II
I’m definitely not dead, she decided, feeling her lungs expand and contract as she breathed deeply—in through the nose, out through the mouth. Functioning normally.
Hannedy’s bedroom was covered in flowers. Bright pinks, yellows, reds and whites, purples and oranges; lilies, tulips, carnations, asters, roses, and daisies. The flowers seemed to grow right out of the floor, bunched closely together like a rapt audience.
Hannedy sat up, and more flowers tumbled off her chest, landing in a soft cushion of chrysanthemums. She straightened the collar of her heather gray nightgown—the one with the worn cuffs and a little pink bow sewn onto the yoke—which had gotten twisted in the night, and combed bony fingers through the gray streaks in her thick, mousy brown hair.
No, she was certainly not dead, but there was another matter at hand: She was terribly inconvenienced. “How am I to get all the way over there,” she asked the flowers, gesturing to the far side of the room and her bedroom door, “if I don’t want to step on you?”
The flowers, of course, did not respond.
Hannedy was nonetheless determined to get on with her day. She had a rain garden to plant and buckthorn to cut, and she wasn’t about to fuss with the nature center’s plans on account of some rogue florist. Hannedy rather disliked florists. Flowers were meant to stay in the ground, happy, alive, and in their proper region of the world.
Hannedy eased out of her blankets, gently tossing about another assortment of blooms, and dipped her toes into the sea of vibrant colors. As her slender feet sank to the floor, she realized the flowers were indeed rooted there. Hannedy glanced around, wondering if she and her bed had somehow gotten moved outside.
The window was open, but she was on the appropriate side of it. The cheerful call of a chickadee accompanied airy morning sunlight. A gentle breeze rustled the curtains.
“Nonsense,” she muttered to herself, grasping bundles of nightgown and hoisting the hemline up to her knees.
Hannedy waded through the flowers, careful to damage as little as possible. She might have to speak with some of her colleagues about this. Might be best to keep to hypotheticals, she thought, scrunching up her nose. The pungent scent of the strongest florals grew stronger when she jostled them. Thank heaven I’m not allergic. She could almost see the pollen clinging to her legs. She felt quite like a bee.
Out on the ordinary hardwood of the hallway, Hannedy breathed a sigh of relief.
Then, she giggled. Looking back at the small forest of stems and leaves and petals in her bedroom, she began to laugh with delight. The skin around her overcast-blue eyes crinkled, long deep lines branching out across her face as she smiled.
They really were lovely, if a bit unorthodox. It was like something from a dream.
“No one will ever believe me,” she chuckled.
But it was certainly a lot better than being dead.
I
When Hannedy was seven, she stole a bouquet of flowers from the corner store. They had been there a while. The pale purple petals were beginning to wilt and turn yellow around the edges. Not bright yellow, like dandelions. Sad yellow, like the oxidized enzymes in bruised apples, or top secret correspondences written in lemon juice and warmed with an iron. The edges of the leaves were browning in the same way. They were crisp from dehydration and starting to fall away from the stems.
Hannedy knew what to do.
She carried the armful of withering plants home, down the street and around the corner, nearly tripping in her little rubber rain boots. They were bright red, like Mama’s roses and the bow in her soft, rabbit-brown hair—and fairly unnecessary. The sun was high, with barely a wisp of cloud in sight. The road was dry and warm.
Hannedy snuck into the garage. She tipped a five-gallon bucket upside-down and stood on it to gather the necessary tools from Daddy’s workbench, where, on one end, Mama kept her gardening things. People told Hannedy’s mama all the time that she had a green thumb. Mama’s secret was that all of her fingers were green. Her rubbery green gloves engulfed Hannedy’s tiny hands like balloons. She snatched the spade from where it hung on the pegboard, and charged to the backyard with her bouquet.
Nothing ever died in Mama’s gardens.
Hannedy plopped down on the lawn near the patterned brick edge that separated soft brown mulch from prickly green grass. She scooped some of the mulch aside and cleared a spot of dark, moist dirt. The spade sank into it with a dull chiff, making room for the new arrivals.
One by one, unwrapped from their frilly plastic cone, the ends of somber floral stems sank into the earth. Hannedy piled the dirt around each one, humming cheerfully and tunelessly to herself. She patted it gently, and poked her little finger around the base of the stem to create a shallow well. It would be easier for the flowers to get water that way, at least until they got established in their new home. She sprinkled mulch around and in-between the piles to insulate them.
Hannedy did a good job. She hopped to her feet and scurried away to find the watering can. When she was finished delivering water to the thirsty flowers, Hannedy propped her gloved hands on her narrow hips heroically, the large aluminum garden-teapot hanging by her side. She beamed at the corner store flowers, envisioning a long and happy life for them alongside new friends.
Hannedy’s mother watched her through the kitchen window. She smiled wistfully at her daughter. The pale, barely-purple chrysanthemums bowed their heads in shameful contrast to their vibrant rooted neighbors, lined up like thin ghostly fence posts at the edge of the garden.
Featured image by skilled photographer Annie Spratt on Unsplash.
II. “Flowers for Hannedy” and I. “Young Hannedy” are flash fiction stories © 2016 by Mariah Lamour
