Page 10 of Texting Dr. Stalker

My life had irrevocably changed.

For the better.

And Milton isnotgoing to take that away from me.

With a huff, I opened the car door with my good hand and gingerly climbed out. Every bruise and injury seemed to hurt even worse today. The throbbing and stiffness almost crippled me as I hid my shuffling limp and strode as straight as I could up the garden path.

“Hold up, you stubborn woman.” Lily scrambled after me, grabbing the overnight bag she’d brought to the hospital for me from the trunk. Locking the flashy car, she darted to catch up.

Cutting in front, she strode up to the front door.

I shook my head and pointed at the round portal leading to the backyard.

I didn’t have a key.

But the spare was tucked under the lavender pot, courtesy of Jim.

He saved my life.

If Jim and his dog hadn’t heard me…

I shivered and pushed away such morbid thoughts.

How did you repay someone for saving your life?

Bake a cake? Buy him a new something or other? Get on my knees and tell him how grateful I was that I was still here?

“Ah, that’s right.” Lily nodded and hoisted my bag higher up her shoulder. “Ambulance ride while unconscious equals no key.”

With a nod, I pushed open the hobbit gate on its well-oiled hinges and stepped into another world.

The back garden might look chaotic to some, but to me, I understood the madness within which Nana had planted. In the west, all the herbs for her essential oil pressing grew with wild chaos. In the east, all her vegetables. In the north, all the flowers she dried and designed into jewelry, and in the south, all the medicinal plants she turned into tinctures and ointments.

Not hers anymore.

Mine.

A swell of gratefulness filled me.

Memories of Nana teaching me how to use all her tools to turn petals into medicine and forage for nightly salads fresh from the soil echoed in every corner.

Despite her advanced age, she’d spent every day in the garden teaching me everything she knew. And with each lesson, I’d lost the drive to live in a city and run in the rat race. I’d become her assistant, selling her wares at the local artisan markets and natural healing shops.

Moving past me in her nude high heels, Lily nudged the lavender pot up and grabbed the key beneath.

That was another thing with a neighbourhood like this one.

Everyone knew the secret hiding places for keys and emergency items. I wouldn’t have dreamed letting people in my old apartment block know where my spare key was, but here? It granted such peace knowing we all watched out for one another.

The back door creaked a little as Lily unlocked it and pushed it open.

The scents of drying lemongrass and oregano wafted from the farm-style kitchen.

The smell rocked me back on my heels.

The pain as I’d bashed into the counter.

The agony as he grabbed my hair and threw me into the dining table.

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