Goines On: Seeing the dahlia

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Mrs. Goines asked Goines whether he’d seen the dahlia. He took a couple of steps toward the back door to look out. But she said, “Here, in the vase.” Goines had walked right past the vase, which was sitting on the stand to the left of the sink’s counter. “Yes,” he said, “I’d noticed it.” And he had noticed it, but now he saw how beautiful it was and realized that he must take a photograph, which he made a mental note to do later.

    She had never said anything about his pulling up one of her dahlia plants – as though it were a weed – and she still said nothing about it now. Had she forgotten how many she had planted? Good for him if she had. But if she hadn’t forgotten and was quite aware of what he had done— Hmm, that was good too, good that she wasn’t recriminating him for it.
    But Goines himself very much remembered how many dahlia plants there had been. He remembered every time he looked out at the one remaining plant of beautiful yellow dahlias at the back fence, how lonely they looked with their sister plant gone. And every time he looked, he felt the cold embrace of a deep sadness.

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