No thank you.
No acknowledgment.
As though dinner had appeared by itself.
I brought it up to Daniel once.
We were lying in bed at the cabin with the lights off.
“Your mom never helps.”
“I know.”
“She doesn’t even say thank you anymore.”
“I know.”
He was quiet.
“She’s always been like that. At home Dad does most things. Mom plans. She decides. But she doesn’t really do.”
“This isn’t her house.”
“I know.”
“Should I say something?”
Daniel thought for a long time.
“I don’t know.”
That was his honest answer.
“I don’t know what saying something would do.”
So I let it go.
For a while.
Then came the flower boxes.
That Saturday, Mom had gotten up at five-thirty.
Before breakfast.
She had spent weeks building six wooden flower boxes in her garage.
She painted them blue to match the shutters.
Then planted bright red geraniums in every one.
She had been excited about them for weeks.
On the drive up, she showed me pictures.
The boxes drying in her garage.
The flowers at the garden center.
The bags of soil.
“Your father always said red geraniums looked cheerful,” she told me. “Like they were having a party.”
