Buds of Heaven

Ellen could feel her shoulders tensing as David pulled off the highway and into town. He had been firm about her coming with him to see Mom and Dad today, though she is not over jetlag, not settled. “It’s Sunday,” he had said.

Her father’s last words to her, five years ago, had been “Get out.” Out of his office? Out of the house? She had chosen to think it meant out of his life. She can’t remember what the fight was about. There were so many, over her grades, over her sauciness to the church ladies, over her boyfriend, over her attitude. Was there a single thing she did in those years her father approved of? She remembered being emboldened in that final fight, enough to mock his faith. “God,” she’d said, “was a hoary, old goat.” “Jesus Christ was nothing but wishful thinking.” Words calculated to hurt him and perhaps she’d been successful.

David turned down the street full of old houses and mature trees that led to the church and the manse, the house she had grown up in. Ellen found herself admiring the maple trees gracefully arching over the street, the manicured lawns and the well-trimmed hydrangeas. They were there when she was a teenager, yet somehow, she had never realized how beautiful they were. Thinking about them covered her uneasiness. Some part of her was holding back, trying to decide what she could say when she stepped in the green-painted door of her father’s home.

Her mother was standing on the doorstep, looking very thin. She was wearing a flowered blouse that Ellen remembered from Sundays in the past and a denim skirt at least 20 years out of date. Her curly hair was pulled back, but little tendrils escaped around her ears.

“Ellen. My Ellen,” she cried as Ellen made her way up the front steps. She had her arms open in a very un-Mom-like way and Ellen walked, surprised, into them, the bunch of flowers she was carrying crushed between them. Then she was enveloped in the not-quite-right odour of a sick person. Her mother was holding her tightly, resting her weight on Ellen’s ribcage, trembling slightly, when her Father appeared in the doorway. Father’s hair was completely grey and there was a stoop to his shoulders Ellen did not remember. They’ve grown old, she thought.

“Hello, Ellen. Emily, you’re getting too excited,” Father said. “Why aren’t you sitting down.”

“She’s here, Arthur. Our baby has returned.”

“Ellen, help me get her inside. She should rest now,” he said in his deep voice of authority.

“I won’t be separated from her, Arthur,” Mom said. It was not her mother’s usual meek and agreeable demeanor. At such close range, Ellen could feel the physical force that went into her statement.

Something bleak passed over her father’s face and he looked into Ellen’s eyes for the first time, an appeal instead of an order. Ellen passed David the flowers and put her arm around Mom and said “Let’s go inside and catch up.” Dad moved an arm around Mom from the opposite side and briefly gripped Ellen’s arm where it held up her mother.