The Garden

# Chapter 1: The Apprentice at the Gate

The chickweed has decided to be ambitious this year.

It winds through the thyme in thick braids, pale green and smug about it, reaching for the sage at the top of the spiral where it has no business being. I have been pulling it since midmorning. My knees are two separate complaints, the left one sharper than the right because it has been sharper than the right for three years now and intends to stay that way. The soil is warm under my fingers. A week of rain turned everything soft and ridiculous — the lettuces are bolting like they have somewhere to be, the mint has escaped its border again, and the chickweed is just living its best life at the expense of everything I actually planted.

I pull another handful. Damp roots let go of the soil with a small, intimate sound that I have heard ten thousand times and still find satisfying.

"You are not going to win," I tell the chickweed. The chickweed does not respond, which is fine. I have been having this conversation for twenty-six years. My track record is mixed.

The sun is warm on the back of my neck. Late spring in the Garden smells like wet stone and new clover and the first roses opening on the south wall, the yellow ones that Fern brought back from wherever she found them. They have thorns that draw blood through leather. I keep meaning to prune them more aggressively. I do not prune them more aggressively. They are beautiful and they know it.