Calliope: Voice of the Writers

 

 

The Great Novel Race 2008:

Feels Like Home

by Crystal Crawford

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Chapter 1: Flowers

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Flowers. The room was filled with flowers, on tables, chairs, lined in rows on the floor, hundreds of flowers of all different kinds, their aromas blending into a general smell of wilderness not entirely pleasant for such a small space. Allison sat on the empty bed and glanced around the room. What on earth was she supposed to do with so many flowers? Yet she hadn’t the heart to leave them here. They must have made her mother smile, vase after pot after vase of flowers, daisies, carnations, orchids, lilies, roses, trickling in over the past few days as a final effort in bringing some brightness into an otherwise stark room, a room efficient for its purpose yet not exactly comforting for those whom it served.

The hospital attendant leaned in, one hand on the doorframe and the rest of her body left behind, just a floating head in the doorway. “Ms. Johnson,” she said, “I’m sorry to bother you, but the administrator would like to speak with you about some of your mother’s belongings.” She paused for a moment, her eyes scanning the room. “My, what pretty flowers! Will you be taking them with you?”

Allison stood, smoothing her skirt. She was still in her business suit; she had come straight from the airport, off a red-eye flight from a convention in Miami, and her body ached almost as much as the rest of her. 

“I came in a taxi,” she said, “I won’t have room for them. Do you think any of the other… residents… might like to have some of them?”

The nurse smiled, revealing slightly crooked teeth but eyes which crinkled kindly at the corners. “Yes, Ms. Johnson,” she said, “I know some of the other ladies would be tickled pink to have some fresh flowers in their rooms.”

“Good,” Allison answered. “I’d hate for them to go to waste.”

The nurse stepped forward into the room, revealing the body which hosted the floating head. She was middle-aged, a thick, sturdy-looking woman, but her arms were lean and muscular. She wore the nurse’s uniform – scrubs with a colorful printed top and solid white bottoms – with white sneakers. Her hair was pulled into a loose bun of white-blonde hair with wild escapee strands, making her head appear not unlike a dandelion.

“Ms. Johnson,” she said softly, “That pot over by the window; it was your mother’s favorite. She had me water it every morning. That one, I thought, you might want to keep; I just wanted to let you know.”

Allison turned toward the window sill; a small potted plant sat in a narrow beam of sunlight which had slipped in between the horizontal blinds. “Thank you,” she said.

The nurse nodded and quietly exited the room.

Allison waded her way through the rows of flowers and lifted the small pot from the window. It was an aloe plant. She couldn’t help but smile slightly. Her mother had always been fond of aloe plants; she had grown them outside their home when Allison was little, and many times Allison had sat on the front steps of the house, pants leg rolled up, and watched her mother carefully slice open an aloe leaf with her fingernail to apply the soothing gel to whatever scrape or cut Allison had come home with.

“Ms. Johnson.” A deep voice made Allison jump and the aloe plant slipped from her grasp; she recovered it just before it escaped from her fingers entirely, pressing the rescued plant against her white blouse. She turned to face the voice, flecks of black soil sifting to the floor.

It was the hospital administrator. He had a small metal lockbox in his hand, roughly the size of a shoebox.

“I’m sorry for startling you,” he said. “I’m Daryn Walker, the hospital administrator. Nurse Starks said she told you I needed to speak with you. I hope this isn’t a bad time?”

“No,” said Allison, “it’s fine. I was just… well, I’ve decided to take this plant with me; the rest of them I’ll have to leave here. I hope they’ll bring some cheerfulness to someone else. I’d take them with me, but I haven’t got the space.”

“Oh no, that’s quite alright,” Mr. Walker replied. “We’re very thankful that you’re willing to share them with others. I’ve never seen quite so many flowers delivered in so short a time to one resident. Your mother must have been a very popular woman.”

“Yes,” Allison said, “I guess she was.” She didn’t really know where so many flowers could possibly have come from, but she planned to take a look at the cards in each pot before she left. She had no idea her mother had so many friends she still kept in touch with, or even so many who would have known the time for flowers had come; it had crept up so quickly…

“Anyway,” Mr. Walker continued, “What I really needed to speak to you about was this box here. Your mother had some things she didn’t feel comfortable leaving out in her room, so we’ve kept them for her in our office up front. I’m afraid I don’t know the combination to the box; it was your mother’s and we only put it in a safe place for her. But hopefully you know what combination she may have used?”

“Honestly, I have no idea,” Allison said, setting the aloe plant on the floor by the bed and reaching for the metal box, “but I may be able to figure it out if I try.”

“I hope so,” Mr. Walker said. He pushed his glasses further up onto the bridge of his nose with one finger, then held out his hand. “We’re very sorry for your loss, Ms. Johnson. Take your time, and let us know if you need anything.”

Allison shook his hand and eased back down onto the edge of the bed as he exited the room. She placed the metal lockbox in her lap and glanced around once more. The potted aloe by her feet and the box in her lap were the only items in the room that looked as if they had ever belonged to anyone. The room itself was bland, uniform and sterile, utterly impersonal – a plain white nightstand, white horizontal blinds, bare white tile walls, a mint green comforter on the bed with white bed sheets and pillows. There were no photographs in the room, and no personal items except for the few clothes her mother had brought with her, which hung out of sight in a narrow white armoir in one corner of the room. The flowers were the only expression of individuality or color in the room, and Allison was sorry that she hadn’t sent her mother something to make the room a bit more like home. A picture, a card, something. But her mother had always sounded so content on the phone; she had never mentioned wanting anything…

Allison set the lockbox on the bed for a moment and knelt down among the field of captive flowers. She removed cards from the few nearest her and read them – “To Eloise, with love – your friend, Jeannette,” “To Eloise, Wishing you comfort and happiness, Martha,” “To Eloise, We hope you feel better soon, Love, The Fieldings,” “To Eloise – these flowers are almost as bright as your smile. Our thoughts are with you, Mary and Sam.”

Allison rose and slipped the cards into her handbag. Her mother had always had a way of making friends and keeping them – the Fieldings and Mary and Sam – they had been friends of the family since Allison’s childhood. It was strange, still, that they had known to send flowers when it all happened so quickly; but then word spreads like fire in a town where everyone knows everyone.

She walked back to the bed. It was just like her mother to keep a lockbox and not share the combination. She tilted the box, looking at the dials above the lock. Four digits; she tried her mother’s birthdate – 6.5.44. Nothing. Her own birthdate. Nothing. Allison ran her fingers against the dials, spinning them loosely. The last digits of her mother’s social security number, the street number of their old home, the street number of the house before that, her parents’ wedding date… her father’s birthdate. Nothing.

Allison turned the lockbox over carefully, not sure if its contents were breakable, and searched the bottom for any message as to the combination for the lock. Taped to the bottom was a piece of cardboard. She removed it and turned it over – it was a faded photograph of the three of them, Allison, her mother, and her father, back when Allison was barely ten years old and both of her parents were still alive. Written in pencil in one corner was a phone number, and beneath it an inscription in her mother’s handwriting: Daily I wait for my future, it said, and Nightly I dream of tomorrow. Jim.

What did she mean by that, Allison wondered, and who in the world is Jim? She tried the last four digits of the phone number in the lock. Nothing.

She slipped the photograph into her purse. She would call the number tomorrow; for now, it was getting dark and she still needed to call a taxi to take her to the house, if she could remember how to get to it. It had been five years since she’d last visited Westfield.

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