The Cactus We Remember Differently

One Saturday afternoon, the sun blazed hot enough to burn the skin on our arms. I stood waiting for Mother on the front‑step, waiting for her to come back from the morning market. I was only 7 years old then, and my sister Anna was 10 — just 3 years older than me. Some days we ran around and played together like best friends; other days we quarrelled so much Mother had to step in between us.

When Mother’s car turned into the lane, I ran to greet her. She held out a small white plastic bag for us. “Here is a gift for you two — Anna and Ellie,” she said, before tipping a little pot of soil onto the wooden table. Inside was a tiny cactus, only 3 centimetres tall — round‑shaped, dotted all over with little sharp spines, like tiny bullets.

“Help take care of it together, don’t let it wither away,” Mother told us before walking into the house.

I wanted to look closer, so I took hold of one side of the pot, and Anna grabbed the other side at the same time. We lifted it up — and then one of the tiny spines pricked my index finger, hurting badly. I cried out at once.

In my memory, Anna only laughed — she laughed loudly, then let go and ran off to her room to get her comic books. She did not stop to see how much it hurt, did not comfort me at all. She only turned back and said briefly: “Watch out for the spines,” before closing the door.

From that day on, it felt as though looking after the cactus had become my job alone.

Every evening after school, I would run out to the porch where we had left the pot. I got a small cup of water to pour around its base. At first I did not know how much water to give it — some days I poured too much, until the soil turned dark and soggy. Then I had to carry the heavy pot out into the sun so the soil could dry. One day I was leaning over looking at the soil, and saw a cockroach crawl out from under the pot. I was so scared I jumped back, nearly spilling all the water — I only went back to look after it once I had calmed down.

Sometimes I went to ask Anna to come and help me check on it. But she was usually sitting on the sofa with a comic book open on her lap, or running out to play with the neighbours’ children. She would only glance at me quickly and say: “The cactus is boring — there’s nothing fun about it. I don’t want to touch it, in case I get pricked too.”

I began to think Anna did not care about our plant at all. She had her own fun things to do, while I was left looking after the cactus all by myself. So I tended to it every single day, without fail. When it rained, I carried it under shelter. When the sun was too hot, I checked the soil carefully.

Months went by. I visited it every day, watching it change. At first it was 3 centimetres tall; later it grew to 8, then kept stretching until it was nearly 15 centimetres high, with little branches sprouting out and more spines everywhere. It looked very strong. I felt so proud — I thought all of this was because I had looked after it every day.

One day I was standing looking at the cactus, when Anna walked past onto the porch. I turned and said loudly to her: “Look! It grew this big because I took care of it all by myself. You never helped at all — you abandoned it from the very first day, didn’t you?”

Anna turned toward me, her eyes wide, looking shocked. She opened her mouth wide and replied right away: “That isn’t true! I didn’t abandon it!”

I stood frozen, confused why she would say such a thing — because in my memory, she had never gone near the pot ever since the day we got it.

She told me to follow her to her room — she would show me proof. I walked after her, still sure I was right — or could I have remembered it wrong after all?

I followed Anna up the stairs to her room, still certain in every step that my memory was right — that Anna had never gone near the cactus since the day we got it. I thought she was only arguing with me the way we always did over comic books or toys.

Once inside the room, Anna walked straight to the tall wooden bookshelf in the corner. She reached behind the large lined‑up books and pulled out a small, old, scuffed blue notebook — with a tiny drawing of a cactus in the corner of the cover, the kind little children draw.

“This… is what I wrote down every time,” she said, handing me the notebook to look at.

I took it and opened the first page. At first I was still unwilling to believe her — but as I read line by line in Anna’s handwriting, my certainty began to shake little by little.

Dates were written starting from the Saturday we had received the cactus: “Tonight: move pot into shade, fix over‑wet soil.” “Tuesday night: check spines, pick off small crawling bugs.” “Thursday night: give only a little water — don’t let Ellie pour too much tomorrow.”

I thought back to those days — many times I had watered the cactus until the soil was soaked, then gone to bed. When I woke up in the morning, the soil was just dry enough, as if someone had tended to it. I had always thought it was only the sun or wind drying it out — never Anna.

“But… I never saw you do anything at all,” I said softly, still staring at the notebook. “I came to look after it every evening after school — you were never there.”

Anna explained that she did everything late at night, after I had fallen fast asleep. She had been afraid that if she told me from the start, I would feel sad and think I could not take care of the cactus by myself. She had not hidden it because she did not care — she thought if I felt I was the one looking after it, I would love the plant more.

I stood thinking for a long time, remembering small things that had happened — some nights I woke up for a drink of water and heard soft footsteps on the porch, yet I had thought it was Mother walking about. Sometimes the pot was not where I had left it in the evening, yet I had told myself I had put it in the wrong place, never suspecting someone had moved it.

Even after reading her notes, I still felt confused — because in my memory, Anna was still the one who had turned away to do other things when I got pricked by the spine, and who had never helped care for the cactus. It was as if we each carried a different story in our heads — we had seen the same things, yet remembered them differently.

I hurried back to my own room to get my pink drawing notebook — the one where I drew the cactus and wrote down what I had done each day — so I could compare it with what Anna had written.

I ran quickly back to my room, grabbed my pink‑covered sketchbook hidden in my desk drawer, then hurried back to Anna’s room. On the front was the small round cactus I had drawn when we first got it — wobbly lines, not straight at all.

I opened to the first page and went through the dates one by one — every evening after school, I had written and drawn what I had done: “Monday — water the cactus.” “Wednesday — move it into sun, check for bugs.” “Friday — it grew a little bit!”

Anna set her blue notebook beside mine. We both sat down on the wooden floor and matched the dates page by page.

At first I only looked on — but when we lined up several days in a row, surprise slowly washed over me: we had both been caring for the cactus on exactly the same days all along. Only I came in the evening after school, and my sister came late at night, after I had fallen fast asleep. We had never met, never known the other was tending the same plant.

I stared back and forth between the two notebooks, my mind confused. “But… I never saw you at all,” I said softly. “I always thought you didn’t care.”

Anna put her hand on my shoulder. “I only wanted you to feel proud of what you were doing,” she said. “I never meant to hide it so you would be upset.”

I thought back to my old memories — that first day when my finger got pricked. I remembered her laughing and running away — but she told me she had been hurt too, only trying not to show it. I was not sure what the whole truth really was. Some parts of my memory stayed just as before — yet now I understood that everyone keeps their own version of a story.

I looked up toward the window, out at the porch and the big cactus in the distance. “Then who made it grow more?” I asked, my voice getting a little stubborn again.

Anna laughed. “It was me, of course! If I hadn’t secretly fixed the soil every night, its roots would have rotted away in the first month!”

“No way!” I slapped my knee. “If I hadn’t watered it every evening, it would have dried up!” We bickered playfully for a while — until Mother’s voice calling us down for dinner rang out from below.

The next day, we stood together on the porch looking at the strong‑grown cactus, covered in sharp spines with little branches spreading all around. We agreed that from now on we would look after it openly together — no more secret late‑night visits. I would water it in the evening, Anna would check the soil and move the pot if needed — and we would stay together while we did it, so we could see what the other was doing.

Even now I still remember that first day the same way — I still think she laughed when I got pricked — yet I have learned that memory is not a photograph that tells every truth. Sometimes it is only what we ourselves saw. What someone else does while we are gone becomes a gap we fill with our own thoughts — until two different stories are born.

We never abandoned our plant at all. There were only two memories, walking through the same time yet never meeting — until today.