Born
Inside Me

The key was waiting on a wet envelope. Mara recognised the brass loop before she recognised the greenhouse: its crooked roof, its green iron ribs, the jasmine her mother had tied to a beam with strips of an old dress. She had come to take photographs for an estate agent. Two hours, she had told herself. Then the train home.

A man was pulling ivy from the gutter. He said her name without asking. It took her a moment to find the boy she remembered in his face. Eli had lived across the lane. At twelve, they had buried a broken cup beneath the apple tree and promised never to tell. Now he had grey in his hair and a ladder that shook whenever he laughed.

She had prepared a sharp answer for anyone who asked why she had stayed away. Eli only moved his coat from the bench so she could sit. Inside, beneath a floor littered with leaves, green shoots had found the gaps between the stones. Mara put the camera back in her bag. She missed her train. The next one would do.

Sunlight made the place look worse. Every streak on the glass appeared at once. There were rotten boards beneath the bench and a gap in the rear window where wind worried the jasmine leaves. Mara stood in the doorway with a broom, suddenly angry at the size of a job she had never agreed to do.

Eli could come on Saturday. The glazier could come next week. Rain was due that night. She rang both, bought a sheet of clear plastic and covered the opening herself. It took three attempts. By the time she had finished, her shoulders ached and she had forgotten to eat. She sat on her mother’s old chair and ate bread straight from its paper bag.

Beyond the glass, a blackbird pulled something from the wet grass. Mara watched it until the light moved off her shoes. She thought of the afternoons she had spent planning a different life while the one she had went on around her. Then she got up, swept another small patch of floor and called the glazier back to confirm the measurements.

Spring arrived unevenly. One morning was warm enough to open the door; the next brought frost. A seedling died despite everything Mara had done for it. She nearly threw away the whole tray, then carried the surviving plants to a better window. By April, their roots pressed against the pots.

The estate agent called again. Mara asked for more time. She had no grand plan for the greenhouse and could not promise to stay forever. Her work was still waiting in the city. Eli listened while she explained all this, then asked whether she would be back next weekend. She said yes. It was a promise small enough to keep.

Before leaving, she walked through the greenhouse once more. The stone floor was still uneven. Her mother’s chair still creaked. In a crack near the door, a tiny white flower had opened without anyone planting it. Mara crouched to look, careful of her clean coat. Then she stood, picked up her bag and left the key where Eli would find it.