The Gardens of Digby Green: Better Together
He carried half the bags of soil behind the building and stacked them against the wall. Hefting two planters, Digby brought them around the back. A few stabs with his pocket knife split the first bag of soil. Two cars pulled into the lot as he filled the first planter.
The two women drivers greeted one another. He rocked the container to settle the contents as the ladies passed him.
“Rosalie, have you heard anything from Rose? It’s so unlike her not to text back.”
“Not a word, Lily, and I’m beginning to be afraid for her.”
Digby turned his face away from them, and folded the empty bag. As the rear door closed behind their backs, he chuckled. “You’re too late with that, Rosalie. Much too late.”
Rosalie. The name stuck in his mind. Roses did better together. He knew he was capable, but would he?
Anticipation flared, and Digby jogged to his truck for flats of plants. He arranged young plants in the fertile soil, and moved on to the second planter. One of the women came through the rear door.
Lily. Oh, yes. He brushed loose soil from his hands.
She pulled out of the lot, and Digby went to Rosalie’s car. He jammed a begonia into the tail pipe, and whistling, moved off to his truck. Positioning the remaining two planters on the concrete pad in front of the Strip Shoppe gave him an excuse to look through the plate glass window and discover Rosalie examining cane-bottomed chairs.
Digby shuddered. The pattern pressed into the chair backs matched the one he’d seen day-in-and-day-out on his carping mother’s kitchen chairs. Hoisting a soil bag over the rim of one planter, he slashed the plastic. Its contents thudded into the planter.
Quickly, he spaced sweet potato vines evenly around the outer edge of both planters. Then he filled the centers with begonias and marigolds in a spiral. His trowel, shiny and sharp-edged, was Digby’s favorite tool. As he pressed dirt around the last marigold, he heard footsteps, and a closing car door.
The Gardens of Digby Green is a serialized story that posts on Fridays.
Next week, part twenty-one, Begonia Plug.
Find a link to purchase Heartland Treasures anthology here.
Ruth De Maat
Heidi Kortman