Young Writers Society

Scarlet Begonias

She had rings on her fingers and bells on her shoes

And I knew without asking she was into the blues

She wore scarlet begonias, tucked into her curls

I knew right away she was not like other girls

Other girls

- Scarlet Begonias, Grateful Dead

It’s a memory of something I can’t quite remember except for the feeling of pain and when I’m asked about it, I am greeted by shifty eyes. All but my mother turn their gaze from my questioning words. She is no hope either; all she does is nod and say she understands. But what does she understand? Is it the hateful feeling when eyes burn into my skin that she understands or is it the action in which I played such an intricate part? I feel ashamed, though I know not what I have done. A dirty, hot feeling crawls over my skin, the kind of feeling you get when everyone knows minute details of something you’ve done except you. But I continue on my way, alone.

Fourteen Years Later

She’s beautiful the way she smiles with her eyes, her heart-shaped face belying the fact that she is not a child, no matter how much I think or want to think she is. Blonde curls flow down her back, tousled a little by the roughhousing we had earlier, her blue eyes dark in mischief and happiness. Chocolate cake is smeared on her forehead as well as my fingers and I lick them, a smile turning up the corners of my mouth. She grins back as she should for this is her fourteen birthday, and shouldn’t one be elated as this on such a birthday. I was at mine. But her eyes glass over slightly, and she bites down on her lip, just like she does when she is thinking hard.

“Mom,” she eyes me, as I continue to lick the sweet, sugary icing off my pale fingers, “why isn’t father here?”

It hits me, crushes into my heart, and rearranges the muscles in my chest creating a constricting, twisting pain in the center. For a moment I experience ‘the cat got the tongue’ phenomenon, and my eyes amuse themselves with the tiles on our kitchen floor. But I have to answer; I’ve been evading the question for far too long. I’m just glad she hasn’t asked it before. My mind grasps hopeless for something to say, a suitable answer, for she is not a kid anymore.

I open my mouth ready with the cliché, I’m sorry, love, he couldn’t come this year, but I know that’s useless. She won’t ask questions or pout but the question will live in her blue eyes and she’ll shake her head, knowing that she isn’t really trusted with that privileged information.

She looks back at me, asking, pleading with her entire lithe figure for the truth. But how can I answer her, when I don’t even know the truth? Isn’t that statement pathetic, even though I slept with the man and even with all the available technology out there to find him, I am still oblivious as to who he is. Why you ask, because I don’t remember. Now how does that sound for an answer to a fourteen year old? Icky, but a much paler statement manages to get out somehow, “I don’t know, love.”

Now I’ve piqued her attention, great. Her eyes lower a bit, and she bites her lip again. I can see the wheels turning in her brain. Confused and bothered, she faces me again.

“Huh, I mean I thought…you said he was coming.” The last was almost a whine; I hated this white lie I had twisted around us, like ivory smoke.

“No hon, he’s not.” God, what a great mother I am!

“Come on Jez, it’s your fourteenth birthday, forget about that, let’s have some fun.”