The greenhouse was always tropical, even when the Colorado winters swept in you could feel the wet-heat radiating from the little glass hut in the backyard. Some nights she thought she felt it pushing through the studs of their bedroom wall, filling her with anxiety. Even the idea of that heat made her itch and despite her husbands enthusiasm, his mealtime lectures on the wonders of botany and the home-grown bouquets he now and then applied as an apology she had remained unconvinced at the glory of, what was to her, only a stuffy room full of plants. Her bitterness had rooted since the structures installation as her husband, a man of delicate obsession, spent more time elbows deep in dirt than at their dinner table.

In his habit of absenteeism tonight was no different, the glowing digits of her alarm clock reminder her of his lateness to bed, ticking adamantly towards two in the morning. Lying there several moments longer, unable to find comfort her loneliness slowly swelled into rage until she had riled herself to standing. In the kitchen the wet-slap of her bare feet across the tile paused for a moment as she was hit be a sudden gust of humid air that wafted from the screen door and filled the whole main floor of the house with the scent of compost. In the backyard the light of the greenhouse showed the shadow of its door left ajar. The uncharacteristic nature of this action stirred a nervous tension along the line of her stomach, from the kitchen drawer she extracted a cooking knife under the delusion that it might protect her. Inching out across the dew-soaked lawn the grass, the soaked grass pinching and tickling like mites, she began to call her husbands name.

"Louis! Louis, are you in there?"

There had been more than one night when she'd had to wake him from a sudden bout of exhaustion, him having fallen asleep at his desk hands still caked with topsoil; her anger having so ebbed into fear she had a hope that this night would end similarly, that she would enter the greenhouse and find him asleep. Finally reaching the open door she looked in, peering around the shifting leaves of her husband's beloved flora. After a few moments with her looking and shouting having yielded no results she realized she would have to continue forward. Her first steps were hesitant knowing that once past the first row of vegetable planters she would be able to see his desk and for better or worse the question of her fear would be answered. She scooted the distance, still calling but knowing now that had he been simply asleep then the noise would have woken him. Or would it? He was a heavy sleeper and was known to work with headphones in while working. With that hope that she made her final steps, rounding the tomato plant Rebecca Eliason dropped her kitchen knife and screamed.