Family

Alexander never understood or felt true love until she entered his life and altered its course.

Mary worked as a receptionist at the factory, where Alex worked as a welder, and they rode the same bus to work each morning. Each day they would walk from the bus stop to the factory together and had become good friends. He looked forward to seeing her every workday morning and would wish the hours away every weekend in anticipation of seeing her again on Monday.

He was falling in love and hoped she felt the same, but his lack of courage kept getting in the way of saying the words he wanted to say. He had no idea how to tell her how he felt because he'd never felt love before. His life had been a never-ending series of events that had nothing to do with love, while Mary's life seemed to be the opposite of his and filled with love.

She always wore a gold-coloured pendant with an engraving of a marigold flower around her neck. Alexander recognized the flower because his aunt had several of what she called “pot marigolds” around the house. The day he asked why she wore a marigold pendant was the day her smile stole his heart. Her smile lit up her face as she explained the flower's significance and, for the first time, told him her family name.

She said she was born in October, and the marigold was the flower for that month. Her family name was "Gold," making her name Mary Gold. She was named after her great grandmother, who was named Mary because of the religious connection to the marigold flower.

He never knew about this connection until Mary explained it to him.

Apparently, the common name of pot marigold originated from the gold flowers that bloomed during the festivals of the Virgin Mary in Renaissance times (Mary + gold = marigold)

She talked about her happy childhood with two loving parents, who supported her in every way. She had an older brother who would do anything for her, and grandparents, whom she loved immensely, that spoiled her as if she were still a child.

The love in her eyes when she spoke about her family touched him deeply as he thought about his own life and how it couldn’t have been any more different.

After that conversation, he spent the weekend thinking about Mary's life and loving family, comparing it to his shit show of a life and family. Family didn't do what was done to him, at least not any family that actually cared and loved.

All he ever wished for was to be normal and have a normal life with normal friends and normal family. He would wake many mornings from fitful dreams and stare into the mirror, seeing flashes of his younger self. Sometimes he hated that mirror, the pain brought forth by the images of that abandoned little boy and that abused eleven-year-old and that bullied teenager tore at his soul.

Before he'd left school and started working, people called him an introvert or, by his old high school name, weirdo loner.

But with the help of his high school consoler and the one person he trusted, his old neighbour William, he was starting to live in the present and not worry about things in the past that he couldn’t change.

Things like being dropped on his aunt's doorstep by his drug-addicted parents at four years old, or being used for sexual gratification by his aunt at eleven years old, or being bullied and called “fatty Alex” for years after because he ate his feelings.

In the years since high school, he'd worked on his well-being both physically and mentally. He worked out a couple of times a week and walked every day, which resulted in him losing the extra weight and developing the strong lean body he inhabited today.

His mental health was a much harder thing to deal with, but over the years and with the help of William, he'd conquered some of his demons and was in a much better place now. He understood now that his parents thought they were doing what was best for him when they left him with his aunt. He had to believe that they had no way of knowing what his aunt, Tillie, would do.

The sex things had only happened three times before she had her first breakdown. He never told William or anyone else about what she had done as he felt ashamed and afraid of what would happen to him if he told the truth.

Over the next ten years, his aunt slowly slipped into her own reality. One day she would be completely normal and happy, but the next, she would wander around the house and talk to people that weren't there.

His understanding of her mental breaks came around the time he and Mary started dating. She was having one of her good days and was lovingly taking care of her marigolds in the house as Alexander worked in the old shed out back, trying to turn it into a plant nursery. It would be a birthday surprise for his aunt, and he hoped it would help her in some way.

He found the pictures in an old trunk at the back of the shed, and as he looked through them, he realized they were pictures of his grandfather with his aunt and mother. Thinking they would make her happy, he brought them inside to show her and ask questions about his grandfather.

But as soon as she saw them, she started to scream and back away, saying, "No. No. Please, it hurts. Please stop." She went to the couch and held her head in her hands, rocking back and forth as she said, “No,” over and over. Alex sat beside her and held her in his arms for a long time before she calmed down and told him a story that changed how he felt about his aunt and mother.

His grandfather had sexually abused them both. They were twins, and it started when they were eight and ended when they were eleven, on the day his grandfather had died in a car accident.

After that day, he burned the pictures and anything else he could find that would remind her of his grandfather and what he had done. His relationship with her grew stronger, and he would do all he could to make sure she was happy. He finished the nursery, and when he showed it to her on her birthday, she hugged him tight and told him how much she loved him and how he was her saviour.

He helped her in the nursery, starting her favourite flower, the African marigold, and then helped her transplant them to the garden when they were ready. She painstakingly took care of those flowers and him every day.

Alex felt his life was finally becoming what he had wished for, normal. His relationship with Mary had grown to the point that they talked about marriage, and his home life couldn't have been any better as Tillie took care of his every need. She would make his lunch for work and made sure he always had clean clothes and a hot meal in the evening.

He was happy and felt that he finally had a mother, but he didn't see or understand that his aunt saw him not as a son but as something completely different that would become very dangerous for Mary and him. She saw him as a husband.

The danger came when Mary found out that she was pregnant, which led to her and Alex moving their timeline for marriage up. They decided to marry as soon as possible and informed Mary’s parents, who were ecstatic with the news, before sitting down with Tillie to tell her that she would be a grandmother.

He should have known something was wrong the moment they told her. It was only there for a second, but the look in her eyes when he said Mary was pregnant could only be described as disgust. Something about her felt different after that day. She still took care of his every need and even started doting on Mary and offering to help in any way she could. She said she wanted to make sure that Mary stayed strong to ensure the birth of a healthy baby. Even though she was only two months pregnant, Tillie wouldn’t let her do anything that might put the baby at risk. She would cook her healthy meals and make her healthy teas to ensure that Mary was getting all the proper nutrition that she needed.

Mary seemed happy with the overwhelming support that Tillie provided, but Alex felt something wasn't right. He was starting to see glimpses of the old Tillie that concerned him. He was sure he heard her speaking to herself at night in her bedroom and had caught her several times staring at him with eyes that reminded him of when he was eleven years old.

The awaking to his aunt’s true intentions came on the worst day of his life. The day that Mary miscarried. The contractions and blood started to come in the early morning, and her parents rushed her to the hospital, where Alex joined her in less than an hour. He was devastated when he arrived to find Mary overwhelmed with grief as she had lost the baby.

In the early afternoon, Mary was given a sedative, and as she would be sleeping for several hours, Alex went home to change and shower.

His aunt was out shopping when he got home, so he went next door to tell William what had happened. William hugged him close and expressed his sorrow at the news as he tried to comfort Alex. William made tea, and they sat in his back yard, which was an oasis of flowers, as Alex talked about not understanding how this could happen. They did everything right and were very careful. Mary never over-exerted herself and ate only healthy foods, and drank only healthy drinks like the tea his aunt made.

That’s when William sat bolt upright and asked in a loud voice, “What tea, Alex?”

"It's a special tea she makes from her flowers. Why, William? What's wrong?"

William’s face turned white as he asked, “Are you talking about the flowers your aunt grows in the house?”

“Yes, she calls them pot marigolds. Why?”

“My God, Alex. The pot marigold is not truly a marigold. They look almost exactly the same, but they are actually called calendula and could cause miscarriage.”

He ran into the house and returned in seconds with a book on flowers and a yellow highlighter.

William quickly scanned through the book until he found the page he wanted and highlighted a line before handing the book to Alex.

Alex felt like he would vomit as he read the highlighted line.

Don't take calendula by mouth if you are pregnant. It is likely unsafe. There is a concern that it might cause a miscarriage. It's best to avoid topical use as well until more is known.

Five years later, Alex sitting on his back deck watching Mary and their daughter, Jane, happily planting flowers in the garden, heard the phone ringing in the kitchen. He stood and waved to his family before going inside to see the call was from the asylum.

He’d stopped visiting her over a year before as she’d slipped so far into her fantasy world that she was lost in all sense of the word.

Even with all that she'd done, he still felt a small sense of grief at the news of her passing as he walked to the backyard to join his family in the planting of new seeds.