A stubborn dandelion had sunk its roots deep. With a practiced yank, she loosed it from the ground. Ignoring the clods of soil that struck her cheeks and eyelids, she tossed the limp body into a bucket nearby. There were many forsaken weeds piled in the plastic tub. Her garden would flourish without them. Her lips parted and she unfurled a small smile.
She stood and brushed at her knees, lightly soiled from her long-held position. She strode to a pump, filled her watercan, and strode back. She crooked her arms and tilted the spout and evenly drenched her tomatoes, nasturtiums, basil, squashes, carrots, and sweet peas. Each leaf was speckled with droplets, as it was her unspoken belief that it felt good for the plants to be wholly wet. She deemed them appreciative and her smile grew, framed by little tendrils of wrinkles. From a pocket she pried a worn gardening glove, slipped it on her already dirty hand, and scooped a handful of fertilizer from a bag nearby. Rubbing her fingers together, she sprinkled it under the leaves, careful to smooth a thickly mounded layer about the bases of the verdant stems. Sunshine warmed the air and embraced the plants encouragingly. Her overalls were denim and rolled up past her calves, for she enjoyed the feel of the breeze on her bare ankles and the way it tugged at the small soft hairs on her legs. Her red tee shirt was rumpled and the collar angled oddly so that a corner of bone was exposed, her pale skin flashing in the bright midday light. The breeze brushed the nook of her neck and her skin tingled where it had touched her and her heart thumped once. With a sigh, she rolled her shoulders back and lifted her face to the sky, eyes closed, lips smooth and wide and slightly open, waiting.
She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned. A man stood behind her, older, knees and hands muddied. She knew him. He often came to her. The garden was communal. It was easy to know a face. She knew him better, though. He reached for her hand. She let him have it. With a tug he pulled her. She followed easily. When they got to his car, she kissed him a few times and weeded his garden. The car was parked beneath a willow tree. Ropes of weepy branches obscured them. He slipped her a fifty. She thought of spring bulbs and the rising cost of fertilizer.
The next day was overcast. This did not make her frown, as she understood that the plants sometimes craved respite from the sun. She donned a light sweater atop her clothing and unfolded the hem of her pants to cover her shivering ankles and walked the ten blocks to her garden-plot. She arrived and meticulously inspected each leaf for sign of caterpillar damage or aphid feasting. She poked bare fingers in the soil to prod at burgeoning root structures and to check moisture levels. She lightly pinched a drooping seedhead from one flower and tucked it away in her pocket for safekeeping. Always she made sure to cherish those little perennial gifts. As a child, she had spent the drowsy evenings of late summer with her mother, harvesting and then safely secreting the pregnant, wilted blossoms in jam jars and little wooden boxes, readying for the next spring. The tradition cycled until she became an adult and her mother wilted as well and she learned that people did not leave seedheads as flowers did. It was a sad reverie and she knew she probably shouldn’t but she sank her weary bones to the ground and plucked a premature nasturtium blossom and chewed its spicy petals slowly and thought.
Someone coughed. A man. Reluctantly she turned. He was younger and not very handsome. His face looked withered. His body seemed stunted. She sighed. She took his hand. He helped her to stand. She led him to the tool and supply shed. She had a key. It was clean inside, though there were spiders. She let him plant a few anemic seeds. He was very bad at it. She waited. It was worse than waiting for sprouts after an early frost. Finally, it was finished. He handed her a hundred dollar bill. She looked at him. She left, closing the door behind her.
Over the next few days she began to notice her tomatoes swelling expectantly, their green skins tinged with a blush of yellow that gradually deepened to the purest red. Orange crescent moons of carrots began to peep from the darkness of the soil, and the fiery petals of nasturtiums exploded into full maturity. Basil leaves unfolded crisp creases of deepest green, and the pastels of the sweet peas burst into being here and there among the vines. Daily, faithfully, she tended her garden. The weather was favorable and it flourished wildly, her nurture of each plant going far towards its uncommon growth. She delighted wholeheartedly in her garden. She had a few men. With her wages, she bought some food and paid some bills. She paid the rent. She sent the rest to her daughters. She was a wonderful farmer.
It came to be one day that she arrived at her garden to find it trampled and broken. The morning had been pleasant in the manner of midsummer mornings, and the woman had spent her walk to the garden in quiet thought. She carried a basket to harvest the carrots and the tomatoes, some twine to bind bundles of basil and sweet peas, and a handkerchief in which to wrap the nasturtium blossoms. She had few crops, of course, but was eager to collect them and take them to market. As her eyes settled upon the sudden green carnage before her, she sank to the ground, her knees jolting her body painfully as they struck the earth.
Each sweet pea blossom had been snapped. They hung at sharp angles from the stem, their petals beginning to wrinkle in early decay, the tough, stringy fibers becoming limp and weak. All of the low-lying nasturtiums evidenced the imprint of a large foot, while the basil had been uprooted and lay atop the dry soil, withering in the sun. Bits of tomato flesh littered the soil, and every carrot had been systematically pulled and snapped. The vegetal torture surrounding her felt incomprehensible. There would be no seedheads this season.
With shaking fingers she began to sift through the soil. She caressed torn leaves, snapped away unsalvageable pieces of greenery, brushed dirt from the least damaged root vegetables. Her mouth hung ajar, her hair fell gray and ragged into her eyes. As she pushed aside a leafy branch she glimpsed a scarlet note in the sea of now-sickly green and, eagerly, seized the last standing tomato, plucking it from the vine.
It was not magnificent, but it was intact. The color had deepened into ripeness and a soft shine emanated from the red skin. Tears stung her eyes, though she did not stop to wonder who might do this to her. She had one priority, and cared only to tend that which she so loved. She sunk her strong teeth deep into the tomato’s meat. The skin broke with a satisfying split, and she enveloped her mouth around the fruit, her lips pressed firmly to its smooth surface. The juices filled her mouth, ambrosial, and she closed her eyes. A memory lay behind her lids.
She was younger and leaning back in a man’s arms. They sat together, sunk into the earth, she tucked against his warmth, he with one hand on her abdomen, the other cupping a full, sweet tomato against her mouth. The juice ran down her chin and he laughed. Before she could dab it away he caught her face and held it, his mouth meeting hers, the brief mingling spice of nasturtium and sweetness of tomato and the scent of sweet peas and warm wet earth on a summer’s day—
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