By Jess Welker

A man and woman bought a plot of land and built a cottage and greenhouse. The rest of their earth they cultivated to full, flamboyant, leafy life, pendent with edible gems. Some tomatoes ballooned to be nearly as large as watermelons. Others reminded one of grapes or ground cherries. Some grew ridges like pumpkins. Others tapered like peppers or bulged like gourds. Some were solid colored; others were striped. They were orange and purple and black and green and yellow and pink.

Only the fairies peeping in at the windows overheard the couple simmering and spitting and finally boiling over one night.

“You know the red tomatoes are my favorite,” the man accused, spreading seeds to dry and noticing fewer reds than last year.

“You know the red ones are my least favorite,” his wife retorted, gloating as she spread out her own seeds beside his.

Their argument surged up like weeds, soon having nothing to do with vegetables and everything to do with the other gardener’s flaws after twenty years of marriage. But instead of frosting over into a wintry silence, the woman, spying the last red tomato, seized it and took a smacking bite. Juices sprayed the man’s astonied face.

The woman held out the mangled fruit to him. “Eat up. It’s your favorite, isn’t it?”

He snatched it from her and stuffed it into his mouth. As he stormed outside and slammed the door, fairies darted out of the way.

In the following days, the woman continued toiling. When the seeds dried, she collected scraps of paper and folded them into little packets. A recipe for tomato pancakes enveloped the orange seeds, a design for the year’s planting enclosed the ridged seeds, and a letter from her mother housed the striped seeds. She hastily stuffed the red seeds into a paper covered with her husband’s silly scrawlings, which she disdained to read. Another paper with her attempt at poetry would no doubt impress her future self next spring when she pulled out the purple seeds.

Spring returned, and she planted every color of tomato but red. Fairies flitted and fluttered around her as she crawled in the dirt. They pointed at the cottage where her co-laborer should have been.

She laughed and tossed her hair. “Once he puts down roots in a place, he’s loath to leave it. I give him another month before he tires of the world. I’ll decide then if I want him.”

But the woman preserved that year’s seed harvest alone.

As time passed, the woman’s spite turned to doubt. Her husband was a homebody, not an explorer. What if bandits had killed him? What if he’d lost his way and starved to death? What if he’d sunk on a questionable ship?

Each spring, she fingered the packet of red seeds, the only red seeds that existed for miles. She had to preserve them for her husband’s return so they could plant them together. She would wait for him.

Sometimes, at the height of the harvest, she looked up from the constant pruning and trimming, sure that she felt his presence. But her gaze landed on a hopeful neighbor with an empty basket or on a pair of fairies, struggling to sneak away with a heavy plum tomato.

But there eventually came the spring that the woman, resigned to her husband’s death, poured half of the red seeds into her palm. If they proved still viable, she would gift the other half to a neighbor and quit gardening. Over the years, she had shrunk, wrinkled, and faded like an overripe vegetable. She used a cane to steady herself on the uneven stone garden paths and sometimes struggled to get to her feet from the soft soil.

On a hot summer’s day, she carefully released the first red tomato from its vine and cradled its plumpness in both hands. She brought it to her face and breathed in its sunshiny scent. Today, more than ever, she felt her husband’s presence.

Leaves rustled behind her. The woman whirled to see a fairy who had crashed mid-flight, seemingly awestruck by the sight of the bright crimson fruit.

The gardener lamented the spite that had engendered the fairy’s surprise. She knelt and placed the tomato on the ground. “Taste it. Tell your friends.” The fairy paced around the tomato and then flew off with an armful of dripping tomato pulp, wings whirring with the news.

The woman raised her gaze and noticed an old man had watched the exchange. As he approached, she recognized him in spite of his overgrown beard and body that sagged like a trellis damaged in a storm.

“You’ve finally forgiven me,” he said.

The woman hobbled over, staring in astonishment at her husband. “Finally? I forgave you years ago. Can you forgive me?”

“I did years ago, as well. But why wait so long to plant the red tomatoes?”

“I was waiting for you. Why did you wait so long to return?”

“I came back every year, as my note said I would.”

“Note?”

The man shuffled to the greenhouse and ducked inside. He shifted a stack of pots and laid his hand on the table. “I came back the next morning and left it right here.”

Hopelessly the woman lifted a trowel. “The fairies must have hidden it.” Her gaze landed on the seed box, and she smiled. She opened the lid and pulled out the packet with the remaining red seeds. “We will plant a few next year, together, all red.”

The man took the yellowed packet and unfolded it, heedless of the spilling seeds. He handed the scrap of paper to his wife with the faded ink facing up.

I need time. I know we have much to work on. I hope to tend the garden together again. When you are ready to see me, plant red tomatoes. I’ll return at harvest. If there are no red, I’ll know you haven’t forgiven me and will stay away another year.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jess Welker grew up with regular library visits and overflowing book baskets. After stints as a library assistant reshelving books and as a freelance writer producing marketing copy, Jess now teaches literature and writing to high school students. Her current reading preferences vacillate between the inevitable despair of Greek tragedy and the happy forevers of fairy tales.

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