Restoration (Prose by Margaret Quinn) My mother painted the flowerboxes purple this summer. Last summer they were blue—kind of smoky and gray. The blue of my eyes, she said. But this summer she painted them the purple of her old car, a tacky and matted shade somewhere between lavender and violet. In them, she had planted red and violet petunias with tiny white sutera that overflow the edges in long lush trails. My mother’s flowerboxes are the talk of the town. The prettiest in our county, they say. I stand across the street and admire the boxes. September has just arrived. It was a hot August, with heat visibly rolling in waves over the asphalt. But now a slight breeze catches in the trees, shaking down the first few browning leaves. The petunias are in their last days; wrinkles show in their fading petals. I cross the street and tap on the screen door. “Mom? It’s me.” I wait a few seconds. I catch a glimpse of her slight figure in the kitchen, before it disappears. It’s funny—she has the lightest footsteps. You can’t ever hear her in the house. It was troubling in my middle school years when I was reading Cosmopolitan or watching some raunchy comedy that all the older kids loved. She’d just sneak up on me and tap me on the shoulder: “Anne Elizabeth, what is that?” I see her figure appearing down the narrow hall, so I let myself in. She is somewhat stooped, a little battered. Age has grayed her hair and life has aged her eyes. “I’m here to help with the boxes, Mom. I can’t believe it’s already that time of year, again.” I had been doing this for the past five years or so, helping her around the yard so it looked somewhat decent. When I was younger, Dad had kept the yard pristine. Mom’s only job and sole glory was the maintenance of her flower boxes, which I would help her paint and plant every year. We’d drive down to the local Lowe’s gardening center and pick out that summer’s paint color and flower selection. We’d spend hours perusing the flowers at Lowe’s always settling on some variety of petunia. When I was eight, I convinced her to paint the boxes pink and plant matching flowers inside. They were the most gorgeous boxes I had ever laid my eyes on. Those days seem so long ago; I haven’t helped her actually paint or plant these boxes since high school, before college, Med School, before Dad passed, and I married. We climb up the stairs towards the windows. Old photos line the walls. There are trips to Disneyworld, old family barbeques, Christmas mornings all documented in black frames against beige walls. My life in still shots. “Would you help me lift the window? It keeps getting jammed these days.” I hit the heel of my hand hard against the wood pane before edging it up. We lift the boxes out of their hooks and bring them back down to the kitchen, trying not to let soil tumble onto the clean hardwood floors. When I was a child, I didn’t like this part of the flowerbox maintenance process. It was like a funeral. Summer over, meaning a new school year for me. Now it is a nice way to see my mother. I like the drive down into the country. It’s quieter and I feel like I can think straight while I am here, away from the city’s constant din. The process is still the same. First, we pull out the flowers and toss them into enormous brown-paper trash bags. Then we combine all of the soil into a large clay flowerpot out back, for use next year. The worst part is the sanding. Once we rinse out the boxes, we sand down the old paint to make the painting process easier for the spring. The purple is warped from a summer of thunderstorms and flakes off pretty easily. I scrape the paint over the sink, watching it slowly abrade to reveal wood, white base paint, and muted remnants of past years’ colors. My mother rests in her chair. An old armchair upholstered in dated and fading blue floral. Glancing over my shoulder, I catch her watching me, a sad look in her eyes. The edge of a paint chip digs into my skin and I realize I have stopped scraping and am gripping the wood hard. “I picked out purple this year, Annie. I used to have a purple car, you know. I suppose you were too young to remember it now.” I nod. I had always thought it silly that my mother needed reasoning behind her color choice. I just went for the prettiest color I could find, but she’d always ask me why I’d chosen a color. I had never put much thought into it. I brush off the last few purple chips, thinking about the color I’d paint on the boxes next year, why I’d pick it—seeing my mother in that chair, I know I’ll have to come next spring to paint and plant the boxes myself. I decide on pink.
Posted on: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 12:30:17 +0000
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