Page 41 of Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society
Oh, but she wants to. And that’s part of why she struggles some days to reconcile her faith with her reality.
The Bible provides guidance for all sorts of circumstances in life but she can’t find exactly the one to help her now. There is nothing about what to do when you lie in bed at night and wish with your entire body and mind to hold your husband once more. Nothing to tell her what to say to comfort theirson when his body is shuddering with sadness and he cries so much he coughs. Offering the phrase ‘Daddy is in Heaven now’ doesn’t work because she has no way of proving it’s true. She and Charlie have to take it on faith – literally. Which may be fine for her but her son is too young to understand. He wants to know where Heaven is and whether they can visit.
That fear is something Elizabeth simply has to live with, however, so today she will once more roll up her sleeves and let her forearms get dirty.
Shirley has turned up with a potted native that is a something-wattle, saying, ‘It’ll look beaut, promise!’ amongst Jon’s pinks and reds. The other women are arranging themselves in various spots around the garden. Right then, with them in place, Elizabeth feels like the garden is being so well taken care of that she could crawl back into bed and it wouldn’t matter one bit.
Why does no one tell you that grief is sotiring? That it wears you down so you feel exhausted to the point where you’re sure your rawest nerves and emotions are exposed to all. At the very time you need strength, it isn’t there. If Elizabeth didn’t believe that God’s design for everything is perfect, she would be inclined to think that in this there has been a malfunction: the grieving human needs to be wired differently.
‘Cat got your tongue?’ Shirley says.
‘Hm?’ Elizabeth has the sensation of Shirley’s question pulling her down a long tunnel and out into fresh air. She’s had that feeling somewhat regularly of late.
‘I asked how your job’s going.’
Shirley’s smiling in such a way that she doesn’t seem offended that Elizabeth has basically been standing there ignoring her. It’s then that Elizabeth notices she’s wearing a T-shirt that saysBig Brother and the Holding Company, whatever that means.
‘Oh.’ Elizabeth pauses to swallow and think. ‘It’s interesting. I think it will be fine.’
‘You said it’s with Doctor Lopes? Over at Sunrise?’
‘Yes. There’s Doctor Blakeney as well. And Doctor Simpson is in one or two days a week.’
‘Old Bob Simpson, eh?’ Shirley smiles mysteriously.
‘He keeps talking about retiring,’ Elizabeth says, ‘but Olive says he won’t be able to afford to go on cruises as often if he stops working. And he likes cruises, apparently.’
Elizabeth can still see the look on Olive’s face as she shared this informationsotto voceafter Doctor Simpson walked past them – she made it seem as if going on a cruise was the naughtiest possible thing a person could do and Elizabeth had to stop herself laughing out loud. Which surprised her, because she hasn’t been laughing much lately.
‘Who doesn’t?’ Shirley says, then she picks up the potted native. ‘All right if we put this in?’
Elizabeth feels resistance rising within her; then a wave travelling from another direction reminds her that Jon isn’t here, and while she wants to honour him perhaps she has to let things change. For her own sake.
‘I guess so,’ is the compromise she reaches.
‘Bewdy.’
It’s too much, however, to actually watch the plant go in, so Elizabeth wanders deeper into the garden.
There’s no Barbara today, but Cynthia and Lorraine are here – and there’s someone new.
‘Hello, Elizabeth,’ Cynthia says, beaming. ‘I thought Shirl was going to keep you all day.’
Elizabeth smiles weakly, because she had wondered the same thing. ‘What are you doing?’ she asks.
‘We’re pruning these shrubs.’ Cynthia gestures to the hydrangeas. ‘Shirl said winter is the time to cut them.’
‘Really?’ Elizabeth should know these things, because she’ll have to maintain this garden once these ladies have moved on to other projects. The prospect makes her feel slightly weak, but also spurs her to the conviction that she should train Charlie to do it.
‘How have you been, Elizabeth?’ Lorraine says, gloved hands on hips, her sunhat halfway down the back of her skull. She always looks as if she’s in the middle of great movement, her hair and clothes slightly awry.
Elizabeth finds it endearing – she was brought up to be so proper all the time and quite often that can feel like living inside a corset. She longs to be unlaced and unconfined but she won’t let herself.
‘Pretty good,’ she says, and it’s a fair approximation of the truth. Today she feels slightly better than yesterday, and yesterday she felt slightly better than the day before. ‘What about you?’
‘I want to kick my mother-in-law in the shins and lock my teenager in the attic. Not that we have an attic.’ Lorraine smiles, and Elizabeth can’t tell if she’s serious about what she’s said.
‘You have a tough mother-in-law too?’
