Daffodils
By Sacha Bissonnette
It was right after my accident that he started showing up. I would catch him staring from the sidewalk across the street next to the woods. His hair was knotted violently, and his eyes shone a piercing green that could be seen from anywhere, at any time. He frightened me, so wild and dirty, like that young feral boy from France that we learned about in primary school. The one our teacher said was raised by wolves.
Those days of mine were spent rooted painfully in place looking out of my living room window at my untended garden. My tomatoes had been ripening for some time and were ready to be picked, and my eggplants were large and full, a vibrant dark purple.
In my helpless state, I found myself calling my mother more often than I had before, so that if ever something bad were to happen to me, at least the police would know where to look. My mother too, was confined to a home. I had suggested she entertain the idea after a few too many “falls” down the stone steps that lead out to her three-acre orchard of a backyard. More than once I told her that her cider was much stronger than the one Dad used to make when he was still around.
“Your father… he was a soft man and his cider was soft like him, nowhere near the punch that mine has. That is why I‘m here and he is not.” She chuckled and then coughed. Her voice scratched like her overplayed Boots vinyl from the long cigarettes she still, and always has, smoked.
“And Kid, you have nothing to fear about that young boy there staring at you.” My mother called me Kid, never by name Bryony, which I liked.
“And what’s he going to want with a disabled middle-aged woman like yourself.” I swear it was her insults that really killed my father.
“He’s probably one of those poor boys from the Boisvert clan that live out by the trailer park near 54th regional. There are so many of them… they’re all mostly harmless.”
His gaze didn’t feel harmless. I hated that I still had to depend on my mother, who was so proudly independent herself. But I hated being alone more.
The night of my accident she was by my side, smoking one of her long cigarettes by the window. As the fentanyl wore off I could hear the murmured sounds of the channel 3 news report. I remember laughing more than the situation warranted, as my Mother turned up the volume on the television, worrying about what they were saying about me. When I fully came to, I screamed for what felt like hours.
“The following news report contains information that some viewers may find disturbing. The scene today in the town of Petit Rose is a grim one. A fifty-four year old man is dead and a forty-four year old woman is in critical condition after a head-on collision on Blanchisseuse road involving a cement truck. We are here with Marc Laframboise from a nearby community who witnessed the accident. Can you please describe what you saw here this morning sir? “Well uh… it was quite the… the… the cement truck came right through intersection right there. It hit her right there and she tried to crawl towards us, but the back of the truck had her pinned. She was screaming so much. Three of us tried to help but she was real stuck. Her legs were just… crushed. They needed a fireman to get her out.”
“And the driver?”
“He got thrown across the road. We found him near those sunflowers over there. Poor woman was stuck for a while. I don’t think she’ll make it. I’ll... I’ll…pray for her.
Later, I was told that those who were reeling from the shock of witnessing my accident were also brought to the hospital. As if they were the ones that actually suffered.
I was released from the hospital much earlier than I had expected and was assigned two personal support workers. They tried their best to help me with the transition but most things felt meaningless. It was hard to wrap my mind around having no legs. My roots having been ripped from my center with nothing attaching me to the ground anymore and no feet to feel the soil of my garden between my toes. With no legs and nowhere to go, I had a lot of time to think about everything. I was on a handful medications; anti-depressants, sedatives and of course fentanyl for the pain. I would daydream about the different ways to mix my pills together to create the perfect, painless combination. I thought about the truly unspectacular life I’d led up until my accident, except the one thing I loved and did well, gardening. Both my mother and father had green thumbs and they proudly passed that down to me. Now, the pleasure of gardening wouldn’t be possible.
When the daytime PSW attached the fentanyl patch to my shoulder, I’d ask her to roll me out into the garden and leave me there with my cup of white rose tea. I thought about my garden a lot. Mostly about dying in my garden, sometimes hoping that the soil would consume me and drag me beneath my rotten tomatoes. Maybe then I’d be of more use as fertilizer. Then I remembered my Daffodils.
Daffodils are of the Narcissus species, so they contain lycorine, lethal when ingested in large quantities, even more lethal when mixed with the fentanyl and Valium that my doctors had prescribed. I never understood over-prescribing the under-committed to live.
The plan I had was simple. A week later, nearing the end of my daytime PSW’s shift, I had asked her to roll me into my garden, with my cup of tea and fentanyl patch attached. As routine would have it, there was about an hour of unsupervised time before the start of the nighttime PSW’s shift. Right before she left, I asked her to pick what little remained of the once pretty daffodils. She asked me why.
“Because I planted them when I could still walk Lily,” I answered bitterly. “You can head out a bit early, just make sure you lock up the front door.” Then I reached into my pocket and pulled out enough of my own prescription meds to kill a baby elephant.
I looked at my tomatoes and remembered the dirt on my hands when I planted them. I counted six Valium and crushed them between my teeth. I looked at my eggplants and how shriveled and ugly they had become. One by one I pulled the petals off my once brilliant daffodils and place them in my tea. I remembered my Dad handing me similar ones from his garden on my first day of high school.
“Daffodils are for new beginnings,” he whispered, his kind eyes erasing the dread of the entire situation. I chewed another few petals and washed them down with the tea.
An uncomfortable warmth spread from the back of my neck and down into what was left of me. I began to drift in and out of consciousness as my eyelids grew heavier. I thought of my stoic mother, that dying breed of southern stock. I thought about my father, and the wild orchids I picked that day to place on the pine box we buried him in. He wanted it simple, “just to be covered by flowers,” he said.
I just let myself slide out of my wheelchair and into the dirt. It was easy.
I came to on my back, being dragged and yanked over sticks cutting into my flesh. I could feel the blood seeping out from all the little holes in my back. I knew where I was, and that’s what I feared most. I remembered the smell of the woods.
His hands were rough and calloused, his grip hurting me. How could he be so strong I wondered, as I twisted my arms trying to break free. He just gripped tighter and stronger.
“Please stop,” I managed to whimper.
He abruptly let go of one arm and placed his hand over my mouth. I passed out again and woke a while later in different spot, my body leaning against a tree. I felt that familiar gaze wander over me. I had already broken and split once. I feared for the parts that remained, having grown up hearing stories about the people who live near the woods. I wanted to be back in my garden. Safe from violence, safe from breaking again. I was tired of all the pain and the sheer boredom of it. Tired of the fentanyl haze and the thick of it all. I screamed, then I wept quietly. I had been ready to go.
I felt something move around me. I felt him over me. He had been sitting close to me, but out of my line of sight. As he got closer his eyes became an even darker shade of green.
“Please don’t, I’ve already lost so—"
“You can grow back,” the boy growled. I had never heard him speak. I assumed he couldn’t like the feral boy our teacher taught us about. He moved closer and grabbed my hips. His touch burned like his eyes. Like green flames. Like the cuts in my back. I watched as his hands move towards my parts, my hips. Then it happened. His fingers parted and his hands twisted into roots and vines that wrapped tightly around my hips. Over my stubs and my scars. I screamed deep and long as he fused himself to where my legs used to be… to where my legs were beginning to grow. I could feel him expand, spread into branches and twigs, sprout ends … I cried out even louder. I passed out again.
I woke up at the edge of the woods.
#
It is spring now. The soil is cold between my toes. I run my hands over my tomatoes and my eggplants. They are so vibrant and full. The phone rings and I know it’s my mother but I don’t feel the need to rush to answer it. I’m happy knowing she’s there. I stand in my garden waiting with my white rose tea. I wait for the green eyed boy who put me back together. My daffodils are in full bloom and I think of Dad.
THE END