🌿 “The Man Who Tended My Garden”

I hadn’t opened the living room curtains in three weeks.
Not because I didn’t want to see outside—
but because I couldn’t bear for outside to see me.

With this sagging belly.
These bruised eyelids.
This hair that hadn’t known shampoo in days.

The baby had finally fallen asleep after two endless hours of crying.
I tiptoed to the kitchen for water.
That’s when I saw him.

A man in my backyard.
Bent between the dead hydrangeas, a shovel in his hand.

For a second I thought I was hallucinating again—like the nights I’d hear phantom cries or imagine someone knocking.
But no, it was real.
It was Hector, my neighbor from number 42.

Shame hit me like heat.
He could see everything—my overgrown lawn, the garbage bags I hadn’t taken out, the woman I had become.

I stormed outside, still in milk-stained pajamas.
—What are you doing? —my voice cracked like glass.

He looked up, startled.
A gentle man in his sixties, hair silver, eyes kind.
—Oh—hello, Andrea. I was just… helping a little with the garden.

—I didn’t ask you to help, I snapped. This is my home.
He straightened slowly, guilt on his face.
—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude. I just thought—
—What? That I can’t even take care of my own house?
Tears burned in my eyes. Are the neighbors talking about me?

He shook his head.
—No. I just noticed you haven’t been outside. My wife had postpartum depression once, years ago. I recognized the silence. I thought maybe a bit of color in your yard would help.

The baby cried from inside, piercing the air.
I couldn’t look at him anymore.
—I don’t need your pity.
—It’s not pity, he said softly. It’s understanding. You’re not doing it wrong, Andrea. You’re just surviving.

He picked up his shovel and left.
And I broke down right there among the weeds.

Four days later, I stood at his door.

He opened wearing an apron that said “World’s Best Cook.”
—I came to apologize, I said. I was awful.
He smiled.
—Coffee?

His house smelled of roasted beans and something else—loneliness.
Photos of his late wife filled the shelves.
She was beautiful, alive even in the pictures.

—She passed away three years ago, he said quietly. Cancer.
I nodded, not trusting my voice.

Before leaving, he said:
—If you ever want help—with the baby, or the garden—I’m around. No strings attached.
And that’s how it started.

He came twice a week, then three.
He’d water the hydrangeas while I folded laundry or sat in silence.
Sometimes we’d talk. Sometimes we didn’t.

He told me about his wife, Lucía, and how she used to hum while pruning roses.
I told him about nights when I felt like a stranger in my own skin.

We healed each other in small ways.
One day, while Matthew napped on his chest, I whispered,
—You’re family, Hector.
He smiled.
—And you’re like the daughter I miss every day.

When Matthew turned one, the forgetting began.
At first it was little things—his keys, his watering can, the day of the week.
Then came the diagnosis: early Alzheimer’s.

He told me one evening, eyes wet.
—My kids want me to move in with them in the city.
—And will you?
—I don’t want to be a burden.
—You took care of me when I was lost, I said. Now it’s my turn.

Over the next three years, our lives intertwined like vines.
I became his caretaker, his memory.
He became Matthew’s Eto—grandfather, hero, gardener of hearts.

Even as he forgot faces, he never forgot the flowers.
Every morning, I’d find him standing in the garden, murmuring to them as if they still answered.

When Matthew was three, he gave Hector a drawing.
Two stick figures holding hands in a garden.
—This is you and me, Eto.
Hector cried, though we weren’t sure he knew why.

The day Hector forgot my name, I cried in the bathroom.
My husband found me.
—He doesn’t know me anymore, I whispered.
—He doesn’t have to, my husband said. He still feels you. Love isn’t stored in the brain, Andrea. It’s stored somewhere deeper.

Hector passed away one quiet autumn morning.
The hydrangeas were blooming again.

At the funeral, his children hugged me tight.
—Thank you for taking care of him.
I shook my head.
—He saved me first.

Matthew placed a drawing on the coffin—a garden full of flowers.
—So Eto won’t forget us in heaven, he said.

I tend the garden now.
It’s alive again—bright, wild, stubbornly beautiful.
Just like the people who once stood in it.

Sometimes I catch Matthew talking to the flowers, whispering secrets only they can hear.
And sometimes, when the wind passes through the leaves, I swear I hear Hector’s voice:
—You’re not doing it wrong, Andrea. You’re surviving.

And somehow, I finally believe him.