What My Neighbor Grows

My neighbor Mr. Haddad is eighty and grows figs, grapes, mint, eggplant and an astonishing number of zucchini in a backyard the size of a parking spot.

Every summer evening he leaves vegetables on my front step, with no note, as though they appeared there by magic. When I tried to thank him, he waved me off. "In my village in Lebanon," he said, "if you grow too much and don't share, the garden gets sad."

So I started sharing too, mostly baked things, because I can't grow anything. Zucchini bread, fig jam made from his figs, baklava I learned to make badly from a video. He critiques the baklava every time, with great affection.

Now our two families eat together a few times a month on his little patio under the grapevine. His garden is clearly not sad. Neither am I.