Page 162 of Shhh…It’s A Killer Story

I smiled to myself before reading over the post one final time. Maybe I should remove the cemetery requirement. No. That one was important. I clicked Post. The screen refreshed. Done.

"Good," I murmured, folding my hands with quiet satisfaction.

"At least now the universe knows I'm available."

Gerald buried his face in his tiny ceramic hands.

"We're all going to prison."

"I don't think prison has gardens."

Frank shrugged.

"They probably have accountants."

Gerald whimpered.

That settled it, I closed the laptop. The morning finally remembered how to be kind.

Thin ribbons of sunlight slipped through the towering pines, breaking the fog into floating pieces of gold that drifted lazily above the garden beds. Everything smelled wonderfully alive. Wet earth. Pine needles. Rose. The faint sweetness of the climbing roses curling around the fence I'd spent three entire Saturdays convincing to behave.

Gardening is remarkably therapeutic. People assume it's because you're nurturing life. Personally, I think it's because dirt never asks invasive questions, it never asks why you still jump when someone raises their voice, it never asks why every cupboard in your kitchen is alphabetized and it certainly never asks why your pantry contains enough flour to survive an economic collapse. The soil simply accepts you exactly as you are.

Which is terribly considerate of it.

I knelt beside the herb bed; my gloves already stained a respectable shade of brown as I loosened the earth around the rosemary bushes. My little hand trowel scraped gently through the damp soil while the morning birds argued overhead about absolutely nothing of importance.

Snip...

Snip...

The pruning shears clicked through a stubborn stem.

My thoughts, unfortunately, refused to stay in the garden. They wandered straight back to the post I'd written this morning.

Looking for psycho friends.

Perhaps "psycho" had been too strong, maybe I should've written...

Emotionally unconventional women with excellent communication skills.

No. That sounded like a support group, I wasn't looking for healing. I was looking for someone who wouldn't call the police because I alphabetized my spices by emotional importance instead of cuisine. There’s a difference, a very important one. Frank would understand. Gerald would probably file paperwork.

Speaking of…

"I still think 'psycho' was a poor choice of wording," Gerald called from somewhere near the porch rail.

I sighed dramatically without looking up.

"You think breathing is a poor choice of wording."

"It lacks professionalism."

Frank's ceramic voice drifted from the flower bed.

"I liked it."

"Of course you liked it."