A Life Without Flowers

by Marci Bolden

  Are you and Daddy fighting again?

  Katie had asked that more than once, and every time Carol faked a smile and reassured her daughter. But Katie saw. Had she lived to be old enough to understand, she might have blamed Carol for not protecting her. She might have resented Carol for not forcing John to get sober. She might have held the same anger in her heart that Carol had carried all these years. Tears filled Carol’s eyes, and she had to force the air from her lungs. The thought of Katie seeing her through those eyes made her chest ache.

  Unlike Judith, however, Carol thought she would have had the courage to reach out to Katie. She would have worked endlessly to build a bridge between them. She wouldn’t have let her daughter’s life pass by without knowing her, without being a part of Katie’s ups and downs, as her parents had done with Carol.

  Then again…

  She hadn’t done a damn thing to try to fix things with her father. She’d let the seed of resentment he’d planted in her as a child expand into a forest. The trees had grown so thick and strong she hadn’t even been able to uproot them when he’d died. His funeral hadn’t been a time to forgive him and put those bad memories to rest as she should have done. His funeral had highlighted the rift between them.

  She’d felt as unwanted and unwelcomed when he was in a casket as she’d felt when he’d loomed over her, demanding she strive to do better, work harder, be more serious about life. He was gone, but she’d continued to sense him looking down his nose at her—disapproving of her very existence.

  Almost four years after his passing, and she was finally beginning to see him as human. She was starting to allow herself to feel something beyond blinding anger. He’d robbed her of the opportunity to have a secure and carefree childhood. He’d embedded such a deep sense of unworthiness in her that she’d carried that feeling into adulthood. Though she’d managed to push those feelings into the shadows, they still haunted her, and she’d hated him for that.

  No matter how hard she’d tried to give her daughter a better life, Carol had started to fail. She’d started to crack under the pressure of balancing motherhood, work, and John’s drinking. She had been failing. Katie was beginning to see through her to the pain beneath her forced smiles, and there was no way for Carol to know how that would have impacted her child or their long-term relationship.

  Despite all her efforts, she hadn’t been the perfect mother. She hadn’t protected Katie. In fact, her efforts to protect the innocence of Katie’s childhood had inadvertently laid the foundations for the accident that took Katie’s life.

  Just as her father’s determination to give his daughter a better life had inadvertently caused emotional damage Carol still hadn’t finished sorting through. Carol had always seen him as heartless. Maybe he was scared. Like Carol had been scared that Katie would grow up loathing her the way Carol had loathed her parents. Scared that Katie wouldn’t love her or forgive her for not helping John before his addiction consumed him.

  Maybe her father was so terrified of being left by his daughter, like his parents had left him, that he was too scared to let himself love her as much as he should have. Maybe if she’d been stronger, braver, and had reached out to him, he would have reached back. Maybe they could have fixed things and she would have known what it was like to have a more caring father.

  She would never know. Her father was dead. They would never have a chance to mend and heal because she’d been too angry and, yes, too scared to try when he was alive.

  Regret grabbed hold of her heart and squeezed hard enough that an unexpected sob rolled from her. Carol stopped in her tracks and put her hand to her mouth as tears fell down her cheeks.

  “What is it?” Ellen asked, panic evident in her voice as she put her hand to Carol’s arm.

  She couldn’t answer. Even if she could find the words to express how much remorse had suddenly filled her, she couldn’t talk around the lump of emotion in her throat.

  Judith put her hand around Carol’s lower back and pushed her toward a bench. “Sit.”

  Carol didn’t sit as much as fall onto the seat. Leaning forward, she buried her hands in her face. She couldn’t stop the tears. Her father had been dead for almost four years, and this was the first time she felt the grief of his loss touch her heart. She’d kept the feelings at bay all that time because she’d never really felt like she’d lost him. How could she lose him when she’d never had him?

  Except now, she could see that her mom and aunt were right. He had never been the kind of father any child would wish for, but he’d been her father. He was flawed and broken, but he had been there, pushing and hoping she’d find a better life than he’d had.

  She’d always known he’d been disappointed when her life jumped the tracks he’d carefully set before her, but she’d never really understood that his disappointment hadn’t necessarily been directed at her. He was disappointed in himself. He’d felt like he’d let her down somehow. Even when she got her life together, her father had never stopped feeling like he’d failed her. He hadn’t blamed her; he’d blamed himself. Why hadn’t she seen that sooner?

  “This is getting to be too much,” Judith said. “We need to stop this foolishness and get her home.”

  Carol shook her head as she wiped her cheeks. “No.”

  “I think she’s right this time,” Ellen agreed.

  “I was thinking about Dad,” Carol said. “All these years, I thought he hated me because I wasn’t good enough. But he didn’t hate me.”

  “Of course he didn’t,” Judith stated. “How many times—” She stopped short when Ellen lifted her hand.

  “He didn’t express his feelings well,” Ellen said gently.

  “Because he was scared of how much he loved us.” Carol’s voice was thick. “Because he remembered how much it hurt to lose his parents. He didn’t want to hurt like that again. He thought it was safer to not let anyone know how he felt.”

  She looked at her mom, gauging her response. The sympathy she saw there made her eyes fill again. “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry I didn’t get that sooner.”

  “He was a complicated man, Carol.”

  “But he loved me,” Carol said, as her mother had said many times before. “I see that now.”

  “You do?”

  Carol nodded and accepted the tissue her aunt held out to her. “I started thinking about how Katie might have seen me if she’d lived. How she might have judged my mistakes, and all of a sudden, I realized how harshly I’ve been judging his. I’m still mad,” she said. “He didn’t have to be so mean, but I…I understand now. I get where he was coming from.”

  Ellen patted her knee. “Understanding is a big step toward forgiveness.”

  Judith pulled her closer and kissed her head in one of those rare shows of affection. “Have you been drinking again?”

  Carol laughed through her tears. “Not yet.” She wiped her eyes and nose as she looked out at the water and the skyline in the distance. Serenity settled over her as she took in the scenery, and the grief that had knocked the wind out of her eased.

  She liked to think moments like these were signs from Katie or Tobias, but in that moment, she felt like her dad was there, thanking her for realizing that he’d been human and had made mistakes. Warmth spread through her as if his soul was embracing hers. The bitterness and anger eased the stronghold that had kept her from forgiving him. She wasn’t there yet, but she’d get there. Someday.

  “This is the spot,” she said. Leaning over enough to take the container from her pocket, she clutched it in her hand. “This is where we should leave them.”

  Judith managed a sad smile while Ellen held out another tissue. Carol managed a light laugh. After wiping her eyes again, she told Katie and John how big the statue was, how long it took to assemble after arriving in three-hundred-fifty separate pieces from France, and, of course, that she wore a size eight-hundred-seventy-nine shoe. Judith explained that the arm and torch were damaged in 1916 after German spies planted explo
sives on a nearby island, and Ellen said that the statue’s skin was only as thick as two pennies pressed together.

  Carol pushed herself from the bench and sprinkled the ashes into the grass. Looking up at the statue as she closed the container, something she hadn’t felt in a long time filled her. Courage.

  Lady Liberty meant so many things to so many people—freedom from tyranny or a new start—but in that moment, for Carol, the statue seemed to be telling her that she was strong enough to keep going. She had faced a lot in the last few months—she could face the next step in her journey too.

  The sky was overcast as Carol walked with her mom and aunt toward the gravesite. She’d been numb since getting the call that her father had died. As she tended to do where her parents were concerned, she pushed the emotions down and didn’t let them show.

  She didn’t know what she was feeling anyway. She’d been celebrating Thanksgiving in Missouri with Tobias and their family when she’d gotten the call from her mom. She had tried to call her mom before they sat down to eat but hadn’t gotten an answer. When her phone rang right as they were passing the food around, she almost hadn’t answered.

  If she didn’t, she decided, her mom would give her that cold shoulder she was so good at. Carol decided she could take a few minutes to answer the phone and excused herself from the table. What she hadn’t expected was her faux-happy hello to be answered with her mother’s flat voice informing her that her father had died.

  Carol heard the words but couldn’t make sense of them. Her stomach knotted while her brain tried to dissect her mother’s meaning.

  “He…collapsed and died,” her mother continued. “Right after dinner. He had a heart attack.”

  Tobias had instantly sensed something was wrong and jumped up to join her. She grabbed his hand. Usually that would ground her, but everything from that moment to this one that found her standing at her father’s grave was a blur.

  Tobias hadn’t joined her for the funeral since her parents had never cared for him.

  Luckily her aunt was there. Carol thought she should be the first line of support for her mother but was thankful that her mom seemed to be leaning on her sister more. Carol didn’t know how to be that way with her mom. They’d never been close enough for her to feel like she would be her mother’s first choice for that role anyway. So she held back and let Aunt Ellen take care of Judith.

  That was best anyway. She and her mom tended to butt heads more than not, and now wasn’t the time for that. Carol heard the priest speaking but didn’t really hear the words. She was in robot mode. Long ago, she’d learned how to fake her way through being present. Years of sitting at a table, tuning out her father’s tirades, of shutting out judgement, had taught her how to fake being present.

  She thought it odd, though, that she couldn’t seem to connect now, in this moment, when she should be feeling something. Her father was gone. He was dead.

  How was that not bringing her to her knees?

  Was she even human?

  Maybe her dad was right about her. Maybe she didn’t deserve all he’d done for her. Maybe she was too ungrateful and spoiled.

  She blinked when someone nudged her. She looked at her aunt, who nodded for her to do something. Carol looked at the grave and realized it was her turn to toss a rose onto the casket. She looked at the red rose in her hand before putting it onto his casket. “I’m sorry, Dad. I wish I’d been better.”

  Stepping back, she took her spot beside her aunt again. The sting of tears started in the back of her eyes, but Carol blinked them back. Her father would have hated if she’d cried. He’d never been one for displays of emotion.

  Besides, the urge to cry wasn’t for him. Standing over his grave, knowing he was gone forever, the tears she felt weren’t for him. They were for the little girl who had never been enough, no matter how hard she had tried.

  As the service ended and people started to leave, Ellen put her hand on Carol’s arm. “How are you, honey?”

  “I’m fine.” She looked at her mom, who was talking to someone Carol didn’t know. “How’s she?”

  “She’ll be okay. How long are you staying?”

  “My flight’s early tomorrow, so—”

  “Tomorrow?” Ellen asked, clearly shocked.

  Carol had done the wrong thing. She hadn’t considered it wrong when she’d made travel arrangements, but clearly her aunt had expected her to stick around longer. “Uh. I could…stay, I guess.”

  Ellen frowned. “Does your mom know you’re leaving so soon?”

  Glancing at her mother again. Carol shook her head. “We’ve barely spoken since I arrived. She’s busy. I’ll come back soon. Once all this quiets down. You know how these things go. Everyone hovers for the first few weeks, and then they forget. I’ll come back when they stop hovering.”

  Her aunt didn’t point out that she knew better. That Carol knew better. She’d leave and go about her life, and she’d forget too. Because that’s what she and her parents did. They came into each other’s orbits only when necessary, and then they moved on. Now her father was gone, and she could hardly wait to get out of her mother’s orbit.

  She’d feel bad about that if she hadn’t received the same treatment when Katie had died. They hadn’t spoken to her at the memorial for her daughter. They’d shown up, accepted condolences from others, but had avoided John and Carol. Not that Carol had cared. She’d been so doped up at the service, she’d barely been aware of anything.

  She was aware now. She was aware that her mother had barely looked at her. They’d only talked briefly. Her attempt at consoling her mother had been awkward for both of them. Maybe other families mourned together, but the Stewarts tended to keep those things to themselves.

  “It’s best for me to go, Aunt Ellen. She doesn’t need me here. She needs you.”

  “Carol,” Ellen said.

  Leaning in, Carol gave her aunt a hug. “She’s having a hard time. My being here will make it worse. She doesn’t need that. None of us do.”

  She walked away before her aunt could argue. There was no point. They both knew she was right. She and her mother would never be close. Losing her father wasn’t going to change that.

  After leaving Liberty Island, the women settled in for a night at an RV park a few miles outside of the city. The contradiction in the scenery had distracted Carol more than she would have liked. She related in some strange sense. The hurried and hectic city loomed just a short distance from this peaceful place, like the chaos inside Carol was always boiling beneath the calm.

  Carol had to blink several times to refocus her attention on the woman who was sitting across the picnic table. Her mother had said something, but she’d been lost in her own thoughts and hadn’t heard her. “I’m sorry?”

  “The cemetery,” Judith said. “I want to go to the cemetery. We should leave some of Katie’s remains with your father.”

  Carol nodded. “Yes, we should.” The thought triggered another in her mind. “Do you happen to know where Frannie and Mark are buried?”

  “I don’t.”

  A sense of shame clouded her heart as she once again thought how they’d never even seen Katie’s urn. “I’m sure I can find out with an Internet search. I’d like to take some ashes there too.”

  “They’d like that,” Judith said.

  Carol wiped her hands on her napkin and looked around the RV park, but she wasn’t seeing their surroundings. She was reliving the past again.

  “I saw Frannie at the mall once,” Judith said. “Did I ever tell you that?”

  “No, you didn’t,” Carol said as her heart twisted inside her chest.

  “She asked about you.”

  “She was such a sweet woman.”

  Judith didn’t agree, but she didn’t remind Carol how Frannie and Mark gave in to John too much, as she used to do. “She was happy when I told her you’d finished school and remarried. She wanted me to tell you that she loved and missed you.”

  Creasin
g her brow, Carol asked, “Why didn’t you?”

  “Because I thought it was best not to bring up the past to you,” Judith said.

  Frustration lit in Carol, something she hadn’t felt directed toward her mom in a few days. She was filtering her response when Judith shook her head.

  “No. That’s not true. I didn’t tell you because I always hated how close you two were,” her mom confessed. “It was enough I had to compete with Mary. I didn’t want to add Frannie back into the mix.”

  Carol glanced at Ellen, who looked like she was waiting for a duel to begin. Instead of giving in to her frustrations, she forced her anger away. “You don’t have to compete with anyone, Mom. Look at us. We’re only fighting once a day now.”

  She let the words linger before smirking. Judith smiled too.

  “You’d left everything and everyone behind,” Judith said. “I thought it best to leave it alone. But she did worry about you, and she didn’t seem angry that you’d left. I think she understood.”

  “I hope she did.” She still wished her mother had told her, but she wasn’t upset about it enough to point that out. “I loved Frannie. I love Mary. And I love you.”

  Since Judith seemed embarrassed about her comment, Carol didn’t press harder, but she’d felt she had to point out that she could love them all. A few weeks ago, she wouldn’t have thought her mom was concerned about that. After the improvements they’d both been making in their relationship, she could see why she needed to reassure her mom that she did love her.

  Putting her hand on Judith’s arm, she offered her a soft smile. “How are you feeling about getting back to Dayton tomorrow?”

  “Good. I guess I didn’t realize how much I missed it. I thought, if you don’t mind, I’d invite a few people from church to the ceremony. I wish I’d thought of that sooner. I’m not sure if they can make it on such short notice.”

  “I think that would be lovely, Mom.” She tilted her head at Ellen. “And you?”