A mottled patch of grass

A small patch of grass shines under a morning sun. The grass is shimmering under the morning dew. A middle aged lady wearing a knitted pink sweater and parakeet green slacks, crouching in a corner is watering garden lilies. The sleeves are folded halfway up and mud sticks to her cocoa skin. A calm and gentle smile lies intact on her lips shimmering like the very grass. It was an ordinary day. 

A series of hushed footsteps wake the lady from her fluffy daydream as she turns behind. A teenage girl stands dead in her paths. A wheatish jitteriness is mottled over her face. The old lady smiles who has indeed spotted the nervousness but she ignores it for the moment. 

"What is the matter, Lily?" 

"N-Nothing mom! You turned just like that, I was startled." 

"Ok! It is good that you have changed." 

"Yes! I have also had my lunch and I completed all my homework" 

"Good girl! You are going somewhere now?" 

"No-No! I was thinking of helping you!" 

"If you wish so then I was planning to plant some new saplings back there!" 

"Where?" 

The mother points to the other corner of the garden. The corner is empty and the grass growing here is feeble and short. A fresh layer of wetness and moist soil can be made out. 

"I don't think it is a good idea, mum? We could plant them somewhere else, that place behind the lilies is empty? Why not use that?" 

The mother eyes her daughter with suspicion. 

"No, not behind the lilies. That place shall always remain empty. What is wrong with you?" 

"N-Nothing at all, mom? Everything is fine! What are you talking about!" 

The mother walks all the way to the corner where the mud is still moist from all the digging. It is uneven and Lily holds her forehead in dismay remembering all the jumping to make it even. 

"What have you done here, Lily? Tell me!" 

"Nothing! Nothing at all!" 

"Oh! Then let us see this nothing! Bring me the shovel and I will rake out your treasure for you!" 

Lily hands her mother the shovel not making eye contact. As she sees her mother digging out the earth, she tries to not think of what was going to happen to her in the near future. 

The mother has for sure reached the treasure. Dismantled pieces of a vase with purplish patterns are recovered without any caution by the mother. Lily steps back trying to escape the inevitable.  

"You broke the antique vase! Do you even know how expensive it was? It is a family heirloom and you destroyed it! And more than that you tried to hide it? What do you think? I and your father are not blind nor are we senseless that we would not notice a missing vase from the drawing room! You are absolutely worthless, Lily! What the hell are you going to in your life of you are so very irresponsible and clumsy! And a such a coward you are that you didn't even have the guts to admit your mistake!" 

"I am sorry mom! This will not happen again! I promise!" 

"Oh I am sure of that because there was just one antique vase our family had and now all that remains of it are a bazillion pieces. Let your father come back home and he will admonish you properly!" 

### 

A little has changed since that ordinary day. It is just that the spinning ball on which we stand has completed yet another revolution. The garden is hardly as it was a year ago. The grass has been trimmed short. The lilies are absent and the disastrous corner is no more covered with moist and recent soil. The small patch of grass behind the lilies however is still the same, empty and void of any vegetation.  

The mother and daughter sit in the disastrous corner, tired and sweating from the mowing. 

"You remember that I hid the pieces of that vase here!" Lily says, blush from shame and humour. 

"Yes, I do!" The mother laughs remembering that day. 

How pleasant is the fact that the thing which seem the most significant today will hardly be of any concern in the future! 

"Not as clearly as I do. I remember the expression on your face when you eventually threw them away." 

The mother smiles and looks st the place where the lilies used to be a year ago. 

"I never threw them for your information" 

"What? Where are they? But I did see you throwing them in the dustbin that day before I went to sleep." 

"Come with me!" 

The mother rises up as excited as a child of eleven. A dumbstruck Lily follows. They walk to the small patch behind the lilies. 

"Bring me the shovel!" 

Lily hand her the shovel and the mother starts to dig out the solid earth. 

"You hid them here!" 

"Not just that vase! There will be a few more things! Just don't laugh at me, ok?" 

The digging continues as the pieces of that vase are recovered once again. The mother bends down and collects them out.

"Hold your failed lineage for me!" 

A gentle laughter. The mother resumes digging and then there is a clink. She throws aside the shovel and she digs with her hand. Lily stands there looking at what her mother had hidden here for all these years. 

A grey box with a silver gleam dulled and dumped in the darkness glares around. A small chest. 

"Hold it!" 

The mother hands it to the daughter who holds it and tries to open it only to find it locked. 

"The key?" 

"It must be somewhere here only. I buried it just..found it!" 

She handed Lily a faded key. She stands up on her feet and she jams the key into the keyhole and it clicks open. However, before Lily could open it, she stops her. 

"Guess what is in it!" 

Lily smiles and thinks for a moment. 

"We don't have all day!" 

"Come on, mom! I don't open buried chests every day! I don't know. Something precious…jewellery?" 

The mother sighs in negation. 

"I don't know. Open it now!"

The mother lets go and Lily opens the box. There is not one but dozens of thing in there. There are torn pieces of paper, silly toys, a shabby heart necklace, a dirty ring and a few coins as well. 

"What is all of this?" 

"My treasury of souvenirs and memories. Don't you recognize those toys? They are yours, that fat bunny whose left eye you bit so hard your milk teeth broke and that barbie doll who you gave the most morbid of haircuts!" 

Lily laughs as flashes of her childhood strike her. 

"And the other things? This ring?" 

"Your father gave it to me. A few years before our marriage. The engagement ring is, I know, more precious but…this is more precious as well. And open that heart, there is the photo of your grandparents in there. I gave it to them on their twenty fifth anniversary! I found it in my mother's closet during her funeral. And those coins are my brothers! He used to give these to me every year on my birthday." 

"And the paper bits?" 

"Those are bits I tore from my diaries and letters! Go on read them aloud!" 

"Always take care my little sister!

With Love 

Your Brother" 

"That one was on my wedding gift!" 

"I will miss you very much! I hope that we will meet someday again. 

Lily

Who is this, mom?" 

"My schoolmate. When I shifted, we used to talk over letters. This was the last one I ever received from her. And yes, I named you after her! And in many ways, you are like her. There was this photograph in her house which we broke by mistake. Nobody ever knew of it except us." 

"I get it!" 

"What?" 

"Why you sighed when I guessed jewellery!" 

The mother smiles. 

"And so it turns out that even when both of us hid our secrets in a similar manner, mine didn't last for a day and yours was here for years!" 

"If you had learnt a bit more of gardening, then you would have able to conceal it better!" 

"What are those marks on the box?" 

"Tally Marks! How many times I have opened it?" 

"And how much is it?"

"Not much. Twenty three times." 

"Oh! And how many years has it been down there!" 

"Seven years! You know lilies are one of the most common garden flowers and yet they are beautiful. They are if you really think just ordinary! But they are beautiful to those who learn to see the magic in the ordinary!"