Grief’s Garden

Grief is a weed, she thinks. The roots of a weed choke out other living things, growing rampant. 

Her fingers dig through the soft soil, relishing the texture and smell. Marla hunts for the root, rips it out. Sends dirt flying. She can’t rip the grief from inside her, but that weed sure as hell won’t choke out her azaleas.

She takes her morning coffee in the garden, overseeing the bees as they go about their rituals. Sometimes she remembers to eat lunch, if she isn’t too dirty or sweaty. The garden is the only place she finds comfort. 

How long has it been? Marla ignores calls, turns away visitors. Not even her parents, or her sisters. Takes in the care packages left for her by well-meaning friends, tries to remember to eat the food they send. Marla rattles around the empty house, haunted by dusty ghosts trapped in mementos, in photos.

She took leave from work, but who can really put a calendar alert on bereavement? Her boss may have been one of the calls she never answered. It didn’t matter though, not in her garden.

Each cluster of foxglove was a memory. The azaleas, a fragment of joy. All she had left were the blooms, so Marla would make them last forever. 

Yarrow, sage, myrtle. Waving fronds of wheatgrass and blue grama, jutting tall over her flowers. Healing her and hiding her away from a world so irrevocably different, it horrified her.

Resting under the shade of the elm, Marla’s fingers traced etches in the wooden seat of the bench. Initials, hearts and the impossible glyphs of a child’s imagination. Music felt hollow; she had no attention for anything but the garden. But the present. To look for the future meant answering the past, answering those calls.

For Marla, there could only be the present. Only the garden, but lonely in the garden.

Of all the places in her lonesome house, the garden was the least haunted. Here at least, the ghosts were joyful. It was a balm for her grief, caring for something. 

Oh she would venture forth from her botanical sanctuary, for food. For more plants. She never stayed out long, never went far. No idle chats meant no uncomfortable questions.

Roses were always too flashy, she’d thought. They were frail and finicky, needy and attention hungry flowers with an inflated sense of self-worth. But Marla planted a primrose bush, because the color reminded her of young eyes peering at her through leaves.

Now she was sympathetic to the rose, wilting unless in caring soil. Caring for them kept her soul from wilting, so she wove rose bushes through the trellis arch by the bench swing. There were no single seats in her garden, never meant to be a lonesome place. Ghosts sat beside her on the swing as she watched the roses.

Marla was startled one afternoon, as she pulled weeds from the bed of herbs along the fence. Somehow she failed to notice her sister standing above her, looking mournful and concerned. Leona was usually sweet, but the worry in her voice verged on anger. She all but dragged Marla inside, complaining of the dust and clutter. Bags of soil teetered, leaking in the kitchen hall. Mail piled on the table.

Leona wouldn’t be leaving. Not until they spoke. She’d traveled so far to check on Marla. The whole family was worried, but she was the closest. 

Marla insisted she was fine. She wasn’t ready to leave the garden. There was nothing else to say.

The lie hung heavy in the air. There was plenty to say, but Marla said it to the garden. Poured her love into a thousand blooms, buried the hardest memories under layers of fresh soil. 

Sisters fight, and for a time, the lonesome house was full of clamor. Of shouting and tears, unkind words shredding barbs like only siblings can muster. After a time, Leona gave up. It was late. She was staying in a hotel nearby, but she wasn’t afraid to move in if she had to.

It was dark when her sister left, but Marla still had to clean up her tools in the garden. Under the moonlight, she yanked weeds with sorrowful tugs. Leona couldn’t know, really, what the garden was. The weight of the fight sank deep into the chasm inside Marla, so she kept weeding.

She woke to the buzz of bees, the morning songs of birds and the warm sun washing over her. Marla was beside the herb bed, covered in soil and tangled in the pile of weeds she’d pulled. Falling asleep in the garden was new for her, and so she checked herself gingerly for stiffness. 

Instead, Marla found herself almost refreshed. As if some part of the chasm had been filled.

Leona returned, but they said nothing to each other. Marla kept to the garden, except for coffee and water, and when Leona made her sit down for a sandwich at lunch. They ate silently, then returned to their tasks. Marla, the garden, Leona a goal of tidying the haunted house. Leona wouldn’t hear the ghosts anyway.

At dinner, Leona urged her to see a therapist. To call a friend. Go out in the world. She refused, and refused to explain. The ghosts of bright smiles, tiny laughs and little feet echoed through her. The ghosts weren’t loud outside the house, but without them she was too lonely. So Leona left and Marla spent another night in the garden.

Vines seemed to tangle through her toes when she woke, but it was only the stalks of lavender and chamomile. She must have shifted in her sleep. Soil caked in her nail beds, lightly dusting her face. Marla felt almost calm, the morning sun brighter than it had been in too long.

Marla showered, changed into fresh clothes. Sat on the swing with a cup of coffee and thought about calling her sister. Instead, she watched the bees and butterflies flit about her garden. A place of life, of love and the wildness of the world. Did beautiful creatures like butterflies know joy? Or were they just nature expressing joy in a living thing?

Watching them felt like borrowing someone else’s joy. By the time her sister returned, Marla felt the chasm opening once more. Leona brought with her cold waves of reality, washing out the borrowed happiness. Leona had started putting things in boxes, labeling them, sealing them away. 

Can you put ghosts in storage? Do you really forget them if they sit, collecting dust in the attic?

Those were Marla’s ghosts, thank you, sister. Stop that now.

Marla spent all day stopping her sister from sealing off the ghosts, until Leona gave up. She had a long drive back to her home. Mom would be here in a few days; just let her in. Let her help. Let us love you.

Love, a wretched thing. A miserable ghost, fragmented through a billion tiny moments, a million hot tears.

Love had been a thing to nurture, and be nurtured by, but all Marla had left was the garden. All her love had gone into the roots.

Days later, Marla’s mother found her sleeping in the garden. Shook her gently awake, carefully plucking a blossom from her hair. Marla winced, like her mother had yanked a hair loose.

She didn’t fight with her mother like she did with Leona. Her mother didn’t ask questions, didn’t lecture, urge, invoke or harry. She tidied the house and tucked boxes in the attic, but Marla didn’t try to stop her. Mom even joined her in the garden, complimenting the blooms, the arrangements, the roses on the trellis arch.

That night, after dinner, Marla wept into her mother’s chest for hours. Grief spilled out of her in endless torrents until exhaustion took her. Then her mother took her to her old bedroom, dusty and haunted.

When Marla woke in the haunted bed, she was surprised to find flowers in her hair and dirt under her nail beds. Dusty soil on her face. Out the bedroom window, her mother sat on the swing with a cup of coffee. Marla joined her, and they sat silently sipping their coffees, watching the butterflies.

For a brief moment, Marla remembered being a child. Being nurtured and loved by her mother, always with the right words or an appropriate silence. Always warm. Too quickly, the memory was taken by her ghosts. Never again to feel small arms around her waist. No more tears to dry but her own. 

Grief was a weed with deep roots, tainting the soil, choking the life from every feeling, every memory, until there were only ghosts.

There would be no sleeping in the garden with her mother around, so she shuffled through life and slept in the haunted bed. Went to lunch. Let her mother buy her a new dress and get her haircut. Days away from her garden, except in small moments, and she felt hollowed out once more.

The weeds would be getting unruly, feeding only ghosts.

Marla’s mother left with a promise to return soon. With her father. They were looking at renting a place down the street. Maybe you could stay in the spare room sometimes.

Sure, Mom. Tell Dad I love him. I promise I’ll remember to eat. I won’t sleep in the garden.

And then it was Marla, her ghosts, and the garden. Returning to her sanctuary, Marla wept near the primrose bush until sleep dragged her under.

Marla dreamed of primrose eyes. Of small hands. The brightest smile and laughter like a song. Arms wrapped tight around her body, in joy and in fear. In her dream, Marla’s world hadn’t ended.

She woke with the dawn, wrapped loosely in a blanket. Stretching, she felt vines twining her legs. Her fingers found soft petals in her tangled hair. A trip to the bathroom mirror revealed a wreath of flowers, a gift from her garden.

The garden itself, though, had begun to wither in the time her mother had visited. Just those few days was too much neglect, echoed by the chasm inside her. Each day, she tended the blooms; each night, she slept amongst them.

A night under the roses filled her dreams with passion and sweet, blissful memories. Strong, soft hands rubbing her shoulder, the heat of flesh pressed together. Her body ached mournfully when she woke, skin inflamed by delicate thorns sprouting from her arms.

Marla didn’t mind the changes. The boundaries between her and the garden had always been thin at best.

If anybody else noticed, at the garden store or the grocery, they didn’t say anything. Maybe they couldn’t see, or they didn’t want to upset the crazy plant lady. Marla didn’t mind that either.

In the evenings, after dinner, Marla made a habit of calling her mother and sisters. Short, soft conversations to keep them at bay, stave off the worried visits. She didn’t tell them about the garden, and they didn’t ask. No, Mom. I’m eating. No Leona. No Anna. I’m not ready to meet people. I don’t know that I will be.

Nobody would want to live with her ghosts or her garden, but that was alright with Marla.

Marla didn’t mind the rain that came in the night. It didn’t even wake her from the deep, blooming dreams. She slept in a simple shift, to let her body be closer to the earth. Vines crawled along the high fence, keeping out any prying eyes. 

She didn’t need tools in the garden anymore; she could feel the roots reaching through the soil. Marla sunk her fingers and toes into the dirt, feeling the whole of her breathe with the life around her. They were her roots, reaching the memories buried deep in the garden.

Marla kept the garden vibrant and thriving through the heat of late summer and into the cool of early autumn. While the rest of the world’s colors faded into the decay of winter, her flowers bloomed anew. She spent less and less time leaving the house, happily tangled in vines.

Still, as the nights grew colder, Marla knew her garden would have to rest and her along with it. Her body felt slower, growing more tired easily. She burrowed into the earth near the primrose bush, enveloped in gentle warmth. 

Each night she burrowed deeper. Each night, ghosts waited in her dreams to wrap her up in memories.

Marla spent more time sleeping than awake, even with the sun out. During the waking hours, she remained half burrowed in her garden, feeling the roots stretching through her and around her. The veil between waking and dreaming grew thin, like the boundaries between Marla and the plants around her.

The late autumn air grew sharper, the last of her blooms grasping for the pale and hazy sun. She knew it was time to rest.

The day after the first frost, Marla’s mother came for a visit. She hadn’t heard from her daughter in weeks. She almost didn’t notice her, half buried in the garden and tangled in vines. Marla appeared to be sleeping, errant flower petals in her tangled hair, her mother thought. Then she saw the thorns, the dead vines, and she wept.