Scout on Choosing Right/Flowers in the Other Room

  

            The sweet smell of chrysanthemums and lilies drew stale as they sat alone in dark rooms. You could hear the light tapping of the petals as they hit the table below them, alone like the person who purchased them for half price on a gloomy Sunday afternoon. Their seeds plop below into the salty water that loses its sweetness as the sugar escapes into the air for survival. Despite the scents and sounds of the bouquets, I only know they sit in the other room when the air is bitter and silent. When I hear my mother’s footsteps pacing as she waits for her brother’s call, for an escape from the life she rushed to choose. When I hear my father’s clacking, forever ungrateful to the sacrifices of my mother, pouring whatever is left of himself in the work that gives nothing in return. And as one enters a room, the other exits and I sit watching the petals fall. They curl and wither with every second of silence, whispering about the freedoms both of my parents have lost because of the other. They curse at them silently, embodying every regret and complaint that has never been expressed. How can they repair something that was never in one piece, but always two? How can they make my mother pretend that my father wants her? How can they make my father pretend that he cares?

            I ask myself, what are they but a way to convince me that they care for each other? Every bouquet becomes more invisible than the next, each time my mother pushes them farther away from her room, farther away from her heart. On lonely mornings I look at them sitting, being punished for being purchased by the wrong person, being entered into the wrong house. Sometimes I wish I was a bouquet, being bought by a different person so I can finally see what love is. When I muster the courage to look past their shortcomings, I ask them about who I should choose. It hurts even more that they know what they want; I stare into their eyes as they light up describing the person they wanted but never had. The person they did not wait to find because they hurried to check off the grocery list of life. They always slip an insult or backhanded comment, and the monster in my heart is unleashed as I remember my contempt towards them, as I realize that they may be good parents, but I may never know if they are good people.

            A few days pass, and I trim the flowers and replace the salty water with its sweeter counterpart. My mother will ask about them occasionally but won’t pay them a glance. She is too busy, she always says, to change their water herself. I can take care of them, I say, like I can take care of myself. Run away, I tell her, knowing she must as a person but wishing she wouldn’t as her daughter. On bright mornings, the flowers lift their heads to the sun and keep their petals attached, as if to trick me into thinking they will last. It hurts even more the next day when they die completely, and I am left to clean up the remnants. But what hurts the most is when I realize that I am the only one who noticed.