Sixty-one years? That number seemed almost incomprehensible. “Wow. sixty-one years. You must’ve been married young. You don’t look a day over fifty.”
He gave a hearty laugh. “That right there’s flattery, but I’ll take all I can get. We got hitched at eighteen and nineteen. My parents picked her out and boy, was she a keeper.”
“Your marriage was arranged?”
“Well, arranged makes it sound too formal.” He adjusted the straw hat on his head. “We met at church and our parents thought it fitting.”
“That’s incredible.”
“She had a real eye for beauty. Everything you see behindme is ultimately her doing. She started it and the harvest goes on with just a little tendin’ here and there.”
I thumbed over my shoulder. “Did the homeowners prior to Jack garden?”
“Yes. But Phil got real sick after a while and wasn’t able to tend anymore. Been nigh a decade—maybe eight years since those beds have been tended.”
I let my eyes roam over Richard’s lush plants. “Yours are certainly alive and well. Looks like you have dozens of varieties.”
“That we do.”
He saidwe. It brought moisture to my eyes.
“Come on over and I’ll show you around our space.”
Our.
Good gracious. She lived on in his heart, and it was clear how smitten he still was. Sixty-one years, a husband in love, and a family to carry their legacy. I blinked back the emotion it stirred in me.
Kacey and I came around the fence and boy did we get the tour. Early spring flowers like daffodils and tulips grew at the base of every tree. Forsythia and quince shrubs were in full bloom. He rattled off names of plants as we passed them. A stone path wove through the beauty.
Richard said his wife had requested they make a path and they did it together. Stone by stone. It was finished right before her ten-year off-and-on battle with cancer began. She worked less and less in the garden. Some days she’d only make it out to the patio chair. But he tended it. For her. Because she loved her garden and he loved her.
He showed me early spring crops he had going. Lettuce, kale, snap peas, broccoli, and onions.
When we came to a section of dark green flowerlessshrubs tied to a lattice, I looked closer. Thorns on the stems, oval leaves. “Are these roses, Richard?
“That they are. They won’t start blooming until late spring though.” He came over and smiled. “Her name was Rose.”
“Your wife?”
He nodded.
“Richard, you’re determined to make me cry.”
“Go right ahead, young lady. I don’t mind.”
I chuckled and dabbed at my eye with my t-shirt. “I’ve always wanted to learn to garden.”
“I’d be happy to teach you.”
“Really?”
“Well, it’d be my pleasure.”
“Jack has a couple garden beds, but they are filled with grass.” I waved toward Jack’s yard. “Maybe we could go buy some seeds or something.”
He chuckled. “You could, but it’s a mite early for that.”
“What do you mean?”
