Read by Matilda Longbottom

My Italian mother-in-law, more feisty than a jalapeño and as mellow as honey, sat in the shade of the pergola in full bloom and shouted at me.

“Why do they call it a ‘green thumb’? What does it mean?”

The heady scent of honeysuckle mixed with the third flowering of the jasmine, a true glory of California.

“It’s the same as green fingers back home in England,” I yelled back, hoping she wore her hearing aids.

“Dat is stupid. How you are garden with only your thumbs?”

Good, she heard. I decided distraction was the best policy.

“What’s it in Italian?”

Alzheimer’s had stolen so much of her speech, but reverting to Italian often had magical results.

“Verde…I forget, but it doesn’t mean the same.”

“What’s an equivalent translation?”

“Don’t nag me. I’m not your personal walking dictionary.”

Her small feet rested on a chair, elevated in the heat, but I knew not moving drove her to despair. She missed her son, my husband, at work all day, and the children who spent far too long away during the day, where every minute counted as a lifetime in an ever-shrinking lifespan.

“I expect you are lonely without me,” she said. “Soon the children are all grown up and leave home.”

A timely reminder, one I could do without, but she was right, as usual. I pinched out the growing tip of the cilantro with my fingernails before it bolted. A light warm breeze fluttered her fine thinning hair. Starved of activity at 89 years old, food was always a great event, from the tiniest snack to the heaviest dinner.

“What you cook tonight?” she demanded for the third time in the last hour. She shelled peanuts, eating some and throwing others into the flowerbeds for the squirrels, the marauding terrors who dug up or ate anything without a net. Had she been a Buddhist in another life, or the next, she would be the superhero of all wildlife whether insect or pest.

“Not pizza. Not pasta. Nothing hot.”

“How about you pick some tomatoes for me?” The new upside-down grow-bag dangled close by, within easy reach, the cause of much hilarity every time she spotted it. “The cherry ones you like best, with the silly name, Isis Candy.”

“Yes,” she laughed. “‘Isis-worshipped as the good mother-I think dis is why you grow those heirloom varieties, showing off.”

I laughed, too, the same laugh I’d used every time she’d made this joke. I worried one day I’d forget to laugh. For her, it would be as if this were the first time she’d spoken the joke. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

“Your basil looks sickly.”

She was right; it hadn’t grown bushy during the previous three minutes since she last told me. I pulled off my gardening gloves, a gift, but I couldn’t stand the things.

“I hate wearing gloves, too,” she said, picking them up and tossing them into the trash, even though she bought them for me. “People who wear these things don’t love gardening. Is that why they call it yard work out here?”

“Maybe.” I started pruning the roses I couldn’t bear to trim back in Winter with their desperate blooms on long leggy stems, paying for my wishy-washy leniency now. “I could prepare Insalata Caprese, if you like? You know mozzarella and tomatoes, your favorite.”

“I know what it is. I taught you the proper name, you silly goose. But no, the mozzarella here is no good. When you take away all the fat, you take away all the taste.”

Guilt crept over me, too generous to the roses, too mean to Nonna, but fighting diabetes was a challenge for those with a sensitive palate. We consumed more mayonnaise than the average restaurant, and I’d run out of hiding places for other contraband.

“And, anyway,” she sighed, “I like it with fresh basil. Did you know your basil looks sickly?”

Any moment now, she’d launch into her tale about Mussolini. I could tell it was brewing, that look of concentration trawling through the depths of memory. That or the story about her baby sister marrying a Count last year–difficult, since Nonna’d outlived all her siblings long ago. Hopefully not the long-winded yarn about the wedding sheets tradition, although better now than during dinner when the children’s ears were flapping. But she didn’t.

“Do you know what they say about parsley?”

“No, I don’t think so, do I?” I was getting as bad as her in my middle-aged brain fog. “I’ve never had much luck with parsley. The soil’s too heavy here, far too much clay. Doesn’t it need sandy soil? I swear I’ve bought enough Amend to finance a new branch of Home Depot.”

“What is dis thing, Amend?”

“A soil conditioner. Supposed to break up the lumps, aerate, make it less dense, and generally turn it into loamy loveliness.”

“This stuff? It’s no good then?”

“You said it.”

“For this, you waste my son’s money.”

“Right again. He must take after you,” I teased. “If he had his way, he’d concrete over the entire garden, or turn it into a big garage or a workshop strewn with car bits.”

Her look of horror quickly changed to glee, her sense of humor never far from the surface. And, she could give as well as she got.

“I knew you cannot grow parsley,” she said, beaming in triumph. “Because only a wife who is boss of her household can grow parsley.”

“Is that so? Good to know.” Long term cohabitation, inter-generationally, means learning when to push, and more importantly, when to let go. We can’t all live companionably, intertwined by vines and tendrils. Some of us coexist like cacti, prickly and sharp, but full of aloe juice and balm.

“So, you see, you are not the boss. I am seeing you plant the seeds again and again, and still no parsley. You cannot grow it. You are not the boss.”

“I got the picture.”

“There again,” she said, “maybe you’re not so bad.” Looking around the garden wistfully at the dreadlocks of wisteria and the willowy furling fronds of ferns, “I don’t see a whole lot of concrete around here.”

This time we both smiled—and both meant it. ❖

About the Author: Madeline McEwen is a humorist and garden enthusiast who loves blending family tales with the joys and challenges of gardening. Her stories often explore the intergenerational dynamics within families, using humor and warmth to highlight the connections we share. Madeline lives in California, where she tends to her garden and gathers inspiration for her next delightful story.