A Perfect Garden

Something in the air felt off, leaving him thankful for the stableness of the bench he rested upon. The bench’s iron had been cast by his father’s father in the long ago. He and his father had twice changed out it’s wooden slats in the not so long ago, just as he and his own son kept them painted against the weather in the here and now. No, it was not the bench. The bench was solid.

And it was not her. He watched her from the bench as she buzzed the garden, happy as any busy bee; deadheading here, weeding there, busy as any happy bee. These were his morning tasks, to wait and to watch, simple tasks which he never minded. Tasks not so frenetic as hers, though today felt different. Infinitely different. He could not place what exactly, yet today undoubtedly harbored some worrisome, as yet unrecognizable difference within it that thankfully was not her, her hovering nature feeling as solid to him as was his bench.

She turned time-to-time, checking, worrying over him even as she smiled kind affections his way. Of course, the smiling was born of the worrying. It made her happy, worrying… the work of it. She always was a worker. It was why she was so fond of him, he had long since ascertained, because he somehow thrived when worked and worried over, just as her garden did. He did allow it, didn’t he? The worrying over? Had even grown to encourage it, as her smile was one more tiny thing amongst all of those other little things she had done and given over the years which made him hers. Yet even as he watched her smile it gloomed, souring over, the initial vestiges of concern crinkling into her worry. It seemed she had finally noticed the difference in the morning as well.

And there was a difference. He could tell it. A decided one. He set to work to place the day’s difference, and he discovered some things. The June sun burned less brassy. The air had tilted strangely towards cool, and the songbirds toward still. Subtle these, but different. Perhaps the difference was in the day itself then, in its staleness, in its lack of breath. Perhaps.

She walked towards him, slowly, younger than moments ago, but no less concerned.

”JB? Are you ok?”

It was silly, but she always questioned, sometimes questioning her questions, seeking affirmation, seeming to find value in his, as though his affirmations were better than any other.

Like now. “JB? Honey?” Always the questions.

He saw no cause for reply, and held no breath to form one. There was simply no affirmation left in him to give to her. She must find her own now, he supposed, as he seemed only able to look on, and to well-wish, happy though he was to see her, and to hear her the concern in her voice.

Happily surprised to hear and see her, that is, being he was gone. And there lay the real difference in the day, he supposed… being gone, and feeling oddly neutral about that.

At his side she took his hand, hers tenderly warm around the stiffness of his own.

She left him then, hurrying away. “Where was more important?” He wondered. “Than here, and now?”

Beyond help, he desired none. The bench beneath him was solidly cast, and the tilted sun was no bother, nor the silence. They were sublime, in fact. The garden needed only her to be absolutely right, to be the perfect garden.

And there she came again; a butterfly, flower-to-flower-to-flower. His butterfly, her smile ever younger than before. Such a little thing, with her glance back at him, that he could spark such pretty concern from such as she.

He wondered that she was here, JB did… still… now, when alone would suit as well. That she could be. Was love that strong? Really? JB looked to her for his own affirmation, even as her eyes looked to him. No, the difference was not in her. She was as solid as his bench.

He marveled then, aware that it would always be so.

Amazed that it could ever be so.