THE EX

The ex is at the fence line, watering the raspberry plants. He’s seventy-one, his shoulders slump; he walks slowly and unsteadily, but with purpose. Last week he took a tumble down the little ivy hill that leads to the garden. It was disconcerting to discover him, in fetal position, confused and unable to right himself.

I’ve known the ex over thirty years. I’d never seen him so frail.

#

Angry voices from the yard. All I see is an aggrieved garden with livid limbs, tangled tendrils, pissed-off petals.

Have the plants finally rebelled?

There he is. Standing at arm’s length from our neighbor to the north, the flimsy fence between then. It’s the neighbor with all the pit bulls and that one mastiff that somehow got into our yard last year. In and of itself, that is cause for alarm, but we have two small dogs, one ancient, the other very tightly wound.

From this distance, I can’t hear what the ex is going on about, but the neighbor is very angry. The ex is enjoying this encounter. His voice has that smugness I’ve grown to know so well. It isn’t his finest moment.

His world is full of outrageous occasions. Crepuscular conceits. Ludicrous lies.

The neighbor is twice the size of my ex, and about twenty years younger.

I go to the garden. The neighbor is berating my ex, calls him “a juvenile,” and I must admit that I agree with this assessment.

The ex smiles, smugly.

The neighbor is so upset that he’s in tears. It’s unsettling to see a man so big, practically sobbing. As the story goes, the ex sprayed the neighbor’s pit bulls with the hose—the mastiff was nowhere to be seen—and muttered, “Goddamned dogs,” just loud enough to set off the neighbor, who says that he feels disrespected.

The ex soon tires of the encounter, walks away to wet another part of his sunbaked garden. I know I’ll hear all about it later. I stay, try to calm the neighbor, but he’s too upset. He goes inside his house.

I, too, return to my chores inside.

Later that evening, the ex corners me outside the calamitous kitchen, which he has yet to finish renovating. It’s been a disaster for at least a year, but I’ve lost track of time.

“I mean, he was going on and on, wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise,” says the ex. “And those damn dogs just wouldn’t stop barking. I thought, hey, I could just punch this guy in the nose. I’m standing close enough. I’m fast enough. He wouldn’t know what hit him. And what was he going to do?”

This from the man who, last week, couldn’t tell which end was up.

The ex snorts a snarky laugh.

“Yeah, those dogs of his. Always running up, charging me when I water the garden. I’m just sick of it. Yes, I sprayed them. So what? They love it! They play with the water! They run back and forth along the fence line. And that’s when Mr. Big Guy went off on me.”

He just won’t let it go.

#

The ex and I share a house built in 1913. We bought it together eight years ago. We were divorced at the time—been divorced for over twenty years. I live upstairs, and he lives below me. We have very different tastes in design—he covets the contemporary while I embrace bohemian.

It was the ex’s idea to buy the house. I was selling my condo at the time he split from his fourth wife. I’m wife #two. I had thought that we were friends.

“Let’s go halves on a house,” he said.

Great idea, thought I.

The first three years worked out well. He worked on the place, which was well-worn and saddened by the death of its previous occupant.

I paid the bills, kept a spreadsheet to make sure things stayed fair.

#

When we first bought the house, there was no garden, only a forlorn, above-ground pool, grieving the loss of the little, ninety-year-old lady, who used to soak in it to alleviate her arthritis. But then she fell and shattered her hip. It took her two weeks to die. Her eldest son—a corpulent, sweaty fellow and executor of the estate—put the house up for sale very soon thereafter.

We bought it in early June, three days into the listing; late July, we moved in. The real estate market was just starting to heat up. That August, we gave the plangent pool to a family with three small kids. We hoped it would be happy with them.

#

The yard of our neighbors, just east of our neighbor to the north, is about two feet higher than ours. Every time it rained, soil from their barren yard poured into ours and washed away the grass, creating what I cleverly called, “The Wash.”

The ex solved that dilemma; put in a wall of decorative brick the first full summer we were there.

Year two, he installed plant beds and began growing ominous onions, priggish peppers, timorous tomatoes, and other imperiled produce.

The third year, in went the rueful raspberry bushes.

#

In year four, he allowed me to plant two wisteria plants and one Dutchman’s Pipe. To this day, those are my sole contributions to the garden. He has uprooted and replaced my other offerings.

Year by year, the ex digs up the perimeter of the yard and plants shade plants, like hue-full hostas and fallopian-shaped ferns.

Says I don’t have a green thumb.

We’re eight years deep into this.

We were never friends.

#

I am aware of my predicament. We are stuck, the both of us, because the deed is worded, Joint tenants with rights of survivorship. Worded this way on purpose, to protect us from greedy family members.

I can’t sell without his agreement. He can’t sell without mine.

Or one of us would have to die.

Victoria Mullen is a dual US-Greek citizen who lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She enjoys writing, photography, mixed-media arts, and acting. She attributes her creative passions to her Greek heritage and the Nine Muses, who played, sang, danced, and inspired others to do the same. Victoria balances her creative spirit with the discipline and insights into human nature acquired as an attorney. See her photography in upcoming issues of 'Beyond Words’, 'The Word's Faire' (THE FEAST print publication), ‘Cool Beans Lit’, ‘Chariot Press Literary Journal’, and on her website at catboycafe.com.