The Memory Garden Read Free Page A

no longer locating the pancakes or coffee through the salty scent that permeates the air.
    Bay, her red hair uncombed, still wearing her pajama pants and the lavender sweater someone gave Nan years ago, encourages her to eat, which she does.
    Everything tastes like salt, but Nan continues swallowing against the gag reflex, smiling and complimenting the breakfast. She knows the meal is probably as delicious as she says it is. Bay is quite competent in the kitchen. Nan glances at her, sitting in the chair on top of the clothes tossed there, the once lovely sweater stretched over her knees. Bay doesn’t know this is the worst day of Nan’s life. Not a celebration, but a lament. She had not been very good at friendship, in the end, but she likes to believe she has been a good mother.
    “You better get dressed,” Nan says. “You don’t want to miss the bus.”
    The room dims with Bay’s sigh.
    Nan has found that the best way to get through all the birthday eating is to pretend exuberance, shoveling food into her mouth like a person starved, just to get it over with as quickly as possible. She chews vigorously. Nan knows what Bay wants. She wants to stay home. It’s been a struggle for years to get Bay to school, and lately it’s gotten worse.
    Nan is grateful she has chewing as an excuse for not speaking. Truth be told, she would love to have Bay’s company to distract her, though maybe it would be better if she did not. The memories that arrive on this day are a crash of blood and hope so spectacular, they leave Nan breathless; what if Bay’s presence is not enough to stave them off? She would be traumatized to find Nan clutching her heart and weeping.
    Bay stands suddenly. She smiles, but it’s a salty smile. Clearly the child is exasperated. She leans over to kiss Nan’s forehead and says something about how much she loves pancakes. Of course Nan concurs.
    “I better hurry,” Bay says, and just like that, she is gone. Nan can hear her in the bedroom, opening drawers and not closing them. The girl is dressed in five minutes, calling good-bye, sounding like a pony running down the stairs. The house shakes when she slams the door. Nan lifts the heavy tray off her lap, sets it on the bed, shivering as she walks to the window, arriving just in time to watch the small orb bobbing through the dark.
    It is only a moment, brief as a single breath, but Nan does something she hasn’t done since she was seventeen. She makes a birthday wish, using Bay’s flashlight as conduit. “Be happy,” she says.
    At the heavy sound of the bus coming around the corner, Bay turns the flashlight off, and Nan feels a dark terror. Wishes bring spirits out of their hiding places. Now, in an unguarded moment, she’s opened the door that is impossible to close. “Please,” she whispers into the cold room. “Leave her out of it.” Somewhere in the distance she hears the voice singing happy birthday. “Just stop,” she says, and it does.

HOLLYHOCK AND MALLOW Hollyhock should not be confused with Mallow. Mallow is useful in cases of difficult or obstructed menstruation, especially good as an abortifacient; placing the fruit over a dead person’s eyes will keep evil spirits from entering the body. Hollyhock root powdered or boiled in wine prevents miscarriage and kills worms in children.
    On the morning of Bay’s fifteenth birthday, Nan wakes to the pleasant scent of summer flowers and loamy earth. She eats a bowl of blueberries, savoring the sweet flavor unassaulted by the rosemary scent of memory or salty scent of lies, before going to the garden where she tends her hollyhocks, the old-fashioned single blossoms in shades of pale pink, blushed violet, and creamy white. Settling quickly on the menu for Bay’s birthday dinner, Nan’s mind wanders, as it does so often lately, but at least this time it goes in a pleasant direction.
    Though Bay might have been born the night before her arrival, they celebrate her birthday on the July date