Emily Katitus

Funeral For a Sunflower

I: Funeral for a Sunflower

It was the kind of August afternoon that makes kids dance to keep their chalky bare feet from being scalded by the sidewalks. The heat was so oppressive that it placed a baked silence over the world and singed the few clouds wilting in the sky. I was perched on the old cherry rocker on our porch, listening to the groan of its weary limbs keeping time with the snip of mom's scissors as she cut sunflowers. The earthy perfume of the blossoms pervaded the air, making the warmth feel thicker, stickier.

I don't know why, but every summer, when my mother chops the stalks of those flowers, then lovingly fingers the stems and silky petals, she cries. She slashes the stems in an almost brutal way, then gathers the blossoms apologetically. During the entire scene, tears, like big watery pearls, stream down her cheeks. As she thrashes, strokes and weeps, she forgets that I am even present. I think her whole world becomes nothing but flowers and memories. I can only watch, wordlessly pleading with her to let me understand her sorrow.

The only thing I know about my dad is that he loved music. My sole inheritance from him consists of a small collection of LPs: Nat King Cole (my favorite), Simon & Garfunkel, Carole King, The Eagles, The Beatles. I know that the reason I haven't learned anything else about my dad is because I won't ask. My mom won't talk about him of her own volition, and she only cries once annually. For the rest of the year she wavers between feverish attempts to teach me everything about love and learning, and staring numbly into a sink of dishes and mounds of soapy water, haunting in their very fragility.

"Darling? Kristi?" My reverie is shattered. "Oh! I didn't know you were still outside, dear. Um . . . will you please go into the house and find as many vases as you can? I've cut all our sunflowers in such a hurry! Let's not have them wither in this heat! Thank you, dear."

I kicked off my shoes and went into the house. But I didn't go on a quest for mason jars. Instead, I gently closed the door and sunk to the floor, feeling smothered in humidity and despondency.

Soon the sadness felt heavier than the heat, and I decided to go for a walk.

II: Rigby Records

We're old acquaintances, the store and I. I pass it by every day during the school year, yet, I've never actually gone inside. The truth is I fear it will force me to meditate on extraordinary things or forgotten subjects: music, my dad, history, emotions.

III: Yellow Lights, Green Eyes, and a Confession

When I went inside Rigby's, I felt my feet seep into a thick bed of moss. I gazed at the floor and found it covered in thick olive carpeting from the 1970s. The ceiling, in contrast, was high and lined with rows of tiny, yellow modern lights, their characters more lugubrious than luminous. Against the walls and stretching all the way to the ceiling were shelves stocked with LPs. The piles of records were disheveled and slightly damaged, wrapped in cloaks of dust marred only by an occasional fingerprint. The whole place smelled musty and weary. Even as I closed the door, the tinkling melody of the bell above it sang of sadness and a forgotten time.

I was a dismal picture, but I couldn't help imagining how wonderful it might be with a little organization, creativity and life. I let my eyes and mind wander as my imagination straightened the untidy shelves and peeled away the starched curtains shielding the summer sun.

I was so enthralled with the store's potential that I hadn't noticed an old woman perched on a stool behind the counter. She was sketching Lilliputian pictures inside the squares of a crossword puzzle: tiny musical notes, flowers and faces, and humming "Easy Living" off key. Apparently, she hadn't noticed me until then either.

She looked at me and smiled a brilliant smile--not a beautiful smile by any means, but very bright and genuine. Her cheeks were pinched, and her hair was thin and frizzy, each gray strand curling defiantly. She wore a blue and white polka dot dress in the style of the 1950s and gaudy plastic earrings, pink like the slather on her lips. I concluded that although she was not a very lovely woman at all, she did possess one lovely feature: her eyes. I realized that her vivid green irises encompassed by sweeping jetty lashes were responsible for her sweet and bright aura.

She stopped humming and sipped tea, surveying me all the while. I felt awkward; I thought I'd become accustomed to my five feet, eleven inches, but her petite figure and eccentricity made me feel ridiculously out of place, especially in my Jimi Hendrix T-shirt and jeans.

"Hi. I'm Kristi Wells," I said.

She continued to stare up at me with her penetrating green eyes but didn't utter a syllable.

"I wanted to see if you were hiring anyone for the summer? I'm sixteen."

When she remained silent, I cast a surreptitious glance at the ceiling and tried desperately to think of more to say. I was taciturn by nature, and even introducing myself could be painful. Finally, she ended the silence herself.

"My first name is my life long sorrow," she sighed. "I never would marry and surrender my last name, oh no, no. Nothing could induce me to sacrifice that. But do you know what is tragic and horrid? My first name . . . is . . . Lenora. Lenora Rigby. Awful and terrible! Depressing and . . . heartbreaking!" As she spoke, her pink earring trembled almost imperceptibly with her efforts to stifle rising tears.

I must have looked at her quizzically; I was confused and startled by her outburst of woe. But my curiosity was soon satisfied, for with one determined sniffle, she proceeded to play a Beatles' record on a turntable behind the counter. I'm not exactly sure what made me say what I said next. I suppose it was that I commiserated with her in her need to be someone else.

"If you want, I could call you Eleanor Rigby."

"You would . . . why . . . would you?"

"If you want me to."

"But you really would? Oh, that would be wondrous and excellent!" She let out a frothy laugh, as her dark mood metamorphosed into one of bliss. "I know I'm frivolous and silly. But yes--yes, do call me Eleanor Rigby. It would give me great joy and happiness to be called by my dream name. Now . . . I feel much better. But what was it you were asking about? Oh, nevermind, let's not talk about anything prosaic. Let's just listen."

We listened intently to the melody about lonely people. While the haunting song played, I wondered what I was doing there. I didn't think of myself as a habitually capricious person, so for that reason I hoped Mrs. Rigby wouldn't discover that I'd waltzed into her store and requested employment on a whim. The idea to find a summer job was premeditated, but the way in which I was going about finding one was rather impulsive, and that fact made me feel a little nervous. I decided to allow her to be the one to ask questions.

But to my surprise, as Eleanor Rigby concluded, Lenora Rigby didn't seem to know what to do anymore than I did. She asked whether or not I would like some peppermint tea, which I accepted.

"It would be very pleasant and nice to have some help," she said, handing me a lukewarm china teacup, identical to her own. "Oh, and you won't have to worry about remembering whose teacup is whose, because mine has lipstick on it!" She laughed.

We sat in silence for sometime, Mrs. Rigby looking very pensive while I still felt a little awkward.

"When I was much younger," she said suddenly, "I used to have a lovely and beautiful garden. I wove little pathways of stepping stones through my garden, and I would water my flowers and sing to them everyday. They were so precious to me!"

Her face was radiant as she reminisced.

"What kind of flowers did you plant?" I asked.

"Only white roses. Hundreds and hundreds of elegant and stunning white roses. I think they are the loveliest flowers of all. Wouldn't you agree? Red roses force you to love them; white ones ask gently and sweetly. I haven't forgotten my little garden. I still treasure its memory in my heart so very dearly and tenderly. I often purchase a bouquet for myself from the florist." She looked at me with a peculiar, questioning air.

"What do you think white roses symbolize?"

I thought for a moment.

"Hope."

She nodded, as if she approved my answer.

"You could start by organizing that shelf over there, if you don't mind." She indicated a shelf to my left with her eyes.

I smiled and set my teacup on the counter. Sitting down on the deep shag carpet, I determined that the bottom shelf had to be the "C" section; I found Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, The Cure, and The Carpenters. It took a long time to sort the records, and as the afternoon progressed, Mrs. Rigby would disappear, play music, and talk to me about sundry subjects in her quirky way.

*

After I had sorted the records into piles and felt dizzy from flipping through them, Mrs. Rigby helped me place them on the shelves again. She looked so pleased with the result that I couldn't help but comply when she requested that I tackle another shelf.

Maybe my task was simple, but accomplishing it gave me a sense of relief. It was comforting to be needed, even in a minor way, and to listen.

IV: Conversations

"How are your parents?" She inquired later that day, as if we were old friends. I smiled.

"Well, honestly, I don't know."

"Of course you know. Stop being ridiculous. How are they doing?" She raised her eyebrows like a school teacher. I usually didn't like it when adults persisted in prying, but by now, although I didn't understand why she asked the questions she did, I could perceive that nothing Mrs. Rigby said was meant to be interpreted as an affront. So I assented.

"I really mean that, though. I don't know."

"Why?"

"My mom doesn't talk to me very much. I don't like to try to make her, because it might hurt her."

I realized the heaviness of my reply, and felt a little startled my by own frankness.

However, Mrs. Rigby simply looked into my eyes, empathy and kindheartedness reflected in her own, and that kind of silence seemed to say enough.

"What about you father?"

"He died."

"Oh . . . oh."

She nodded, patted my shoulder, and went to sit down behind the counter.

"It's okay," I said. "I don't mind that you asked me about it, really. Please don't feel badly."

"Oh," she said again, but her voice was fluttery and I could see she hadn't heard me. I knew the far away look in her eyes very well. I wished I hadn't been so honest.

V: Twilight

It was around eight thirty when I paused to take a break and drink tea with Mrs. Rigby again.

"Twilight reminds me of Christmastime," she said. "So I like to play Christmas albums everyday at sunset. That's rather romantic and silly, isn't it?" She giggled.

"Yeah, maybe it's a little silly, but I like it."

"Oh! So you won't mind it then. Very good." She proceeded to play "A Christmas Portrait", setting the needle with exaggerated sweeping motions. She started swaying and humming off key again.

"This is one of my favorites," I said smiling. "I love the Carpenters."

She gave me one of her winsome smiles in response and rose from her stool to dance like a clumsy ballerina, twirling in her polka dot dress, perfectly jubilant and forgetful of everything for just that one moment. I almost started laughing; I hardly knew this moody old lady, but it made me happy to see her so simply blissful.

VI: A Rose for a Sunflower

When I said goodbye to Mrs. Rigby, it was past ten. She had asked that I come back at noon the next day, and I'd promised to be punctual. Just as I was opening the door, and the diminutive bell was chiming its tune again, she stopped me and handed me a slightly withered white rose.

"For your mother," she said brightly. "My garden is no longer, but I like I said, I still can't help buying a few of these beauties once in awhile."

I tried to thank her with my eyes. I couldn't seem to say anything at all.

VII: Dreaming in Black and Blue

When I stepped outside, I breathed in the evening air and felt the heavy humidity permeate my lungs and surface to my eyes. It was a peculiar kind of cry because I was standing up, rather than smothering my tears in a quilt, frantically trying to catch them before they burned my cheeks.

I've always had an aversion to crying; not because I think it's an act of weakness, but because I don't understand it. I never know what to do when my mom cries, and feeling the watery pinch in my own eyes is even more perplexing. I thought as deeply as I could.

Perhaps I was just exasperated with the confusion that was my family and my life.

As I trudged down the road, distressed and disconcerted, I felt like I was dreaming. So many images were streaming through my mind like battered photos. I imagined Mrs. Rigby's beautiful garden, rife with blossoms and fragile beauty, and thought of her traipsing through it, joyful and carefree. I recalled how my mom's garden was a source of sadness for her, and how her golden and brown flowers were watered with her tears. I thought about Mrs. Rigby bouncing around the store, straightening the curtains and sorting mail meticulously, but never thinking to wash the windows. I saw a morose picture of my mother, standing listlessly at the sink, leaving even trivial tasks neglected. I thought that it was funny how hungry Mrs. Rigby was to talk for the sake of being heard, and how I longed to hear for the sake of listening. I cringed slightly as I thought of Mrs. Rigby's horrendous singing voice, and how my mom never sang in the house, or at all. I tried to gather all of Mrs. Rigby's funny speeches soaring through my mind like so many flighty butterflies, and capture them so that I would never forget a single one. And then, finally, in the midst of all my nonsensical recollections, I let myself wonder about the question that seemed to subtly define all the sadness in my life. I asked myself why time had stolen something from my family, leaving us bereft of simple happiness.

I thought about my mom and how much I loved her, and how that love would make everything I might ask more muddy and painful. As I walked past our small barren garden, I knew she would be sitting inside, knitting or playing solitaire with prematurely wrinkled hands and an afflicted expression. I mounted the porch steps, feeling like a confused little girl imprisoned by dark, unanswered questions. But even as the night became a bruised blur, black and blue with tears and apprehension, I felt determined.