Alex, the irises are about to bloom again. Tomorrow, or maybe the next day. They’re the ones I took from your old townhouse in Herndon the last time I ever went there with you. I’m glad that I have something from then that is still beautiful. Do you know that I don’t remember the name of your street? Isn’t that funny? I spent so much time there in that basement apartment of yours with the red bedding. I’m grateful for the memory lapses. I guess the details that matter stick. Like the way you made salad or coffee or chicken on the grill. You certainly fed me well. The rest of it I let go pretty easily now that 4 years have passed. 4 years have passed. An entire college tenure. I am so grateful to have graduated from that time. It’s spring again and tomorrow or the next day the irises will bloom. And then I’ll forget about them again for the rest of the year. What time we had. What a short-lived flower. 

I am sitting outside on the most perfect spring morning 

Coffee cup in hand and feet propped on the deck rail

Two pileated peckers are spiraling their way up a deserted oak tree in an endless game of bird tag.

I am thinking about what I will plant in my garden.

In an hour I’ll drive to an old church in Herndon to celebrate a woman I didn’t know well, but who was there when I needed healing.

Life is dense and packed with small seeds which can be planted and bloom into abundance. Or, become lodged in between your teeth.

Just for today, I am taking a bite. And savoring the sweetness of the fruit.

Suddenly she realized it was him crossing in front of her car at the Home Depot, Sunday afternoon when at least half of the community would be out buying mulch.

He was gaunt and gray. He didn’t look up or acknowledge any recognition. Neither did she. Just sat there, stunned to see this stranger she once was married to, carrying brand new deck coverings out of the store. 

She wondered who, now that she no longer lived there, stocked the fridge, prepped the salads, prepared the meat for the fire–as she’d done, back before she was the talk of the town?

She forced herself to remember, not the little details of life that they’d shared, but rather, that her infamy exists in her head alone. The others, all-too-consumed with their perfect suburban flower beds.