Green Was Mama's Favorite Color

The greenness of the garden is breathtaking. The flowers dip and sway, their heads bobbing with the wind. Their colors are bright, reds, pinks, yellows and blues dot the garden, their color only enhancing the vibrant verdant of the trees, the bushes, the green, green grass. The color is more electric then any lightening storm, it almost seems to glow in Technicolor.

         Cecilia bends down, smelling a yellow rose, carefully avoiding the thorns, remembering the old wives’ tale her mother told her all those years ago, back when she was a girl, back when her mother was still alive. “Cilka,” She said, using her pet name for Cecilia, the one she used to whisper over her cradle, the one she used when running her hand over her hair, soothing the tears and driving away the nightmares, “Remember, prick a thorn, love will scorn.”

         Cecilia’s mother had been full of such adages. She was certain that if she was careful, if she never walked under a ladder or stepped on a crack in the sidewalk, she could control destiny. Mama had been so sure she could shelter herself and those she loved from harm, from sadness, from all the things that kept Cilka up at night, crying and trying to fight off her sleepiness, trying to avoid the nightmares.

         But it hadn’t worked. Four years ago Mama had felt that lump in her breast. Eight months later she was dead. Cecilia remembered her mother in her final stages, as the cancer ravaged her system.  She turned into something else, someone who wasn’t Mama. Someone who had captured Mama, held her deep inside as her hair fell out and her cheeks hallowed. Sometimes Cecilia would catch a glimpse of Mama staring out at her from inside this shrunken defeated person. She had ached for her mama.

         It had all been too much to bear, a cross too heavy any seventeen year old to carry. But she had carried it, bore it in her heart. She had nodded her head when people had asked her if she was okay and had shaken it when people had offered her help, or a shoulder to cry on. Only once did she break down, a week before Mama had died, when Cecilia had first realized, with awful clarity, that her mother would soon be gone, that soon she’d be alone. She had collapsed in Daniel’s arms that day; she had cried and cried until she felt entirely empty. The next day, although Daniel had made motions that he wanted to talk about it, Cecilia pretended it had never happened. She was strong; she would handle this with grace and courage. She would not break down again.

         But today that sadness seems so far away. Today is the day, she is sure of it. Her heart beats in her chest; she raises a hand to her breast, feeling the beat of her heart. She closes her eyes and breathes in deeply, feeling her chest rise and fall, her blood pump, her nose fill with the smell of the greenness of the garden. Green had always been Mama’s favorite color.

         Today is the day, today has to be the day. She’s been waiting for this day for six years, ever since she first saw Daniel that first day of tenth grade. She had spied him across the room and thought “that is the boy I’m going to marry.”

         She had been young and stupid then, so caught up in her fifteen year old fantasies of white dresses and white flowers. Daniel had been dark and handsome. She had been fair and slender. They circled each other, not aware of the mutual attraction, trying to deny it. But then, on Cecilia’s sixteenth birthday he had taken her into his arms and told her everything she’d ever wanted to hear. She was young, she was in love. Nothing could stand in her path to ultimate, unadulterated bliss.

         But then, a year and a half later, Mama had been diagnosed. Stage four, nothing the doctors could do but hold off the inevitable and watch this young woman, only thirty-nine years old, die. Cecilia had convinced herself that she had needed no one, that she must do this alone. She confined herself inside herself, refusing to talk to Daniel or any of her friends, although they had begged her too. She drove them all away.

         Cecilia remembers the day she ended things with Daniel. They had been standing beside the olive green lockers at school, the ones everyone said were the exact shade of puke. She had looked him straight in the eye and broke his heart. She hadn’t cared, she didn’t feel a thing. She was numb all over. He had held her gaze, his bottle green eyes catching her hazel ones, and he said those four words that made her bones ache. “I’ll wait for you.”

         Daniel had come to the funeral, watched Cecilia, draped in an ill-fitting black dress, as she held tightly to her father’s hand. She had held her chin at an angle that could only be described as defiant. Like she was daring anyone to feel sorry for her, this poor motherless girl, only seventeen. But he had seen her swallow her tears as they lowered the casket into the ground. And he saw her shut her eyes as she left the graveyard, trying to conjure up memories of happy times, trying to keep that horrible sadness at bay.

         Just like he promised he had waited for her. Two years he had waited for her. He watched her from a distance as slowly she recovered, even though that sadness never truly left her eyes. He had seen her the first time she smiled again, two weeks after the funereal. She had been standing by her locker as her best friend Gabrielle leaned over and whispered something in her ear. It was probably some triviality, a piece of worthless gossip or a mean little joke. But it made Cecilia smile, even if it was a small smile. Her mouth had twitched; it had only lasted for a moment before disappearing. But it had been there.  And watching it Daniel had felt like cheering. She was going to be okay, he knew it.

         They graduated high school, clad in a white gown Cecilia had accepted her diploma, clasped the headmaster’s hand and walked off the stage, luminescent in her happiness. She had hugged her father afterwards and he had told her he was so proud, and that her mother would have been too. The smile disappeared then.

         That night Daniel told Cecilia that he was done waiting. That he wanted her more than anything in the world. She had smiled shyly and nodded her head after he asked her out for dinner. He hugged her close, whispering “thank you,” into her soft blonde hair.

         Now here Cecilia was, standing in this garden of green, waiting for Daniel to appear. Here was the moment she had been waiting for. Today her life would start anew. She’d cast off the sadness like an old coat, one that was tattered and offered no more warmth. She’d be happy in this life, she just knew it.

         She watched as Daniel walked through the garden gate. After all these years he was still tall and dark and incurably handsome. He smiled slowly at her.

         “Hi,” She said shyly, looking up at him coyly through her eyelashes.

         “Hi,” He replied.

         “Why did you want to see me?” She asked.

         “I have something to tell you,” He told her. She nodded and held her breath, waiting.

         “What is it?” She asked.

         “It’s- well, it’s…”

         “Spit it out,” She said with what she hoped was an encouraging smile.

         “Well, I think…” He faltered, “I think that it’s over.”

         Cecilia blinks once, and then again. The world narrows. Her heart quickens, she fears it will explode.

         “What?” She asks, her voice barely containing her tears.

         “Come on, Cee,” He says, using his pet name for her. “You know things haven’t been going well for a while now.”

         This is true. They now went to school in different cities and the distance had put a strain on their relationship. But she had never thought, never expected it to end. They weren’t a couple who would lose each other. They were Daniel and Cecilia. They’d been in love since they were fifteen. They had walked through hell and back together. They were going to get married; they were going to grow old together. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

         “But…” She says, words failing her.

         “I’m sorry, Cee,” He says, actually sounding it. She looks at him and he sees a look her hasn’t seen for four years, not since she had ended things between them that first time. It’s a look of numbness, of defeat.

         “Don’t call me that,” She says, anger flashes through her eyes but in an instant it is gone, replaced with that cold emptiness.

         “Cecilia…” He says.

         “I thought… I thought you were going to propose.” She says. It sounds foolish now; the word trips off her tongue awkwardly, filling the sweet smelling air with its harsh sound.  It’s a word that carries too much meaning. She feels her dreams of white dresses and happy ending disappear as surely as the words out of her lips evaporate into the warm green spring breeze.

         He looks at her, it’s a look she hates, has always hated. The one she had so refused to see when she was seventeen. It’s a look of pity. “Poor Cecilia,” the look says in its mocking voice. She doesn’t want to be Poor Cecilia anymore. She wanted her happy ending so much she feels it ache inside.

         “You should go,” She says, her voice sounds hollow in her ears, echoing their harsh, sad sound over and over in her head. Those are the last words she’ll ever say to him. The thought fills her with misery. She loves him, but she’ll never speak to him again.

         “Okay,” He replies, he turns and goes. As soon as he’s out of sight Cecilia tumbles to the ground, her hands catching her. She doesn’t
care that the grass will surely stain her pale yellow dress. She stares at the ground, expecting the world to drain it color. It doesn’t. The world is just as green as it was before.