The Door

Chapter Fourteen

I awoke after an uneasy night of sleep to the smell of breakfast and made a mental note to remind my mom I was no longer a kid, and she didn't have to cook for me. I could help out, which is how it was supposed to be between two adults, even if I didn't really feel like an adult yet.

In ten years, I hadn't aged a day, and it showed in my face. Every time I looked in the mirror, I had the weird sense of being somewhere I wasn't supposed to, or maybe, of not fitting into where I was. Shaking my head at my reflection, I couldn't help but smile when I looked around my huge room. This place was a dream. I even had my own bathroom and a working fireplace. After a life of near poverty, I felt rich living here.

The mornings were chilly, and I tugged on a sweatshirt and slippers before leaving our wing of the house. Half-asleep still, I didn't register the courtyard until my mom's excited voice jarred me out of my sleepy state.

"You didn't tell me we had a garden!" she exclaimed.

I rubbed my eyes and paused near the courtyard, taking in the random plants and trees that had sprung up overnight.

A thrill tore through me. First the house, then the shed and now the garden.

The property hadn't lost its magic. All I needed now was for an alien to show up at my front door.

"It's kind of an unusual garden," my mom said.

I smiled, genuinely pleased to see the green growth. Zucchini, strawberries and peppers hunched at the bases of the trunks of four trees, two of which were cherry trees by the pink petals and the other two of which already bore lemons.

"And they grew so fast. I don't think that's normal," she observed.

I hesitated, uncertain how to tell her this place was magic. "Breakfast smells good," I said instead.

"I picked some of the vegetables for our frittata," she said with a smile. "You look tired, Gi. Did you sleep okay?"

"Fine," I lied.

"Come on. Some food will help."

With one last look at the garden, I went with her into the kitchen.

We had a nice breakfast and then began our morning chores. A house this big, in a place this dusty, required constant attention. I dusted the guest wings and made sure everything was spotless before retreating from the house to the world's ugliest shed for more gardening supplies.

By mid-morning, I was hunched over in the courtyard, carefully creating more rows of plants. Mom joined me shortly after, and together, we spent most of the day planting and watering seeds. Lunch and dinner consisted of leftovers, but we were too occupied to stop and cook. The act of gardening was as calming as it was entrancing, and I started to relax for the first time in months.

"Definitely not normal," my mom said when the sky grew too dark to continue. The soft lights at the edges of the courtyard created more of a romantic setting than one useful for planting seeds. She sat heavily on the edge of the Saltillo and flexed her hands, eyes on the vegetables we planted this morning that had already grown to knee high. "How is this possible?" she mused aloud, not for the first time.

We hadn't talked about it, but in the decade I was gone, she had developed pretty bad arthritis. I saw her absently massaging her hands often.

"Are your hands okay?" I asked.

"Yeah. Think I'm done for the day. Want to sit on the front porch?" She rose.

"Nah. It's cold out today," I replied. "I have ten years worth of television to catch up on."