What’s Left

My mother always wore marigolds in her hair. In her garden, they were tucked between the tulips and the lilies. Both of which are considered superior flowers, but still she always chose the marigolds.

My brother never brought our mother flowers, but still he was her pride and joy. He could do no wrong. She was so blinded by her love for him, when he began to spiral she wouldn’t, no, couldn’t see it. She would just pick her marigolds, gently place them in her hair, and laugh. “You’ve got to let him live the way he wants.” She’d tell me.

They always tell you about drugs in school, but rarely so we hear about the family in the aftermath. The rubble left behind. The aftermath is a dull and lifeless void. It is completely empty, and yet we suffocate. With every move he makes, we hold our breath. We wait for him to disappear for months on end, to make up every weak excuse for not showing up. We are all suffocating, yet she still finds time to pick her marigolds.

She gave him all the money she could, she offered him employment, encouragement, and all of her love in vein. She did his homework for goodness sakes, and anything else to make his life easier. Easier wasn’t what he needed. What he needed was for her to stop being selfish. Pack his things and get him away from the abusive father he didn’t choose. She needed to protect him from seeing his mother thrown across the room by a drunk man he’s supposed to love. But she didn’t. She had time for her marigolds, but not to save her son.

I was always a nuisance. I took her youth and her bright future. It’s because of my existence that she never became a doctor. She never moved to Colorado. She never did anything she dreamed. My brother could do no wrong. Did I tell you about Christmas? Probably not. Each year my family has a Pollyanna. We put all of our names into a bowl on thanksgiving and pick out the name of another family member to buy a Christmas gift for. He didn’t show up for thanksgiving, for this reason or that, so we picked a name for him.

On Christmas day we waited at my grandmothers house for what felt like hours. We all knew he wasn’t going to show up, heck, I could have told you that when I woke up. All of us knew but her. She left and went to the store and wrapped a hasty gift covered in tears with a tag reading her pride and joy’s name. We never spoke of it, because what’s the point, really? This is just once of a hundred times. Every single time we all knew. All of us but my marigold mother.

Five years later and now none of us have seen him in almost a year. Truthfully, we are lucky to get a response even through text. He quit his job and lives in a shitty apartment with shitty neighbors in a shifty town, with shitty friends and an even shittier smattering of lies wherever possible. He won’t show up. Not even for my grandfathers passing. He knows what grandpop meant to our family, to our marigold wearing mother, to my precious grandmother, and to me. He was my father as far as I understand fathers. My mother was 16 when I came to exist so my grandparents were my parents. My brother, however, seems to no longer be my brother, by his own accord. When is enough enough? I am not a quitter, but when does it start to count that he hurts my heart so much? Why doesn’t he care that he tears our family apart? What’s happened to my first best friend, my little buddy, my brother? Where did he go? Who or what is this shell of darkness he’s left behind?

I’ve seen the way marigolds can light up her face, but I’ve finally also begun to see the darkness behind her light. Maybe she does know. Maybe she’s just hoping and waiting for the one time he starts to care back.

He will always be her favorite, I will always be the youth sucking nuisance, and she will always pick marigolds to put in her hair.