All My Ships Adrift

Jeanie's Garden

There is always something blooming in Jeanie's garden, although it is not so easy to tell where weeds end and flowers begin. Nor was it easy for those who mowed before me, now dismissed. But Jeanie knows stalk and stem, and like a hen with chicks she guards her hen and chicks, her gladioluses, her bee balm, and morning glories. Her irises, her jumbled wine berries, her blueberries, strawberries, and rose of Sharon.

I hear the screen door slap shut today when I'm about to begin.

"Now Bill," she says, shuffling down a long wooden ramp from the porch in her walker. "Last time you mowed off some of the mint I got growin' over there." She points to a large patch of green growth in the corner of the yard, some of which might be mint. Indignation comes hot. "Now how am I supposed to make my garden tea without mint?" Her face wrinkles even more. "And you know what that dem fool neighbor of mine did yesterday? Dumb drunk."

"No," I say, still thinking about the mint.

"Now Bill, he was standing in the street in his underwear, drunk as a skunk!" Her dark eyes blaze. "The dumb drunk."

"Hmm," I say, shaking my head and trying not to picture it. "What's up with that?"

"Oh you know how people are."

I nod.

Her voice raises almost to a yell. "Did I tell you about what them deer did last week-they chewed up my rose bushes!" She lets loose a burst of profanity.

"The deer are bad," I say.

"Oh they are!" says Jeanie. She trundles back up the ramp. "Ah now there's Jeffy, heeere kidda-kidda-kidda-kiddee!"

Jeffy (the cat) like myself, is not quite sure. But Jeanie gives him some food, a pat, and then it's back inside to watch TV.

I look back over the yard and try to discern the good plants from the bad. Everything is lush and green and all looking very plant-like. I pull the starter cord on Jeanie's push mower. It pops right on.

"Here we go."

I start. I tiptoe around the tulips. I creep by the calla lilies. I bypass the begonias. I ghost the geraniums. Jeffy the cat watches.

"Whew."

Now it is time to trim with the weed eater. Surgeon-like I begin removing all the lawn ornaments from tufts of vegetation (there are many). Old flamingos no longer pink, a skinny Santa Claus, a broken angel, a small plastic ghost, an old butter knife sticking straight up (I think Jeanie used it to stake a plant once). I move an old pair of work boots sprouting hen and chicks. There is a rusted metal rooster, little flags here and there for the Fourth of July, and also an Easter bunny. It is of course August.

Looking over the menagerie I have pulled up I am never quite sure which holiday is being celebrated in Jeanie's yard. Maybe all of them at once? And that would make sense because Jeanie's son Gary loved holidays (whenever Jeanie talks about him her voice loses its edge). They lived together in her trailer until he died: he passed away four years ago in the middle of Covid. For those thirty-five years Gary never missed a treatment. For thirty-five years they would go into town weekly and hook Gary up to machines because his kidneys wouldn't work right. Eventually though dialysis wasn't enough and Gary was dying. Nothing the doctors could do. So one weekend a few months before he died the two of them celebrated all Gary's favorite holidays in one go. Halloween, Christmas, the Fourth of July, and Easter. All together. In February. Jeanie shows me the pictures from time to time, and she comes and she shows me them now. They lit sparklers and ate Halloween candy. They strung up Christmas lights and feasted on Cadbury eggs. That grin on Gary's face alone is enough to put you in the holiday spirit. It's like pure joy. I smile sadly when I look at those pictures and so does Jeanie. When Gary died she wasn't allowed to go and see him because of Covid.

Jeanie takes back the photographs I'm holding and moves slowly up the ramp. She stops to inspect her hibiscus. They are a deep dark purple; very beautiful, the size of dinner plates; thriving gloriously no doubt on Jeanie's special blend of banana water and Miracle Gro.

The sun sets and across Jeanie's haphazard lawn and in the overgrown flower beds I'm not brave enough to touch, bright-eyed sunflowers, pink roses, day lilies, pale gladioluses, and bleeding hearts nose out among the scraggly thistles and dandelions. Clematises, zinnias, and geraniums blossom among the ragweed, creeping Charlie, nut grass, and pokeberry.

"Here Bill, I got you something to eat." Jeanie hands me a package of Oreos, a pudding cup with spoon, and a bottle of Gatorade.

"Thank you Jeanie!" I say with a smile.

We sit on the porch and while I eat evening slips in and Jeanie talks again about the happenings of her neighborhood. A whiff of lavender stirs in the breeze, reminding me that there's always something blooming in Jeanie's garden. Just sometimes you got to wade in to find the flowers.