The Garden Fence

There is a rhythm to the mornings now.

By the time sunlight creeps over the hedgerow and lights up the tangled rose trellis, Elsie is already out back, garden gloves pulled snug, kneeling before her patch of half-dead marigolds as if they are something holy. Next door, Charles wheels out a metal folding chair, dusts off the cushion, and sits with a crossword and a cup of tea. They always exchange the same greetings: variations on weather and aches, did-you-see-the-news-recently.

“You’d think the sun would help these knees, but I swear it just warms the pain,” he says, the New York Times flapping as he opens it.

“Maybe they’re just looking for a little attention,” Elsie says. She wraps her thin fingers, knobby with age, around an errant weed. “Try complimenting them.”

Charles chuckles good-naturedly, distracted by that day's puzzle. Elsie knows he didn’t quite get the joke but appreciates the laugh anyhow.

The fence between their yards is a chest-high thing, white-painted wood with curling vines climbing lazily along the slats. It leans a little too far into Charles’s side. Almost weekly, he assures Elsie he'll have his grandson come around and fix it, but that has yet to occur, and Elsie doesn't mind the leaning very much, anyway. The fence has become a third presence between them—neutral territory for small talk and ritual.

“Early bird gets the ache,” he says after a moment, raising his mug.

“And the worm,” Elsie agrees, tossing the weed into a rusted bucket. “Though who needs more worms?”

She struggles to stand and moves over the cushion she kneels on while gardening before stumbling back down onto it, observing her bed of peonies. They haven’t bloomed properly this spring. Too much rain, maybe. Or not enough love.

Charles sets his crossword aside. “You’re out every day, Elsie. Your garden doesn’t know how good it’s got it.”

“That’s kind of you to say.”

They sit in a silence that had grown familiar—not quite companionable, but not uncomfortable either. Like the hush that follows the last song of a record, when the needle rests just a moment before lifting.

“I was thinking,” he says, tapping a finger thoughtfully against his mug, “about when I first moved in. Do you remember that dog I had? Chester?”

Elsie looks up, blinking. “The little mutt who howled every time you left the house?”

“That’s the one. Drove the whole block mad.”

“You once tied a sweater around his ears to muffle the noise.”

“Didn’t help. Everything scared him, poor thing.”

Elsie laughs, a soft puff of air more than a sound. “I remember.”

Charles’s smile falters a bit, but he nods. “I miss that ridiculous animal.”

Elsie doesn't answer. She reaches for a pair of gardening shears, spying some decaying leaves on her precious peonies. She moves slower now; everything has taken on the pace of memory—careful, deliberate, like she is cataloging each gesture.

“You ever think about moving?” Charles asks after a beat.

She looks up again. “Why would I do that?”

“Oh, just… Sometimes I wonder. All these stairs inside. The bathtub’s getting deeper every day. My son keeps asking about it.”

Elsie makes a noise that could’ve meant anything.

“They call them ‘life transitions’ now,” he adds. “Not aging. Transitions.”

“Well, I suppose ‘decay’ isn’t very marketable.”

Charles laughs—a real one this time. “No, I guess not.”

The wind blows a spray of dandelion fluff between them, tiny seeds floating like ghosts. One sticks in the curl of the vine along the fence, trembling.

“Lucille used to say I’d never leave this place,” Elsie says, "That I’d haunt the porch swing even if it rotted clean through.”

Charles’s face shifts at the mention of her wife’s name, but he doesn’t interrupt.

“She was probably right,” Elsie adds.

A silence stretches out again, longer now, punctuated by the soft scratching of Elsie’s trowel against the dirt.

Charles picked up his crossword. “What’s a six-letter word for ‘forgetting’?”

“Leaving something behind?”

“No, that’s too long.”

“Memory loss?”

“Too medical.”

Elsie frowns in thought, her eyes not leaving the marigolds. “Maybe it’s not something you lose. Maybe it’s something that leaves you.”

He blinks. “That’s poetic, Elsie.”

“I didn’t mean it to be.”

She wipes her forehead with her sleeve. There was dirt under her nails again. It used to bother her—now it just feels like proof she is still tending something.

Charles takes a sip from his tea, then frowns into the mug. “Cold.”

“You always let it sit too long.”

“I get distracted. Old brains drift.”

“Old hearts, too.”

He doesn’t answer that.

Instead, he folds the newspaper and sets it beside the chair. “I forget more these days. Names. Places. Sometimes I go to make tea and forget why I’m in the kitchen.”

Elsie looks up, the sun glinting off her glasses. “But you remembered Chester.”

He smiles faintly. “Yes. Funny, isn’t it? The useless memories stay sharp. But the important ones…”

She waits.

“I forgot Katie’s birthday last week,” he says. “My granddaughter. Had to ask my son to remind me. He said it was okay, but I saw the look.”

Elsie stands slowly, brushing dirt from her knees.

“That’s not a crime, Charles.”

“No. But it feels like one.”

The two of them stand in their yards, not touching, not approaching, but close enough that the space between them feels charged. Elsie’s hands shake slightly, but she hides them in her pockets.

“She was here last summer,” Charles says. “Lucille. I saw her sitting under your apple tree. I know it wasn’t real.”

Elsie nods. The breeze picks up. A robin hops along the fence, watching them like a sentinel. Somewhere far off, a lawnmower starts up, its growl muffled by the trees.

Charles looks over. “If it gets worse, I think my son wants me to—well. Somewhere with help.”

“I know,” Elsie says.

“I’m not ready.”

“I know,” she says again.

His hand rests on the top rail of the fence. The wood is worn smooth there, from years of resting tea mugs or elbows.

“You ever wonder what it’s all for? The planting, the pulling, the pruning.”

Elsie gives him a long, steady look.

“No,” she says. “I think the tending is the point.”

He swallows.

A squirrel darts along the fence, breaking the spell.

Charles glances over Elsie's shoulder, at the far edge of her yard. “You still have some of those lilies you planted for Lucille. When she was sick.”

“They bloom crooked. One always leans.” Elsie says.

“She’d like that.”

“I think so too.”

He looks at her then, his expression as unreadable as the puzzle he’s left unfinished.

“I should go in before the sun gets too high,” Elsie says, stepping back toward her door.

“Of course. Don’t overdo it.”

“You too.”

As she slides her door open, she pauses, turning to look at him one last time. “Charles?”

“Yes?”

“If you forget who I am one day, just wave. I’ll wave back.”

He nods, eyes glassy.

“I think I’ll still remember the fence,” he says.

Then the door closes behind her, and he sits down again, tea untouched, the crossword abandoned on his lap.