When I became an adult I got married, bought a house with a yard and learned to garden. I joined a gardening club. My husband says I’m desperate in everything I do. I left the house one day to go see the garden of one of our club members. She was retired. Her garden was beautiful, and she was teaching us about pruning. We all brought our hand pruners and got to try out everyone else’s. In broad daylight, I lopped off two branches of hydrangea before realizing my mistake. “You have to cut above the bud,” Anna said. “Don’t worry. Hydrangeas grow on dead wood.” I watched her trim the same branch down to the next bud and she said to me, “Like this? Now try on that other cane.” I did it and felt a little better. We went next to a row of Buxus sempervirens, shaped like balls along the ground. Anna showed us how to use gloved hands to feel for the shape, distinguish the new growth from the old, shear back the new growth from the top down to the correct shape and step back after every cut to check the overall form. We all got to feel the plant and its denseness, and touch the leaves and branches. She said not to be afraid of pruning because plants always grew back. I knew that since I was young, but could not believe it when even the carrot heads I used to place in saucers of water would only grow briefly before dying. I knew that was because of a lack of nutrients. Anna’s carrots would always grow, I thought, and her hedges and bushes, trees and flowers. When I went home and struggled again with the dandelion roots in my garden, I thought that perhaps my carrots don’t grow, my bushes look spindly and half-dead, and my flowers bloom late because I am not fully adult yet. I told this to my husband when he got home from work. He said I was probably thinking too much and he could call a weed control company to come on the weekend. He forgot though, and I didn’t want to remind him.

Michael and Spider lived in a small house on Maple Street, two blocks from Kin’s Farm Market and four blocks from the bus stop for the number 7 going downtown. Michael had a little garden in which he grew tomatoes and radishes during the summer. Spider preferred the indoors, settling next to Michael’s bookshelf and lamp. She had a vague memory of living outside once, in some past life, but she could not remember how she had done it. Michael would leave the back door open to let in flies, and Spider would happily catch them. In the winter, Michael would sit in his kitchen, staring at the rain outside, while Spider wove snowflake shapes into her web. When Michael made coffee, the scent would waft through the house and make Spider’s feet itch. Spider sometimes had to resort to centipedes in the cold weather, but if Michael left fruit out until it began to rot, flies would breed in it. This made Spider happy, but not Michael. He would sigh at the molding fruit, let the stinking pile sit for a day or two as though it would disappear on its own, then throw it out reluctantly.

Michael liked spiders. He let other spiders live at his home if they came in, but Spider hated that. They were always small, black specks, or gangly thread-legged types that had no talent for web-building. They only made the house seem dirty, which caused their occasional guests to make remarks about cleanliness and housekeeping, and threaten to kill Spider, whose web was the most beautiful. So Spider made sure to push out all the other spiders whenever she could. That way, their house would always look tidy.

There was nothing she could do about the dust, though, which stuck stubbornly to Spider’s web and made it look tacky and old. When this happened, Spider would climb up on top of Chambers Dictionary and watch as Michael lugged out his heavy vacuum cleaner and swept through the whole house, making grunting noises as the vacuum banged into the walls and furniture in its path. When he was done, Michael would collapse onto the sofa as Spider climbed back to the lamp and began to string up her web again. Michael would watch with the sweat clinging to his back and neck as she set up her support threads and wove her hypnotic spirals, becoming drowsier and drowsier. After that they would have a little conversation, Michael half asleep on his sofa, muttering about what to make for supper, and Spider on her web, gesturing delicately about what a nice house they live in.

I’ve been carrying this idea around in my head for a long time. It was supposed to be a longer story, but I’m tired of thinking about it.

His younger brother was going on a trip with their mother. It may be forever until they see each other again. He always hated his brother, but today he thought that he will miss him. With one hand, he held his younger brother’s shoulder. With the other, he placed it against his brother’s chest and pushed very, very hard.

“Ouch, that hurts.”

He pulled out a piece of heart. It was small with rounded corners, shined as though it were wet.

As his brother was leaving the next day, both pretended that nothing had happened. Many years passed before the youngest finally remembered the piece he left behind. He returned and, miraculously, each brother recognized the other.