I hated gardening. It was always something she did to get my mind off things. And, because of that reason, I hated it. But only afterwards, never during. While I was working, my mind was off of things, because I was so focused on my dislike of the task.
She always had roses planted. Mostly roses, but there were geraniums, marigolds, and violets too. And trees. There were more trees on the small plot of land she called a backyard than I'd ever seen before. I think she had every type of tree on earth, growing under the weak northern sun, out there within view of her coffee machine.
But the roses were her favorites. Every color, from blood red to shimmering white, grew in huge, wild bushes bristling with thorns and fat, beautiful blossoms. Some were as old as I was. And some had as many scars from malicious deer or wayward baseballs as I did.
When I wasn't digging up the hapless weeds, I really did like that place. There was life everywhere. It was all botanical life, and it filled even the small corners of my workroom where nothing but dust lived on normal occasions.
The particular afternoon was hot, and in the summer, which was the time she liked to throw me out of the house most often. I liked to spend those lazy days curled up in my workroom, bringing old toasters back to life. That was my job back home. It was just easy to slip into it now, when I didn't think my heart could take much more and I couldn't look at her without seeing someone else. That's where I was when she found me. Reclined in the wheelchair, broken bits of a pencil scattered across my legs, I was lost, again, in a time when up really was up, and not just some illusion to break my heart.
Her hands were cool, and light, just like everything about her. The motion was casual, just a passing thing, but the feeling of it, the gentle caress of her fingers tilting my chin up to look into her eyes, remained long after she'd wheeled me out into the garden.
"I don't want to do it," I told her. "Not today."
"Nonsense," she said, still wheeling me out. "It's absolutely beautiful out there. And you're getting too pale, shut in all day."
I folded my arms. "I'm not pulling weeds."
"Of course not. You're pruning today."
We were outside then. She handed me the scissors, and then left. I was alone under the sun. I could move myself fine, using the various white cement walkways she had hired a bunch of sweaty, swearing men to pour for her. I hadn't enjoyed that time. It almost hurt to see such a beautiful place swarming with them. They almost defiled it. More than once, they looked up, met my gaze, then muttered something in a frightened, foreign tongue. I didn't need to speak the language to know what it was they'd said.
"Monster."
I started cutting the oval leaves of a rosebush back. It wasn't in bloom yet, just beginning to bud. Sometimes though, there were full blooms towards the center. You had to cut them back to really see them.
"Monster" suited me fine. I certainly looked the part. Pale, blue eyes a bit too large, a touch too intense, a year too old for my face, hair too white to be blonde, thin to the point of being painful. It was enough to send anyone unused to me running, crying that some primordial creature had emerged from their nightmare to watch them. My mood swings never helped the image either. A raging beast one moment, a hideous, depressive mess the next. The drugs she gave me helped. when I took them, which wasn't often.
I looked down. A great number of leaves had grown in my lap since I'd started, but the bush was still standing, looking no different than when I'd started. Resilient little thing.
In a way, the bush reminded me of someone I'd lost. She hadn't bent under anyone's scissors. And she'd been killed. Right before my eyes, I watched her be murdered without thought, without cause. She was guilty of no crime. I watched her stand tall, chin high, and then crumple, bleeding to the hard ground, while I was helpless. That memory haunted me more so than any other. Her face haunted my thoughts more often than anyone else's that I'd left behind. Guilt over her death overrode any other in my heart, even the guilt for leaving my son. I remembered him now; gray eyes, trusting smile, the way he was into everything I did. My best friend was raising him now.
This time, when I looked at the plant, it was cut to the bare minimum. Ugly, twisted, brown branches stood out sorely against the green. Sap oozed from the wounds, reminding me of blood. I looked down. Several pinkish buds lay on a pile of dead, green leaves, bleeding sap into the earth. A single, fully bloomed rose lay at the top, accusingly.
Hesitating, I picked it up, staring at it, letting the sticky warmth run down my fingers. It was blood. I had killed it. Tears ran down my cheeks, unnoticed, unneeded, falling into my lap, onto my useless legs. It had done nothing wrong but bloom. And I had killed it.
Soft, cool hands held out a handkerchief. When I didn't notice, they proceeded to dry my tears, as if I had given them permission to touch me. Her voice filled my ears, no matter how I tried to shut it out. "It's okay. The bush will heal. By next spring, I think," she told me. "Don't worry. and the buds will bloom inside. I'll see to it they do."
I couldn't look up. All I could do was cry. Failure upon failure was crushing me. There was nothing I could do to escape it. Not even a rosebush was safe from me, or from who I had become.
"Not all lives are given up in vain," she continued. Smooth, unscarred hands gathered up the branches I'd killed. "A flower is alive to bloom. And it is because of the bloom that it dies. But, it loves to bloom. So, what choice does it have but to die?"
I didn't answer. I couldn't. It didn't feel like flowers anymore. The sap-blood still stuck to my fingers. I could almost see it turning a bright, living crimson.
"Sometimes. we show more love through what we die for. than what we live for."
I looked up at that. Amber eyes met mine, warmth radiating out from them, melting the cold blue of those that resided in my own face. I wanted to reach out and hold her tightly right then. The faces and the guilt melted under the amber eyes. It was spring now, summer, fall, and even winter passed in that moment, leaving me standing there, next to a rosebush that was covered in dark, beautiful blooms.