Ferns by Susan Tepper

So many ferns in bright porcelain pots and woven baskets. They seem to take the air out of the room. A narrow room with double doors— what people used to call a parlor. It seems to have lost its function in modern times, aloof and lonely in this house of other rooms, where people probably watch TV and listen to music and have snacks. Or maybe even read a book sometimes. This room is like an old Grandma left behind in a house full of screaming toddlers. You’d like to sit down on the wicker settee near the windows. It seems to be calling you, a voice unseen, a body not heard from, gone, not from you, yet gone all the same since no one can see or remember. You touch the fern leaves. Lacy, fan-like; recalling how he loved you back then.

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