Nora started watering the plants in early May.

At first, it was just one pot.

She noticed it while dragging her trash bin to the curb early one morning. The fern sat on the front steps of the house next door, its fronds curling inward, the soil cracked and dry. The house had been quiet for weeks by then—no lights, no car in the driveway, no packages piling up. Just stillness.

Nora hesitated, hose in hand.

She told herself it wasn’t her business.

Then she watered the fern.

It took less than a minute. The leaves relaxed almost immediately, green returning to places that had gone dull. Nora nodded to herself, turned off the hose, and went back inside.

The next day, she noticed the potted rosemary by the window.

By the end of the week, she was watering all of them.

The house belonged to Mr. Ellison. Older. Quiet. Polite in the way people were when they didn’t expect conversation. He’d lived there for as long as Nora had—nearly ten years—but they’d never been more than neighbors who nodded in passing.

He loved his plants.

That much was obvious. Raised beds in the backyard. Hanging baskets along the porch. Small handwritten labels tucked into the soil. He once told her, offhandedly, that he talked to them when he couldn’t sleep.

In April, an ambulance came.

Nora watched from her kitchen window as paramedics helped him inside. The lights flashed briefly, then disappeared down the street.

The house went quiet.

Weeks passed. No one came for the mail. No one trimmed the hedges.

The plants began to wilt.

So Nora watered them.

Every evening at six, when the sun dipped low and the street grew quiet, she walked over with her watering can. She never rang the bell. Never peeked through the windows. She just tended to the plants and went home.

Summer arrived.

The fern unfurled. The rosemary thickened. Flowers bloomed.

People walking by slowed to admire the yard.

“Looks like someone’s home,” one neighbor said.

Nora smiled but said nothing.

She didn’t know where Mr. Ellison was. She didn’t know if he’d ever come back. But she remembered the way his face lit up when he talked about his garden, and that felt like reason enough.

In late August, a moving truck appeared briefly.

Nora’s heart sank.

But it left empty.

Fall crept in. Nights cooled. Leaves fell.

Nora adjusted. Less water. Careful trimming. She learned which plants needed covering, which could withstand the chill.

Some evenings, she sat on her porch afterward, staring at the darkened house next door, wondering if anyone noticed what she was doing.

She didn’t need them to.

In November, the door opened.

Nora almost missed it.

She was rinsing out her watering can when she heard the creak. She looked up and froze.

A man stood in the doorway.

Thinner. Grayer. Older.

But unmistakably Mr. Ellison.

He stepped out slowly, one hand gripping the doorframe. His eyes moved from the thriving plants to Nora, still holding the hose.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

Then his voice broke.

“You kept them alive.”

Nora swallowed. “I hope you don’t mind.”

He shook his head, eyes wet. “I wasn’t sure anyone would remember.”

She set the watering can down and crossed the yard.

“I’m glad you’re home,” she said.

He nodded. “Me too.”

They stood there together as the sun dipped behind the houses, the plants glowing softly in the fading light.

Some care doesn’t ask permission.

Some kindness waits patiently.