Torey Hayden - The Sunflower Forest

‘But you’re not everybody else, are you?’

‘No,’ Megan said in a low voice. I could see she was about to cry. Mama, next to her, was busying herself with the mashed potatoes.

‘Well then,’ said Dad, ‘that’s that. Just as soon as we’re in our new house, Megan has a party. I’ll mark that down in my diary so I remember. Just as soon as we’re settled.’ He looked over at her. ‘But in the meantime, young lady, take your elbows off the table and start on all that food.’

Megan was still teetering dangerously on the edge of tears. With one foot she kicked against the leg of the table. Milk danced in our glasses. Mama turned around and lifted the coffeepot from the stove. She asked Dad if he wanted more.

‘You know something,’ Megan said, her voice low and hoarse, ‘I don’t really like being in this family very much. In fact, I hate it.’

Without even looking up from his food, my father said, ‘You’re excused. You may go to your room, Megan.’

Megan just sat, kicking the table leg.

Lifting one eyebrow, he looked over at her. Megan threw down her napkin, rose and left.

I felt sorry for Megs. I knew exactly how she felt. Besides, it was easy to hear from her voice that she’d had the slumber party all planned out. You could tell that she’d most likely sat through all of Katie’s party the previous week, saying to herself, at my party we’ll have hot dogs, at my party we’ll watch Happy Days , at my party there’ll be even more girls than here. Megan always did have more dreams in her head than sense.

After the dishes were done, I stopped by her room. She was lying on her back on the bed, doing nothing but staring at the ceiling.

‘Look, I’m sorry about your not getting to have a slumber party, Megs.’

‘Go away,’ she said.

‘I know how you feel. I remember wanting stuff like that too.’

‘It’s not fair,’ she said. ‘He’s just mean.’

‘He’s not trying to be, Megs. He thinks he’s doing the right thing.’

She looked over. ‘It’s because of Mama, isn’t it? He just doesn’t want to bother Mama. Well, I didn’t hear Mama say anything against it. I didn’t hear her complain.’

‘Megs, it’s not his fault. It’s just one of those things.’

‘Well, whose fault is it, then?’ she asked and rolled over on to her stomach. The instant she said that, she knew the answer. Gently, she kicked at the bed with her foot. Silence followed. I picked at the wallpaper by the light switch. ‘You know what, Lesley,’ she said at last.

‘What’s that?’

‘I hate Mama.’

‘No, you don’t.’

‘Yes, I do. Sometimes I do. And you know what else? I meant what I said. I don’t really like being in this family very much.’

Then at last it was March.

‘Lesley? Lessie? Wake up.’

‘What do you want?’ Sleepily I rolled over to see Megan leaning over my bed. It was not even 6.30.

‘Are you awake? Get up. Come on. I want to show you something.’

‘Go play in traffic, Megan.’

‘Get up. Come here. Come in my room.’ She gave me a mighty shove.

Without any show of good humour, I got out of bed and followed her back to her own room. She ran across and bounced up on the bed.

‘Lookie here, Les.’

‘This better be good. Or I mean it, Megan, I’m going to murder you.’

‘ Look .’ She had the curtain held back.

It was not quite dawn. Early March and the world for the main part was still winter grey. From Megan’s window I could see the big, leafless sycamore in the Reilly’s backyard, the street, the roofs of other houses, and out beyond them the dull, yellowish stretch of plains. The day was dawning clear and cloudless, but at that hour the sky was mostly without colour.

‘I don’t see anything, you little pig. What did you drag me in here for anyway?’

‘Down there. Look in the grass under the window.’

On the small stretch of lawn between our house and the Reilly’s, I could make out crocuses growing in the grass. White and yellow ones, forming letters, M-E-G-A-N.

‘Look at it. See? Someone’s made my name in flowers down there on the lawn. See them? I never noticed them until just this minute when I woke up and looked out. And there they were.’

I pressed my nose against the glass to see them better. The letters were surprisingly clear in the grass. Then the windowpane fogged over with my breath.

‘It’s like magic, isn’t it?’ Megan said. Megan was the kind of child to believe in magic. Although she didn’t admit it, I knew she still hoped for the possibility of fairies and elves and a real Santa Claus.

I tried to see down the strip of lawn to tell if there were flowers under my window too. When I saw crocuses there, I pointed them out to Megan and she bolted off her bed and down the hallway to my room.

The letters making my name were not nearly so well formed as Megan’s. They looked like L-E-S-L-F. There was no Y at all, just random flowers. But still, I could see it was my name.

‘Who did it, do you think?’ Megan asked, as she tried to wrench open my window to stick her head out.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Mama. I bet it was Mama. I bet Mama did it.’ The window wouldn’t open after the long winter of being shut. Megan pressed her face and both her palms flat against the glass. ‘Or maybe it’s really magic. It’s like magic, isn’t it? I’ve never seen it before now and there it was, like it came up overnight. There was my name in the grass.’

‘I don’t think it did,’ I said. ‘We never go over on that side of the house. It could have been up for ages.’

‘But I look . I’m always looking out my window, Lesley, just like now. And there it was. Just this morning.’

The discovery excited Megan out of all proportion to what it was. I couldn’t restrain her from galloping in and bounding into bed with Mama and Daddy. They were both asleep when she crawled in between them. My father woke, yawning. Mama turned over sleepily and kissed Megan on top of her head. Megs was squirming down between them and chattering like a chipmunk. When Mama saw me standing in the doorway, she beckoned. I got into the bed with everyone else.

Mama put her arms around us. Megan was between her and Daddy and I was on Mama’s other side. She pressed us against her with strong arms, and my nose was filled with her warm, familiar smell. It was a broody scent, of baby powder, stale cigarette smoke and sleep.

‘Did you plant the flowers, Mama?’ I asked.

She nodded. She was smiling drowsily.

‘It’s like real magic,’ I heard Megan say. Her voice was growing soft and sleepy sounding. I lay with my head pressed against Mama’s breast. She had her left hand on my face. Her skin was almost hot, and I could feel the faintly different temperature of her wedding ring against my cheek.

‘It was magic, Liebes ,’ Mama said to Megs.

There were a few moments of sleepy silence.

‘I love you, Mama,’ Megan whispered.

Then my father rolled over with a motion that rocked the whole bed. He settled deeper into his pillow. ‘There’re an awful lot of female voices nattering on in this bed,’ he said without opening an eye. ‘And this being Sunday and the day of rest …’

With a finger to her lips, Mama winked at me. No one spoke again. I lay for a while, quite wide awake. I could hear Mama’s heart beating. I lay listening to it. Then eventually, I closed my eyes and went back to sleep too.

When I was very young, we lived in west Texas for a while. I don’t remember much about it. I was only about three at the time. I don’t recall anything about the house at all. I do, however, remember that there was no yard at the back of the house. The ground just stretched away from the back porch down a hill and out on to alkali flats before dissolving into the interminable plains. Sitting on the porch, I used to look out over the landscape and think to myself that if I could only see far enough, the plains would stretch all the way to the ocean and on the other side was Madrid, Spain. Why Madrid, Spain, I don’t know. How I even knew there was such a place, when I was that age, I don’t know either. But that was one of only two clear memories of the house in west Texas. My other memory was of the sunflowers.