They’d took it as well as a family who had already had war take precious things from them could.
Not well.
Until it became apparent I wasn’t changing my mind.
“The flowers are going to do well this year,” Mom said with a forced cheerfulness that is somehow more penetrating than the naked sadness I know is below it.
I looked at the petals she was gesturing to. They had seemed surely dead only a couple of months ago. They were coming back to life, as they did every season.
I hated flowers for that simple reason. Because for them, death was never final.
“They will. You’ll beat Agnes Wolf by a mile,” I replied with that same forced cheer I was learning to despise.
It had become constant as my flight approached. As had benign conversations about roses, cakes, and neighbors who didn’t take care of their yards. Any subject was safe, as long as it wasn’t about Afghanistan.
We were taking one last walk through our sprawling garden, that was, apart from us kids, my mother’s pride and joy.
She gave up her job as soon as she had my brother. And though the feminist in me bristled slightly at her having to give up her career to have her children, it was clear where her joy lay.
Raising us.
Teaching us good Southern manners.
Making us fresh bread that was still warm when we arrived home from school. Jam too.
Making every single sports game, every parent-teacher conference, being the head of the PTA, and most of all, making our home beautiful, warm and welcoming.
Despite her title as a ‘stay at home mom,’ she was never idle, as our ever-changing home décor and immaculate garden communicated.
Now that her children were grown, with jobs, finances, and wars to keep them busy, she volunteered as well as did the baking for ‘Cups and Cakes’ the café on Main Street which won a serious bidding war for her services.
Her cookie recipe was sought after in town.
The secret ingredient? Cayenne pepper.
You didn’t hear it from me.
Mom stopped immediately in front of a bunch of hydrangeas.
My favorite.
She clicked her tongue, regarding them for a long moment before springing forward to pluck out ones with the browning petals.
That always made me sad.
I identified with those browning and withering petals most of all.
“Why are you doing this?” she whispered as they fluttered to the ground without ceremony.
Her voice was broken.
Not surprising, since it was the first she’d spoken of it since I’d told her and the rest of my family where I was going and when.
I didn’t have an answer for her.
At least not a real one.
I didn’t even have an answer for myself.
There was no reason why I was doing this.
Just like there was no reason for me not to. Not even a mother that adored me, that grew hydrangeas because she knew they were my favorite, or a dad that sneaked a joint with me every now and then because he knew oblivion was required when life got too loud. Or even for a sister that slept holding my hand for a month after we got the news. Or a brother that didn’t do anything specific, but did everything with his presence and borderline sexist jokes.
No, my loving and concerned family was not a reason to stay.
If anything, they were reasons to leave.
Not that I was going to tell my doting, cookie baking mother this.
I grabbed her hand, it was warm, soft and I knew smelled like lemongrass, a hand cream she’d used since forever.
“I’m going because I need to,” I told her. “Because other people need me to. Because I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t go.”
She eyed me with irises that mirrored my own and a penetrating gaze I couldn’t escape from. “No, you can’t live with yourself without him, that’s why you’re going.”
I flinched, because up until now, my family had been treating me with kid gloves, like I was a cracked piece of antique glass, ready to shatter if handled incorrectly.
Which was ridiculous of course.
I was already shattered.
No longer fragile.
“You loved him, I know that,” Mom said. “Everyone knows it. Everyone saw it. Felt it. What you had was special. And it’s a tragedy of God that you lost it before you even got to live it. But that doesn’t mean you have to go around chasing more tragedy. It’s not gonna change it. It’s not gonna make it better.”
I let go of her hand. “But it’s not gonna make it worse either. And that’s what’s most important.”
Tears fell from my mother’s eyes. “You can’t let this take you away from us.”
I didn’t feel those tears, I’d already switched off in a way that did me well for years after this. Funny I got my biggest and most important instrument in war from one of the safest places in my history.