Perennials

by Julie Cantrell

  I know her now to be a classically trained dancer, having taken ballet through the age of twenty, and to have spoken fluent French and Spanish in her early years. Until recent weeks, she was still able to play piano and win at canasta.

  This woman, Laurel Neely Sutherland, was fierce and bold and brave, more so than I ever imagined. After learning more about her love of Broadway and travel and (who would have guessed it) beer (!), I can now respect her affection for Dolly Parton, realizing she has long admired the country music legend not only for her impressive stage talents but also for her spunk, for standing her ground in a way men don’t find intimidating.

  “I think she figured it out long ago,” Mother explained. “Men take one look, and they underestimate her. That’s smart, if you ask me.”

  This woman, my mother, has perfected her own polished charm. But like Dolly, she is no empty shell. She has spent her life reading and thinking and questioning and seeking. So when she wakes now and pats the bed weakly, I don’t hesitate to accept her invitation. I settle beside her, wanting only to ease her pain. It’s a heavy role, shuttling a soul into the next world, and I feel there’s no right way to manage this.

  “It’s happening, Lovey. I need to make sure you’re ready.” Her words are breathy, drawing pain with each pulse of her throat. “I can’t leave until my girls are at peace.”

  I wind my fingers through her hair to calm her. “We’re good, Mother. I promise.”

  “Arizona?”

  No matter how much I have tried to prepare myself, I still can’t accept the inevitable. I don’t want to let my mother go, but I’ve done as my father taught me, and I’ve made a plan. When I tell her so, she summons a bright smile, the biggest one I’ve seen this week.

  “Your father’s daughter.” She brushes her hand across my brow and holds my cheek in her palm, then looks at me with eyes that seem at once misty and clear, weak yet fully and completely here with me now.

  I lie next to her, sharing the pillow, stroking her hair as she did mine when I was young, wishing more than anything that time would give us more than it takes.

  “The Jansana offer was a good one.” I provide all the details she’s after. “But with the bonus I got from completing the campaign in time for Prague, I’ll be able to retire early. Leave the advertising world behind for good.”

  “Proud.” Her voice is weak, almost a whisper. “You’ll move home? Grow flowers?”

  “I’ve given it a lot of thought, actually. Talked to my friends in Arizona. Think we’ve got it all worked out.”

  She moans a bit, a long, slow roll of pain, and I help her adjust again, wishing I could stem her suffering. I try to give her another pill, a glass of water, but she’s unable to swallow, coughing until she pushes both away.

  “Tell me more,” she says, once resettled.

  “Well, Marian will use my home in Sedona to open that spiritual center I told you about. I may go teach a few yoga workshops for her throughout the year, but the property will be hers to use as she sees fit. She’ll keep the Seniors at Sunrise class and create an entire catalog of services. We’ll operate it as a nonprofit, write the house off as an expense.”

  Mother smiles. “Think of the good she’ll be doing.”

  “I hope so,” I admit, grateful Marian came into my life.

  “And Brynn?”

  “Brynn, well, she’s finally ready to settle down now that she’s landed the job with Jansana. And that dentist she’s been seeing? They’re engaged.”

  Mother’s eyes suggest she’s smiling even though her lips barely move.

  “He’s just getting his practice off the ground, so they’ll be renting my Phoenix house with plans to buy.”

  “So you’ll stay?” She lifts her voice, hopeful.

  “I’ll stay, yes. I’m ready.” I can’t hide my grin, and Mother responds in kind. “Fisher and Finn closed on their farm, all thanks to Chief. Turns out he nudged the attorneys to finally do the right thing. Even put in a word with the loan officer and agreed to fund any excess they couldn’t cover.”

  Mother nods knowingly.

  “Fisher plans to move into the guesthouse. Gave his mom the big house. Said he couldn’t stand to see her in that little apartment anymore.”

  “Your father would be so happy.”

  “He would, wouldn’t he?”

  She nods. “What about this farm?” Her words are strained, so I do most of the talking.

  “We’ve already drawn up the plans. Fisher will help manage the irrigation. I think it can work.”

  “Flowers?” Despite her weakness, she’s alight with curiosity, making me wish I had done this years ago with her at the helm. So many regrets.

  “Yes. Flowers.” This elicits an even brighter smile. “I plan to expand your greenhouse. Add some hoop houses too. Cycle through a big crop of sunflowers, with smaller plots of zinnia, mums, and lilies for a start. I’ll also have dahlias, hydrangeas, and cosmos, a few hardy plants like that. I’ll add more once I learn the market, but I’ve got a business plan in place, with goals already set for one-year, five-year, and ten-year profits.”

  “You were born for this, Lovey.”

  “I don’t know, Mother. But it’s the first time in my life I feel like I’m on the right track.”

  She kisses my hand, says she loves me, doesn’t let go.

  “The florists are already interested, and I hope to sell direct to consumers through the farmer’s market, maybe even online. We’ll probably offer some pick-your-own options and host events, bring in school groups and the like. Plus yoga retreats, of course, maybe some herbal classes, art workshops, etiquette teas. A little bit of everything really, just to keep the income flowing in.”

  “I’ll be with you, Lovey. Every step. Never doubt it.” Her lip quivers. I can’t bear this. In recent weeks her hair has become thin and brittle, her nails yellow and cracked. With little strength to leave the bed and very limited caloric intake, her muscles have all but disappeared, and her eyes say in every way possible she is tired. “You’ll need help.”

  I rub my fingers against hers. “Bitsy’s going to partner with me. She needs something to focus on moving forward, you know?”

  Mother nods, tears welling.

  “And get this . . . We’re hiring Trip and Mary Evelyn.”

  Her brows lift slightly. She’s pleased.

  “I think they’ll be happy to drop a few of those structured activities.”

  “Good. That’s good.”

  “I’ll handle the flowers. Bitsy will help me with events. Figure we can host weddings and private parties out here, farm-to-table kind of stuff. In time, I hope to use Fisher’s produce, partner together for the long run.”

  She smiles, nods again. It takes all her strength, but she’s offering approval. Her blessing.

  “I owe it all to you, Mother. I found that notebook. The one from when I was little.”

  “Your flower farm book?”

  “Yep. It was in my desk drawer.”

  She smiles again, and I suspect she left it there for me to stumble across, knowing it would help me find my way. With tattered pages, it still holds the hand-printed cover: My Flower Farm Book. Doodles fill nearly every space, with drawings of daisies and roses, violets and tulips.

  “You were right,” I tell her. “I knew the answers from the start. Just lost sight of them for a while.”

  “Some of us take the long way around.”

  I rub my forehead. “All that time I could have been here, with you and Chief.”

  “And Fisher?”

  “And Fisher.” I sigh.

  “Not the way the story goes.” She exhales hard and takes her time to say all she wants to say, breaking sentences into short, clipped phrases. “Forty years in the desert. Or a few days. In the belly of the whale. We all get lost, Lovey.”

  I trace veins across her wrists, a map of blue-green tunnels as if entire worlds exist within her. Who is this woman who guided my soul into this world, w
ho cared for me and nurtured me and loved me through it all? I want to examine every piece of her journey, learn all I can from the one who gave me life.

  “You’re finding your way. Back to your true self. That sweet, brave, beautiful little girl. She’s a soul worth fighting for. Never forget that.”

  It’s taken me all these years to return to Oxford, but now here I am, sharing a pillow with my mother, watching the leaves fall from the trees outside her bedroom window. The air is quiet, and the house smells of homemade cider. Dolly P. is at Mother’s feet, and Manning rests on the floor beside the bed. Chief has gone ahead to hold the door, and Mother is traveling back to him. We all seem to be finding our way home.

  When Bitsy and the kids arrive, I grant them privacy and take a walk with Manning. Another Faulkner phrase comes to mind as I climb the hill: “It would be nice if you could just ravel out into time.”

  We’re nearly to the memory garden when my phone rings. It’s been years since I’ve seen this number on my screen, and it’s the last thing I expect today, but there it is: Meghan, Reed’s wife.

  She greets me kindly. I exhale. “I’m relieved to hear from you, Meghan. Reed seemed so angry that day you called.”

  “Police came,” she admits. “Someone reported a disturbance.”

  I don’t tell her I’m the one who called the cops. Nor that I flew to her home, spying from a distance just to make sure she was alive and well. It was a jolt the first time I saw her. I’m not sure what I had expected when the private detective gave me an address. Perhaps a part of me pictured her as some crazy, bitter woman whose cold heart had turned her husband to another bed. What I found instead was a selfless mother, shuttling her children to school with home-packed lunches and freshly washed clothes.

  Surely she was falling to pieces from her husband’s choices, and yet, somehow, she was finding the strength to hug her children, to check their backpacks and tie their shoes and send them out into this dangerous world with all the hope she could pour into their fragile little souls. She had chosen love, and in that choosing, love survived. It was there, passing through her wounded heart straight into her children. I watched her that day in awe, feeling so much admiration and respect for this woman I had never known. But I don’t say any of this now.

  “You won’t believe it,” she continues. “He convinced the cops I was the one having an affair. That he’d lost his temper because he caught me with another man. And they bought that!”

  “Did you show them the texts? Tell them the truth?” I sit on the wall, lean against the stones.

  “Honestly, no. I guess you can’t understand until you’ve lived it. If you’d called it abuse at the time, I would have thought you were crazy.”

  I think of Bitsy. Of Meghan. Of me. Three women who did nothing but dare to love the wrong man. I’ve learned enough now to understand how someone can lose perspective. Before you know it, you’re living in a jar, forgetting there’s a whole big world on the other side of the glass, relying on a few pierced holes in the lid to keep you breathing. Sometimes it takes an outside force to shake you free. “Did you file charges?”

  “Oh no. I never would have shamed him like that. My focus was on protecting him, all while he was out to destroy me. I just couldn’t see it. But it’s like people always say. You put a frog in a pot of water, and she has no idea she’s being boiled.”

  Hearing this, I realize Fisher and Finn weren’t the only ones to survive a fire. We’ve all been caught by the flames at some point in our lives. Some of us aren’t able to escape, and for those who do, scars remain. Some visible. Others hidden deep inside. Either way, we are changed.

  “Meghan, I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I’m not angry. Not anymore. In fact, I called to thank you. I know that’s the last thing you’d expect.”

  I get up from the wall and walk the steps around the labyrinth. Think of all the hurt we’ve survived.

  “Thing is, I tried to convince myself that Reed was just going through a midlife crisis or whatever you want to call it. I hoped we could work through it. But the more I discovered, the less I could deny the truth.”

  I want to say yes, I learned a lot too. About Reed. About myself.

  “Honestly, Eva, I’ve come to understand . . . you’re as much a victim as I am. We both loved a man who never existed.”

  I look to Mary, her arms outstretched, and I think of Chief, Fisher, and Finn. The love they offer.

  Reed is nothing like these men. Never was. Instead, he is a master of disguise. A man so broken, his form shifts completely based on the angle of the light that meets him. He’s like the cleome that bloom here in Mother’s garden, changing from dark pink at night to pale come morning, then to white again before the bloom falls. Or the heirloom petunias. Or the Confederate rose. Never know what we might find when we visit them. Fickle flowers, they behave as if they’ve forgotten who they really are, always hiding, fooling us by showing only what they want us to see.

  I now understand there have always been men like Reed in the world. A Judas. A wounded soul who causes tremendous harm for his own gain. My mind shifts to Mary Evelyn and Trip. How can I shield them from the danger?

  When a rabbit hops out to explore the memory garden, I’m drawn back to Meghan. “Are your kids okay?”

  “They’re still caught in the spin. Reed knows there’s no better way to destroy me than to hurt my children. But now we know, don’t we, Eva? Now we know what people are capable of.”

  My hand moves to my heart. The idea of Whitman doing such a thing to Trip and Mary Evelyn . . . It’s too much. “He has to stop this.”

  “I don’t think that’ll ever happen. He feeds on power, takes pleasure from pushing other people down. But I’m moving in the right direction now. The kids and I have come back to California, near my sister. In time, we’ll be okay. All that matters now is that we’re finally free.”

  I sit in Mother’s memory garden for a long time after Meghan ends the call. Around me, rabbits, birds, and squirrels carry on their normal activities, searching for food, cleaning their nests, preparing for the change of seasons. I used to think the garden of Eden story was all about Eve breaking the rules and eating the forbidden fruit. Church lessons taught us that her selfishness and deception resulted in great suffering for every generation to follow.

  That’s the guilt we have been taught to carry as women. The serpent tricks us, and it’s all our fault. Others are harmed by our naive choice, and it’s all our fault. Our children stray from the right path, and it’s all our fault.

  Truth is, the dangers were here from the start. But so was the beauty.

  Now I realize the story is not about punishing all of humankind for Eve’s mistake. It’s about relationship. It’s about gratitude and honesty and choosing the right person to be by your side in life. It’s about trust and partnership and loyalty. It’s about love.

  Now, as the garden comes to life around me, I no longer think of serpents and betrayals and lies and shame. Instead, I see what God sees. I see that it is good. All of it. Good.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  May 2017

  In Mother’s prayer garden I walk the labyrinth, slowly moving around the spiral of stones. I inhale and exhale my way through steady steps, grounding my thoughts in the hilly red soils of Mississippi the same way I did on the desert sands of Sedona a year ago, when I circled the medicine wheel with Marian as my guide. Today, I walk alone, focusing on one stone at a time, round and round until I reach the center of the spiral. There, I lift my eyes to the sky, finding focus on the resurrection ferns that grow lush and green from the oak limbs above me.

  One such group of ferns grows from a different white oak down by the house. It’s the one that held our tire swing as children. Mother would push us, pointing to the rope that was looped and double knotted from a branch where the ferns grew green.

  “You see that fern?” Mother would ask. “It’s magic.”

  Bitsy and I would cling to th
e rope, her legs balanced on top of the tire, mine threaded through the opening as Mother pushed us, her floral skirt flapping in the wind.

  “Doesn’t need any soil, for one thing. Grows right there on the branch without any dirt at all. Survives against all odds.”

  Mother would go on to tell us the fern could lose up to 95 percent of its water, wither and curl into dry, brown twists, and still come back to life when the rains finally returned. Nothing could stop it from doing what it was born to do.

  I sit at the foot of Mary, centered within a spiral of stones and blooms. I fiddle with my silver charm as I focus on the ferns. Your time is now. That’s what Mother and Chief wanted me to know so long ago. I thought that to mean I should rush out and claim the world as my own. Dive headfirst into the deep end of life and not let anything stop me. And maybe that was what I needed to do. But when Reed shattered my world, everything turned upside down. By the time I escaped, I no longer recognized myself on account of all the scars. I had become nearly dead inside, as Mother would say.

  Mary watches over me now, reminding me it’s never too late for a person to rise again. I lie back against the ground where autumn’s leaves crinkle crisp beneath me. Manning nuzzles my side, and I close my eyes, resting in the warmth of the sun. When Marian told me we limit things by giving them a name, I didn’t fully understand. But now I get it. I’ve been called so many horrible things in my life: Liar. Cheater. Unwanted. Unloved. The list goes on, and most of those have been hurled from the lips of my own sister, a person who was supposed to be on my side in life.