Backyard Patriotism
Adrian looked out over the garden before sitting.
“I still don’t understand how you found this.”
Milo didn’t look up from arranging two glasses on small bistro table.
“Found what?”
“This. The city disappears back here.”
Milo pulled the cork on a bottle of red wine.
“You just have to keep looking.”
Adrian laughed.
“You make house hunting sound like existentialism.”
“Haha. It is.”
Neither rushed to speak. For old friends silence feels also like companionship.
Milo saw that Adrian was wearing his favorite pair of shoes which he wears everywhere. The same pair.
They sat now to the small table ready for an evening on friendly banter. Milo thought of Adrian as his tennis partner—someone to meet every couple of weeks and bang the ball across the mental net. Enjoying the garden in high summer together would make them less reliant on their usual rationalism.
They both watched a bee dive into the foxgloves.
“They know exactly what they’re doing.”
“The bees?”
“No. The flowers,” Adrian replied.
Boston had waited all afternoon for rain, but by five o’clock the clouds had broken, appearing now as sheep in a field. The little garden seemed to have its own weather. A rose was storming over the lavender. And the tomatoes showed some color of lightning. Somewhere a neighbor was grilling. Ah, the American backyard!
