Broken Flower

  I wanted to talk more about Daddy's old girlfriend even if Ian didn't. Did I know her, too? Where was she his girlfriend? At one of his colleges? In high school? Why would Mama be upset about an old girlfriend? He didn't marry her.

  I wondered if having precocious puberty would someday get me past the boundary of "adult talk." If it did, it might be worth having it. I thought.

  I handed the book to Ian and he left to start his packing.

  Ian always liked to be organized. His clothes in his closets were perfectly arranged, even by colors. Everything in his bathroom was neatly lined up. He hated when Nancy moved things and put things in drawers he had reserved for something else. Once he locked himself in his room on the day she was to clean it and when she came there, he wouldn't answer her 'mocking or open up. She complained to Grandmother Emma, who told him if he didn't let Nancy in to do her work, he would have to do his own. Nothing could have sounded better to him. He agreed and to everyone's surprise did his own vacuuming, polishing, and window washing. He looked after his own clothes, folded and even ironed his own pants. Ironically, instead of making Nancy happier to have less to do, it made her angrier and sadder. She never stopped complaining about it to Grandmother Emma. Daddy finally told him he had to let her do her work.

  "We're guests in this house and we live by the rules Grandmother Emma has laid down," he told Ian. "She wants her house kept by a professional housekeeper.'

  Reluctantly. Ian gave in and let Nancy take care of his room and his clothes again, but he never stopped finding fault with things she did. At least at the cabin, there would be no maid and he would be in control of his own things all the time.

  At first I was worried about our being at the lake so long this year. Maybe because I was younger and couldn't do much on my own. I always grew bored there quickly. The things that interested Ian didn't interest me. Mama enjoyed just sitting around and reading. Daddy met some friends and went boating or went to the clubhouse to drink and talk. I was clearly told that the boat and the club would be no place for a little girl. The men would be worried about me, worried about using bad language in front of me. At least, that was what Ian said.

  Our cabin was quite large in comparison to other cabins on the lake. It had two bedrooms upstairs and one master bedroom downstairs with a loft. We had a big television set, but we couldn't get all the channels, which meant Ian couldn't watch his science and nature shows. The cabin had a large fieldstone fireplace, which we had to use or wanted to use on what were surprisingly cool nights in the summer. One summer, it rained nearly the whole time we were there and everyone hated it so much, we left early.

  I had to admit Grandmother Emma was right about the stench of cigar smoke. I could smell it in the walls, just as she claimed. One of the first things Mama did when we arrived was open all the windows. They had screens on them, but the mosquitoes and other bugs still managed to find ways to get inside and buzz around our heads, especially at night. Ian told Mama what to buy to keep them at bay. We had incense burning and sprays to use. Nothing worked completely and I usually had little bites on my legs and arms. The cabin wasn't my favorite place. Maybe I was more like Grandmother Emma than I cared to admit.

  So it was with mixed emotions that I greeted the morning of our trip to the lake and the mountains. My mother was in my room before I got out of bed so she could help me start using the nasal spray. She said she would keep it all and take care of it with me every morning at the cabin. I hurried to wash and dress and check my things one more time before they were to be carried out to the car.

  Ian, who seemed to have a knack for

  visualizing things better than anyone, helped Daddy pack the car so that everything fit neatly. We had risen earlier than usual, which meant Grandmother Emma would not be at breakfast, but she came down from her bedroom just before we were about to leave.

  "Mr. Pitts has seen to the electricity, gas, and phone being turned on again," she told Daddy. "He had his wife clean the place as best she could, but you know the quality of that work," she added with a scowl. "According to what Mr. Pitts tells me, the grounds have been cleaned up as well and the boat is at the dock. He says the engine has been maintained well. You'll let me know. I pay him far too much for all this as it is and I never know what he does and doesn't do anymore."

  I remembered Joe Pitts, the man who looked after the property. He and his wife lived nearby in a house that looked like it might just topple over one day. Mr. Pins took care of a few of the cabins on the lake as well. As far as I knew, they had no children and lived there year-round because they couldn't afford to live anywhere else. Grandmother Emma once said he would starve on his Social Security. I thought he looked at least as old as she was, only his gray hair was still thick and curly. He had been a redhead once and still had freckles, which looked more brown than orange to me.

  "I'll call you right away. Mother," Daddy said.

  "I imagine you'll need to air out the bedding. Caroline," she told Mama, who said nothing. "Everything must be stale and stuffy and stink of cigars."

  "Thanks for making it sound so inviting," Mama told her. "It was never inviting for me, but you're different."

  "Yes," Mama said. She smiled as if

  Grandmother Emma had given her a wonderful compliment.

  "Actually, your getting away under these circumstances," Grandmother Emma said, looking at me, "is probably very wise. I'm glad I can provide such an escape at this particular time for you. Perhaps there'll be some improvement of the situation before you return."

  "Oh, we can hope," Mama said, and looked at Daddy. "Can we get started. Christopher, or are there more instructions yet to earn our keep?"

  "I'll call you," he told Grandmother Emma, and got into the car.

  "You're not helping the situation by being so contentious. Caroline," he told Mama before starting the engine.

  "I'm being contentious? Me? How would you describe what she's being?"

  "Mother is Mother,' Daddy said, as if that explained it all. "It's so easy when you just nod or tell her what she wants to hear."

  I raised my eyebrows. That sounded familiar.

  "Easier for you. Not for me," Mama insisted. "I'm the one she'd like surgically removed from this family."

  Daddy shook his head. "Did you ever think about what you're going to have someday, Caroline? All this," he said, waving his hand at the grounds and landscaping as we drove down the driveway. "You never sound appreciative."

  "I'd leave tomorrow if we could," Mama said. "This isn't a home. It's a giant echo."

  "What?" Daddy smiled with confusion. I looked at Ian. He was mesmerized by their conversation. "An echo? How is all this an echo?"

  "Your mother is still living in the past. Her world is long gone. She hears voices no longer there. Did you ever look at her friends and her when they gather for one of their weekly teas at the mansion? I mean, really look at them and listen to them? What am I talking about? You're never there, so you don't see it and hear it. I don't know if there's a sentence uttered that begin's without a 'Remember when.'

  "And all those women in their seventies, even eighties, with their plastered hair and collagen-riddled lips. They're not comical; they're farcical. Some of them are so weighted down with jewelry, they stoop. It's a wonder their spines don't snap. They're selfanointed queens who have lost their kingdoms and have to settle for ruling over desperate salesgirls and salesmen in department stores who kowtow to put food on their tables."

  "Oh, come on now, Caroline. All that just sounds like envy to me."

  "Envy?" Mama laughed. Then she suddenly grew serious. "Actually, you're not all wrong. I'm not so different from them. I suppose. I live in a dream, too."

  Daddy didn't say anything. He glared at her and then he turned on the radio.

  My stomach turned and I felt cramps coming. Was I making eggs again? Or was I just nervous and upset listening to Mama and Daddy argue?

  Where was all this heading? Where was it taking us? Wa
s my problem going to bring us together or help tear us apart? I looked at Ian. As usual he stared ahead with his eyes locked on his own thoughts. He traveled on roads I couldn't see. Suddenly I wished he would take me along.

  The radio music didn't seem to lift the heavy silence in our car. The tension and the static that hovered over and around us in the house stuck to us. I thought. We carried it off, wore it like our clothes. I hoped the farther we went, the less and less it would be and we would suddenly burst into sunshine and leave the dreary clouds of unhappiness behind us.

  "There she blows," Daddy announced when the lake first came into view. "Everybody excited?'"

  "No," Mama said. "Your mother always makes me feel like we're a homeless family accepting charity whenever we come up here, Christopher. Before I have a chance to even think about enjoying myself, she sucks out all the possible pleasure by reminding me just how much in debt to her we are."

  Daddy smiled at her as if she had said something wonderful and pleasant.

  "I'm serious!'" Mama exclaimed.

  "I know you are. You're just too sensitive. Try to be more like me and ignore it. Yes her to death until we get up here and forget about what she said anyway,"

  "I don't forget and I'm not you," Mama told him.

  "Oh, c'mon. Carol. Let's try to enjoy ourselves, okay? Lately, you see only the dark side to

  everything."

  "Maybe that's because that's all there is," Mama muttered, folded her arms, and turned away from him.

  Ian, who had been reading nearly the whole trip, looked up as though he just realized someone had spoken.

  "Look at those boats out there," Daddy said. "The lakers crowding up quickly this year. Lucky for all these well-to-do people nature formed it, huh, Ian?"

  "Lake Wallenpaupack is a man-made lake," Ian said dryly. "It was created by the Pennsylvania Power and Light Company for hydroelectric power in 1927."

  "Really? You know, I don't remember hearing about that. It's big, nevertheless."

  "It's fifty-seven hundred acres, thirteen and a half miles long with fifty-two miles of shoreline."

  "How do you know all that, Ian?" Daddy asked him.

  "I always read up on something before I do it or visit it," Ian said.

  "Very wise," Daddy said. He turned to Mama, "I don't know where he gets it from."

  Mama turned back to him. "I wasn't a bad student, Christopher. I had every intention of finishing college before you swept me off my feet with sky banners full of promises."

  "And they're all going to come true someday, too," Daddy said.

  "yes, but it wasn't supposed to be dependent upon inheritance and as I recall, we were going to build something on our own," Mama reminded him.

  Daddy laughed. He wasn't insulted. It occurred to me that he was like his mother in one very important way--he was as thick-skinned. Neither Grandmother Emma's criticisms and complaints about him nor Mama's really seemed to bother him. Every reprimand, every accusation, was, as Grandmother Emma once put it, "like water off a duck's back," only she claimed that made him more like his father and less like her.

  I realized that whenever she spoke about Grandfather March, she seemed bitter and critical. I wondered what sort of a life they really had together or even if they had been together. Had they been in love? Why was it they only had Daddy? Was he right saying he came into this world as a result of some accident? My grandfather had died before I was old enough to really know him. Ian remembered him far better, of course, but didn't have a lot to say about him, much good that is.

  What, if any, of all these characteristics and ways did I inherit? Whom would I be more like. Mama or Daddy? Grandmother Emma or Grandfather Blake? Or, and this made me wonder and think even more, Great-aunt Francis? Everything about us seemed to come directly from Daddy's side of the family. Mama's side was nowhere as flamboyant and impressive. The only one who had any real interest for me was Uncle Onnand out in Oregon, who, according to Mama, had a clock in his room without hands to make the point that time didn't matter for him. She said he would never punch a time clock at a job or live according to a schedule, and having a family to support didn't seem to make a difference either.

  We made another turn and the lake came into view again. With the sunlight spread like butter over it, the water looked as smooth as ice peppered here and there with sailboats that glided with ease in what looked to be random courses taking carefree people into dreams. It was hard, at least at the start of a vacation here, not to be drawn to it and excited by it.

  "What else can you tell us about the lake, Ian?" Daddy asked.

  I sensed that Ian knew Daddy wasn't really interested in the information, but liked to tease him by drawing amazing information out of him. His teachers had already agreed he functioned on a level far above his peers. They believed he could be one of those children who get admitted to and attend college before they are old enough to graduate from high school. At thirteen, he was doing senior grade math and reading books the seniors struggled to read. Everyone thought he would be either a brain surgeon or a nuclear physicist. It was second nature to him to analyze and work to understand everything in his life. Mama said he was born with the question "Why?" on his lips.

  I could see that Daddy was often confused about him and even alienated from him. I sometimes caught him looking at Ian as if he was wondering if Ian was really his son. They were so different from each other. Daddy rarely did anything with him that other fathers and sons did together.

  That was partly Ian's own fault. He avoided sports and never wanted to go with Daddy to ball games or watch them on television, so Daddy stopped asking him. Ian was keen about keeping himself in good health and physically fit, but not because it would make him a better athlete. It was simply the intelligent thing to do. He thought of his body as just another machine. It had to be maintained, well-oiled, and serviced regularly. To do other-wise was merely stupid. He had disdain for people who were overweight or people who smoked. He never snuck alcoholic beverages except as an experiment.

  "An original survey showed that it started with a twelve- thousand-one-hundred-fifty-acre parcel transferred from the estate of William Penn to James Wilson, who was one of only four men who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the Constitution in 1787. George Washington appointed him to the first Supreme Court.'

  Daddy laughed again. "I've got my own walking encyclopedia. There's nothing I can't find out."

  "Except how to handle your mother," Mama muttered. Daddy ignored her.

  "You want to try to do some waterskiing this year, Ian?" Daddy asked him.

  Ian looked out the window. "Not really," he said.

  It was as if his words shut off a television set. Daddy's smile faded quickly and he concentrated solely on the road, making the turn into our cabin's driveway. We could see Mr. Pitts trimming some bushes in the front yard.

  "Probably rushing to finish what he was supposed to have done by now," Daddy said.

  "Yes, Mrs. March," Mama told him.

  Finally, he glared at her angrily. "At least she knows how to take care of what belongs to her," he said. "Being wealthy requires a great deal of responsibility."

  Mama looked at him but she didn't reply.

  We came to a stop and Mr. Pitts walked toward the car.

  "Welcome back," he called.

  He didn't look much older to me, but that was probably because he always looked old to me. He was heavier, though, with a bigger belly that challenged his shirt and pants, a paint-splattered pair of blue jeans. His curly white hair was just as thick, but his nose looked thicker, redder.

  Daddy got out and shook his hand and then looked around and nodded at everything with approval. Our property was wide and long with old maple and hickory trees and a thick patch of front lawn that sprawled to the ditching at the road. Ian once told me the highway department had to keep those ditches as clear and clean as they could to cam, off heavy rain before it washed out the macadam. The property al
ong this particular street was owned by wealthy people like Grandmother Emma, and there was constant attention to their needs.

  The air was fresher up here in the Poconos. Behind our cabin was a thick forest full of pine trees and I could almost smell the stickiness in the cones that fell. The redolent scent cleared my nose and swirled about in my head. Birds were chattering loudly, probably reporting our arrival. I saw a rabbit hop toward us, smell the air, and then hurry away. Ian nudged me and pointed at a baby garter snake sunning near a rock. I would never have noticed it and wasn't too happy about noticing it now.

  "Let's get our stuff inside," Daddy called. Mama was already sorting things out in the trunk.

  "I'll help you with all that," Mr. Pitts said. "Welcome, Mrs. March," he told Mama.

  "Thank you. How is Helen?"

  "Oh, the same. Complaining about this ache or that. Her arthritis spreads like free roots through her body, if you believe what she says."

  "Why shouldn't you?" Mama asked him a bit sharply. Even Daddy raised his eyebrows.

  "Wouldn't help if I didn't," Mr. Pitts said.

  "Was she able to clean up some?" Daddy asked him.

  From the way Mr. Pitts looked at him. I was afraid he had forgotten to tell his wife to do that, but he smiled.

  "Oh, more than some, Mr. March. I'm sure you'll be satisfied." "Good," Daddy said.

  Mr. Pitts looked at Ian and me and smiled. "Boy, are they growing fast. Let's see now. It's Ian and..."