The Gardener at the Estate and My Forbidden Summer

My grandparents’ estate on the outskirts had always been my refuge. Whenever the city became too much, I’d grab the car and slip away for a couple of weeks to that silence that smelled of wet earth and jasmine. There were no schedules there, no phone ringing, no one asking how I was doing. Only the warm wind moving the curtains and the sun falling slowly over the trees.

That summer, however, there was something different in the air. Or rather, someone different.

His name was Tomás, and he had been working the vegetable patch and the garden for a month, ever since the usual foreman retired. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with arms marked by years of working under the sun. He spoke little, just enough, but when he did his deep voice sent a shiver down the back of my neck that took time to go away.

I watched him from the terrace without his noticing. Or so I thought. I’d see him kneeling beside the rose bushes, cutting stems with patient precision, wiping his forehead with the back of his arm. His T-shirt stuck to his back with sweat, and I kept staring longer than I should have, my coffee going cold between my hands.

This isn’t right, I thought. And kept watching.

I’d been like that for three days, pretending to read, pretending to water my own potted plants that didn’t need water, pretending his presence wasn’t setting my pulse off. Until the heat of Thursday afternoon made me lose patience with my own cowardice.

I went down to the kitchen, filled a tall glass with lemonade and ice, and stepped out into the garden with an excuse I didn’t even believe myself.

—Thirsty, Tomás? —I asked, and my voice came out steadier than I expected.

He looked up. The shadow of his cap covered half his face, but I noticed he took a second too long before answering. He set the pruning shears down on the soil and straightened slowly.

—Much appreciated —he said, and stretched out a hand to take the glass.

Our fingers brushed. It was only an instant, but we both felt it. He drank a long swallow without taking his eyes off me, and when he lowered the glass, a drop was gleaming at the corner of his mouth.

—It’s hot to be out here all day —I said, searching for something to say—. If you want, you can come inside for a while, out of the shade.

—I don’t want to be a bother.

—You’re not bothering anyone. The house is empty. My grandparents aren’t coming until next month.

I said it without thinking, and the moment the words left my mouth I understood what I had just admitted. That we were alone. That no one was going to show up. Tomás understood it too. I saw it in the way his jaw tightened, in how he let a long silence pass before giving a small nod.

—Just a minute, then —he said.

I led him inside. I felt his presence behind me like a current of heat, and I had to make an effort not to let my legs tremble as I walked.

***

The kitchen was in half-darkness, cool, with the shutters partly lowered to cut off the midday sun. The only sound was the low hum of the refrigerator. I set the empty glass on the counter and turned toward him.

Tomás was standing in the doorway, still, with his hands still dirty with earth hanging at his sides. He was looking at me in a way that left no room for doubt, a way I had been provoking for three days without daring to hold it.

—What are you looking for? —he asked quietly.

The question hung between us. I could have said anything. I could have invented a chore, offered him more lemonade, broken the moment with a nervous laugh. Instead, I took a step toward him.

—I think you already know —I replied.

No more was needed. He closed the distance between us in two steps and kissed me. It wasn’t a timid kiss. It was the kiss of someone who had been holding back for days, hungry and firm, one hand sliding up my waist and the other tangling in my hair. I clung to his T-shirt, feeling the heat of his body through the fabric, his heart pounding as hard as mine.

—Wait —I murmured against his mouth, and for a second he thought I was having second thoughts.

I walked to the door and turned the key. The click of the lock sounded louder than it should have in that silence.

When I turned back, he was still where I’d left him, watching me with an intensity that made my skin prickle. I went back to him more slowly this time, enjoying the distance, and rested my palms on his chest.

—You’re sweating —I said.

—I’ve been working in the sun —he replied, with half a smile.

—I don’t mind.

I kissed him this time, setting the pace. His big hands circled my waist and lifted me effortlessly, seating me on the cool countertop. I let out a breath when he opened my legs gently to settle himself between them, and the light fabric of my summer dress suddenly felt like an annoying barrier.

He kissed my neck, slowly, and I threw my head back. Every brush of his beard against my skin pulled a shiver from me. I felt his fingers trace the curve of my thigh, lifting the hem of the dress just a little, stopping exactly where the waiting became unbearable.

—Tell me to stop if you want —he whispered.

—Don’t you dare stop.

***

He slipped the dress straps off one by one, with a patience that was driving me crazy. I tugged at his T-shirt and he pulled it off in one motion, letting it fall to the tiled floor. His torso was exactly as I had imagined during those three afternoons of spying from the terrace: solid, worked hard, with skin still warm from the sun.

I dragged my nails down his back and felt him shudder. I liked having that power, knowing I was undoing him too. I pulled him closer with my legs, hooking them behind his waist, and the closeness drew a muffled moan from both of us.

—I’ve been watching you for days —I confessed in his ear—. Since you arrived.

—I know —he said—. I was watching you too.

—Then why didn’t you do anything?

—Out of respect. This is your house. —He paused, his forehead resting against mine—. But I swear every night I went to bed thinking about this.

That confession lit me up more than any caress. I kissed him with everything I had, with the urgency of someone who had stopped fighting the inevitable. What came after was a whirlwind of hands, mouths, skin finally meeting after so much restraint. He made me his on that countertop with the sun filtering through the shutters, drawing lines of light across our bodies.

It wasn’t fast or clumsy, as these first encounters usually are. It was intense, attentive, every movement measured to make me lose control little by little. He kept my gaze even in the most intense moments, as if he needed to make sure I was just as lost as he was.

I clung to his shoulders, dug my fingers into his flesh, let my body answer every thrust without restraint. The kitchen silence filled with gasps, with the slide of skin, with my name said in a low voice between clenched teeth.

When I reached the edge, it was like falling and flying at the same time. I came apart against him, trembling, biting my lip so I wouldn’t scream loud enough to be heard all the way out to the street. He followed an instant later, holding me tightly, burying his face in my neck while his whole body stiffened and surrendered at once.

We stayed like that for a long while, wrapped around each other, catching our breath as if we had just crossed a desert. I stroked the back of his neck slowly and he drew circles on my back with his thumb.

***

Afterward we both laughed at the situation. At how absurd and perfect it had been. I poured him another glass of lemonade and we drank it sitting on the kitchen floor, leaning against the cupboard, speaking in low voices like two accomplices.

Tomás turned out to be much more talkative than he seemed under that cap. He told me he studied botany at night, that the work in the estates paid for his degree, that he dreamed of having his own nursery one day. I told him things I hadn’t told anyone in a long time, things I didn’t even know I needed to say out loud.

The sun began to go down and the shadows lengthened across the tiles. At some point he had to go back out to the garden, leave the rose bushes as they should be before the day was over. He got dressed slowly, unhurried, stealing me one more kiss between each item of clothing.

—Are you still working the garden tomorrow? —I asked from the counter, where I had sat back down.

He adjusted his cap and gave me that half smile I was already becoming addicted to.

—If you ask me like that —he said—, I’ll make the estate the prettiest one in the neighborhood.

He stayed three more weeks, until my grandparents came back and I had to return to the city. Three weeks of stolen afternoons, of lemonade excuses, of encounters I never told anyone about until today. It wasn’t love, let’s not kid ourselves, but it was something honest in its own way: two people alone in a country house, finally stopping the pretending.

Sometimes, when I pass a nursery and smell wet earth, I still think of him. Of how it took only a glass of lemonade and the courage to admit what I wanted for that summer to become the most memorable of my life.