She came to me looking like a dried-up ball of rotting twine. Last night, I rested what best I could tell was her root-side down into the water, not knowing exactly if I had faith. Now I find myself awake, like a child on Christmas morning, wanting to jump out of bed and run to see what she might have become. I rub my eyes, reach towards the nightstand for my glasses, check my phone and decide 3:24 a.m. is indeed too early. Instead, I rise and stumble the short six feet or so to the master bathroom doorway to take care of the necessary. I fumble past the sink cabinet, check to see if the seat is up or down, and relieve myself in the near darkness. When I trudge back and crawl under the covers, I listen for his soft snores.
I smile at the safety of this bed, long for his touch, and snuggle my body up into his. Side sleepers spooning. He takes a longer inhale, and his body stirs. “You ok?” he mumbles.
“Mmhmm.”
“Just needed me a little?”
“Yep,” I whisper into the back of his head. “Just needed you a little.”
I drape my left arm around his side and envelope him. He wiggles and pushes his behind back towards me. I giggle at the pressure. I crave this. Skin on skin. My aliveness is rekindled with these quiet moments. When I feel full again, I let him go and start to lean away.
“You sucked enough life from me?” he teases.
“Mmhmm.” I shimmy over to my side of the bed but don’t roll over onto my left side just yet.
“That and it got a little hot.”
“Practicality over romance.” He gives a faux sigh. “You gonna be able to go back to sleep?”
I finally confess it. “I want to go look at her,” I tell him.
He chuckles. “Go on, then.”
I snatch the oversized t-shirt that’s wadded up on the floor and pull it over my head as I make my way down the hall, through the den and into the kitchen. We live alone now. With our son away at college, there’s no reason to not walk about naked, but there are no curtains on the large kitchen bay windows and the neighbors could be awake. This won’t be a pop in and out for a quick snack to appease my gnawing belly. The light won’t be on and off quickly to simply grab a midnight slice of cheese from the fridge. I’m going to survey her. No telling how long I’ll leave the light on to stare. My Rose of Jericho.
I find the light switch and want to squeal. I’d left her in a glass Pyrex casserole dish. The directions said to fill your container with a layer of rocks, and I happened to have a bag of white pebbles that I’d bought at the dollar store a few years ago, leftover remnants from some kids’ craft. I’d marveled at the just-right amount I had, enough to cover the bottom of my chosen container. Fill with water, just past the layer of rock, the instructions directed. Your Rose of Jericho should open in about four hours, though it may take several days for it to reach its full capacity.
Disappointments with house plants and gardening have plagued me, but there she was. Just as they had said. It’d been a few hours and there she was – green, her leaves beginning to stretch fern-like.
I rush back to the bedroom. “You should see her!”
Enough moonlight seeps through the window blinds so that I can see what I’ve returned for. My phone. I grab it. “I’m getting a picture,” I tell him.
I know he thinks I’m silly. And I don’t care. I like that he thinks it and that he still chooses me. “Why are we whispering?” he asks. And I know that he is smiling. We are in this together, just the two of us again.
Melanie McGehee is an essayist, poet, and storyteller who returned to school in mid-life, earning her MFA from Wilkes University after turning fifty. Her essays and poems have appeared in The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Fall Lines, Peregrine Journal’s Caregiving Folio, and in local women’s magazines and mom blogs. She reviews books for Mom Egg Review and loves leading writing workshops, especially for women looking to share their own stories. You can find her monthly musings in her newsletter at melaniemcgehee.substack.com.
Image Credit: Flickr Creative Commons/Priyadarshi Chaudhuri
