her booth during the long hours. Felix is away three weeks out of four, and the marriage is companionable but lonely.

Ginny returns from Montana. After years of avoidance, Odette agrees to one night together. Her body initially freezes against years of suppressed desire before she surrenders in the early morning hours.

Felix leaves the marriage, unable to sustain the arrangement. Al, Bernard, and Lionel, Al's brother, build Odette a painting studio on the lower slope of her garden. Ginny reenters Odette's life when Lionel recruits her to help build a pigeon coop for Clément's birthday. Over a summer while the children visit grandparents in New Orleans, Odette and Ginny begin a passionate affair. Odette confides in Lionel, who embraces her without judgment. Ginny asks Odette to build a life together openly, but Odette refuses, terrified of losing her family. Ginny gives her the gold medallion as a parting gift and begins a relationship with a woman named Pamela. Odette paints Marriage Bed Number Two, arranging The Price of Salt, a novel about lesbian love that she discovered at a bookshop, alongside Hattie's chartreuse dress and Ginny's medallion on her mattress. She calls it the truest thing she has ever made.

Part Four opens in 1962. Al is laid off from Columbia Records in retaliatory layoffs against union supporters, while Bernard, who remained loyal to the company, supervises the transition, fracturing the family. During a conversation, Odette accidentally reveals that Delphine is alive. Nathalie is devastated, accusing Odette of stealing her. They drive to the laundromat, where Nathalie locates the attic, the "moon room," where she and Delphine once lived. Nathalie later performs an original song called "Moon Room" at a school talent show, transforming her fragmented memories into art.

Elise calls from New York to report that all five of Odette's paintings sold on opening night of a gallery show, establishing Odette as a professional artist. Odette tells her sisters she is a homosexual and that Ginny is moving in. Adele accepts with warmth; Claire walks out but eventually returns.

Delphine writes from San Francisco, asking to discuss the possibility that Nathalie may share her predisposition to schizophrenia. During the Watts uprising of August 1965, Odette and Nathalie drive to San Francisco while the family shelters together. Delphine describes her recovery and her work at San Francisco State College, and asks Odette to watch for early signs in Nathalie. Odette promises, sketching Delphine's apartment as they talk.

Odette and Ginny hold a blessing ceremony at home. Hattie, reached by phone for the first time in decades, insists on making Odette's dress. Felix reappears to deliver it, and Odette forgives him for his years of silence. Lionel toasts the couple, comparing them to mated pigeons who found each other after long separation. Odette completes her largest work, Meet Me in the Garden, a mural-scale dreamscape incorporating Delphine's San Francisco apartment, images from their shared childhood, birds in flight, and a portrait of her father presiding over the composition from an inverted blue chair. The novel closes with the family gathered in Odette's studio, Bernard moved to tears by the painting's title, as Odette sits surrounded by everyone she loves.