Lilies and swirling vines down the side

The lilies came up early this year, the way they do after a hard frost, and I thought of you standing at the gate with your cap in your hands the morning you left. Mother has had the bed under the north wall dug twice now because the vine keeps finding its way beneath the stones. Father calls it a weed. I say it has more sense than either of us, following the light round the end of the barn and down toward the beck as if it had somewhere particular to be.

Mrs Hollis came up from the big house on Tuesday wanting cut stems for her daughter's wedding. I gave her the white ones from the open ground, pale as milk left on a sill, and kept back the grey-shaded ones that bloom in the shade of the alders and never look you straight in the face. She asked why I wouldn't sell her the lot. I told her those were for the wood's edge, where Dad's old scythe still hangs on its nail, and she laughed as though I'd said something daft.

Maybe I did. But last night I walked the vine's full length with the lantern, from the top of the wall where its curls go loose, past the water butt and the hen coop, all the way to the stile where the path disappears into the trees. Every swirl had a bloom on it by then, dark at the throat and fading at the edges as if someone had breathed on them.

I cut the largest and laid it on the stile post. This morning it was gone, and the vine had crept one hand's width further towards the water. I have stopped pulling it up. Come home when the evenings are long enough to finish what you started, and bring that cap. Mother will want to know you kept it.

Love, Ada