Jesus, I feel like an idiot.
Not just one of your bargain-basement, everyday idiots. No, I feel like a top-shelf, A-one, America’s-Got-Talent idiot.
Because I’m talking to a houseplant.
Specifically, I’m talking to a Asparagus Densiflorus, or Asparagus Fern. I know the Latin name for you, you ungrateful little bastard, because I have traveled to the far corners of Google trying to figure out why you, one of Sunset magazine’s “Top Twenty Unkillable Houseplants,” are completely choking up on me.
I can only assume that it’s personal. Everyone told me that Asparagus ferns are hardy and strong, and durable. That’s what the guy at the plant shop told me, the nursery. Yeah. The librarian, the botany teacher at the community college, they told me that you guys just need a little water once a week and some indirect sunlight and you green right up.
Nothing.
I went down to the home center and asked one of the dudes working there. He said maybe you needed a bigger pot, and some special soil, and these plant food spikes that cost more than a dinner at Olive Garden.
You just sit there at the bottom of your new terracotta home and turn browner by the minute, you little jerk.
I even called the plant guy on the radio. You know, the one with the funny accent. I dunno where he’s from, Norway or Wisconsin or some shit. I was on hold for like three hours, snotty intern producer asking me all sorts of questions, finally he tells me that maybe the environment in this home is toxic to plants. Like I haven’t heard that before.
So I cleaned everything up. I vacuumed, and moved all the boxes and stuff out. I bought a little stand at that fancy shop so you could sit there, like a fucking boss on your little throne, and why won’t you stay alive?
…
Yeah. Yeah. No. We’re good. It’s cool. I’m fine.
Look. Plant. I’ll tell you something. You know, she didn’t leave me because of someone else. She didn’t leave me because I was a jerk, although I guess I kind of was. She didn’t leave me because of abuse. I never hit her, and I never hit Noni, either. And I didn’t do any of that “Emotional abuse” stuff, either.
She didn’t leave me because of the drugs or drinking, I guess. I guess I know that because she didn’t come back when I stopped doing drugs and drinking.
You listening, plant? ‘Cause now I’m talking to you.
I think she left me, and took Noni with her, because according to her I never finished anything I started. Which is bullshit, I think. I made it all the way through real estate agent training, and insurance agent training, and travel agent training, and that motel management course, and getting my limo license so I could drive town cars at the airport. That’s a lot of stuff that I finished.
It’s not my fault that none of those things ever worked out. I had big plans. I was gonna do stuff, you know? I was gonna sell some houses and then maybe buy one for us, fix it up, get Noni her own room-
Yeah, give me a minute. No, just give me a second.
I guess it’s okay that I’m crying in front of a plant. I’ve been talking to you for a half hour, right? That makes us old pals.
See, I guess Noni has her own room, now. It’s at Children’s Orthopedic. I guess she’s got one of those rare kinds of. Rare kinds of. Um. It’s rare.
And, see, I don’t have anything left of them. Caroline took everything when she left, not that we had much. And she took all of Noni’s stuff, too. So I don’t have anything to remind me of my baby-
There I go again. I guess I can’t be all that “emotionally hollow,” huh.
See, she left you here, which is weird. Caroline always liked having plants around; she loved to take Noni to the park and show her different flowers and such. I guess there just wasn’t room for you in the car, plus you were kinda sick to start with.
But I’ve got a plan, plant. See, if you can get healthy, if we can make you healthy, then that’s like a metaphor thing, right? If you can turn it around, if we can turn you around, then I can take you right up to the hospital, all green and healthy, and it’ll show both of them. It’ll show Noni that she can make it, if she tries hard, she can be healthy again.
And it’ll show Caroline that I can fix something, that I can see something through. I can bring you back to life, I can bring our marriage back.
We can be a family again.
Just, you know, work with me here, is what I’m saying.
Please.
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