Broken Flower (Early Spring 1)

. I suppose there are so many reasons, even after I listened to Ian and wrote my story, that I still think of my life as being a dream. Smiles and laughter, grimaces and tears swirl about in my memory like ingredients tossed into a blender. It's hard sometimes to separate the happy times from the sad. So often after I had left the March Mansion, I would start to laugh about something Ian and I did or Mama and I did, or Daddy and I and Mama and Ian had done tooether, and then I would stop suddenly, and for reasons I couldn't explain, begin to sob.

I'd have a good cry and then I would stop, take a deep breath, and go on doing whatever it was I was doing, just as if I had closed the cover of a photo album, cried over a lost loved one, and put the pictures back in some desk drawer. That album is tied with four ribbons, each one representing a different good- bye.

Actually, that's what I remember most clearly, the good-byes. That's what haunts me now and will haunt me forever, because what I did learn, what I can tell Ian with that same certainty that characterizes all the things he told me and tells me, is that good-byes were times when I became most like Grandmother Emma, when I saw what was real and what was true and when I knew I could no longer be a child because I couldn't pretend or deny or ignore any of it.

"Nothing," Grandmother Emma once told me, will make you grow up faster than facing reality, than walking right up to it and putting your nose against it. It's like going uphill and losing the grip on your mother's hand and your father's hand. You start to fall back, finding yourself all alone. You have no choice but to become a woman, to climb the rest of the way on your own. There will be no more medicine to slow it down, no more fairy tales to help you avoid what's hard or ugly or painful.

"But don't be afraid of it," she said. "Embrace it and give yourself a name. You had one name as a child. Now you have another."

I was too young to understand, but after my good-byes. I began the journey toward that

understanding, the journey that has taken me here.

My first good-bye was good-bye to Daddy. When I left Grandmother Emma and Mr. Ganz at the hospital. I felt numb. Ian would tell me I had shut down and frozen just like some overloaded computer. Something or someone would have to unplug me and then plug me in to start me over.

I wasn't looking forward to arriving and facing Daddy and Kimberly so I was happy to learn that he had been summoned to Mr. Ganz's office. Nancy told me it was a meeting Daddy had asked for himself almost the moment Grandmother Emma had left in the ambulance. He had called Mr. Ganz from the hospital that day, apparently, and set everything in motion, only the direction it took was a surprise even to him, maybe especially to him.

I was upstairs in my room working on another letter to Ian when Daddy and Kimberly returned. I didn't hear them come in, but not long afterward. Kimberly came to my room to tell me my father wanted to see me in my grandmother's office. I followed her downstairs.

Daddy looked so awkward and out of place sitting behind Grandmother Emma's desk in his wheelchair that I almost smiled. Because of the way the large desk wrapped around him, he looked like a child pretending to be an adult. He fumbled papers and documents as if he really didn't know where anything belonged or what anything meant. It was the first time I could remember him being so nervous, too. He was fidgeting while he waited for me to enter and take my seat. Kimberly stood awkwardly, too, not sure if she should sit on the settee, stand beside him, or just leave.

"Well, Jordan," Daddy began, sitting back and trying to look relaxed, "it seems you've already visited your grandmother and spoken with Mr. Ganz in the hospital."

I nodded and then in almost a whisper, said, "Yes."

Daddy glanced at Kimberly and then he leaned forward to put his arms on the desk. "Once again, even in her feeble condition, in fact, your

Grandmother has taken the reins of control here. I must admit she had to have done a good deal of preparation, anticipating the day when something serious might happen to her. I suppose I have to. . .we have to respect her for that.

"My mother," he said for Kimberly's benefit more than for mine, "is rarely, if ever, taken by surprise, even by her own body."

"Not much excitement and fun in that," Kimberly said.

Daddy grunted and looked down at the desk. "You know," he continued, "that your grandmother would like you to live with your great-aunt Francis. She's right to assume I have too much against me right now to be a good father. Between my therapy and all this paraphernalia I have to contend with and develop," he said, waving his arms as if there were wires and cranes everywhere, "I will be quite involved and not have as much time for you as I should."

When did he ever? I wondered, but dared not ask.

"The way your grandmother has constructed the finances kind of puts me in a box, too, Jordan. She's been a busy little bee, arranging all sorts of trusts and devices to funnel the funds we all need and there are preconditions for almost everything. My mind is still spinning after my session with her attorney, and I know something about business. I can't imagine what someone else would do," he added, looking again at Kimberly.

All Daddy knew about business was how to fail at it, I thought, but again, slipped those words under my tongue.

"The truth is. I've given her plan a great deal of thought and I have to agree for now, at least, it makes sense. You'll

attend a good school, have plenty of space at the farmhouse, be of some help to your greataunt, who has no one but herself, and you'll have all the support you need financially. All of your medical needs are arranged as well, and your great-aunt has been filled in about all of that."

"Did Mr. Ganz say anything about Ian?" I asked quickly.

Daddy stared at me a moment and then shook his head. "Ian is in for a long haul. He did a very bad thing and people have to be certain that he would never do anything like that again. I know you admire your brother very much, but between what he was doing with you and what he did to Miss Harper, he falls somewhere between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."

"Who are they?"

"You'll find out yourself. Maybe," he said. 'Now. Kimberly and I have discussed all this already and we've decided we would come visit you regularly. You know exactly where Great-aunt Francis lives, right?"

"Not really."

"Well, she's on that farm my father found for her years ago. She has someone who maintains everything for her, a black guy slightly younger than her. He lives with his own family on the property, his daughter and her daughter, a girl five years or so older than vou. I think. In short, you'll be well cared for there and have lots of company.

"Believe me," Daddy said, suddenly full of anger and pain, "if I weren't sitting here in this wheelchair, none of this would be happening. I'd challenge everything your grandmother's arranged and I'd take control of this family as I should have years ago," he declared, slapping the desk. His eyes did look full of frustration, and even, for a short moment, flooding with tears.