I have a garden.  That's unusual enough here in the city; what really sets it apart is the high brick walls which surround it, and the trains which rumble and squeak by just behind it.  The garden is what I first fell in love with about this place, and where I spent most of my time in the preceding two summers.   I tended lilies and herbs, drank wine and read books while settled in a comfortable chair, chatted with friends, only pausing when a particularly loud train went by. 

I also fell in love there, with a man who wasn't my husband.  The first time I kissed him was in the alley leading to the garden, intoxicated with wine and the midsummer night.  Later, we'd kiss there again - drenched in moonlight, champagne-fizzy and blasted by just how high the flames of us leapt, how bright those sparkling explosions could be, pressed against the brick and ivy.   We'd just come from a three-mile walk to my house, and I felt I would die if I couldn't have him.  I told him that if circumstances were different, I'd be head over heels for him; he replied that he was for me.  

The garden was also where I told him, months later, that I couldn't see him anymore, cursing myself to hell and back even as I did so.  That night, I cooked a roast chicken dinner for a dozen people and drank nearly two bottles of champagne while I did so - the very antithesis of a celebration.  I left my own dinner party early to go to bed, and woke up, brutally, twice: first, as I parted ways with the champagne and what little food I'd managed to choke down, and second, hours and hours later, as my sobs woke me in the dead of night. 

 Now I almost never go down the porch steps to be in my garden, though the weather has been temperate enough for some time now.   It's full of last autumn's dead scraps, trash, and weeds.  Some of the lilies and herbs struggle through, but I can't bring myself to clear it all out and start anew.  The hurt is still too fresh, even after almost two years, and my once-beloved garden is haunted by memories both delightful and dangerous.  

So I sit on the porch above and read; the weather has begun to turn here, and I can enjoy a glass of wine and a good book  and listen to the trains go by.  I just can't take those nine steps, can't go back to that place or that time.  It's a hard trade, but one I'm willing to make just now.