Winter in Full Bloom (3 page)

Her eye twitched. “Well, let me see if I can guess why you’ve come. Your daughter has gone off to college, and you’re feeling useless. Empty nest is eating at you. And so you thought you’d visit your old mother. See if we couldn’t be pals.”

Mother either talked in riddles or cut to the chase. “Yes, some of that is true, but I hoped—”

“I heard about your husband’s death a year ago. My gout kept me from the funeral. But I’m sure I wasn’t missed.”

“Of course you were missed.”

“Bah. If you’re going to lie, girl, learn to do it with style or not bother.” She took another sip from her glass.

Talking my mother out of one of her certainties was as easy as getting an amendment to the Constitution. So I let it go.

“Tell me again … your husband … what did he die of?”

“Richard died of a heart attack.”

Mother tucked the corners of her dress under her legs and then smoothed the fabric, which looked a lot like wall tapestry. “Hmm. You should have fed him a healthier diet. Less junk food … more prunes.”

A wall clock chimed, and I jumped.

“
So, now that your daughter
has gone away, and your spouse is dead, what are you going to do with your life? You’re thirty-nine years old, alone, with no promising future. You probably still live in that shabby little house your husband left you.” Mother shook her head. “You never did use your expensive education for a real career. You just wanted to marry and have a
child
.”

I sighed. “I don’t know what God has planned for me. Not yet anyway.”

“Bah. Leave God out of this. You’re old enough to make your own plans.” She set her glass down and pulled her afghan up over her knees.

I tried to batten down the hatches of my emotions, but I’d been born too flimsy to stand up to my mother’s hurricane-force blows. I could no longer look at my mother, so I stared out the window into the solarium. A wooden table sat in the center of the glassed-in room, covered with botany journals, microscopes, and sketches of flower parts. There would also be small instruments of torture, for dissecting. With all her multiple gardens, no flowers were ever displayed in the house for their beauty. “Have you made any new discoveries with your flowers?”

“You mean angiosperms. No, nothing new there, but I did recently purchase a night-blooming Cereus cactus. Amazing specimen. It blooms just once a year, you know, and if you miss your one chance … well, now that would be a real loss. Wouldn’t it?”

Irony had more weight than I could carry. My mother’s worship of flowers was never-ending, probably because they had no hearts. No sins to number. Or remember. I fingered my charm bracelet to remind me that life outside her walls was still good—that the sun still rose in the morning and my darling daughter, Julie, still loved me.

“I see you fidgeting with some trinket on your wrist. What is it?”

“Julie gave me this bracelet when she left for college recently. Each of the tiny silver charms represents our favorite things, like her rollerblading or my reading. And—”

“Yes, well, I’m sure.” My mother gave a one-finger pat, pat, pat on the chair, which was meant to silence me as if I were her trained poodle. I’d never forgotten that gesture. My heart constricted, no longer wanting to beat, but it kept on pounding just the same.

“Well, let’s have a look at it.” She motioned to my wrist. “The bauble.”

I removed the bracelet, handed it to my mother, and immediately started picking at my fingers, a habit I must have started in the cradle.

The hinges on the study door creaked, and I glanced back. The door was ajar, but perhaps I’d left it that way. Or was Dragan eavesdropping just outside the door? Hmm. I turned my attention back to my mother.

She put on her reading glasses and rolled the bracelet around in her hand. “So, little Julie’s all grown up.”

Was this the moment I’d waited for? I gave myself the luxury of hope. “Julie plays the guitar and the piano, and she sings like an angel in church. She’s grown up so beautiful and wise and funny too. She’s getting a music degree at Sam Houston State University, so she’s about an hour drive from Houston. I miss her, even though she’s not that far away. Mother, you would love her. Maybe I could have her come visit you. Julie has missed having a grandmother in her life. She needs you. We both need you and love you and—”

“I don’t think so.” My mother closed her hand around the jewelry.

“I would like for you to keep the bracelet as a gift.” I hadn’t planned on giving away my greatest earthly treasure, but I really did want my mother’s love—her understanding. Her “knowing” of me and my Julie. Life seemed to be an unfinished puzzle without it.

My mother clutched the bracelet to her heart as if she’d just found a misplaced heirloom, and then she set it on the coffee table between us. “Please take it back. We both know that the bracelet comes with strings. You want me to have a relationship with your daughter.”

“But she’s your granddaughter. Doesn’t it feel unnatural not to be a part of her life?” Not to be a part of my life? What would it take for her to see me, love me? How long could I survive such an onslaught of rejection? Guess that was one of the reasons I’d disappeared from her life for so long.

“What are you insinuating? That I’m heartless?” My mother raised an eyebrow. “So, is this the real reason you came today? To call me names?”

The anticipation of good things faded. “I meant well.” Some people loved the theater, but Mother didn’t. She hated displays of emotion, which were sentiments for the meek in spirit she’d say—fools who had no business inheriting the earth.

“I don’t appreciate your gift. You should have brought me some more schnapps instead. It has such purifying qualities.”

I retrieved the bracelet and ground my nails into my palms, trying not to cry. It was no use, though. Tears splashed onto my lashes anyway.

“Are you trying to manipulate me with your tears?” I didn’t answer her. What was the point? I instead walked over to the large window that overlooked my mother’s solarium. Then I placed my palm on the pane, letting the warmth from the glass seep into my skin. I left my hand there. I didn’t know why exactly. It was a windowpane ritual I’d performed my whole life as if I’d wanted to connect with something but didn’t know what it was.

“Sit down.” Her tone became a hiss.

If I returned to my seat I was bound to dislike myself for a long time to come. Nevertheless, I surrendered to the force—my mother—and sat on my trembling hands.

“You, Lily, are just like your father … an unpredictable ocean. No matter how calm the water is on the surface, the waves come to shore full of bluster and drama. And to tell you the truth, I’ve never felt at peace near the ocean.”

“I see.” I caught her meaning, and I felt my insides curdle like sour milk. I was officially mutating into a child again. “I know I didn’t turn out to be the daughter you hoped for, but why do you hate me so much?”

“Hate? Why do you always have to pick the most potent spice in the rack when a little salt will do? That is so Lily. What do they call it these days? A drama queen.” Then she closed her eyes—something my mother always did to be rid of me. “And … you still look just like her,” she said in the barest whisper. “Just like her.”

“I look like whom, Mother?” Who could she mean? Whoever it was, the person seemed important.

And then I noticed something just below my right hand—a small decorative glass dome sitting on the table. Just under the clear glass were two seeds. Nothing more. So tiny. Were they mustard seeds? How peculiar. Would the mysteries never end? I touched the dome and then pulled back. My thumbprint remained on the surface of the glass. Is that all I would leave in this house?
God help me.
If there wasn’t going to be any affection between us, maybe there could be a connection, no matter how small. I would try again, for Julie’s sake. “I look like whom, Mother?”

Mother’s eyes drifted open. “Her name is Camille Violet Daniels.”

“Is she the woman I look like? Who is she? Is she still alive?”

My mother slumped in her chair, the color draining from her face. “Yes, she’s still alive.”

“What’s the matter?” I leaned forward, thinking I might need to call 911.

“Maybe it’s time.” A bit of drool dribbled out of the corner of my mother’s mouth, and she daubed at it with her hand. She gazed off into the solarium still murmuring, “Maybe it is time.” She gripped the arm of her chair until her knuckles went ashen. “I’ll answer your question. Camille Violet Daniels is your identical twin. She is your sister.”

“
My sister. An identical twin
? Is it true? How could it be?”

“It’s true.”

The moment turned fantastical as if I were Alice, falling down the rabbit hole. “But why don’t I remember her?”

Mother took on a faraway gaze, but then suddenly her attention snapped back to the room. “Because you were only one year old at the time when she was taken from me.”

“Taken? But who would do such a thing? Where is she?”

Mother closed her hand around the doily on the armrest and pulverized it in her knotted fingers. “That is one of the reasons I never told you. I feared this infernal avalanche of questions.”

I tried to compose myself. If I wanted to know more I’d need to proceed with caution. To upset Mother now meant severing any chance of knowing how to find my sister. So, her name was Camille Violet. How beautiful. She’d been given a floral name too. And perhaps she’d gotten married, since her last name was Daniels. I thought of all the nieces and nephews and how Julie would love to have cousins. Perhaps they all lived nearby. “If I have a sister who’s still alive I want to meet her.” I would want to know her, welcome her back to the family.

“I doubt there’s any chance of finding her.” Mother drank the last of her schnapps but continued to hold the empty glass as if it were full. “Camille lives in Melbourne, Australia.”

Australia?
“How did she end up so far away? Are you sure?”

“I received a card from her six months ago. There was no return address, but in her brief note she mentioned her name, the country and city where she lived, and the news that she was well. She also mentioned that she attends St. Paul’s Cathedral. So apparently she’s wrapped up in the same spiritual nonsense you are.”

Australia. The word echoed in my mind. Then a distressing dimension adhered to the first. In order for me to find my sister, I’d have to fly—something I feared. I’d barely traveled out of Houston while Julie was growing up, and certainly hadn’t flown to the other side of the earth. Camille might as well live on the moon. How would I ever be able to meet her?

“All right. You know the truth.” Mother squeezed her eyes shut again, but this time a small amount of moisture escaped the corner of her eye. There was so much about Mother I still didn’t know. She remained the island, and I the tiny boat, ever circling, but never finding an inlet.

“But you haven’t told me the reason she lives so far away.”

Her eyes blinked open. “I said that is
all.
” She reached for her crystal bell and gave it a jangle. “Dragan will see you to the door.”