by Wall, Carol
“Giles, for some reason, we find that difficult to speak about in our culture.”
“Mrs. Wall, your kind listening ear has given me the courage to voice my opinions. I have been noticing this more and more. And that is very freeing. I’m humbled when I think of parents who have truly lost their children. If Lok is lost to us, it is just for a short while. And I have no one to blame but myself.”
“Oh, Giles. I’m sure that’s not true. You were trying to do what was best for your family when you left Kenya.”
He looked to the sky once again. “I am to blame for leaving my daughter behind, in pursuit of the advanced degree. This doctorate. Yet we felt we could do much more for her by obtaining these credentials and securing teaching jobs in a university setting. I should have reminded myself that things do not always go as planned. My daughter pleaded to remain in Kenya to finish school among her many cousins and her friends. Bienta’s mother was Lok’s advocate in this, and my wife and I succumbed. We shouldn’t have. In the years since we came over, travel has become more complicated. Now our precious daughter waits for us to be successful in our efforts. She must feel abandoned, though she doesn’t say. Our lives are full of very many complications.” Giles looked away. I had never seen him like this—he seemed forlorn.
“Lok was tiny when Bienta had her,” Giles continued. “We knew a struggle lay ahead. She had arrived two months before her time. Fortunately, there was an incubator. It was the only one for many, many miles around, and our delightful, tiny Lok was placed in it at once!”
“Oh, my God,” I said aloud, imagining a place where one couldn’t take an incubator for granted.
“She was a fighter. Yes, she was!” he said. “We saw this right from the beginning. I held Bienta’s hand each time we gazed on her. We had lost another baby, earlier, and so our hurting hearts were filled with love and longing for this tiny creature with her strong will and her tranquil face and tiny, pumping fists. We prayed so very, very hard that she would simply grow to live among us. Yet with every visit to the hospital, we saw her struggling. We feared that in spite of her tiny fists raised up, our prayers, and all our love, in the end she might go back.”
“Oh, Giles. That must have been so hard. But Lok’s not ‘going back.’ She’s healthy now, and all these complications are the kind that can be dealt with. She will use the innate strength you describe, to get through this trial.”
The cold was much more penetrating than I thought it would be, and I put my hood up. Giles looked at me expectantly. We always shared stories, back and forth. He had given me his, and now it was my turn to give him mine. I took a deep breath. The time had come for me to tell Giles about Barbara.
“Giles, I need to tell you something. It’s something only Dick knows. Something I think about often, but can hardly ever bring myself to speak of.”
Giles’s off-center glance reflected his curiosity.
“My sister Barbara was born in 1950, a little more than a year before me. She was a Down syndrome baby. She died of heart failure ten days before her second birthday, when I was seven months old. It was Mother’s Day, a Sunday. I don’t remember this, of course. What I know is what my parents have told me over the years. The doctor who delivered Barbara was deliberately cruel. Apparently, he believed he was sparing my parents from forming an attachment to a child who couldn’t possibly survive. He came into my mother’s hospital room and announced to my parents that their baby girl was ‘a Mongolian idiot,’ and would ‘never amount to anything.’ They should put her in an institution and forget her, he advised. Instead, they took her home to the lovely nursery they had prepared, and a few weeks later, with high hopes in their hearts, they went to New York City, to see a specialist recommended by an army buddy and his wife who had settled there after the war. Barbara’s case was one of the milder ones, the doctor said, in the kindest and most tactful way. But heart surgery was not an option and she would not live long. My advice to you, the doctor said, is to have another baby.”
I paused. My hands trembled. I pushed my hood back, as if I’d been on the run for years and was finally ready to surrender. A gentle breeze moved through the roses. “I am the next chapter of our family story, Giles. And guilt weighs me down every day of my life. Every day I ask myself why Barbara had to die. I would have helped her had she lived. She could have counted on me. But I didn’t get the chance to tell her.”
Giles looked at me with sympathy. His heart had been tested, too. My tears began, but I found that I wasn’t ashamed of them. I wiped my face on the sleeve of my jacket. I looked up to find Giles staring fiercely into the distance.
Stabbing the air with his pointer finger for emphasis, he said, “Your sister was an Innocent. A gift from life. Such children are incapable of guile. They bring out the best in us. The highest reaches of the heavens are reserved for them. The day your Barbara went back home, the angels welcomed her. Our Swahili word for angel is malaika. They rejoiced when your sister came back to them. She is one of them now.”
“My father framed a poem about roses climbing a wall to the other side. That’s how he thought of my sister.”
“The poem brought you comfort, Mrs. Wall?”
“No. It didn’t. I thought it was sad. But I pretended for him. Flowers have always depressed me, Giles. They just make me think of my sister’s coffin. And how everything dies.”
Giles hesitated, careful about his words as always. “Every yard must have its flowers, Mrs. Wall. Did you know there are flowers that bloom at night? For example, Dutchman’s pipe cactus, dragon fruit flowers, four-o’clocks, and night gladiolus. Why not let new thoughts of all these flowers honor and console your baby sister at night, as you sleep? When you wake, go on with your happy, productive life, in which your own growing sense of joy should surely occupy an important spot and in which brightly colored blooms are not required.
“Flowers take many shapes, and there are many hues. The soil beneath our plodding feet is home to treasures as well as to many sorrows. This is very powerful, Mrs. Wall. Some may say, ‘Move on,’ but it is not so easy, is it? Sorrow follows us. The child in us is always there.”
“Thank you, Giles, for listening. You’re a good friend.”
Giles and I kept each other company in silence a little while longer. Then I waited with him while he gathered up his tools, and walked with him to his car. My walk home from there was short, and the scent of Giles’s flowers followed me all the way.
THE ROSE BEYOND THE WALL
A POEM BY A. L. FRINK
Near shady wall a rose once grew,
Budded and blossomed in God’s free light,
Watered and fed by the morning dew,
Shedding its sweetness day and night.
As it grew and blossomed fair and tall,
Slowly rising to loftier height,
It came to a crevice in the wall
Through which there shone a beam of light.
Onward it crept with added strength
With never a thought of fear or pride.
It followed the light through the crevice’s length
And unfolded itself on the other side.
Shall claim of death cause us to grieve
And make our courage faint and fall?
Nay! Let us faith and hope receive—
The rose still grows beyond the wall.
Scattering fragrance far and wide
Just as it did in days of yore,
Just as it did on the other side,
Just as it will forevermore.
Barbara Ann Gregory. Born: May 21, 1950
Entered Life Eternal: May 11, 1952
9.
Shades of White
Gradually, over the coming months, Giles broke me—cured me—of my dread of flowers.
The first stage of my treatment came in the spring, almost exactly a year after he fi
rst walked into our yard. It was an early April morning, and the freakish snow we’d had the night before had already melted.
In my walk-in closet, I took careful sips of my coffee. Deciding what to wear to school this time of year was tricky. I whisked through skirts and slacks and blouses on their hangers. Nothing appealed to me. It was Friday, and it flashed through my mind to simply conjure up a case of sniffles, call in sick, and climb beneath the covers with my mug of coffee, a couple of good books, and remote control in hand.
Instead, I pulled the curtain back to check the weather. This was when I saw the first of them, a nodding cluster of pure white daffodils between the first boxwood and the second, in the bed below my window.
I hadn’t planned for these flowers. Yet at once, I knew whose loving hands had prepared this surprise.
My feet were bare, but I didn’t let that stop me. With silky bathrobe fluttering, I ran down the stairs and flung open the front door.
“What are you doing?” Dick called out, but I kept going.
I stepped quickly through the yard. In the front, I found crocuses. They were tiny, white, and blooming in profusion. How long had they been there? How could I not have noticed them before?
In the backyard were more flowers—daffodils and crocuses. They were all in shades of white. They were everywhere, white flowers collaring the asphalt basketball court, and yet more white flowers spilling all along the fence line. There were white snowdrops and a stand of what I’d learn later was white alyssum. There would soon be white tulips and blossoms of sweet woodruff that I would come to love as well.
Stepping back to stand beneath the river birch, I knew that spring had come and, with it, an important moment in my history with Giles. Every yard must have its flowers, he’d said to me. How long ago must he have planned this surprise for me? It had to have been before I’d told him about Barbara. And yet somehow he knew that this sea of white flowers was what my broken heart needed.
With childlike joy, I reached to pluck a single daffodil. The scent was sweet. I wanted to see it standing upright in a small amount of water. Somewhere in this house of mine, though in another life, perhaps, I was pretty sure I had a bud vase.
• • •
During the summer months following my spring surprise, I found myself actually considering adding some color to our tidy green space. Those white flowers had been the tipping point, and now the slide into color seemed like a gentle, inevitable slope. Besides, I trusted Giles. So one late August afternoon, I asked him if he still had any colorful flowers needing a home. He was ecstatic.
“Nothing gaudy, Giles,” I nervously reminded him. “And only a few, remember. Not too many and not too much color. It’s really a form of recycling, when you think of it,” I added piously.
My answer came in a matter of days when sweet red primroses appeared. They were quickly followed by some lemon-yellow daylilies to complement the dwarf-sized junipers that seemed a little lonely in their semicircular beds at the end of the sidewalk.
In early September, Giles brought purple-bearded irises for an empty-looking spot beside the driveway. Later that same day, I watched him work a corner of the backyard to make room for transplants taken from a larger hosta he had found “within a compound that was very, very crowded.”
I would have loved to see what “very, very crowded” meant to him. Yet again, I wondered what his own yard looked like. Did he have a birch tree? Boxwoods? An arbor to accommodate a climbing rose? I thought of Lok, just as I did each time I saw a rose or when a silver jet passed overhead.
I thought of my own father. He no longer seemed to recognize me, and outings became increasingly difficult to manage. I was glad he hadn’t been with me today, to see what I allowed to happen to Mama in Dr. Mitchell’s parking lot.
Arriving at the doctor’s office, I had felt noble helping Mama step out of my van. I imagined people smiling at the sight of us, saying, “Would you just look at that responsible, care-giving daughter? She is so devoted.” Mama indeed looked well taken care of in a new navy sweat suit with white trim and a long, wide zipper on the jacket. Her hair had been freshly washed and trimmed at the Hearth’s beauty shop. A new, off-white rinse with muted rosy tones brought out the best in her coloring, and as usual, her makeup was applied meticulously by her capable hand. Her running-style shoes were ones she hadn’t worn much, and when I saw them as I was picking her up at the Hearth, I pushed down the impulse to suggest we go back inside and choose a pair she had already broken in a bit more, for safety’s sake.
She insisted the new shoes were comfortable, and told me what I knew was a lie, saying that she’d been practicing walking in them for several weeks. “Carol, I am not going to fall. You worry too much.
“Aren’t they bright and white?” she added as she took my arm. “They look new. As if I’ve been polishing them. Or saving them for the senior Olympics.”
As we made our way across the parking lot toward Dr. Mitchell’s office, I noticed Mama wincing with almost every step. I handed her a nondescript cane I had bought for her at Walmart. At first, she had mentioned bringing the Kenyan cane, which she was so proud of and intrigued by. I told her that I didn’t think it was a good idea. The cane was too beautiful to use. Anyway, I had estimated that with only ten or twelve steps, we could reach the door of the doctor’s office.
We began our journey. I had my lightweight Vera Bradley pocketbook on one arm, and my mother’s Aigner bag dangled from my other shoulder. Every woman knows that when you control someone’s pocketbook, you are the Alpha Girl. My mother was using her cane with one hand and holding on to my elbow with the other. She was safe and I was in charge. Or, that’s what I thought.
But when we reached the step-up for the curb, it seemed I had her in my sights one moment, and then, before I knew it, she had fallen hard. With her arms so weak and reflexes slow, she had no means of breaking her fall. I watched helplessly as her forehead slammed against the concrete sidewalk. The sound was hideous, and I cried out.
My mother was able to roll onto her back. She stared at the bright blue sky, unable to get up. I knelt beside her, horrified by the large knot that was forming in the middle of her forehead. I hoped it would be bandaged quickly and she wouldn’t see it. But her fingers found the knot. She touched it gently, but seemed to be in shock and had no reaction. Dr. Mitchell would later say that the curb was about an inch too tall for her current ability to step up. I berated myself. I should have thought of that. I’m sure there was a different route we might have used, had I been less focused on projecting an image of the ideal daughter and more attentive to Mama’s actual difficulties. Not a single one of us is perfect, I could imagine hearing my daddy say in my head. That was the only redemptive moment of the afternoon.
Oh, how I wished to have his counsel right now. Mama, injured and unable to get herself up, lay with her head and shoulders on the sidewalk. Her legs trailed into the parking lot. Just then, a young woman in her thirties pulled into the lot.
“Oh, my goodness!” she said. “Want me to send a doctor or nurse out?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “You’re an angel. Malaika, in Swahili, it would be.” She looked at me strangely, but I was just grateful she had arrived.
Once in Dr. Mitchell’s office, Mama was thoroughly examined, but we were no closer to finding out why Mama’s walking had deteriorated so rapidly. I took Mama’s arm gingerly as we left the doctor’s office and walked to my van. I felt shaky on the drive back to the Hearth, but I managed to get her settled for a nap.
Later on that very afternoon, as I was in my kitchen downing Xanax with some sweet iced tea and feeling sorry for myself, I heard Giles’s car pull up.
“How are your parents doing?” he asked as I appeared. Feeling paranoid, I wondered if news of Mama’s fall had spread. “Especially your mother and those problems with her gait,” he innocently added. “What have the medics found o
ut?”
Panic nibbled at the edges of my seeming poise. “Mama and Daddy are doing very well,” I answered, joining Giles beside the Neon’s open trunk.
Hoping for a change of subject, I peered into the trunk and saw a cardboard box containing several plastic bags.
“Any news of Lok?” I asked.
“They have now notified Lok that she will have to submit to a DNA test,” Giles said. “To show she is really our daughter, and not an impostor stealing someone else’s identity.”
The September sun was harsh, and reflected sharp shards of light against the bumpers of our vehicles. I used my hand to shade my eyes. Giles opened up one bag and pulled some blade-like leaves out by their pale white, stringy roots.
“I’m so sorry for the delay, Giles. I’m sure it’s just a formality, though, and then Lok will be with you.” Giles was quiet and I sensed he didn’t want to talk more about it so I changed the subject. “I keep meaning to tell you how much my mother loves to hear about your progress in our yard, Giles.”
“I like your mother very, very much,” he said. “And I am going to plant more roses in her honor, somewhere in this yard. Tell her that, and that I will escort her through this bright green grass to see them, very soon. What would she like?”
“Oh, any kind. She’s not particular.” But then, remembering, I said, “When I was growing up, we had these really pretty, deep red roses. They were very large, and had the sweetest scent. She loved to place them on our kitchen table. She would float them in a clear, cut-glass bowl. You know, it even seemed those roses made the food taste better.”
“Flowers sweeten everything,” Giles said, content that we agreed on this, at last.