The Golden Courtier

“Oh, my,” she said, shaking her head so that the thin-stemmed feathers on her hat quivered. “This is simply mind-boggling.”

The two women, the older in her Sunday hat, the younger in black pants and jacket with an orchid-purple scarf knotted at her throat, stood in the entrance of the greenhouse. Damp, warm air swirled slowly around them, inviting, but the gray-haired woman stayed where she was, gloved hands clasping her purse.

“They’re just flowers, Mom,” said the younger one.

“Oh, no,” said her mother. “Mums.” This she breathed as if the very word was a perfume from long ago, from a younger, more vital time in her life.

The daughter shook her head, then stopped herself, her brown hair rustling silkily against her neat jacket. Her voice was softer this time, “Let’s just pick out the displays, all right? We shouldn’t be late.”

This time her mother allowed Rebecca to take her hand and lead her slowly down the far left aisle. Her feathers quivered anew as she turned her head left, right, left, right, and Rebecca thought how much she looked like a little bird: eyes bright, head cocked, lips parted.

They walked past the standard daisy-style flowers--Rebecca had to squint to read the names. Her townhouse was filled with hardy green plants like ficus and palm and jade--plants that no one expected to burst into bloom. She didn’t consider herself a gardener, but then, she didn’t consider her mother to be one either, though Vivian could nurse any bedraggled houseplant back to life.

“Sing to them, dearie,” her mother had told her once when she came to reclaim custody of a Christmas cactus the orange tabby had gnawed to a pitiful state. This was before Dad had gotten sick. Rebecca had put a hand on her hip and said, “really?” expecting her mother to laugh at her own joke, but Vivian had only raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips in a distinct, mysterious way that was entirely out of character and said no more. Some years later, when Rebecca had found the bags of fertilizer out in the tool shed, after they had moved Dad to the home and she and her brother, Kevin, were helping clean up the yard, she had clucked at her own gullibility. While she had never gotten the nerve to actually sing to her plants, she had allowed herself to hum along to the radio when the classics came on, glancing self-consciously at them where they sat in the big windows that looked out over the city. Anything more than that and she would risk being reminded of the cello still in storage in her mother’s upstairs hall closet, and guilt and failure would settle in like mist. Easier to just bring the plants to Mom’s house like wayward grandchildren and leave it at that.

“Look at this, Rebecca.” Her mother’s voice, still soft and rapturous, pulled her back and she instinctively took a deep breath in, feeling the living, fertile moisture fill her lungs. She turned.

Vivian was fingering a bloom bigger than her hat. Its scalloped petals curled over each other, forming an almost-perfect sphere of orangey gold.

“A Golden Courtier,” said her mother with that same faraway whisper that Rebecca had never heard before in her life.

“It has to be this one.” She touched the petals once more, tenderly, then, with a small sigh, like a child who must leave her longed-for favorite doll in the toy shop yet another day she returned the little gloved hand to her purse. “I’m ready,” was all she said, but her voice, though soft, was direct now and Rebecca was startled to have her mother’s eyes meet hers, all the dreaminess gone out of them, a touch of her tiredness from the past three years showing in them again.

“Are--are you sure, Mom?” she asked. “Don’t you want to look at these?” She swept a hand past the thistle and quill mums with their thin petals and wild colors; her mother was already shaking her head, sending the little feathers bobbing resolutely.

“All right,” Rebecca sighed. “How many?” She waved a garden boy in a canvas apron and work gloves over and he loaded the plants onto a wagon and into the back of her SUV. Rebecca paid with a card, scribbled her signature. Vivian was already belted and ready when she got to the car and started it up.

They pulled onto the highway in silence. When they reached the first crossroad, Rebecca cleared her throat. “Everything ok, Mom?”

An almost imperceptible nod. “Oh yes, I’m fine.” And then, “These will be perfect.” Just a hint of that dreaminess returned, a ripple of youth flowed over her face once more and then was gone. Rebecca thought of how much of her mother she would never know, and they drove in silence the rest of the way to the funeral.

-Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux

p.s. Inspiration comes in many forms... in this case, a Garden Design magazine!