Issue date: July 4, 1999

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Wildflowers

by Tracie Amirante

ugust is a month of stale heat and transitions, promising only homework and school, starched jeans and the musty smell of newly old textbooks. In August, Mr. Lotts (the bachelor who lives next door) lets the pears ripen and spoil, right on the tree. They wink in the sunlight, butter

up gold drooping from the branches like plump little Buddhas. Whatever the cheeky squirrels cannot carry away rains to the ground. There, the fruit of summer eases back into the earth under the direction of autumn.

I know all this to be true because I see it, every year, from my bedroom window. My window faces east, framing a patch of sky, Mr. Lotts' pear tree and part of our driveway. If I smash my nose into the screen and twist my head just right, I can see as far as the carefully tilled rectangle of wildflowers that has always been Daddy's pride and Father's pain. The garden is only as wide as a grown man but runs the length of our driveway.

I asked him once, and only once, about this garden. I was 5 years young and lived life close to the earth, ever crusty with dirt. Why let weeds break your back? That was my question.

"I identify with them," Daddy replied. We were kneeling at the edge of the driveway, where the blacktop met his garden. In the glare of the August sun, he glistened with perspiration. He was sweat, soil, soap and some rich reek that my nose was old enough to recognize but too naive to understand. The scent wafted from the crushed aluminum cans and funny-shaped bottles of sage- green glass that littered Daddy's work space. My nostrils burned with the strange smell. "Here," Daddy said. "I can see that you, too, identify with wildflowers." He handed me a hoe that was much too large for my pint-size limbs.

His voice was deeper than usual, and his words ran together, slurred as the sweat that blurred his face. That day, we hoed and hummed together, making the earth our own. He gave me lessons in nature.

"Hazel is the flower of reconciliation," he explained. "And this is heather, which thrives on barren moors."

"What 'bout this one?" I asked, pointing to a cluster of blossoms that billowed like gowns.

"Hearty hollyhocks. For endurance and foresight."

At 13, I do not call him "Daddy" anymore. His name is now always "Father," but the smell is the same. And just like Daddy, Father identifies with wildflowers. Every June, he sows the seeds. In July, he weeds the rows. In August, he waters the parched soil. All this, I know to be true, because I can see it, if I crane my neck just right, nose smashed into my window screen.

It is late now. Dinner grew cold long ago. Mother has fallen asleep on the sofa, Courage to Change tented across her chest.

August is in its sweltering climax; the garden is in full bloom. Father has not come home yet from work. The worry wrinkles on Mother's forehead are visible, even as she sleeps.

Sister and I wander the house like the ghosts of shy mice. We don't know what to do with ourselves, and there are no grown-ups around to tell us one way or the other. We scurry from window to window, fingers crossed, hoping the next pane will frame the scene that is long overdue: a Daddy, a Father, pulling into the driveway quietly. But every window has the same view: a still street, a gaudy garden. The pears on Mr. Lotts' tree bob to and fro in a stale breeze.

Sister looks small and pale, much younger than her five years. "Go to bed," I tell her, hoping that if I put my hands on my hips like this it will make me appear more confident than I am. In the end, it's useless. Now that we have opened our eyes this wide, sleep is the impossible. Instead, we make warm milk and chamomile tea, and play Go Fish at the kitchen table.

The milk is long cold and sour and Sister is beginning to win when we hear it. At first the sound is soft and nearly blends into the murmurs of a suburban summer night. The slow crescendo stirs our curiosity, and we set the cards aside, puzzled. "It could be a train whistle," I say, summoning the best of my grade-school logic in my most adult voice. "Or an ambulance siren."

We tiptoe up the stairs to my bedroom. The sound has nudged Mother to wakefulness; we hear her mouth round with exclamation points before our young eyes can even focus the 3 a.m. darkness enough to see what she sees. We press our noses into the screen and crane our necks. Father is home.

No ambulances. No trains. Just our own tragic hero slumped over the steering wheel of a defeated Chevy. The air is thick with sour sweetness of overripe pears, the reek of exhaust, the stink of burnt rubber, the swan-song whine of a dying engine.

Mother does not bother with a bathrobe. To reach him, she clears away the shards of a shattered windshield. She slaps him, again and again, trying to rouse whatever life is left in him. We cannot hear exactly what they say, but the meaning is clear. Mother is bitter, passionate. Father is stoic and tired, a gruff interjection that shatters Mother's exclamations.

Sister and I are caught in the background like butterflies in a Mason jar. We creep downstairs, to the kitchen, trying to balance age (old enough to be responsible) with

youth (too young to understand). Lying haphazardly on the table is a ring of car keys. They feel cool and silver in my clammy palm. I am 13. Life, liberty and every pursuit of so-called happiness weighs me down. I am not old enough to just burn rubber into an ambiguous sunrise, but too old to close my eyes and roam imaginary highways in the car of my childhood. For this reason, I run only as far as the backyard fence, Sister close behind.

"We can stay up for the sunrise," I tell her.

"Then what will happen?" she asks. I do not answer, not really knowing.

At dawn, Sister and I tiptoe barefoot across the lawn. We pick our way carefully through the rotting pears, knowing the fruit of summer is a lost cause. We head for the wildflower garden.

There, in the pocked soil, we will crouch and smooth away the treads of ignorant tires, sift through glass, metal and blood until the earth is pure again. We will salvage the daisies, heather, wild roses, forget-me-nots and hollyhocks. We will put these flowers in a vase and set it on the end table next to the couch, on which the Father who reeks of alcohol is fast asleep. Sister will ask, "What will happen now, Holly?" and I will notice how amaranthine her eyes are becoming.

I will tell Heather that Daddy will wake up. "When he wakes up," I will say, "the first thing he will see will be his flowers."

Illustration Credit: ALISON SEIFFER for USA WEEKEND