Herbs at the Window

There was something not quite right about the window. The potted plants had been rearranged. Janet was meticulous: her plants were arranged in ascending alphabetical order. Aloe vera, basil, citronella, sage and thyme. Now, apart from there being a palm print in the middle of the window glass, the plant arrangement was a mess. Basil, sage, citronella, thyme and aloe vera. Everything else was in place. The liquid soap looked just about right. The dish rack was empty, just the way she liked it. Even the curtains were tied back with all their pleats in place. But what had happened to the plants?

She did all the cleaning herself when she was around. This time she had been gone for longer than a week and her skin crawled just thinking what kind of bacterial invasion her home was under. Good thing too she had come back home three days earlier than planned. She knew her husband was inept at tidiness. Still, he never touched her plants. Ever. He would not know what they did anyway. These were her things and they had been tampered with. This one time she would leave her plate unwashed in the sink. Something was going on and she was going to get to the bottom of it one way or the other because her senses were tingling in an unwelcome way. Something had gone wrong.

‘Roger…’ she began to call before she realised he would still be away for his business trip. Nothing else was out of place in the living room. She would open the windows for fresh air in about an hour; it was still dark outside and besides, the sun would not rise for another couple of hours. The carpet felt fluffy under her feet. It was clean. Everything else looked fine; right angles and neat edges.

Upstairs, she went first to the children’s bedrooms. They were both empty. That was unusual. Many times when she went away she would find them in one room or the other. Perhaps they had both had nightmares and gone to sleep in her bed. She quietly unpacked her dirty clothes into the laundry hamper in the laundry room at the end of the short corridor. She had always liked it this way.

She knew the home by heart; she had furnished every part of it, chosen every pattern and meticulously filled every room with love. Coming back home was always therapeutic. Until her nose picked up something. It seemed the very aura of the home had shifted. She pushed the heavy mahogany door of her bedroom inward and found yet another thing out of place. Roger was snoring gently, lying on his back, torso partly covered. And right there, next to him was the dyslexic woman who had rearranged her plants. Janet took a pen and notepad from the bag slung on her shoulder and wrote:

Aloe Vera. Basil. Citronella. Sage. Thyme.

She set the thin notepad on Roger’s chest and walked out of the room.