Brown eyed Susans

a short story

Dedicated to my Mother

Füsun Atalay ~ Copyright © 1997

The ground was still fresh and loose where she knelt. The earthy smell in the early morning air and the dampness under her knees were redolent of the long, rainy night. April showers had been a little tardy this year; yet May was finally here after an eternally long and icy winter.

She picked up her pot of Brown-eyed Susans to transfer each plant from the earthen container to the fresh, black earth itself where they could continue to grow keeping alive somehow the love they had always symbolised for her.

With the index finger of her left hand she gently rubbed the velvety brown centre of one as her mind wandered back in time to long ago when she had first encountered this lovely flower with narrow, extended, yellow petals radiating like the rays of sunshine from a soft, brown centre.

* * *

She was with her friend Julie, on their way to play in the park facing their high-rise condo on the Boulevard. As they were always reminded at home and at school about road safety rules, they had walked to the end of the block and waited for the traffic lights to signal the pedestrians their right of passage to the other side of the boulevard.

It must've been late spring then too, for she remembered how happy and lighthearted she felt at hearing the orchestra of birds, and noting the soft, new green of grass that flanked the gravel walkways of the park sprawling in front of her.

She smiled at a young, pretty mother holding the hand of her toddler, strolling leisurely at his pace, and naming objects as he pointed them to her.

A little further, Julie had pointed out an elderly couple sitting on a bench, staring far away in quiet meditation. The lady had thinned, blue tinted hair through which the skin of her skull could be seen — and that the girls had found strangely curious.

Then she noticed a couple of city workers, at a corner of a flower bed, transplanting young flowers from their nursery boxes into the freshly turned soil where they would continue to grow and bloom all summer.

They were so beautiful, those flowers, especially the ones that looked like big, yellow daisies with brown centres. She and Julie had stopped to watch the men planting.

Forgetting her promise to her mother not to talk to strangers, Suzy had asked, "What are those flowers called?" pointing to the mound of yellow daisies with the brown centers.

"These, here? I reckon they're called brown-eyed Susans,"replied the older of the two men as he wiped his brow with the back of his wrist.

"Oh!" she couldn't hold back her spontaneous delight and surprise. "They have the same name as me! But Mommy calls me Suzy, and I have brown eyes, too!"

Then she and Julie had giggled like girls at their age are wont to.

The man had paused for a minute and the second one chuckled too as he replied, "Well, isn't that some coincidence? A nice girl like you with the same name as these pretty flowers... Say, would you like some? You can give 'em to your mom."

She couldn't believe what she had heard. This man was offering her some of those flowers. How nice it would be to surprise mother with them. "Can I? Is't okay with you?"

"How old are you, young lady?"

"I'm six!" Then she added quickly, " Until September."

The older man who offered the flowers, had carefully pulled the finest looking half dozen out of their nursery boxes, gave them a gentle rattle to shake off the excess earth from the roots, then held them out to her.

Suzy's face was suddenly overcome with disappointment. She wasn't expecting to take the bunch with soil still clinging to them. She couldn't give her mother flowers with tiny threads covered in dirt. Her hand which had reached out with her open fingers to receive the offering was frozen with hesitation in mid air .

The man must have read her thoughts, for he chortled and asked, "I guess you don't wan'em with their roots clinging on, do you? See, like this, you could plant 'em in your yard or even in a large pot and watch 'em grow. But I guess you're just interested in the flowers- clean and cut- for a vase. All right, Mis Susy, if that's what you want, that's what you'll get."

With this, he'd broken the roots from the stems and with his garden-gloved hand cleaned the long stems from any remainders of earth, before holding out the brown-eyed Susans back to her.

"Now, do you want some too?" the question was directed to Julie, but the latter shook her head shyly. Julie didn't have a mother to give flowers. She was being raised by her aunt after her mother died and her father remarried and moved to Texas. The corners of Suzy' lips turned upward in a satisfied smile, she thanked the man, clasped her newly acquired treasure and pulled Julie by the hand to follow her back home.

She couldn't wait to see her mother's surprise. This was the first time she'd done anything so impetuous in her- life possibly emboldened by the presence of a friend. But deep inside she knew she was doing it to please her mom; to tell her just how much she loved her and thought of her all the time. Julie felt her friend's excitement and liked being part of something although she was not so sure if they had done something good.

The girls retraced their steps back home through the traffic lights at the corner, down the boulevard, in through the thick glass doors of the lobby and up the elevator to the twelfth floor.

Suzy's heart was pounding with joy as she knocked on the door marked 1202. Her mother, who was having afternoon tea with Julie's aunt was surprised to see the girls back so soon, but her apprehensive frown began to melt into a smile of relief when she saw the flowers held out to her.

" Where'd you get these," she asked, unable to hide her anxiety, "Who gave them to you?"

Suzy told her mother the whole story of her triumph, barely stopping for a quick breath, her eyes shining, her heart singing, her animated hands gesturing and her thoughts racing ahead, wondering what her mother would say at the end of her explanation.

Her mother placed her arms around Suzy and replied "Oh, Sweetie don't talk to strangers or take anything from them when I'm not with you. Promise me that."

For the first time in her overwhelming excitement, Suzy had realized the gravity of what she'd done, and the concern of her mother at her having broken a very important promise. Yet the exuberance of her triumph, especially- at having outwitted two grown men into cutting off the dirty, earthy, stringy substances- momentarily overshadowed the guilt of her undeniable wrong doing.

Her eyelids lowered, she promised, "I won't do it again, Mom." Then the glee in her voice returned and she continued. "But wasn't I smart? They were going to give the dirty roots; they didn't look the so nice."

What she heard in response from her mother's lips next had gashed into her heart like an invisible dagger, robbing her of all the anticipated praise and the joy in her intent, and humiliated her before Julie and her aunt.

"Well, that was a foolish thing to do, honey," chimed her mother's animated laughter. "Of all the parts, you should have left the roots attached. That way we could have planted them in those large pots in our balcony and enjoyed them all summer long. Isn't that right, Julie?

"Anyway, that's not so important. I'll put these in a vase now, and you girls go wash your hands. Then you can join us for some refreshments; I have some of your favourites laid out."

Yes, Suzy, even in the midst of her alacrity, had noticed the coffee table laid out with gold-rimmed porcelain plates, used only for important guests, laden with delicate sandwiches and mouth-watering sweets including her favourite: Fauchon's hearts, those heart-shaped, melt in your mouth, butter cookies held in pairs with a thin layer of seedless raspberry jam between each pair. At that moment, however, she'd lost any gusto she would have usually had at such a special invitation. . .

She turned her eyes to Julie beseeching her support, but her friend seemed to have already betrayed Suzy by her silence.

That event had occurred almost a life time ago. The flowers had lasted little over a week in water in a crystal vase, then one by one they wilted and were tossed away.

The resounding words of her mother, however, were seared in her memory forever. As a child, she did not understand, but she had nevertheless, felt the imperfection in what she'd done. Her good intentions somehow had been lost in her failure to see the bigger picture.

As a young woman when she'd reminded that incident to her mother and tried to explain how she was distraught by the latter's remarks at that time, her mother had no recollection of the episode.

Eventually, through the years, she'd grown to understand the sense in her mother's words; and the unintended pain caused by her casual utterance so many years ago had slowly faded away.

Often in her quiet moments she would question her mother's frustrating adherence to the functional instead of the aesthetic. Then, in time, she herself had learned not to judge appearances and be fooled by her eyes; yet there remained a feeling of an unfinished business to the whole affair. . .

Today she was going to make peace once and forever; and close that episode of her life. She carefully removed a flower from its pot, making sure the roots were intact and undamaged, placed it gently into the hole she dug up for it in the ground, and scooped up the fresh earth with her bare hands to secure the lovely brown-eyed Susan in its new home.

She did this for the remaining flowers, spacing all twelve of them to form a half moon at the foot of the white marble headstone. Here her brown-eyed Susans would thrive and blossom; and their roots would traverse down into the depths of the earth to draw strength from that source of inspiration which was her life's greatest love and her toughest mentor.

A tear found its way down her cheek unto the velvety brown core of a flower and was absorbed immediately.

Now the communion was complete.

She looked one last time at her name-sake flowers. The joy and pain brought by them had caused her a life time of soul searching to make something right. Until now she'd not known what that something was, but at this moment she felt the kind of inner peace that she'd been searching for.

She knew she'd done the right thing to bring a closure to this childhood event which must have been so significant for her that it stood out among her memories. She'd finally given her mother something that would not wilt and be tossed out like the rootless flowers; but instead they'd grow and continue to impart radiance and pleasure.

She had presented her mother the symbol of her misunderstood, yet eternal love; but this time she was on her own, for there'd be no words of approval or disapproval of her gesture.

She picked up her empty pot and carefully, placed her gardening tools in it; straightened herself up and took three steps backward. Then reverently she bowed and turned around to go home.

When she lifted her head up again and looked straight ahead, she vaguely noticed, further away in the sky, the arc of a magnificent rainbow.

Copyrighted Material ~ Copyright © 1997 All Rights belong to Füsun Atalay