My Fathers Marigolds

When I was a little girl, my father planted marigolds in our garden. “Daddy?’ I would ask him “Why do you plant those silly orange flowers between our other plants?” “They protect the other plants from the baddies!’ His British accent came in strong, he would smile at me in his usual way, his eye creasing in the corners, his high cheekbones covered in their round lumps. He would laugh and tickle me as I tried to escape him through the tall, wooden garden beds in our yard.

Each section had its own family of vegetables. Carrots, peas, tomatoes. Green beans, lettuce, potatoes. There was a strawberry patch in one and herbs growing in another. Among each of them was a marigold flower or two standing tall protecting the years potential harvest from the slimy slugs that would eat away at each garden until it was all gone.

Year after year he turned the soil, fertilized it, planted the garden and year after year he planted the marigolds.

One night, I had a nightmare, a man came into my room and hovered breathing over me. I cried. He looked like a slug in the darkness. The light coming off his rhinestone cowboy shirt looking like slime. I closed my eyes and tried not to move. I woke the following morning scared and wishing I was with my Daddy. I never told him about my dream, I never told anyone. The slimy slug man had terrified me.

As the years passed, the garden became scarcer with variety but every year, marigolds lined the beds. “Dad they’re ugly and they smell weird.” I would tell him. “Maybe but they do their job.” He would tell me. “They don’t have to smell nice or look pretty like roses. They are soldiers ensuring that this year we don’t end up with half eaten tomatoes and lettuce.” I’d shrug at him. What did he know of soldiers? He’d never been one.

Then there was the year the frost hit. I was 35, and I arrived at the hospital after a phone call. He was in a bed. “These bloody legs of mine just gave out!” he said to me gesturing to his legs under the heavy cotton blanket. Here my once robust and running father whose hands had tilled and turned the soil lay thin and aching in a hospital bed. “They piss me off!” he shouted. “They just won’t bloody well work!”. “You’ll be fine!” I shook my head at him, “the doctors and physio therapists will have you back up in no time!”. “The food’s shit.” He grumbled. “I want a tomato sandwich. One from home. Brown bread, and a bit of mayonnaise and some cheese.” I smiled at him. I’ll take care of the garden while you’re here Dad.” I sneaked a look around and lowered my voice to a whisper “and I’ll bring you some of the good stuff” and I winked.

When I arrived at the garden the following day, there stood the marigolds, stubborn and strong against the cool in the morning air. Ever the soldiers my father had told me about. I pulled off a few suckers from the bottoms of the plants themselves and pulled off some red tomatoes. I went into his house, and gathered the materials needed for his sandwich. Two slices of brown bread, one ripe tomato, mayonnaise, and cheddar cheese. Sliced each to the liking of my father and wrapped it in wax paper. The drive to the hospital was quiet. When I arrived, my father lay in his bed. Solemn. I handed him his sandwich and he ate part of it and seemed the cast the rest aside. “You don’t like it?’ I asked. “Cheese too thick cut for you?” he shook his head and dropped his boney hands into his lap. “They’ve told me I have cancer” he said at last. The next few seconds of silence was deafening. “It’s not treatable. These bloody legs won’t work because its putting pressure on my spine and they say its incurable!” as his sentence rolled out, he grew louder and louder. He was so angry. I stood not knowing what to say to him. I felt small again. I held back every ounce of emotion that dared to roll down my cheeks in that moment. “ok Dad. What do you want me to do? What do you want to do? Name it. Its yours.” “Take me to the garden.” He said, “let me be where I loved to be.” I nodded.

Days before his passing we went to the garden and we sat watching it, smelling the earth, and the tomato vines, smelling the marigolds. My father’s gaze was fixed upon them. “Darling, I have to tell you something that’s plagued me for years.” He started. “When you were a little girl, your mothers partner did something shady. He had threatened to hurt you. So, one night I settled it, I brought him here, and liquored him up. I sent him home black and blue for you. Of course, he never made it home. You were so little I don’t think you’d remember him.” Truth be told I didn’t. “He could never harm you that way.” I blinked; my docile, affectionate, social father had hurt someone? Deliberately? “Daddy I…” I didn’t know what to say. “No filthy slug was going to touch my daughter” he spat.

The day of his funeral as I got ready at his house, I looked out his back window. There among the vegetables stood the marigolds. Short but straight and proud, with their bright yellow and orange tops covered in feathery petals. Round like my fathers cheeks has been when I was a child. Guarding their family of plants from the slugs in the world. I went out to the near empty shed and took the old sheers from their hook on the wall. I found the tallest brightest flower I could and pinned it to my sports jacket. “Thanks Daddy” I whispered, as I took my purse and keys and left to tell him goodbye one last time.