By Jeff Eckenrode

Day 1.

Rain had been coming in sideways all morning. Berny brought some of it in with her, along with a fern big enough to fill an armchair. Most of it was caught in her hair.

Her neighbor was moving out. The building had been sold, and the new owners had ideas about rent. The fern couldn’t come with her, and Berny’s apartment didn’t have room for anything that big, or for anything that needed a window.

She set it on the floor by the front window and stepped back to look at it, dripping on the mat.

“A shop called Stone & Fern should have a fern, don’t you think?” she said, hands on her hips.

“We don’t have a stone.” I didn’t look up from my clipboard.

Berny considered this, then turned and pointed finger guns at me. “Not yet.”

She turned to Pete. “It needs water twice a week. Just enough to keep the soil damp.”

“You got it, Bern,” he said, his back to us as he stocked jars from a new delivery.

I was standing right there. I heard every word.

Day 2.

Pete had named it Little Fern. Which he mentioned to every customer, willing or otherwise.

Between rushes he talked to it while he restocked. About the weather, his knee, a long theory about the bullpen. Little Fern did not have opinions about the bullpen. But Pete didn’t seem to mind.

By afternoon the whole shop smelled faintly of wet soil, which, for a cannabis shop, was somehow the strangest smell in the room.

Day 6.

The first frond went yellow.

Berny found it before I’d finished my coffee. The light came through the window flat and gray and didn’t do the fern any favors. She held the yellow tip between two fingers like a hand at a bedside.

“Pete,” she said. “You’ve been watering her?”

“Just like you said, Bern. Every time.” He patted the pot. “Hang in there, kiddo.”

I wrote down “every time.” It seemed like the kind of thing that would matter later.

Day 9.

Thursday. Pete’s day off.

I’d been hearing a drip from the back office all evening and assumed it was the building. At close, I found it. The saucer under Little Fern was full to the brim and leaking a slow, patient line across the floor toward the display case.

Pete hadn’t been in. I wrote down the date. Then I got a towel.

Day 11.

Little Fern had started to lean, like it was trying to get a better look at the door. Outside, the rain had settled into the kind that doesn’t fall so much as hang around.

“Little Fern’s looking real pale today,” Pete said, to no one in particular.

The woman at the counter turned to Berny, eyes full of concern. “Oh, honey. Are you feeling all right?”

“I’m fine,” Berny said. “It’s the fern.”

The woman looked at her, perplexed. “You’re the Fern.”

“The other fern,” Berny replied.

The woman finished her purchase and left without seeming entirely reassured.

Day 13.

I left at eight. Berny was closing. On my way out I picked up the watering can by the register. Empty. I turned it upside down to be sure.

At six the next morning, the street was still dark and I was the first one in. The shop smelled like wet dirt and coffee nobody had made yet. The watering can was full.

I knew it hadn’t filled itself. But I checked the ceiling anyway.

Day 14.

I had them both at the counter before we opened, with the streetlights still on outside. The saucer, the watering can, and my notebook were lined up in front of me like exhibits.

“Pete,” I said. “How often have you been watering it?”

“Little Fern? Twice a day,” Pete said, beaming. “Just like Bern said.”

“Twice a week,” Berny said, with a small sigh.

Pete scratched his beard for a while. “Well,” he said. “That’d explain some of it.”

“Some of it.” I set my finger on the saucer. “Thursday. You were off.”

Then I slid the watering can across the counter to Berny.

She looked at it for a long moment, the way you look at a photo of yourself you don’t remember being taken.

“It looked thirsty,” she said.

“It’s a fern. It always looks thirsty.”

Pete crouched down by the pot, knees popping, and put a hand on the rim. “Sorry, Little Fern,” he said. “I guess we’ve loved you too hard.”

Berny looked at the can. Pete looked at Little Fern. Then they both turned and looked at me.

Day 15.

I taped a schedule to the pot before they came in. It had two columns: one for the date, the other for initials.

Mondays were Pete’s. Thursdays were Berny’s.

I don’t water it. I just keep the list.

Day 22.

A new frond came up from the center of the pot, curled tight as a fist, like it wasn’t sure yet whether it was safe to come out.

Pete told it about the pitching coach. Berny didn’t touch the can.

I initialed the line.