Houseplant

After any especially bad day in my marriage I buy a new houseplant.

At first it wasn’t deliberate, or even clear to me as the habit developed. I would walk in retail garden sections because I found them soothing; because it helped me feel somewhat calmer, somehow more myself. And slowly the plants came home with me, clutched like little leaf babies among the shopping.

Early conscripts were hardy, sturdy varieties; some guaranteed not to wither and go bad like my marriage. Perhaps I hoped they might impart that strength to me. Over months, an army of green formed ranks on my desk. As things worsened, the recruits grew bigger in proportion to the injuries – an overflowing bowl of Bromeliad in the living room, a tree sized Peace Lilly beside the couch.

When he broke my wrist I brought home an Areca palm that barely fit in the car. It casts frondy shadows on the honey oak floor from its bright place next to the south-facing window in the dining room.

When I realized that I was buying plants to cope I continued, calling it self-care. But it’s not exactly that. It’s more like, these beings… they need my care.

They need me.

So I pot them and re-pot them, water and feed them, trim them and wipe the dust from their leaves.

They grow.

They thrive.

I succeed.

At night the leaves throw shadows like a nighttime jungle on the walls, floors and ceilings just for me. I am not alone then, when I sit up late in the dark peaceful house and think about how to leave, whether to take the plants in a great awkward truckload to some new place, or leave them behind as a coping mechanism no longer required if I’m alone.

He hasn’t noticed, or questioned, the reason for this growing jungle.

I am not surprised.

We argued on my last birthday. I somehow found the words to assert myself at least a little bit – the tiniest bit. I declared that this year, I would not buy my own Christmas gifts. My words sounded weak, tiny to my ears. But that I said anything at all was apparently shocking.

I watched him think about it afterward.

He must have imagined he was thinking very hard, given that he’d never been challenged to think about it at all.

The weeks passed.

The morning came.

He gave me plants.