The Garden We Never Planted

My darling Eleanor,

Tomorrow is the day. We’ve been told to write letters to be held and delivered — just in case. I hate that phrase. I hate the careful way the officers say it, as if the words themselves might wound us.

But I am writing this because there is so much I never said, and I will not let silence be my legacy.

Do you remember the garden we planned? The one with the rose arbor and the little bench where we would sit when we were old? I think about it constantly. I have sketched it a hundred times in the margins of my maps. In my mind, the roses are always in bloom, and you are wearing that blue dress, the one that matches your eyes.

We have been married for six years, and I love you more now than the day we stood in that tiny registry office. I thought I understood love then. I was a fool. Love is not the wedding day; it is the thousand ordinary mornings after. It is the way you take your tea, the sound of your footsteps on the stairs, the warmth of your hand in mine under the blankets.

If I don’t come home, build that garden anyway. Plant roses. Sit on the bench. And when the wind carries the scent of them, know that I am there with you.

I have to go now. The engines are starting.

Yours always, Tom