In the Convent of Little Flowers Read Free

where you are. I know her well, your mother. I knew she always wanted you but could not keep you for various reasons. Reasons I will not go into here.
Why? I want to cry out each time I read that. She talks of knowing my mother, of being next to her and not hearing her ask after me. Why does Meddling Sister Mary Theresa care what has happened to me when my own mother—no, the woman who gave birth to me—does not seem to care? And why does she want to know if I have children? Mike and I have none, not yet at least. Somehow, my memory fills with pictures of little flowers who have no parents. But I think at times I would like a boy with spiky hair who fights ferociously for what he thinks is right … or a girl just like him—like Mike.
I called Mom when the letter came. They live in Bellingham now; Dad is retired from Boeing. They have a tiny cottage on four acres of land, spilling into the Pacific at the edge of the garden. I think it was living on Queen Anne that made them want the space. So they gave Mike and me the condo and went to their little house up north. Dad is still too young to be retired, but he wanted to stop working and potter about a garden, his own for once. Mom works now in the administrative offices of Western; she says it drives her nuts to have Dad home all the time, pestering her about something or the other. Dee, get me the wheelbarrow; Dee, are you sure the spaghetti isn’t overcooked? Dee, when is Padma going to visit? He won’t pick up the phone and ask me; he will just pester Mom until she does.
They called me Padma from when I came to them. When the letter came, I asked Mom why they did that, when my name was Padmini. Padma also meant lotus, Mom said, and they asked Sister Mary Theresa for a nickname, a shorter form of Padmini. They did not know Tamil well enough to do so themselves. Looking back, it was a peculiar conversation. We were almost like strangers with each other again, afraid to say anything outright, filling up silences with thoughts. We talked of my name, of Mary Theresa; I read out parts of the letter to her. To them both. Dad had picked up the extension as he always did when I called, but he did not say a word until the very last. I just heard his presence on the other end. Then gently, his voice cracking, he said, “Padma, are you going to India?” I had to say I didn’t know. Then he said, “I have to go now, sweetheart, the dandelions are growing even as we speak.” After Dad put down the extension, I asked Mom a question I had not asked for a long time. It had not been necessary to do so, but now it suddenly was. “Mom, was it me you wanted from the Convent of Little Flowers?” And she answered as she always did: “Only you, my dear, no one else. Ever.”
I used to be fascinated by my parents at the beginning. I would sit on Dad’s lap and stare into his eyes, blue as the midsummer sky on a breathless morning. Then I saw the lines around his mouth, which showed he smiled a lot. I hung from his arm with my knees swinging off the ground. Mom brought me milk in the mornings; no one had done that for me before. I learned to sleep in my own bed,without fleeing across the hall to theirs in the middle of the night, knowing I would wake them. And I learned to be fiercely protective of them, and jealous if they bent down to talk with the neighbor’s child. They were mine, I thought. And so I filled in pieces like a jigsaw, a history of my own with Mom and Dad, without the little flowers.
We do not usually keep in touch with our little flowers, dear Padmini, yet here I am writing to you. When the Merricks came to the convent looking for a little girl, I judged them very carefully. I was still very young then, perhaps I did not seem so to you, but I watched them, I listened, I heard the kindness in their voices and saw it in their eyes. I knew they would be good for you. Did I make a good choice, my child?
I should not say however that the choice was entirely mine. When Tom