"My Flower"

Chapter 3 - The Roxton's

~ ~ ~ 1988

Although Westmount wasn't huge it was plenty big enough for the people who lived there, if you ever traveled to Westmount you'd see on one side of the mountain lay the more city like side of town

Filled with apartments, restaurants, businesses and the vibrant life of its inhabitants but if you follow the pot hole filled road that goes around the mountain you'd reach the more quaint side of things.

They didn't have a lot of businesses, just the local grocery store and one or 2 diners. Not to mention the fishing port with a couple small fishing boats bringing in their latest catch of crabs, fish, and other marine life.

Most people would call this the poor side of town but to the Roxton's they called it their neighborhood.

Truth be told the Roxton's weren't rich by any means, Mason Roxton worked at a construction company that mostly just fixed odds and ends now that the majority of big buildings had been built.

Imogen Roxton is a stay at home mom, taking care of their son Hunter and the small farm they had.

Their home was built using the wood of the surrounding trees around their home, constructed by Mason himself when Imogen was pregnant with Hunter.

Now Hunter was six and she was pregnant with their second and the house still wasn't fully finished but they had to live with what they had.

Although their side of town was tiny, it brought the home owners closer together as a community always helping each other out whenever someone needed it

Which was exactly what Imogen and Hunter were doing now

Hunter comes running inside through the small side door connected to the kitchen.

"Mama, I got the eggs!!" Hunter called out carrying a woven basket of brown and white colored eggs "mama they're getting heavy!"

"I'm here, I'm here." Imogen says calming, waddling over to her young son to take the basket from his hands

"I see you've also brought me the chicken!" Imogen laughs glancing behind Hunter.

He had forget to close the door again and one of their egg chickens, Dawn, had snuck her way in

"Daaawn no! You know you are an outside chicken!" Hunter says gently picking her up to throw her back outside

"If you have such a hard time carrying these eggs Hunter how are you going to help me take them over to Mrs. Laura's?" Imogen says while carefully washing all the dirt off the fragile eggs

"I-I wasn't having trouble I can do it! Promise I can!" Hunter pleads, tugging on his moms skirt

Imogen laughs and runs her soft hands through her son's messy hair "I know, I know, hey Mrs. Laura actually just called me and asked if she can have some vegetables as well so why don't you go pick some?" She suggests

"Ok! I'll pick some of everything!" Hunter says while grabbing another basket and running outside. Imogen waddles over to the door to shut it, seeing as he forgot to close it again.

She calls out to him to only pick the ripe ones and Hunter gives her a thumbs up.

To get to their gated farm spot Hunter walks the gravel path way passed their cow and goat pins and doges around some of their free range chickens.

Hunter reaches the gate and has to tell himself out loud to close the gate. It's a good thing he does because not far behind him was dawn, hoping to get in.

He gives dawn a stare to let her know he's watching her before going back to what he was doing.

What was he doing?

Hunter stoped for a moment trying to remember when it hit him, he's supposed to get vegetables for Mrs. Laura.

As he's picking vegetables Hunter comes across a weird slug thing resting on top of a bell pepper.

He picks up the slug thing and holds it in his hands, feeling it crawl around on him tickled and made the boy giggle to himself.

"I'm sorry sluggy, but I don't think you can be in our garden. I'm gonna give you a knew home." He says to the insect in his hands imagining it talks back to him saying thank you.

Hunter opens the gate to the garden, almost forgetting to close it but does just in time before Dawn got in.

He starts walking around their property trying to find the perfect spot for sluggy, but it's kinda hard because Dawn won't leave him alone.

Hunter eventually decides to put sluggy on a tree, high enough Dawn can't reach. She sure does try though to which Hunter yells and chases Dawn away.

Oh how he loved to run, he could run forever most days so that's what he did he ran around the yard doing cartwheels in the grass, trying his best to avoid the other chickens.

He passed by the goat pin and says hello to Sunny, their American La-mango...Hunter was pretty sure he was getting that wrong but couldn't remember what the actual name his dad had told him.

"Oh your water bowl is empty, don't worry Sunny I'll get it!" Hunter spoke out, grabbing the bright red bucket hanging up by the outside faucet and filling it up with cold water.

The water dance and rippled in the sunlight, practically sparking and Hunter couldn't help but splash it around. Not enough to get himself wet but splashing none the less.

"Hunter?? Did you get the vegetables? We have to go now" he could hear his mom call and he froze.

"Umm-umm yea! Just one sec!" He called out forget the bucket of water and running back over to the vegetable garden. He picked a couple more off the plants they were growing off of, making sure they were ripe when he heard foot steps behind him.

"Hunter, I told you to close the gate after yourself! Now Dawn is in there with you!" Imogen says with a huff. Bending down to shoo Dawn out.

"I'm sorry mama.." the boy replied, a sad expression across his face. He listens to what his parents tell him, but for some reason he always forgets or gets distracted and he didn't know why.

Imogen sighs and runs her fingers through his hair again, "it's ok sweetie, just be more careful next time."

Hunter nods then grabs the basket of vegetables to walk out of the garden with his mom.

They normally would take their families pickup truck but they only had one and that one had to be used when Mason went to work. At least it was a good day out today.

The walk to Mrs. Laura's house took no more than 20 minutes, it would have taken Hunter a lot less if he could run but he knew he had to stay by his mom.

Hunter is the first to reach the front porch and Mrs. Laura was already outside, sitting on her rocking chair with a stinky cigarette in one hand and a can of coke-a-cola in the other.

She takes a long drag of the cigarette and says "hey, you guys brought my-"

Her sentence was cut short by Hunter dropping the basket of vegetables in her lap and then promptly asking if he can play with Tyler.

Imogen scolded Hunter for being rude but Mrs. Laura dismissed it, telling her he's just excited "she's around back Hunter" and that's all he needed to hear

Imogen watches him jump off the porch steps to run around the peeling white painted house.

"It's probably just pre-school jitters, my Tyler's got em. Won't sit still for nothing. Can't wait to go back to school. Man those were the days huh?" Mrs. Laura laughs fallowed by a cough. She takes a sip of her coke which eases her aching throat..then puts the cigarette back in its place.

Imogen agrees and takes a seat next to her and the 2 begin chatting away about whatever's been happening on the news, about Beth-ann's new husband, and anything else they can think of.