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The summer after they got married, Shane took up gardening.
"It's supposed to be soothing," he said, when Ilya asked him. They were standing, back to front in the middle of a Garden Centre — so close that Ilya could smell Shane's kelp shampoo, and feel his husband's freshly-shorn hair brushing up against his nose. "You know. Like, I read that the act of growing things is grounding. Centers you, keeps you present. In the moment."
Ilya hummed, pressing a light kiss to the nape of Shane's neck — newly exposed, thanks to his haircut. "And you think you need to be more in the moment?" He asked. Across the rows of tree saplings, sat side by side like toy soldiers atop wooden pallets, an elderly woman gave them a stink-eye. Ilya locked eyes with her and pressed a kiss higher up, just underneath Shane's ear. "Where are you floating off to, moy vozdushnyy shar?"
Shane lowered his list of seeds — handwritten, despite the fact that they lived in the twenty first century, and the cell phone was a wondrous invention — and spun around in Ilya's arms to look at him. "I don't know that one," he said.
"We will watch Winnie the Poo in Russian with Pike's children next time we babysit. You will learn then," Ilya told him, and pressed another kiss to Shane's forehead, helpless against the tide of his own affection.
Shane leaned into the kiss without a word. It was resplendant, Ilya thought, to have this. This time, last year, they were still living as though hunted — Shane would flinch every time Ilya took his hand, and Ilya found himself peering around corners, or checking mirrored surfaces to see behind him. Everyone was a voyeur, and every phone, a surveillance camera.
"I think the twins and Arthur might be a bit old for that, but Amber'll probably enjoy it," Shane said. He turned back to his list, brow furrowed as he poured over the small assortment of seeds he'd chosen after weeks of careful research. Ilya had opened Shane's laptop once, barely a week into the post-season, to see a near-dozen tabs open: each a different gardening site, or — most notably — r/home_gardens. "Did you see the seed racks when we came in? I'm only seeing signage for seedlings, and I don't want those."
"Check by the registers?" Ilya suggested, and slid the handles of their shopping basket from Shane's hand while he was distracted. "We can get your fancy dirt gloves and shovels first. They are right over there, see?" He gestured toward a metal rack of gloves. It was a dizzying array of colors and patterns. Some reminded Ilya of his grandmother's old tea parlor back in Moscow — the little chintzy florals, all done up in pale, springtime pastels — while others were almost aggressively bland in a way Ilya knew would appeal to Shane.
Sure enough, Shane scooped up a pair of plain blue gloves. They were navy on the front, and dark black along the palms and inside the fingers. Sensible and without frills; same as the trowel Shane picked, after ten minutes of careful deliberation between two models that looked identical to Ilya's — admittedly untrained — eye.
They made their way through the Garden Centre slowly. Shane seemed to enjoy it, stopping every now and then to crouch and run his fingers across the dark leaves of some plant Ilya couldn't recognize from its neighbor.
He led them through the outdoor greenhouse, which was thick and humid from the trees crowding every square foot of it — all of them, astonishingly, saplings. Shane pointed out lemon trees that were too young to give lemons, and squat little rows of square dirt pots, all of them full with perennial bulbs not yet in bloom.
"We could put pots of mums on the porch in Ottawa during the season," Shane murmured, as they stood, shoulder to shoulder in the floral section. They were surrounded on all sides by things in bloom — it was a riot of color, from little sprigs of white sprouts, just barely beginning to grow, to hibiscus trees that blossomed in earnest, each flower brilliant in hue.
"Mums?" Ilya asked.
"Chrysanthemums. They're uh…kind of this big, lots of really small petals." Shane pantomimed the shape of a flower, and then laughed at himself, his nose scrunching. "I'm not explaining this well at all."
"Good try," Ilya said, and kissed him on the nose for good measure. "But maybe you should show me a picture instead, yes? You forget that you have a phone?"
Shane swatted him on the chest. "Shut up," he complained, then fished around in his ugly khaki shorts for his phone. "Here, they look like this." Shane held up a photo of a large pot, filled to bursting with small, many-petaled flowers. They were colored like a sunrise, deep oranges and russet reds, with a smattering of purple blooms so dark they looked like a fresh bruise. "Mom loves them. She and Dad always go to the Garden Centre by their place in late September to buy like, four massive pots for the house."
"Ah," Ilya said. "You know, I do remember seeing these plants last year — when David and Yuna had me over for Canadian Thanksgiving. They were very pretty." Yuna's mums had all been butter yellow — like a perpetual midday sun, sitting pretty in ocean-blue pots atop the Hollanders' front porch. He could remember the color of them so clearly, despite the fact that so much of that year was a gray-washed blur — if only because they reminded him so clearly of Mama, who had always had a small painting of a butter-yellow flower, hanging just beside the mirror of her vanity.
So many of Ilya's memories of her had gone sepia-toned with age. He could hardly recall the echo of her laughter, nor the exact color of her eyes — his recollection of them shifted, from a gold-flecked hazel to muddy green, or even a clear-sky blue, depending on the day — but he could remember, always, the sight of her back through the doorway to her dressing room. He would watch her watch him through her vanity mirror, as she brushed her hair and did her makeup, that little sunshine-yellow painting hanging just to her left — always within view.
"We should get some for our home," Ilya said, hooking his chin over Shane's shoulder. They were still in the flower section — no longer staring at the tropical hibiscus plants, but instead at rows and rows of squat purple flowers, which faded white toward their dark-eyed centers.
"I'll ask Mom what to look for," Shane said.
He reached back and took Ilya's hand in his, tugging him gently along toward the next room, where the registers were waiting. They were still yet to find the seed racks, but Ilya thought he could see something that might have been them, tucked just behind the support beam that marked the threshold from one area to the next.
And sure enough, there they were. They took up the entire wall beside the rows of registers — seed packet after seed packet, hanging off the rusty chrome hooks in brightly colored bunches, the display a bouquet all unto itself. Ilya marveled at the sheer variety. Snap peas and sweet peas and snow peas — more peas than Ilya had even known existed. Every kind of vegetable and fruit under the sun, and varieties of flowers that far exceeded even the lush expanse that took up every available surface in the room they had just come from.
Shane dove in fearlessly, his list in hand. He had come prepared — as always — and Ilya watched as he went row by row, fastidious and methodical, as though he were lining up pucks for practice shots. Ilya trailed behind him, content to watch, his eyes roving over the excess of seeds available to them. Some of the English was unfamiliar. But that might have been because it was actually Latin — the scientific names of the plants, written neatly below the common ones.
All in all, it only took Shane ten minutes to find everything he wanted. Tomatoes and squash — heirloom tomatoes, specifically — and cucumbers and zucchini. Some small flowering plants, that Shane said were meant to attract butterflies in the hopes of ensuring pollination. Peas, too, since Shane had read somewhere that they were a relatively friendly starter crop. Ilya held out the basket, and let Shane place everything carefully within.
"Did you want to try planting anything?" Shane asked, after he had finished counting and recounting the seed packets in their basket. "Sorry. I should've asked before."
Ilya shrugged. "You are the one with the plan, zaychik," he said. "I am just — what is the saying? I am here for the ride." He thought about yellow mums in the autumn; Mama's little painting, glowing bright in the dead of Moscow's dreary winters.
"Pick something," Shane said. "I mean, it's our garden." He knocked his hip against Ilya's, an awkward little smile on his face. "No pressure. Just, you know — if you see something you like."
"Okay." Ilya smacked a kiss to Shane's temple and peeled away, running a finger through the carefully spaced rows of seeds. He avoided the fruits and vegetables — better to leave the picking of those to Shane's discerning eye. Ilya had skimmed over the dozens of open articles Shane had been pouring over in preparation for the garden, and could remember, vaguely, that certain vegetables couldn't be grown with one another, for fear of them competing for resources.
He turned to the flowers, instead. They were easy enough, surely — and could be grown away from Shane's pre-sectioned little plot in their backyard. Ilya crouched down to sift through them. Daisies were too plain. Roses were too complex. Lilies felt oddly on the nose, and Ilya had no idea what hydrangeas even were.
And then, out from the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of butter yellow. There was a lone packet of seeds, hanging between the petunias and the milkweed: SUNFLOWERS, the packaging read. The image at the center was of a trio of large, yellow flowers — their centers a deep brown. It was familiar, Ilya realized, because he had spent so much of his childhood staring at a painting of them — Mama's little wall hanging, a small sunflower, resplendantly yellow against a backdrop of deep blue.
"How about these?" Ilya asked, palming the sachet. He held it out to Shane, who took it gently in hand, turning it over to read the fine print along the back.
"Sunflowers?" Shane set them in the basket. "Huh. You know, we used to have this neighbor by my parent's cottage, growing up, who grew them in his backyard?"
"Really?"
They were approaching the registers. "Yeah," Shane said. "They were huge — almost towered over his garage, actually. He used to harvest the seeds in August, then give them out as snacks to a bunch of the kids that came to play by the lake. It was nice."
"Huh," Ilya said. He tried to imagine the sunflowers, growing large enough to be seen over the side of their house. How long would that take? How many years of careful care would they need for them to get that large? Ilya thought about shaking seeds free from the round centers, little striped snacks for them and for Anya — and maybe even for the children, who lived next door. "Maybe we can do that — next summer?"
Shane nodded, and began setting their purchases on the belt. "I think that'd be nice," he said. "A good off-season tradition." Like going to the cottage, or the camps, in late July. Something slotting easily into place, in the quilted fabric of their life together.
Ilya laced his fingers through Shane's, as Shane fished around in his pocket for his credit card to pay. "Sounds good," he murmured. "I am looking forward to seeing sunflowers larger than you, moya leyka."
"Did you just call me a watering can?" Shane asked, after a moment. The cashier, who was bagging their items, twitched, though her expression stayed woefully blank.
"Because you are gardening," Ilya said. He grinned. "Fits, yes?"
"Weirdo," Shane muttered. He smacked the back of his hand against Ilya's chest, fighting back a fond smile. Then, he turned, pressing a quick kiss to Ilya's cheek — right over his mole. "Well, if I'm your watering can, then you're my podsolnukh." Shane said the word haltingly, carefully slow around the shape of it. "My sunflower."
"Your sunflower?" Ilya leaned against Shane, content with the solid warmth of him. "Hm. I like that."