I rolled up the door of unit 63, my heart hammering, and the light did not fall on darkness at all, but on green. The whole unit was a garden under grow lights, rows of strange and beautiful plants, and one whole bench of cactus and night-blooming flowers, their pale blossoms open in the dim.
I stood in that doorway, breathing in the green, my dread turning to wonder.
Only came at night, the young man had said, and now I understood, because the flowers my Bill loved most were night-bloomers, cereus and moonflower and evening primrose, blossoms that only open after dark, so the only time to see them bloom was at night.
The quiet man who kept to himself had been a secret gardener of the night, coaxing rare flowers that bloom only in darkness, out here where he could sit and watch them open, petal by petal, in the small hours.
His notebooks were a gardeners loving logs. Which flower bloomed which night. How long the great cereus took to open. Sixteen years of a man keeping vigil over blossoms that unfurl only in the dark and are gone by dawn.
His letter read: Old girl, I know it is a peculiar hobby. But years ago I read about the night-blooming cereus, that flowers but one night a year, and I had to see it. Then I was hooked. These flowers only open in the dark, so I come at night to watch them. It is the most peaceful thing I know. I always meant to bring you to see the cereus bloom, it is like nothing on this earth. I am sorry I kept putting it off. When it opens next, old girl, come and watch it for me. Love, Bill.
I wept among my husbands night flowers, the secret beauty he tended in the dark.
Only at night, because that is when his flowers lived. My Bill had been keeping company with blossoms that bloom for no one, out of pure love of their fleeting beauty.
I kept the garden going, learning from his notes. And when the great cereus set its bud that summer, I did what he asked. I came at night, and I sat in the dark, and I watched that impossible white flower open slowly, gloriously, filling the whole unit with its perfume, exactly as he described.
I was not alone. I invited our children and grandchildren, and we all watched it bloom together, at midnight, and I told them this was their granddaddys secret joy.
I donated much of his collection to a botanical garden, where a night-blooming greenhouse now bears his name, so others can watch these miracles open in the dark.
My daughter did not know why I drove across town. Now she knows her daddy was a gardener of the night. Only at night, because that is when his flowers woke. He tended beauty that blooms in darkness. Now we watch it bloom for him, every summer, at midnight, and we think of the quiet man who loved the dark for its secret flowers.