Mother's Roses by J.P. Fassler
I watched the sunset through my sunglasses, wondering
why dawn was a verb, but dusk wasn't. Mom asked me why I was
being so quiet.
I said, "How many words minimum to a precious moment?"
"Smartass," she said. "You know, Johnny, We had a kid
come in the emergency room the other day, about your age. He
had a motorcycle accident. The pelvic bone broke and busted
his kidney."
"Burst," I said.
"Burst his kidney. There's a lot of fluids in the
kidney that aren't supposed to leave there. He was in a lot
of pain when he died."
"I see."
"He was about your age."
"Me too."
"Have you had any pains, nausea?"
"Or tumors? No, mom." I've been in remission for
twelve years and she's still afraid I'll have a relapse.
"This little girl I've been working with through Hospice
is a lot like you. She's got a high tolerance for pain.
She was having bad headaches for a long time and didn't tell
anybody until she had a seizure."
"Would you mind if I turned the radio on?"
She went on to tell me that the girl had a tumor in her
brainstem. She illustrated technical points with hand
gestures over the steering wheel. The tumor was right at her
autonomic nervous system, so they couldn't remove it without
killing her. One day she'll have a seizure and not wake up.
"She's very brave," Mom said. "Like you were."
"I never had it that bad," I said.
"You were too young to remember. They told us you were
going to die."
I lifted up my sunglasses to get a look at the rose.
"This is a very pretty flower," I said. "Much nicer than
those tea roses you used to grow."
"I didn't know you liked flowers," Mom said.
"You never grew any pretty ones."
She stuck her tongue out at me.
We pulled up to a squat whitish house with a screened-
in front porch. Mom said I could stay in the car, but I
opted to go in with my hands in my pockets and the rose in my
teeth. The place smelled like cedar and clean people and
the walls were covered with family pictures and country
crafts, and there was a doily under every knick-knack.
The girl was just a bit younger than myself. Her name
was Meena. Mom introduced me to the family and Meena's
mother gave me a hug. Meena sat lotus-style on the edge of
the couch, her legs tucked into the bell of her Little-House-
on-the-Prairie dress.
Mom took Meena's temperature and blood pressure and
asked her a lot of questions about headaches and dizziness
and motor coordination. I presented her with the flower and
told her it was from Mom. She smelled it, fingered its
petals and purred.
"Thank very much," she said. She invited me to sit down
next to her. As soon as I did she snatched my sunglasses off
and dropped them onto the coffee table. She laughed and
smiled at me, all pink and clean looking, glowing almost with
a soft light, and I got the idea that maybe her blood was
pastel too. Then she told me how much she liked my suit and
asked if I would wear it to her funeral. I told her I didn't
believe in funerals.
"That's a lovely dress," I said.
"Yes it is, thank you," she said.
"I had cancer too."
"I know, your mom told me you were a trooper."
Mom was talking to Meena's parents.
"She exaggerates," I said. "I'm glad you're keeping
your hair. I never lost my hair either."
"Do you like my hair?" she said.
"Yes."
"Would you like to brush it?"
"Well, sure."
She smiled and left to find a brush. Mom asked me where
Meena was going and I told her. Meena's mother said that
that was just darling and told Meena's father to get the
camera. They took two rolls of film of me brushing Meena's
hair, one in black and white and one in color.
As Mom and I were saying our goodbyes, Meena slipped her
rose into the buttonhole of my jacket and seemed very proud
having done so as she smoothed out the lapel.
Mom dropped me off at the dorms. I skipped studying for
my Latin quiz in favor of drinking stale coffee and listening
to T-Bone Walker until I fell asleep on the couch.
Next Friday afternoon I had come back from class to find
my roommate, Yong-Kim, packing his things to spend the weekend at
his parent's house. I told him that there was this girl I'd
like to see and asked since he was kind of going that way
would he please drop me off at her house since it wouldn't
take him more than half an hour out of his way. He said that
was fine, especially since there was a girl involved.
I had a bit of trouble remembering just where her house
was, but we got there and Yong-Kim dropped me off. Nobody was
home. I sat on the porch steps wondering if I'd gotten there
too late and how I was going to get home. I stretched out on
the warm asphalt of the driveway and took a nap in the shadow
of a leafy maple tree.
Meena woke me up, kneeling over me and pulling off my
sunglasses. I told her I'd come to see her. She said she
knew I would. When I asked where she'd been, she told me she
was at the hospital getting shots. She showed me a white
rose my mother gave her and then slipped into my lapel.
I reached up to play with a lock of it her hair. She
quickly kissed my hand and laughed as if she'd done something
sneaky. She asked me why I was lying in the driveway. I
told her that I liked asphalt and that I thought this whole
region should be paved over with nothing but shining blacktop
all the way to the horizon in every direction. She assured
me that I didn't mean that, although I insisted that I had
privileged access to my own mental states.
She helped me up and told me that I was going to stay
for dinner. We sat down on a rocking bench on her porch.
Meena's little sister Leela sat in front of us on an
overturned paint bucket and told us all the clever things she
said in school today. Leela would always close her eyes
while she was saying something she thought was clever.
I put my hand on Meena's forehead. It was cool. I
asked her if she thought maybe her homeostasis was idling a
bit low and had she been having any headaches. She thought
that was funny and told me I act just like my mother. I let
it drop.
"Johnny," Meena said, "will you come look at me when I'm
dead?"
"No," I said.
She looked away. I turned to her and put my hand on her
shoulder. She leaned to me and pressed her face against my
chest.
"It's not as though..."
Meena bit the flower out my lapel and laughed through a
mouthful of rose petals until I was laughing too.
Leela put her hands to her head and said, "Oooo,
you're giving me a headache."
Meena turned and spat the rose petals in Leela's
face. Leela screeched and ran off to tell her mother.
Meena shrugged and laughed. She said, "What are they going
to do, kill me?" I let slip a smile at that. Then she kissed
me, and that seemed funny too.
After dinner we sat in the living room and didn't say
much but she held my hand until my fingers were sweating.
Meena's mother made the couch up with sheets and a blanket so
that I could sleep on it.
Meena woke me the next day saying that she had to go to
the hospital to get radiotherapy treatments and I had to come
with and there would be time enough for sleeping when the
journey was over. She helped me up and gave me orange juice.
I took a shower and put my suit back on.
Meena's parents sat in the front of the car, and we sat
in back. We dropped Leela off at a friend's house.
There was a long wait at the hospital, so Meena and I
sat outside on a bench. I picked a cigarette butt from an
ashtray and gestulated with it using my best ennui, trying to
look French. Meena asked if something was wrong.
"Nothing that would be news to you," I said. I
punctuated that remark by flicking the cigarette butt away.
"Before you go back to college," she said, "I'm going to
give you a lock of my hair. Won't that be nice?"
"What shall I do with it, clone you?"
"You just look at it and remember me."
I grabbed sand from the ashtray and let it pour
through my fingers onto the ground. I said, "All I need is a
handful of dust to remember you by." I picked up a cigarette
and flicked it away.
"And a lock of hair." She smiled.
She made sure I got one. She had a nurse tie one off
with a rubber turnoquet and cut it. I wrapped it in a
handkerchief and put it away.
After Meena's treatment her parents drove me back to the
dorms. Meena was tired, and curled up in the seat to take a
nap with her head next to me. I put my arm around her
shoulder. Once in a while she would stir, and I stroked her
hair to assuage her restlessness. She was beautiful, soft
and beautiful and warm as a muffin in my hands.
A couple days later, Mom called to tell me that Meena
was dead. I told her I wasn't going to the funeral, but I
was there under the stubbornly blue and cloudless sky, and
the birds all sang so sweet, and pink faced old men in
crumpled suits and old ladies in ill-fitting hosiery knew
when to cry and when to be silent and when to bow their heads
and when to eat chicken and laugh.
I spent the weekend at my parents' house. On Sunday
evening after dinner we had the usual hunt for Mom's keys so
she could drive me back to town. She'd left them in the
ignition. It was only about an hour's drive to the dorms,
but Mom wanted to stop and visit one of her Hospice patients
on the way. She cut a white rose from her rose bushes and
had me hold it for her while she drove.
...................... 
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