Mama's Marigolds

When Roger was in the garden with mama, he was in charge of planting the tomatoes and sweet peas. But mom never let him plant the Marigolds until Roger turned twelve.

Spending time in the Garden was just about the only thing she wanted to do on Sundays, except for attending the Baptist church that her mother before her had taken her to since she was a girl. The family had inhabited the same seats in church for over fifty years, and Roger thought that his mother might drop dead if they ever missed more than three Sundays in a year.

Roger was almost always the youngest at the chapel, and sometimes the old women in the chapel would give him candies - it was his favorite part about being at the church, except for how happy it seemed to make mama.

After 10:00 am service had ended, mama would spend a couple of hours in the garden with Roger, while he named the ants and the caterpillars that crawled around the soil.

The only time that mama let Roger plant the Marigolds was also the first time that the only time that she planted the Marigolds only two weeks after the last snowfall

…

The Marigolds were showing signs of bursting open soon when Roger met his Uncle Richard for the second time in his life.

Uncle Richard had come to town from Minnesota, and he opened the door without knocking. Roger greeted him hesitantly, not recognizing his leather face or bushy beard. Mama was sitting on the flamingo-colored sofa in the living room with the TV off when he marched into the house He kicked off his worn boots and gave Roger a kind smile on his way to give mama an emotional hug while she sat on the couch. After letting mama go, Uncle Richard reached a welcoming arm out to Roger, who still wasn’t exactly sure who this almost-stranger was. Roger looked at mama for assurance, but when his mother gave him a small, sad smile, he leaned in and allowed himself to be swallowed by Richard’s embrace.

There was a pitcher of tea on the coffee table, the one that mama only used when special guests were over.

“Roger, you remember your Uncle Richard?”

Roger neither nodded nor shook his head, and Uncle Richard gave him a warm chuckle.

“Last time I saw you, you was about this high.” Uncle Richard dropped his hand almost to his knees, and Roger offered a smile. In reality, he did remember Richard by the smell he brought with him- it was an earthy fragrance, but unlike the one that he would remember his days in the garden by.

“Hi Uncle Richard.”

Uncle Richard stood by the TV with his arms crossed, and he chatted with mama for a while. Although they spoke of things that didn’t sound all that sad to Roger, the tone in their voices made Roger wonder about the occasion of Richard’s sudden return to Colorado. After some time, mama cleared her throat and spoke in an uncharacteristically quiet voice.

“Richie, would you go refill the pitcher? There’s more tea in the refrigerator.”

Uncle Richard smiled kindly, first at mom and then at Roger, and then walked slowly out of the living room.

“Take your time, brother. We’ll be here.”

Roger now realized that something was wrong, and that he was about to hear something that he wouldn’t want to.

“Roger, would you come give your mother some company on the couch?”

Roger slowly moved towards mother and sat down close to her so that his knee was touching her thigh.

“Your Uncle Richard is a wonderful man. Been my favorite sibling since I could walk, and you know how big my family is.”

Roger nodded his head slowly.

“How do you think you’d like Minnesota? You went once when you were tiny, you hardly knew how to speak yet.”

“I like it here mama.”

“I know you do. I was talking with your Uncle Richie, and we thought it might be a good idea if you spent some time out there with him. Lots of trees, and land, and plenty of pretty girls out there. It’s a wonderful place for a boy your age."

…

Mama was right - there were trees and beautiful girls. Uncle Richard didn’t have a garden like mama’s, but he had a lot of space to play, and a couple of hound dogs that would fetch the stick even when Roger threw it far into the pond behind his uncle’s home. Roger even made some friends and was starting to enjoy his time in school for the first time in his life.

It wasn’t long after school started in the fall that he got the news.

It came in the morning - somehow this was the way that Roger imagined it happening

“I, uh, have some news for you. Just told Richie last night. I don’t really know what to say, son. Your mom was my little sis, but I looked up to her when I was a man just as much as when I was a boy.”

Roger bit the side of his cheeks, just like he did when he heard some rough news or tried to stick up for himself at school.

…

He left Uncle Richard’s in the middle of the night.

Roger had never touched a bottle of liquor before. Pastor John’s sermons had imprinted a handful of things on Roger’s mind, and although he didn’t care much for Sunday service, he had tried to follow the statues he remembered. His mother never took a sip of alcohol in her entire life, except the times she took Communion at the church, but from conversations that mama had with the other ladies at church, Roger understood that his father would not have been able to say the same. Roger had heard Pastor John speak of the quick solution that booze offered some people, and so when he spotted a bottle of brandy by a man sleeping near the liquor store that was on the way to his high school, he quietly grabbed the bottle by the neck and slipped the man a crumpled ten-dollar bill from his pocket.

The first sip that Roger took from the bottle was followed by a larger swig. Roger tucked it back in his backpack that he kept slung over his left shoulder as he walked down the road that led him to the tracks past downtown St. Cloud. He waited a couple of hundred feet from the station, and eventually, two lights began to become more intense. He wasn’t sure which way was East or West, or North or South, but Roger took another swig of the bottle and stood up from the edge of the rails.

A shadowy figure hopped down from one of the carriages and the locomotive remained still for what felt like an hour. When he jumped back in, the train started rolling once again against the black sky. By the time it had reached Roger’s spot along the side of the tracks, it was still moving at a pace where he thought he could board the moving vehicle. He gave it a go, and surprised himself with his strength, pulling himself onto the train on the first try.

The train’s speed picked up, and Roger found a dark corner where he propped his against the steel wall and laid his head.

..

Four years passed, all of them unlike any that Roger had experienced before. He had found work on a ranch in Nebraska, where he worked twelve-hour days and was paid with a room and food on his plate most evenings. Roger missed mama every day, and even missed his Uncle Richard most days. But every time that he considered returning home to Uncle Richard, he remembered the one time that he got caught playing sword-fight with his best friend with some sticks by the pond. Uncle Richard never hit him, but his anger flared up in a way that mama’s never had. Roger had felt ashamed, but he especially remembered that evening, when he saw his Uncle Richard for the first and only time, with all lights but the reading lamp extinguished for the night. Roger wasn’t sure that he had caused the tears, but the sadness that he experienced that evening was enough to keep him from finding his way back to Minnesota.

Drinking remained a part of Roger’s life at his time on the ranch; the first time that Mr. Herbert caught him stealing from the liquor cabinet wasn’t met with a beating or even any harsh words. Instead, Mr. Herbert had smiled and said that the bottle was a man’s only true friend. After that, Mr. Herbert kept a little corner of the cabinet stocked with whiskey just for Roger.

Four years of hard work were tiring, and Roger learned a lot about physical and mental suffering from the work itself, but it was something different that pierced Roger’s mind and caused him to pack his bags quietly one night and sneak his way down the stairs. Once he silently opened and closed the back door, he made his way towards the closest cluster of lights he could see. The train tracks were the only time that Roger had felt like he was moving away from pain, and they were the comfort that he took on that chilly spring night.

…

Sometime early in the morning while Roger was still asleep, he was yanked to his feet by a man who was at least twice his size.

He expected to be thrown off the train in some sort of violent motion, but instead, the man brushed off the front of his filthy shirt, and spoke with a soft, gravelly voice, “This is your stop, son. You gotta get off.”

Roger didn’t argue - he leaped off of the platform and landed with both of his callused feet onto the rocks below. The burly man tossed him his bag and gave him a nod that confused Roger.

The sky was platinum, and Roger couldn’t see any cars moving along the road that ran parallel with the tracks. Roger hardly had any idea where he had landed, but he guessed he must be somewhere a little further west from the white mountain caps that rose above the red brick buildings. He made his way towards the mountain, until something he noticed on the left side of the road caused him to stop dead in his tracks. Roger blinked a couple of times to make sure that he wasn’t still in a deep sleep on the train he had boarded the night before. The church that mama had taken him to nearly every Sunday for twelve years was standing by the edge of the street.

Roger closed his eyes and tried to remember the way back to his mama’s home, but he had tried hard to block out his childhood to avoid the inevitable pain that it brought. He kept walking along the road, and then took a left at an old diner that he thought he remembered mama taking him to many years ago.

After about a half-mile from the diner, Roger smiled and then cried. The old white street sign that had once meant he was close to mama’s cooking stood in a patch of almost-green grass. Now, rust had covered enough of the sign where the bold letters that spelled out “WOODLAND ST” were difficult to read.

His feet took him further down the block, and the old brick house stood proudly among the newer white houses that surrounded it.

Roger reached the wooden gate in front of his old home and hesitated for a moment before unhooking the latch and pushing it open.

There in front of the house was a garden full of rich colors. Roger scanned the assortment and felt a tear start to form in his eye before wiping it away before it found a path down his stubbly cheek.

In the middle of the garden were mama’s favorites. Some of the petals were still a little bit pale, but the gold and crimson colors meant that the marigolds were almost ready for the summer.