Year of Wonders

by Geraldine Brooks

The garden had been part of our village for as long as I could remember. I had always assumed that Mem planted it, but once, when I had said something about that to Anys, she had mocked me for my ignorance. “This garden, as any fool could see, was old before Mem Gowdie was even thought of.” She had run her hand along the bough of an espaliered plum, and I saw that, of course, the tree, with its gnarled and knotty trunk, was ancient. “We do not even know the name of the wise woman who first laid out these beds, but the garden thrived here long before we came to tend it, and it will go on long after we depart. My aunt and I are just the latest in a long line of women who have been charged with its care.”

And so, as generally happens, those who have most give least, and those with less somehow make shrift to share.

breeze. Once, walking through the hazy mist of bluebells, I was pierced by a memory: “This gladdened me once.” And for a moment, I stopped, and paused, and tried to grasp that sentiment. As