She swiped at the wisp of hair which worried her cheek with the persistence of a summertime gnat. Finally realizing what the annoyance was, she set her trowel aside and peeled the flower-print glove off her right hand. She tucked the errant gray tress back under her bandanna and paused to look at the back of her aching hand. Parchment-thin skin stretched across skeletal fingers, purple rivers ridged the wrinkled landscape; time-worn leather mottled with brown blemishes. She sighed and gingerly flexed the fingers out; then painfully tried to make a fist. God, Lucille. How did you get so old? You can’t even plant a few daffodils without cramping up.
She massaged her tender palm with the thumb of the gloved hand until the stiffness loosened a bit. After tugging her glove back on she picked up the trowel and finished a hole for the last bulb. A bit of rock phosphate was sprinkled in and stirred into the loamy dirt. She plucked the large brown tuber from a net sack and gently seated its dry roots in the loose soil. Using the tool to scrape earth over it, she patted and then caressed the soil as if it were the face of a long lost love. Daffodils were Henry’s favorite; I’ll take him a bouquet of these next spring... Henry, I miss you so much. She could feel a tear starting to trail down her cheek and dabbed at it with the back of her cotton-clad hand.
A “what-cheer, what-cheer” cry from the cardinal who lived in the honeysuckle at the end of the garden interrupted her thoughts. Lucille looked up to spot him and smiled at her old friend. “Hi there, good day to you too,” she said. Sighing, she placed everything in her gardening basket and reached for her walking stick. Pulling against the stick, she gingerly rose from a kneeling position, first planting one foot on the ground and then pushing against that knee to finally become upright. She groaned, everything hurt; her knees, her hips, her back, her hands, everything. Using the staff for support, she hobbled to the garage and set her basket on a perfectly organized workbench.
She started for the house, but stopped herself. Returning to the basket she pulled out the gardening trowel. Henry would never forgive me if I didn’t take proper care of this. Huh, it still has the original rawhide hanging strap. I remember when it came in the mail … from England … Sheffield steel blade with an ash wood handle. She took a rag and carefully rubbed all traces of dirt from the trowel. With a groan she reached for the oil can across the workbench and squirted a couple of drops of oil on the blade. Lucille carefully rubbed the oil around the shiny steel and then buffed the wood handle with the oily rag. She held the tool up to inspect it better. After a turn and final swipe with the rag she decided it was ready. Smiling, she hung the burnished trowel on its peg, folded the rag and set it back in its basket. Time for tea.
~ ~ ~
“Mommy, mommy,” cried the pajama-clad five-year-old as she rushed into the kitchen. Red rimmed, tear-filled eyes pleaded with even more desperation than her voice. She grabbed her mother’s hand and tugged, “Mommy, come quick!”
“What’s wrong Lily?” said Leah, allowing herself to be towed toward her daughter’s bedroom.
“It’s Butterscotch … something’s wrong. He’s just laying there. He won’t move”
A honey-colored lump of fur lay on the newspapers covering the bottom of the small cage. Leah removed the cage lid and lifted the inert hamster. It was stiff and cold. “Oh, honey,” she said looking down at her daughter.
“Is he okay? Can we take him to the doctor?”
She set the creature back in his cage and bent down to lift and hug her daughter. “I’m afraid it’s too late honey. Butterscotch is gone.”
