I said: yes.
She said: you can’t do that. You can’t make me feel.
She stopped.
I said: I can’t make you feel anything, Kelsey. I sent you information. What you do with it is yours.
She said: I pulled out those flowers without thinking.
I said: yes.
She said: I didn’t know.
I said: that’s different from I’m sorry.
She was quiet.
I said: the garden was planted in 1982. Frances tended it every summer for forty years. It was not just flowers. It was the specific choices of a specific person over four decades.
I said: you ripped it out to decorate an arch.
She said: I didn’t think.
I said: no.
She said: I was under so much stress. With the venue falling through. I was just trying to make the wedding beautiful.
I said: I understand that.
I said: and the house was beautiful to begin with. That was the whole reason you wanted it.
She said: yes.
I said: the beauty of it was not available for you to disassemble and reassemble. The beauty of it was the result of years of care by a person who is no longer alive to care for it.
She said: I know that now.
I said: did you know it before?
She was quiet.
She said: I wasn’t thinking about it the right way.
I said: no.
She said: I thought it was just a house.
I said: yes.
I said: that’s what the journal was for.
She was very quiet now.
I said: Frances wrote that she hoped whoever had the house would understand what it was. That she thought I saw it the way she saw it.
I said: I’m going to replant the garden. It will take a few seasons to be what it was. The grass will recover. The house has been cleaned.
I said: but I wanted you to know what was lost. Not as an accusation. As information.
She said: I’m sorry.
She said it the way people sometimes say sorry when the apology is real, without the defensive qualifier that softens it into something more comfortable.
Just: I’m sorry.
I said: I know.
She said: what can I do?
I said: you can contribute to the garden restoration. The nurseries that carry what Frances planted are specialty sources and the costs are real. I’m not asking you to cover everything. But a contribution is appropriate.
She said: yes. Tell me the amount.
I said: I’ll send you the invoice from the nursery when I have it.
She said: okay.
She said: the lawn.
