Garden
Garden
Cassie Bravo
Garden was admirably clumsy. She never failed to trip over the same wires she had been made aware of years before, or accidentally knock over flower pots that she personally had placed. In a way, being clumsy was Garden’s aesthetic. I remember, one day, Loli had found a piece of pottery that was still in good shape that had a yin and yang symbol on it surrounded by a circle of diamonds. He thought it was perfect for Garden, especially sense she had a growing number of plants that were in desperate need of re-housing, and he was right. She absolutely loved it. So much so that she vowed to never break it or accidentally damage it in any way. Of course, she wasn’t able to hold true to that very long.
It was the beginning of Spring, and Garden was up early setting up whatever bowls and pots she had with mulch and the fertilizer she had been making all winter. She had already managed to trip over herself and break three or four things on her way down, nothing new. Unfortunately, one of those things happened to be her prized piece of pottery which she had grabbed on the way down in hopes it was the counter to save her from her fall.
When Garden saw the broken pieces of her present, she cried fountains. It was a group effort to get her to smile for months after that. When Loli came home by the end of the day, she was on her knees begging him to forgive her, which of course, he did. However, his forgiveness seemed to fall on deaf ears because Garden spent the next 2 hours saying she was sorry over and over again. After awhile the group left her happiness in my hands. I managed to get little smiles by doing little things for her like making her breakfast or staying up late on the rooftop just to talk. By the end of that week, she was back to normal -- clumsy Garden.
What worries me is that the group never stopped entrusting me with her happiness. Anytime she is sad or down, it’s up to me to lift her back up again. One of these days, I fear I might be the reason for her sadness or the cause of her depression. Who’s going to make her smile then?