A Pound of Flesh
Mimi
She picks up gardening.
It’s a pretty spur of the moment decision; they’re shopping, her family is moving to New York soon, her mother tells her “what do you want to bring?” and as she trots toward the clothing isle her gaze lands on a botany book.
Old Mimi would have ignored it. Old Mimi wouldn’t have given it the time of the day. Frankly, Mimi isn’t even sure she knows half of the kanjis in this book.
She buys it anyway.
New York is nice. The city is as bright and loud as she is, a thunderstorm of passerby and lighting.
The small potted plants by her window are silent, their soft green welcome when Mimi needs a break from the world.
She prefers cacti; they’re less difficult to take care of, what with her family traveling to Hawaii or Colorado or elsewhere.
(That’s what she tells whoever asks, anyway.)
She’s ten when the first leaf break her skin.
It’s a small thing, on her left shoulder. It looks so fragile here, as if the slightest wind could tear it of.
Mimi is confident it couldn’t, though. That leaf’s a part of her, after all, and the two times she was left on her own she rose a kingdom and a small army. She knows herself stronger and tougher than she seems.
The proper reaction, she thinks, would be to panic. But Mimi has walked miles and fought back filth-throwing monsters once upon a time, so all that comes in her mind is huh.
She boots up her computer and emails Izzy. I wonder if I can make it bloom?
She’s eleven and the answer, as it turns out, is yes.
She smiles when she spots the flower on the side of her neck. It’s yellow, like the star hairclips in her drawer. Perhaps she should dye her hair pink, to go with it.
She knew one just can’t go wrong with water and sunlight.