Fiction Friday #10: The House Plant

New tensions take root after a couple rescues an abandoned plant from the street.

“Clapping hands.” Watercolor and tears.

I cup my hand around the candlewick as I light it, the finishing touch on the dinner settings next to the perfectly crisp branzino and uncorked wine bottle. Voices float from the entryway. Showtime.

“Everyone, this is Hong, my girlfriend.”

I wave to both of her coworkers. They smile with their teeth, but I wonder if they are surprised that I’m the partner of long-legged, blonde Elena. As they cross into the living room, she makes a ta da gesture with her arms and they both ooh and ah. I beam, thinking they’re admiring the meal that I’ve spent the last few hours laboring over, but they’re gazing at Elena’s plant nursery, which takes up as much space as our furniture.

“Your plants are so healthy.”

“They’re my babies,” Elena says brightly. “Let’s start the tour in the kitchen.” She doesn't see me shaking my head. I haven’t had a chance to wash and put away the dirty bowls and jars of ingredients yet. There’s no elegant way for me to squeeze ahead of them and clear the mess.

“The cabinet color is my favorite detail. The pantry is a little small and has an ant problem, but we make do.”

They nod politely, but it irks me that she felt the need to point that out, as if they are health inspectors and not guests. While their heads are turned, I wipe off the flour dusting the counter with my palm.

“And here is the bedroom,” Elena says in a showwoman voice, swinging the door open to reveal a bed covered in mounds of laundry. Laundry that she was responsible for hanging while I slaved away in the kitchen. Great, I think, her coworkers have seen my period underwear.

“Nice art,” chimes the female coworker, averting her eyes and motioning to the wooden tribal mask hanging above the nightstand.

“I found that piece while backpacking through the Atlas mountains,” Elena brags. It’s one of the items she picked out with her ex, and she won’t get rid of it because “it represents an important chapter.”

She leads them back into the hallway, and I stay behind to shove the piles of clothes into the closet even though the damage has already been done. When I rejoin them, the male coworker is saying, “Charlie called; he wants his Christmas tree back.” The specimen in question sits in the corner of our living room, next to the window. The coworker cracks up at himself and glances around, his gaze landing on me.

He clocks my blank stare and asks, “Charlie Brown’s Christmas Special? Please tell me you know about Charlie Brown, Hong.”

I shrug. I know he’s talking about the cartoon about the bald, depressed kid and the dog; I just didn’t grow up celebrating Christmas like white people, with ham and Hallmark movies, and if there’s a shared pop culture reference from childhood, it usually flies over my head.

“Hong never watched T.V. as a kid— she’s a reader,” says Elena. I bristle at the way she says it, like I’m some sort of intellectual snob instead of the daughter of restaurant owners. The only thing I got to watch was my mom’s old Hong Kong soap operas after the evening rush.

Clearly not one to leave a dead horse alone, the coworker continues, “Well your tree is like his, except it’s missing an ornament, and uh— all of its leaves and branches. It’s kind of sad.”

I’m not a fan of this guy, but on this point we’re in total agreement. The plant is a pathetic sight. Nearly six feet tall, with nothing green or alive along its pencil-width…trunk? Stem? Just a scraggly pole or an antenna signaling for help.

“I’m a great plant mom!” whines Elena.

“Does that make you the plant baby daddy?” the coworker asks me with a wink. Elena gives me a light smack on the ass, which embarrasses me because it seems more for show than anything. Charlie Brown does an ow OW.

“What kind of plant is it?” the female coworker asks.

I shrug. “The dead kind.”

“Haters! Not dead. In hibernation,” Elena insists. “It was a New Year’s miracle; we were walking back from the bar and saw it just sitting there on the curb. Can you believe someone just dumped it outside?”

She grabs our spray bottle and spritzes the trunk/stem a few times. With a raised eyebrow, she sticks her finger into the soil.

“Weird. I just watered it this morning and it’s totally dry again. Thirsty girl.”

Charlie Brown aims his phone camera at the plant.

“I got this app that IDs plants and shit. It uses A.I. or something.” He taps at his screen, focusing and refocusing the lens with growing frustration. “Uh, it says it needs a flower or leaf for an accurate ID. Is this thing even a plant?”

“Just watch,” says Elena, now a tad defensive, “A little T.L.C. and this baby will perk right up.” She dumps water from her own cup into the street plant’s pot, the way a mother bird regurgitates into a hatchling’s mouth.

“Aw, Hong, your girlfriend has a green thumb!” says my teammate Priya.

It’s the following afternoon, and Elena and I are both sleep deprived and nursing hangovers as we work from home. After her coworkers left, we got into it when I complained about the mess in the bedroom. She called me uptight and I called her a slob.

“Makes one of us,” I reply to Priya, glancing over to Elena. Thankfully, my headphones are on; she doesn’t need extra encouragement. She keeps popping up in the background of my video call, dispelling the blurred area and revealing patches of our living room to my team as she spritzes her plants.

I mute myself and snap, “Can you do that later?” She shrinks out of view on the armchair. I didn’t mean to yell, but the obsessive watering, pruning, spritzing and admiring of her handiwork takes hours each day.

Ficus lyrata next to the fireplace, Pilea peperomioides on the stools, two large Monstera deliciosa flanking the loveseat, vines climbing up the walls, succulents and airplants on every shelf and windowsill— it’s a jungle compared to the studio that I lived in before moving in with Elena. When an ex-girlfriend called my preference for empty, gray apartments my “serial killer trait,” I relented and bought a succulent, which I admit, added a pretty pop of color to my desk before shriveling into a spiny brown ball after a few months. So, I tossed it into the dirt pile out back and bought a new one. That died too. And so the cycle continued, until we broke up. You replace a candle when it burns out; I don’t see what is so different about a plant.

When I end my video call, Elena is bouncing with delight in the corner.

“What is it?”

I walk over and spot a single leaf protruding from the plant’s trunk/stem. It seems impossible given there wasn’t even a bud forming last night. Yet, even more surprising, is its color. I think of a freshly skinned knee, the moment before the blood oozes out.

“I told you I’d save it,” Elena says, beaming. “Looks tropical to me. Good thing I put it next to the humidifier. Imagine the asshole that abandoned it in the middle of winter.”

I would have done the same, I think. I wonder sullenly what Elena would have said about my succulent graveyard.

For the rest of the day, I can see a pinkish-white shape out of the corner of my eye, unfurling and grasping as hungrily as an infant’s outstretched hand. I angle my computer so that it’s out of my line of sight. Elena’s shadow moves across my desk as she checks the plant compulsively, occasionally rotating the pot or giving it another spray of water.

Before we head to bed that evening, she inspects the leaf for the thousandth time. It’s fully open now, its shape as cartoonish as a Matisse cut-out.

“Look, it’s waving at me,” she coos.

I walk up behind her and wrap my hands around her waist, feeling the softness of her lower belly. Distracted, she swats my hands away and wriggles out of my grasp.

“It’s late,” she says.

I have the irrational urge to pluck the leaf right off its stem, but I trail off to the bedroom before another argument erupts. Laying in bed alone, I see water trickling down the windowpane. I wonder when it became warm enough for rain, before realizing it's a web of condensation. All last winter, I remember, I had nosebleeds and chapped lips in this apartment. A sharp sting on my neck snaps me out of the reverie, and I clap my hand against it. When I look down, my palm is splattered with blood and crushed limbs. It’s difficult to tell, but the insect remains look like a cross between a mosquito and a fruit fly.

Elena walks into our bedroom, toothbrush hanging out of the corner of her mouth, and I hold my hand up for her to see.

I raise my eyebrows when she doesn’t react.

“Bugs are normal,” she says through the foam.

“In the middle of winter?”

She shrugs. “Put up a trap if it bothers you so much.”

With each day that passes, the air in the house feels damper and heavier. Soon, it begins to reek of rot and something cloyingly sweet.

“Do you smell that?” I ask, but Elena shakes her head vaguely.

I check behind the garbage can in the kitchen, and inside the dishwasher, which sometimes backs up. I pull out packages and canned goods from the pantry, wipe down the fridge, clear the shelf that you need a step stool to reach, which Elena designated for my “funky sauces”. No spills or broken jars.

I move to our bedroom, and seeing nothing out of order, cross into the bathroom, thinking that the source must be stagnant water. There is no leak from the toilet or faucet, and the shower drain is clear of hair and gunk. The curtains and rug smell faintly of mildew, but not nearly bad enough to be the source.

I’m nearly out of ideas, but in a moment of clarity, I recall the number of times over the last week that I’ve heard the hiss of a spray bottle. I storm back out into the hallway and cross the living room. With mounting dread, I pull the armchair out from its corner.

Beneath the base of the pot is a circular patch of wood, notably darker than the surrounding floorboards. Kneeling, I press my fingers into it. It gives as easily as a sponge, and moisture froths up to the surface.

“Fuck,” I breathe.

When I rub my fingers together, they’re slick and filmy.

I fear the rot has spread to the basement ceiling, but when I sprint downstairs to check, there is no evidence of water damage.

“Maybe there’s a leak from the ceiling. We could put down a towel,” offers Elena back upstairs, as if it’s a small spill.

“The floor is warped. It’s clearly not coming from above.”

I move to crack open the window for better ventilation, but she cries, “Don’t! It’s too cold outside— you’ll hurt the plant!”

“Are you kidding? It’s a swamp in here. You weren’t overwatering that thing, you drowned it. It has to be the plant. ”

Elena shakes her head, “There’s no spillover in the saucer, and the dirt is dry. There’s no root rot.” She drags the standing fan from our bedroom and aims it at the soggy spot. It just circulates the dank smell throughout the house.

“That won’t fix it,” I warn.

“Well, it’s my security deposit,” she says.

When I wake in the morning, I’m suffocating. Dozens of tiny legs rove across my lips and eyelids, hundreds of bodies clog my airways and brush against the delicate inner hairs of my nostrils. Surging upright, I snort into my palm, expelling a wet cluster of snot and insect bodies. Revulsion launches me from the bed to the bathroom. I heave into the toilet, and when nothing comes out, I shove my hand into my mouth and nudge my tonsils with two fingers.

“Hong?”

Elena plods into the bathroom, rubbing her eyes, and straightens when she sees me clinging to the rim of the toilet.

“Food poisoning?”

I open my mouth to speak, and I feel tiny movements in my throat. That does the trick. I empty the contents of my gut into the bowl. As I come up for air, I catch a whiff of something putrid.

“You really can’t smell that?” I rasp, my throat burning.

Elena sniffs and shakes her head.

“It smells nice to me.”

I wonder if this is a ruse, a refusal to acknowledge that I’ve been right all along.

She slips away while I gargle with mouthwash. When I follow her in the living room, I have to press the collar of my shirt against my nose and mouth to block the stench. It’s pungent, worse than rotten durian left to bake in the sun. The damp collects on my upper lip and in the crease of my elbow.

Elena is back in her usual corner with the plant, tenderly tracing the outline of a lower leaf with her knuckle. Two new ones unfurled overnight.

I walk over to the nearest window and pry it open. Before I get to the next window, Elena springs to her feet and yanks the first one shut. I grab her wrist, but she flips her forearm over and jerks it away with alarming force. It’s a move from the self-defense class we took together.

“All you care about is that— that thing.”

“I won’t let her hurt you.”

The anger rushes in. She’s not talking to me. I shout names at her, try to egg her on, but she barely seems to notice. When I retreat to the bedroom, she doesn't follow.

It only takes me an hour to pack my things. Almost everything in the house is hers. I decide to leave my books; when I picked up the one on my nightstand, the pages were limp and dotted with mold. As I roll my suitcase out into the hall, it is so quiet that I can hear the buzzing of the insects. I hope that Elena has left, gone on a drive or something, and that I won’t have to face the ugly, inevitable conversation. But what awaits me is worse.

I stagger backward, losing my footing and crashing against the wall.

The plant is bowed at an unnatural angle, weighed down by something, its crown of white-pink leaves fanned to the side. Clouds of insects lift off and land again. I spot what has attracted the swarm: at the node where the first leaf sprouted only days ago hangs a baseball-sized fruit, its flesh a translucent sac.

Elena’s legs are curled around the base of the pot, the circumference tucked closely against her belly. A network of roots have punched through the terra cotta and the rotted circle of wood flooring. She stretches one hand upward, and with the slightest tug, plucks the bulbous fruit from the plant. Its leaves rattle in recoil. Dozens of clapping pink hands. She brings the fruit to her face.

My throat constricts around a scream of protest as she parts her lips and takes a bite. Her eyelids flutter shut, and air hisses through her nostrils. For several heartbeats, she lays as still as the plant. I wonder in horror if she is going into some kind of toxic shock, when her jaw begins working and gnashing. Moisture beads at the corners of her mouth until a cloudy substance dribbles down her chin. When it splatters onto the floor I can tell that it is as viscous as glue.

“Mmmmphhh,” Elena moans. The sound repulses me as much as the splattered substance, as much as the deathly smell that hangs around the air. The pain of my spine pressing against the hard wall reminds me of my body, my legs. I barrel through the front door onto the sidewalk, abandoning even my suitcase.

Outside, it is as dry and bracing as it should be in the dead of winter. I breathe in hungry gulps, letting the air wash away the noxious scent clinging to the back of my throat. I hack and spit over and over again until my tongue is sandpaper. I turn to look at the house one last time. One of the curtains had been caught outside when Elena shut the window. It flaps in the wind, a conqueror’s flag. It’s difficult to see through the condensation on the window, but I can just make out the curve of Elena’s cheek and a pink shape, so like a hand, reaching out to caress it.

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