Too Young

It was her favourite flower. I remember all during my childhood the house would be full of them, smell like them. They would be especially plentiful after HE would have one of his bad nights.

He would come home smelling like booze and cigarettes and she would immediately usher us upstairs to go to bed before he could notice we were there. We were lucky, she, however, was not. She would have to go back downstairs to keep him preoccupied or try to sober him up, and it would always end up in a shouting match at the very least. It would be a constant yelling and screaming from him, blaming her for not being able to live that lavish lifestyle he had wanted so badly. As if it was her fault alone that she had gotten pregnant before the end of senior year. As if it were her fault that he had decided not to go to college for welding like he wanted too and get a career like he wanted to. Instead, he now worked in the old smelly chicken factory on the outskirts of town. And we were stuck with an angry father and a mother just trying her best to keep us safe.

That is where the flowers would come into play. Mother would always go out the next morning after dad would have a bad night and buy tons of bouquets of flowers. Usually, she would get all different kinds of them, she liked to keep the variety strong and plentiful. But you could always expect there to be at least 1 bouquet of golden marigolds that would be dispersed throughout the other bouquets. I do not know what it was about the flower, but it always seemed to bring an air of calm back to the house. The smell felt safe and homely. It was always hard to explain. It was always hard to put so much weight behind how a flower made you feel. But that is what it was to us. The yellow and red bleeding into each other was like the sun setting on a hot summers’ night. The circular shape of the flower always reminded me of my mothers’ arms holding me tight after I had had an upsetting day at school, or a bad nightmare, or had fallen off my scooter and scraped my knee for the 80th time. It always made me feel safe, and loved, and cared for. I knew I was home and ok the second I would walk through the house after school and smell the marigolds.

I, also, think that it would give me piece of mind that mother was alright after one of dad’s bad nights. Mother would always stay in her room while us kids got ready for school or work and left for the day. I am not exactly sure why. Maybe because she was trying desperately to cover the bruises he had left on her skin. Maybe she had not gotten any sleep the night before, too scared to close her eyes until he had to get up in the morning for work. Or maybe it was just because she was ashamed of herself for staying in that house. I do not know why she would ever think we could blame her for that. What was she supposed to do? He would not let her work, so she had no references or experience. And she had gotten pregnant before she had even graduated. I am honestly surprised they even let her finish her senior year. How in the world could we ever blame her for not being able to leave? Especially since she would always make sure we were safe from his fists and his anger.

So, it was an unbelievably bad sign when I had walked through the door one day after work and did not see any flowers. Not even a petal. Which was very odd. Mother and he had just had a huge fight the night before and I thought for sure there would be a hundred flowers in the house when I came home that afternoon. The absence of the smell of them made my stomach turn.

My bag dropped to the ground, and I ran up the stairs to my parents’ room as quickly as I could but stopped dead in my tracks once I reached the door. Did I really want to open that door? Did I really want to see what was on the other side of it? I knew I did not really want to, but I knew that I had too. What if mom was on the other side in pain or sick and needed help? With that thought in my head I took a deep breath and opened the door. Eyes closed the whole time as I tried to steel my self to what I would see. I already knew what I would see, I do not know how I knew but I did.

That was a week ago. A week since I had seen my beautiful, happy, mother. A week since I had had to call the cops on my dad. A week since we were a somewhat normal family. A family with secrets, but a family none-the-less.

Now we were just a sad group of kids that had no where else to turn. Each of us holding a red and gold marigold in our hands. Each of us fighting back tears as we dropped the flowers on top of the grey coffin. A sad group of kids that were far too young to lose their mother like this.