Rain and Marigolds

Bright green eyes opened to the bluest skies they had ever seen. Billy, a small, freckle-faced boy, sat up under that blue sky in the middle of a large, green open field. Although he was unsure of how he arrived in this beautiful place, he felt wholly unafraid and full of awe. He stood and felt a gentle breeze blow through his dark brown locks of hair as he wiggled his toes in the soft grass.

"Such an amazingly perfect place, isn't it?" a voice came from behind him.

Billy turned around to see a beautiful woman with long, strawberry blonde hair and hazel eyes wearing a long, light-blue summer dress. He had never seen this woman before, but he felt only warmth and sincerity in her kind eyes and charming smile.

Clouds began quickly filling the sky and darkened as they spread. Little Billy felt a wetness on his face and turned his eyes to the sky as raindrops started to fall. A flash of lightning split the sky, and he was sure he saw an image of something, but he couldn't quite make it out.

"Tell my sweet Sally that I love her very much." Billy heard the woman say. "And tell my husband I wish for him to smile again."

He turned to reply just as there was another flash of lightning, but the woman was already gone as the rain started to pour.

A small girl with strawberry blonde hair stopped just outside the open hospital room door with her father, and looked inside with curiosity at the boy in the bed, who didn't seem much older than herself, connected to many beeping machines. Glancing back down to the bouquet of flowers she had picked from her own yard for her mother, she pulled out a bright yellow one and calmly handed it to the crying woman sitting beside the boy's bed.

Billy found himself back under the blue sky in the same field, but this time he saw a flower in the middle of the field. He made his way toward it and bent down to get a better look at this new addition to what seemed to be some place from a dream.

"It's called a marigold, sport." a man's deep voice said from behind him as a hand touched his shoulder.

Before he turned around, Billy already knew he gentle touch of the strong hand on his shoulder and the smooth baritone voice. He embraced his father as tears came unbidden down his cheeks.

"What is this place? Did you see the lady who was here before? What are we doing here? Am I dreaming?" Billy asked in quick succession, somewhat suspecting he already knew, but still feeling some desperation for real answers.

His father smiled a bittersweet smile and embraced him closer still, mussing his son's hair as rain drops began to fall again.

"I love you, son. Take care of your mother and always hold her close. Promise?"

"I promise." Little Billy replied, not knowing now how much of the wetness on his face was from tears or the rain as lightning came crashing down and he was left embracing nothing but his new-found grief. Lightning lit up the sky once again, but the sound of thunder became the squeal of tires on pavement followed by the devastating impact of metal on pavement as he now saw the scene play out before him - his father swerved to miss a falling tree in the roadway, flipping the old Ford Bronco they were riding in onto its roof as it slid off the roadway and flipped again down an embankment into a stream as severe thunderstorm winds raged and the torrential rain continued to pour.

Several days later, the little girl returned to the hospital. She convinced her grandmother to bring her this time so she could visit the little boy again. This time she brought a vase she had painted herself, not sparing a single color from her non-toxic children's paint set, and had filled it with the yellow flowers from her yard.

Finding himself once again in the field, Billy let the serenity of the place flow around him and wash his grief away. The scene remained more awe-inspiring than any painting ever laid brush to by man, and what divinity held the brush of creation for this place had seen fit to further enhance the painting with the addition of more marigolds. The bright yellow flowers were now in patches across the brilliant green field, complimenting the open azure sky.

Time passed differently in the dream world Billy was inhabiting and the corporeal world outside. Days turned to weeks. Weeks turned to months. Still he slept and dreamed, and the marigolds continued to spread until amber overcame that sea of green.

"Wake up." Billy believed he heard from somewhere beyond, somewhere outside of this place that had for so long been his home that he had nearly forgotten there was anyplace else. The comfort of the place held him so, but something also told him now wasn't his time. His mother was likely waiting for him, and he told himself he did not want to leave her alone like this. It was time to go back, even if only to return again to this exceptionally magnificent place one day.

"When is he going to wake up?" Sally asked the woman at the little boy's bedside in the hospital. She had finally convinced her father to bring her himself after the first two months and they had visited at least once a week since.

"I'm not sure, dear. Billy has been sleeping a long time." Billy's mother smiled softly but wearily. "Thank you so much for stopping by."

"W-wait." Little Billy's first words in nearly six months came out in a hoarse whisper as he opened blurry eyes to a hospital room full of marigolds in hand-painted vases and three excited faces.

Billy's mother spent the next several minutes embracing her awakened son as best she could from over the hospital bed as tears of happiness ran down her face. Sally, for the moment, seemed content to approach the foot of the bed and beam at the little boy she hoped would become her new friend.

"Momma," Billy said once his mother pulled away and was about to head out of the room to find the doctor. "Daddy is okay. I saw him in the beautiful place, you don't have to be sad for him anymore."

His mother failed to hold back tears as she held her son once more, Billy's words having all the more impact as he had been in a coma since the accident so there was no way anyone could have made him aware of his father's passing. Sally's father brushed away tears of his own as he stood back near the doorway, his own loss still fairly fresh as he mourned never seeing the light in his wife's hazel eyes again.

"I'm so glad you're awake now, sweetheart." Billy's mother said as she tried to dry her eyes. "Is there anything I can get you? Anything you need before I go find the doctor?"

"I feel pretty hungry." Billy replied.

"Daddy, daddy!" Sally tugged on her father's sleeve. "Can we all go get food together sometime?"

"Oh, I'm not sure, sweetie..." Her father said.

"It's alright, daddy." Sally smiled her big, innocent smile. "Mommy wants you to be happy."

"She does." Little Billy interposed. "She said she loves you, Sally, and she wants your daddy to smile again."

"See, daddy?" Sally said, as words spoken and her sweet little smile melted her father's heart anew. "So, can we all go to eat food one day soon, all of us?"

"We'll see, sweetie." Sally's father replied with a melancholy but affirming smile.