SHE WAS KNEELING IN the rose garden, kneeling in the dust. Chris watched her from the edge of his bed, where the misleading early morning chill made a slow sweep over his body. Carmen’s tawny skin, tawny shorts and shirt blended in with the earth and brush of Sugarbush, and only the dark shine of her hair stood out against the muted colors of the yard. The sun lit up her hands and the white-tipped vermilion roses that had always been her favorites. She knelt near the one I leggy rosebush at the center of the garden. Those bushes farthest from her were dead and crumbling; those closer, still clinging to life, still showing some green in their stems.
Next to her was a beige bucket, so close in color to the earth that, until she picked it up, Chris hadn’t realized it was there. She poured water over the ground around the rosebush. Her gray water, he was certain. Carmen, breaking the law to save this one pinch of color in her yard.
The sleeves of her blouse were rolled up; she didn’t know anyone was watching. From this distance, though, Chris couldn’t see the scars. Even now, certain images from that long-ago morning remained vivid in his memory: the swirling pattern of blood on the floor and walls of the bathroom she had decorated entirely in white; the sharp precision with which she’d opened her veins. He’d pressed the thick white terry towels to her arms, pressed as hard as he could until his own arms shook with the effort, and the ambulance siren neared. They took her away, leaving him crying and shaking and sick, and wondering how, in such a short span of time, such a mere heartbeat, they had gone from happiness to the total destruction of a marriage they had both treasured.
Carmen stood up, leaning over to smell the fullest rose, straightening once again. She looked to either side of her, to all she’d lost, and she seemed to sag, her shoulders drooping. Reaching for the bucket, lifting it, seemed almost too much effort for her.
“Hang in there, Carmen,” he said softly to himself.
He watched her until she disappeared once again inside the house. Then he took a shower, saving his own gray water in a large earthenware bowl he found in the kitchen. And once Carmen had left for work, he carried the water outside and gave it to her vermilion roses.