That morning Ivy had pulled an elastic band from her desk drawer to bind her long, thin, dark hair. Now, mid-morning with a middling passing of customers and hours spent snipping, potting, toiling among shoots and stems earthbound into apportioned flimsy plastic squares called flats – anything but, green stalks rose from inches to feet – Ivy’s wet strands trailed down the back of her t-shirt.
Ivy’s Greenhouse. Bill’s idea for the name of their nursery. Ivy, genus hedera, woody vines climbing and attaching to rock surfaces, masonry, or other structures, and her given name. Bill, diminutive of William-Sweet William, dianthus barbatus-barbatus meaning bearded which described Ivy’s husband perfectly. Bearded also meant scruffy and bristly. Those descriptions fit. Sweet did not.
Ivy stood in the middle of rows of long tables of greenery housed under plastic sheeting stretched half-moon with metal rounds anchored ground to grounds. She pulled her canvas gloves tighter around her fingers for a firmer grip, then one-handed hoisted a shallow terra cotta bowl into the air. She stopped to examine the potential home for florals, then placed her other gloved hand on a tall cobalt urn, looking one to the other. Which one? Which to choose? Which one to nurture her green living beings?
Plants can’t choose their environs, but all have the nature to live, survive, thrive. Hibiscus syriacus needed full sun to bloom colorful showy flowers, the common crocus vernus cannot tolerate soggy soil, while ajuga reptans ground cover flourished in open spaces. Ivy contemplated. Her choice was important. A matter of life and death.
“Pick one, any one. Just decide.” Bill propelled himself by pushing the aluminum hand rim of his wheelchair, asserting his power over the reedy metal frame until he stopped beside her. “You never could make up your mind, Ivy.”
Ivy didn’t look at her husband. She pulled the cobalt urn towards her scraping the plastic table, then arranged small pots of trailing bougainvillea, tall sage, and bursting azalea around the urn shifting the containers until satisfied with the potential arrangement.
Bill hadn’t moved. “You still mad at me?”
An astute deduction requiring long minutes observing Ivy’s non-communication. Sherlock Holmes better watch out. Ivy smiled at her own jest. Bill persisted in his explanation while Ivy wondered if she shouldn’t include a hearty holly berry or perhaps an impossible to eradicate dandelion.
“It’s both of our money.” He rotated within her field of vision at each turn of her back. Bill sneered in a squeaking cadence, each word rolling up and down hills. “I’ll put it back.”
He wouldn’t let it go. “We’ll have a sale on those trees out back, they’re looking scraggly anyway.”
Ivy turned, glared down at him. Bill rotated his t-shirts like moms did with their three-year old’s underwear-color identified day of the week. In Bill’s wardrobe this meant superficial patriotic logos. Today’s shirt read: If you can read this, thank a soldier. Ivy never heard Bill ever thank a soldier. But, dressed in green fatigue pants and $29.99 Mike’s Army Surplus boots, Bill accepted unearned gratitude and often pocketed the $10 or $20 slipped into his palm after upselling a rube an overpriced three-foot potted blue spruce. Ivy had read about the South American boquila trifoliolata that mimicked nearby plants. Her husband Bill camouflaged caring, decency, honesty, and maybe that one important emotion most people craved. Ivy deduced her husband didn’t love anyone but himself.
Dirt crusted under Bill’s fingernails and smeared across his arms, signs of a man devoted to work. Bill’s dirt came from being too lazy to shower, and she had never seen him hoist a bag of top soil before the accident, certainly not after.
Bill did, however, have the final word before wheeling away from Ivy, away from the couple waiting at the front. “Screw you.”
Ivy tended her customers. Alone. Again. She decided to add a pink budding begoniaceae to the trailing vines, tall spikes, and spray of floral in the tall blue container. She pushed out undersized root-bound plants from their thin plastic trays with her gloved thumb, inserted the greenery into its new home, then tucked dark rich soil around the stems.
Water, air, light, space–all the ingredients for life. Ivy had none of those. Her husband took it, stole it, lied about it. She’d discovered that the bottle of California Chardonnay she’d bought to celebrate her birthday next week had disappeared from the refrigerator. The bottle fell out when I opened the door, Bill had said. The lack of shards in the trash Ivy construed as a big clue in the chain link of her husband’s lies. This morning’s disappearance of Mercantile Bank’s cash deposit, another.
“Still mad?” Bill’s voice behind her curled Ivy’s spine.
A small smile, her lips pulled back with corners up cooler than clerks at Food-A-Go-Go. “It’ll be alright. No big deal.” Ivy shrugged him off. “I think it’ll be slow today because of the weather.” She looked up at the wind rippled plastic and episodic splats of rain. She hugged the pot of newly relocated greens close to her body. “I want to take this to Mrs. Crimmins, drop something off at Goodwill, get something for dinner. Can you watch the place for a while?”
Bill smiled bigger than Ivy. “Sure, baby.” Ivy knew he’d seen the couple. After she’d left, her husband would check the cash register, pocket the money, call one of his pals to buy some beer. Like the tendrils of spreading kudzu wrapped around storied southern oaks, Bill choked their finances to near death.
Plants didn’t have choices, but Ivy did. Ivy needed a transplant. Transplant–to move to another location, usually with effort or upheaval.
Ivy pulled her shirts and pants off hangers, shoes from the floor, underwear from drawers then stuffed these into two black trash bags which she carried and crammed into the trunk of her Toyota. Ivy didn’t stop at Mrs. Crimmins’, or Goodwill, or Food-A-Go-Go. She pulled into then out of Mercantile Bank, her separate secret private savings account cashed out at five thousand dollars.
Gigantic wet drops splotted the Toyota’s windshield, but the deluge held off. A few hours later driving south towards the Sunshine State, the blue pot of relocated greens buckled safety into the seat beside her, Ivy adjusted her shades, rolled down the windows letting warm air rush through her hair, and smiled.
Water, air, light, space. I made my choice, Bill. I’m heading to life.
***
Or, maybe perhaps . . .
***
“Pick one, any one. Just decide.” Bill pushed the aluminum rim of his wheelchair, his wet hands slipping on the reedy metal frame, until he stopped beside her. “You never could make up your mind, Ivy.”
She turned her head to him, one gloved hand remaining on the cobalt urn, the other holding a 5-inch full bloom red begoniaceae. She assessed him top to bottom from his crabgrass hair under the flag embossed baseball cap to the soaked $29.99 Mike’s Army Surplus lace-up black pseudo-leather military-style boots. Bill lacked. A plastic pot felt more compassion than her husband.
He’d been hosing the deciduous saplings behind the greenhouse, aiming water spray at singular leaves trying to rip them away from their branches, then shouting “score!” when one of the poor green ovals blew into the air.
Ivy looked up at the sheath of plastic stretched across the semi-circle metal frame that was her greenhouse. Water-saturated clouds blocked the sun, shading the inside to gray.
Ivy stated the obvious, to her, maybe Bill didn’t care. “It’s going to rain, you didn’t have to water the trees.”
He wheeled backward, akin to a person with the use of walking limbs stepping away when confronted. “I was trying to help. Now you’re complaining because I’m doing something.”
Water drenching plants wasn’t helping. Most of the tree leaves had yellowed from Bill’s help.
He rolled to her. “You’re mad because I took the money.” Ivy knew the routine. He’d challenge her, insult her, belittle her. She had realized months ago that her life before Bill’s accident and her life after Bill’s accident remained unchanged. She continued to haul the flats and trays, cultivate the greenery, balance the books, tend to her husband as if he were a rare paphiopedilum rothschildianum orchid requiring filtered light and water.
Too late Ivy realized Bill’s true convolvulaceae nature of showy Morning Glory trumpet flowers opening upon the sun’s warm rays attached to deceptively delicate vines snaking up, over, and through carefully cultivated plants, sometimes strangling them. Ivy felt congested, clogged by Bill’s mercurial demands and impulses after their marriage, long before his accident.
Last night’s Mercantile Bank’s zippered bank deposit bag had contained a slip of paper and a choking wad of wrinkled numeric bills from yesterday’s early season sale on garden herbs. Thyme, sage, spicy ocimum basilicum basil. A jackpot of cash money. To Ivy. This morning, only the deposit slip remained. Bill hadn’t bothered with his usual limp IOU. Plants survived with nature’s light, water, air, and space. People needed money. A thing Ivy lacked, and couldn’t attain by nature or by husband.
She looked at the bougainvillea before her, its fuchsia tendrils crowded and over flowing from its small container with crumpled, desiccated leaves scattered about.
Pruning-cutting away dead branches, removing unwanted parts, especially to increase growth. Bill, like the bougainvillea, needed to be pruned.
Ivy surprised her husband. “I want a divorce.”
Bill’s eyes popped but he didn’t move, not rolling back or forward or his usual escaping into their house for a morning beer. “You want to divorce your husband who’s in a wheelchair? How would that look, Ivy?”
She answered. “Yes, I want to divorce you, Bill. You acted the same way before you got the wheelchair. And people would think I was dumb because I waited so long to throw your fat butt out.”
“You’re pissed at me because I’m in this frigging chair!”
Bill got some of his screeching words right. Ivy’d been angry, but not at her husband. She’d been angry at herself because she’d chosen to stay home writing checks to creditors rather than going drinking with her husband that night, angry at herself because she’d chosen to go to bed rather than searching the town for him.
Bill also made a choice. He chose to give Alvin the keys. Had Bill thought of calling Ivy, his wife, that night? Or ever?
Ivy exposed her truth. “I was angry at myself, thinking I could have somehow saved you. But, you know what Bill?”
Ivy glanced at the waiting senior couple, plunked the bougainvillea on the table, looked over her shoulder at him. “I’m done with you. I got a number for a lawyer. You’re out of here.”
Ivy strolled smiling to the front while Bill yelled behind her.
“I’m going to take everything! Everything! You won’t have anything left!”
Oh no, Bill. I’m getting my life back. I’m going to thrive, not just survive.
***
Or maybe perhaps . . .
***
“Pick one, any one. Just decide.” Bill rolled his wheelchair to a screeching halt next to his wife. “You never could make up your mind, Ivy.”
She plunked the terra cotta container onto the table with a thud. A repository for a lifetime demanded contemplation. Too bad she hadn’t thought of that before her marriage. Ivy didn’t respond to her husband.
“You still mad at me ‘cause I took it? It’s our money, remember?” Bill’s voice dropped in timbre giving his last word a finality. “Ours.” She turned her full body to peer at her husband. She’d mistaken his enthusiasm and energy for confidence and love. She’d had sky high dreams of swaddling together under fuzzy blankets, drinking hot cider, watching flames in an open pit fireplace while wrapped in passionate heat. Ivy didn’t realize Bill’s you can do it upbeat repeated mantra meant you will do it while I sit back drink beer and watch cable. Her house and business loans, her morning to night hard work, her sacrifice.
Ivy countered with, “That money was going for fertilizer for the oaks and maples. The leaves are turning yellow.”
Bill snorted. “You want to buy shit. I’ll get the neighbor’s dog to dump a few in our front yard.”
He turned, rolled to the gray-haired, eyeglass-wearing couple standing framed in the door-she clutching her brown vinyl Wal-Mart purse to her chest. Ivy watched the American flag stickers Bill had plastered onto the backrest recede and the oblong cotton square flags, patriot ad neasuem, duct-taped upright to the push handles flutter in his haste to meet his marks.
Ivy imagined Bill shining his full smile on them. He, the mark, wore an honest working man’s green John Deere cap; she, honest working wife, wore Keds. They both wore red, white, blue insignia t-shirts. Ivy hoped they didn’t pay in cash.
“Thank you for your service.” A compliment from someone who buckled his seatbelt for safety. He, the mark, stood near the exit with wallet in hand eyeballing crisp recently released ATM denominations.
Bill spread more manure than Ivy could’ve bought in a month. “Just doing my duty, sir. It’s an honor and a privilege.” Her husband drew four fingers parallel to his right eyebrow, then jerked his hand back to the swing away padded tri-color bedecked armrest.
Bill pushed. “Just trying to make a living. Probably have to put lots of stuff on sale to make the bank happy.” He shifted his eyes downward to his beaten $29.99 Mike’s Army Surplus sale boots, trying to achieve that contrite woeful bearing. He succeeded.
An additional few bags of top soil, a few hanging portulaca, a pint of glyphosate weed killer. Bill smiled, then tucked cash into his pocket when the geezer marks turned their backs. Bill’s smile dropped when he faced his wife staring at him.
“Don’t get on my case.” He rolled to stop at her feet. “The old man thinks he did a good deed and now we got some cash.”
Ivy planted her clogs hard into the soil. “You never served. You’re in that chair because-”
Bill completed the remainder of her lately oft-repeated sentence spewed during their late evening arguments, occurring more frequently now that Ivy regularly checked the checkbook.
“Because I got shit faced drunk and gave the keys to my buddy to drive home. A bad decision on my part. Okay? Deal with it. I hafta.” His face twisted. Sneer? Snicker? Bill didn’t wait for Ivy’s reply, he rolled away.
Bill checked “D” on his life’s multiple choice test. Disabled, stuck in a wheelchair with a severed spine at the T-8 vertebrae. Paraplegic, functional upper body, little or no control of bowel or bladder. Perhaps Bill’s resentment of accumulating shit.
Both friends had been drunk that night, but Bill realized he couldn’t drive home from the Double Easy Bar double-visioned. Alvin didn’t have the same thinking abilities, perhaps a result of the booze. One tree looked like so many others and the oaks seemed further apart than remembered. Alvin had checked the “E” box. Eternal.
From the array of florals and vines on the table, Ivy chose a frail begoniaceae. She plucked the few dried buds, then tossed the flowers into the trash. Deadheading–removing spent flowers from living plants to encourage new growth. Ivy needed to grow. Ivy had to deadhead Bill.
A crisp evening breeze wafted through Ivy’s Greenhouse rattling the thick polyethylene plastic, but not enough to shake the glass windows of their wooden-frame house. A moonless dark night that could be serene if not for Bill’s ramped up cable channel volume.
Ivy set the plate of stew before her husband. “I know we’ve had some troubles lately, Bill, but I know that everything will work out.” Ivy touched his hand, Food-A-Go-Go cool smiled at him. Bill toothed a wide smile back at her. He dug into the stew, a mixture of beef, potatoes, vegetables, and another flavor he couldn’t identify.
Ivy clicked off the television before Bill’s seizures stopped. She slid into the overstuffed chair, smiled at the quiet, then turned to her husband lying prone, not breathing, on the linoleum kitchen floor. “Yes, Bill, I can make a decision.”
Glyphosate-an herbicide used to kill unwanted broadleaf plants and grasses.
***
Or, maybe perhaps . . .
***
“Pick one, any one. Just decide.” Bill yelled from the end of the aisle bordered by long tables stacked with florals, vegetables, herbs, all things green, then rolled his wheelchair towards her. “You never could make up your mind, Ivy.”
Ivy glanced at the urn, the pot, the vase, the potential receptacles of life on the table in front of her, then looked down at her husband.
***
So many choices. Which one shall I choose?
END
J.T. Macek is a writer, professor, and pal to 6 dogs all living in rural Michigan. Previous publications were included in Zodiac Review, Splickety Lightning, and Terror House Magazine.
