Among the Flowers

The only time I enjoyed my forced time with my grandmother was the sunny afternoon she met her friends in the park. I knew she wouldn’t let me play on the playground with the other children – she had some fear I was going to get kidnapped (I didn’t believe her because I knew she didn’t like me very much) – so I sat down to find a four-leaf clover in the patch several feet away from the bench they were occupying. I had learned long ago to not pay close attention to what their conversations because the three of them talked about was the gossip surrounding the senior living center they were trying to stay out of.  

After failing to find a four-leaf clover, I finally stretched out on my back in the quiet clover and watched the clouds pass by. My father had disappeared from my life before I was born, and my mother hadn’t been entirely capable of raising me by herself so that was how we came to move back into her childhood home. I tried to stay out of her way as much as possible, but she often took me along to meet her friends so she could play the part of caring grandmother. But when she forgot me in the park that day, I had spent enough time daydreaming, I finally had an idea for my next book. The book that would ensure everyone would remember my name. And move me out of her house.