Alaiah held her hair to her head so
her curls wouldn’t poke out from beyond the doorframe. Some nights, before she would fall asleep,
she heard Momma crying. Momma sat at the
kitchen table holding her head rubbing her fingers on her scalp. On the table sat a pile of folded papers and
envelopes.
“Momma, why are you crying,” Alaiah
asked, creeping from behind the doorway.
Wiping her eyes and nose, Momma
answered, “Oh, Alaiah, honey, it’s nothing you need to bother yourself
with. Go on back to bed. Larry and I will take care of
everything.”
Alaiah leaned real close to Momma’s face
and peered closely into her eyes. Momma
laughed, shoeing her away. Alaiah, gave
her a big hug and kiss on the cheek and ran back to her bedroom. Tonight was a school night.
Alaiah woke up tired. Momma and Larry got married last summer. Larry tilled the dirt to help Alaiah start
her first garden. After that, Alaiah
created the garden with the help of her two best buddies, Mali and Ruth. Mali gave three pepper plants from her mom’s
garden, one spicy and two sweet. Ruth’s
dad had an extra Best Boy tomato plant.
Mr. Gordon had the best flower garden in the neighborhood. The three girls knocked on his door and
offered to weed his garden for the whole summer in exchange for some bulbs and
seeds. Mr. Gordon thought that was a
fair trade. He let them pick out purple
and white Irises and bright orange daylilies.
At the end of summer he gave Alaiah some seeds from his columbines and
bachelor buttons.
“They will come back year after year,”
he explained.
Larry used to leave for work before
Alaiah had breakfast. Lately, when she
walked to the bus stop, she noticed his truck parked in the driveway. It was there this morning.
“Hey, Alaiah, you want me to give you a
ride this morning instead of riding the bus?”
Alaiah quickly turned and stared for a
moment, “Oh, Hi Larry, you surprised me.
Sure!”
Her curls and backpack bounced back and
forth as she bounded up the driveway and hopped into Larry’s pickup.
“Remember by Mom, Ms. Cora?” Larry asked
her as he turned the key in the ignition.
“Yes," Alaiah replied.
“She’s been having a hard time without
Pop. Work has been real slow for
me. Your mom and I talked. We think we all ought to move in with Ms.
Cora. It would be good for everyone
because there is more than enough work down there for me, and your Momma could
help Ms. Cora around the house. Plus
there is a great big attic room perfect for you,” Larry explained.
As they pulled in front of the school
door, Alaiah was looking down, playing with the strap on her backpack. “I’ve always lived here,” she mumbled then
she slid out of the truck and ran into the school.
With her mouth full of bologna and
cheese, Ruth asked, “What is wrong with you?
You act like you are sleepwalking today.”
“We are moving about a hundred miles
away to go live with Larry’s mom,” Alaiah explained without even looking up
from her lunch tray.
Mali gasped, “No way!”
“Yes," Alaiah turned to Mali, then
to Ruth, "Momma’s been crying cause bills are piling up and Larry has been
just working around the house. They
think it would be better for everyone because Ms. Cora is sad. She is Larry's mom. She is like my grandma.”
Ruth was nearly in tears. “You can’t move! What will happen to your garden?”
“You guys, I don’t want to talk about
it. I’m going to start crying and it is
only lunch period. We still have math
class and music to get through,” Alaiah groaned.
Later at dinner, Alaiah and Momma stared
at each other as they chewed their pork roast and carrot stew.
“You know, I’m going to get homesick, too,”
Momma blurted.
Alaiah looked down at her plate. “May I be excused? I’m not so hungry tonight,” she whispered.
“Go ahead,” Momma answered waving her
hand.
No amount of fanning her eyes would make
those hot tears stop falling. “Oh, I’ve got to stop these tears before Momma
and Larry go to bed. Momma has enough to
worry about without me adding to it,” Alaiya said clenching her fists into her
pillow.
She tiptoed across the hallway to the
bathroom. She splashed cold water against
her puffy face. Her eyes were still tiny
and her nose and cheeks were red and streaked from tears. Then a smile lifted her cheeks.
“When you come to see me, I want you to
turn that weed patch into a garden just as splendid as the one I hear your
Momma and Larry brag about,” Ms. Cora told her over the phone a couple months
ago.
Mrs. Cora wanted a garden. Alaiah learned how to share a garden from all
her friends who helped make her garden spectacular by splitting their bulbs and
saving their seeds. She was still
smiling as she crawled back under the covers.
Ralphie, the neighbor’s dog started
barking and Alaiah knew Momma and Larry arrived with the U-Haul. She stood up from sitting on the back stairs. Holding her grocery bags of seeds and bulbs,
she walked over to the three boxes of her belongings, and gently tucked them
inside the one on top. Now, she knew,
even though her friends would be far away, she would have living reminders of
them.
