—an excerpt—
Helen squeezes the plant pot so hard it cracks and almost slices the skin of her palm. She sits back and licks her dry lips.
A parched old widow, daydreaming about a man. The Church would call her a lapsed Catholic, but can you lapse if you never began? All those rules and strictures. The only story she liked was the one about the Garden.
She jiggles her ringless finger around the tiny shoots and tips out the root ball, with its white strings swirled in a funny square. Mint is not a delicate plant. She breathes in the peppery tang and plops the plant into the glittering hole, like a tiny grave. Presses soil all around what she is burying. She pictures the wild mint spreading freely, its furry leaves brushing against the drooping bells of the lily-of-the-valley.
The secret crowding unleashed by Billy in this dark, damp bed. Here in the side yard, out of prying eyes, what he’s given her can grow with abandon.
Years ago, Helen decided to plant only perennials. It made sense, nurturing something certain. Beauty she could count on to show up, again and again.
Reliable, maybe, but not certain, Billy would say. Any farmer will tell you there is no certainty in planting.
She might give up on certainty, then. How about faith, and hope, and how about love? The three Christian virtues memorized under duress, under fear of the wooden ruler against her knuckles. Was it love, or charity, in the translation they used? Helen doesn’t often think of those early years, schooled under the nuns’ watch. And she never speaks of them.
Today Billy brought her the mint from the Farmers Market. Saturdays he gets up at dawn and meanders among Mennonites, unloading boxes in their navy overalls and dark bonnets. Billy doesn’t garden, but he likes to talk about growing up in Wellesley Township, in the middle of nowhere. How his family was the only one with a diesel-farting (in his words) combine. The nights he brought in the crops single-handedly under a bright orange moon. Nothing lazy about Billy.
Thoughtful Billy. An unexpected gift to her, in her eighth decade. Last Christmas Day he’d surprised her, guessed her longing for spring, and knocked on her front door. Stood there, his beard collecting snow, the pink gardening gloves wrapped in foil paper. With spanking new doggie socks in his hand for Lassie.
