God’s Garden

by Kathryn H. Ross

California, USA

I don’t know what to say. Nothing feels like enough. I don’t know how I feel or what I think either, but I’m trying to figure it out. Nothing about this is simple. 

She’s crying and I’m holding her hand in mine and her free arm is wrapped around her waist like a rope. I wish there was something I could say to make it better. I wish there was something I could do. But I know I can’t, and I don’t want to say anything empty. 

She sniffles and pulls her hand away, wraps her other arm around her waist and leans forward, back and shoulders shaking. She looks like she’s transforming. Almost like a movie I saw once where a man became a werewolf and he leaned forward just like this, head bowed and back trembling. Maybe the werewolf was crying when it transformed, but that was more sad than scary, so the film didn’t show it. Or maybe the werewolf wanted to hide like she’s trying to—make itself small and closed like a ball that folds into itself until it’s nothing. I can’t tell her any of this, though, most of all because I know what she’d hear if I told her I was thinking of a horror movie at a time like this: you’re a monster.

It isn’t true, of course. It never could be. I wouldn’t ever look at her like that. Millie’s practically my sister, but even if she wasn’t, I still would never see her that way. She’s been my best friend since we were in college together, freshman year in the dorm by the ocean.  Right now, all I see is her, huddled and small and scared, and it makes me love her so much more than I thought it was possible to love someone. I should tell her that, but I just don’t know how. Not in this context. 

*

“Ella, come see.”

Mommy beckoned me over to her, squatting in the grass before the brick garden wall we’d built a couple of weeks before. It came out from the side of the house like a half moon, filled to the brim with dark, black soil, freshly watered. Mommy leaned forward on her knees and placed her hands flat against the brick. I came up beside her and looked. In the dirt, small and barely there, was a shoot of green. I raised my eyebrows at Mommy, and she smiled back. 

“You know what that is?” she asked me. 

“Grass,” I said leaning forward for a better look.  

“Mhm, lemongrass. And over there, see? That’s where we put the arugula. It should show up in another week or so. And the basil over there, see?”

I nodded. The dirt looked dark and empty to me, save for the stalk of grass, but Mommy was so excited. She looked like she could already see all the plants spilling over the wall, ready to be picked. 

“We’re gonna have green thumbs,” Mommy said. 

“What?”

“Green thumbs—it means someone who’s good at growing and caring for plants. That’s going to be us, just you wait.”

I spread my fingers out in front of me and frowned slightly. My hands were brown, not green, and so were Mommy’s. She laughed at me. “Don’t take it so literally, baby,” she said. Then she plunged her hands into the soil, up to her wrists. 

*

Millie stands up and begins pacing. I sit here watching her, helpless still, afraid to break the silence. Her long thick locks fall down her back like a blanket, swaying with each step she takes, catching the sun and shining golden brown before being plunged into shadow as she turns and begins her course again. 

“What did the doctor say?” I ask finally, looking up at her. She glances quickly at me and then away. “That it’s early,” she says, her voice small.

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

She looks at me again, longer this time. I look away, ashamed. “I just mean, the earlier it is…”

She shakes her head and begins biting her thumb, something she started doing in college when she was first struggling with anxiety. “Why don’t you sit down?” I say, my eyes following her every move. “We’ll figure it out, okay? We always do.”

“No,” she says, wringing her hands. “You don’t understand, Ella. This isn’t like…isn’t like that.” She sits down abruptly and grips my hand again.

“Isn’t like what?”

“Like anything we’ve ever had to figure out before.” She hunches again, closing in on herself; I almost expect her to howl. 

“I’ll go with you,” I say after a moment. “And then I’ll bring you home. Take care of you. Whatever you need.”

She glances at me again, softer this time, and squeezes my hand. “You don’t have to do all of that…”

“Millie,” I say, a lump sliding into my throat. “I’m here, okay?” 

She doesn’t answer and I worry her bones are about to give way. That she’ll crumble like a house with rot running through the walls. 

*

Mommy didn’t know enough about proper gardening to keep the plants alive for long, and one by one they died—first the lemongrass, then the basil, then the arugula, which had been the last to sprout. She didn’t know I saw her crying over the garden, head in her hands as she stood before the withered leaves and shoots. The soil was baked tan, hard and unyielding after days in the sun. We needed a watering system since neither of us was home enough to water the garden as much as it needed. I had school and she had work. We’d planted on the east side of the house, too, so from sunup to a little after midday, the garden was blasted with blazing light. It was dry here, drier than we were used to having lived by the ocean. Out there, Mommy hardly had to try—the moist air, cool breeze, and the leafy trees protected her seeds and sprouts from any extremes. The garden was smaller then, too. Just a window box under an awning, but it was always green. 

“We can just place an umbrella over it, or a tarp, right Mommy?” I said when I finally got the courage to go out to her. “We made a mistake, but we can start again.” We still had seeds and the grocery store had plenty of herb trays she could replant in the garden. “It’ll come back.”

Mommy wiped her face and left shining tear stains on her cheeks. She smiled and nodded. “Just a mistake,” she repeated, looking into the dirt. 

In a few weeks’ time, we had raised a tarp, re-tilled the soil, and watered it so it was nice and moist and loose. Mommy pushed the seeds deep into the ground, covered them with the soft, loamy dirt, and gave them a short shower with the watering can. With the tarp up, the garden was shady and cool; only a little sun peeked through. It felt like being underwater when we were beneath it, dappled light spilling through the blue fabric like the surface of the sea. Soon the garden came back, first the lemongrass, shoots and sprouts, then great green sprigs of basil, a soft growth of dill. The arugula was slow, but it came in eventually, robust and thick. It was followed by peppers and tomatoes I planted myself. Mommy was happy again, smiling at the bounty. A drip system she’d installed herself ran throughout the planter, soaking the soil a little at a time. Mommy held out her thumb to me and smiled wide. “Green,” she said, and pressed her hand into mine. 

One night we were cutting up some fresh tomatoes and I asked Mommy if she missed the old house. Mommy waited a moment, bent over the cutting board with a small crease between her brows, and then shook her head. “That house was nice,” she said in a soft voice, “but it meant working at the hospital, and I don’t miss that.” She glanced at me. “Do you?”

“Sometimes,” I said. 

Silence fell between us. Behind Mommy the contents of a large pan began to sizzle on the stove. She turned to tend to it and looked at me over her shoulder. “We’ll go back some time,” she said at last. “Have a visit.”

I nodded, and she turned away. 

*

Neither Millie nor I really know what to expect, but I can’t stop thinking about Mommy all the same. When Mommy finally told me, I never forgot it. I don’t know how I ever could. But I can’t tell Millie and I feel like I did at the start of this: like I just don’t know what to say. We drive in silence and Millie is already crying, biting her thumb. It’s brown like mine, but maybe Mommy would say it’s green. 

I wonder if I should hold Millie’s hand, but something tells me there’s nothing I can do right now to make her feel less alone. It’s sunny outside, but it’s cold. Millie is bundled up and her locks are piled on top of her head like a swirl of vines. There are gold cuffs placed here and there, catching the sun. She’s gilded. 

We pull into a parking lot and I think we’re both surprised to see a normal building like any other. Inconspicuous even. Nondescript. Without the GPS, neither of us would know we’re here. We could’ve kept driving. I park close to the doors and we sit a minute in the silence that gathers as the engine dies.

“Do you want me to come in?” I ask, turning to her. Millie is staring straight ahead, thumb still in her mouth. “Millie?”

She shakes her head. 

“Are you sure?”

She nods and slowly unbuckles her seatbelt. “Just wait for me.” 

She’s out of the car before I can think of anything else to say and I watch her as she goes. She looks so small, like a little kid, and then she disappears behind the doors. 

I have to remind myself that this isn’t like Mommy, not even close. What happened to her was awful, but this time it’s early. No one will have to go through what Mommy went through because Millie’s made up her mind. I glance at the doors—opaque and unassuming. The building could be empty. Millie could have vanished. 

I see it as clearly as if I’d witnessed it myself. Mommy’s that good at describing, or maybe I’m that good at imagining, or maybe it just demands to be seen. It’s made me hesitant to open up, to take a risk, but I know Mommy never meant it that way. She just couldn’t carry it anymore, and I needed to know—because I just can’t face what Millie’s facing. 

I wish I told her she’s strong before she got out of the car. And I love her so much. I wish I’d told her that this isn’t easy or okay, but it will get easier and it will be okay. I wish I told her love manifests in so many ways. That the height of love so often is mercy. Millie wouldn’t scoff or call it blind, but she might not believe it. I see her hunched over like the man becoming a wolf in my mind’s eye. 

I don’t know if I’d believe it, either. 

Mommy was a little older than I am now when it happened, and she was traumatized. Traumatized enough to pack us up and move us inland and take a job at the local middle school looking for a nurse onsite. It seemed to help her—helping kids and watching them grow. When I got into middle school myself, she opened up more, told me about God’s Garden. 

*

In the winter Mommy would boil lemongrass from the garden on the stove, then pour the solution into a strainer over a mug. The whole kitchen was fragrant, sharp. I could breathe deep and feel air reaching for the base of my lungs. She’d add sweetener, agave or something similar, and take her tea to the couch and just hold it, breathing in the steam. We bought heat lamps for the garden on cloudier days, but we didn’t need to use them too often. When it rained, moisture seeped through the tarp and sprinkled the plants. 

I was getting older and the garden was no longer mine as it had been. It was only Mommy’s; my thumbs had stopped being green. Whenever I couldn’t find Mommy in the house, whenever I’d call for her and she didn’t answer, I knew where she was. Kneeling in the grass before the planter box, head a bowed over the green as if in prayer.

“How can you look at gardens the same?” I asked her once, standing beside her beneath the tarp. She was quiet for a moment, then she reached for my hand. 

“Because they still grow,” she said.

The first and only time Mommy gardened, it didn’t die. 

She told me how she had to stand in the same room with it as it sat in a tub, unattended. She was forbidden to do anything for it, forbidden to help in any way. Mommy was just there to monitor it until it was all over. She stood in the corner of the room, watching the tiny thing silently moving in its blood. Its thin, raw skin was scabbed and burned from the solution and had it a voice, Mommy said she was sure it would be screaming.

“Do nothing,” the charge nurse had told her. 

She wondered, could there be a soul in that small body? At what point does the soul enter flesh? When is it attached, or given?

“Nothing, okay?” the charge nurse repeated. “This happens sometimes, unfortunately. It was an emergency. Everything’ll be all right.” 

Mommy cried in the corner as the minutes ticked by. Then it stopped moving; went completely still. 

Later, when the charge nurse came back and it had been disposed of, she took Mommy to the hospital cafeteria and got her a strong coffee. “Look at it this way,” the charge nurse said, sitting across from her. “I believe children are a gift from God, but sometimes…well, sometimes they’re planted a little too early.” Mommy looked up. She held her coffee in her hands but didn’t drink. “Like, the soil isn’t right,” the charge nurse went on, then, “Do you have kids?” 

Mommy nodded. 

The charge nurse smiled. “I do, too.”

They lapsed into a stiff silence. Voices murmured around them in a distant sort of way. 

“But sometimes,” the charge nurse suddenly went on, “the time just isn’t right, you know? Growing conditions no good. Bad—or even dangerous—environment. They won’t survive under these circumstances.” She paused and took a sip of her own coffee.  “It’d be too hard. Too much. Unfair, really. So, we send them back to God’s garden.” Mommy looked at her. The charge nurse smiled again and shrugged. “I just,” she said, turning towards the window, “I just see this vast, green garden, with so much space and so much beauty… And all we’re doing really is sending them back there to wait a little longer. Back to God to replant them when they’re really ready. When everything’s right. We—sometimes our job is just helping tend the garden.”

Mommy didn’t speak, and after a moment the charge nurse stood. She patted Mommy’s hand gently. “That’s what this is,” she said with a sad smile. “Tending the garden. We’re here to help people. If you take every time like this, you won’t last long.”

*

I look up and see Millie walking to the car, a paper bag clutched in her hand. I unlock the doors and she slips in, places the bag by her feet. 

“That wasn’t too long,” I say. She nods and closes her eyes. “Are you okay?”

Millie nods again. “Yeah, I’m okay.” She looks at me and I want to say it now—everything about love and mercy and bravery. But Millie speaks first: “I take the first today, then the second tomorrow. It’ll make me really sick.” Her eyes are dry and her voice is steady. Something has shifted in her; the huddled wolf has gone. I think of Mommy. “They say I shouldn’t be alone if I can help it,” she finishes. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” I say. 

Millie smiles, the first one I’ve seen since before everything happened. It’s small and short-lived, but it’s there for at least a moment. I start the car. 

“When we get back to your place, I think you should sleep, lie down at least,” I tell her. She nods. “And I’ll make you some soup and tea when you’re ready,” I say as we pull out of the space and head towards the street. “Lemongrass.” 

She looks at me. 

“My mom,” I say, then swallow. The highway unfolds before us. “She says it helps.” 

*originally published in The Ethicist: ISSUE 1

Next: Jordon Briggs - In Tune →

Back to Issue I

← Back: Joel Worford - Love All