Free Court of the Myrtles by Lois Cahall

barely ever knew. She could read the transparent expressions on people’s faces, the one that said “That poor chubby thing lost her father.”
    Alice now had time for a hobby, thanks to her policeman’s pension, and her gratitude showed up in the yellow roses that reached for the sun on the new brick walkway. A four-foot path of Astilbe swayed its feathery-pink flumes in the breeze where Joy’s wooden swing once hung on the branch of the old oak tree, now sitting on a dusty garage shelf next to a can of turpentine.
    Alice walked the length of the yard, meticulously plucking dandelions like some Mandrill monkey picking bugs from its baby’s belly. Her passion had become her obsession. Alice had won second place in the Summer Petal Contest that appeared page twenty of
House & Garden
. It was for her “Mozart,” a hybrid musk rose, simple to grow but a real “looker.” Her petite climbing roses came in third place for their “bouncy touch.” Alice had built a trellis up the side of the wooden fence where the sunshine cast rays on their perfect velvet petals.
    When the sun went down, Alice would come through the back door, run a hand across her sweaty brow and drop into the kitchen chair as though she’d just sunk into a mesh hammock in Bermuda. After a deep exhale, she’d examine the dirt under her fingernails, eventually noticing Joy struggling to get through her homework at the kitchen table.
    â€œNeed some help?” she’d ask.
    â€œNo. I’m on the last one.”
    â€œCan you be a good kid and pour your mother a Sprite?” she’d invariably say.
    Despite Alice’s emotional absence, she still considered herself an adequate mother. Okay, the house was always a mess but, unlike her dead husband, at least she was
there
, and the garden was glorious. “It ain’t easy” being a widow to five kids is what ran through her mind when placed her head on the Pontiac steering wheel between red lights. Every day was something new for the kids—soccer practice to Driver’s Ed, marching band to karate lessons—until eventually their activities turned into after-school jobs. Her oldest, Peter gave up the idea of college, instead opting for the job of man of the house. Peter worked down at the Stop & Shop, where he knew if he greeted those customers the moment the sliding doors peeled open, so long as there weren’t any loose oranges rolling across the floor, and if he formed the lemons into a pyramid just right, someday Peter would be awarded the position of assistant manager.
    With all the comings and goings and only one mother to come and go, Alice could surely be forgiven for forgetting to pick up Joy from the dentist after having two of her impacted wisdom teeth removed. Joy sat on the office front step, icepack held to her swollen cheeks, her neck craning to see each car that drove by, as her tongue played mouth hockey with the bloodied stitches.
    A horn finally startled Joy as Alice appeared curbside, slammed on the brakes, and hollered out the window, “C’mon, honey. Hurry along! Gotta pick up your brother’s tux.”
    â€œA tuxedo?” mumbled Joy, lifting the icepack.
    â€œYes, for the prom. Needs hemming before the seamstress closes!”
    Joy didn’t even seem to notice that her mother hadn’t inquired how she was feeling.
    If Joy was upset that she didn’t have a boyfriend, she certainly didn’t let on. Her hefty size made her more of a laughing target in gym class rather than a girl you’d take to second base. The only one who noticed her was faithful Georgey Pfeifer, now a tight-end on the high school football team. She’d linger at his locker just after English Honors with ten minutes to spare before the humiliation of gym.
    Georgey would round the corner genuinely pleased to see Joy, though he usually had a blond cheerleader on one arm and a stack of books in the other. It