Chapter 7: Wildflowers, 1990

by Elizabeth McWillams

After Nathan dropped me off the morning that we were booted from the apple orchard, I picked up my car where we had stowed it and returned home, feeling as shameful as though I had actually been caught naked by my father, instead of by a stranger who may or may not have recognized me.

 The house was quiet. My sister had already left for her morning shift at the Vermont Kitchen and my father and stepmother were nowhere in sight. The kettle on the back burner of the stove was still warm and the breakfast dishes had not yet been cleared from the dining room table. I transferred the dishes into the dishwasher, wiped down the table and counters and refolded the cloth napkins for lunchtime, all in the hope that my father might discover evidence of me doing something kind and thoughtful.

I then went out to the front yard and picked some of the wild phlox that grew in abundance on the southern slope of the garden. These flowers had delicate, soft petals, much like a forget-me-knot, but the bud had a much wider diameter, grew in soft shades of pearly white, pink and purple and had long, skinny stalks. I arranged the phlox in the tall ceramic vase that I had given to my father last Christmas and placed the bouquet strategically next to the armchair that my father favored for his reading.

One hour remained before I had to clock in for work at the pool. Looking for some other chore that I could do, I went over to the heap of clean laundry that my sister had turned upside down on the living room floor and set to work. I had folded two pairs of jeans and three t-shirts when I heard the front door open.

My father had married six years previously and he and my stepmother walked in and stopped short when they spotted me there on the floor.

“Oh, hello, Katherine,” my stepmother said. “Nice to see you. I’m going to go upstairs for a bit.” I heard her steps retreating up the stairs. My father stood there above me for a minute without saying a word, then walked over to the kitchen counter, set down his keys and began rifling through the mail.

“Hi, Dad,” I said. “I’m sorry that I disappointed you last night. I just don’t get to see Tessa that often and…”

“I don’t get to see you that often,” my father interrupted. “And ‘disappointed’ is putting it mildly. I’m angry, Katherine. Angry.” He put the stack of mail down and stared at me.

The clock on the dining room wall clicked quietly in the void that seemed to be expanding, like an oil spill, between my father and me.

“Well, I am here for six whole weeks. It’s the summer, not just a weekend during the school year. There’s lots of time.” I smiled up at him weakly. “ And, besides, I don’t have any plans for tonight. I can have dinner with you guys.” I tried to add a tone of innocent excitement to my voice.

“Can have dinner? No plans for tonight? Listen to yourself, Katherine. You act as though you’re already independent. As though you’re a full grown adult who can make decisions for herself. I make the decisions, Katherine, not you. And you’re right, tonight you will have dinner at home. And you will have dinner at home tomorrow night, too, because you’re grounded, Katherine. Grounded.”

“But, Dad! That’s not fair. I…I,” I looked around the room desperately for some life raft to grab a hold of. “Look, Dad. I even picked flowers for you as a way of apology. I knew you would be mad and I wanted you to know that I was sorry.” I looked over at his armchair.

My father’s eyes followed mine and settled on the flowers. “Flowers? You think flowers are an acceptable apology?” he asked, incredulously. “Those flowers aren’t an apology. They’re a transparent and strategic manipulation!”

He lunged forward and at first I thought we was making toward me. I cringed, but he strode past me, snatched the flowers from the vase by the throat, opened the door to the porch and threw them, in disgust, over the porch railing. The vase, which had been wobbling in his wake, teetered for a moment and then fell to the floor with a smash.

“That’s what I think of your flowers, Katherine!” he hollered, nostrils flaring. “Now go to your room!” I stared at him for a moment in shocked disbelief. Then, kicking over the pile of folded laundry, I tore up the stairs and slammed my bedroom door, screaming “Mea culpa, mea culpa!” as I went.