She'd always been the cautious one, the one who thought things out. He, on the other hand was being reckless in this as he was in most things. She watched, with some disdain, as we jumped excitedly from seed package to seed package. He was looking at the fronts, the colourful pictures of cabbage, or sunflowers, or pansies, without stopping to read the backs of the packages. He didn't realize the importance of the months they were best planted in, what plants they went next to, or even how much each strain cost.
    "Hon," she started, "Do we need fertilizer, or vermiculite, or..."
    "Don't worry about it, we don' t need that shit, they'll grow."
    "Bu the back of this says they need this Greenco fertilizer stuff twice monthly and... "
    "They just put that on there because it's the same company, see?" he said, pointing at the Greenco logo on the front of the seed packet, "They're just trying to make a buck like everyone else."
    "But how will the plants get enough, you know, nutrition and stuff if we don't feed them?"
    "You see plants growing outside, right? Between the pavement cracks and everything, where people walk on them?"
    "Yeah, but..."
    "See, they don't get fancy fertilizer and soils and crap, right? They get stepped on, and only watered when the sky feels like it. And they make it just fine."
    "But that's different..."    
    "How?" he interrupted, and went after a pack of Sunshine Petunias.
    "Well, they're weeds, they're stronger and.."    
    "Ok, so we won't actually walk on them, okay? But we don't need that fertilizer stuff. If you're really worried, we can get it to make you happy, but I'm telling you we don't need it." he said rather curtly and put back the petunias, quickly and in the wrong place, like it was them he was arguing with. He tried to pretend like he didn't care, and asked her if she wanted some Snapdragon Plum Blossoms, or not.
    After everything had been brought in from the truck, they had passed a quiet night at home. She  had shown him several internet references that endorsed the use of fertilizers, but he still wouldn't budge on the issue, growing more rigid the more she pushed.
    "I just think that we should ensure that our garden gets the best care". she said, as if she was on a commercial for the stuff.
    "And I just think that plants have been growing since before fertilizer existed. Besides, keep reading, you use to much of that stuff, and you'll just burn the plants and kill 'em anyway."
    She had tried to sit him down to plan the layout, but to no avail. Early the next morning, they had an uneventful, if not tense, breakfast, except for when she had to run to the store to get more cream. She absolutely needed cream for her coffee, she had explained to him, as if he hadn't learned in the four years they'd lived together, that she did indeed always need cream in her coffee. He'd been inconvenienced by this idiosyncrasy of hers enough times to remember.

    After breakfast, they began to work the soil in the backyard, the spot where they had decided to make this little garden. More accurately, he began to work the soil as she prattled on. She had read in some girl-magazine that growing a garden together was a great way to bond, and share something without the real responsibility of a pet or, God forbid, a child. She thought it was a perfect way to work on their relationship without risking too much. She'd tried to sit him down to plan the layout of the garden, she reminded him, but he just laid in to the soil. He had begun planting without her, with absolutely no regard to depth not to mention the recommended distance between the seeds, his slipshod rows marked only by whichever empty seed packets the wind hadn't blown away.

    "How will we know what's planted where? I don't think either of us will be able to remember what we planted where."
    "We'll know when it comes up. If it's a carrot, we planted carrots, if it's a..." he paused, and looked at a seed package, throw on the lawn behind him,"    "... a Snow Pea Snow Bird... we'll know it's a Snow Pea Snow Bird. They look different. It'll be like a surprise!" he said, trying to coax a smile out of her.
    "But, some need different watering, and different fertilizing, and..."
    "Did you end up getting fertilizer? I didn't see you get it..." he asked, somewhat accusingly.
    "Well, I saw it at the store when I was getting the cream, the store had it right up front, so I figured, it can't hurt, can it?"
    "Fine. They're all planted, I don't know where each is, but you can fertilize them just the same. Don't blame me if the vegetables come out tasting funny because of the chemicals you're throwing at them. And don't use too much of that shit. You'll burn 'em, and they'll die."
    "Oh, come on, all the farms use fertilizer and pesticides, it won't make them taste funny. It's not the same kind of fertilizer they had way back when. It's new stuff that'll just help them grow, just like the package says it will." she said confidently, and began to scoop some of the bright blue stuff into her  Swedish-inspired watering can.
    "Well, I'm going to head in, work on that report I was talking about, and..."
    "No, hon! We have to do this together! Remember! The whole point is that we do it together!" she said this as if saying it would give her some kind of brownie points for having tried. An A for effort.
    "I thought the point was to have a garden?' He asked, giving her a look, and preparing to hear facts that he knew she was simply quoting from an article in a  magazine that gave  the Top Ten Toe Curling Tips on the previous page, and What Shoes Flatter Your Body Type on the next.
    "No, we have to bond over something that will grow so we can see what we make together!"
    "So, it's going to make us happy for you to watch me plant seeds so that you don't get your creamy little hands dirty, and then for me to watch you fertilize them?" He'd begun to get really irritated by now.
    "Don't say it like that!" she stammered, "You're always trivializing the things I try to do to make our relationship stronger."
    "Because they're stupid!" he said, finally giving in and telling her what he needed to say and what he thought she really needed to hear.
    "Sometimes," he continued,  "Guys don't want to talk about their feelings, and they don't want to plant your stupid petunias, and they don't want to talk about how pretty you are, or how much we love you or any of that other shit."
    "You don't want to talk about us because you don't care about us!" she countered, and began to cry, throwing the required emphasis on the "us"."You don't want to admit things have been going bad, and that we have to work on us, and that we have to  talk about it, and... "
    "No,  Katie," he interrupted, calmer and more candid that he'd been in years, "you don't want to admit that there's no saving us."