Charlotte's Garden

From a barren bed of hurt feelings, shoots of kindness and friendship can grow…

- Sandra Beswetherick

A work in progress?” a male voice called.

Ellie looked up from the book she was reading with her six-year-old daughter on the front step of their ground floor flat. She shaded her eyes from the bright sun with one hand and her heart leapt. It was him! Their handsome neighbour from six doors up, holding the hand of a young boy.

She wondered briefly who the boy was because she was certain their neighbour was unattached. The presence of the boy, though, meant that he liked children, right? She began to return their neighbour’s warm smile.

Ellie then realised what he was asking about. The two flowerless garden beds on either side of the building’s front walk. She winced.

“Not exactly,” she replied. How could she explain that the empty beds were an act of defiance created in a pique of resentment and hurt? Would it seem too childish?

She and Charlotte had been living no more than three weeks in their new flat when the notice arrived in the mail. Some residents’ committee, or other, complaining about the state of her flower beds.

With a new job in a strange city far from her mother’s support and her daughter in a new school trying hard to make new friends, she’d needed this complaint like she’d needed a lead boot. Ellie phoned the landlord straight away.

“Don’t you remember discussing the lease?” her landlord had asked. “The other tenants in the building have balconies to enjoy. The tenant on the ground floor has the little front garden. The idea of you and your daughter spending time together in the garden seemed to please you.”