Bloom

Bloom

     He had always painted. He told me one winter evening over coffee at Ellen’s that, even when he was very young, he would create crude little portraits with watercolors. His mother always said they were beautiful – his father looked down on him for doing such silly things with his time.

     “He should be doing his schoolwork, focusing on his studies,” His dad would say to his co-workers or acquaintances concerning his elementary-aged son. “He shouldn’t be wasting his time with this nonsense. Where has drawing ever gotten the world? Technology is where the success is. Big business and leadership will get him somewhere these days, not paints and markers.”

     Needless to say, William King was one of the big businessmen he wanted to turn his child into. And as much as Julia – his wife – argued with him about their son “needing to make his own way in life,” he would never agree. All he would say is that his way was the wrong way, that he would only get himself in trouble if they let him stray.

     They weren’t wrong, really. The two of us did get into quite a bit of mischief. Sneaking into abandoned houses to catch the exact look of the huge chandeliers or beaten staircases, coming home at odd hours of the morning from drawing sessions on the cliffs. We weren’t druggies or sex-addicts, though, as often as he accused us of being either. We were just in love with life, in love with the way we could portray it. He painted, I took pictures. We were partners in crime, so to speak.

     We met when we were both twelve years old. A normal morning in art class became a day that changed my life. He was a transfer student from Alabama with a cute southern accent, bright green eyes and an even brighter smile. Hatchet King introduced himself as a painter with a sweet tooth. When he was put in the seat beside me, I handed him a Twizzler from the package I’d been snacking on, and we’d stuck together from that point on.

     “What’s your name?” He’d asked me as I passed him a second piece of licorice.

     “Bailey Rider,” I chirped happily.

     We sat there for a moment and he watched me shuffle printed photos around in front of me. Most of them were of my mother’s flowers – petunias and roses and daisies she grew in the small garden in front of our house. After she passed away, my sister took charge in her memory, but Mom was still healthy and happy at that time. 

     "They're really good." He said around a bite of candy.

     I looked over at him. I must have looked as confused as I felt because he gave a simple nod at the pictures. I smiled, muttered a thank you, and went back to organizing the flowers.

     "Bloom," He said. No explanation, no obvious reasoning, just the word.

     Again, my eyes found his, "Bloom?"

     He nodded and grinned at me, jabbing his finger at my name on the back of one of the pictures I had flipped over, "Your name is Bailey, which starts with a B. You take pictures of flowers. I'm going to call you Bloom."

     I'd never heard anything as odd as that simple statement. It wasn't a question, not a "can I call you this, that, or some other thing?" No, it was a statement, and something he stuck to for as long as he was alive. He'd yell it from the other end of the hallway, across the cafeteria and through the aisles at Walmart. After graduation, I heard it shouted from the other end of the football field and, not ten seconds later, we were both sprawled on the ground laughing at his failed attempt to tackle and pin me.

     We dated steadily through the end of junior high and all of high school. We'd made wedding plans, picked names for the kids we were going to have - A girl named Jayden Kay and a boy named Sirus Michael. We had it all planned out.

     And then the accident happened. 

     I had picked him up one morning - the Saturday after graduation - for a day at the beach. It was a perfect day, not a cloud in the sky and the ocean rolling onto the sand. I still have the pictures I took that day - shots taken with a timer from a tripod, others of the sun reflecting off the water's surface. Beautiful, really, the way it all came together. 

     He drowned that day. He was swimming out, a wave came down over his head, followed by another and another of the same magnitude. It was like the sea wanted to keep him, and keep him it did. By the time the surf allowed his body to drift to the surface, he was dead. He wouldn't live to paint another portrait, create another rendition of the old chandelier or the cliff-side view. We'd never laugh over lattes or stay out too late just enjoying the time we had together. 

     I cried for days. Even when I finally found the strength to move on, got married to a man I love dearly, nothing ever really felt right. Nothing feels right to this day. 

     My husband interrupted my maternity picture session with a lovely young couple just yesterday. I had a Twizzler between my lips, flipping through some of the shots with the little woman named Olivia. She was tiny, despite being less than a month from being due. I envy her - they looked so genuinely happy to be with each other. I mean, I'm happy I guess, but the feelings don't come as easily as they did with Hatchet. Nothing comes as easily.

     "Bloom!" He called.

     I broke apart. I cried all night. I can't stop crying. I'll never stop crying.

     I developed one final picture in the midst of my tears before I slept last night. Not a maternity shot, not a simple portrait, not a picture of the stairs or chandelier or cliffs.

     A flower. A bright red rose from my mother's garden.