“But what if?—”
“No.” Her voice is firm now. “No what-ifs. You’re a writer. You made up a story. That’s all.”
He wants to tell her that didn’t make it up. He wrote what someone else gave him. But she’s nine months pregnant and exhausted. She doesn’t need his paranoia on top of everything else.
So he nods. “You’re right. I’m just tired.”
“We’re both tired.” She leans her head against his shoulder.
They sit in silence for a moment. The house creaks around them, settling into the night.
Then she yawns. “We should go to bed. After I pee again, of course. This baby really needs to stop using my bladder as a trampoline.”
He heaves her to her feet, and they make their way upstairs.
Chapter Nine
Linda Morrison’s third-floor walkup in Cleveland Park is in a building old enough to have character. High ceilings, crown molding, windows that rattle when the Red Line goes by underground. She’s been here nearly as long as the Metro has. She and her husband moved in two years after the station opened, four years before he succumbed to a widow maker heart attack. She raised her daughter here. Watched the neighborhood change and change back.
Now that she lives alone, the apartment is full of plants.
Dozens of them. Hundreds, maybe. Ferns and philodendrons and spider plants cascading from macramé hangers. Succulents lined up on the windowsills. A magnificent fiddle-leaf fig that nearly touches the ceiling in one corner. A long-neglected ficus that she rescued from her daughter and nursed back to life. Orchids on the bookshelf, African violets on the side tables, and a collection of herbs in the kitchen window.
Linda sets down her purse and immediately goes to the sink to fill her watering can.
“Good evening, darlings,” she says to the room at large. “Sorry I’m late. Faculty obligations.”
She starts with the ferns, checking the soil moisture with her finger before watering. Ferns like consistency. Regular attention. Neglect them and they sulk, turning brown and brittle.
“The new family arrived today,” she tells the Boston fern hanging near the window. “The McCandless-Connellys. Leo and Sasha. Twins in fifth grade. She’s a lawyer. Very sharp. I liked her immediately.”
She moves to the philodendron, which is putting out new leaves at a satisfying rate.
“He’s former federal law enforcement. Started as an Air Marshal. Apparently he bounced around a few other agencies, then quit to be a stay at home parent. Now he’s teaching history to teenagers.”
She snips a yellowing leaf and drops it in her compost bucket. “Quite the career change. Though I suppose once you’re in that world, you never really leave it. Do you, darling?”
Linda’s learned over the years that plants are excellent listeners. Better than most people, really. They don’t interrupt. Don’t judge. And science has shown they respond to the carbon dioxide in human breath, the vibrations of speech. They like companionship. Hence the crowded apartment.
She moves on to the orchids, checking for new blooms. These are trickier. They’re particular about light, water, temperature. About everything really. But she’s always been good with finicky things.
“Caleb looked stressed tonight,” she muses, adjusting the blinds to ensure the orchid will get indirect morning light tomorrow. “The baby’s coming any day.”
She mists the orchid’s leaves. “He should write another book soon. They could use the money and timing matters with these things. Windows close.”
Next, she visits the succulents on the windowsill, checking each one for signs of overwatering. These need almost nothing. Benign neglect suits them.
“Sasha volunteered to help in the library,” Linda tells a particularly plump jade plant. “Jumped at the opportunity, actually. Which is convenient for me. It’ll make it easy to keep an eye on her.”
She carries her watering can to the kitchen to refill it. While the water runs, she looks out the window at the street below. A young Black couple walks by, backpacks over their shoulders, hand in hand. Students from Howard’s law school around the corner, most likely. Bright fearless, and confident. Once upon a time, she was, too.
She turns off the tap and returns to the living room, where the fiddle-leaf fig dominates the corner like a small tree.
“You’re doing well,” she tells it, inspecting its glossy leaves for pests. “You like it here, don’t you? Good light. Good soil. Room to stretch.”
She’d bought this plant decades ago, just a cutting. Watched it grow slowly, patiently, year after year. Repotted it when it outgrew its container. Pruned it when branches grew in the wrong direction.
That’s the thing about plants. You can’t rush them. Can’t force them to grow faster than they’re able. But you can create the right conditions. Provide what they need. Remove obstacles. And then you wait. And watch.
