Suzanne sat at her back bay window
contemplating the herb garden that
shone like resplendent sea glass in the
in the distance, well past the pasture
filled with unbundled, newly cropped
sagebrush-colored hay that was spread
like a succulent summer camp between
them. Beyond that was the mystical sun
breaking from the earth like hot lava.
The garden was hers. She’d cultivated
so carefully each individual set of plants,
gathered them from the corners of the
world herself, bringing each seed, each
sapling carefully back like Jack’s precious
beans to the only home she’d known for
over eighty years. The garden had been
her defiant act, her one undeniable scheme
to somehow shake in some small way her
destiny, it having been, up until the middle
of her adolescence, her grandmother’s
swath of hydrangeas. In those days,
her every thought was of exotic locales
that were anywhere but here, she
remembered dreaming of the once-
famed but now forgotten Golden Gate,
to which she would eventually travel,
a revolutionary trip, from which she’d
arrive home afterwards with such bounty
that her garden grew four-fold in a singular
season, and all simply thanks to the contents
of the packed and soil-stained apron within
of the packed and soil-stained apron within
which she had returned. She bent her head
down, as if in prayer, and got lost. The leaves
of fig strewn upon the table beneath her chin
were the maps from her many journeys. She
thought of how she’d had the hydrangeas
demolished, her grandmother lying here,
in what was her bedroom, dying. And how
she had known that scene would be, was,
one of the last things her nemesis
would see. “The grass is always
greener,” she’d always thought,
but not without an omnipresent
air of revenge that swirled into
and out of her nostrils, which
were flaring out and folding to
nearly closed at a much quicker
pace than usual this evening.
She reached for a leaf on the
table, barely thinking of the
traditional meal she had
planned and had been
preparing for dinner
that evening, a meal
that was never realized.
“The grass is always greener,”
she thought, slumped, her
dead eyes filling just enough
that there were two distinct
drips that fell onto the leaf just
below her pearl-laden neck.
of fig strewn upon the table beneath her chin
were the maps from her many journeys. She
thought of how she’d had the hydrangeas
demolished, her grandmother lying here,
in what was her bedroom, dying. And how
she had known that scene would be, was,
one of the last things her nemesis
would see. “The grass is always
greener,” she’d always thought,
but not without an omnipresent
air of revenge that swirled into
and out of her nostrils, which
were flaring out and folding to
nearly closed at a much quicker
pace than usual this evening.
She reached for a leaf on the
table, barely thinking of the
traditional meal she had
planned and had been
preparing for dinner
that evening, a meal
that was never realized.
“The grass is always greener,”
she thought, slumped, her
dead eyes filling just enough
that there were two distinct
drips that fell onto the leaf just
below her pearl-laden neck.
