Again-me-nots

By

Joseph Paul Haines

“English flowers. Ready?”

“Must we?” Margaret asked.  The sun was near the horizon and would would peek over the hills soon.  Ground fog danced round their ankles and the damp earth floor of the forest sucked at the souls of her shoes with the sound of wet kisses. The scent of hibiscus filled the air.  She slapped the mosquito which had taken up residence on her forearm. The more Margaret aged, the more her skin seemed to thin, until now–biologically she was near eighty-one, though she couldn’t be sure of the exact figure–it seemed little more than onionskin paper stretched over a rigid, mobile blood-bank.

John’s lips pursed with disapproval and Margaret waited for the inevitable chastisement that decades and decades of marriage taught her was forthcoming. Instead, he looked away from her and stared ahead, down the small game trail through the Florida marshlands. “Papayer Rhoeas,” he said.

“Field Poppy. John, did you ever consider–?”

“Agro stemma githago?”

There was no use trying to talk to him. His may have lost a step or two, and those blue, intent eyes she had fallen in love with now beamed out from beneath brittle, white eyebrows, but the focus in them had never left. Once John made up his mind, God himself couldn’t sway him. “Corncockle,” she replied with a sigh.

“We’re almost there.”

“I know,” she said. “I remember as well as you.”

He led the way for a bit, shouldering through wide, wet fern leaves that blocked the path and wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. “Do you ever miss the old gang?” he asked.

“Sometimes,” she replied. “But that was so long ago. Best let the past lie in the past.”

John stopped in his tracks and turned to face her. “Do you really believe that?” he asked.

She looked him in the eye. The pain of hundreds of years of life reflected back at her. “Are we still talking about our friends?”

He shook his head, turned, and started back down the path. “Bothriochlia Laguroides,” he muttered a few steps later.

“Silver Beardgrass. We don’t have to do this you know.” She watched him stiffen. Just when she thought he’d turn around and face her, he kept walking.

“Amatorius Infinitus,” he said.

“John I don’t know–”

“Amatorius Infinitus. Right there.” He pointed toward the flower they’d first encountered three and a half centuries past. Hidden amongst a growth of pussywillow, the bud of the flower stretched forth in the morning air as if it were trying to touch the sun. The petals were starting to open.

Her stomach churned and sweat broke out on her upper lip. “John, I don’t think I can do it again.”

“Just watch, Margaret.”

She did. She watched John stare at the flower. She watched as he straightened, growing in height as the spine decompressed. She watched the wrinkles fade and the white spider-silk hair atop his head darken until it was the blue-black of his youth. His flesh stretched. His shirt tightened, buttons straining to hold against inflating muscle.

And then it was over.

John continued to stare at the flower. “Amatorius Infinitus,” he said. “Love forever.” He turned to face her, and she watched as the joy fell from his face.  Her frailty remained.   “You didn’t watch it open,” he said.

“I didn’t.  There’s no such flower, John. Nothing goes on forever.”

“Maybe there’s still time. Maybe you can–”

“No.”

“When?” he asked.

“There was no when, John. It just sort of happened over time. I’m through.” She looked down at her age-worn hands trembling from the morning’s exertion. “Just promise you’ll take care of me.”

“Of course I will. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Margaret smiled. “You weren’t ready. And I knew that if I didn’t come out here, you’d be noble and grow old and die with me. It was my choice, not yours.”

“Who’s being noble now?” he asked.

“I’m tired, John. Let’s go.”

“Almost,” he said. “One last thing.”

John stared at the flower, exhaled, then dropped to one knee and yanked the flower from the ground by its stem.  He offered it to her and said, “You were the only person I wanted to watch it with.”

“Amatorius Infinitus?” she asked.

“Amatorius,” he said. “Who knows about the rest?”

She leaned her nose into the snowy-white petals and drew in a breath. In that moment, the past disappeared. The future vanished. She held her husband’s hand and for the first time she could remember, the now was all that mattered.

End