The Glitter Garden

One sweet summer afternoon, Aunt Vi summoned us to her house to help her plant a flower garden.

Flowers? Nana said doubtfully, Viola? But she packed us a hasty lunch and sent us off willingly enough. It was baking day and I suspect she was glad not to have us underfoot.

Aunt Vi and Uncle Mel lived in a tidy, two story clapboard house at the top of Schoolhouse Road, the best feature of which was the glassed in front porch. It had good light for Uncle Mel's on again, off again painting hobby and Aunt Vi's multiple knitting projects and the two liked to sit and watch the world go by, drinking spiced cider in a companionable silence or working on the current jigaw puzzle. They were timid people, Vi and Mel - childless and a little introverted - Vi's natural shyness made it hard for her to make friends and Mel had a cruel stutter which had taught him to avoid them, but they were good and decent people who liked the privacy and slow pace of the island. The only thing either had ever been able to grow was ivy - it overflowed from a dozen or so flower pots around the house - and one memorable plant had pretty much taken over the porch. It hung from a hook in a sunny corner and had weaved and wound its way up, down and over the windows on all sides. When it took to criss crossing the actual ceiling and twining about the overhead light fixture, Aunt Vi had realized there was no stopping it and after some pondering, had decided to name it Constance.

Flowers, however, were what my grandmother called an entirely different kettle of fish and Vi's previous efforts had been what you could charitably call less than successful. Even the wildflowers that bordered the back edge of the property had, for no apparent reason, withered and died but Aunt Vi could be tenacious when she had a mind to and as it turned out, we'd underestimated her. Uncle Mel had painstakingly cleared the ground and our instructions were to dig a shallow sort of trench all along the side of the house that was visible from the road.

Keep it straight and narrow, Aunt Vi said primly, I can't abide a crooked garden.

And so we dug. And dug. All that afternoon with the sun on our backs and the smell of freshly turned earth in our noses, we dug. Aunt Vi played Jim Reeves records from the front porch and Uncle Mel set up his easel on the back deck and happily set about painting a new landscape of the cove. At the end of the day, we each got a shiny new quarter for our labor.

I'll be puttin' in the flowers directly after supper, Vi told us as we washed up, You did a right smart job, girls.

It was a day or so later when Nana was driving us to the post office that we saw the finished garden, a bright blaze of color that fairly shrieked to be noticed. There were roses and daisies and daffodils and sunflowers, all neatly in a row and enclosed by a miniature white picket fence. My grandmother slowed the old Lincoln with a puzzled look on her face, peered at the garden and then peered some more. Then she began to laugh, she rocked with it until she could hardly speak.

Oh, Viola! she wheezed, I'll be damned if you haven't done yourself proud!

She pulled the old town car into the driveway and slipped it into park.

Girls, she said as we innocently tumbled out, Who but your Aunt Vi would think of a plastic flower garden?

The flowers waved in the afternoon breeze, a riot of color, too real to be genuine but shining in the sunlight. Each rose and daisy and daffodil and sunflower, each leaf so bright and so perfect they nearly hurt your eyes.

Plastic or not, it was - in its own way - a thing of beauty, creativity, and endurance.

Aunt Vi emerged from the kitchen, smiling and carrying a long necked watering can.

Come sit a spell, Alice, she called cheerfully, I'll be there directly after I water the garden!

Now this, Nana said under her breath but not at all unkindly, should be somethin' to see.


We watched curiously as she walked to the garden and carefully tipped the watering can over the individual flowers, showering them with a fine spray of silver glitter until the whole flower bed glistened with tiny little sparkles of diamonds. My grandmother, the least fanciful woman I knew, gave her old friend a hug and a huge smile.

It's an uncommon pretty garden, Vi, she said quietly, You were clever to think of the glitter.

Ain't like they's gon' grow, now is it, Aunt Vi said with an uncharacteristic edge to her voice, Reckon water wouldn't done no good.

I 'spect not, Nana agreed, I jist thought......

That mebbe I weren't smart enough to know the diff'rence? Vi said tartly, I declare, Alice, sometimes I think you ain't got a lick of imagination!

I reckon you've got enough for both of us, my grandmother protested and Aunt Vi relented immediately.

Well, they ain't gon' die and they ain't gon' need prunin' or feedin' or sun and ain't nobody got to like'em 'cept me. More'n I kin say for most things, I reckon.

Indeed it was and on more than one moonlit night that summer, more than one passerby stopped to look at the glitter garden. Some shook their heads, some laughed, some thought it was a fine example of Aunt Vi being her usual off center self, some thought it was just plain silly. But one or two stood on the road and for a few precious seconds - although they never said so - saw exactly what Vi saw and were all the better for it.