Rose Garden Husband

Phyllis has built a life she can be proud of. At twenty-five, she's an accomplished children's librarian, good at her work, content in her routines. But when she spots a girl from her hometown one day, married and surrounded by children, something cracks open inside her. She wants that belonging, that warmth, that stake in something larger than herself. So she makes a practical, even desperate choice: she marries a man whose doctors have given him months to live. Surely, she thinks, she can find happiness in caring for him, in having a home of her own. But the best-laid plans have a way of unraveling. As months stretch into years and the invalid doesn't die, Phyllis must confront what she's actually asked for, what she truly deserves, and whether love can grow in such unlikely soil. Widdemer, a Pulitzer-winning poet, writes with sharp emotional precision about loneliness, desire, and the bargains women make with their own hearts.