Queen of the Sticks

Filtered Light and Notarized Apologies

In the early hours before dawn, I stumbled to the sofa in my pink bathrobe—my eyes squinting under fluorescent lights as I yawned and stretched in my pajamas and green fuzzy socks. I listened for the microwave to ping, signaling that my water had boiled—just in time to drop in a fresh bag of tea to wake up my brain.

I snatched my phone to scroll the news—a habit of selecting uplifting articles I might enjoy.

That’s when I came across a botanical mystery I’d never heard of—unusual and completely enchanting.

I gasped—just as Nikolai walked in with his backpack slung over one shoulder and a missing shoe on the loose. His forever-curious mind couldn’t help but plop down beside me, a hand strangling a dangling sock, to see what I was staring at. There on my screen was a picture of a rare thing more lovely than many of the flowers we had grown over the years.

While planning this year’s growing season, I couldn’t help imagining what next year might hold. After three years of waiting, the Everglass House would be finished. I’d finally be able to garden through the winter.

Being a lover of the unusual, I pictured a garden gate tangled with poisonous blooms—demanding respect and distance from the garden while increasing my knowledge of the strange. A farm full of furry faces and a boy to protect put that idea on a shelf.

So instead, I dreamed up a moon garden—just for me. With flowers that only opened at night when the frustrations of insomnia would strike. As a night owl at heart anyway, I enjoy the sounds of the widows and whippoorwills. It’s often hard to sleep in new places (like vacation hotel rooms) that don’t have an opera of tree frogs or the throaty rhythm and twang of Southern leopard frogs adding to the ambiance. When I’m not home, I’m thinking up ways to bottle them up.

The music of the night and the magic of unusual flora embracing the glow of moonlight kissing petals, in my mind, was a recipe of things imagined coming to life—because why not?

What’s more romantic than tiptoeing through starlit grass, hoping you don’t step on a copperhead, just to admire blooms no one else would even notice—much less adore?

So when that strange apparition appeared on my screen, desire bloomed right alongside it—wild, irrational, and entirely out of reach.

As Nikolai and I went down the rabbit hole of facts, it quickly became clear—finding one without falling for a scam was like digging for gold in a silver mine.

I tucked my disappointment into my pocket, saved the screenshot like a secret, and walked out into the drizzle with Nikolai, dodging mud puddles in the thick morning air. We dashed through a downpour over to Natasha’s house to wait for the bus. Niki—the walking encyclopedia—started spilling facts about the phantom we encountered from the moment we shook the water clinging to our clothing.

“They have to see it, Mom!” I smiled at his need to share—and sure enough, their eyes were wide with disbelief, just as mine had been.

“You need that plant, LaShelle,” said my habit-enabling bestie—the same woman who loads up her car with mystery greens and tells my husband she has no idea how those plants ended up at my house. Thank goodness for her and my other bestie, who basically deals in perennials like it’s contraband and I’m the willing addict. I’d be nowhere close to the garden of my dreams without them.

“I mean… it’s a cactus. I don’t do cacti. Or succulents (moss rose excluded). They’re like the introverts of the plant world, and I’m not a fan of the desert.”

Natasha narrowed her eyes. “LaShelle. It. Has. All the things you love. You literally collect them like trophies. Don’t even pretend.”

“Yeah, I know… but it’s not like I can make a centerpiece out of it.” I gave a helpless shrug. She rolled her eyes, and we moved on. I mentally tucked the specter away where it belonged.

A few months later found us in Arizona, juggling a family visit while Rob was off on his annual motorcycle trip. Nikolai and I were fitting it all in—sun, relatives, and a whirlwind schedule while shaking off jet lag—when I stumbled into the vibrant chaos of a desert farmers market, wild vivid color, dust, and distraction.

A birthday extravaganza for my mom, my brother, his fiancée, and my wonderful husband—all in the same month—left me snagging homemade non-GMO bagels for everyone and balancing motherhood.

I bobbed and weaved past vendors peddling chaos, handing out the universal phrase for “no thanks”: “Maybe later!” I zeroed in on the coffee and tea stand like it was a safe house—matcha never questions my choices, and lavender never asks about family reunions.

Rob was most likely still tearing down some canyon road like a cowboy in a helmet. He was supposed to meet up, but I was sure he wouldn’t make it.

I wasn’t there for the trinkets—but I had every intention of adopting a few. Not because I needed them, but because retail therapy speaks fluent serotonin. And unlike actual therapy, it doesn’t ask hard questions or bring up my childhood.

Then I saw it—a quaint little plant stand filled with things I hadn’t seen before. And one stopped me in my tracks.

A bizarre cactus—the very kind I said I didn’t want—with a white flower blooming at the top. As far as trinkets go, the living ones trump the rest.

“Umm, excuse me, sir? How much is this?” I attempted to ask the guy behind the counter.

A tall brunette was doing her best to melt the pavement—long legs, dramatic flat-ironed hair tosses, chic sunglasses perched across her nose. The kind of laugh that comes rehearsed—while the plant seller’s wife looked like she was counting to ten in three languages.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

I rolled my eyes so hard someone probably heard them hit the back of my skull. Still, I wasn’t giving up—because like a kid holding their pee too long, I had to go… to the car with the thing I told my best friend I didn’t want.

The plant seller’s wife stepped in to tell me she had no idea what it was, but she mentioned the cost. I told her I’d think about it—not because it was unreasonable, but because I was tired of waiting for answers to questions I wasn’t going to get. As I turned to leave—bam—that vision hit me. The one I saw on that rainy morning before Nikolai left for school…

“Do you happen to have this bizarre plant I’m looking for? You probably have no idea what I’m talking about, but if I leave without asking and find out you did… I’ll never forgive myself.”

She looked caught off guard, and I figured I was correct. She had no clue.

Clutching my wallet, juggling bags, and hanging onto matcha for dear life, I turned again to walk away—until the keeper of the plant tables finally spoke to stop me.

“What did you ask for?” His eyes lit up, voice suddenly curious—as if he couldn’t quite believe what he’d just heard. “That’s my favorite plant of all time. It constantly gets overlooked because people have no idea what it can become.”

I could relate.

“I actually do have one. I rarely bring them to market because nobody buys them, but… I brought one with me today. Just in case.”

I nearly gasped. Swooned. Needed a defibrillator. I called Rob right away—he had miraculously pulled over and answered. I didn’t cry, but I may have proposed all over again right there in the middle of a dusty parking lot with cactus fever in my voice. “If you love me,” I said, “you’ll buy me this weird and wonderful plant, and I’ll never ask for anything else ever again—until next week.”

Meanwhile, my brother and his fiancée were staring at me like I’d lost my mind. His sweet fiancée nodded enthusiastically—probably trying to understand my sanity.

Hands trembling, I whipped out my debit card, swiped—and in the blink of a flirty brunette, the floral drug deal was done. No need to call the DEA—I was high on chlorophyll.

We finished shopping while I rode a cloud—floating over oceans of giddy elation.

I wrapped my arms around her to skate through the market aisles, surrounded by floods of colorful items I no longer gave a crap about. The bite of spicy peppers and fresh-cut onions lingering from street-side taco trucks wafted behind as I neared the car. I shielded her sacred limbs with my umbrella fingers—terrified someone might bump me and snap her limb. Those nubs were the precious jewels in the Queen’s crown.

And then my mother spotted me and laughed.
“That’s what you bought? Fifty dollars?”

I refused to let her rain on my excitement. “Absolutely,” I said proudly. “And she’ll need her own seat in the car.”

I nodded like I was punctuating a sentence. Thankfully, Niki was once again spewing facts about this incredible marvel people underestimate and look at with concern. I tucked her into a throne of my possessions, and we set off from one destination to the next—until we finally made our way to meet my wonderful husband.

I was beaming endlessly, like the sun does in the Mojave Desert—still trying to call Rob to prepare him for her arrival. Our car pulled into the parking lot of a run-down fast food joint—its neon sign half-lit, half-dead, and falling off-kilter. Rob’s motorcycle looked well-weathered, with a rogue tumbleweed clinging beneath the wheel well. Parked side-by-side with the bike his best friend John rides, battered with raindrops.

I held my breath, squared my shoulders, and walked with purpose.

Smiling as I entered and slid into a broken plastic orange seat next to my husband, I bit my cheek nervously as I began to explain myself.

“Hey babe! I missed you! Listen… about that plant you let me buy—yep, the fifty-dollar one. Um… I need to warn you before you actually meet her, okay? A little pre-introduction, if you will.”

His eyes were already suspicious. His hair a mess from the helmet and exhaustion clearly etched.

“What did you do?”

“I bought it like you said I could! Rob approved, I even asked first, so you can’t be mad at me,” I said with a tilt in my voice.

Now he’s really concerned.

“I don’t think I want to see it,” he said.

I could tell he was nervous—and I laughed hesitantly. That plant was traveling first-class—from the Arizona desert to the humid jungles of North Georgia—and he had no idea what he was in for.

“Look… she’s different, okay? It’s not about what she looks like—it’s about what she’ll become.”

Just… come meet her, but understand I warned you first. Smiling, I led the three of us—plus my mom—toward the vehicle, doing my best to keep the giggles at bay. I led them to where I’d put her. Holding her out in my hands, as an offering of my delight, I said, “Rob, meet the Queen.” And then I saw it—the horror. The color draining from his face.

“You spent fifty dollars on a stick?!” he cried, exasperated.

And honestly… I get it. Kinda.

“She’s not a stick!” I fired back protectively. “She’s the Queen of ALL Sticks!”

John was dying—full wheeze-laughing, side-clutching.

I scrambled to set her down gently—Queen of the Sticks—and pulled up a photo on my phone to show him the wonder she would one day become.

“It’s a stick! Planted in sand! You can’t be serious. Are you sure you didn’t get scammed?” he retorted.

“No, I know what I’m talking about here. It’s not a scam. She’s magnificent… you just don’t know her yet.”

He sighed—the sound of a defeated man shaking his head because he loved me, and the drug deal had been done.

On the way home, she sat front and center with a full view of the open road—Rob held her steady, shielding her from launching through the windshield or being smacked by Niki’s sleep-flailing feet in the back. Not because he liked her, but because he adores me. A true knight… reluctantly sworn into the Order of Botanical Nonsense. Like a reluctant midwife to a cactus baby.

I couldn’t resist. I snapped a few pictures and sent them to Natasha—and before I could even blink, my phone lit up with judgment.

“What is that?”
“It’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen! That can’t be the same thing.”

I leaned in close to the stick and whispered, “Shhh. You’re beautiful on the inside.”

When we made it back to Georgia, she didn’t just come home—she arrived.

First plant in the Everglass House, obviously. She’s already claimed a shelf like it’s a throne and demands filtered light like it’s a spotlight.

Rob still walks by now and then, muttering, “It’s a stick.”

And I just smile, sipping my tea like I’m not about to win an award for Best Supporting Plant Parent.

Because one day, she’ll bloom.
And on that glorious, fragrant day—
I will demand an apology in writing.
Notarized.
Possibly framed.