Syringa vulgaris

Margot turns her head towards me, with a confused glare. She waits as I attempt to conjure a meaningful response to her inquiry. I let out a puff of air into our small kitchen; I can’t answer her line of questioning, not today. I haven’t been able to for quite some time.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” I respond weakly, turning my head to look out the window. Our little weeping willow blowing lazily in a sunshine I wish would turn to rain. My eyes scan our front yard and land on my old Volkswagen. That car had seen so much of our intertwined lives; seen so much of our bodies and words and fears. The gray exterior only reflected the sunshine further; I turned away.

Margot was wearing those oversized overalls she often donned in her first pregnancy, before. They were stained with the paint that now lined the walls of the nursery in our home. After much deliberation, we decided on a pale lilac color. A trained sociologist by trade, she refused to choose the color palette of our child’s room based on gender. She also refused to let me pay for painters. So steadfast and determined, Margot painted the whole nursery 4 months pregnant. 

The purple was my idea; it was my father’s favorite color and I remember learning about lilac in my first botany course as an undergraduate; Syringa vulgaris. Such a beautiful and delicate flower; as delicate as the woman now defeated in front of me. I knew anyone born of her blood would be just as delicate. 

I felt Margot sigh more than I heard it. We often found ourselves in these circles of distress, anger, frustration, and moody contempt; ending when one of us worked up the courage to cry or steal our couple’s counselor’s words. This time, I was determined for that not to be me. I had no answers for her; I loved her and I didn’t blame her, but I had nothing to satiate her need for answers. Loss is a scary thing. 

“Will you just look at me?” Margot has crossed the kitchen to rest her palms on my hands gripping the oversized farmhouse kitchen sink. I turn and have to gaze up slightly to reach her eyes, I am barefoot and only 5’3 on a good day. Today is not a good day. Her soft brown eyes reach into me, the steel and anger replaced by soft resolution. Exhaustion creeped into me; I didn’t want to fight about our valuable losses. 

I wanted to feel slow and quiet. I wanted her to wrap her toned dark arms around my petite body and I wanted to be small. I wanted to shrink into her until I could only hear one heartbeat left in our house built for three. I wanted to smell lilac, taste it in my throat; let it coat my insides and turn my intestines to roots and my lungs to cotyledons. I could feel the brown of her eyes as a nutrient-rich soil I would plant myself in, soaking my bones and fibrous roots throughout her. I wanted to feel growth again.

Her eyes searched mine; I could tell she felt lost enough to search my blue depths for answers I didn’t have the energy to give. I sighed and rested my forehead on her bony shoulder; I needed her to stop asking. I needed her to stop taking, stop breaking the silence of our empty nest with inquiries I wasn’t prepared to face. I needed her to stop wearing those lilac-stained overalls, stop sobbing in the middle of dinner, stop letting me tell her to stop.

I needed her back but I wanted her gone. This was not the woman I married, but she was a twisted mirror image of my own perception of loss. I couldn’t let her look to my eyes for answers.

-----

I am a botanist by training. Most days, I enter my laboratory to observe. Eye to microscope, I note inconsistencies and irregularities; I spot unique behavior and mundane growth. I label pieces of a whole; I categorize the sum of the pieces. My gloved hands delicately dance amongst flowers, roots, and tubers; finding that quiet steadiness I save for times in my home place. 

Every other month, my research team heads to the forest, the mountains, the rivers, the beaches; we collect samples. We take our delicate dances to the branches and roots of the wild; observe our whole as pieces of a much larger sum. Mushrooms litter the ground in May, kale in the winter months. We collect. We leave. 

When I first met Margot and told her my occupation, she asked if I had a favorite living thing. At the time, I told her, it was the earth. Our living, breathing mother; asking us for nothing but to live amongst her bushes and skies. Later, Margot told me she had fallen in love with me that evening, after hearing my response. She says “Any woman with that much respect for a mother of humanity will love me like no other.”

I asked her the same question years after our first meeting. I don’t remember her response. 

Now, I have come to understand that my favorite living thing is Margot. A living, breathing woman; asking me for nothing but to live beside me, beneath me, above me. A woman with lilac-stained overalls and a loud laugh, hovering over my rising yeast in the kitchen with confusion and a desire to help. A woman with hands always seemed to be stained with ink, refusing to write on anything but composition notebooks. A woman with apple-wood cheeks and a temper like no other; with smiles that made you remember what secrets meant to you as a child. A living, breathing woman. 

“What have you lost?” I find myself asking, knowing the answer but wanting her to confront it; our counselor told us this is a good exercise to ground us in our new reality, to confront our loss. Fascinating that a woman with eyes of soil has seemed to have lost ground.

A deep breath. “Our child.” Margot states plainly, resting her chin along the top of my head. “Our child,” she repeats; steadier and with more resolve, yet nearly a whisper. I cannot see her eyes, but I know they are closed. 

 Something valuable; lost at sea, lost in soil. A piece of me, a piece of her; lost to us both. The lilac nursery sits empty.