Page 79 of Holly & Hemlock

I think of Larkin, somewhere in Paris, or at least pretending to be. I imagine him walking the bridges, the endless galleries, a ghost among tourists and lovers and students who have no idea what he is carrying around in his chest. I imagine him painting the house from memory, the wash of color spreading out like a secret he can’t hold in. I wonder if he meant the painting as a reminder, or a challenge.

The letter is short, but I read it again, and again. I let the words settle, heavy as stones, and then lighter, as if they are burning themselves away from the page.

I trace the black ribbon with my finger. I think of the last time I saw him—his hand on the satchel, the way his heart beat like a trapped thing when I touched him.

Eventually, I fold the note and tuck it into the painting’s frame. I arrange the holly and hemlock in a glass on the mantle, where they catch the last of the sun and throw their shadows across the floor. The effect is almost funereal, but not sad. It is a record of what has survived, what might still grow.

I headout that afternoon with the parcel since Lane has gotten lost in work again. I find him in the greenhouse.

He doesn’t turn when I enter. His focus is total, a kind of reverence for whatever new life he’s coaxed into being. I watch him tamp down the soil with the heel of his hand, then slide the tray onto a shelf above his head, making room for more. The dirt lines his palms, black beneath the nails, but his touch is always measured, as if he fears bruising the air.

I wait until he’s finished the row, then clear my throat. “Got a delivery.”

Lane glances up. His eyes are bleary, maybe from the humidity or maybe from the effort, but he nods. “What is it?”

I hand him the box, already unwrapped, the tissue cradling the painting and the pressed plants. He wipes his hands on his shirt before taking it. He’s not a careless man.

He lifts the painting out first, holds it at arm’s length, then brings it close. His fingers bracket the edges, never touching the image itself. He studies the brushwork, the wild lashing of pigment that makes the house almost vibrate on the page. He doesn’t smile right away, but the lines at the corners of his eyes deepen, and I know he’s pleased.

“He always saw better than anyone,” Lane says, so quietly I’m not sure if I was meant to hear it. He turns the painting in the light, then tilts it to catch the signature. “I thought he’d send a postcard. Not this.”

“It’s beautiful,” I say, though the word feels pale. “He wants to come back. Eventually.”

Lane sets the painting back in the box, then lifts out the holly and hemlock bouquet I returned to the package for Lane’s benefit, turning it over in his hand. The black ribbon coils between his fingers, a seam of memory. He sets it on the workbench, careful not to crush the leaves.

“I’m glad he left,” Lane says. “For him.”

“Me too,” I admit, and it’s the first time I say it without guilt. “It doesn’t feel as empty as I thought it would.”

Lane grunts, then stands. He towers over the seed trays, over me, but the effect is less intimidation and more gravity—like being drawn into the orbit of something heavy and constant. He reaches for my hand, tugs me out into the spring sun.

We walk the perimeter of the house, boots sucking at thesaturated ground. The air is all mud and promise, sharp with the ammonia bite of new shoots and the funk of last year’s leaves decaying in place. Lane leads me to the old flowerbeds on the west side, where the snow has finally relented and the soil is black and cold as coffee.

He kneels, brushes aside a mat of dead grass, and reveals a scatter of crocus heads, so bright they look radioactive against the earth. Purple, yellow, white—the first color in months.

“Cleared this patch last winter,” Lane says. “Didn’t think they’d come back.”

I crouch beside him. “Nothing kills them,” I say, though I mean it as a compliment.

He grins, broad and sheepish, then picks a stray crocus and tucks it behind my ear. “Even poison ground can grow something beautiful,” he says, and the line is so perfect I almost laugh.

I nudge his shoulder. “Who taught you to say shit like that?”

He shrugs, unbothered. “It’s true.”

I kiss him, and he kisses back.

There is a sense of waiting, but it’s not the anxious, teeth-gritted waiting of winter. It’s patient, almost luxurious—the sense that something is coming, and this time it might be good.

I think of Larkin in Paris, or wherever he’s decided to haunt; I think of the house, and Whitby, and all the ghosts that used to crowd the corners. I think of Lane, solid at my side, content to let things be.

The house looks back at us, windows shining, roofline straight and true for the first time in memory. It doesn’t feel like a trap anymore, or a sentence. It feels like a beginning.

Lane rests his chin on top of my head. “Should we go inside?”

“In a minute,” I say, and we stay, letting the spring get a little closer, the thaw a little deeper, before we let the day end.

This is enough, for now.