by emily koester
“Watch out for falling leaves,” Donna said. “They’re even heavier than last year.”
Donna’s daughter Julia nodded as she looped her arms through her backpack straps. “I know, Mom,” she said. “I won’t walk under any trees.”
As if to underscore the point, a thick oak leaf fell to the ground with a thud, audible from even inside the house.
“You have to wear your helmet,” Donna said, handing it to Julia. “I don’t care if it doesn’t look cool.”
Julia scowled and put on the helmet. “Fine,” she said. “Bye.”
Donna watched from the window as Julia trotted down the front steps and down the sidewalk, obediently stepping into the street to avoid any falling leaves.
When Julia was young, Donna told her how leaves used to turn bright yellow and orange and red in the fall, drifting to the ground like feathers. This was before the worst of climate change had set in, with all of its unanticipated effects. Who would have thought that the leaves would turn to stone, falling on their heads like anvils in old cartoons?
Some of her neighbors had started chopping down the trees, but the city government ordered them to stop. Nature could retaliate, they said, and who knows what would happen then? Climate change was already so much weirder than scientists had predicted. Flowers no longer bloomed; they exploded like fireworks. Grass grew sharp as glass shards, piercing children’s feet. Snowflakes burned like dry ice. Gone was Walt Whitman’s nature. This was nature on the defense. Nature was, at last, fighting back.
Donna went into the kitchen and reached into the cupboard for coffee grounds. Coffee had become so expensive now – 80 dollars a pound – that Donna only allowed herself one cup per week. Today was the day for coffee, Donna decided. She needed the energy to write her presentation. A mechanical engineer by training, she had begun teaching graduate students about new shipping technology that could navigate boiling waters of the Atlantic. The skies were too turbulent for planes now; ships were the only way to send goods.
Donna logged into her computer with a press of her fingertip, then opened a blank presentation. What to call it? “Climate Adaptions for Shipping” she typed. She paused, then hit delete. “Navigating the 22nd Century,” she typed instead.
Donna’s phone rang. Middleview High showed on her phone screen. This wouldn’t be good. A call from the school usually meant that Julia was cutting class. Once they called because Julia had stolen seeds from her biology class. No one was supposed to grow plants without supervision – plants had become too dangerous, too unpredictable. Julia had denied stealing the seeds, but six months later, Donna found petunias sprouting under a grow light in Julia’s closet. Donna blamed herself for telling Julia too many tales about gardening with her grandmother.
Donna hit the green answer button on her phone.
“Hi, this is Donna,” she said.
“Donna, this is Fred Wright, the principal of Middleview High. Are you sitting down?”
Donna swallowed. “I am,” she said.
“I’m so sorry to tell you this, but Julia was found about a block from school. It appears she was hit by a falling leaf.”
Donna sat frozen.
“She’s still alive,” the principal said quickly. “But she is unconscious. The ambulance just arrived. I recommend you get to the hospital right away.”
Donna was silent.
“Are you still there?” the principal asked gently.
“Was she wearing her helmet?” Donna asked. She wanted to be mad. It was better than being terrified.
“No, I’m afraid she wasn’t,” he said.
Donna couldn’t remember how she arrived at the hospital. Her car must have driven her there. The hospital was a blur of white linoleum and bright lights, of squeaky nurses’ shoes and the smell of antiseptic. And then she was in Julia’s room.
Julia looked peaceful – merely asleep on the pale blue of her hospital bed. The back of her head was bandaged in thick layers of gauze. Her heart monitor beeped steadily. It was then that Donna felt grief churn through her like a summer storm. She knelt by the hospital bed and pressed her face into Julia’s hand, and sobbed.
~
Catastrophes are the worst when they could have been avoided, Donna reflected. She sat by Julia’s bed, holding a cup of uneaten vanilla pudding. If only Julia had kept her helmet on.
It had been two days since the accident, and Donna had not yet gone home. The doctors had explained that it was impossible to predict when – or even if – Julia would wake up from her coma. And so Donna dozed in the chair by Julia’s bed, wearing the same clothes as when she arrived.
In the next room over, a television blared. Two talking heads were rehashing the same debates that had raged for years.
“Nature must be completely destroyed,” a commanding voice from the television said. “Nature is the aggressor. It’s time to pave it over. We grow our food in labs. Nature serves no purpose other than....”
“That’s the attitude that got us in this mess,” a woman interrupted. “Don’t you see? Nature is bigger than us. If we pave Nature over, as you so thoughtfully suggest, Nature will just break up the pavement with earthquakes. We don’t have a choice but to make peace.”
“Making nice with the enemy,” the first voice mocked. “Sounds like a winning platform.”
A nurse came in. “The pudding didn’t do it for you, huh?” he asked. The nurse had been encouraging Donna to eat something.
Donna averted her eyes. She couldn’t joke.
“No,” she said.
“It’s time you got some rest,” he said kindly. “We’ll call you immediately if she wakes up.”
Donna nodded. She knew he was right. She reluctantly gathered her things, and stroked Julia’s forehead.
“I’ll be back soon,” she whispered.
~
She was almost home from the hospital when the idea occurred to her. It was an idea she would have scoffed at a week ago. But now, the idea felt inevitable. She opened her car’s navigation screen. “Take me to the Science Lab,” she commanded. Obediently, her car made a U-Turn.
The Science Lab was a square, metallic warehouse that sprawled at the edge of the university campus. Authorized staff and faculty were allowed to purchase dangerous equipment for their classes. As an adjunct, it was possible that Donna would be authorized to purchase biology equipment. Donna gazed into the eye scanner outside the warehouse, and the sliding front doors glided open. She was in.
Donna grabbed a shopping cart and walked straight to the gardening aisle. She pulled grow lights, pots, and bags of soil, piling her cart recklessly high. She picked up wildflower seeds: bergamot and poppy and aster. “Nonexplosive,” each package read. “Native wildflower seeds not evolved to survive human expansion.”
At the check-out, she scanned each item, conscious of cameras. Would they know that she taught mechanical engineering, not biology or ecology? She placed her finger on the check-out scanner, holding her breath.
“Thank you for your purchase,” the scanner chirped. “Have a nice day.”
For the rest of that evening, with the shades drawn, Donna filled pots with soil, pressing seeds into the rich damp earth. Donna had forgotten the fresh softness of soil on her fingertips. She cleared her her closet shelves, and Julia’s closet shelves and placed pot after pot under grow lights. When she was done, she admired her handiwork. The hard part, she realized, would be waiting.
~
“The first poppy sprouted today,” Donna whispered into Julia’s ear. It had been two weeks since Donna planted her seeds. Julia still lay in her pale blue bed, eyes closed, calm.
The next week Donna had more updates. “The aster have sprouted,” she said. “And the poppy are an inch tall. By the time you wake up, we’ll have a whole greenhouse.”
Julia still didn’t move.
Donna made more trips to the Science Lab warehouse. She planted more seeds, and cleared more space. Soon there were wildflowers on her buffet table. Then there were more on her bookshelves, then on bathroom counters. Plants reached for the windows towards the light. Would the neighbors complain? she wondered. Report her to the cops? But no one did. Maybe no one dared. They either felt sorry for her because of Julia, or they feared she was crazy.
One day she brought Julia pictures of the plants on her phone. “When you wake up,” she said, “you’ll see everything I’ve grown. Look at the aster. At the coneflowers. At the butterfly weed. This is the garden we’ll grow together.”
Julia did not move.
“And the best part is,” Donna said, leaning in to whisper. “I broke the rules to get those seeds.”
Was it just Donna’s imagination, or did Julia’s eye twitch?
Donna kept going. “If you wake up, you could be Bonnie and Clyde, selling plants on the black market,” she said.
No response.
“Or heck, let’s just rob a bank together!” Donna said. “And I’ll even let you cut class to do it!”
Still no response.
“Please wake up,” she begged finally. “Please. If you wake up we can do anything you want.” Hot tears gathered in Donna’s eyes.
Abruptly, she sensed the nurse standing in the doorframe. He smiled kindly. Visiting hours were over.
Donna wiped her eyes. “I must look ridiculous,” she said. “I know I can’t wake her up. I know she might not even hear me.”
The nurse looked at her thoughtfully. “You’re not ridiculous,” he said softly. “You love your daughter. And we make an effort for the things we love, no matter what the outcome.”
Donna nodded and put on her coat. By the time she got home, she had convinced herself that Julia’s eye twitch had been her imagination. She parked the car and got out of the garage. The sun had nearly set, and she could see the shadowed silhouettes of her plants through her back window. Suddenly seized with insanity, she walked inside and found her last packet of bergamot seeds. Then she started strewing the seeds on the grass like a wild woman.
“Grow!” she shouted at the seeds, tears streaming down her face. “Just grow!”
It was then that she saw it. A fallen leaf from a maple tree, lying innocently in the grass. In the dim light, the leaf looked dark red and papery. And when she lifted it, it was light as a feather.
Emily Koester lives in Washington DC, where she works in an international nonprofit focused on education. She lives in a historic cooperative and is active with a local community of writers. This is her first published piece.