by Neil Hetzner
Bette stood for a moment and looked at the lavender bells hanging from the eggplant and the straight stalks of the okra and the dusty green leaves of the basil and, against the white stucco wall, the profusion of reds and pinks and whites and purples of the nodding hollyhocks flowering early after the long warm winter. She saw a basil plant had budded. Angling a crutch and hopping back a step for better balance, she bent over and pinched back the buds.
“Not so fast,” she whispered.
Bett straightened up, trapped a crutch under her right arm and beat a slight tattoo against the flesh where her breast had been, then, struck with a thought, she tipped an imaginary bottle in a toast to the hollyhocks and all else she had watched grow and change in heat and cold, in wet and dry, in late springs and early frosts, in tended and untended conditions.
“Oh, Opa, what a grand garden this all is.”