The Heirloom Garden - A Novel - Viola Shipman Page 0,2

the seeds, which I plant in my little greenhouse. I track how many grow. If I’m pleased with a result, I continue. If I’m not, I give them away to my neighbors.

I fill my Big Chief tablets like a banker fills his ledger:

1943-Yellow Crosses

Little Bo Beep = June Bug x Beautiful Morning

(12 seeds/5 planted)

Purple Plum = Magnifique x Moon over Zanadu

(8 seeds/4 planted)

I shut my eyes and can see my daylilies and roses in bloom. Shirley once asked me how I had the patience to wait three years to see how many of my lilies actually bloomed. I looked at her and said, “Hope.”

And it’s true: we have no idea how things are going to turn out. All we can do is hope that something beautiful will spring to life at any time.

I open my eyes and look at Shirley. She is right about the war. She is right about my life. But that life seems like a world away, just like my husband.

“Mommy! Mommy!”

Mary races up, holding her handful of dandelions with white tops.

“What do you have?” I ask.

“Just a bunch of weeds.”

I stop, lean against my hoe and look at my daughter. In the summer sunlight, her eyes are the same violet color as Elizabeth Taylor’s in National Velvet.

“Those aren’t weeds,” I say.

“Yes, they are!” Mary says. She puts her hands on her hips. With her father gone, she has become a different person. She is openly defiant and much too independent for a girl of six. “Teacher said so.”

I lean down until I’m in front of her face. “Technically, yes, but we can’t just label something that easily.” I take a dandelion from her hand. “What color are these when they bloom?”

“Yellow,” she says.

“And what do you do with them?” I ask.

“I make chains out of them, I put them in my hair, I tuck them behind my ears...” she says, her excitement making her sound out of breath.

“Exactly,” I say. “And what do we do with them now, after they’ve bloomed?”

“Make wishes,” she says. Mary holds up her bouquet of dandelions and blows as hard as she can, sending white floaties into the air.

“What did you wish for?” I ask.

“That Daddy would come home today,” she says.

“Good wish,” I say. “Want to help me garden?”

“I don’t want to get my hands dirty!”

“But you were just on the ground playing with your friends,” I say. “Ring-around-the-rosy.”

Mary puts her hands on her hips.

“Mrs. Roosevelt has a Victory Garden,” I say.

She looks at me and stands even taller, hooking her thumbs behind the straps of her overalls, which are just like mine.

“I don’t want to get dirty,” she says again.

“Don’t you want to do it for your father?” I ask. “He’s at war, keeping us safe. This Victory Garden is helping to feed our neighbors.”

Mary leans toward me, her eyes blazing. “War is dumb.” She stops. “Gardens are dumb.” She stops. I know she wants to say something she will regret, but she is considering her options. Then she glares at me and yells, “Fathead!”

Before I can react, Mary takes off, sprinting across the lot, jumping over plants as if she’s a hurdler. “Mary!” I yell. “Come back here!”

“She’s a handful,” Shirley clucks. “Reminds me of someone.”

“Gee, thanks,” I say.

Mary rejoins her friends, jumping back into the circle to play ring-around-the-rosy, turning around to look at me on occasion, her violet eyes already filled with remorse.

Ring-around-the-rosy,

A pocket full of posies,

Ashes! Ashes!

We all fall down.

“I hate that game,” I say to Shirley. “It’s about the plague.”

I return to hoeing, lost in the dirt, moving in sync with my army of gardeners, when I hear, “I’m sorry, Mommy.”

I look up, and Mary is before me, her chin quivering, lashes wet, fat tears vibrating in the rims of her eyes. “I didn’t mean to call you a fathead. I didn’t mean to get into a rhubarb with you.”

Fathead. Rhubarb. Where is she picking up this language already?

From behind her back, she produces another bouquet of dandelions that have gone to seed.

“I accept your apology,” I say. “Thank you.”

“Make a wish,” she says.

I shut my eyes and blow. As I inhale, the scent of my Jonathan rose fills my senses. The rumble of a car engine shatters the silence. A door slams, followed by another, and I open my eyes. The silhouettes of two men appear on the perimeter of the field, as foreboding as the old oaks. I notice the wind suddenly calm and the plants stop rustling at the exact same