SHORT FICTION

 Green Thumb

“Esther always did have a knack for making things grow,” says Julia as we sign the closing documents. “There was a saying on the block that she could take a dead stick and plant it in the ground and make a goddamn tree.” She peers over her glasses. “You kids think you'll keep them going? The plants?”

“We don't know anything about gardening,” I say. “We'll probably hire a landscaper, maybe take out some of the bigger trees.”

“Did you know her?” asks Thad.

“Oh sure—she was here when we moved in. Funny old bird, kept to herself mostly. Her husband left her after their son died in a car accident. That garden was all she had.”

Thad reaches for my hand under the table.

“Can't dwell on the past,” says Julia. “I just need one more signature from you both, and the house is yours.” She pats me a little too hard on the back. “Welcome to the neighborhood.”

 We throw a New Year's Eve party the day we get the keys.

“This place is a dump,” says Lise as she sets a six-pack of pear cider on the kitchen counter. “I'm guessing the furniture hasn't arrived yet?”

“Not until next week. And it may be a dump, but it's our dump.”

It doesn't take long for someone to spill a drink on the green shag carpet. “Oops, my bad.”

“That's okay,” Thad says. “It's not like we're going to keep it.” He tugs at the corner, then pulls a little harder until the carpet begins to separate from the floor with a pop of dislodged tacks.

Someone else joins him and then another and then half the carpet is free. More people spill in from the kitchen and soon the house is alive with music and laughter and the sounds of wood paneling being ripped off walls and dusty curtains being swept aside.

 In the living room there is a banner that takes up half the width of the wall, printed on old dot-matrix paper and bearing the words “God Is Watching” in a heavy font. Next to the lettering is the image of a hand pointing an accusing finger over the room.

“I almost hate to take this down,” says Lise as she picks at the yellowing tape.

“There's a picture of Jesus in the laundry room. I think I'm going to keep that one.”

“Hey, you guys,” calls someone from the bathroom. “If you bring me a knife I can start on this ridiculous wallpaper.”

 It is raining—a dreary late-winter drizzle against a slate sky.

“Let's skip our chores today,” I say from the couch.

Thad pokes his head out of the office. “You pick a movie and I'll make cocoa.” He wrinkles his nose. “Still smells like fresh paint in here.”

“I like it. It smells like new beginnings.”

Thad putters in the kitchen while I hunt for the remote.

From above there is a barely perceptible tapping against the ceiling, like tiny footsteps. I turn on the lights upstairs but find only empty boxes.

“I think we might have squirrels in the attic. I'll pick up some traps tomorrow.”

Thad comes into the living room with two steaming mugs. “Really? I didn't hear anything.”

 The landscaper is a friend of one of my clients. He is cheery, with a neatly-trimmed beard and coveralls.

“If you take out this big lilac it'll bring more sun to the yard,” he says. “Ditto for the witch hazel.” He shakes his head. “Seems a shame, though. Such beautiful old trees.”

“We're both so busy—I'm trying to get a new business off the ground, and it's such a hassle to prune everything. We barely have time to mow the lawn as it is.”

“To each her own, I guess. And I contacted my guy about paving the back like you asked.”

“There's just too much weeding to do.” I feel as if I owe someone an apology.

“I can get started on the lilac Tuesday, if you like,” he says.

“That would be great. We're hoping to get things cleared out before March.”

“Such a shame, though.”

The grocery store has a display of flowers for sale—spring starts, pansies and crocuses. A sign says: “Get A Jump on Spring! Great Color for Beds and Window Boxes!” On a whim, I put a few in my cart and pick up a bag of potting soil.

I nestle the flowers in a wooden barrel on the front steps. It is the first thing I've ever planted.

The pansies look lonely. The next day I go back for some tulips.   

I am at the kitchen table updating my portfolio. Outside a chainsaw sputters, then roars to life. The landscaper gives me a thumbs-up through the window.

I turn up the music. The chainsaw whines as it slashes a deep gouge into the lilac.

There is a shooting pain in my lower back. A branch cracks and falls to the ground with a crash.

I can barely stand. I wave to the landscaper to come in.

“Everything okay?”

“Can you help me? I need to lie down.”

I lean on his strong arm as he guides me to the couch. “It's a compressed disc. I've had back problems since I was a kid.”

“Maybe I should come back another day,” he says.

The pain is gone by dinnertime.

 The lilac blooms early.

It is a crisp March morning. Thad is on a ladder in the front yard, armed with loppers, gathering branches heavy with clusters of fragrant purple flowers.

“Don't trim the forsythia yet,” I call from the porch where I’m chatting with Lise on the phone. “Wait until after it's done flowering.”

Lise asks, “What color did you end up using in the living room?”

“Orange and turquoise. And the bathroom is sky blue, and the bedroom brick red.”

“And you put down a new tile floor in the kitchen? You guys have been busy.”

“It feels good, making the place really ours.”

A hummingbird buzzes past my head and hovers at the jasmine that spills from the window-box. It sips nectar from a delicate white flower, then all at once pulls back and stops to hover in front of me, two feet from my face. Sunlight glints off the crimson feathers on its throat. I can feel the breeze from its wings on my face.

Without thinking, I extend my hand.

The hummingbird flits forward and perches on my finger. It cocks its tiny head and stares at me, then extends a wing to balance itself.  It feels as light as nothing.

“I'll call you back.”

In April, we host a block party in the back yard.

Neighbors chat and laugh in lawn chairs with glasses of wine, dappled sunlight on their backs. The sugary scent of honeysuckle is carried on the warm breeze. Chickadees and finches flit through the laurel, chittering as they gather seeds. The picnic table on the covered patio is laden with potluck offerings—salads, pies, fruit, homemade bread.

Julia spears a plump strawberry on her fork. “I still don't get it. How do you have goddamn strawberries and it's not even summer?”

“I found them growing wild behind the garage. Maybe they're a special hybrid.”

She leans back in her chair to look behind her. “And your lilies—they a special hybrid too?”

Thad wanders over to offer us refills. “She's gone crazy,” he says. “She's going to bankrupt us with the amount of money she's been spending at the nursery.”

“I tried gardening,” Julia says. “Everything I plant seems to die before it gets started.”

“I'm picking some of your kale.” Meredith from next door is perusing the vegetable beds. “It's not like you'll miss it.”

 “Did you remember to turn off the sprinkler out back?”

“I'm already undressed,” Thad says. “Can you get it?”

I am barefoot, but it is unseasonably warm and the grass is freshly mowed. I open the door to the mudroom—the outside lights are off and the night is barely lit by a fingernail moon, but I know every inch of this yard.

I am halfway across the patio when something moves through the tomato plants.

Probably just a raccoon. But it sounds bigger than a raccoon. The hair rises on my arms.

“Hey.” It is meant to be stern but comes out as a whisper.

There is a shifting, a rustle of leaves.

The sprinkler is forgotten. I make sure to set the deadbolt on the back door.

We take a vacation to Mexico for a week, nothing but sea and sand.

Thad looks up from his book and squints at me through the sunlight. “What's up with you?” he asks. “Can't relax?”

“I'm worried about the garden. What if the house-sitter forgets to water the plants?”

“It’ll be fine. Come sit with me—I'll squeeze your shoulders and we'll work on our tans.”

But when we come home, the pea shoots are curled and brown, twisted in on themselves.

 “It's so sad,” I say as I scoop them out of the dry dirt. “What an awful way to die.”

“They're plants,” Thad says. “They don't care.” He stoops to kiss me on the head. “But I love that you do.”

A breeze moves behind us and a fern frond gently caresses the back of my neck.

The squirrel traps in the attic are still empty.

Lise and I are at the picnic table, editing wedding photographs for a new client.

The early June air is filled with the mellow drone of bumblebees as they dip in and out of the bell-shaped flowers of the foxgloves. Gnats dance in the sunbeams. 

“It's too nice out to work,” Lise says. “Let's have a picnic instead.”

We spread a quilt on the grass and have beer and grapes and cheese under the towering sunflowers.

“Don't let me forget, Noelle wants me to bring her back some mint.”

“Take as much as you want—it grows like a weed back here.”

“What was it your neighbor said about the woman who used to live here? That she could plant a stick and grow a tree?”

“Yeah.”

She looks at me and grins. “Let's try it.” She scans the ground around the quilt, picks up a dry twig. “Here, plant this.”

I sip my beer. “That's silly.”

“Humor me.” She hands me the twig. “Over there, in the corner. There's a bare patch.”

We stare down at the ground. A Stellar's jay screeches at us from the roof of the garage.

“Say something,” hisses Lise.

I close my eyes and raise the twig over my head. “May the garden bring life to this little dead stick. Amen. Or whatever.”

The twig slides easily into the soil, as if returning home.

“You're back early. Everything okay?”

“It's not early. In fact, I'm a little late.” There is a pile of weeds next to where I've planted the new peas. Thad touches it with the tip of his shoe. “Have you been out here all day?”

I sit back on my heels. “What time is it?”

“After six.”

“Oh. Then yes.”

“All this time on your knees—your back must be killing you.”

“Actually, it feels fine. And it's been better in the mornings, too. Maybe it's the new mattress.”

He sets his backpack down on the table. “Should I get some Thai delivery?”

“We could, but there's so much lettuce, and the tomatoes are ripe. Maybe some roasted bell peppers?”

“You don't like roasted peppers.”

“Don't I?”

“I made them on our third date,” he says. “We ended up going out.”

“Maybe you're remembering it wrong, because right now it sounds delicious.”

We find a book on the front porch about how to prune trees and bushes. There is no note.

“That's not mine,” Thad says. “Maybe one of the neighbors is trying to tell us something.”

At the end of June, we almost lose a client.

“I lied,” says Lise. “I told them your grandmother was ill and that's why your work was late.”

“I just can't get motivated to work lately. I don't know what's wrong with me.”

“You'd better get it together,” she says. “I can't keep covering for you.”

“I have to go. The honeysuckle isn't going to prune itself.”

Thad buys me a hammock for my birthday. Blue and green striped.

“I thought we could put it under the apple tree,” he says.

“It's perfect. I love it. I'll try it out after work today.”

It is so comfortable that I fall asleep. It is only when I feel a tickle on my foot that I wake up.

A morning glory vine has coiled around my ankle. When I sit up it unwraps itself and falls away.

July brings record temperatures. The heat is oppressive. I am watering the vegetables every day.

Avery and her son from down the street are visiting for the afternoon. They have brought their dog, a golden retriever with boundless energy. Avery's son plays fetch with the dog as Avery and I have iced tea on the patio. Yellow swallowtails drift between the flowers of the butterfly bush.

“You've really fixed up the place,” she says. “Although I have to warn you, there's talk in the neighborhood of hiring you a landscaper to help you trim some of the vines in the front.” I can't tell if she's joking.

“I like it a little wild. Thad calls it 'jungle chic'.”

Avery laughs. “Not really my thing. That's why I pay someone else to do my yard.” She pauses. “But seriously, I told Marc and Leslie that I'd talk to you about the crows. When you feed them in the morning—there are just so many of them—they're loud, and they poop on people's cars, and—”

“If Marc and Leslie have a problem they can tell me themselves,” I snap. “Besides, the crows were here first.”

“I'm just the messenger,” she says. “But while we're on the subject you might remember that you're not the only people living on this block.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that maybe some of us would appreciate it if you would at least mow your lawn more than once a month.”

There is a commotion in the back corner of the yard. The dog has lost its ball and has tried to wedge itself into the salmonberry bush to retrieve it. The boy is yelling and pulling its tail.

I manage to extricate the dog, but not before it has done significant damage to the bush. They take the dog home, leaving me to repair the salmonberry as best I can.

An orb weaver slides down from her web and lands on a nearby leaf. A leaf on a plant I don't recognize, three feet tall with a woody stem and delicate teardrop-shaped leaves. Tiny thorns dot the spindly branches.

By the next day it has grown another eighteen inches. 

“I have to go to Scotland.” Thad is packing a suitcase when I get home. “There's an emergency at work and they need me on site.”

“How long?”

“A couple weeks, maybe more.” He looks up, holding a pair of balled socks. “Sorry.”

“It's our anniversary next week. I made reservations.”

He sets the socks on the bed. “That's what I told them, but they made it clear that I don't really have a choice.” He kisses my neck. “We'll celebrate when I get back, promise.”

“It's okay, I understand. I'll miss you.”

“Me too.”

At the airport, after we take the bags out of the car, Thad says, “You know, this will be the longest we've ever been apart.”

A ring of shiny gray mushrooms has appeared around the base of the new tree.   

“Ugh, it smells terrible in here.” Lise has arrived, unannounced, with a pizza. “Have you emptied the garbage? And since when do you not answer your phone?”

“I haven't been feeling well.”

“You should have called me. Thad's not back yet?”

“He has to stay another week.” I pull out a slice of pizza then immediately return it to the box. “I'm not hungry.”

“You have to eat something.” Lise opens a cupboard door. “How about some soup?”

“I said I wasn't hungry.”

“You haven't turned in any work for a week. You cancel plans. Should I be worried?”

“Of course not. Maybe it's the flu. I'll call you when I'm better.” I hope my smile is convincing.

The moon is nearly full that night. Fat drops of summer rain cool my face, the long grass sticks to my legs as I walk to the far corner of the yard.

The tree is as tall as I am. There is a fissure at the base where the trunk has begun to split. 

The surrounding plants have bent their stalks to make room for it to grow.

“You look amazing,” says Thad as the taxi drives away. “I guess you're feeling better?”

“All better. I'm so glad you're home.”

We carry the suitcases into the bedroom. “You've been busy,” he says when he sees the photographs on the wall. “These are beautiful. A whole new style.”

“Portraits are just for work. Lucy's asked me to show these at her gallery next month.”

“Look at you,” he says. “Blossoming.”

Time gets away from me and then it is next week and then another.

The arugula is bolting, going to seed. The corn is drying on the stalk, the green beans hang unpicked and leggy on the vine.

The gallery has sold six of my photographs and extended the dates of my show. Lise has already scheduled us for three wedding shoots in August.

I cook dinner for the three of us, but I am reluctant to eat outside despite the lovely evening. 

“I feel guilty for neglecting the garden. Maybe that sounds weird.”

“It's a little weird,” says Lise. “Do you think the plants are going to be mad?”

I think maybe they might be, but I don't say so.

“Let's have a toast,” Thad says. “To us. To the future.”

I wake out of a dead sleep.

The curtains are pulled back—I'm sure I drew them before we went to bed—and the window is open.

Thad shifts in his sleep. His breath is warm against my neck. 

I hear the faint call of a nighthawk. I slip out of bed to the open window. There is a welcoming light radiating from the corner of the yard.

My husband does not wake when I kiss his cheek.

Moonlight paints the yard, a patchwork of shadow and cool blue. Paperwhites brush against my ankles. Downy moths flutter above me—one lands on my nightgown, mottled brown against white.    

The tree is now a great, gnarled thing. Thick ropey branches twine together as they reach out and up, over the fence, over the neighbor's garage, too high to see where they end, with leaves so dense they mask the moon.  

Gangly gray mushrooms cover the ground at the base of the tree. They bend to give me room, casting slanted shadows from the glowing fissure.

I can feel the heat on my arms and face like welcoming sunlight as I step inside. My feet sink into pillowy green moss.

Branches reach down to seal the opening.

I leave my nightgown behind.

The end