The Sunflower Forest

I went to the cupboard for Rice Krispies.

‘Megan, Mama said put your feet down,’ I said when I returned to the table with my bowl of cereal.

‘So? You’re not my mother.’

‘Well, she is. So, do it, Megan. Mama said to.’

‘So, make me.’

Annoyed, I sat down.

When Megan continued to pick at her toast, I reached over and grabbed one of her legs. I yanked it down to the floor.

Mama ignored us. She kept her back to us and continued to do the dishes. She had a Brillo pad in one hand and the old cast-iron skillet in the other and was really giving it hell. Occasionally, she would pause and put to her lips the cigarette that was burning in the ashtray on the windowsill. Once she turned the radio higher. But she never turned around.

When Megan reached for another piece of toast, I clamped my hand over her wrist.

‘Stop it!’ Megan said, rather louder than necessary. ‘Stop bossing me around all the time, Lesley.’

‘The way you’re eating that toast is nauseating and you know it. Now, you can’t have another slice. You’re making a mess on purpose.’

‘Leave me alone.’

‘Mama? Make Megan stop. She’s still picking at her bread. She didn’t listen to you at all the first time.’

‘Lesley, let go of me. Let go of my arm! I mean it.’ Megan leaped to her feet to yank her arm free. The motion knocked her chair over backwards with a resounding bang.

Mama turned around.

Silence.

We both looked at her. She picked up her cigarette and snuffed it out in the ashtray with great care. The room went so quiet that I thought I could hear the sound of the cigarette against the glass of the ashtray, in spite of the clamour of Saturday Morning Swap Shop.

Wearily, Mama raised a hand to run through the hair alongside her face. ‘What is the matter with you two? You’re sisters. How can you always argue?’

We didn’t answer. There was no point in answering.

‘I can’t understand you,’ Mama said. ‘Why aren’t you happy? You have such good lives. O’Malley and I, we love you. We give you everything. And still you aren’t happy.’

‘We’re happy,’ Megan said.

‘We were just horsing around, Mama,’ I said. ‘We didn’t mean to sound like we were arguing. Did we, Megs? We were just playing.’

‘I cannot understand you.’

‘We are happy, Mama,’ Megan said again and there was soft desperation in her voice. ‘See? See? I’m smiling. I’m happy. Me and Lesley, we’re real happy. Don’t cry, OK?’

But it was too late. Mama lowered her face into her hands. Then she ran from the kitchen. We remained, listening to the shuffling unevenness of her footsteps on the stairs until they were drowned out by the radio.

Megan also began to cry. The tipped-over chair was still on the floor behind her. She stood, watching me, and let the tears run down over her cheeks.

‘Look, Megs, you want some more breakfast? Some toaster waffles maybe? You like them, Meggie. Don’t cry, all right? Shall I fix you some waffles? They’re your favourites.’

Wiping her eyes, she shook her head. Then she righted the chair and left the kitchen too.

My dad called them ‘spells’. Mama’s spells. When they happened, he would lift his shoulders in a bemused, half-shrug and then smile, as if it were just a whimsical little quirk she had, such as the way people might throw salt over their shoulder after spilling it. Although I’d hated the episodes, for most of my childhood I thought they were normal. I thought every child’s mother acted like that. I must have been ten or eleven before I discovered other mothers didn’t.

I stayed in the kitchen alone and finished up the few dishes left in the sink. Clearing off the table, I wiped away the last crumbs of Megan’s toast. I dumped the soggy Rice Krispies.

Sometime later Megan came back into the kitchen. With a widetoothed comb, she was trying to untangle the ends of her hair. ‘Will you help me?’ she asked, holding out the comb. ‘I can’t get all the snarls out.’

My sister had beautiful hair. Like my father’s, it was so dark that it was almost black, but like Mama’s, it was very, very straight. You could run your fingers through it and it would fall away in a soft, undulating manner, like water. The best part about Megan’s hair, however, was the length. It was nearly long enough for her to sit on. There was so much of it and it was so often left loose, since the sheer weight of it prevented her from using little-girls’ hairslides or headbands, that Megan always had a kind of untamed look about her. Even so, people stopped sometimes and turned around to look at her again because she was so striking. I had never been allowed to keep my hair that long when I was Megan’s age, but then I had never had hair like Megan’s.

‘You know, Les, Daddy’s going to kill you for giving Mama a spell,’ Megan said softly as I combed her hair.

‘Me? It was your fault, you little pig. Daddy’s going to kill us both.’

She didn’t answer. Pulling away from me, she took the comb out of my hand and went over to the table. She hoisted herself up on it and then pulled long strands of hair around to comb the tangles from the ends.

‘Megan, don’t do that on the table.’

She didn’t respond.

‘Did you hear me? That’s unsanitary. Go somewhere else.’

Still no response. But she had stopped combing her hair. Instead, she just fingered through it, regarding the strands. ‘Les?’ she asked without looking up. ‘Why do you suppose Mama does that?’

‘Does what?’

‘You know. That. I mean, we were just goofing around, that’s all. How come she can never tell that?’

I shrugged.

‘Why does she keep thinking we’re unhappy? How come it’s so important to her anyway that we be happy a hundred per cent of every second?’

‘It’s just one of those things, Megs.’

‘One of what things?’

I shrugged.

At a quarter to eleven Mama came downstairs again. Megan and I were still sitting in the kitchen. She came to the table and reached for her cigarettes.

‘Do you want a cup of coffee?’ I asked. I was already on my feet.

She nodded. Going over to the sink, she leaned forward to look out the window above it. With fingers of one hand resting against her lips, she smoked without ever taking the cigarette from her mouth.

‘There are no flowers,’ she said.