Raymond Brunell // The Peace Gardens // Fiction
The Peace Gardens The rosemary sounds like static when it’s angry—seventeen years of Margaret Chen’s voice, sharp with accusations about ungrateful children and wasted piano lessons. I planted it beside the sage three days ago—sage that hums with the same woman’s whispered apologies to empty rooms. Now, the two are making a new sound, something that aches in my teeth, like biting into ice cream. I am the head gardener here. My days are spent deadheading roses, but my real work is with memory—the kind that grows in soil, clings to roots, and hums beneath the surface. Most people laugh when I say plants remember. Margaret’s children don’t. They visit every week, never together. David arrives first—Wednesdays at 10:17, with the battered watering can. He kneels beside the rosemary, palm pressed to the earth. The plant’s leaves shiver with static. “Why won’t you call? Your sister misses—” He pulls back, startled, as if a faint vibration passed from stem to skin. He’s always so close to lett...
