Please enjoy one of my favorite fiction pieces I've ever written.
Julia sees periwinkle and pink. The round-lobed hepaticas are blooming, their petals stretching outward symmetrically. Soft to the touch and vibrant, just like she'd intended when she first planted her wildflower garden. It's been 36 years since she and her late husband moved into the little home beside the tiny greenhouse. Julia reminisces to her husband's proposal, all those years, same little house with a bouquet of blanket flowers. They were all red, save for one that was bright yellow, like it was trying to mimic a sunflower. She held onto that one. It's still tucked between the thick pages of their wedding album.
Julia turns back to her garden, the large houstonia littering the grass with delicate pale violet. The light color compliments the scarlet catchfly which have grown slightly taller than the oxeye daisies. The contrast of their colors gives Julia the impression of an angel on one side and a devil on the other. Howard used to put a daisy on one of her shoulders and a catchfly on the other and say, "which one will you listen to?"
Julia smiles with her gardening hat drooping a little more than it did ten years ago. After all these years, the trumpet honeysuckles never look the same when they bloom. She still loves them the same, however. Her wildflowers are grateful for her and she's grateful for them. They were the stars of the arrangement she made for Howard's funeral. Colorful, just like he had made her life. Vibrant and tender. Julia's garden is filled to the brim with the different wildflowers Howard encouraged her to grow. They'll die one day, she knows, but until she dies, she won't stop growing them. They may outgrow her, one day.
