Lady Slipper

An excerpt from the novel-in-progress, EDIE STARK

Photo by Alison Bogart on Unsplash

Fitful spring gave way to June, and Newtowne brightened, too, with pinwheels and flags, and sprinklers arcing over petunia-lined lawns. I planted my garden and waited on nature, while the season swelled with the infinite possibilities of a limited summer.

“Better hit those books,” I warned Riley, the week before finals. “You’re still teetering.”

He studied or made a show of it, and after, filled out applications for the few businesses hiring for the summer.

“If he was 18, Benny could hire him at Treats,” Doug said one evening.

We were on the back porch, Gypsy lounging in my lap.

“A titty bar,” I said, fixing on fireflies winking in the pale evening light.

“As a bouncer,” Doug amended.

Another woman might have given him a scorching earful, but over time, I’d learned just how much sass Dougie Stark would tolerate.

“Well, you said it yourself, he’s not old enough.”

“Soon enough.” On his third beer, his blue eyes slanted piggishly.

I stood, spilling Gypsy from my lap; there was only so much I could tolerate, too. “I’m going to the greenhouse and check on things,” I said, and stalked down the steps.

“It’s a joke,” Doug called across the lawn. “Don’t be that way.”

The fecund scent of growth and decay behind the greenhouse door embraced me. Dad had built it in the fall of ‘93, after he moved Doug and me from town, while Riley was still a baby. While the one here, at Haven House, is of finer quality, the ramshackle of PVC pipes and heavy plastic he’d tacked together had a rustic beauty that suited, rain, sleet, and snow, giving the walls a lovely, mother-of-pearl sheen. On the tables my father had cobbled together were the daisies, Black-eyed Susans, and Cosmos I grew from seed. I checked their progress, thumbing the soil, sprinkling water on dry pallets. After, I turned my attention to my favorites, the orchids.

Dad had given me one for each birthday, until the year he grew sick, understanding they were more than a hobby. Before circumstances rerouted my dreams, my ambition had been to study botany. Still plenty of time, Edes, Dad would say.

That first year in our Newtowne home, I sought books in the library, learning to monitor the seeds nestling in moss, peat, and tree bark, adjusting the water-to-acid ratio if it was off, and addressing color changes to stems and leaves as needed. Each winter, when the sun bleared across the sky and the wind battered the makeshift greenhouse, I brought the orchids inside. All except the half dozen lady slippers we planted.

On a cold April morning, six months after the move, Dad and I had knelt beneath a great fir, spading the earth.

“You remember the first one,” he asked, “when you were small?”

“Yes,” I said, stopping to blow on my fingers.

How could I forget? Mid-summer, trudging ahead of him on a hike, I’d spotted a lone lady slipper. A fluke, I thought, with bulbs ugly as a boy’s scrotum. Enthralled, I’d torn it from the ground. Dad was appalled. Up to 17 years, he’d said, raking his hair, that’s how long it can take to bloom. No, we couldn’t replant it. No, there was nothing I could do to make it better; I’d all but committed a crime.

“You remember what else I said?” Dad asked. The air was damp, making his breath visible.

“‘That orchid held on to hope a long time,’” I said, digging deep into the soil.

And, he’d added, while it was true that all things die, that didn’t give anyone the right to deprive the lady slipper its full span. Or its ability to delight others.

Standing in that place now, I could still hear his voice rumbling from deep within his chest. “No one has the right to do that.” And how, crouched beside him, my hair hanging in my face, I couldn't meet his eyes.

A telepathy had passed between us, making my father privy to my secret shame: the Treats receipt that had led to the argument and the rest that followed. Because I wasn’t stupid, I’d railed at Doug. I read the papers. Treats was a front for the massage parlor below, where patrons negotiated the wham-bam, girlfriend experience, and everything else between. It was my own fault, Doug taunted, because I was frigid. Why, he could feel the Atlantic seeping through my veins whenever he touched me, forcing him to slip into the bar.

But his appetite was voracious, and it varied. Sometimes he wanted a bath, for me to kneel before him and knead his skin with baby oil. For the hands-behind-your-back-and-up-against-the-wall nights, I’d gained a gymnast’s flexibility, gritting my teeth to keep from crying out and disturbing the sleeping baby.

I hadn’t learned Doug’s limits yet, couldn’t let the issue go. Jabbing at the receipt, I detailed all that $80 could supply: diapers, piles of baby wipes, a toddler bed on layaway, something Riley would soon need. Inches from my face, Doug had said, “I worked hard today, and I don’t need any more of your shit,” and shoved me against Riley’s high chair, where I had been feeding him. My ribs slammed against the tray. I winced but made no sound. For his part, the baby was quiet too.

Maybe it wasn’t so much telepathy but the neighbors who had alerted Dad about the unnerving crying jags and the inconsolable baby. By the following week, Dad fronted the down payment on a house within a mile of my parents’ place, his frequent pop-ins breaking the cycle between Doug and me. Funny, isn’t it, that by 2009, my husband was bartending at Treats, a job stretching us through the lean years. Despite a receding economy, you can count on dirty needs to abide. Jealousy? That was no longer a factor. Seventeen years into the marriage, the flame between Doug and me had all but fizzled.

Turning from the spot where my father and I had once scratched with dull blades, I treaded toward him, silhouetted on the screen porch, waiting in his wicker chair. Sixteen years, and not one lady slipper had cracked the soil. Yet, Edes, Dad would have said. There’s still time.