Garden of Weeds

There once was a subdivision on Bella Drive called Bella Gardens. It had nice houses with nice yards and nice neighbors. The lawns were almost always mowed, and there was barely any litter. The pool was always clean and so was the park. The neighbors would give a wave to each other now and then, and whenever there was a food truck, all the neighbors that came to get food there would talk. It was a nice neighborhood, one they took pride in. Each house had a small garden lined across the front yard, but only a few flowers managed to sprout.

“Our subdivision is a garden,” some of them would say proudly. “And it’s the best garden around.”

But there was a saying amongst some people who visited the neighborhood. “The houses on Bella drive are pretty. But the Allisters’ house is beautiful.”

The Allisters were a family of four. There was Mr. Allister, Mrs. Allister, and their two children, Leo and Lizzy. They had a garden in the front and backyards. They had lots of flowers that were all different colors and shapes. Hummingbirds and butterflies and bumblebees would come for the nectar, making the outside of the house come alive.

Then there was the color of the house. All the other houses had a decent dark brown exterior. But the Allister house was a light shade of grey. Its brighter, unique color amongst all the dark brown houses made it seem like it was glowing like a light in the dark.

The other houses were nice, yes, but the Allister house…what would they give to have that house. But it wasn’t just the lawn or the house or the hummingbirds and insects that flew there that made their house so wonderful. It was something else.

The Allisters were nice. A different kind of nice. They said good morning to the neighbors, offered to help them fix their fence or mow their lawns, gave compliments, and invited people to church for no apparent reason at all except to be generous. And they were happy. Very happy.

Leo and Lizzy were wonderful well-behaved kids who loved to play at the local park, walk their dog, Sebastian, and play with the other neighborhood kids. Sometimes, Mr. Allister and Mrs. Allister would go for a walk with their children, play with frisbees in the front yard, and play catch with their dog together. They were a beautiful family.

Too beautiful.

The neighbors couldn’t help but think there was something strange about them, which is why their kind offers were usually, but politely, declined. Residents like Mrs. Brunswick often peaked through the blinds and shook their heads as they watched the Allisters play with their dog in their front yard.

“Something’s up with them,” Mrs. Brunswick said to her husband.

Mr. Brunswick was reading a newspaper. “You say that every morning.”

“I mean it, Phil. They’re too…nice.”

“Huh? Yeah, sure. I’m going upstairs to watch the game.”

Mrs. Brunswick sighed and looked back at the Allisters. Surely Mr. and Mrs. Allister’s marriage wasn’t that great. Just look at them! They didn’t look like the kind of people to have a good marriage. On top of that, there was no evidence that they had had any failed relationships in the past. No divorces, no anything. And they had children. Her and Mr. Brunswick didn’t have children.

That’s what all the other neighbors thought too. The Allisters seemed to have everything. A beautiful house, a beautiful garden, a beautiful Dodge Ram, a perfect marriage, beautiful children, and a lot of money. These houses weren’t cheap. They were living the American dream!

That couldn’t be possible. They had to have something going on, some deep dark family secret. This had to be some trick, some façade. No family was that perfect. No family was that happy. No family that looked like them had that kind of money.

Surely, the house wasn’t truly theirs. Surely someone else paid for it.

One day, when the neighbors gathered near the food truck, they talked to one another as their children played in the small park nearby.

Mrs. Annabelle couldn’t help but notice the once overs Mrs. Allister was getting. This gave her a tinge of irritation. She’s trying to get all the attention, she thought. Ridiculous flirt!

But Mrs. Allister hadn’t noticed the once overs. She was too busy watching her children play at the park.

Mrs. Brunswick noticed she was watching her kids. How come Phil and I don’t have kids?

Mrs. Brunswick and Mrs. Annabelle approached her.

“The houses here are quite expensive, don’t you think?” Mrs. Brunswick asked casually.

“Not necessarily,” Mrs. Allister said.

“Oh, I suppose not, but for people who’ve had rough times, extremely rough times with money, it would be. Why, there’s no way they’d possibly be able to afford it. They’d have to get a loan or ask a friend for a favor don’t you think?”

“Maybe.” Mrs. Allister seemed puzzled by this conversation.

This wasn’t working. Annabelle changed the subject. “You two seem to be a darling couple. Your husband must be very nice.”

Mrs. Allister smiled. “He is. He’s a great—”

“It’s a shame not all couples are so lovely. Some act nice on the outside, but inside their relationship’s a mess.” She looked at Mrs. Allister intently, hoping that would get some reaction.

“If that is the case with some, then we should pray for them.”

“Right, right.”

It became obvious to them both that they weren’t going to get the answers they wanted to hear, and that Mrs. Allister was starting to get suspicious of their intentions, so they joined the other neighbors in their discussion.

“That Gutenberg subdivision thinks they’re so great,” Mr. Howard was saying. “But I bet if we decorate our houses for Halloween, we’ll blow them out of the water. We’re not called Bella Garden for nothing.”

Everyone nodded, except the Allisters.

“I don’t think we’ll decorate our house,” Mr. Allister said.

“Why whyever not?” Mrs. Brunswick said.

“Because we don’t really care what the other subdivisions do or don’t do,” Mrs. Allister said.

None of the neighbors knew what to say to that. So they changed the subject and tried to leave them out of the conversation. They didn’t need to worry, because the Allisters gave each other a look and went to the park to check on their kids.

The way they talked, the way they behaved was completely alien. Surely there was something wrong with them. Surely, they weren’t as nice as they appeared. Surely, they weren’t that well off. Look at them, they didn’t look like the kind of people to be wealthy. Where were they from, Jamaica? Africa? They couldn’t be serious.

It was possible they had earned their living through hard work. It was possible God had been gracious towards them and had blessed them. But they never entertained those ridiculous ideas. Those answers wouldn’t have satisfied them. Their only thoughts were that something was off. With their gardens not looking half as nice as the Allisters’ and their houses looking plain and boring compared to their grey one, and their marriage looking healthier and their children being more wonderful then their own, they resorted to rumors.

“The outside of their house might be beautiful, sure,” Mrs. Brunswick, Mrs. Annabelle, and others would say. “But the inside must be horrible. The walls must be an ugly shade of green or brown, and their house must be a mess. There has to be trash on the floor and grime on the walls. Their house has to smell of cigarettes or even better, illegal drugs from their drug lab. That’s how they make their money.”

One day, when Mrs. Annabelle was walking along the street and noticed how lovely the Allisters’ house looked, an idea popped into her mind. Why not go there unannounced and catch the Allisters’ in the act? She rushed over to their porch and knocked on the Allisters’ door, eager to discover what they had all suspected all along. “Oh, hi, Mrs. Allister,” she said with a smile plastered on her face when the door opened. She glanced behind Mrs. Allister to see the mess…but there was none.

The house was clean.

Too clean.

The floor had no garbage and had just been swept and mopped, the walls were a beautiful cream color, the house smelled of vanilla scented candles, and was that a leather chair!?

Mrs. Annabelle’s smile waned as she realized there was no drug lab in the living room.

“Is something wrong?” Mrs. Allister asked.

“What? Oh no, everything’s fine.” She stood there awkwardly for a moment, then muttered something about leaving her stove on, and left. She didn’t realize how stupid she had seemed until she had walked back home.

That didn’t stop the rumors from spreading. Soon, the Allister’s drug lab wasn’t in their living room, it was in the basement where no one could see. Suddenly, Mr. Allister was in a gang and Mrs. Allister was having an affair, and their children were hanging out with a bad crowd and their dog had attacked an innocent child, and their Dodge Ram was a stolen vehicle, and their garden wasn’t grown naturally, but was grown with GMO chemicals of some kind. It was the only explanation credible enough for the neighbors. No one, especially them, could have a life that well off, because none of the other neighbors had it that well off. It wouldn’t be fair!

All the fake formality they had formerly showed to the Allisters vanished overnight. No one tried to talk to them, and everyone tried to ignore them whenever they said good morning or hello. None of the children played with Leo and Lizzy.

One sunny day, Mr. and Mrs. Allister walked by the Brunswicks’ house. Mrs. Brunswick was plucking out weeds in the front yard as sweat dripped down her face.

“Morning,” Mrs. Allister said.

Mrs. Brunswick pretended not to hear.

“Do you need any help with anything?”

Mrs. Brunswick fumed. She whipped her head around. “Are garden is perfectly fine, thank you very much! We don’t need your GMO chemicals!”

Mr. Allister stared at her. “Chemicals?”

Mrs. Brunswick went back into the house with a huff and slammed the door.

Mr. Allister shook his head and they kept walking.

Mrs. Brunswick glared at them through her window. The nerve! Just because their garden looked all so good didn’t give them the right to insult them. Their garden was fine, and they didn’t need their help. Foolish, haughty Allisters. They only offered to help people to rub their good fortune in their faces.

The neighbors only treated the Allisters worse and worse. No one accepted their help or kind offers. All their compliments were rewarded with retorts. No one spoke to them whenever they went over to the food truck. Leo and Lizzy became confused and annoyed when the kids at the park insisted their dad was not a construction worker, but a mafia boss.

It became more and more clear to the Allisters that they were not wanted. It was more and more clear that they belonged somewhere else.

A for sale sign was put up in front of the Allister’s house, and within a week, new neighbors came. These new neighbors were the Cunninghams. They had one boy named William. They were nice, but not too nice. They talked liked them. They agreed with everything the other neighbors said. They didn’t seem too perfect. They didn’t seem foreign. They didn’t seem too wealthy. They couple had had divorces. They intended to make the best Halloween and Christmas decorations to show up the other subdivision. These people were normal, just like the other neighbors.

They were nonthreatening.

They repainted the house beige, just like the other houses, and the light that had seemed to come from it only weeks ago disappeared. The garden up front and back sprouted weeds and overtime, they spiraled around the flowers and choked them all to death. No hummingbirds, butterflies, or bees showed up to the house anymore.

No one felt saddened or disgusted by the ugly tangle of weeds at all. They felt a strange sense of relief, even glee. They would ask the Cunninghams to tidy up the garden later. After all, their subdivision was a garden, the best garden around. They had to keep it presentable, but not right away.

Then a strange thing occurred. Bella Gardens became less lustrous. Everything dimmed. The gardens in all the other houses stopped sprouting flowers and instead grew weeds. The weeds choked up what little flowers were there and moved on to their lawns. More weeds sprouted out of thin air every single day. The residents tried to get rid of them, but all their efforts seemed to make things worse.

No one could put their finger on it, but things felt darker. The light and color that had once been there not too long ago faded into nothingness. It was as if the beauty, the light, the color, and the life that the Allisters had at their home had moved with them. But that couldn’t be right. Things were just as they should be, especially now that the Allisters were gone.

Everyone who happened to drive by shook their heads. “What a mess. Bella Gardens? More like Ugly Gardens. What a joke.”

Mr. and Mrs. Brunswick looked at the weeds that had formed an army all over their yard.

“Perfect, just perfect,” Mr. Brunswick muttered. “More work for me.”

Mrs. Brunswick fumed. “How are we supposed to beat the other subdivisions now? Our neighborhood is supposed to be a garden, the best garden around!”

But Bella Gardens was a garden.

A garden of weeds.