The dieffenbachia in the front hall had begun, a few months ago, to grow a volunteer. Jane had had it for at least ten years and in that time it had never shown a proclivity for reproduction. It was a welcome addition to the enormous terra cotta pot in the front hall because the original, the mother dieffenbachia, had begun to look leggy. It climbed ever upwards in the open hall, towards the second floor, but never sprouted outwards. That is, it never grew leaves along the length of its trunk.

    Aside from the dieffenbachia, Jane also had an acea palm, a dragon tree, two

philodendrons (one of them so mammoth it spilled over the sideboard and cascaded down its side and onto the floor), and two modest aloe plants which she used frequently to apply to burns and cuts.

    All of this greenery was in the living room, at the back of the house, directly opposite the front door. Jane kept no plants anywhere else in the house. It wasn’t because there wasn’t sufficient lighting in other parts of the house. It wasn’t because she lacked space in the other rooms of the house. Indeed, she had rather an excess space and light. To counter the space and light, Jane kept all doors in the house closed. Even the door to the bathroom was closed, so that one was required to knock to determine its occupancy.

    It was the fact that the living room was also a large, bright space, open all the way to the front hall, that Jane felt the room needed the company of all of those large plants, to fill it up, to make it less large and bright and open and empty.

    As a rule, Jane watered on Wednesday. However, in the summer, she might water the palm and the dragon on Saturday as well, if it has been particularly hot. She also spritzed the palm, the dragon and the philodendrons at night.

    It was around the same time she began to tire easily, in late March, that she noticed how well the volunteer was doing and how poorly the mother plant was doing. She had lost most of her leaves and was shedding dried, brittle, onion-like skin. The new plant, on the other hand, had already grown to a height of over two feet and had almost doubled the number of its leaves. Its colour was much healthier than the original plant.

    Jane grew more tired. She spent more time in her room with the door closed and napped twice a day now. The young plant flourished, though she paid less attention to all her plants. The old dieffenbachia was only stalks now. Three of them, like Jack’s beanstalk reaching up to the sky. Without its leaves to consume the light, the mother plant became more and more ill. She began to sag. Jane asked her husband to gently tie a rope around it and then tie it to the banister to keep it from falling over.

    Jane was in bed most of the time now. She ate only once a day. Trips to the doctor had provided no answers. The doctor suggested she try to get outside more. But her exhaustion was such that she lay flaccidly in her bed, even without attempting to sleep. Her husband, now sleeping in the spare bedroom, was a mere shadow to her.

    In September, Jane went back to her doctor. “I’m going to prescribe an anti-depressant,” Dr. Brooks told her. “I’ll see you in six weeks.” That day, returning home, she was halfway up the stairs before she realized that the stalks of the dieffenbachia that had once threatened to graze the second-floor ceiling were now stubs in the pot, cut by her husband likely, in mercy. The younger plant was now reaching for the ceiling. Of course, she thought.

    By Halloween she was napping only once a day, and out of bed for most of the rest of it. She felt better. Her husband returned to their bed. Jane returned to her rituals. By the time they got the Christmas tree, she had stopped napping altogether. When she began leaving doors open, her husband remarked, “Are you turning over a new leaf? You’re not always closing the doors.” She hadn’t noticed, but she found that she liked it. She liked the light and the space. She asked Steven to move the palm to the upper hall. She placed it so that it received all the light of the open front hall, but didn’t block any windows. When the mammoth philodendron was relocated to the dining room, the living room was overtaken by light and space. She hardly

recognized it. And Steven hardly recognized Jane.

    In March, Jane lopped off the volunteer plant. She coddled the mother plant, spritzing it twice daily, fertilizing it. By May it had three big, broad leaves, and all the doors in the house were open.

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