31 ~ The Story

That evening I join Sam out in the garden while Rosie is preparing dinner. He is tending to the bed of marigolds that he and I have kept up ever since we were young lads trying to teach Sam’s younger sister to garden. She decided to stick to embroidery instead, so we ended up tending to a garden full of her name-flowers, and have kept them there ever since.

For a moment we just sit there in silent companionship. Then Sam says, “How was your time in Buckland?”

“Fine,” I reply. “Except when Pippin and I got stuck watching Gen’s children. That was an adventure!”

Sam chuckles, knowing Gen’s children have a lot of energy. I begin recounting the tale to him, telling of their various antics, beginning with the massive amount of soap suds the two girls managed to make in the kitchen, and ending with the all-out pillow fight before bedtime.

Sam laughs at the story, glad I had a good stay. I don’t mention the nightmares I had, or how much my shoulder pained me after watching the children. He doesn’t need to worry.

I kneel down by him and pick up a spare shovel to help him dig the weeds out of the garden.

He looks at me for a moment as if to protest, but I ignore him and continue weeding.

“You did good teaching that lad today,” he says. “Once I was done unpacking, I stood in the doorway listening. Reminded me of when I was learnin’.”

I smile at him. “Except you weren’t quite as fast a learner as Ellis,” I tease him.

He chuckles, remembering the incident I am thinking of, when he didn’t understand a certain concept I had been trying to teach him for a whole week. I had almost given up, until Bilbo came and explained it to him again. Eventually he understood it. He only needed it better explained to him.

We fall silent again, and after a moment more, my shoulder begins to ache, and I sit back on my heels, setting the shovel down.

“Are you all right?” Sam asks, stopping his work to look at me.

I nod, as Rosie comes to call us to dinner, thankful that I don’t have to explain to him that my shoulder has been causing me trouble lately.

* * *

After dinner Sam and I are sitting on the couch in the parlor. His feet are pulled up under him, and I am laying down, my head in his lap.

Rosie insisted on doing the dishes and shooed us out of the kitchen.

I had hesitated earlier to ask how their time at Bag End went, knowing that was personal, and he might not want to tell me, but Sam begins to tell me how excited Rose was when she found all the cooking utensils in the kitchen, and how she had decorated their room using the curtains and bed sheets her mum had made for them.

I laugh when he tells me how Wanderer had left them alone the first two nights, curling up on my empty bed, and then kept trying to sleep in their bed, right in Sam’s face.

“And Rosie didn’t believe me when I told her we found out the cat can play chess,” he says. “So I sat right down and challenged him to a game. And he won. She laughed so hard after that!”

I chuckle. “He’s getting too good for us, isn’t he?” I say.

“He is indeed,” Sam says softly, looking down at Wanderer, curled up at his feet.

Rose steps into the room and smiles at us, then comes to sit on Sam’s knee. Her expression changes a moment later, and Sam says, “What is it, Rose?”

“I was just thinkin’,” she says hesitantly. “Seein’ as how I’m part of your family now…” She glances at me, then back to Sam. “An’ I don’t really know where you went or why… and I was wonderin’ if maybe…”

Sam looks down at me, and I meet his gaze. “It ain’t really my story for the tellin’.”

I sit up and scoot closer to Sam, taking a deep breath. “I can tell it…” I say, glancing at Rosie, who is looking at me, as though bracing herself for something bad. She’s seen my finger, and Sam’s scars from the journey, but she doesn’t know it all. And for her sake, I won’t tell it all. “You don’t mind staying up late, do you?”

She shakes her head, and makes herself comfortable in Sam’s arms as I grab a blanket and let Wanderer crawl onto my lap. I take another breath, then I begin.

By the time I reach Rivendell, Wanderer is fast asleep in my arms, and I know Rosie is already scared. And I am not even telling her exactly how desperate we were to reach Rivendell.

“You must’ve been terribly worried, Sam!” She exclaims, wiping her eyes with the edge of her apron.

“I was,” Sam says, taking my hand lying beside him, and gripping it tightly.

She laughs, though, when I reach the day of Elrond’s council, when I tell her how Sam insisted he come with me, and how Merry and Pippin felt they were being left out.

I quickly go through our travels and our failed attempt to pass over Caradhras, then our journey through the nightmarish tunnels of Moria. She gasps when I tell of the Balrog, and Gandalf’s fall.

But when I mention Lothlorien, she seems calmed, almost, as though the very name of the place has magic to it.

I tell of all our gifts, and how Sam’s turned into the new party tree. I tell her how we left down the river, and how Sam was afraid of the water.

“And it’s right sensible of him, too!” she exclaims. “Rivers are dangerous!”

I nod. “But we had Strider with us, and he wouldn’t let anything happen to us,” I say, continuing on to tell of how Gollum was following us, and how Boromir was corrupted by the Ring.

Sam’s hand tightens around mine, and I know he’s remembering all the rest of what Boromir did and said that I told him as we made out getaway.

The rest of the story I go through rather quickly, leaving out much of the horror and despair of Mordor. I let Sam tell of his battle with the spider, smiling a little at the way Rosie is beaming at him, and then Sam tells of how he found me in the tower of Cirith Ungol, and lets me tell the rest. But I pause when we get to the mountain, staring down, and hiding my maimed hand under Wanderer’s soft fur.

Whenever I tell this story I freeze here. I did when I told it in Minas Tirith, and I am pausing now. I don’t think it will affect me to tell it until I try to, and now all I want to do is crawl away somewhere alone and die.

Rosie puts a hand on my shoulder in a motherly gesture and Sam pulls me to him, saying, “Go on, dearest. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. It weren’t your fault.”

That is easier said than believed. I take a breath, then begin again. “It took me at the end,” I say, still looking down. “And I claimed it for my own.”

I recount how Gollum attacked me, and how the Ring was destroyed in the end; not by me, but by the one creature who killed for it.

I tell her how we thought we would die, and how we were rescued and taken to Minas Tirith, and how everyone applauded us and praised us. And I tell her how, after a few months, we wanted to go home, and now here we are.

“And that’s the story,” she finishes for me.

I nod, looking at Sam. He sees that telling this has taken a lot out of me tonight, but he smiles at me and says, “We’d best all get to bed.”

I glance up at the clock on the mantle that reads two in the morning, and nod. We will all probably sleep till elevenses tomorrow.