PART 12 — We Planted Marigolds Where Lily Chose to Grow
Dad arrived on Saturday carrying a small garden spade and a bag of soil. Diane came with him because Lily had invited her, though Lily told me beforehand that she wanted everyone to work outside. Owen had cleared a narrow bed beside our front walk. The marigolds had grown from the seeds Lily collected at Maple Street, and their roots were ready for open ground.
Lily assigned jobs. Dad loosened the soil, Diane mixed in compost, and Owen carried water. I helped Lily remove each plant from its pot. She handled the stems gently, remembering how my mother had once told her to hold a plant by the leaves if she had to touch it at all.
We worked slowly because Lily wanted to choose the position of every flower. Dad followed her directions without improving the design. Diane asked before moving a pot. When Lily decided the tallest plant belonged nearest the porch, we lifted it together. Nothing about the afternoon asked Lily to pretend her birthday had been different.
Afterward, we washed our hands at the outdoor faucet. Dad noticed the yellow frosting stains on the apron Lily had chosen for gardening. It was the same apron she wore when we baked cupcakes after the ruined party. He asked whether she still liked yellow cake. Lily said she did, but next year she wanted strawberry.
“Strawberry sounds good,” he said. He did not offer to host or buy it. Lily looked at me, then asked whether Grandpa could come to that party if it was at our house. I told her she could decide closer to the day. Dad said that was fair. Diane agreed, though I saw the effort it took her to let the answer remain open.
We ate sandwiches on the porch while Max and Ella arrived to pick up Diane. Ella examined the flower bed and told Lily the plants would need room to spread. The girls made plans to meet at the art fair the following month. Max helped Owen carry the empty soil bags to the garage. For an hour, everyone had something ordinary to do.
When Dad and Diane left, Lily stood beside the marigolds. “They’re different from Grandma’s,” she said. I told her plants change when they grow in a new place. She considered that, then asked whether we could add a photograph of the flower bed to the album she kept in her room. I took one with her standing beside it.
That evening, we placed the photograph near the picture of my mother on the old porch. Lily wrote the date beneath it. She did not call one garden better than the other. I watched her close the album and put it back on the shelf, where she could reach it whenever she wanted.
A few weeks later, I drove past Maple Street on my way to a client meeting. The porch railing was green again. The buyers had planted flowers along the fence, leaving the marigold near the old gravel strip. I did not stop. They were making a home there, and I was glad the house was being used rather than argued over.
Dad continued coming to soccer games. He learned to ask Lily about the plays she wanted to discuss instead of giving her a running commentary on what she should have done. Sometimes she invited him for lunch afterward. Sometimes she wanted to go home with us. He accepted both answers without turning either into a measure of forgiveness.
Diane and I never became close. We could arrange visits for Ella and Lily, talk about school events, and disagree without asking children to carry our opinions. She kept her salon at its rented workspace. At one art fair, she stood beside me while the girls looked at drawings and said she was pleased they had stayed friends.
I told her I was too. We watched Lily and Ella compare sketches near the window. Diane did not return to her explanation about feeling like a guest at Maple Street. I did not reopen it. We both knew the feeling had been real and the way she treated Lily had been wrong. We could hold those facts without asking the girls to discuss them.
The property sale gave me money to repay the loan I had used to buy the house and to rebuild savings I had spent carrying it. It did not make the birthday worthwhile or turn the sale into a victory over Dad. The house had served the purpose I bought it for: he lived there while he needed it. Then circumstances changed, and we made a new plan.
One afternoon, Dad came over to help Owen fix a loose step on our porch. Lily brought them lemonade and stood against the old pantry door afterward. Dad took a pencil from the little cup we kept beside it. She made sure her heels touched the floor before he marked the next line.
The new mark was only a little above the last one. Dad wrote the date and handed the pencil to her. Lily studied the distance between them. “I thought I grew more,” she said. Dad smiled. “Some changes don’t show up on a door,” he answered. She looked at him, then at the flowers visible through the window.
I liked the answer because he did not ask her to say she had changed toward him. He had spent the year learning to notice what she offered freely. She had spent it learning she could love her grandfather, remember what he did, and decide how much time she wanted with him now.
When the step was secure, Dad and Owen went inside to put away the tools. Lily asked me to walk with her down the front path. The marigolds had begun to flower. She showed me which ones she and Ella had planted closest together, then picked up a fallen petal and carried it back toward the house.
At the door, she paused beside the marks Grandpa had made. She was holding the petal in one hand and her house key in the other. I opened the door for her, and she went inside to find a page for the album. I followed, leaving the flowers to grow where she had chosen to plant them.
THE END!
Disclaimer: Our stories are inspired by real-life events but are carefully rewritten for entertainment. Any resemblance to actual people or situations is purely coincidental.
