The corners of Lily Davis’ mouth turned with a smile as she placed heirloom dinner plates on the table one by one. A white eyelet tablecloth lay atop a deep polished oak table she bought at the turn of the twentieth century, seven years ago. Sunlight peaked above yellow wheat fields and prismed through leaded crystal wine glasses waiting to be filled. She placed three forks, two spoons, and two knives in exact formations, just as she did the week before. Morning thoughts flowered her mind. Music illuminated the room with Bach and Vivaldi.
White cumulus clouds puffed ever larger through an imposing oriel. Brilliant bay windows revealed a grandiose English elm with her horse and buggy tied to a post nearby. The branches arched with gentility, leaves flickered in the breeze. When she opened a window, a heated sky swept in. Important guests would come today and be impressed, dazzled; no, overwhelmed by her perfect placements. Each person carefully thought out, their position, stature, availability–kings and queens, presidents, national leaders, scientists, Nobel laureates, and Pulitzer winners. They would all be astonished by the table and her daughter.
Seven Italian sculptured vases aligned down the middle of the twenty-five-foot table, six equaled in height with the center vase seven inches taller. Each vase, a millennial old, redolent of life, held separate but equal beautiful flowers. Seven freshly cut chrysanthemums draped yellow orbs over the edge of the first vase, as stems seemingly grabbing tightly to one another, as her daughter once held her. Each golden globule chaste in grace, just as golden hair once flowed down the young girl’s neck. But reality rarely brought perfect gold: her daughter’s tousled hair, a fragile heart, and sunken eyes would never leave. Lily trimmed the tarnished, imperfect, and damaged sepals, imaginary wounds.
The next vase in sequence held seven purple orchids. Three perfect petals expanding within every flower, stretching, reaching for fresh light. Lily opened the windows wider as the sun warmed her face and the orchids. The petals strained to touch the sunlight just as her arms strained to hold love. Seven hummingbirds hovered outside the window. Their wings fluttered near the feeder, with beaks yearning for nectar.
Seven peony flowers grasped for freshness inside their crystalline vase—healing powers melding throughout the fragrant petals, curative within. Her daughter forever reached for them in her bed. Lily’s fingers touched the rim of each peony petal, releasing salutary aromas covering a sickly demise.
Seven tulips stood tall, red as blood, red as life, as death, with black ovaries weeping through the bottom, bleeding black to the base. Petals stretched straight up, the lips kissing death.
Each of the seven violas had but five petals, heart-shaped, asking for absolution. Each of her nightmares brought hope for exculpation. Ignorance of disease brought submission.
The end vase held Lily’s favorite, seven forget-me-nots, with soft colored petals to be worn by lovers and mothers for their children’s love. An everlasting love. Lily would never forget her young child’s face, the voice, the smile, the capitulation to death. Her daughter promised forgiveness. Dark clouds interjected, stealing warmth, stealing life. Above the house, distant thunder rolled like boulders inside barrels. Clouds, gray with ice, smudged the blue sky, hiding the sun’s grandeur. Shivering briskness pierced the window panes. A crack in the wooden floor streaked toward the hallway. Lily caught her unsteadiness as lightning bolted through the heavens. With each step, the crack widened. She followed as the gap turned toward her daughter’s bedroom. For the first time, it snuck under the threshold. Thirty-four days had passed since the door had been opened. This time, Lily must enter.
Her hand pushed the door forward. Bright wallpaper covered the walls with a manifest of tiny flowers, her daughter’s favorite. Each night her daughter would lay her hands across the flowers and dream of petals brushing her face, but today, the paper weakened.
Large bubbles appeared as if someone on the other side was pressing, separating the paper from the wall, separating life from death. A tapping came from behind the paper, a cadence equal to a metronome keeping endless time.
Outside, the wind surged, a tree with skeletal limbs rhythmically rapped the side of the house. A hole appeared through a gray cloud, releasing sunlight through the window onto the wallpaper. An aimless pattern of a thousand repetitions of flowers shifted to an image of a child’s head.
As smooth as a frozen lake, bed covers lay flat over an empty bed, but the pillow had sunk in the center. Lily fluffed the pillow. Her hand evened the wrinkles away, only to sink again.
A grackle lit on the window sill with a tall shadow silhouetting across the wall. In the corner, wallpaper curled. Lilly knelt and pushed the paper against the wall. A pungent smell seeped from below, an odor of festering death.
Her daughter’s breaths were deep and grasping for days. The sound, the never-ending repetition crawled through the house until the shallow breaths came. Those promised the end.
A noise from outside the bedroom startled her. Someone in the dining room clinked glasses. Below her feet, the crack in the floor closed. Frigid air rushed through the open window. Hummingbirds swarmed the dining room. Each bird charged toward the large center vase, their heads smashed into the glass. Six birds lay motionless on the table with a single escaping out the window, disappearing forever into the sky. Pulling the window closed, she entrapped her life inside.
Lily turned the center vase, the tallest, slightly. It held seven amaryllis flowers. She tried to straighten the stems, but they were too long, bending from the burden of life. Gravity pulled on the flowers. Gravity pulled Lily’s daughter to her grave. Lovely Amaryllis was born with cystic fibrosis and never left her room for seven short years. Each breath struggled through damaged lungs. Her mother promised meetings of people, important people; kings and queens, presidents, national leaders, scientists, Nobel laureates, and Pulitzer winners, but they were doomed. No one visited Amaryllis except her doctor. He gave no hope.
Heaven and hell live inside amaryllis flowers with bright white petals streaked with rich red veins. The child’s red arteries streamed through cold translucent skin. Amaryllis’ eyes were sunken and bloodshot. Gravity pulled her head deeper into the pillow. Her shallow breaths begged for air. Flowers do not breathe, and lovely Amaryllis does no more.
