The Elephant in the Garden

I paused before cutting the Thanksgiving turkey. Martha Stewart would have died of jealousy at the sight. Dried flowers and bare branches made a macabre bed for the white Ghost Pumpkins lined up like sentinels down the center of the table. More than admiring my perfect decorations, I wanted to take in the moment with all my family gathered again. It felt perfect. But things weren’t like the old days, the days before mom died. If they were, the faces around me wouldn't be straining to smile and choke out just the right complement for the better-than-mom’s carrots. I appreciated the effort everyone put in to make this work, to go on pretending nothing had happened.

It had been years since we last gathered. Polite promises to ‘get together soon of course’ punctuated that long silent break in our family’s Thanksgiving traditions. It made sense that we would avoid this holiday since it was a dinner just like this the night mom died.

Mom had always been difficult, but we loved her, nonetheless. As kids we took refuge in each other when she was in one of her moods. My siblings looked out for me and I for them. We could make each other laugh at the drop of a hat. We could dry tears with a comforting word. It wasn’t that mom had been a bad parent. She was loving and attentive. She came to all our school things. She could be lots of fun when she felt like it; she could be a terror when she didn’t. We always watched to see which mom we got on any given day.

In those days I often escaped into my little garden in the backyard. I liked gardening. The smell of soil and fragrant flowers calmed me. The unruly pumpkin vines that I trained onto a trellis were somehow still comical as they curled and twisted upwards. Even in the crisp fall air I enjoyed sitting on the ground digging little holes so I could place tulip bulbs upright and ready to sprout in the spring. Out here I could enjoy some peace and quiet. I could place everything just so in nice tidy rows.

Sometimes my tranquility would be interrupted by angry voices reaching into my peaceful garden dragging me back inside. Into the chaos. I’d hear mom’s voice and wonder which one of us she was yelling at now. I never rushed in though. Evan would take care of this part, his deep voice booming back at mom’s. That would be my cue. Time to dust the dirt from my hands and clean off my shovels so I could head back in and clean up whatever mess was left after Mom stomped away from Evan. By dinner everything would be fine, and we’d all put smiles on and pretend nothing had happened.

At her last Thanksgiving dinner mom brought out the turkey. She liked to carve the bird at the table to show off how juicy and golden it was. Most years she would coordinate the centerpiece on the table so that it reflected the herbs and seasonings she had put into the turkey. Everything was always perfect. And the more perfect it was the more of a terror she became.

I didn’t see what happened that made everything go wrong that night. I heard mom gasp in surprised pain as she cut her hand. Silence fell on the table. We were like deer in a forest sensing a predator waiting for it to raise its vicious head from the shadows and pounce. Mom glared at Jamie. I guess he had bumped her arm, or something.

“Mom, I didn’t…I’m sorry…” Jamie whimpered before mom cut him off.

She didn’t shout, which was always scarier. She tore into Jamie with insults berating him as he continued to shrink. He would have turned invisible if he could. Mom moved as if to hit Jamie, but the knife was still in her hand.

Evan was up before I knew what happened. His chair flew back and banged against the floor. Mom shouted. Evan matched her rage. He pushed her away from Jamie but that didn’t stop her. She lunged back. I sat ridged and frozen in my seat watching as Evan’s face twisted in an ugly snarl. He pushed her hand which still grasped the carving fork. And with one smooth movement he tore at the carving knife and plunged it into her gut. Evan stared into mom's wide eyes. Someone screamed breaking the silent spell as mom’s limp hand let the carving fork go. Evan pulled the knife out of the dying woman and stabbed her again. She cried out and Evan let her fall to the floor.

Mom was gone. No one moved. No one said a word. We stared in an abhorrent silence as the crimson puddle of her life grew around her. The metallic smell of blood overpowered the scents of turkey and oranges.

“Mom?” Jamie whispered.

Evan dropped the bloody carving knife. The clash of metal on the floor woke us from the nightmarish shock and everything happened at once. Jamie started hyperventilating. Carly shouted at Evan. The cousins sobbed. Kevin threw up. The cacophony grew spinning out of control around me. I could feel my heart pounding. My chest tightened as if a great beast had sat there crushing the air out of my lungs. I wanted to run. To scream. Where could I go? I needed to get away from this mess. What a mess.

“This mess,” I muttered. No one noticed me as I stared blankly into mom’s glassy eyes. “What a mess-” I trailed off. Yes. Of course, we had to clean up this mess. I took in the mayhem of raw emotion around me and for the first time in my life I took charge.

“Listen. LISTEN.” I shouted over the noise. “We can’t have this mess. We have to clean it up.”

“Clean it up?” Carly started in disbelief. “This isn’t some cooking disaster, we can’t just pretend it never happened.”

“People will look for her,” Jamie offered sheepishly.

“I won’t ask you all to lie for me,” Evan declared. Always the hero of the family, Evan stood stoically by her body.

“We’ll never get away with it,” said Kevin, sitting at the table sipping water and still looking sickly green. The cousins nodded in agreement.

Carly started it, “We’ll tell the police it was an accident. We’ll explain…”

I cut her off. “It wasn’t an accident. They will see that from the stab wounds. Evan will go to jail or worse. Are you going to let that happen? If we do this right we can hide the body and no one will find her. We can. And we will.” Down cast and worried faces answered me. Evan had always protected us, now we were going to protect him.

With no more objection, I ordered them all about. A tarp and rope to wrap the body. Bleach for the blood. Shovels for a grave. We were going to do this, and we were going to do it right. No mistakes. No one would get caught. We’d report her missing tomorrow. We’d say she ran out in one of her moods, maybe we’d even burn some of her things to make it look as if she had packed up and left. Yes, that would do it. The neighbors heard her shouting over the years, and she’d stormed out more than once. They’d back that story up when the police came calling.

It was late in the evening when we began. By the time we finished it was early on Black Friday. It took forever to dig a hole deep enough. We planted her there standing up like a tulip bulb so it wouldn’t look like a grave. Everyone wandered away to clean up, hosing down shovels and washing dirt-stained pants. We burned all our blood-stained clothes along with a week’s worth of her things.

“Take the sod away. It’ll look suspicious if we put it back now.” I ordered. “I’ll get flowers today and turn it into a garden before the police come.” That’s that, I thought, satisfied we had tidied everything up nicely.

That was years ago and finally we were having Thanksgiving together again. I had insisted that we resume the tradition since I had inherited mom’s house, and they all finally agreed to come. I knew it would be perfect this year. I put the golden-brown turkey on my elegant table. I cut into the warm bird releasing juices and the tempting aromas of rosemary, sage, and garlic. The warmth, the scents, mom’s old China, it all made me feel like I could forget, like we could all keep going in our silent agreement to never acknowledge the elephant stampeding through the room. I passed slices of turkey balanced between carving fork and knife to plates held up by clean hands and smiling faces. We really did look like the perfect family. Though, I knew that none of them ever forgot the dirt under our nails, the shovels, the panicked whispers exchanged that one night.

I gave up gardening after that night. Everything about my once serene flower beds would send me reeling into panic: the smell of the soil, the scrape of stones against my shovel, the darkness of holes waiting to be filled. I used to be known for my green thumb before I moved into mom’s house. That was good I guess, at least none of the neighbors asked what I used to fertilize my garden keeping it lush and full all year-round. No one asked, and none of us ever looked out back at the vibrant flowers. Not if we wanted to stay sane.

I look sometimes. I stare with unfocused eyes, an untouched coffee cup going cold in my hand, at the too full flower bed we had made.