Deadheading

Hutch prunes. Starsky grows.

A meditation while gardening.

Heavy with beauty, my peonies sag, brushing the grass below them. Last night’s rain knocked off hundreds of slender petals, leaving a shredded carpet of white and pink under spiky stamens. I grab a scissors and begin to clip the buds.

He comes out to watch. “What’cha doin’?” he asks. His voice has an edge of cloud under the silver.

“What’s wrong?”

“I asked you first.” He grimaces as he sits down on the bench.

“Deadheading.”

“Sounds final.” He holds a finger up to his head in a fake pistol gesture.

I smile and catch his hand in mine, drawing it away from his head. “Not really,” I explain. “It’s just when you cut off the old flowers, to encourage the plant to grow. It’s like an insurance policy for next year.”

“Oh.”

We sit for a minute, staring at my sagging plants. I watch a flurry of ants escape one of the massacred buds.

I feel him tense next to me. The grimace has returned. “I think I need some deadheading,” he says as he prepares to get up.

My words catch in my throat. “Some plants don’t do well with it” I manage to say. I haul him up from the bench, one hand under his arm, the other on his back. I ignore his gasping shudder as my hand contacts a tender spot on his back; if I give in to his pain, he’ll never get up.

“If you cut off too much, what happens?” he asks when his breath returns.

We shuffle slowly through the front door, into the dark, cool hallway. “They don’t come back next year,” I answer, my voice as ragged as spent peony petals.

The End