The Garden Centre Will Remain Open

Tuesday is Moorfield. It has been Tuesday-is-Moorfield for years: the same road, the same judgemental stone lions, the same reduced lavender that Tom will inspect and disapprove of, and a toasted teacake he maintains he has never liked. Tom worked with plants for thirty-eight years. These days the word allotment sometimes goes missing and leaves him calling it the place with the shed, but his hands still know exactly what to do.

Then the paving near Aquatic Plants gives way, and a hand in a black iron gauntlet takes hold of the edge.

Shannon has managed Moorfield for twenty-two years. She is responsible for eighty staff, three acres of retail space, a café extension that was never properly signed off, and the emotional welfare of four ornamental carp. She has warning tape. She has a clipboard. She has firm views on where the public may and may not stand. What she does not have is anything in the staff handbook covering an extradimensional opening between Outdoor Pots and the barbecues.

A story about a garden centre holding its nerve, a marriage that refuses to be reduced to caring, and the enormous quiet competence of people who simply carry on. Also armour. Sorry about the armour.

The whole story is free to read on ArcReaders, from the first reduced lavender to the epilogue. All it costs is a free account.