The Orchid - by Erica Wheadon
ISLAND | ONLINE ONLY
Your husband gives you an orchid for Valentine’s Day. Again. You don’t know why he bothers and tell him so. All you have to do is look after it, he shrugs, and you twist your mouth into a smile, place the pot on the corner of the deck next to the hammock and stare at it like you would a newborn baby that has been thrust on you. Gingerly touching its white and pink petals, you remember the vast hotel gardens in Singapore that you visited as a six-year-old. Orchids there seemed to thrive without much intervention, you think. Maybe it won’t be so bad.
It takes about four weeks for the first petal to fall. Panicking, you nudge it under an old pot. You’ve thrown out the little tab with the instructions, but you half fill a plastic jug with water from the outdoor tap and carefully pour it into the base, hoping to reverse the wilting. Soon after, a whole flower drops and then another, until all that is left is a naked, spindly stem.
---
By the time Easter comes around, you’ve met another man. The chill has set in and fireplaces roar to life; smoke forms a haze over the mountain. You have fallen deep into an emotional affair, which then morphs into a shape you feel powerless to resist. The orchid’s roots shrivel in their parched soil; sticky webs creep around the pot and up its brittle stem, catching the dirt that blows up the mountainside as you take hushed phone calls, tracing dusty circles around the pot with your big toe. You understand the anatomy of an affair; this knowledge has been imprinted on your cells. You apprenticed in the craft by cowering from your father, covering for your mother; secrecy a matter of survival. You know how to avoid questions or overcompensation, how to set up separate messaging systems, establish alibis and friendships in plain sight.
Two out of your three marriages began with affairs; this isn’t your first rodeo. The difference is that you are finally married to the love of your life. It does not stop you opening your front door and letting your lover’s rough lips push you back through it. You don’t want him, but he wants you; your compelling conversation, your shameless laughter, the allure you conjure as you pour affection like wine from a carafe. He drains it, then asks for more. It’s not adultery, you remind yourself afterwards. But guilt needles you like a record, bumping up against a scratch. Your high has deflated, and he reaches out, only to find you tearful and withdrawn. After many weeks, your now-lover, tired of this penduluming, convinces you that you’re polyamorous. The solution, he suggests, holding you firmly against his chest, is a consensual open marriage.
You stop crying.
---
In May, you fly to Bali with your husband. Orchids grow freely, flourishing in the humidity. You drink cocktails, float flowers in the pool, shape mosaics of petals on his skin and nudge him closer to acceptance. Perhaps monogamy is a man-made construct, he muses. Yes. YES, you reply.
Sauntering through the neighbourhoods of Ubud, you barter rupiah for bright sarongs and tiny earrings made of wood, feeling smug and free. A female long-tailed macaque attracts the attention of two males who are asserting themselves in a flat-footed dance, grey tails whipping as they claw at each other, pink faces contorted, baring teeth, batting away their opponent. A crowd gathers, and as phones are raised and bets are taken, you will the female monkey to spring for the nearby sanctuary fence. But as she crouches in the dirty carpark, staring at her knees, you realise that gravity, too, can be primal.
Your husband squeezes your hand and pulls you close.
You call your lover from the airport. I don’t think I can do this anymore. He hangs up on you cruelly.
---
June plunges you into darkness. You feel your own roots shrivel; your existence cursed. The memory of monkeys, of silks and bright petals fades as you claw at your fading calm. You cling to life. Cling to your lover; beg. You long for his easy seduction, the Catherine wheels that spun and fizzed whenever you touched; now dying away in half-hearted sparks.
You break men, your lover spits when he finally answers his phone. You are a breaker of men.
You rise again with the spring, but the orchid does not. By the time the summer storms come, your lover has gone. The dead flower spike endures the hammering rain, spewing soil and bark from its ceramic pot; remnants of web wrapped tightly around dead stems battered by the squall.
“By the time the summer storms come, your lover has gone. The dead flower spike endures the hammering rain, spewing soil and bark from its ceramic pot; remnants of web wrapped tightly around dead stems battered by the squall.”
---
A few years later, your husband presents you with another orchid. Don’t kill it this time, he laughs.
You promise you will try not to. But it isn’t long before you take flight, high on another whim; this time, a writer you met in Sydney. Your husband stands quietly in the corner of the bedroom and watches as you pull on a red skirt and brush your hair up into a high ponytail. Look after my orchid, you smile, zipping your bag closed. Look after it yourself, he replies.
A week later, you arrive home, shivering and catatonic. As always, he pulls the covers over your shoulders, strokes your hair and waits for reason to return.
You agree to see a doctor, who part-way through the consultation, stops scribbling, looks up and asks whether your husband knows about your entanglements. You assure him that neither of you keep secrets from each other.
He shakes his head. Your husband must be a saint.
It is lithium that finally plunges you into dormancy, and you sleepwalk through the next six months waiting for your circadian rhythms to click back into place.
---
Somewhere between the first orchid and the last, you’d met a woman on a whirlwind trip to the Midwest. You drank wine together in the front seat of her car, laughing the laugh of manic women. Lust took the form of pink hair and inked flesh and you were saturated in brilliant colours that thrummed and teased the edges of your brain. Later, you wish that you’d kissed her, and you think about this a lot.
You both scour Google Maps to find the halfway point between your impossible distance.
Hawaii you say, eyes shining.
You send each other photos of mountains, of green-stretched plains, cosy bures under star-spattered skies, waterfalls and cheesy rose-petal bedsheets. You imagine the taste of her sun-warmed skin, imagine sliding flower stems into her hair. Then you trace your finger across to the purchase button, where it lingers for a moment. There have been reports of a virus. It is probably nothing. It will be over by July, she assures you. Maybe August.
Then the world goes dark.
Soon there is nothing to do but wait.
You queue at the supermarket, go walking with your husband, stare into clear, black suburban skies. You wonder if you’ll ever see a plane again. She stops checking your messages, and you hers. Occasionally, you exchange perfunctory hellos, but your connection dwindles into obscurity. You find new recipes to try, binge TV shows. Your head rests comfortably in the crook of your husband’s neck, feeling the familiar warmth of him; your laughs sync and erupt in short bursts. You take your meds, faithfully, twice a day. You write. He reads. At nights there is nothing to do but sleep. You take up yoga. Plant tomatoes. Every morning you check their progress, ease into your routine. You stop checking Facebook. You stop counting days. You move your orchid to a light-filled corner of the room and, every Monday, you give it water – a third of a cup.
Quietly, you both lean towards the sun. ▼
If you liked this piece, please share it. And please consider donating or subscribing so that we can keep supporting writers and artists.