Broken Flower

  "When are we going to visit Grandmother Emma?" I asked him, and they both suddenly stopped laughing. They had drunk almost two bottles of champagne.

  "Your grandmother would not like to have anyone see her in the condition she is in," Daddy said. "Believe me, I know. I'll be speaking with her doctor about it and we'll see when to visit and when to arrange for her transfer to a care facility. Don't dwell on sad things, Jordan. This is the best time of your life. I wasn't permitted to enjoy it like you will, believe me. Now I have to make up for it," he added, and reached for Kimberly.

  She put her arm around his neck and they both looked at me. "I'm tired," I said. "I got too much sun."

  Daddy shook his head. "There's a lot of Emma March in that girl. We have our work cut out for us, Kimberly,"

  "We'll change her. Don't worry," she said.

  They returned to their champagne and I hurried back to the house. When I looked back at them. I saw Kimberly was helping Daddy onto a lounge and then lying next to him. They were kissing again.

  Ian would absolutely vomit. I thought. I almost did.

  When I entered the house. I discovered Nancy looking out the dining room window at them. She looked at me, shook her head, and then returned to her work. Later she stopped in my room to tell me Grandmother Emma's lawyer. Mr. Ganz, had called to tell her to tell me that Grandmother Emma wanted to see me at the hospital tomorrow in the morning.

  "She does?"

  "Yes."

  "But I thought she was very, very sick."

  "She is," Nancy said.

  "Is Daddy going, too?"

  "I don't believe so. My understanding is Felix will be taking only you. It's the way your grandmother wants it."

  Even from a hospital and in a hospital bed, Grandmother Emma, stroke or no stroke, was still in charge. I thought. That made me feel good.

  "Okay," I said.

  "Your grandmother is an extraordinary woman," Nancy said, turning away. "Oh," she added, turning back. "You'll be having dinner alone again. I'm afraid. I was just informed that the prince and princess will be dining out." She smiled. "I made one of your favorites. Chinese chicken salad. It's too hot to eat heavy anyway. But I did make you a chocolate cream pit," she added.

  "Thank you, Nancy."

  "You're welcome," she said. She glanced at Grandmother Emma's closed bedroom door and lowered her head before walking away.

  Later, when I saw Daddy just before he was leaving for dinner with Kimberly. I anticipated him saying something to me about my visiting

  Grandmother Emma at the hospital the next morning, but he didn't mention it and I had the feeling he didn't know anything about it. I decided not to tell him.

  He and Kimberly slept so late the next morning that I was finished with my breakfast, dressed, and ready to go with Felix before they appeared. Nancy told me they could get their own breakfast and went about her daily cleaning routine. I stepped outside just as Felix came around with the limousine.

  "Ready?" he asked, opening the door for me.

  "Yes, Felix."

  I got inside and felt ten times smaller alone in the big black car. Funny. I thought, how Grandmother Emma never looked small in here, even when she was driven off or back from somewhere and I saw she was alone.

  "Never thought something like this would happen to your grandmother," Felix said as he drove. "Thought everyone else would fall apart around her first, including yours truly."

  I could see his face in the rearview mirror. He shook his head and his eyes looked glassy, tearful. Everyone who I thought was afraid of Grandmother Emma and really worried she would yell at them or fire them seemed to really like her now.

  "If anyone looked like she was made of steel, it was Emma March," Felix continued. "Holding up your grandfather, helping your parents, especially now with all that's happened, your brother and all, and doing battles with anyone or anything that crossed her path. They don't make them like that anymore, believe me. I hope you inherited some of her grit," he added.

  After he parked at the hospital, he took my hand and we went in and up to Grandmother Emma's room. Dr. Dell'Acqua was in the hallway speaking with a nurse and saw us walking toward her. She turned to us and smiled at me.

  "How are you, Jordan?"

  "I'm fine. Fin here to visit Grandmother Emma."

  "Good. That will cheer her up," she said. "She's doing a little better, but she's still a sick lady and she won't be the same to you." She looked at Felix. "She has paralysis on her right side and it's affected her speech," she told him. "Her attorney is in there with her, she added.

  Felix nodded. "How's it look?"

  "Too soon to tell how much of a recuperation there'll be," Dr. Dell'Acqua said. "You taking your medicine every day?" she asked me.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Good." She patted me on the top of the head and walked off with the nurse.

  We entered Grandmother Emma's room. Mr. Ganz was seated on her left, a long yellow pad in his lap. Grandmother Emma's bed had been raised so she was in more of a sitting position. I couldn't remember ever seeing Grandmother Emma in her bed. She had a bed as big as the one I slept in, so I imagined she looked small in hers as well, but in the hospital, without her elegant clothing, her hair neatly brushed and pinned, she looked aged and tiny. She looked like she was shriveling right before my eyes.

  "Morning, Mrs. March," Felix said. "I brought Jordan as you asked," he told her.

  Grandmother Emma nodded and looked at me and then at a chair. Felix understood immediately and brought the chair up to the bed so I could sit beside Mr. Ganz to talk with her. Then he stepped back and left the room.

  "You know that expression, no moss gathers on a rolling stone?" Mr. Ganz asked me, smiling.

  "No, sir."

  "It means as long as you're busy and you keep moving, nothing will slow you down and cause you to fail. That's your grandmother here," he said, nodding at Grandmother Emma. Her mouth was twisted so I couldn't tell if she was smiling or smirking, happy or angry about what he said. "Another woman her age would be thinking about herself and getting better, but she's thinking about all her business needs and about you," he added.

  I looked at Grandmother Emma. Me?

  "She's worried that now you have no one to look after you. The truth is," Mr. Ganz continued, "your grandmother never gets surprised because she anticipates the good and the bad. She's been doing that for as long as I've known her and that's a long time, Jordan."

  Grandmother Emma made a guttural sound and moved her left hand.

  "All right, all right. She wants me to get right to it," he said. Right to what? I wondered.

  "Your grandmother has always been a realistic person, Jordan. She never sugarcoats anything. I tell her that's because she's a Sagittarius and she has to tell the truth come hell or high water."

  Grandmother Emma grunted and tried to say something. She slapped the bed with her left hand in frustration.

  "All right, all right, Emma. I'm getting to it. Your grandmother realizes that she is seriously incapacitated and her recovery, any recovery, will take a long time and may not be a full recovery."

  Again. Grandmother Emma grunted and made a guttural sound.

  "Won't be a full recovery." Mr. Ganz corrected. "Consequently, she is aware that she will not be able to do the things for you she had intended to do and she is concerned about that.

  "She is also well aware of the fact that your father won't be able to do these things as well."

  "His friend Kimberly is still there helping him," I interjected.

  Grandmother Emma made a sound that resembled a long "N0000."

  "Your grandmother is aware of that. She actually found out all that last night," Mr. Ganz said. "That's part of what I meant by a rolling stone gathers no moss. No moss grows under her feet, or bed in this case," he added. "This has reaffirmed her belief that you won't get the attention and care you deserve.

  "Of course, you know your mother can't do much for you right now
either. S0000," he said, leaning back in his chair, "your grandmother would like you to live with her sister. Francis, for now."

  I knew I looked stupefied, shocked, and even somewhat foolish with my jaw dropped.

  "Your great-aunt Francis lives alone on a nice property. I've been there from time to time for legal matters. You'll go to school and back on a bus and I'll see to it that you have all you need, medically and otherwise."

  'But. .Daddy wants me to live at the mansion with him and Kimberly," I said.

  Grandmother Emma grunted.

  "Your grandmother has arranged for this alternative," Mr. Ganz said. "I'll be meeting with your father today, too, and he will be in agreement about it. Believe me," he added, and exchanged a knowing look between himself and Grandmother Emma.

  "I never saw my great-aunt Francis," I said.

  "Nevertheless, she knows all about you and Ian and always has," Mr. Ganz said.

  "Will Ian come live with her, too?"

  "Someday, maybe. Maybe," he emphasized. "Mama might be upset about it."

  I was sure Grandmother Emma was trying to laugh. Mr. Ganz smiled, too.

  "No, we're pretty confident your mother would prefer this arrangement to the one your father was suggesting, Jordan."

  "Daddy will be very upset," I insisted.

  Grandmother Emma reached for Mr. Ganz with her left hand. He seemed to understand every look she gave him and every move she made, even her distorted words.

  "Why don't we say this then, Jordan? If after I meet with your father, he is opposed to the

  arrangement, we'll forget about it. OK?"

  I looked at Grandmother Emma. Even as sick as she was, she had that same light of confidence in her eyes. She was still the queen.

  I nodded.

  "Good," Mr. Ganz said. He smiled and brushed my hair with his left hand. "You'll be fine, Jordan. Everything will be good for you from now on."

  I looked at Grandmother Emma. Her eyes shifted and she lay back.

  "Your grandmother's tired now, Jordan. The doctor didn't want us to have too long a meeting. Say good-bye to her for now," he told me.

  I nodded and stood up. Grandmother Emma turned toward me. Then she lifted her left hand, her good hand, and I reached out to take it. Her eyes looked teary, and in fact. I saw the first drop sneak out the corner of her right eye. She held my hand tightly. I glanced at Mr. Ganz, whose eyes looked full of amazement.

  And then I leaned forward and I kissed her on the cheek. Her tears flowed freely then.

  And I couldn't hate her for not mailing out my letter.

  I couldn't hate her for anything.

  28 She Will Never Hate You

  . I suppose there are so many reasons, even after I listened to Ian and wrote my story, that I still think of my life as being a dream. Smiles and laughter, grimaces and tears swirl about in my memory like ingredients tossed into a blender. It's hard sometimes to separate the happy times from the sad. So often after I had left the March Mansion, I would start to laugh about something Ian and I did or Mama and I did, or Daddy and I and Mama and Ian had done tooether, and then I would stop suddenly, and for reasons I couldn't explain, begin to sob.

  I'd have a good cry and then I would stop, take a deep breath, and go on doing whatever it was I was doing, just as if I had closed the cover of a photo album, cried over a lost loved one, and put the pictures back in some desk drawer. That album is tied with four ribbons, each one representing a different good- bye.

  Actually, that's what I remember most clearly, the good-byes. That's what haunts me now and will haunt me forever, because what I did learn, what I can tell Ian with that same certainty that characterizes all the things he told me and tells me, is that good-byes were times when I became most like Grandmother Emma, when I saw what was real and what was true and when I knew I could no longer be a child because I couldn't pretend or deny or ignore any of it.

  "Nothing," Grandmother Emma once told me, will make you grow up faster than facing reality, than walking right up to it and putting your nose against it. It's like going uphill and losing the grip on your mother's hand and your father's hand. You start to fall back, finding yourself all alone. You have no choice but to become a woman, to climb the rest of the way on your own. There will be no more medicine to slow it down, no more fairy tales to help you avoid what's hard or ugly or painful.

  "But don't be afraid of it," she said. "Embrace it and give yourself a name. You had one name as a child. Now you have another."

  I was too young to understand, but after my good-byes. I began the journey toward that

  understanding, the journey that has taken me here.

  My first good-bye was good-bye to Daddy. When I left Grandmother Emma and Mr. Ganz at the hospital. I felt numb. Ian would tell me I had shut down and frozen just like some overloaded computer. Something or someone would have to unplug me and then plug me in to start me over.

  I wasn't looking forward to arriving and facing Daddy and Kimberly so I was happy to learn that he had been summoned to Mr. Ganz's office. Nancy told me it was a meeting Daddy had asked for himself almost the moment Grandmother Emma had left in the ambulance. He had called Mr. Ganz from the hospital that day, apparently, and set everything in motion, only the direction it took was a surprise even to him, maybe especially to him.

  I was upstairs in my room working on another letter to Ian when Daddy and Kimberly returned. I didn't hear them come in, but not long afterward. Kimberly came to my room to tell me my father wanted to see me in my grandmother's office. I followed her downstairs.

  Daddy looked so awkward and out of place sitting behind Grandmother Emma's desk in his wheelchair that I almost smiled. Because of the way the large desk wrapped around him, he looked like a child pretending to be an adult. He fumbled papers and documents as if he really didn't know where anything belonged or what anything meant. It was the first time I could remember him being so nervous, too. He was fidgeting while he waited for me to enter and take my seat. Kimberly stood awkwardly, too, not sure if she should sit on the settee, stand beside him, or just leave.

  "Well, Jordan," Daddy began, sitting back and trying to look relaxed, "it seems you've already visited your grandmother and spoken with Mr. Ganz in the hospital."

  I nodded and then in almost a whisper, said, "Yes."

  Daddy glanced at Kimberly and then he leaned forward to put his arms on the desk. "Once again, even in her feeble condition, in fact, your

  Grandmother has taken the reins of control here. I must admit she had to have done a good deal of preparation, anticipating the day when something serious might happen to her. I suppose I have to. . .we have to respect her for that.

  "My mother," he said for Kimberly's benefit more than for mine, "is rarely, if ever, taken by surprise, even by her own body."

  "Not much excitement and fun in that," Kimberly said.

  Daddy grunted and looked down at the desk. "You know," he continued, "that your grandmother would like you to live with your great-aunt Francis. She's right to assume I have too much against me right now to be a good father. Between my therapy and all this paraphernalia I have to contend with and develop," he said, waving his arms as if there were wires and cranes everywhere, "I will be quite involved and not have as much time for you as I should."

  When did he ever? I wondered, but dared not ask.

  "The way your grandmother has constructed the finances kind of puts me in a box, too, Jordan. She's been a busy little bee, arranging all sorts of trusts and devices to funnel the funds we all need and there are preconditions for almost everything. My mind is still spinning after my session with her attorney, and I know something about business. I can't imagine what someone else would do," he added, looking again at Kimberly.

  All Daddy knew about business was how to fail at it, I thought, but again, slipped those words under my tongue.

  "The truth is. I've given her plan a great deal of thought and I have to agree for now, at least, it makes sense. You'll
attend a good school, have plenty of space at the farmhouse, be of some help to your greataunt, who has no one but herself, and you'll have all the support you need financially. All of your medical needs are arranged as well, and your great-aunt has been filled in about all of that."

  "Did Mr. Ganz say anything about Ian?" I asked quickly.

  Daddy stared at me a moment and then shook his head. "Ian is in for a long haul. He did a very bad thing and people have to be certain that he would never do anything like that again. I know you admire your brother very much, but between what he was doing with you and what he did to Miss Harper, he falls somewhere between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."

  "Who are they?"

  "You'll find out yourself. Maybe," he said. 'Now. Kimberly and I have discussed all this already and we've decided we would come visit you regularly. You know exactly where Great-aunt Francis lives, right?"

  "Not really."

  "Well, she's on that farm my father found for her years ago. She has someone who maintains everything for her, a black guy slightly younger than her. He lives with his own family on the property, his daughter and her daughter, a girl five years or so older than vou. I think. In short, you'll be well cared for there and have lots of company.

  "Believe me," Daddy said, suddenly full of anger and pain, "if I weren't sitting here in this wheelchair, none of this would be happening. I'd challenge everything your grandmother's arranged and I'd take control of this family as I should have years ago," he declared, slapping the desk. His eyes did look full of frustration, and even, for a short moment, flooding with tears.

  "Take it easy, Chris," Kimberly gently advised him.

  He cleared his throat. "If you like. Kimberly will help you get what you want together for your move."

  "I'm going now?"

  "Soon," he said. "Grandmother Emma arranged for you to go see your mother tomorrow. Felix will be taking you. Day after that, he'll drive you to Greataunt Francis. There's not much time now before a new school year starts for you, and you need to be settled in. adjusted, and comfortable. Those are your grandmother's exact words," he concluded.