Stolen Lily

This story contains child abuse

With all the new construction barriers and detour signs, Lauren had to walk a different route to work that day. She knew there was a bus that would take her downtown if she went up 42nd Avenue, but she would have to hurry.

42nd Avenue had street vendors – tables stacked with homemade goods and farm displays of fresh produce – oranges and tomatoes and pungent green onions. She hurried past these. The bus stop was just ahead. At the corner she waited for the light. A woman selling flowers approached her, thrusting an extravagant bouquet of white calla lilies towards Lauren.

When the light turned green, however, Lauren could only stand and stare at the blinding flowers. People pushed past her to cross. The woman saw a very interested customer. Lauren saw a memory. A lost, buried memory she had long ago forgotten, had subconsciously forgotten. The morning turned dark, as though a black veil had enshrouded the sun. Lauren’s eyes rolled back in her head and she crumpled to the sidewalk.

***

Young Lauren slumped in her backyard swing, holding the metal chains. Her bare feet dragged in the hollowed-out dirt beneath the swing where grass no longer grew. Mother had sent her outside. For Mother wished to clean – and that could mean many things. Washing windows, ironing bedsheets, getting down on her hands and knees to scrub the linoleum floors with a bucket of Pine-Sol and an old rag. Lauren would only be in her way.

The morning was lazily warm. Sparrows darted, chirping, pecking at insects in the unmown grass. Her gaze wandered over to the bed of lilies growing abundantly on the north wall. Now in full bloom, they bobbed their heavy white heads in the slight breeze, showing off their lovely splendor, as if beckoning to anyone who cared to notice. They all turned their fair faces towards the sun. They were Mother’s favorite things in all the world – so many of them! These perfect lilies.

“They are my greatest pride and joy,” she had said to Lauren, as the child stood, watching how her mother carefully tilled the rich soil around them, her worn gloves caked with brown dirt. Her mother’s white cat, Muffin, purred against the mother’s knees. “You are never to touch these flowers, Lauren. Do you understand? Never pick one!” and she had turned back to them and smiled as if her daughter were not standing there at all.

Mother had never picked them either, despite their vast numbers. Lauren couldn’t recall ever seeing a bouquet of them in a vase anywhere in the house.

Having abandoned her swing, Lauren stood before them now, her small hands clasped tightly behind her back. She could hear the low whine of the vacuum cleaner. Her mother’s attention was elsewhere. She stepped a little closer.

The lilies were lovely ballerinas, huddled, crowded backstage waiting in the wings for the curtain to go up, for the orchestra to begin a waltz. She bent to inhale their fragrance. There was only a faint aroma like honey.

This close now, the lilies were exquisite teacups fashioned only for fairy queens, who would stir their pink-sugar nectar with the long yellow straw that protruded from the flower’s center.

She fought the urge to pick one, just one. There are so many, she thought. One would not be missed.

The vacuum still hummed from somewhere within, and Lauren looked around for Mother’s cat. The feline hunter of birds and mice was not in sight, but that did not mean he was not around. Lauren knew the cat watched her from hidden places – in the branches of the avocado tree or behind the slope of the roof. Sometimes from Mother’s bedroom window where Mother herself often stood. Lauren was sure the cat was Mother’s spy.

She reached out and snapped off a lily at the bottom of its long, delicate stem.

She gently touched its velvet softness, then held it high over her head. It was an angel with outspread wings. It was the parasol of a visiting princess, genteel and ladylike. She twirled it and the breeze turned it into a lofty kite. Making whooshing sounds it became the taut sail on an ancient ship sailing across an unchartered sea, and she a passenger on that ship. She balanced herself on the low brick border of the flowerbed and placed one bare foot in front of the other. For she was a tightrope walker in the circus, the lily her stability held out at her side. She conquered the border on the south wall and turned left, following the brick bed to a shadier part of her mother’s garden.

It was here that Lauren found the dead bird.

She was immediately on her knees. She put the lily aside and carefully lifted the bird - a tiny thing, small enough to rest within her petite fingers. Its wing hung outstretched at an odd angle. “Did Muffin do this to you?”

Choosing a soft spot under Mother’s lemon tree, Lauren quickly dug out a hollow with her fingers and tenderly placed the bird in the shallow hole. She patted it down. She stood, wiping her palms on her jumper. She ran to where she had left the lily and placed it on top of the tiny mound. It seemed like the right thing to do. When something touched Lauren’s bare leg, she flinched, startled. The cat had rubbed against her and looked up at her with a nipped mew.

“You did this,” she said to him, pointing to the little mound. “Bad kitty.” He mewed again, his bright green eyes surveying the ground. “No! Go away!” and Lauren waved her grubby hands until he leapt to the top of the fence and disappeared into the neighbor’s yard.

Mother stood behind sheer curtains, motionless, silent, watching. As still and soundless as a specter. “Lauren?” Mother called from the open window.

“Yes, Momma!” Lauren said, standing, holding her soiled hands behind her back. She couldn’t see her mother. And this was somehow worse than if she had been standing at the back door.

“Time for lunch. Get washed up and change into a fresh jumper.”

“Coming,” Lauren called, and ran up the backdoor steps and into the house. Had Mother seen what she had done? In the bathroom, she scrubbed the telltale soil from her palms, then changed into a clean jumper in her room. She slowly came into the kitchen and sat in her usual chair at the table. Her mother was at the counter making her a sandwich.

“Let’s start with this,” Mother said, turning now and coming over to sit down. She set a small vase with a single lily in the center of the table. Its white funneled petal was smudged with dirt, and Lauren’s eyes grew wide.

“Momma …"

“I saw you digging under the lemon tree. I wondered what you were doing.” She bent down and pet the white cat who had settled at her feet. “I found this,” and Mother pushed the vase towards Lauren. The child could only stare at the wilting flower. “They are truly beautiful,” Mother continued. “And so hard to resist, aren’t they?” And she lightly caressed the white petal.

The mother abruptly stood and went back to the kitchen counter. She returned with a glass of milk and a plate with a sandwich. Mother was smiling.

“You’re … you’re not mad?” Lauren was hopeful.

“I’m not mad,” the mother said. She pushed Lauren’s lunch closer. “In fact, I was thinking we could go shopping later.” A great weight was lifted from Lauren’s heart. She took a great bite of the sandwich, knowing she had been forgiven, knowing she would never touch another white calla lily in all her life. She had been absolved, cleared of her crime. Mother was not mad.

Lauren suddenly pulled the sandwich away, struggling to stand, throwing it down onto the table. The vase toppled, rolled to the edge, spilling water, spilling the lily. Lauren stumbled and collapsed onto the floor, the dead bird’s feather’s sticking out of her mouth at odd angles. Mother’s laughter echoed in the very clean, very disinfected kitchen. A white cat pawed at the feathers Lauren was spitting out, gagging upon. Lauren could only stare at the lovely lily, Mother’s lovely forbidden, stolen lily. It was all she could see.