The house smelled like somebody else’s cooking.
Onions. And some kind of spice Ardis never used. Cumin, maybe. Not a bad smell. Just not ours.
There was a pair of women’s winter boots by the door. Small ones, with fake fur around the top. A pink fleece jacket hung on the hook where Ardis’s old barn coat usually hangs. And a great big new flat-screen television sat on the stand where our old one used to be.
But the place was clean. I’ll say that.
The kitchen counters were wiped down. The dishes were washed and put away. In the right cupboards, even. Somebody had polished the kitchen faucet until it shone.
Ardis walked straight past all of it. Straight to the front window. Straight to her violets.
She had about twenty of them on that stand. Some of them came from her mother. One came from a cutting her sister brought to the hospital the day Brett was born. Thirty-six years that one’s been going.
She cried, the first year we went to Arizona. About leaving those violets behind.
Every single one of them was alive.
Every single one was blooming.
The soil was damp, but not wet. And somebody had turned every pot, carefully, so the leaves would grow even toward the light.
Ardis reached out and touched one of the leaves with the back of her finger. Very gently. She didn’t say anything.
Behind her, on the windowsill, sat her mother’s old Christmas cactus in its chipped blue crock.
That cactus hadn’t bloomed in three years. Ardis had about given up on it.
It was covered in pink flowers.
“Well,” Ardis said, very softly. “Would you look at that.”
Austin was standing in the kitchen doorway with his hands jammed in his pockets, looking at the floor.
“Who’s been taking care of these?” I asked him.
“Brett,” he said. “Every Sunday. He won’t let anybody else touch them. Jade tried to water one once, and he about had a fit.”
I didn’t look at Ardis.
I don’t think either one of us could have stood it.
“Show me the basement,” I said.
Ethan Blake is a skilled Creative Content Specialist with a talent for crafting engaging and thought-provoking narratives. With a strong background in storytelling and digital content creation, Ethan brings a unique perspective to his role at TheArchivists, where he curates and produces captivating content for a global audience.
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