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He thinks about it. Too often, she says, but he doesn’t really think that’s true. Even if he did, it wouldn’t do anything to change the frequency with which it enters his mind.
All those years, he’d say, waiting for the beleaguered half-smile and sigh he was met with every time — more beautiful on her face than a grin on anyone else's — all those years, and you don’t regret it? Loving me? Waiting? Still? Even now?
Her eyebrow would raise, smile turn sardonic. Especially not now, considering I ended up married to you, after all.
See, but that’s the thing. ‘Ended up’. Even now, it sounds like in your head it wasn’t a foregone conclusion, that — that’s what gets to me.
Her smile, her shrug, is slow; glacial.
Because it wasn’t, Colin. Not for me. Not for a long time.
The garden knows before he does.
It’s a small thing — really, what Penelope could get to grow in a window box before she moved to a slightly bigger place with one whole square meter of growing space — but she plants it anyway, and Colin finds something beautiful and charming about that.
It’s like she can’t help it, he reflects one night to Francesca, a few drinks deep. They sit in her and Michaela's mud room, shoulder to shoulder, pressed against a line of coats that would either muffle or squeak depending on which way he leaned his head. He’d been ‘just getting ready to leave’ for… about forty minutes. No matter how much or how little space she has — in her head, in her heart, in her home — she sets something growing about it.
Francesca’s head turns to him, the moonlight through the glass door glinting across the brown-made-black by the darkness of day gone to night. I think she helps it quite a bit, actually. He cocks his head, a question in his brow, and she shrugs and doesn’t make him say it aloud. You said she can’t help it. I think it just looks that way from the outside. I imagine it’s a very distinctive choice of hers — to make everything grow on purpose.
The quiet squeak of the twinned rain ponchos behind him is muffled almost immediately by their neighboring peacoats as all four cushion his head as he leans back. He lets her words sit and soak into his mind.
That was the thing, when it came to Penelope — in some ways, he liked to think himself an expert. But every now and again, one of his siblings, or a moment in time, or a slight change in the way the light hit her — it was as though someone had taken a most beloved stain glass window he’d known all his life and turned it to the side to reveal it a broader, brighter thing. Not a mere window, but some sort of — statuesque carved gem that at every turn was another strange and beautiful thing. One could only look upon it and wonder to what degree it was discovered versus created.
Whenever a moment such as this comes upon Colin, he is left in a form of wordless wonder and quiet shock. On more than one occasion he has considered the possibility that it was never she who was one mere window; but perhaps he were but a mere frame. Only able to see a fraction of her depth when someone or something turned him to face a new angle. He then grows comfortable assessing for himself what this new static image must mean, the story it must tell.
Oh, how he has spent his life longing and trying to learn how to turn on his own. Before someone or something can do it for him.
Penelope… making things grow on purpose.
He thinks of her, age eight, wobbly blue eyes behind too-big-glasses, a yellow play wagon of books pulled to a stop up against her ankle. Mama worries I read too much, she said, but if I finish all of these this weekend before she thinks to check my room, I can get them back to the library before she’d even know!
Age ten, after Dad had died. Penelope sat next to Eloise, hand in hand. Where Eloise had been shocked into silence, Penelope had found a new way to make a voice. You can squeeze my hand once for yes, twice for no, and three for you need a new way to say something else, okay? I never want you to think you have to say it out loud to say it to me.
Age sixteen, his first (at the time, he’d thought last, too) journal held between her two guilty fists. I — I know I shouldn't have looked, but Colin, I think you’re really good at this. I know what Anthony said about writing being a waste of time was mean, and cruel, and — also just wrong, because you’re good at this! Hell, I even dug this out of the bin to prove it to you!
Age twenty three, reading glasses on, bent over her computer late into the night. He’d pressed her — she’d done enough editing for the day for the English students she’d been tutoring — only for her to turn her screen towards him and to reveal an etsy store with minuscule wooden items. For Phillipa’s baby, she murmured, turning it back to herself. That kid’s going to read and write well if I have to teach her the alphabet myself — I was trying to see which of these spelling block sets I could afford for her shower next month after my extra TA hours.
He blinks, and the vague shadows dancing from the ceiling to the side wall comes into focus again. One moment, the hazy outline of a fern that he figured had been a housewarming gift from Phil. He had only enough time to marvel at the fact it was still alive before it discreetly melded back into the amorphous shape the rest of the shadow left.
I think you’re right, he says. I suppose I never thought of it, just because, well — his smile is faint, feels almost… strained. Something about that makes his chest pull and before he has a chance to connect the ideas lingering in his mind, this time a flower shivers apart from the rest of the shadows, almost-recognizable silhouette him, and the thought is gone like an exhale on a cold night. He sighs, lets the words divert. I don’t know why you’re right, but you are.
Francesca hmms and lets it go, leaning her head against his shoulder for a child-sized fistful of moments before nudging him with her elbow. You sure you want to walk home? You know we have space.
He waves her off. It’ll be good to clear my head. Francesca straightens and raises an eyebrow. C’mon, Fran — you know for me half the fun of clouding it up is getting it clear again. She rolls her eyes at him but smiles and nods, standing sluggishly and tugging at his elbow for him to follow.
That was how he found himself walking home, hands stuffed in his coat pockets, only occasionally reminding himself that it was better he not whistle or sing aloud seeing as it was somewhere past two a.m. Not being able to make the noise go outside of himself, it stayed inside — half-formed thoughts bouncing around his mind like the individual plants emerging from the shadows. Francesca should have Penelope over again for a girls night, I know she, Fran, and Mich would all love that, and, Anthony was a bit of a git back in his early college days — I bet he doesn’t even remember. I think there’s a lot he doesn’t remember from back then. And, if I were flowers, I’d grow for Pen, too.
With this mix of thoughts, he wasn’t particularly surprised when — instead of the lobby of his swanky, box filled, hardly-used flat — he found himself drawing to a stop right before a familiar, small, garden space.
Ah.
He’d walked to Penelope’s place.
Well. On some level that made sense.
He’d been trying to walk home, after all.
Rather than examine that drunken thought much further, he crouched down on his heels and cocked his head at the small bumps pushing up from juuust beneath the hand-packed earth.
With a sigh that felt like contentment rather than exhaustion, Colin let himself drop from the crouch into a full sit next to the garden.
Pen hadn’t let him see when she was gardening. Something about a watched seed never grows, to which he’d said not the saying and pretty sure that’s categorically untrue, and she’d replied, well, I am a visionary; underappreciated in my time. But someday it will be. This conversation had then degraded into the validity of the referenced saying about pots, which Colin held was untrue because he spent plenty of time encouraging Pen to watch pots and him, and everything boiled according to his expectations, so —
Colin’s eyes flew wide and he gasped as, somehow, someway, his half-formed thought from earlier that night crashed back into mind.
There was one time, exactly one time, when Pen had let him in on her planting woes.
Window box days. Living with Eloise days.
Colin, she’d gasped, affronted, over the phone. He’d been stirring what was, assuredly, a not-generally-good risotto, but good-enough-for-three-in-the-morning-in-Turkey risotto, and that was all he was after at that particular moment. I have invaders. Stowaways.
In your two bedroom flat? he’d asked, phone scrunched against his shoulder. There was only a little bit of a burning smell in the room he was renting. It was fine. How can that be? There’s not even enough space for you and El there, much less for anyone to sneak in.
Nooo, she groaned. My window box. My mini peace field. There are … flowers.
He'd blinked. Aren’t flowers generally a good thing in a garden? Finally, he’d pulled the pan from the lit stove and gently poured the mixture into a dish he wasn’t quite sure if it was plate-or-bowl. Bowl-or-plate. Powl. Blate. The place he was renting was old, and small, and authentic, and beautiful, and this dish was clearly something handmade by someone who had no idea what they were doing because its size and shape were undefinable. Plowl. Bowlate. He had to eat out of it.
They’re not the flowers I was planning on planting, she clarified, voice just this side of tetchy. I have a very specific vision. He could practically picture her. Later than sane for him was, for her, maybe an hour or two before sunset. She’d be leaning out a barely open-able window on the fourth floor of their charming-if-concerning building, almost seeming to balance the bottom pane on the top of her head. The light would be filtering through the warped glass and making her red hair shine gold and brown and pink as she shoved her fingers in it away from her eyes. She’d be moments away from a pout. The only thing he couldn’t see, in his minds eye, were —
What are they, then? Weeds?
A pause, over the phone. Pout, halted, mid formation.
Not… precisely, no. Colin had a sudden longing for the day of home phones, with cords. He wanted to picture Pen twirling one.
So they are? Actual flowers?
Yes. Another pause. I know I sound ridiculous, but — they’re just not the flowers I wanted. I don’t even know how they got there.
I don’t know, Pen. He flopped into a seat on the other side of the counter and took a too-big bite of the risotto and wiped the mess consequentially left behind with the bottom of the apron he’d forgotten to take off before he sat down. How often is it your average Londoner post-grad gets bespoke random flowers from the universe in their window box?
Ever heard of wildflowers, Colin Christopher?
In the ground, Penelope Anne, but not in window boxes over fifty feet in the air. The risotto was a bit smokier and mushier than it needed to be. He wished he’d added more cheese than it needed, too. And, I know it’s not actual-actual wildflowers because you would’ve just said that and you still haven’t told me what these flowers look like.
This silence was longer. Too long for just a pause. She must’ve had her eyes closed, the silence was so long.
Pen?
Lily of the valleys, she said. You know. The sad flowers.
He put his fork down. Let the stem of it drift down into the rice, clink against the edge of the plawl.
Pen.
A memory in a memory. Pen, age nine and a half. Standing with a hastily assembled bouquet of little bell shaped flowers that had their heads turned down to the ground, as if they grew by exhaling. One of her hair ribbons — the cool one, the one he’d complimented, the one with little cartoon frogs on it — was tied in a bow around their stems.
His eyes drifted up, then, misty already, blinking when he saw Penelope’s own eyes were wet too, biting her bottom lip.
(I wanted to bring you flowers,) young Pen had said, blinking against the tears that were already falling from her heart achingly big eyes. (B-but — these are the only things that Mama lets grow in our garden.) His head had gone to the side, but she was crying, so he was crying, but he was crying and confused, because why was she crying?
(I wanted to bring you flowers to make you feel better, but these look so sad, Colin! Mama doesn’t think so, because they’re yellow, but I —) and she’d burst into a sob.
Colin, not knowing what else to do, had taken the flowers from her hand and pulled her into a hug, half laughing and half crying into her own shoulder.
The only thought he could remember from the time was amazement that she’d wanted to bring him flowers.
She’d had a small degree of a vendetta against lily-of-the-valleys since. He didn’t think anyone but the two of them even knew about it.
I know, she groaned. I know, I know. Two colors. Pink and white. Some of them have even already cross pollinated, so there’s like, some… ombré. On some of them. But they’re still just not what I wanted, Colin!
Sounds like a perfectly lovely bunch to me, Pen.
An image of learned helplessness. A haunting. A mockery, of my effort and independence. I move out of my mother’s house, and her garden follows me?
They aren’t her garden, they’re your garden — they’re not even yellow!
Sad. Flowers.
Colin, half smiling, retrieved his messy fork and licked the risotto that transferred onto his thumb. And just what flowers were you wanting to plant in your invite-only exclusive entry window box, you plant eugenicist?
Silence, again. In lieu of a phone cord, he twirled his fork.
She took a deep breath in. Forget me nots. Breathed out.
Hmm. Another bite. And what do these have that those poor lilies don’t?
I want them there, for one.
Scathing.
You know me.
I’m asking why, Featherington.
Yeah, I could tell. Can’t you tell I haven’t been answering? Can’t you appreciate my subtlety and honor that?
Sometimes Penelope’s version of transparency was limited to being plain about when she wasn’t being transparent. Colin only occasionally had the energy to push her on it, and that energy was not to be found when the bowlate was still so almost full of risotto.
Fine. Keep your secrets. They’ll bloom someday, and I’ll know. But, you can’t seriously tell me you’re going to rip up perfectly good living flowers just because — what, they remind you of Portia Featherington’s over dedication to a certain aesthetic?
Harsher crimes have been done for lesser reasons. Colin laughed into his rice. But no. I am too benevolent of a — what’d you call me? — plant eugenicist.
Paradoxical, as a concept.
Always keeping you on your toes. I’m planning on re-potting them — I’m sure I can find someone to give them to.
But I’m not getting back from Turkey for three weeks, Colin protested, only half joking.
Hardy har. She paused. Maybe if you’d come back sooner, you’d find some very kindly transplanted lilies on your doorstep.
He had come back sooner.
But by the time he did, Archibald Featherington — and whatever flowers had been growing in Penelope’s window box — were long gone. So he’d never seen them.
The recollection of the single time Penelope had ever chosen to stop something from growing rather than help it sits heavy in his chest as he remains, arse plopped against the cold concrete outside while she surely sleeps peacefully inside.
He sits up further and tugs one knee to his chest, setting his cheek against it.
I don’t know if the whole talking-to-plants thing works before they’ve even sprouted, but… if you’re going to make Pen happy, I really hope you grow, he whispers.
He supposes that’s all that really matters. To him, in general, in life. Penelope Featherington’s happiness.
You know, he murmurs, eyes on the plot of earth, I’d never say she’s superstitious, but — it’s more like she believes in intention. In the theme, of the thing. He smiles. Not that she’d ever admit it. I think that’s why she never wanted to grow the lilies on her own; she didn’t like what they’d said to her, instinctively, all that time ago. His eyes close. I don’t think she realizes how much she made me love those lilies. He sighs. That’s what makes me curious about you, little garden. What does Penelope Featherington want to make grow? What does she want to be true?
The flowers, yet to see the sun, give him no answer. He yawns, and his blinks slow.
Somewhere within him in the silence he accepts the reality that he’s going to fall asleep outside Penelope’s garden, like some sort of wandering beast, protecting flowers that he doesn't even know what they are. He nods to himself once and stretches out on the pavement, shifting to ball up his jacket under his head and turn to his side.
It takes him almost no time at all to fall asleep, and dream of endless fields of flowers — light blue and small that he doesn’t know the name of — that he wanders across until he runs, until he finds Pen, surrounded by the lily-of-the-valleys, a bouquet with both put together clutched in his hand, like in the dream he’d been looking for her all along.
Colin?
Despite the sun against his eyelids the next morning, it’s her voice that wakes him, sends him blinking into the light. He groans and lurches up from the pavement, head aching, blinking at a confused and concerned Penelope at her front stoop.
Morning, Pen. He gestures to the garden bed, then regrets it when the sway of movement makes him somehow feel at sea on the ground. What are your newest little ones here?
Perplexed, but smiling, eyebrow raised, she nods once. You’ll see when they grow. Which, seems they’re starting.
Blinking, Colin chanced the dangers of moving again to lean forward, just to see that she was right. His night time vigil had been, somehow, some way, a success.
The barest hints of green little stalks and sprouts were starting to poke through the dirt, like tiny arms stretching up and out.
It’s early, and he’s hung over, so Colin doesn’t hide his own pout. They’re not even flowers yet, he complains.
Descending her stairs, Penelope laughs at him. Just because they haven’t bloomed, yet, doesn’t mean they’re not flowers. She stops before him and offers him her hand to help him up. C’mon.
Disappointment forgiven — because how could he be disappointed, when Penelope was going to welcome him inside — he took her hand and hefted himself up, laughing slightly when it nearly sent her off balance but reaching out to steady her in turn.
Whoa there.
Does everybody’s big friendly giant laugh at them this early? Penelope said through a huff, but she was smiling. I ought to call the Dahl estate. Complain about false advertising.
I think that only works when the person is unhappy with how the product portrayed is different, Pen, he teases. Can’t be a good thing.
His hands, where one still sits clasped within her own, the other on her waist to steady her, feel warm.
She glances up, meets his eyes, and he can see the blue of hers almost … soften. Melt. Bloom.
You’re right, she says, squeezing his hand. That wouldn’t work for me at all.
Something inside of him stills, settles. The already forming headache from the sudden sunlight seems worth it, to see her face. Her smile. To make her flowers grow.
The forget-me-nots would bloom, gentle and persistent and beautiful, in a year’s time. By their second, brighter bloom, he’d confessed what he’d realized was love, true love, to her.
By their third bloom, he and Pen had expanded the garden at the new house, and her bouquet at their wedding had been made up of both from the shared bed — sad flowers made happy, flowers against forgetting changed to ones about cherished memories being made.
I think I’m … biased, Pen.
How d’you mean?
He leans across their kitchen table, the fresh cut flowers from their garden in the pitcher from Turkey in the center, and grabs her hand, starts playing with her fingers.
I think I get the easy way out of believing we were inevitable — that this was fated, or always would’ve been — because I got to realize I was in love with you, Pen. He traces her palm, her pinky. Runs his thumb across her wedding ring. You’ve always been inevitable for me — because of who you are, because I’d always choose you, because, because — it was just a matter of when I would see it. He laces their hands together. Meanwhile, you had to deal with being in love with me.
Penelope, chin resting on her other hand, rolls her eyes and smiles.
I don’t feel bad about it these days, really. Didn’t even then. Certain point, I thought about it, like — she shrugs. Whether or not the flowers are blooming yet… the sun still shines.
He rests his chin on their joined hands. But what else could the flowers do but reach up to try and grasp such light?
I agree, which is still why the lilies still don’t make sense to me —
Colin laughs and laughs and then they’re kissing in the quiet morning of their life together. Nothing forgotten, not even the sadness; but still blooms sat at the center of their table, surrounded their home.