3f #4 – the garden
The Rectory garden conveyed English lushness. Wild plants dominated, things that liked the setting and could thrive without tending: a large willow, birches, mint, chives, wild roses, and swathes of flowers Casey couldn’t name. It was her kind of garden, much more than the so-called backyard where Mark had written in wet cement MH4CDM. At the Rectory she was left largely to her own devices; she should rejoice in that, after years of complaining about over-supervision. One babysitter, in particular, delighted in whacking Marky, half-challenge, half-blackmail: “Twelve with this,” she’d say, brandishing something unexpected, “or I’ll tell Miss Lincoln what you did, and I’ll tell everyone else you were scared.” Marky never shirked a dare. Casey always liked that babysitter.
There was nothing unhappy in the Rector’s garden. It was almost summer. Life continued. The dogs lay at her feet, content after ball and breakfast.
That morning she had opened the cupboard where Mr. Prior’s tweed jacket hung. Inside one pocket, a note in her own hand from the old days. He’d made her write how she was feeling. She’d talked about wanting desperately to see him, but being afraid to get too close, in case he went away again.
All that as distant and imaginary now as a hippogriff, yet as soft and as mighty, too. The garden lived, rampant, but she could only think of the clothes in the closet – Marky’s, RP’s – as if they could be made, with touch, to come to life again.
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