Day 5 - Scene 4 - Part 2

Enar sat back on his haunches and wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “This is more work than I remember.” Sweat and dirt covered his hands and he'd probably managed to get some on his face as well. Hopefully he could wash himself off somewhere before lunch.

Lilac looked up and smiled at him. “Been a while, has it?” She'd finished with her own flowerbed a while ago, and now she sat at the other end of the one he'd started at.

“Yes... a year at least. Maybe two.” He looked up at the sky and thought back to last summer. “Mom wasn't really fit to be gardening at the end. I took her to the park now and then, but she didn't want people to see her in a wheelchair, so... Well, you know how the parks get during weekends in the city.”

“I know.” She'd sat back as well, listening as he spoke. “Did you go anywhere else?”

“No... not really.” Enar stared at his hands. There was dirt under his finger nails. “She had flowers on the balcony that she tended. I helped, and then I did it all. She liked sitting there.”

Lilac clasped her hands in her lap and nodded, her face serious.

“She had a little miniature tree as well, with white flowers. That was the last thing she did herself. I wasn't allowed to touch it.” Real dirt on his hands. Not from a pot or a bag of soil from a store. Real dirt, from the ground. “She said it reminded her of when she was young and got her real first job. It died shortly after she did.” He sniffled. His throat felt thick and he swallowed, but it didn't help.

“I see. What did she do?”

“Hairdresser.” He smiled at that. His mother had loved her job, and she'd been really good at it. “She had a little pair of scissors she used to trim errant leaves and branches with. I think that's what did it.”

“She liked working with her hands?”

“Yes. She did.” Enar ran his fingers through his hair – without dusting his hands off first. He must be covered in dirt by now. Smiling, he closed his eyes and let the sun warm his face. Maybe, somewhere, his mother smiled back.

When he opened his eyes again Lilac had returned to the weeding. She looked up and gave him a quick smile when she noticed him moving, but then turned her attention back to the task at hand. Just as well. Not much left to say right now. He rubbed his hands together, rolled up his sleeves and started in on the weeds again. Let's see if he couldn't finish his half before she did. No work, no food.

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Continued in Day 5 - Scene 5.

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