A Prompting - 4. The Goodbye Garden

"I've wanted to do that since . . . forever."

"What's that?" I called out. I tried making it sound as if I was interested but truthfully, I wanted to groan the words; Brian had a habit—or rather, a long history—of not pursuing projects once having begun them. I suspected this was going to be yet another of those pursuits. Although, if I was to be honest, a project completed or otherwise would be preferable to his other, more recent and painful activity.

"Gardening, Tommy."

He stood in the kitchen doorway, too handsome for his own good, and probably too handsome for mine. I held up a finger and finished the bite of bagel before washing it down with my morning cup of mocha-java.

"Gardening? I moved to the city to avoid gardens, Brian. That's part of the reason I bought the condo." Getting close to gardens of any sizable area involved working through an unavoidable feeling of apprehension before I could step into them. I felt they were better dodged than attempted.

Brian offered me an uneven smile and an off-side turn of the head. "I know. Your mom told me why. She also told me not to bring it up, that you would be . . . difficult about it."

"Really! When did you two have this discussion about me?" I was not going to be difficult.

"A couple of years ago." He paused. "Don't look at me like that." The huff behind his words could almost be heard, it was that palpable. "I tried to broach the subject with you before, but you cut me off, so I asked your mother. You should have talked to me."

I heard the implied meaning behind the word, before; its meaning meant—more than a few times. But going missing for fourteen months as a child was disturbing, and not to remember what happened . . . Except for the memories I have from being told the story, nothing remained of that time spent missing, that time was gone for me. Disappeared. Brian and I have been together for six years, and he was right, and maybe he had every right to know the story. I should have offered some explanation for being so taciturn—before he had to ask and hear the story from someone else, even my mother.

"I'm sorry, Brian." Getting up from my chair, I held up my coffee cup and gestured, he nodded. "Please, come sit at the table with me?" I patted the back of the chair next to where I sat and used the time needed to prepare our cups to address my thoughts.

***

"Mmm, this coffee is so good." I inhaled the aroma and made a mockery of a face in ecstasy. My friend, Susan, laughed at my behavior.

"Yes, it is good," she offered, once she stopped snickering. "This shop just seems to get it right. So, why isn't Brian joining us on this beautiful, spring day? What's he up to?"

"Gardening."

"You're kidding?"

"Nope. He says it's something he's always wanted to do." I shrugged. "It's better that he's occupied in his free time, I suppose."

"Once a cheat, always a cheat," she said.

"Susan, please, that's not fair. Brian's been on his best behavior; he's given me no reason to keep doubting him." The look she returned me said she wasn't convinced. "Right now, I just hope that he'll stick with it. He has a plot in the community garden at Washington and Newton. I've seen it, the plots big enough to be creative and not so big that it will become a chore. He's breaking ground and mixing in mulch today."

"Let's go watch him, Tom. See the pretty boy wallowing around in the dirt. Again."

Despite my defense of Brian to Susan, and knowing just how callously snarky she could be, I carried around with me a sense of unease and over the following weeks I walked past the community garden on several occasions. Brian's plot remained rough and unturned, which refuted his boasts to the contrary and of the time he spent away. I began to worry despite my having noticed dirt under his nails periodically. Something was up, I was missing some crucial thing I was sure, and I wondered how it was that he hoped to pull off the June, 1^st reveal that crept ever closer.

***

The day finally arrived for me to see Brian's garden plot and he was about as excited as I'd ever seen him. He went ahead of me, he said 'to make last minute adjustments', while I waited nervously at home for a half-hour more. When I arrived at the community garden, I found Brian standing and waiting by the gate, wearing a big smile. I had to stop, close my eyes, and take a big breath to calm myself before joining him. I couldn't decide which apprehension it was that I was trying to dispel.

"You can do it, Tommy. I'm with you, come on." He took me by the hand and when we arrived at the turn off for his plot, I began to pull in that direction. Brian tugged on my hand to stop me.

"What's wrong, Brian? Aren't we going to see your plot?" I asked.

"My plot is over there, by the tool shed." He pointed. "I put in a request for one of the larger plots when I applied; there wasn't one available at the time but somebody backed out, and I got the space. I'm glad, the first one was too small for what I had in mind. Come see."

Not having let go of my hand, Brian pulled me along as he guided me to his plot on the far side of the garden. Although there was a long time left in the growing season, we hadn't had any late frosts and the weather had been more than accommodating, with warm days, cool nights and enough rain without drowning everything. The effect on the plantings showed everywhere. I was so focused on that dead little plot each time I walked by that I had barely noticed all the growth going on, and now, well . . . I was embarrassed, and my lack of attention to the growth was the smallest part of it.

Brian pulled up short and since I wasn't paying attention, I nearly walked into him. He stepped aside and after a flourish of his arm, he said, "This is it, Tommy."

His smile seemed to take up most of his face—I loved his smile; how easy he could use it to charm. But he could just as easily hide behind it; just as easily use it to deceive. Today, his smile was one of pride, and rightly so. His garden was young and beautiful, nearly three times larger than the first one, and he had incorporated herbs and vegetables amongst the flowering and soon to be flowering plantings. Everything was well on its way.

"Brian, this is so impressive." I latched onto him and hugged him tightly. "It's beautiful, really. I'm so proud of you."

"I had lots of help. The big ideas I had from watching the garden shows were, in practice, a little bit harder to achieve than I imagined. When the other gardeners saw how badly I was doing, they took pity on me and offered all kinds of good advice. I was able to rely on them, Tommy. But I did all the work."

"I did notice some dirt under your nails," I said.

"Yeah, even with the gloves, that was hard to avoid." He paused then and looked down at the ground. He licked his lips, took a big breath and let it out. "What were you thinking, Tommy? I saw you, you know."

"You saw me?" I questioned. "What are you talking about, Brian?"

"Some days, I would grab a sandwich and spend my lunch here. Then and other times, I saw you . . . you would walk by and stop, stare at that bare plot and then walk away. You never said anything, you never asked what was going on, nothing. And I wonder, what were you thinking, Tommy?" Brian looked up, his eyes were wet with unshed tears and I felt like a fool.

"I . . . I'm sorry." It was all I could manage to get out, my voice quivered.

"Yeah. I thought so. You haven't really forgiven me, have you?" Brian rolled his head up and around trying to focus on something—anything. And not having found whatever he needed, he looked me straight in the eyes. "How are we to survive, if you won't forgive me, Tommy?"

"I don't know, Brian. I don't know."