Janet, Fran's seven year old daughter, had gone into her mother's garden shed and cleaned everything. The flower pots, the spades and pitchforks and the seed packets were all neatly organized. It was early spring before the first planting, and Fran could only assume that Janet thought she would be doing something nice for her mother.
The truth was Fran's garden shed was the only room that was purely hers, and she liked it messy. It was an antidote to spotless floors and the sparkling kitchen and pressed curtains. Dust bunnies did not survive, could not find a nest in the darkest closet corners of the house. Garden dirt was something Fran needed, so she let it creep into the shed and stay there, let the seed packets fall out of alphabetical order, kept cracked flower pots for their character. She had one pair of garden gloves, unused. Last fall her dirt-caked fingers had traced a design in the soft yielding muck that lived on one of the shelves. A sun, a river, a tree. A reminder for Fran in the spring of the peace the garden would bring.
Janet had wiped clean the design, the muck; had thrown out the cracked flowerpots.
It was the first grown-up talk Fran had with Janet, the first of many.
"Sometimes women need messes in their lives," Fran said as she hugged her daughter and wiped the tears. "This year I want you to help me in the garden and learn how good it feels to get dirty once in a while."
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