By Bonita Jewel
On a warm April afternoon, a loud knock sounded at the front door. I set down an overflowing laundry basket and pulled the door open.
The short woman with cropped gray hair looked familiar. “I’m Rhonda,” she said. “I live across the street.” Right. In the three years since we had moved in, she had never introduced herself. Other than sending my boys over with cookies at Christmas, we’d had little contact with her and her husband.
I smiled and readied to introduce myself, but she thrust her phone at me and asked, “Is this your son?” Before I could answer, she continued, “Can you tell me why your son was sneaking around our front yard yesterday.” She paused, pointing at the time stamp in the corner of the screen, “At 3:49 in the afternoon?”
I recognized my ten-year-old’s red-hooded sweatshirt as he stumbled into view. He brushed himself off and ran out of sight. I smiled. That boy.
“He’s practicing his flying skills,” I told Rhonda.
He and his brother both. With their father gone and me—a human—of no use in the matter, my boys decided to help each other. So far, Teroen had circled our backyard tree and even hovered over the roof. Thelet, two years younger, could barely get off the ground. But their hopes soared, their spirits strong.
“Look,” Rhonda continued, “I already told someone about the danger of damaging our sprinklers. There is so much space.” She gestured at my small front yard and the narrow street between our houses. “Keep your kids off my lawn.”
I bit my bottom lip. “Okay.”
“Thank you,” she said sharply, crossing my lawn as she left.
I stood, the open door letting in a faint hint of jasmine. The way she had spat out “someone.” She knew my husband’s name. Neforoq. And in this small Earth town, she must have known of his accident last year.
I closed the door and took a steadying breath before heading to the boys’ room. “Teroen, were you on our neighbor’s lawn yesterday?”
My older son looked at me with wide, golden eyes. “Just trying to fly. I didn’t mean to crash into her yard.”
“That’s why we’re playing inside today,” Thelet added, his violet face flushing plum. “We didn’t want the mean lady to get mad again.”
Ten minutes later, Teroen came to me, holding up a letter of apology. “I can give this to her.”
I glanced out the window. “Maybe tomorrow.” The sun had set, and I didn’t want my son to show up on their camera and the cops be called on him. Or worse, the Interplanetary Defense Force.
The next day, I began cleaning out the garage. Our neighborhood’s big trash pickup was scheduled for late April.
While carrying a broken chair to the curb, I spotted Rhonda’s husband, Jim, on his front porch.
I smiled and crossed the street. He froze, looking unsure whether flight or fight would be the better response.
I barely avoided calling out “I come in peace” as I stood on the sidewalk. “I wanted to apologize. My son was practicing. He doesn’t know how to fly very well yet.”
“Now the thing is,” Jim began as if he had rehearsed his words, “it has taken us a long time to get this lawn the way we want it.”
I have never seen Jim or Rhonda pull a single weed. Two men drive up every Friday morning, lawn equipment in tow, and spend hours rain or sun improving that yard. The men’s chartreuse hue makes it obvious they’re from the war-riven planet of Cobalia. Refugees often take on such work. Underpaid, of course.
“I won’t let it happen again,” I assured Jim. “I talked to my boys—”
“We already talked to some other adult about this a while ago,” Jim continued.
I bristled. “My late husband—”
“It’s not that we have a problem with intergalactic marriages or anything. We just want to be left alone.”
He turned and walked back into his house. I looked at the lawn stretching before me. A singular shade of green. Perfectly manicured.
***
The next Friday, the Cobalians trimmed my neighbors’ trees. They set branches, leaves, and twigs out on the curb for the big garbage pickup.
I pondered the cuttings. Those trees should have been pruned in winter, not April. The trimmings stretched a dozen feet or more, and at least three feet high. It resembled a wall and brimmed with life cut short.
We just want to be left alone.
I went inside and pulled a thick journal from my bookshelf. It chronicled the journeys Neforoq and I had made. My words. His sketches. I smiled at the memories—backpacking the seven moons of Oresedhe, exploring the ocean world of Lemrusel…
I flipped to the pages of our season working the verdant fields of Sonhid. There, we learned to make anything grow. I pictured my husband’s sharp features, his golden eyes and indigo skin. His wit and protectiveness. He would approve.
Reading over the lines I’d written, I practiced the words and the Sonhideen gestures for reviving that which might be redeemed.
Over the weekend, forlorn branches lining our neighbors’ curb began to grow, imperceptibly at first. By midweek, leafy twigs reached the lawn, rooting into earth as they stretched toward Jim and Rhonda’s house.
Friday morning, I stepped out on the front porch and watched my boys. Thelet held Teroen’s hand as the two ascended, shakily at first, then gaining confidence. They hovered over a dense hedge that covered the neighbors’ house completely.
The Cobalians pulled up in their truck and beheld the living wall. I heard angry shouts coming from within the growing enclosure. One of the Cobalians looked at me, and I smiled. He nodded and they drove away. They knew as well as I did, no gardening tools would make a difference when magic brought something to life.
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I really enjoyed this!
Thank you, Jen! It was a fun story to write. :)