The Fundamentals of Tulip Gardening

The tulips on the windowsill of the guest room were sanguine, almost nauseating in their brightness. They dripped a heady fragrance into the still air around them, cloying and oppressive. Rain pattered softly against the window. It was the middle of summer and the warmth was unbearable. In the aftermath of months of scarlet-red dry heat, a sudden bout of precipitation had left the area humid and sticky. Despite the rain and intense humidity, the tulips did not appear to be wilting in the slightest. Their petals tipped up to the ceiling with pious reverence. Searching for god.

               The door opened, creaking slightly on outdated hinges. The woman was tall and waifish, with protruding elbows and knees like doorknobs. Thinning hair hung lank and graying from a pockmarked scalp. Her bathrobe whispered softly against her legs as she made her way to the bed. Its sheets were precise: hospital corners. The edge of the top cover was pulled back, anticipating use. She sat on the edge of the bed, steadying herself with the help of one knobbly hand. A shallow sigh whistled past her teeth in time with the creaking exhalation of the mattress. The faux-satin trim of the pillows was faded to a dusty pink. Everything in the room felt still. The screaming wind outside made it feel like being trapped in a bubble. The eye of a hurricane.

               It had been a beautiful day. The middle of March, and the silver-grey of winter had receded, to reveal vibrant greens and pinks. Crocuses arched to the sky, bearing their violet petals upwards. Cumulus clouds framed the sun, shining warmly on Brianna’s plaited hair. Her Frozen backpack bobbing against her tiny back, she ran up the pavement.

               “Mom! Mom!” she yelled, the excitement in her voice almost palpable. She had recently decided that “Mommy” was too childish. Bri would be seven the next June, after all. Sarah had accepted the new label, somewhat begrudgingly. Try as she might, her daughter was growing so quickly, the years passing like sand through grasping fingers. Bri’s pink sneakers skidded on the sidewalk as she thrust a piece of paper at her mother.

               “Look! Mrs. Wagner put a note on my picture! And a sticker!” A shiny purple star smiled up at her alongside the words “Beautiful work, Brianna!”. The picture was drawn in surprisingly neat crayon. It depicted Bri flying towards the upper left corner of the paper. The sky was an indigo blue. M-shaped birds flew around the paper in a disordered fashion.

               “It’s amazing, baby! Are these rocket boots on your feet?” Sarah asked, her eyes crinkling as she smiled.

               “Magic rocket boots, mom! I’m a superhero and I save everyone from evil people!” She said, bouncing with excitement.

               “Like Hans of the Seven Isles?”

               “Especially Hans!” she giggled, striking a pose.

               In the guest room, the pounding of rain against the roof was brutally loud. Sarah could still hear the ghostly pinging of machines in the silence of this vacant room. Could see the bloodied bandages every time she closed her eyes. The image seared painfully against the dark of her eyelids.

               Bri’s feet pounded the pavement, the breeze pulling strands of hair out of place. She had just earned the right to cross residential streets by herself. With supervision, of course.

Sarah had looked away for a moment. Less than 5 seconds. In that moment, the world turned on its head. Nothing slowed down or stretched out like a series of movie frames. Instead, everything sped to breakneck speed and suddenly Sarah was on the ground, cradling her daughter’s unconscious body.

Somewhere, a string was pulled taut by spindly fingers.

               Back within the confines of the present, wind pounded the sides of the house and lightning crackled outside. The leaves of the tulips were serrated, teethlike. They swayed menacingly, leering out into the room, caught in some unseen cross breeze. The colour seeped out of the room as clouds darkened even more, turning the sky to a bruise.

The blue Honda had whipped down the road, swerving slightly in its escape. Blood dribbled from Bri’s ears and over her jacket collar. A scream ripped from Sarah’s throat and her vision clouded with red as a blood vessel popped in her eye from the effort. Her daughter laid limp in her arms, the pulse in her throat shallow and quick, like that of a bird. The only thought she had was, “But it’s a school zone” reverberating again and again through her head.

The hospital had smelled of antiseptic and powdered surgical gowns. It was the classic story: the surgeon, crouching down. Speaking in hushed tones. The sobbing and the empty numbness that ensued.

Bri’s string had been cut.

And no amount of flowers and whispered condolences were going to bring her back.

               The room felt cold and sickening in its emptiness. Sarah’s calves were studded with goosebumps, the hair prickling as her legs brushed one against another. Although Bri’s room was one of the largest bedrooms in the house, it felt like it was shrinking around her. Pushing her down as her mind forced her to relieve the memories in horrible, vivid clarity.

The car had been going so fast. She found out later that he had been intoxicated. Of course. He gets a DUI and probation and she gets a tiny heart-shaped urn filled with everything that remained of her baby, her only child. Sarah had carried her in her womb for nine months. She had endured seventeen hours of sweat-soaked labour. Waded through a sea of postpartum depression and loved her daughter with everything she had in her. She never thought she could love someone as much as she loved Bri. Her love had felt like a brilliant warmth in her chest; like a supernova burning bright only like the love of a parent could. So, it made sense that the grief that followed was equally as monumental and overpowering. It knocked her down, left her speechless – comatose. For so long, she couldn’t feel anything; her eyes were empty as she replayed that fateful day over and over again. She stumbled through the months reaching, stretching her arms out for relief - for some kind of respite. But scrambling in the darkness, all she could find was an overwhelming sense of guilt.

She hadn’t meant to let her die. She had loved Bri with a deep ferocity that reverberated in the marrow of her bones. If the galaxy had been tumbling to pieces, rocked apart by some unseen force, Sarah would have chosen to save her daughter over everything else. So why had the universe decided that moment for the car to turn the corner? It felt like her brain was burning itself up. Neurons firing slowly, lugubriously. Lighting itself on fire with the effort of trying to understand the gravity of the situation. And so, hollowed-out, she stumbled on.

 When she eventually resurfaced, she was not the least bit surprised to find that her husband had filed for divorce. The marriage, like so many after the death of a child, had dissolved like soap bubbles in water. Out along the West coast somewhere he was starting anew with a new wife. New children.

Sarah’s hands shook as she brought them up to her face. Pushing unwashed hair back from her face, she let out a shuddering breath. Her doctor had prescribed her medication to help with the restlessness, the anxiety, and the violent flashbacks. Fluoxetine or Venlafaxine or some other hard-to-pronounce name like that. Yet most of the time her brain still felt awash with fire. Headaches plagued her, stabbing at her temple, and throbbing sluggishly in time with her pulse.

The rumbling of the storm diminished, and the rain began to let up. Light slanted through the half-closed blinds. Dust motes waltzed through the stagnant air, illuminated by the sunshine seeping onto the floor. The tulips seemed to shudder, bathing in the warmth of the late afternoon sun.

The walls of the guest room bore simple prints of famous paintings. In the center of the East wall, watery sunlight fell on a framed drawing of a girl with magic rocket boots, flying upwards.