Some evenings, when the light is good and the house is warm, I sit on the porch with a cup of tea and watch the street go quiet. The plants in my garden are doing well this year. The roses along the back fence came in thick and bright, and the herbs by the kitchen door have grown so tall I have to trim them every week. There is basil and rosemary and a small, stubborn mint plant that keeps spreading no matter how often I cut it back, and on warm nights the whole yard smells green and alive.
Sarah stopped by last Tuesday with a bag of lemons from her tree. We sat at the kitchen table and she asked me, the way she does sometimes, whether I ever regret what I did.
I thought about it for a long time, turning a lemon over in my hands, feeling its cool, dimpled skin.
“I regret that it was necessary,” I told her. “But I don’t regret defending myself.”
She nodded. We drank our tea. The afternoon light moved slowly across the kitchen floor, and from somewhere down the street came the sound of a child laughing, high and bright and careless, the way laughter sounds when you are young enough to believe the people who love you will always be kind.
Leave a Comment