by Donna Johnson

Emily Robins hadn’t planned to outlive almost everyone she knew. She still had her son and his family, yet somehow she remained alone more often than not.

On her ninety-fourth birthday, she tottered onto her porch and gripped the rusted chain of the bench swing to survey her garden and occupy her mind. She used to tend that garden with more vigor than her neighbors did their children. It was the place she always went when there were decisions to make or feelings to resolve. Her backyard was the envy of the street. Not anymore. She sniffed the air out of habit, but her sense of smell was gone.

Tipping her head back, she peered through trifocals past the torn porch screen, searching for the colors that always brought her joy, but the garden was overrun with dull greens and burned browns, a sure sign of neglect. In spots the grass almost sizzled in the heat. Used to be a beautiful view. Used to be she wasn’t alone to see it. Always, ‘used to be.’

Now Emily couldn’t so much as stoop and pull a weed, never mind assigning flowers their proper names, but she determined to keep trying, to enjoy that garden until her cataracts washed the world in bitter gray.

With hip surgery behind her, Emily left the planting to her son, Joe. He’d done his best for a retired man with heart trouble. Well, truth be told, he’d only made two visits since spring, what with his own children busy with new families of their own.

Now Bermuda grass tentacled through Emily’s lawn and invaded the square step-garden that sloped upward and crested in a rock fountain near the back chain-link fence. Worse still, the fountain that once babbled like the creek she grew up near was clogged. Algae crusted the stone cherub’s puckered lips, and the shallow pool of standing basin water bred mosquitoes.

Emily tapped the table until she bumped against the snuff jar. Lifting it, she filled the spoon and tucked a dose into her bottom lip. No taste. Too bad even that pleasure was gone. With a quick spit to an empty clay pot, she hefted a pitcher of old rainwater to soak the dry coconut of the hanging baskets. Humid air heavy with petunia pollen weighted her labored breath, the tight space inside her chest the only place left where she always remembered. Her husband and daughter had passed on some time ago, but she kept planters of their favorite flowers on her porch. This year, Joe had to be reminded to plant them for her. Age caught up to everyone.

Even near empty, the pitcher’s weight tired her. Emily collapsed on her swing and watched a blur of birds fight over some shriveled fruit in the yard. Then, beside the corner birdfeeder, she spotted a vibrant yellow flower heavy with seed. She’d seen flowers like it before. Blooms bigger than her hand. Stalks tall as a man. Was it special? Had she planted it? A memory tugged. She’d played hide and seek from her sister in a clump of those flowers. They were always turning, seeking the sun. She’d eaten it. No, eaten the seeds. What was it called? That part of her memory failed.

A lanky teenager slammed her gate and advanced, head down, without invitation. “This Four Nineteen Pine Street?” he shouted, swinging the greasy hair from his eyes.

Emily wasn’t deaf. She rose from her seat, her square jaw set, and studied the sullen teenager pinched into a tattered black Metallica sleeveless tee. This, she had no trouble seeing either. “It is. Why are you in my yard, young man?”

He raised his pimply face and smirked. Even from several feet away, she would have sworn he reeked of tobacco and beer, the first smells she’d been sure of in weeks. She must have been imagining things.

“I’m Billy Jackson from the next block over. Your grandson Jason’s a buddy of mine. Joe hired me to help out.”

“Help how?” she asked, horrified this child dared call her son, an elderly man himself, by his first name. Used to be that was unheard of.

“He hired me to mow....” Billy spat into the grass. “Don’t know why you’d bother. Doesn’t look like there’s any real grass left. In this heat, the weeds’ll dry up soon too.”

Emily stared at him. He was too young to help, too immature for machines and sharp objects. She had to get rid of him. “That’s just the beginning.” She gestured to the garden.

Shoving his cap around backward, Billy studied her like he might a dead skunk. “I can chop down the lawn, but weedin’ the garden? That’ll cost ya extra, lady.”

She waved a gnarled finger and stared a hole through the kid, a look that had served her well for forty years of teaching. “That’s Miss Emily to you, young man! Want me to speak to your father?”

He stepped back against a broken lawn chair and stood a little straighter. “Got no father... Miss Emily.”

Of course not. If he’d had a father, he might have learned some manners. “I’ll pay you, young man, but I don’t want you to tear it all down. I expect to see the flowers when you’re finished.”

“No problem, ma’am.” His tone thickened with sarcasm. He started to turn, then swung back. “Why do you care about a bunch of bug-eaten flowers at your age?”

She studied his freckled face. “Those flowers are all I got left. Lots of memories.”

He bobbed his head. “I see.”

Of course he didn’t. His life had just begun, and he probably planned to escape this rural town to find something bigger, jobs that paid more, not stay and preserve its beauty. That’s what all the kids wanted. City living. That’s why they were so crowded. Emily gazed through the screen and watched the breeze tug on that brilliant yellow flower. Her mind sharpened. Helianthus annuus. “I worked this garden for nigh on fifty year, young man. When you put all your strength into a task, it means something.”

Billy stared at bird droppings on the porch. “Didn’t last long, though, did it?”

What could she say to that? It had been at least two years since she worked it herself. Maybe longer. Fifty years was yesterday. Her husband had been gone twenty, but she sometimes still heard him making breakfast in the morning. Some days his being there was all she could think of.

“Grams loved her garden too.” When Billy swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbed. “The neighborhood’s not like it used to be, you know. You’re the only one who still has flowers. Does Joe know the house next door is a methlab?”

She nodded. She had no idea what the fuss was over that horrible drug, but she knew enough to be afraid of explosions.

He shifted his weight onto one leg, making the holes at the knees of his jeans gape. “You know about the...lady...who moved in across the street?”

Emily felt her strength giving way. “She’s a prostitute. And there are hungry kids down the street too. Used to be different. Used to be that neighbors were friends.” So many wrongs she could no longer right. In fact, she never stepped outside anymore after dark.