Start Again (Completed)

Chapter One

"I promise to love you, for better or for worse. In sickness and in health. For richer or poorer." He paused, his grey eyes staring at me and I almost thought he had forgotten the rest, that he needed the priest to repeat it, but he didn't.

"Most importantly, I promise to cherish every living moment you have with me, every breath, every smile and every tear, for without you, my life does not exist, for as long as we both live." he lifted my hands he was clasping, placing a kiss on my knuckles.

And I believed him.

"Sweety, you're going to hurt yourself."

The sun was hot.

It felt like my shoulders were peeling from under my thin white cotton shirt. I was sweating, my forehead was drenched like I had run a marathon, but I hadn't.

I was breathless, yet I hadn't moved more than a metre in the past sun. I sometimes forget how unforgiving the sun was out in the country.

"I'm fine." I said trying not to sound like I was panting, but I was. I felt like a dog that had it's tongue out, waiting for a bowl of water.

"Your dad can take care of this."

I looked up, my eyes squinting to make out my mother. She held out a water bottle and I grabbed the icy beverage gulping the entire bottle in seconds. My body wanted water no matter how much I drank, it wanted more.

"I'm used to it mum."

"Not at 30 honey, maybe back when you were a teenager." she smiled, crow's feet appearing at her eyes. "You're burning already." she reached out and touched my face, her hands were cold from holding the bottle and I welcomed the touch.

It was over thirty degrees out here in the middle of summer and it was only nine in the morning. I could not imagine what the sun would be like at noon.

Pulling out lavenders from the ground was harder than I remembered, back in the day I could do a whole line of planting before I needed a break. But now, oh well, I barely got ten out.

Mum was right, when is she ever not? But it had been ten years and I didn't have the same touch as I did back there.

"You're going to get sunburnt."

"That's alright." I shrugged, I had nowhere to go for anyone to see the uneven tan that would be caused by my wheat hat that had gaps in it. I wiped the sweat off my forehead handing her the bottle back.

"Well...get back inside soon. I'll dish up food and Andy is coming to help dad remove all the roots anyway. We can get the new plantation in soon."

I nodded. I waited till mum walked back, slightly limping from her sore foot, before I looked back at the lavenders.

Dad liked to pull out the dry ones and replant them rather than waste water. He said water was precious. It also was efficient to do this at the start of every season, the lavenders might not be ready for that season but for the next one so at all times there were still more than half the crop ready for the markets.

Lavenders weren't their main source of income, with the numerous cows and milk they produced, this was just a pastime to keep my nearly retired parents busy.

I crouched on the ground, somehow I was still out of breath but I kept pulling at the flowers trying to keep my fingers and mind busy. I liked being distracted. I liked to focus on the way to breathe, the way my hands had to curl around the bottom of the lavender stalks that were dry and tug, one two three, tug again. Keep tugging till they come loose.