Where Lilacs Still Bloom by Jane Kirkpatrick Page A

him through the open window. No need to rile those bovines any more than they were.
    “Not our cows,” Frank said as he pulled on his pants and slipped the suspenders over his bare shoulders. “They’re on the Bottoms where they belong.” He peered into the dawn. “Not our horses either.”
    “Horses?” Our neighbors had horses. My brother, Emil, living next-door, he had horses. I headed down the stairs, grabbing a broom from the kitchen before scampering out the door. Frank followed with a lantern, and I guessed he had bare feet just as I did, the wet grass matting at my toes and swishing against my nightdress. I couldn’t see them but could hear the thundering hooves. Or it might have been my heart wondering when they’d come out of the darkness toward me, rush right over me. Horses could do that in their confusion.
    Where are they? The lilac nursery!
    “Frank, try to push them away from the lilacs!”
    “I don’t see them,” he shouted back.
    How many were there? Three? Five? A dozen? The earth shook.
    Where had they come from? “Hayah!” I shouted when Frank’s lantern cast a quick light across what looked to be a sorrel’s back. They headed to the nursery! “Push them out, Frank! They’ll destroy the Lemoine!”
    The sound and the smell of them swished by as they galloped toward my brother’s home, but the herd kept going, so I don’t think they were Emil’s. I hoped they weren’t, because I’d be giving him choice words if he’d failed to keep his barn door closed.
    “Maybe they bypassed it.” Frank’s breath came in short gasps. He held his lantern high as he approached. I knew what he was talking about.
    I hopped through the tall grass onto the path, tears already forming. All that work …
    “No. Look.”
    Frank set the lantern down beside the Lemoine where I knelt.
    “Look what they’ve done. Just look.”
    “What?” Frank said. “I can’t see well enough.”
    But I could. The horses had destroyed two more Lemoine lilacs, the roots ground into nothingness by their massive hooves. “They’re gone. Two more French lilacs dead, and dozens of starts trampled too.”
    “We’ll see if we can salvage them, Huldie. Don’t cry now. Don’t fret. Things will look better in the morning.”
    I held my head in my hands. “Frank. Three. That’s all that’s left.” I lifted the oblong metal labels that marked the survivors: Mme Casimir Périer (Lemoine, 1884), a beautiful double white; President Grévy (Lemoine, 1886), a double blue; and a splendid purple labeled Andenken an Ludwig Späth (Späth, 1883) made up the triumvirate. All that was left.
    “I’m not sure I can do anything with three.” I’d wondered if I could do anything with fifteen, let alone seven, then five. But three?
    “Now, now, I submit that these are three more than you had two years ago at this time,” Frank said. “All is not lost. You’ve already cross-pollinated a few from the others, the wrecked ones.”
    “Not enough to even notice.” I shook my head. “All I can introduce as new now are these three. I so wanted to see a creamy white with many blossoms in my lifetime, Frank. And now … seven years for a bloom after I’ve crossbred …”
    “You’ll keep busy.” Frank patted my shoulder. “Waiting isn’t done alone. There’ll be work to do. The time will fly, you’ll see. Right now, there’s the wedding. Think about that.” All I cared about was my lilacs and how I hadn’t saved them.
    Frank was right, of course. That Sunday I thanked the Lord for saving me three—Frank called them my Magical Three—and I asked for patience. It’s what I would need to produce the bloom I imagined in my heart. I could envision a sea of white each spring. I’d just have to be patient in my crossbreeding and learn better how to wait. And I’d fence in the nursery areas. I ought to have done that before.
    “Not sure asking for patience was a good idea,” Frank said after I told him what I’d prayed