Perennials

by Julie Cantrell

  “Mock orange,” I say, adding two more pots to the stash, excited these sweet-smelling blossoms will bring a thrill each spring. “One of Mother’s favorites.”

  “Always a bestseller,” Fisher agrees. “People love it, especially Faulkner fans.”

  “What’s Faulkner got to do with it?”

  “Supposedly, he got the name wrong. Called it a syringa in one of his stories.”

  “Syringa? Like the lilac?” Mother has taught me my fair share of gardening lore, and I am realizing how much I miss the lingo. In Arizona no one talks of life in terms of when the flowers bloom.

  Fisher shakes his head. “Who knows what he was thinking.”

  “Ooh, you know I love a mystery!” It’s decided. I have officially become a flirt, and I imagine William Faulkner would approve of the developing drama. Give him something to write about, at least.

  A Nobel Prize– winning Oxford boy, Faulkner became infamous not only for his way with words but also for his ability to capture the day-to-day lives of his people, my people. An observer of human behaviors, he examined the conditions of the heart, collecting stories with his trusty typewriter and a bottle of bourbon. If he called the mock orange a syringa, he certainly may have been drinking too much, as some claim, but perhaps he simply made an honest mistake, identifying the shrub in the way his neighbors did.

  We tend to forget, after all, that he was just a man. A man who spoke the language that swam around him. I assume he did his best to preserve that language on the page so that someday, when he was dead and gone, the rest of us could sink our toes in the same cool waters and savor the dip back in time. As much as locals may have misunderstood him, he gave them the gift of immortality, and for that, I do believe, they should thank him.

  I toy with the scaly bark, enjoying the fragrant white blooms. “My friend Marian says we shouldn’t limit something by its name anyway.”

  “Smart friend.” Fisher moves closer, shadows my hands, touches the leaves.

  “She is.” I smile at the thought of my feisty yoga partner back in Sedona. And suddenly I’m spinning through time again, making my way back to the cliffs of Chimney Rock, where Marian climbed with me in the morning sun, labeling plants and birds and mesas while the flutist played.

  May 14, 2016

  “It changes the way we move through the world, when we assign a name for things.” Marian walks at least ten steps before elaborating. “Did you know the name for that hedgehog cactus? Before I told you?”

  I shake my head. No telling how many times I’ve walked past the familiar desert plant without ever really thinking about what kind of cactus it was.

  “What changed then? Once you knew the name?”

  “Gives meaning to it, I guess. Lets me file it so I can pull the information later and use it.”

  “Yes, but is that a positive or a negative?” Having spent most of her life in Sedona, Marian speaks in terms of energies as if they are a natural part of everyone’s vocabulary.

  “Positive, I suppose.”

  “In many cases, yes.” She doesn’t sound convinced. “But in other situations, perhaps by assigning a label to something, we define our expectations of it. It can no longer be as it chooses to be.”

  I twist my lips, curious.

  “When someone looks at me, they’re likely to draw a name to mind, even if they don’t know the name Marian. They tag me with a description: old, widow, woman. If I accepted those labels, I’d probably be in a nursing home somewhere, my brain turning to jelly with my bones.”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  “That’s because I decided a long time ago not to fall into a box.” She pulls herself up a particularly steep part of the incline, knocking a few loose rocks down the slide as she climbs. “It doesn’t matter what people call me. Fact of the matter is, I’m all that encompasses this human journey, and change is constant. That can’t possibly be summed up in one little word.”

  I adjust my hourglass charm across my neck. What would Marian think of Fisher? I imagine she’d tell me to let the universe have its way. That what’s meant to be can be, if I don’t let fear get the best of me.

  FIFTEEN

  Fisher removes his heat-soaked ball cap and wipes his brow with his shirt, revealing a toned set of abs that would hold their own against a guy half his age. “Geesh, Fisher,” I tease. “What’s your secret?” A sheen of sweat catches light between each muscular ridge.

  “What’s yours?” He scans my body quickly, with restraint, before respectfully lifting his eyes back to mine.

  “Staying single!”

  “Well then, I’d say single looks good on you, Lovey.” He chuckles in a friendly sort of way, and I blush yet again, turning to focus on the job at hand. Side by side we work, and it feels like old times. It wasn’t all that long ago when we spent our days running wild through the mayapples and buckeyes. We constructed forts in the trees, cutting thick bamboo stalks and painting Keep Out warnings with the fuchsia stain of pokeberries. Our bodies work in sync now, like they did back then, and few words are needed between us.

  As a team we drop well-soaked roots after each dig. Then I smooth the soil back into place with bare hands, opting to feel the cool earth against my skin as we move on to cuttings and first-years, saplings and pass-alongs. We sweat and electricity builds between us, surging and shifting, increasing its charge. Each time his arm meets mine, my spine reacts with an energetic thrum.

  And now, as his finger clips my wrist beneath a mangled mass of roots, I don’t look him in the eye. Instead, I’m lost in all those childhood lessons of Eden. No wonder the story begins in a garden. No wonder God called it good.

  When Fisher finally suggests we take a break, I agree. We step to his truck where he plucks two icy water bottles from the cooler and passes one to me, the tip of his hand touching my own. Everything about him makes me feel safe. And for the first time in years, I begin to have hope again, as if love may be more than a fairy tale after all.

  With the trailer removed we sit on the tailgate, shoulder to shoulder, barely an inch of air between us. My feet swing from the steel overhang, reminding me of bonfire parties and Saturdays at Sardis Lake. Heat rises between our hips, and it has nothing to do with the sun.

  “Tell me everything,” I prompt. “Catch me up.”

  “Could take a while.” He looks toward the west where the sun is dipping lower by the second. Behind us his crew begins packing their things to call it a day. “How ’bout we go for a walk? Watch the sun set over the fields?”

  When he leaps from the tailgate and offers me his hand, Eudora Welty’s voice comes through the haze of seduction: “Beware of a man with manners.” I ignore her warning.

  As we walk, Manning follows us out to the fields that once belonged to Fisher’s family, the very ones he hopes to buy back from the lawyers before year’s end. Divided by crop, the rich bottomland has been planted for seasonal rotations. Corn is already nearing eye level while the cotton shoots are just finding their way above our shins.

  Fisher follows my gaze toward the rows. “I’ve convinced the lawyers to let me tackle some of their irrigation issues. The farmer was happy for the help. You probably can’t see it, but I took a laser to the furrows. Slope at a ten-degree grade now. Allows for more natural flow.” He points to a line of poly pipe, rolled out to distribute water from the river pump. Like a long white tube sock, it snakes the cornfield, shooting small arcs from each well-planned blowhole. “They were on pivot for years. Finally convinced ’em to switch last spring. When I get it back in my name, I’m gonna work the land even more. Use the same permaculture techniques I’m using for the memory garden. But this is as far as I could push ’em for now. Change comes slow, you know.”

  “You’re passionate about this.” I peel back a stalk of corn to investigate the silks, still tucked inside. Their new strands glow bronze against the setting sun, triggering another flashback to days when Fisher and I played chase through the crops.

&nb
sp; “It’s all I’ve ever wanted,” Fisher says. “To farm my family land.”

  I bite my lip but finally give in, asking the question that needs to be asked. “What about Finn? Is he on board?”

  “One hundred percent. Couldn’t do it without him.”

  Manning darts between the cornstalks, splashing through the watery furrows until he’s completely out of sight. Black birds scatter above his path. It’s the only way I know he’s already passed the turnrow, leaving us far behind to take a dip in the creek.

  “And that’s how you make a dog’s day,” I jest. “He’s probably a muddy mess by now.”

  “Finn’s lab does the same thing. Can’t keep him clean.”

  My hands tense into fists. “How is he?”

  “Finn? Old and married like the rest of our friends. We’re the only ones who held out, seems like.” He shifts his gaze, far and away.

  “I mean, how’s he doing, Fisher?”

  His pause is heavy. “Honestly, he’s good now, Lovey. If it weren’t for the scars, no one would ever guess he’d survived such a thing.”

  I exhale. The burden has been with me since childhood, hard and heavy on my heart. Bullies can be found in any town, and Finn found more than his share here when we were young.

  “He met Alice down at State. Three kids now. Happy family. He’s handled it much better than I have. I guarantee.”

  “Me too,” I say, unable to express how sorry I am for spilling that gasoline, how much I wish we could turn back time and prevent the whole thing from ever happening. We both share the heft of it.

  As the sun sinks lower, we walk the outer loop. Here, the pines stretch tall in rigid rows, like dominoes waiting to be set in motion. “Fisher, there’s something I need to say.”

  He slows his pace, so I continue.

  “I spilled the gasoline that day, so the whole thing is my fault, but I assure you, I did not set that fire. You had promised to help me build a tree house, remember?”

  He picks up speed again, and I stay with him as he talks. “We had come ready to work, Finn and me. Had gone to the shed for tools. I saw the gas had spilled, but it didn’t worry me none.”

  “I was already up in the tree, nailing boards up the trunk. I could smell the fire long before I saw it.”

  “The tires.” He scrunches his nose as if he can still smell it too. “From the mower. That thing went off like a bomb.”

  “I came running, yelling for Chief.” The memories rise now, fast as flames and suffocating like the smoke itself. “By the time I reached the shed, Bitsy was already dragging the hose. We did our best, I swear we did. But . . . we . . . we didn’t know.”

  He threads his hand around the bend of my elbow. Pulls me to him with a gentle press. “It’s okay, Lovey.”

  We stop walking now, both of us. “All I remember is you yelling for help, and Finn. Scared speechless. I couldn’t understand what was happening.” My voice cracks as my mind fills with images I have long suppressed: Finn’s gloves on fire, his hair singed from the heat, his face red beneath the soot, his hands . . . melting.

  “We were all too young,” Fisher explains. “People always ask me, why didn’t we just come out? Run for safety when the fire started? But you have to put yourself in our shoes.”

  He has no idea how badly I wish I could do just that. Have the fire burn me instead of Finn.

  “We were in the storage closet, behind all your mother’s flower-pots, back where Chief stashed old tools he never used anymore. We were both down on the floor, digging through metal toolboxes, plus the radio was on and we were singing and laughing. It was hot in there, too hot, but by the time we realized there was a fire, the door was already full of flames. I think we were both too scared to run through it. I mean, I don’t know how to explain it, Lovey. I just couldn’t think.”

  “You were thirteen, Fisher. Even adults go into shock like that.”

  “But Finn was eight. I should have helped him. Kept him safe. Instead, we just hid in the corner, yelling for help. Never dawned on me that no one would come.”

  “We didn’t hear you, Fisher. We were all yelling too, and the water was running, plus the fire was pretty loud—paint cans exploding, wood popping. We were so focused on keeping the flames away from the house . . . We had no idea . . . ’til you came running out.”

  He nods. “Yep. I kept shouting at Finn, telling him to run. To get out. But he couldn’t move. He was crying. Tell you the truth, Lovey, I’ve never been so scared. Sparks up against our skin . . . couldn’t breathe. There was no time left. I jerked him up by the shirt, but he pulled away. That’s when he fell.”

  “His hands?”

  He nods. “He was wearing some of Chief’s old gloves. They hit the fuel line when he touched the ground. All it took.”

  I shudder, the image too much to hold.

  “He wouldn’t listen. So I picked him up. And I ran. Made it out. Somehow. Whole shed came crashing down.” He shakes his head. “Lucky.”

  “I’ll never forget that feeling, Fisher. When I saw you. When I saw Finn . . . his skin . . . Fisher, it was . . .”

  “I know.” He trembles.

  “Bitsy pointed the finger at me. Convinced everyone I had done it on purpose. Made no sense. I swear to you, Fisher. I never would have done anything like that. I was in the tree the whole time.”

  “I know that too.”

  “You do?” I’m without breath. All these years I’ve carried this blame, and he removes it just like that. Why have we never had this conversation? Why have I been so sure he blamed me?

  “Of course I do, Lovey. Finn knows it too.”

  “He does?” It’s as if he’s given me the whole world with these words.

  “Everyone does.” He adjusts his cap and speaks as if this is common knowledge, having no idea the shift he has set in motion deep within me.

  “Everyone knows I didn’t do it?” I speak slowly, needing to hear this again.

  “Of course.” He holds my gaze with a steady patience as I struggle to put two and two together. “I always figured Bitsy did it, tell you the truth.”

  “Bitsy?”

  “Bitsy.” He says this matter-of-factly, as if there’s no reason to doubt his claim.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. I’m sure it was just an accident. Some electrical glitch or something. It wouldn’t have taken much to light that gasoline, especially on such a hot day. Besides, even Bitsy wouldn’t be that cruel.”

  “Are we talking about the same Bitsy? Lovey, think about it. How many times has she tried to get you in trouble?”

  “Yeah, but petty stuff. Sibling rivalry. Nothing like this.”

  He holds my stare for a long time, as if he’s debating whether to say more. “You want me to be honest?”

  “Always.” I don’t blink.

  “I think she couldn’t stand all the time you and your mother spent working together in that garden.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying . . . y’all had that bond, the flowers, something Bitsy lacked. So she burned that shed to the ground, trying to destroy what the two of you shared.”

  My words take a while to surface, and when they do, they are soft, sad. “I . . . I never thought of it that way.”

  “She’s been jealous her whole life, Lovey. You’re bound to know that much.”

  “Jealous of me? Oh, come on. That’s ridiculous. She’s the golden girl. Homecoming queen. You name it.”

  “She may wear the crown, but she’s never had half the heart you have. That’s why she tries to break yours.”

  Fisher’s assessment pulls me to a still, quiet space, and I focus on the sun, now a thin, plum slip across the horizon. “You think . . . you really think she set that fire on purpose?”

  He nods.

  “She wanted to ruin Mother’s gardening equipment? And blame me?”

  “I do.” He speaks as if he’s surprised I haven’t known this all along. “Remember when she broke the
only purple crayon in the set? Your favorite?”

  I nod this time.

  “And cut all the hair off that doll you won in the first-grade raffle?”

  He’s right again.

  “She nailed your 10,000 Maniacs record to a tree and told us all to use it as target practice. Insisted you didn’t want it anymore. I should have known better. I’m sorry for that, by the way.”

  I can’t help smiling at this apology, even if it arrives a few decades after the matter. In tune to my emotions, Fisher pulls me in for a compassionate hug, his arms wrapping around me like wings. My head rests against his chest, and I surrender to the comfort of being held by this man, a man I still love. A man who says he believes me.

  SIXTEEN

  “Up and at ’em!” Chief roars his optimistic cheer from the foyer. I’m already opening my eyes as the sparrows bring me to life from beneath the sweet gum tree, their simple tune accompanied by migrating songbirds of every vibrant hue. Scarlet tanagers, prothonotary warblers, and my personal favorite, the indigo buntings who have returned with their striking blue feathers and silvery bills. The trees are alive, and they sing to tell us so.

  Downstairs, Mother starts her piano playing. I leap to my feet as she tackles a Bogus Ben Covington tune, a satirical jam about Adam and Eve. Years ago, these lyrics made us laugh as we sang along and danced in the living room. This Saturday morning, to the backdrop of these jubilant melodies, I work through a condensed yoga routine in my bedroom. After a few inverted poses and a four-minute plank, I’m good to go.

  By the time I end my shower and make it to the kitchen, Mother has moved from the piano to the table, where she peers over her reading glasses, working a crossword puzzle. “Fisher’s crew just pulled up, in case you want to say hello.” One eyebrow lifts, letting me know nothing gets past her.