The Garden Diary
by
Jeffrey Perren

Emily knew it wasn't a rock the minute her garden shovel struck it. The sound just wasn't quite right. More like metal than stone. Two more spade's full of earth and she had it lying on the ground rather than under it.

She brushed the dirt off the top and could then clearly see it was a rectangular tin, like a box made for holding tea bags. She delayed opening it, making a game of guessing what was in it and how it got there. She hadn't put it there, yet it hadn't rusted. The home had been hers for fifty years, since the day she had married. A neighbor was unlikely to be responsible. They were all as staid and unimaginative as she.

Henry. He was the only logical choice left. But why would her dear departed husband have buried a tin in the garden? She could only think it must be a kind of time capsule, something he wanted her to find after he was gone. But, again, it wasn't rusted. Had he put it there only hours before he died, when he was so weak he could barely walk?

Six months. That's how long he had been gone. Not long enough to decay tin. But long enough to make his absence morph from a fiery pain between the ribs to a dull ache in the stomach. Oh, how she missed her Henry, too soon gone.

Unable to resist any longer, she opened the tin. Inside, she spied a book. A journal, more like. Not wanting to get it dirty, she lifted the container up to the deck through the picket fence surrounding the garden. She went to wash off her hands at the spigot, then sat on the deck in the sun waiting for them to dry.

She looked down at the tin, and the book within. It was Hunter green cloth, rimmed with new brown leather. Henry's favorite materials. How he loved his English men's club décor. How she hated it, thinking it a reflection of times better gone, a time when women were just a man's plaything.

She glanced over at Daisy, the Springer Spaniel he had brought home over her objections.  How they had fought over that silly dog. Like most of their arguments, it had grown completely out of proportion. Her fault probably. Henry wasn't lax about taking care of dogs. He was very responsible. But she was slightly allergic. He promised to keep the dog outside. Like most of their arguments, she lost that one.

Still, she couldn't imagine life without Daisy now, just as she once could not imagine life without Henry. The dog would soon be gone, just as Henry was. Then she would have no one to love.

She turned back to the tin. Her hands bone dry, she picked up the book lying inside. She opened the cover to the signature page.

Henry put bookplate stickers inside all his books. All six thousand of them. Every adventure novel, engineering text, and English history book. Every philosophy tome, short story collection, and art book.

But not a single gardening book. Henry didn't like gardening. Couldn't take the smell of roses, he claimed. She thought it might just have been an excuse, that it was really because he didn't like to get his fingers dirty.

Six thousand bookplates, expensive ones. Enough to pay for the trip to Europe he promised to take her on but never did.

All six thousand had the same signature, a bold, slashing cursive. The journal had one, too, though the signature looked a little shaky, as if it had been written in his final hours.

Delaying more, she flipped through the pages, the sound reminding her of the playing card she had attached with a clothespin to her childhood bicycle wheel. She smiled at the memory, then turned to the first and only page of writing and began to read: 

Today, we didn't fight. I'm glad. We've had too many days like that the past few years. Like last night. My fault, I'm sure. It wasn't always like that. We were happy once. Or so I thought. It's hard to be sure, especially with women. Especially with a woman like Emily.

She keeps so much inside. I tried to get her to open up. God knows I tried. Maybe too hard. Maybe she thought I was trying to change her. To remake her into the shape of my ideal. Maybe. But I don't think so. I just thought she might be happier if she did. But, I could have been wrong. Some people are just quiet. It doesn't mean they're brooding.

Now, I'll never know. Not for sure, anyway. In a few hours, I'll be gone. Gone for good. I don't think I'll look down from heaven. Never believed in that nonsense. Don't know how she could, really.

But I guess it doesn't matter. I just hope she knows I really did love her. All the way. With everything I had.

That wasn't so little, either, I think. Maybe it's arrogance, but I think I had a lot to offer her. I tried to give her a good life. Not just things, but experiences and ideas. To see the whole world and all the glorious things it contains.

And I cared about her, too. Her feelings.

I cared about every pain she ever had, every sadness. I cheered every smile she showed, every bit of joy. I hope I gave her more of the latter than the former. I think so, but it's hard to be sure with women. Especially a woman like Emily.

If you find this my love, my only love — and I think you will since you spend every afternoon in that damn garden of yours, away from me — know this: I did love you. For all fifty-four years we knew each other, since our teens. With everything I had.

I'm very tired now, so I'll stop here.

Emily put the journal down, unable to see any longer through her tears. Daisy loped up to the deck and licked her face. Even though she hated the feeling, Emily let her.

She hugged the dog, then said: "Henry! Why did you have to drink your tea that morning? I begged you not to. I begged you to let me make you another cup. The first one was made in anger. Henry! Couldn't you have fought off the sickness? It was only a little arsenic, after all."

She put the journal back into the tin and carried it back through the garden gate. She buried it right back where she had found it. Only three feet from Henry. Right next to the roses.

Jeffrey Perren is a full-time professional writer whose work has appeared in Apollo's Lyre, Free Radical, and elsewhere.