The Gardener
Her fixation on plant life didn’t really start until about a month after the funeral. She spent her days on the couch, despondent and disheveled, with blank eyes trained on the television set that never turned off. Her husband never really bothered to turn it off even though he knew she wasn’t really watching – the noise of the shows and movies offered some comfort in their newly quiet house.
But one day, he found her in the kitchen, cutting the stems of some carnations that their neighbors had put on their front porch that morning. It was a shock at first, seeing her upright and doing something other than laying around. When she had finished with the stems, she put them in a crystal vase and then left to her room, murmuring about needing to brush her hair.
The following day, he found her in their backyard. She was still in her pajamas, but her hair was brushed neatly and braided down her back. She stood in front of their lemon tree, picking off the ripest of the bunch and when she was asked what she was doing, she simply responded, “I think I’m going to make lemonade.”
Which she did. And then followed that up with dinner for two that night.
And then on the third day, when her husband returned from work, he had nearly fallen into a panic when he realized that she was nowhere to be found. But this panic only lasted a minute or two, as she came sweeping in through the front door, fully dressed and five different shopping bags hanging off her arms. Her cheeks were red and her chest heaving from exertion, but her eyes were sparked alive once more. The sight of her like that, like how she used to be, almost brought tears to her husband’s eyes, before he finally swallowed the lump in his throat and asked what she bought.
She took him to the couch and took seven different ceramic pots from her bags, all in various colors and sizes. Not even paying attention to her husband’s incredulous and fairly bewildered expression, she also unpacked several different seed packets; some featuring brightly colored flowers and others depicting thriving vegetable life. She proudly announced to her still-baffled husband that it was her intention to start a garden in their backyard.
While she poured over the instructions on the back of the seed packets, her husband watched her steadily. The bags that had once formed underneath his young wife’s eyes were fading and the permanent frown she adopted was turning up. He felt as though he had been waiting his whole life to see this change in her rather than the one month it had been, so he rose to his feet, kissed her on the head, and told her that a garden would be lovely.
Everything after that day had changed. Instead of lounging about in her pajamas and refusing to eat, she was always dressed for the day and either in the backyard taking care of her slow-growing garden or reading obsessively on the internet for different ways to improve her gardening technique. Everyone, especially her husband, was quite surprised to find that she had a natural talent for taking care of plant life. And it never went unnoticed that the more her garden thrived, the happier she seemed.
Her home life, however, was creeping to a standstill. Her husband was rarely home, as he seemed to be taking on more and more hours to be able to feed into his wife’s rapid expenditures. The children that the couple had once imagined occupying their house had become a fantasy that neither acknowledged. Their quiet house grew quieter still.
But she never seemed to waver in her happiness. Her garden expanded until it took up more than half of their backyard: the wild blues, yellows, greens, and reds accounting for the majority of the garden, while her tomatoes, lemons, and squash made up the rest. Her obsession even made its way into the house, with several different potted plants taking up space in every room of the house. A bamboo plant in a beautiful jade box in the kitchen, a fern in a bright blue pot by the door. Cacti in every room, even the one that she never stepped foot in. Lilies in every bathroom and daisies as the center piece of their dining room table.
But, by far and away, her favorite was the little succulent that sat in the little toy dinosaur planter above her bed. It was a small, cheap little thing that she bought for two dollars at the grocery story; it wasn’t nearly as pretty as the daises on the dining room table or quite as eye-catching as her lilies, but still her favorite.
And she obsessed over keeping it alive. She spent hours online reading tip after tip on how to keep her little succulent alive and thriving. As years passed, her focus on the succulent had disrupted her garden completely. Weeds had begun to poke out and the flowers were slowly beginning to wilt.
It was the most ridiculous thing. Even her husband, when he was around, would tell her so. Succulents are arguably one of the easiest plants to keep alive, so her obsession was unprecedented and unnecessary. He would much rather have her focus on cleaning up the backyard that now looked more like an untamed jungle than the thriving garden she had once loved. His irritation fell on deaf ears, however, and once he saw her painting a familiar name across the dinosaur pot, he fell silent and let her be. He let her be for days, the two going without speaking. He watched her as she bought book after book on succulents and fretted over the right soil and whether or not her succulent was getting enough light or water. The light that had come back, the light that he had been killing himself to keep alive in her eyes was replaced with a new one. It was unfamiliar and frightening – and it wasn’t what he had agreed to.
His days at the office grew longer and his time at home grew shorter until it was nonexistent. Eventually, his closet and drawers had emptied and his space in the driveway had been clear for months. But she hardly noticed nor did she particularly mind. It was just her and her favorite little succulent in the little toy dinosaur pot.
“I’m going to keep you alive.” She mumbled, staring at the little plant. She set it aside and walked down the hall, passing by the room she never went into and ignoring the old, crayon dinosaur drawings that sat on the door.
Thorns
When I was a young girl, my mother had an affair. I, no older than ten at the time, discovered the affair, but kept quiet at my mother’s request. For several days, I sat beside my father at the dinner table and ignored his suspicious inquiries about my mother’s whereabouts and the guests she had over while he worked.
After three days of silence, I awoke one morning from a terrible nightmare. A nightmare in which a spirit visited me, chastising me for betraying my father so and bestowing a curse on me. A curse that demanded every time I were to experience a betrayal, a rose’s thorn would rupture my skin somewhere on my body. Only in the event that someone could show me the same devotion my father held for my mother, would all the thorns disappear.
In the sobering morning light, I had forgotten all about the nightmare and readied myself for the day.
The first thorn that tore through my skin poked out from the soft flesh of my belly, still spongy from childhood fat. My mother had made another comment about my weight at breakfast before swapping my cereal for a banana, and I had instantly felt the tiny pinch. Upon my inspection, I found the thorn. It was miniscule, barely visible, and didn’t even cause me an ounce of physical pain. But it brought with it a barrage of emotional agony. I hoped it vain that if the overabundance of flesh on my stomach disappeared, the thorn would go with it. But it did not budge.
My next thorn cropped up on the side of my wrist. I was a teen, barely in high school. A boy I had fallen for grabbed me too tightly, and a thorn burst free from the skin. It pricked his hand and though he released me, I felt no relief. I cried as he fled from me, my fingernails tearing at the thorn to remove it, but it merely cracked my nails.
The next boy I loved was caught in the embrace of another, and from that, thorns sprouted from my scalp. This one caused significantly more pain than the others. I sobbed for days over my freakish appearance, and attempting to hide them with my hair was no good. They only seemed to grow longer and sharper, demanding to be seen. I could hide no longer.
My mother pulled me from school and agreed with me that it would be best I no longer be seen in public. She left our home that night. With my father having passed a year prior, I lived alone in our house, only accompanied by the family maid.
As the years passed, my body seemed to garner new thorns every day, sprouting any time the maid looked my way and cringed. Soon enough my body was covered in prickly brown thorns and rumors whispered around my small town about me. They all talked of the monster with hideous disfigurements that never left its home.
Everything changed when my mother hired him. Beau. A boy maybe a year younger than me to be my tutor, since the last few refused to teach me if they weren’t allowed to see me. I wasn’t sure what Beau looked like, nor did I care in the beginning, but one thing was obvious from the moment he introduced himself through the door of my bedroom: he had a gentle heart.
Every Monday and Wednesday, he would sit outside my bedroom door and teach me all different subjects for three hours. And then he would talk to me for the following two. At first, I didn’t like that he talked to me. I didn’t like his curiosity about my condition or the way he kept trying to make me laugh. He was a nuisance – one that I despised and did my best to ignore. After all, keeping him at arm’s length meant he could never betray me.
And then one day, he had to cancel his tutoring session with me. It wasn’t until he missed our day that I realized I had grown fond of our talks. I spent the time that was supposed to be ours pacing around our room, concerned about his wellbeing.
He returned the following day, apologizing and informing me that it was a family emergency and everything was okay. He confided in me that his father was sick and Beau was his sole caretaker. I realized then how truly good he was; I started talking back to him after that.
Looking back, I think that was the moment I really fell in love with him. And with the love I felt for him, I began to desire being with him. For days I wrestled with whether or not I should finally see him face-to-face. He had asked, once, if we could but I had turned him down at the time without a second thought. Part of me regretted that decision, the rest of me was too terrified of another, much more harsh betrayal.
And then one day, I left my room just as he was walking down the hall towards my room. It was a Tuesday – he shouldn’t have been there. Seeing him for the first time and so suddenly had rooted me to the spot, just as my horrid appearance had frozen him.
Only seconds had passed, but it felt like hours when he finally began to move. With a shock, I realized he was walking toward me. I wanted to run, to hide away, but I couldn’t. Finally, he was in front of me. Slowly he raised his hand and I instinctively flinched, but he brought me no pain. Instead, he traced his fingers down my arm, slipping through the maze of thorns. He slowly weaved his fingers with mine, wincing as he did. I opened my mouth to object as my thorns pricked against his skin, but he raised his other hand to my ruined cheek.
And he smiled.
And in that smile, I could see it all. I could see his kiss, and embrace, and love fixing me. I could see the thorns retracting and disappearing altogether. But I knew that if he betrayed me – when he betrayed me, those thorns would come back tenfold.
So I tore away from him, shouting for him to go. To leave and never come back. I screamed until my voice began to go hoarse, my vision blurring with tears. He stared back at me in pain, his hand bleeding from my thorns tearing at the delicate flesh there, but it barely affected me. All I could see were the faces. The faces of the boys I loved, staring at me in disgust and indifference. My mother staring at me, her face unloving and unaccepting. My breath left me in sharp bursts and inky black tears ran course down my cheeks, but still I screamed for him to leave.
There was a horrible tearing sound, cutting my tears and screams short. And when I looked down, there was a thorn, larger than I had ever seen, sprouting from my chest. But this time, red began to stain the area surrounding my new thorn, and I felt my body growing weak. I looked up at Beau, his sweet face twisted and horrified. I reached for him, longing to be in his arms.
And then I collapsed, dead on the floor in front of the boy I couldn’t let love me.
Author Bio: Brenna Doyle is a 24-year-old Murrieta resident and college student attending CSU San Marcos. She is a literature and writing studies major, aiming for her bachelor’s degree and aspiring to establish a career as an English teacher, though she hopes to be a published author one day as well. She has one daughter and enjoys baking, reading, and writing anything from novels to short stories to poetry in her spare time.