Amari Webb

Amari Webb’s life is defined by what other people do. She has always been a good girl, always done her best, done all her studies, always cleaned, always taken care of herself, she was never ever a burden.

Michael Webb’s life is defined by his own mistakes, he met Eta Sunday at a bar and hit it off, he begged her to keep the baby he landed her with, and he screamed at her when she left him with the child he’d sworn he wanted.

That baby had no home with her only family, she found it in the kindness of strangers. The people who helped her the most often were Sarah Young and Winnie Storey, who took care of her in her infancy. This was how she and Frances Hammond-Young became as close as sisters, Frances was the only person in the world who Amari trusted, and she earned that place, being the safest place Amari had.

Amari got introduced to gardening when she was young by Pippa Edwards, Pippa spent a lot of time with Amari, though Amari didn’t know why, and he taught her how to grow flowers and turn carrot tops into carrot plants and grow old potatoes into hundreds of new ones. Soon the Webb family house garden was a sprawling garden, and she began to expand anywhere she was allowed to, decorating paths around the town with flowers, filling the Hammond’s garden with fruit trees, planting veggie boxes behind Dusty and Pippa’s house.

Dusty Murray helped build bee hotels to put up around the town, and then made Amari apiaries to keep more bees. Pippa and Dusty felt like parents to Amari after a while, Dusty would spend hours dyeing her hair a warm purple to match her favourite overalls and loccing her hair until she matched with him, and Pippa would teach Amari about skills she learnt living on a small farm as a kid. She felt at home with the couple, but she preferred to be around her plants.

Michael began rehab when Amari was 10, he slowly recovered both himself and his relationship with his daughter; Amari was never a creature of grudges as she had much better things to care about, she believed. She didn’t care for her father like she did for Dusty and Pippa, finding no enthusiasm in seeing him improve. The only way she showed her support was in the fresh food she made from the vegetables in their garden, which Michael cherished more than anything.

Amari’s home has always been in the trees, in the garden, in amongst plants, away from people, watching bugs crawl along the undergrowth, moving worms off the pavement after rain, growing plants wild so that small animals could live amongst them. Amari never understood the desire for companionship she saw her peers have, naming every plant bug and animal around her the companionship she needed. With a home in the wild and with Frances by her side, even when stoic and detached Amari says that she is the happiest she could possibly be.