By Ari Tulk
Maudie was not having a good day. She felt old and heavy and miserable. When she looked in the mirror, she saw an old tired person, with bags under her eyes and saggy cheeks. She didn’t see what she usually saw—a glowing face with that radiant smile she often got compliments on. Today, seeing herself differently made her feel like her true self had never existed.
But even more depressing than this down-on-herself mood, was her grief, pressing on her like her boots on someone’s flower beds when she’d run late for work that week. She couldn’t forget the sour fragrance that only crushing the plants could produce. She couldn’t forget the guilt of realizing that in that moment she’d ultimately cared more for getting a good paycheck than she had for all those little flowers. She couldn’t even remember what kind they were. Maybe pansies. Maybe poppies…
Grief is the sort of thing that can be hidden away, but when it is fed up with being silenced, its flare-up is unstoppable. Usually Maudie could put up with self-loathing moods, and misfortunes, but grief made these things unbearable. She couldn’t avoid thinking about it anymore.
Two years ago, she and her Momma had had a big fight. Maudie had stormed off, not replying to any messages from her Momma. Maudie had that kind of temper. Some things just couldn’t be forgiven, and apparently her Momma had had the same opinion. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. The petal doesn’t fall far from the stem.
Not much time passed before both Maudie and her Momma got sick. Age was the only difference between them, and Maudie had recovered. Still not communicating, her Momma had been dying with her on the other side of the country, and Maudie had no idea until she was dead. Her plane was delayed by a tornado, so she missed the funeral. Maudie felt horrible about it, and believed that her Momma hadn’t wanted to see her before she died. It made sense. ’Cause I deserved it anyway.
All these things circled around her brain like osprey around some big fish they’d spotted in the water. It was Sunday, her only day off in the week. There was no work to do. No distractions. So she couldn’t help thinking of the tragedy.
Maudie didn’t know what she was going to spend her time on. She had the majority of the afternoon to do away with, and nothing appealed to her. She felt so unproductive, just pacing around and around, thinking of her Momma, and regretting leaving her like that.
At least she’d gone to McGuckins this morning to purchase some potted red poppies. They were Momma’ s favorite. She thought. Momma could put anything in soil and it would grow for her. Maudie had put the poppies in the window box off her apartment.
Maudie paused in her pacing, and opened the window to see how those little flowers were doing. One of them had only one petal. She cupped it in her hand for a time, just looking at it. As she let go, the last petal fell. Maudie watched it fall all the way down the side of the three-story building, but her eyes couldn’t see it any more by the time it reached the pavement. She didn’t realize she’d been biting her lip until a pearl of blood beaded through its delicate skin. She left the window open, and went to the bathroom to wash away the blood. Looking in the mirror, she wondered if that was what the poppy petal had looked like, wilting on the sidewalk.
After hesitating briefly at the bathroom door, Maudie went to her wardrobe. Plunging her hand into it, she pulled out item after item after item of clothing from its home. She flung them onto the floor to be sorted.
I hate that color. Never looked good on me. I love that shirt! It makes me feel so beautiful! Ugh, the style of that thing is so outdated—now that it is not fashionable anymore I realize how disgusting it always was. Yes, yes yes. You’re all yeses. Oh dear…I feel like I should keep that—it was a present from Julie. But it’s the sort of thing she would wear. I never would.
Soon all her things were sitting in either a pile on the right (to keep) or the pile on the left (to donate). She found the plastic trash bag dispenser under the kitchen sink, and stuffed the clothes into three of the stinky white sacks.
Sitting down on the tiny, grey and shriveled loveseat that she had never sat on with anyone she loved, she gazed at the slim sideboard table that had the big tv crouching on it like a panther about to pounce. She noticed the photo albums in its shelves.
She stood, and again paced the apartment—one time, two times, three times—she sat down again.
Finally Maudie selected a thin photo album and began sifting through its pages. This one must be the book of school photos. Maudie on the slide, Maudie on the swing, Maudie at her desk—they all looked back at her with untroubled, simple eyes. Then she came upon herself playing a hand-clapping game with another girl. Maudie smiled as she laid the photo album down. She began moving her hands like she had in the picture, and mouthing the words to the rhyme.
“Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack
“All dressed in black, black, black
“With silver buttons, buttons, buttons
“All down her back, back, back
“She asked her mother, mother, mother…”
Maudie had tears running down her cheeks now. When she had gotten home from school that day she had said to her Momma, putting on a posh British accent to the best of her ability. “Mother!” This was called out as she rushed to her Momma’s arms. “I am now to be called Miss Maudie Mack. Can I have fifteen cents to watch the elephants jump over the fence?” Then she had sung on, waltzing around her Momma's hips. “Cause they’ll jump so high, high, high, they’ll reach the sky, sky, sky” she paused panting, “And they’ll never come back, back, back, ‘till the fourth of July, ly, ly!”
Maudie shook and shuddered violently, the tears falling so quickly it was as if a pair of waterfalls connected her eyes to the ground. She doubled over in pain.
“Momma, oh Momma—why’d I never call? Why’d I never call?! Why’d I never call just once?! Just to say sorry!” This was one of those griefs that’s so enormous it cannot be fully expressed in an hour of crying—it takes decades of crying. When it overwhelmed her, it was impossible to contain. “My body’s just too small, Momma—just too small to hold it all—do you see how much I love you now? You see it now?” She turned each page of each photo album so vigorously and passionately she ripped quite a few, and came close to ripping even more. But she didn’t mind ripping them—she was angry at them. Where were the pictures of her Momma?! At last she collapsed, and the photo album thumped to the carpet with a sound like what a falling poppy petal would sound like to a sensitive caterpillar.
She stayed just as she was, on that crinkly grey sofa, weeping until she fell asleep.
* * *
When she woke she felt shaky and sensitive. She felt like anything could crack her into tears. Yet she felt new, too, and fresh. She went to the bathroom and washed off the tear stains with a few cold splashes of vaguely chlorine-smelling water over her face.
She began loading the white sacks of old clothes into her white Subaru. She would take a trip down to Ares. That was a thrift store that she lived near. It was one of her favorite places to go. It was fascinating—lots of strange china dolls and other unexpected tit-bits lying around. There were books and furniture too, but the main thing they sold was clothes and shoes of every kind. That’s where she went to donate old things that were becoming unnecessary. That was also where she bought “new” clothes, her full-time job never paying quite enough to allow visits to anywhere more expensive than Target.
When she arrived, she drove around to the back of the store, between the little motorbike-infested white building beside Ares, and her original destination. She was unable to go any further, for there was a large, unwieldy-looking bronze Honda mini-van in front of her. The owners of it were also frequenters of this store, so she often saw their car, but never stopped to say hello. Maudie was shy, and besides, they often came with great multitudes of children. This fact did not put her off because she didn’t like kids—they just scared her a little bit. There was no telling what they might say, and there was no telling what they might know. Kids seemed to have an uncanny knack at understanding people; their thoughts and dreams—and they didn’t necessarily keep this information to themselves.
But the woman was alone today as she handed sack after sack, and box after box, to the man who was in control of these things. She had a lot of people in her family, so therefore a lot of stuff, apparently. Maudie watched for a while, quietly and patiently. Suddenly something caught her eye—something she needed in the back of the car. She burst forth from that white Subaru, slamming the door behind her. The woman looked around, startled.
“That’s so beautiful.” She blurted breathlessly. The woman smiled, knowing immediately what Maudie was talking about.
“It is.”
“I just love that painting.” Words couldn’t describe the emotion that it evoked in her. It was a bright impressionist-looking painting of red poppies that looked ready to take the sun’s place if it ever got tired. Momma’s favorite. “Are you donating it?”
“Yes, I am. It just didn’t seem to feel right with me. No one in the family really felt like they fit just right with it. It was a present, so I felt bad giving it away, but I knew it had to find the right home.” The woman replied. She had a different accent to anything that Maudie had ever heard before around here—probably British.
“I love it! It’s…” She trailed off. Why were words so hard to find?
“You can take it!” The woman said happily, holding it out to Maudie.
“Really?!” Her hands were already on the frame.
“Of course! I am so glad it has found such a wonderful home! You seem like the perfect one to have it. I never really…”
But Maudie wasn’t listening—she was lost in the expanse of her joy. She held the painting above her, examining it.
“Momma turned into an angel—and she looked down at me from heaven— and she forgave me—and she sent this picture down—hid it in this kind lady’s attic—and she found there—and deep inside she knew it was meant for someone else—and—and now it’s mine. Little piece of Momma right here in my hands.” Maudie half whispered this, half thought it, all the while scanning every detail of the picture. Then she pressed the biggest and brightest poppy to her heart. She rocked gently, back and forth, like a poppy whose petals will never fall, as she hugged the picture. A heavy tear rolled down one cheek and then disappeared.
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