Of White Roses and Marigolds

Her shoes had no traction. She had not many clothes. What she wore hung off her. No appetite anymore. Mauve lightening veined across the midnight sky never to touch the earth below. She watched and waited for a lightening strike to ignite the parched ground. Quietly hoping for a new reason for this haze. She would see none. It was the hour and time to go in.

The wedding party imbibed the final moments of their rented hall. Spilling both in and out of the only unlocked entrance. The sparkling lights were unplugged, and the harsh overhead lights were on. Groomsmen finished the last of the liquor, pocketed beers, and sweated through the remainder of their borrowed clothes. Men talked obtusely of what they ought to do raising their voices ever louder to drown out the none that heard or disagreed. One Bridesmaid remained. The dirty hem of her skirt in her reddened hands revealed reddened knees and dirty feet. Legs akimbo. The woman weaved between this tarrying crowd to begin her work within.

The woman passed the bride who was looking at the remnants of her decorations. A last look before all that she had paid for was pulled down and packed to a new venue for a new bride. Smiling photos in hand, the bride gloried in all she had accomplished. Without a need to stay longer, the bride turned and wove between her wedding party out into the smokey night.

White roses. It had only ever been white roses. Every venue. Every wedding. Every bride with her white dress and white roses. Some veiled, some bare headed. “Do they have their own fragrance?” The woman had been told that the cultivated rose had perfume added to it since breeding had eradicated their natural scent. The only color, the only true scent, came from the filler greenery holding these pure things up. She could smell these unknown herbs as she trod upon them, never able to recall their names. The woman crossed the hall into the kitchen for a slop bucket and garbage can.

A drunken guest stood swaying within his own faraway aria. A tidal movement broken by a sudden discomfort in his new boots. He had been gazing at the space where the ceiling met the wall. Blinking away a dream hard to kill, he now noticed the workers coming in to tear down the party. “My night is at an end.” He walked over to the head table, knocking the white rose center piece off a gold platter to the floor. He began scrapping the wedding party’s plates onto this golden circle. The party had tried everything offered and finished nothing. He stacked the plates at the edge of the table. Thinking, “this will be easier for her.”

The woman’s eyes met those of the drunken guest. Eyes all the bluer for the redness of drink and revelry. “No.” she thought. “This is not happiness. It is the sorrow of life.” His eyes held hers in constancy as he offered his golden charger of chicken bones and bread crusts. The woman reached for her oblation. It slipped away and crashed to the ground. The plastic golden platter bounced and rolled away. Shattering the growing quiet of the party hall. The last bridesmaid called out, “Let her do it!”

The drunken guest slumped to his knees. As he fell, a sob escaped his mouth which he tried to catch. The woman believed he would certainly vomit, tilting the garbage can towards him. Kneeling at the woman’s feet, he looked at her eyes then her hair line and back to her makeupless face. The drunken guest began to scoop the fallen discarded food from the floor with bare hands into the garbage can. His knuckles were dry, cracking, and soon to bleed. “It’s okay, I can do it.” The woman reached for his arm to help him up. He looked back to where the ceiling met the wall. Dried mud stuck to his cheek, collar, and shoulder. There would be a deep bruise there tomorrow. The whole of his frame exhaled, “You are quite beautiful…”

He stood without help and left by the wrong exit.

The woman told people she liked this work because she did not need to think to do this work. She did not need to think. Everyone understood this. This woman could not afford a thought in her life. No one ever needed more explanation, but what the woman honestly liked was that she could not be seen thinking. Everyone just got on with their work, never looking her in the face. No one looked her too long in the eyes. Everyone was tired at this hour. Everyone just needed to keep moving. It was good that the woman could not be seen truthfully feeling as she truly thought. When one cannot afford a thought, one is rich in thinking.

The woman pulled some white roses from the centerpiece crushed upon the floor. She would bring these left-over flowers to her children. The woman set aside her white rose bouquet and continued her work. Her children liked to beat each other with the blooms in an explosion of petals. It was always such a mess, but it made them happy.

Did she have too much color at her wedding? She had not hired anyone. The woman had just gone and done it herself.

White roses. Always with the white roses. As she stooped and stood, stooped and stood, stooped and stood, she thought about when her skin was smooth and pure like cream. “How long ago?” She had been fair like these white roses strewn about and trampled on. Roses that everyone wanted but left behind. Intrusively, she thought of the man who churned her to butter and promised to eat her up. Why could she not help thinking about the salt of the sea and the surprising sting of it? Something abandoned and buried all at once caressed through the entirety of her frame at a shocking speed. Every part of her stirring like a rising lover’s sigh. All the colors and lights brightened. The white roses gleamed.

Why did her soul only travel along paths of color and scent? Why did her spirit only travel so far? “Why does my body and ghost recall what my mind has decidedly killed dead?” Grasping memory choked her and would not leave her be. It chased her down from task to task. The woman could feel the pulsing heat behind her eyes. Bowing her head, the woman quickly checked her cheeks for tears that should no longer be shed. Thinking, “This would not, could not do… “

“This cannot be.”

As she stooped down again to pick up a soiled cloth, she thought about her house. A cream-colored house with a yard green except where the sprinkler did not reach, a circle of green with a crust of brown. The woman did not like touching anything that had touched the wedding guests’ mouths. She frowned from her forehead all the way down to the tips of her toes. Wiggling them to shake this feeling of disgust, she saw holes forming in her shoes.

The woman remembered the empty patch beside the house, next to the ally. Empty when they bought the cream-colored house, but now filled with marigolds. Her mind’s eye showed her their raiment and it made her feel better. This thought would do. This thought was good. No one can object to this love. The woman exhaled deeply. “Marigolds.” Orange and green where there had been nothing. Orange and Green made all work easy. Orange and green made a house her home. She smiled as she dumped her garbage and slop bucket. Standing by the dumpster, the woman tilted her face up to the hazy night. She closed her eyes as a few full raindrops touched her face.

On the drive home, the radio reported that lightening had struck. Striking while the woman had stooped and stood. A new fire was raging. She did not know where the engulfed hill was. Never having heard of it. No light from this new fire could be seen. No smell, just the same haze and ash that shrouded the state since the heat had come in earnest. Her husband would know where this hill was. She would ask. If he was awake. He was always an early riser. It would be nice to see the sun rise.

When she arrived, her husband sat with handwritten pages laid out in front of him. “I want you to talk like an adult.” The woman was glad there was no light in the room. Her expression would have been an argument. One cannot be seen feeling. She responded, “Let’s talk quietly; the children are still sleeping.” Days before, he had told her how his complaints could fill three pages. The woman had not believed him.

She listened as her husband spoke. Everything she had heard before. Everything she had explained before. At the end of each stated grievance, the woman responded, “oh…” “oh…” “oh…” Only to acknowledge that her husband had spoken again, and again, and again. As he turned the second page over without needing to look at what was written there, the woman suddenly and unequivocally knew, “Oh.” Some things just end without much feeling or thought.

In the morning, she saw what her husband had done. He had told her she needed to, “get it done.” Had she had too much color? Why did there never seem to be enough? The yard had been mowed and maintained perfectly. Her marigolds were piled up in the middle of their dirt patch. Why did he leave them for her to clean up? Hadn’t she worked all night? Hadn’t she wrought enough? Had she not stooped enough?

The woman went and sat on the freshly made barren ground and looked at nothing in particular. She looked to where the sky met the horizon and did not notice the sun rising there. Nothing in particular was the real appeal of this neighborhood. “Nothing will ever catch your eye here again.”

“Eye of my eye…”

“Is that what really had been?”

His yard. His sanctuary. His hobby. His pride.

Their children came running out. Her husband left for his work. “You always let the kids run wild.” The woman closed her eyes and thought, “Yes. They are children though, my babies.” The big one was throwing marigold carnage into the air. Stems, petals, and broken blossoms up into the changing light of the sky. Screaming joy.

Looking around at the forming Marigold rain, she thought, “Day of the Dead. They use marigolds for the Day of the Dead, don’t they? Is this my own alter?” She pushed her fingers into the desiccated earth, curling her toes around the dying and broken blossoms.

The little one crawled up her front with fists of marigolds. His face inches from her own, everything blurred. Pretty eyes looking directly into hers. She carefully sat up so as not to knock him down. With a single finger she lifted a single petal from his shirt, touching it to her tongue, and placing it between her eyes. Waves of jubilance fell from his mouth.

The woman kept her eyes and mouth shut. Sometimes the little one’s work came close to gouging her badly. He placed orange petals all around her green eyes. She thought, “Am I a new thing? Am I to start again?” The woman looked at her child smiling at his remaking of mama. He had made her an orange petal smile. The woman laughed at the idea she had been made into a sugar skull for her own alter. She kissed him. A marigold blessing moved from her mouth to his. The big one came running. Grabbing her mother’s skull, she also took a kiss.

There is a mercy in love.

The woman would be merciful.