Beholden to a Spider

Beholden to a Spider

When the geraniums came in to spend winter on the big coffee table that my Aunt Nancy gave me; the low, green table that matched a china cupboard and some other odds and ends of furniture that I vaguely remember from the spare room at my grandma's where my mom stayed when she left us. A round table that is so big and so low that no one knew what to do with it and besides it has a cigarette burn on it, I spotted a golden spider in one of the plants. He was very small and drawn up into a little box shape and I was busy trying to fit all the pots in the big window and on the table to maximize the southern sunshine and I figured he'd make his way off soon.
He was still there a few weeks later when I pulled some of the yellowed leaves and old blooms off, hanging on a tiny zigzag of web between two pink geranium blossoms.
Today I had to pull off a good deal more yellowed leaves and shriveled blooms, including the two now dry spires his web spanned. I gently set him down, still perched on his dried pink stem, into the center of the plant. It's too cold to put him outside now.