by

Mary S. McGuire

What an interesting place. She bent over a multi-floral white rose bush to inhale its wondrously sweet scent.

A man’s voice called, "Don’t move, I want you to stand there while I draw a mental picture of you just as you are."

Ignoring his request, she turned. "Danny, what on earth are you doing here?"

"I hoped I’d find you still here after Roman told me he was showing you the property. I came to tell you your SUV will be repaired and delivered tomorrow. I saw you at Ruby’s, but you and Roman left before I could catch you."

"Thank you for bothering with it."

"No bother. I’m just glad to have you back home."

"I was discovering Dorothy’s garden. It is amazingly beautiful--something so everlasting about it. Somehow it almost transcends time."

Chuckling, he said, "I don’t know about that, but this garden was built with work and sweat--I do know. Aunt Minnie was Dorothy’s cousin and, after I got big enough, she’d bring me here every spring to spade up a flowerbed or pull weeds. Cousin Dorothy would always tell me there was nothing like working in the soil to build character. She called it a down payment on the future. Looking around, I guess I finally see her point."

"Oh, look, here’s an asparagus bed." Dropping to her knees, she began pulling back the vegetation to find the tender shoots. "Do you have a pocket knife?"

He reached into his jeans and withdrew one. "Here," he kneeled beside her, "let me help."

When he finished cutting a sizeable pile of the green stems, she rose, gathered up her skirt, and put them into the rudimentary, cloth carrying vessel. "Aren’t you the pioneer woman harvesting your garden, though. All you need is a sunbonnet."

She laughed. "I don’t have a bag or anything. Guess this is what is known as making do."

They walked to the grape arbor, with Laney still grasping the asparagus in the folds of her skirt, and sat resting on the wooden benches beneath the vines. "Isn’t it soothing here?" she asked.

"Very."

"Danny, may we talk--not like two careful adults, but as lifelong friends?"

"I’d like it."

She drew in a breath. "Tell me about your life."

"What life?"

Sternly, she looked at him. "What life? Your life, Danny."

"I have no life. It ended last year when Little Dan died." He placed his hands, palms down, together and then moved them in a sweeping motion as if cutting an imaginary string on the ground. "Finis, end, that’s it." He scuffed the toe of his boot across the loose soil. "No son, no wife, no love, just work."

"Oh, please don’t say such a thing. Please."

"I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spouted off like that. You have your own problems." Gazing into the distance, he added, "I took Betty Lou up to rehab to dry out this morning for the third time in two years."

"No, don’t be sorry, we promised to be truthful."

"Then, what about you?"

"I feel lost, too. I shouldn’t, I have Missy and Paul, Jr., but I feel like I’m groping. If there had been time to prepare for Paul’s death, maybe I could cope better."

"I heard he died a hero--saving all those people’s lives in the crash."

"Yes, but somehow it doesn’t stop the ache--the loneliness."

Glancing at him, she noted the tight lines around his lips and his slight scowl began to fade and then relax. He reached for her hand and smiled. "I remember when I was little, I’d fall down and hurt myself and my mom would kiss me and say she’d make it all better. Sitting here with you seems to make it all better."

He looked at the garden and then stood up, going to a rose bush covered with blooms of such a dark maroon hue they were almost ebon. He chose a nearly perfect bloom and returned and handed it to her. "This is called Don Juan. I know because I helped Dorothy plant it."

"How magnificent." Clutching the blossom to her chest, she added, "It’s nothing short of exquisite."

She started to rise, but, remembering the asparagus, clutched her skirt. Coming to her rescue, he took the rose to affix to a curly blonde lock above her ear. "There, now."

Suddenly he drew her to him for a quick kiss, but his lips were inviting and insistent. What began as a brief, brotherly brush of lips soon matured into something quite different. Laney raised her arms to hold him while the abandoned asparagus rained to the ground. She felt the warmth of his body against hers and the beating of her own heart pulsing the blood through her veins. It has been so long…

As he stepped back his feet crunched down on the abandoned asparagus, the sound bringing him back to reality. Reluctantly he released her, stuttering, "I-I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have."

She shook her head. "It’s all right. I wanted it, too."

"No, I shouldn’t have." He turned and fled toward the house.

She watched him leave while a silence filled the once pleasant afternoon. She stooped down to gather the remaining asparagus spears. For a moment, I felt almost whole again. Maybe I shouldn’t have come home. Oh, Danny…

~ * ~