She didn't notice my presence at all, not even when I was practically on top of her. She was working at an almost frenetic pace as she ripped weeds and tossed them into a small bucket. She didn't have on any gloves, so her hands were covered in dirt.
"Joli—" I began. Jolene jumped, knocking over the bucket of weeds.
"Jesus!" she cried as she clutched her chest.
Dirt marred her face and her hair was all over the place. I wondered how long she’d been at the gardening and if doing it at the crack of dawn was a normal thing for her. My gut was telling me it wasn't.
I was about to make a crack about how I'd been referred to as God repeatedly the night before, but the expression on her face had me keeping quiet. I knelt down to help her put the weeds back in the bucket.
"Sorry," she murmured. She seemed to be working extra hard to not look me in the eye.
"I'm the one who should be apologizing," I said. "I didn't mean to frighten you."
She didn't respond and still refused to look at me. I'd had enough of these types of encounters to know when it was time to go, but when I opened my mouth to say as much, I ended up snapping it shut again. Instead, I reached out with my finger to force her chin up so she had no choice but to look at me. Her eyes were filled with uncertainty and maybe even a little fear. I held her gaze for a moment, then murmured, "Good morning." I took a risk and kissed her softly. She was stiff for a moment, but then she sighed and kissed me back.
When I broke the contact between us, she dropped her forehead to my chest. "Morning," she said, her voice sounding a little less uneven.
I dropped a kiss to the top of her head. I held her like that for a moment. When she finally sat up, I was pleased that she looked me in the eye. "How did you sleep?" she asked.
"The sleeping part was fine, it was the waking up alone bit that kind of sucked," I admitted.
I could see the surprise in her eyes. She glanced at her garden and then said, "They strangle everything, you know?" She motioned to the weeds.
There was something in the way that she said the words that was off, but I didn't comment on it. Instead I said, "Do you want some help?"
I expected her to say no, to tell me to go back inside and go back to bed, or maybe even to hint that it was time for me to go. So I was surprised when she nodded and handed me the spade she'd been using to dig up the weeds.
"I've never actually done this," I admitted.
She smiled at that and then leaned in and took my hands to show me how to use the spade. We worked in silence for several minutes, the only conversation occurring when I needed to know what was a weed and what was a flower. I spent more time studying her than paying attention to what I was doing. She seemed more relaxed, but there was still a certain amount of desperation to her movements.
"Did you do all this?" I asked when I motioned to the expansive flowerbeds that took up a good chunk of the backyard.
"Yeah. My mom always thought it was a waste, but Jackson liked it, and Cameron loves to help me plant bulbs and stuff. I think it's just digging in the dirt that he likes so much, but I'll take it. I can’t offer him horses and fishing, but giving him a reason to get dirty on purpose gives me cool points, I guess."
"Why does your mom think the flowers are a waste?" I asked.
She was quiet for so long that I didn't expect her to answer. When she did, she kept her eyes on her work, which spoke volumes in itself. "She always thought the flowers didn't serve any purpose except to take me away from what I should've been doing."
"And what was that?"
"Being a wife and mother. Keeping a clean house, getting dinner on the table for my husband, taking care of my child." There was such sadness in her voice that I wanted to reach over and touch her. But at the same time, I wanted her to keep talking. We might've already become experts in each other's bodies, but I knew next to nothing about Jolene. That was the way hookups were supposed to go, but I'd already accepted that this wasn't the typical hookup. I just wasn’t allowing myself to think about what it actually was.
"One of those," I observed. I saw her glance at me, so I added, "Stuck in time."