Marigolds Proper
Pat Dixon
Susan Brown sits with Wednesday afternoon’s mail beside her on the worn sofa.—oh goddammit jesus christ Mrs. B.—no goddammit Mrs. B. goddammit goddammit Mrs. B.—oh christ no no no no—no thanks no thank you no thank you no thank you no thank you no thank you thank you thank you—no thank you—She looks down at the contours of her eight-months-pregnant body and feels tired and thirsty. Rubbing the muscles at the back of her neck, she pads to the tiny under-the-counter refrigerator and gets out the half-empty bottle of her prune juice.
—two-fifteen—Tom’ll be home in an hour and twenty minutes and then I can lie down for an hour or so while he takes care of Tony and does a load of clothes up in the central building—maybe two loads—and then maybe I’ll feel better—and maybe we can all go out for a pizza and some vanilla cones—
She pours herself a second small glass of her juice and looks at the letters on the sofa—the one from Tom’s sister-in-law offering to send back the used baby clothes they had given her two years ago, and the one from the G.I. Bill office saying that the allotments would be increased during the fall semester, and the one she had opened last announcing that Tom’s mother would be arriving from Connecticut on Monday to help run their apartment “during this most difficult and crucial time.”
Susan goes to the rear bedroom and turns the air conditioner’s dial two settings cooler.
—a two-bedroom student apartment—hardly room for the three of us already and now she wants to play the loving granny again after all those years of massive guilt trips and crap and oh god in what a sweet voice she’ll list all of the dozens of things I’m doing wrong and Tom’s doing wrong and Tony’s doing wrong and why don’t I correct Tony and why don’t I teach him to eat properly and hold a fork properly and talk properly and play properly and he got the message right when she gave him that big stuffed blue bunny last spring—that SHE got FREE when she opened a new bank account—and Tony named it “Proper” and now he talks to it and tells Proper what is proper and—un—
Susan catches her breath as “Joey-Jenny” the mystery fetus suddenly begins to kick and push inside her. Then she slowly pads back to the front room.
—better check on Tony—he’s been outside with his old spoon and tractor since we got the mail—probably would like a glass of the new fruit punch—
She opens the heavy door of the ground-level apartment and stops with her hand on the screen. For ten full seconds no words will come.
“Tony!”
Tony looks up at her blankly. He sits in the foot-high grass outside their door, six feet from her. His stainless steel sandbox spoon is clutched in his right fist, and his small red plastic tractor—“trac-toot”—is waiting nearby on the new yellow dirt road which now runs through the right corner of her twelve-foot-long marigold bed.
“Momma’s flowers!” She jerks Tony to his feet, across the sidewalk between the grass and the door, and into the apartment. Gripping his arm, she slams the apartment door. Then she slaps Tony’s face twice, shakes him, and pulls him into the front bedroom next to the living room.
“You stay on your bed till your daddy gets home, mister! You’ve been a—a rotten boy! You—you’ve ruined all of mommy’s flowers. When your daddy gets home, he’ll teach you! You just sit there and think about that!”
She closes Tony’s door loudly and sits heavily down on the worn, stained beige sofa. Her right hand covers her tightly closed eyes.
—just not fair not fair not fair—took two days to dig that flower bed with a trowel and then prepare that rotten hard lumpy yellow-clay Kansas soil and then the planting and all the watering—and even Tony tried to help me—goddammit—it’s not fair it’s not fair it’s never fair—none of it is ever fair—oh god oh god oh god—
She pulls herself to her feet, aware of the muffled sound of a distant tractor coming from behind the living room’s heavy beige drapes and closed windows.
—about goddamn time—goddamn grass here gets almost goddamn butt-high before that goddamn B&G crews gets around to cutting it—they’re all so goddamn stupid and Tom is right—they make sure they cut the goddam main campus grass once a week but they only do the student housing grass four times a year—“whether it needs it or not”—goddamn perverts and morons—as Tom says, “The GOOD news is, if the enemy ever capture them, they’ll never get anything out of ‘em!”
Susan smiles slightly, recalling Tom’s sarcastic tone of voice as she grips the handle of the small refrigerator. Then she freezes as she hears a muffled thumping sound and Tony’s shrill voice coming through his closed door.
“Stop it! Stop it!” he screams.
She runs to his room as best she can with her hips working improperly.
Tony is standing on his bed with the blind fully up, pounding on the glass with both fists.
“Stop it! Don’t cut my mommy’s flowers! Don’t cut my mommy’s flowers! Stop it! Stop it!”
Susan sees a large yellow B&G tractor slowly go past the front of their apartment. Tony pounds harder on the glass. Kneeling on his bed, she seizes his arms and pulls him towards her. Together they watch while a blank-faced young man drives the mower blades over the whole length of the flower bed. Shards of red plastic—the remains of a toy tractor—fly up with grass stalks, leafy stems, and hundreds of gold and bronze marigold heads.
“Stop it, stop it,” Tony sobs after the young man has passed. “Don’t cut her flowers, don’t, don’t. . . .”
Susan Brown clutches Tony’s slender two-and-a-half-year-old body tightly against her own pear-shaped form and strokes his hair and shoulders. Large tears run down her face, now tightly pressed against Tony’s neck.
—oh god I love him—I AM a good mother—I am I am—oh god I love him so much—oh god—so much—
