How to Bake a Perfect Life - Barbara O'Neal [64]
Oh, I suppose I like quilting. My mother would rather have her hands cut off than knit or sew anything, but I like it. Maybe I should get some yarn and crochet while I’m talking to Oscar. It would be soothing.
I’ve just had some supper at the hospital cafeteria—a plate of roast pork and cabbage with a very nice rye bread I should remember to tell my mother about. I ate it with butter, even though I’ve been trying hard to be good and not gain ten million pounds with this baby. But I needed something a little luxurious.
It has been a very discouraging day. Everything the doctors are not saying is written on their faces when they talk to me. They are pretending hope and optimism, but I can see how the mask slips the minute they turn away. They feel sorry for me.
I have been sitting with Oscar all day, talking until I’m hoarse, reading to him when I run out of things to talk about—the newspaper, a magazine article. Tomorrow I’m going to the library to see what I can find to read aloud, chapter by chapter.
No matter what, he’s got a long road ahead of him. He will have to learn to walk again, of course, but the burns are the thing. The blast came from the front, so his head and face and chest took the brunt of it, and I have to admit I’m afraid. It’s strange to know his face will not be the same face I have loved. Is a face who we are? I know it isn’t, but that’s how we recognize one another and ourselves, by the marker of a nose and the shape of eyes and lips and chin.
I am worried about how he will take it, seeing that his face is ruined different.
Until I feel calm, I can’t call my mother. She’ll pick up my terror, and I can’t stand to have her worrying, too, not about me when she has so much to deal with already.
My entire body feels like I’ve been soundly beaten, as my grandma Adelaide used to say, so I guess I’ll finish up and go back to my room and get some sleep.
Oh, Oscar, Oscar! I’m so sad this happened to you. I hope I can find the right words to encourage you and let you know that you are loved, no matter what. You have to live, for me and for your daughters. We need you.
Now I’m crying and need to just get myself to bed. Tomorrow, though, I am going to get some yarn in beautiful colors.
Enough.
Katie
Katie feels shy going with Lily, but the older woman is so happy to be talking flowers that Katie finds herself swept along. In Lily’s big green Nissan, they drive to a greenhouse that’s set back from the street, and the minute Katie walks inside, it seems as if everything in her whole body lets go with a sigh.
Just inside the door, she stops. The light is a pale, soft color over the endless tables of flowers in every color and size and shape, the most beautiful thing she has seen in her entire, entire life. “Oh, my God.”
“Haven’t you ever been to a greenhouse before, hon?”
“No,” Katie whispers. She breathes in the smell of earth and leaves and something damp. She can’t take her eyes off the rows of colors. “It’s amazing.”
“You go wander, then, and I’ll do the same. Take your time.”
Katie floats between the tables, looking at little pink and white flowers called impatiens that are flat and seem as if they’re smiling, and big white daisies with yellow centers, and even a long table of cactus of so many kinds she’s never seen before. Around her she can feel a soft, rustling awareness, as if the plants are talking in very quiet whispers. What do plants think about? She smiles and moves down the aisles, lightly touching a ruffled dark-red thing and fluttering her fingers over a bush covered with tiny white flowers. She looks at a big vine, with really bright pink flowers that look like they are made of paper, and marigolds, which she knows.
There are so many flowers and plants!