My Short Stories
Each Life a Garden
Annie knew when it was time for the kids to “get lost.” At thirteen, she could tell that something had been brewing between her father and grandmother, so she had slipped off to the garden. She loved that garden. Each year, side by side, her grandparents planted rows of new beginnings. They had weathered the pests and blights, learning what needed extra attention and what grew with little effort. They shared how the cucumbers and tomatoes thrived with the proper support and how each plant required the right amount of space. Sometimes, two carrots might be entwined in a way that stunted the other’s growth. Her grandmother and father seemed this way. Beginning together, but better apart. Annie was staring at the tops of the carrots peeking out. She wondered what was growing beneath the surface when her father called her back.
The sunlight cast across her grandparent’s patio seemed out of place. There was something about the way her father’s head hung to hide his face. His arm draped over the railing of the porch as though it too felt the same bone-deep sadness. He looked…defeated.
Her father’s father had died fourteen days earlier. When they had left him that last night in the hospital he was looking better. He sat up and smiled, telling them to go home and that he’d be fine. None of them thought pneumonia could kill a strong man at sixty-two. Her father had cried more in those fourteen days than she had ever seen. It was as though a dam had broken and he was struggling in the flood.
As Annie walked up the stairs to the patio, her father lifted his head. There seemed to be a hesitation, almost imperceptible, as he reached for her hand. His voice cracked as he said, “Can you talk to her?” She knew what she was being asked to do. She was being sent in to see if the storm that was raging in her grandmother would die down in the presence of a child. She knew how desperate her father must have been to send her inside alone.
Annie’s grandmother, an orphan, had dedicated her days to raising her five children, and she loved her husband fiercely. He was her first family. Her grief led to an emptiness that paranoia filled. Even her children became a source of pain, and so, in her mind, he became her only family. And now he was gone. Her whole world had just ended. She was all alone…again.
Annie didn’t know what had been said already that day in the kitchen, but she walked in thinking only of her father. She was going to get her grandmother to see that they were all in pain. That surely, nothing could be worth making that pain worse. That sons need their mothers and mothers need their sons.
Her grandmother sat at the kitchen table, her chin up, facing away from her. She knew Annie was there. She wouldn’t or couldn’t look.
“Grandma…you should talk to Dad,” Annie gently suggested.
“I don’t want to,” she snapped back as Annie startled at the sting of her words.
“Please, Grandma, he’s hurting too, can’t you see that?” she timidly tried again.
Her grandmother started to cry. There was a resolve in the way she lifted her face and looked at Annie for the first time.
“I am alone.”
It wasn’t a realization. Nor was it a cry for help. It was a choice. She could no longer bear loving anyone if they could leave her. She started this life alone and she was choosing to return there. Her grandmother stood and walked out of the room.
As Annie opened the kitchen door to the porch, her father looked up. There was hope in his eyes as she shook her head no. They walked slowly to the car. Her father’s head again hung low. Once inside, she leaned hers against the backseat window. She watched the garden fade from sight as they pulled away. Something whispered that this was the last time she would see it.
They rode in silence. Annie thought of the time her grandmother told her that a seed, when it’s ready, can ride the wind and start its own garden. With the resilience of youth, she tucked away her sadness and asked, “Dad? Can we plant a garden?” Her father’s eyes met hers in the rear-view mirror. For the first time in a while she saw a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. Like a seed on a breeze of hope, the smile spread across his face and he answered, “I would love that, Annie.”
A Closer Look
There’s a whisper and the image appears. I’m sitting beside the kitchen sink and she’s washing the dishes. We’re doing it together. I’m helping grandma. I am three years old so this may be my very first memory. I’m not sure if the peacefulness I feel is in recalling the memory of her or if that’s what I felt that day. I imagine it might be both. It was sunny and she was smiling at me. On a shelf to the side of the sink is a little silver man. I don’t remember what words I used, but I asked her if I could have him when she didn’t want him anymore. Something about this memory whispers to me that I was asking if I could have him after she died but I didn’t want to ask that way. Do three-year-olds understand death? Do they understand time?
My grandmother died of a stroke before I turned four. The next memory I have is of my mother crying at the kitchen table. My mother has her eyes. She still misses her terribly. Over the years, she has shared stories about who my grandmother was and how she was loved. Her stories fill the space meant for the memories we did not make. My grandmother was kind and nurturing. She was soft-spoken but spoke her mind. Like me, she loved to garden. I think we would have liked each other. Maybe we would have spent sunny days in the garden together. Can you feel the absence of someone you barely knew?
Somehow the little silver man made his way to me. I don’t remember how. He sits in my kitchen window now and when I see him, I think of her. All along, he has been there when my grandmother could not. When I think of her is she here? I think of the three-year-old that seemed to know our time was limited. I understand even less of time and death now.
A few years ago, I took the little silver man down for a closer look. In one arm he holds a child, in the other a flower. Is it from our garden? St. Anthony is stamped along the bottom. I learned that people pray to St. Anthony to find the lost. I lost my grandmother before I could know her. Maybe St. Anthony brings back that sunny day and whispers a way to find her.
Empty Corners
If only I hadn’t wanted more. We really didn’t need the money when I took that job. If only I had seen what I had and that had been enough. The man who sleeps next to me is kind. He makes me laugh. I have built a life with him. I thought every small corner of my heart was full of his love. Until I took that job and met someone who found an empty one.
It was the end of the third day when we met. It wasn’t a bolt of lightning, it was more like he poured honey into all the small cracks I was too busy to notice. He held out his hand and introduced himself. We were going to be working together for at least 8 weeks. That’s all it would take. He was going to teach me what I needed to know.
I’m not sure when I first noticed I was excited to see him. Somethings you need to work at, and some just happen. I do remember the first time that I found something funny and I wanted to call him. I think that’s when I knew. I was standing at the line. My heart wrenched thinking of my husband. How it would break him to know that there were corners of my heart that wanted to cross it.
I became cold at work to protect us. To protect my family, my husband, myself. We worked together and that was all it could be. That was when I realized I wasn’t alone in this. It was a week into my winter that I first saw his pain. We were walking to our cars, not together, when I heard him behind me. I tried to walk faster until he gently touched my arm and said my name. As I turned, I saw it. I saw the love. I saw the pain too. He didn’t speak. He just looked at me. He had been standing at his line too.
My days are tortured. There is no answer that doesn’t break someone and leave me in half. Maybe if I don’t choose the weight of this will crush me and we will all be free. I am drowning in their love and my self-loathing. I no longer want more. If only I hadn’t wanted more.
Difficult
Most days now I don’t have to think about it. I’ve had enough time to grieve what could have been. I had so many ideas of what would lie ahead for my daughter. She is smart and kind. She loves animals. She is difficult. She was difficult from the very beginning. I feel shame knowing that I still say difficult when I know now that she was ill. She is ill. Mental illness doesn’t get the sympathy that physical illness does. Not even from your own mother.
When she was growing up, we used words like,” strong-willed” and “sensitive.” Teachers would comment that she struggled to get along with peers because she, “needed to be in charge.” She couldn’t play games without insisting on her own rules. Even playing was difficult. I know now that when your world is colored with fear and paranoia you try very hard to control what you can.
People told me, “She’ll grow out of it,” or the sexist, “drama is typical for girls.” I knew something was different, but I was frustrated by the difficulty and desperate to believe it would pass. She was only 12 when she told me she was suffering. We asked for help. Even the professionals told me she was “only” an anxious child. Sometimes we would go a few months with peace, and I would believe them. The calm before another storm. Maybe she would stop eating. Maybe she would cut again.
Then she turned 18. I am legally only allowed to know what she wants me to know. She tells me that I’m the problem when I suspect her version of reality is. I am in the dark. I have only the glimpses of what’s happening inside. I’m afraid I might say something that her mind will twist and color. Afraid that it might be what pushes her toward hurting herself again. She agreed to see someone in the top of their field. In my heart, I agreed to accept the outcome.
It took a year for the psychiatrist to see past the subtlety of her quiet demeanor. I overheard her say they recommended she be tested. She asked me to come. She wanted me to be there. I waited, outside, as they asked the questions. I knew she might never share with me what they found. She lets me in only to push me out and slam the door in my face.
As I waited for the results to come back, I prayed they were negative for her. Negative would mean that all that I wanted for her could still happen. That if we just held on, she would thrive. I held onto the slim hope that this was “a phase.” I prayed they were negative for her while knowing that positive would help free me from my guilt. Maybe I hadn’t failed her. Maybe we weren’t fighting each other, but something yet unnamed. I asked her how she felt after we finally knew. I sensed a slight embarrassment but mostly relief. She finally had a reason why it was so difficult.
After the diagnosis, I had to change my expectations or be one more person who made her feel inadequate. She will lie and rage in her confusion. We do not share the same reality, so they are only lies in mine. Her rage is fear. It’s not “a phase.” I needed to accept her, completely, for her to feel loved by her mother. I now work to appreciate the young woman who will hold a baby turtle gently in her hands while sharing what they need to survive. They need to find their way. Her face beams as she tells me, and I am swept up in a wave of love. I want to hold us here…but this wave will eventually crash. Soon I will tip toe on eggshells. I needed to let my dreams for her die for us to survive.
I have two daughters. When we have peace, she is beautiful. Her big blue eyes look at you with sincerity and thoughtfulness. She is witty and when she laughs it is free like a child. She chooses her gifts carefully and they have deep meaning. When her darkness rolls in, the other daughter returns. I accept one so I can love the other.
I wanted to believe that someday we would sit and laugh about all of this. She would be independent, and I could stop worrying. I wanted it to be easy. I mourn the idea that we’d get past this. I mourn the idea she will have college and travel and an abundance of friends. I wanted her life to be as uncomplicated as mine had been. I had to let go of that life. Most days now I am free to love the daughter who needs me to see her. Some days though, it’s still difficult.
