Bilal Saeed
Anticipating seclusion, tranquilly, and an opportunity to reconstruct my life, I relocated to the dilapidated farm I had recently inherited. My neighbour Linda surprised me by starting to replicate everything I did in an odd way. It felt innocuous at first. Even mildly humorous. However, as the days went by, the mimicking grew unnerving, and the underlying reality was devastating.I had always felt like a borrowed person growing up. The lack of roots bothered me, even if my foster family was nice enough. No pictures of babies. No tales. You were important. Something changed inside of me when I inherited a farm from a father I had never met. My drifting had stopped. I was in a place.
The property was dilapidated but vibrant in its own right. The animals were healthy, the barn was strangely well-maintained, and the dog—the dog—pretended to have been waiting for me. I began making small repairs, such as cleaning, repairing, and repainting. Every brushstroke and nail had a healing quality, a subdued cadence.
Then Linda showed up.
She was a short-haired woman, perhaps in her mid-fifties, who lived on the next property. She always had gardening gloves in her back pocket. She stated, “Your dad was a good man,” and handed me rhubarb jam when we first met. I thanked her without giving it any further thought.
Then the yellow fence appeared.
I used leftover paint from the shed to paint mine on the spur of the moment. It was a sunny, bright colour that definitely wouldn’t be considered “chic,” but it made me happy. It was Linda’s fence, shining the same hue of yellow, as I peered out the kitchen window the very following day.
I chuckled uneasily. Perhaps it was a coincidence.
The mailbox then arrived. Mine was a small wooden object with a hand-carved bird on top, and I had spent an entire afternoon making it. At the end of my drive, it stood triumphantly after three Band-Aids and one splinter.
Overnight, Linda’s mailbox appeared. identical in size. The same form. The same stupid bird.
She continued after that.
She planted marigolds if I planted them. She hung wind chimes if I did. Did I fix my porch light? The following day, hers blinked. I felt as though I was in a low-budget psychological thriller as it swung from humorous to unsettling.
I started to stay away from her. Like I was under witness protection, I wore a sweatshirt and sunglasses. I even considered doing something ridiculous to see if she would follow, like installing a disco ball in the barn or dying the dog pink.
Then something occurred.
One afternoon, there was a bundle on my porch when I got home. There were warm cookies inside, along with a neatly cursived note that read, “Thank you for the yellow fence. You made my world brighter again. – Linda
With the message in my hand and my pulse pounding in my chest, I stood there for a while. Sunshine. Returning to her world? What was meant by that?
She smiled, astonished, as she looked up from her flowerbed. “Hello, Ellie.”
“I have your cookies. as well as your note.
Her face was unreadable as she nodded. “I hope it wasn’t too strange.”
“It wasn’t. However, why do you mimic everything I do?
Dusting off her knees, she carefully got to her feet. “Because you make me think of her.”
“Who?”
With a whisper, she said, “My daughter.” “Maren was her name. Three years have passed since her death. Cancer. Her age was thirty-two.
I gasped.
She had a fondness for yellow. That shade, precisely. Despite the landlord’s outburst, she used it once to paint the door of her flat. She laughed just as much as you did. Talking to animals as though they were people is the same thing. Linda’s eyes were hazy and far away. She seemed to return in fragments when you moved in. It wasn’t real, I knew that. However, I was powerless to stop myself.
My throat constricted. I was speechless.
She said, “You know, she wanted to live here.” “Your father owned this land, but he pledged to sell us a little portion of it years ago. It didn’t work out. But the farmhouse was in Maren’s dream. She used to draw it while driving.
Linda said, “She probably thought you were a stranger.” “However, I did see her.”
I hugged her as I passed through the fence. She cried softly as she melted into me after initially being rigid. For a long time, we were just two women, encased in sorrow, coincidence, and something else—something that was almost like understanding.
We continued to talk after that. On occasion, we had tea while sitting on my porch. We occasionally collaborated on projects. Although her garden still resembled mine, it no longer felt like a robbery but rather a tribute.
I assisted her in repainting her front door one day. Naturally, yellow. I didn’t request that she quit imitating me. I didn’t have to.
Pain is carried by people in peculiar ways. Replication was a way for Linda to communicate her pain. The glow of someone else wanting me, even if only as a reflection of what was lost, soothed my own loneliness.
We didn’t fully recover. That’s not how grief actually operates. However, we rebuilt friendship, understanding, and possibly even family from the wreckage.
Just a trail of odd jobs and a name on foster paperwork. However, I grew up on my father’s farm.