Cher hated houseplants. Hated. In all her thirty-six years, she had never managed to keep one alive. Couldn’t she just skip to step two?
But no, she was going to do this right. She stared at the bewildering array of plants before her, trying to choose. Something with flowers? No. When one of those died it would seem even sadder. Maybe a fern.
“Can I help you?”
Cher jumped at the voice, then looked up from the greenery before her to see a balding man with laugh lines crinkling his eyes. “I’m looking for a plant that even I can’t kill.” “Peter,” she added belatedly, reading his nametag.
Peter smiled, a knowing look in his green eyes. Green like the plants surrounding them. “You don’t want anything from this table.”
He led Cher down the long aisle to the other end of store, then took a right and stopped in front of a table filled with plants bearing tiny green leaves on tendrils that overflowed their containers, spilling nearly to the table’s surface. Despite herself, Cher had already begun to feel attached to the one her fingers hovered over.
“What are they?” she asked.
“These are baby’s tears,” Peter answered. “They’re easy to grow and we can get you a self-watering pot to transplant them into so you can’t over or under water them, as well as some plant food spikes you can insert into the soil once a month. I guarantee you’ll be able to keep this alive.”
“Thank you,” Cher said, feeling the knot in her stomach loosen.
She could do this. She could keep these baby’s tears alive for a year. That’s what the counselor at rehab had said when Cher had been released from the facility. One year, and then she could get a dog. If she did okay with that for another year, she could try moving on to dating. Two years was a long time to wait, but this time she would stay sober. This time she would get it right.
Cher cradled her tiny pot of baby’s tears to her as she waited for Peter to gather up the rest of the supplies she would need, already protective of her new roommate.
This story grew from the confluence of a Reedsy prompt and remembering a scene I loved from the movie 28 Days, starring Sandra Bullock, though the scene was more about Alan Tudyk’s character, Gerhardt, than Bullock’s Gwen. In the movie they are both in rehab for alcohol and drug abuse.
The prompt required either starting or ending a story with a character buying a plant. My story was entirely encompassed by the purchase. The scene from 28 Days had Gerhardt in tears because he had killed the plant he was supposed to keep alive and he feared he was doomed to be alone forever.
“I did not kill this plant, it was sick or something. I gave it everything,” Gerhardt insists, as if the assertion absolves him of his failure to keep the plant alive. Let’s hope Cher does better!
What a story of hope. One year. One step at a time. A goal. Beautiful. However, gardening? For me, if is a never-ending and very confusing challenge. I plant any type of plant in my garden, I water it, fertilize it, prune it and it dies, even under the watchful guidance of my neighbour who grows everything beautifully!! Then some plant I don't remember planting, often not even knowing what it is, thrives! However, I am very good with house plants for some strange reason. 🤔
My dad used to say that he had a brown thumb--everything plant he touched died.