The Hanging-Basket Lady

My tomato plant was dying. It had yielded one, tiny tomato - blood red like a heart - which I had, in my overwhelming excitement, plucked. After all, it was just hanging there. Contrasting the leaves, reaching out to touch me.

“Take me,” it whispered, or seemed, at least in my mind to say, “Take me.”

But now my tomato plant reaches nowhere. I water it religiously, pray to it, sing to it, will it with my very soul to grow, to reach, to live. Instead it remains motionless, as if lamenting the loss of its first child.

I do not understand. I ask around. Nobody else does. I think of the hanging-basket lady.

She lives a few streets over from me, on the corner, just out of reach of the sound of the highway. Her unit is tiny, surrounded by brick borders. Yet inside, there is something amazing. She has created for herself a jungle, locked in hanging baskets and pots. Her entire patio is a greenhouse. The plants grow as though Mother Nature herself was tending them. Sometimes I think she is. When she walks through the garden, I can almost imagine the plants leaning towards her, as though she were the sun. I sense the urge they feel to wrap her up in their leaves and tendrils, to open flowers over her eyes and yield sweet fruits into the palms of her open hands. She has all the instincts of a mother. But her womb will bear no children. Her house has never heard the bubbling sounds of laughter. Her eyes have never seen the first discoveries of a child, through the eyes of his mother.

I saw her once, while walking past, blindly watering her garden, eyes locked on a toddler across the street. His mother is on the phone, and glances only occasionally. The hanging-basket lady stares openly from between the bricks. I fold myself into a corner to watch her face, seeing the complex mix of longing and joy at his life. The water splashing on the ferns is secondary now. The world revolves around this child. His adventures lead him to the edge of the road. His mother turns her back on him to talk, not seeing the fast approaching car. I barely hear the hanging-basket lady gasp, but I see it. Rushing out, grabbing the boy and pushing him to the safety of the verge. His scream alerts his mother, who rushes to him, panicked. The spell of the moment is broken. He is hers after all. The hanging-basket lady goes back to her watering, her plants rejoice in her presence.

The next day, early, I leave my tomato plant in front of her gate. No note, no explanation. When I put it down, I can see it wake. Watch it spiral up, observing the wondrous garden before it. I know it will grow here. The hanging basket lady will make sure of it.