Page 52 of Key West Homecoming

Jake pulled off his gloves, dropped them into the bucket and wiped his palms on his jeans.

“Do you want to see the garden?”

Emma looked around.

“I thought I already had.”

“You’ve seen the yard. That’s different.”

“All right.”

He picked up the bucket and started toward the fence and Emma followed.

Jake began with the bougainvillea, explaining that it had been allowed to grow too thick before he moved in. He’d spent the first year cutting it back a little at a time because doing too much at once would have damaged it.

Along the shed, he pointed out a row of crotons with leaves streaked in yellow, red and green. A neighbor had given him the lemongrass growing near the back fence, and the lignum vitae in the far corner was older than the cottage, or at least Jake thought it was.

He knew every plant.

Emma noticed that he never sounded as though he was trying to impress her with what he knew. He simply told her what things were, what they needed and which ones had given him trouble.

She liked listening to him.

The garden looked different when she saw it through Jake’s eyes. What Emma had first taken for a pretty Key West yard was something he had thought about and worked on these last three years. He explained there were reasons plants grew where they did. There were places he’d added shade and others where he’d opened things up to the sun.

They came around the side of the cottage, and Emma stopped.

The lily bed ran almost the entire length of the fence between the cottage and the neighboring yard. Yellow and pink blooms rose above the leaves, along with soft white flowers she hadn’t noticed from the street. Some reached nearly to her waist.

“My grandmother grew lilies.”

Jake looked at her.

“I know. These were hers.”

Emma turned toward him.

“You knew that?”

“There were only a few when I moved in, but I could tell they’d been here a long time.”

She looked back at the bed and her eyes watered.

The lilies were one of the clearest things she remembered about Gloria’s garden. Her grandmother used to cut them for the kitchen table and then complain when the pollen fell onto the tablecloth. Emma could remember Gloria rinsing the vase at the sink and telling her not to touch the orange dust because it would stain her clothes.

She hadn’t thought about that in years.

“I’m glad you kept them.”

“They needed some attention.”

Emma walked closer to the bed. The mulch was fresh and the edges were clean.

“There are more here than I remember.”

Jake nodded.

“I added some.”