Rosemary and Rue | Will of Wisp 'neath the Wistful Tree

I wonder what might have been if we had never encountered each other again, or if Father had never separated us back then.

Photo by Nataliya Melnychuk on Unsplash

They started to see each other more often, drifting into a wonted domesticity - that mirrored depth and stillness found in long-term couples, a shared, internal peace that didn't need many words to be understood.

In that quietude, they slipped into their private language. It was an intimate shorthand of glances and subtle nuances.

They read each other's thoughts, moods, and needs. It was a clarity that had survived the years between them. Whatever their souls were made of, his and hers were made similarly.

He knew her better than she knew herself—the temperament, the way her moods shifted like the weather, and those hidden vulnerabilities she tried so hard to hide. He knew them all.

In this space, she was finally able to breathe; there was no need to manage her attributes nor to hide her flaws; she could be herself, just as she is.

In his presence, they were together, and she forgot the rest.

Nesting in one another's company. He was the steady companion she had lacked. They filled their long, hushed afternoons with nothing more than the turning of pages and the soft clink of teacups. Idling back by the brook until the hours faded away.

On other days, the noons were spent ’neath the blooming trees in the park. Spring wafted through the air, claiming the season for her own. Her touch turned the cold tension into a sigh, and the view into a painting. Above them, the branches shed a constant, gentle shower of pink and white.

Everything was bathed in an impressionistic, diffused radiance; the sunshine felt like a gentle, hazy dream, straight out of a Monet.

They talked about everything and nothing. Whether it was weighty topics or passing mundane observations, the subjects just drifted in and out - scattering like sakura fubuki.

Like the petals. Drifting. Wafting. Fleeting.

Clearly, the subject itself mattered less. Their lunch stretched for hours - time seemed to lose its teeth.

He didn't just listen. He was attuned to her. Wholly.

When her husband vanished for days and she was left to languish, ailing, Duroy would appear, leaving a thermos of herbal tea on her porch—a quiet, certain token of care.

Her husband acted as if she'd never been born, on her birthday. But Duroy - he arrived with a jūbako. A tiered, traditional lunch box holding an array of washoku.

He'd brought a feast - enough sashimi and rice to last the weekend, along with simmered meats, earthy mountain vegetables, and those hand-shaped sweets she loved. He had it ordered from that Japanese place downtown.

It all arrived as a quiet warmth, accompanied by her favorite Ichigo shortcake, with a single celebratory candle.

All the quiet, consistent little things—just by being there. Nothing that bellowed for attention, nothing like a performative grand production.

They were the slow thaw for the suffocating isolation she'd been frozen in for so long.

To her, they felt like divine pities - answers to her salt-streaked, whispered prayers - making the most bitter herbal remedies and the bitterest stretches of her life taste, if only for a moment, like sweet nectar.

Even during the hours they were apart, his frequent calls filled the hollow quiet of her day with his voice.

Small offerings began appearing at her door—wild berries in woven baskets, slices of Castella still warm. As the coldness receded, her skin flushed alive with breathing color; she lived for these moments, finding in them the only thing that kept the grey, mundane world at bay.

Before long, he wasn't a passing guest in her life anymore. He was her woollen swaddle blanket, keeping her warm. He became a habit for her - an essential.

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©Britt H.

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