Broken Flower (Early Spring 1)

"Go brush your teeth and go to sleep," she said, taking the book and putting it back on my desk with the other books. "Don't forget now. As soon as you wake up, begin your chores."

After she left. I walked to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth. I was moving in a daze, but I did everything I had to do, changed into my pajamas, and crawled under the blanket on my big bed. The house was very quiet. I had gotten used to some of the creaks and groans I used to hear on the other side, in my room. They made me feel secure somehow. The stillness on this side made me nervous and fidgety. I imagined that because Grandmother Emma slept on this side of the house, the house didn't dare make a sound.

Before I fell asleep again. I thought about all the things Grandmother Emma had said about Daddy. I knew depressed meant feeling sad. He didn't have us and he didn't have Mama with him in the hospital and he had learned he wouldn't walk and had to be in a wheelchair. I felt terrible for him and thought about the clip-clop of his cowboy boots when he walked down the hallway. He wouldn't want to wear them anymore, or any shoes for that matter. Why wear them if he couldn't stand up?

Mama will surely feel sorry for him, too, when she wakes up from her coma. I thought. She'll forgive him and she'll help him. That was why it was so important now, so much more important, that she did awaken. As soon as she did, she was sure to go to him.

I thought about her silence, too. Wherever she was, we weren't there. No one was talking to her. I was afraid she would feel we deserted her, forgot about her already. It was very important for Ian and me to go see her. I hoped he had a way to do it, but I couldn't imagine how. He couldn't drive and Felix wouldn't drive us.

Ian will think of something. I told myself. He's sitting in his room right now planning it out like one of his projects.

That thought and imagining Mama waking up and seeing us and smiling was what helped me feel secure enough to close my eyes and fall asleep in a room that had become more like a prison cell than anything else. I had to stay here and do schoolwork. I had to do my chores. I could be locked up in it, and most of all, no one I loved could come to me in it.

Maybe tomorrow, I thought. Maybe tomorrow will be better. It wasn't.

I didn't wake up early enough for Miss Harper, who was beside my bed, shaking me and yelling at me.

"You should have been up, washed, and dressed, all your chores completed by now. If it were a school day, you'd be in your classroom. We want to keep the same hours."

I blinked rapidly and then scrubbed my cheeks with my palms.

Impatient, she reached down, seized my right arm at the elbow, and nearly pulled it out of my shoulder tugging me into a sitting position.

"Out of bed!" she screamed. "I'll give you exactly ten minutes to complete your morning chores."

She walked out of the room and closed the door behind her. When I looked at the clock. I saw it was not quite seven A.M. Even Grandmother Emma wasn't usually up and dressed and down to breakfast as early as this. I thought. Did Miss Harper wake her, too?

Miss Harper returned to my bedroom and looked at my bed. She shook her head.

"Not much improvement over yesterday," she said. "When I was your age. I was helping my mother clean the house. Of course, I wasn't as spoiled. We had to watch our pennies. We couldn't afford a maid every day, and after my father died, we didn't have a maid any day."

"Where is my medicine?'" I asked her. She didn't have it in her hands.

She stared at me with that same cold

expression. My lips began trembling.

"Where is my medicine, please, Miss Harper," she replied.

"Where is my medicine, please, Miss Harper?" I parroted.

She looked at me as if she was still deciding on whether I deserved it or not. "You'll get it after you clean up the bathroom."

"It's clean," I said.

She went in and looked at everything. I had folded up my towel neatly.

"Wash out the sink," she ordered. "You spit your toothpaste in it and it looks disgusting."

I did it quickly.

"Follow me," she said after that. "You'll come to my room for your medicine every morning." "Why?" I asked, and she spun on me.

"You didn't just ask me why, did you? You didn't start that questioning of your elders again, did you?"

I shook my head, and then I quickly said, "No."

"Good. For a moment I thought you would have to be locked in your room without breakfast."