In Sarah’s youth, she had thick curly strawberry blond hair that was tinged with wheat highlights. Her bright blue eyes – a mirror image of Elly’s, down to the thick black lashes that rimmed them – had sparkled with life and laughter. Sarah Jordan loved her daughter, practical jokes, funny television shows, and the ironic side of life. She was fond of pinching the bottoms of her friends when they stood, and Elly had sat on many whoopee cushions as a child.
Elly’s most distinct memories, however, were of her mother in one of two places: church and her garden. Every Sunday and Wednesday night was spent at the Mt. Zion Baptist church just down the street from their home in Peachtree City. Sarah would lay out Elly’s dress for her the night before. Elly had a large collection of pastel dresses, many adorned with lace and ribbons that would cinch at the waist. On Sunday morning, Elly would be woken up at seven to the smell of pancakes and sound of sausages sizzling in the frying pan. She would take a bath, and then put on her Sunday dress, and slip her feet into her white Mary Janes. Down the hall, counting the steps and skipping the creaky one, she would skip into the kitchen where her mom would serve her breakfast on her special Sunday breakfast plate: a pale blue china plate with tiny white flowers painted across the middle in a wavy line. After breakfast, Elly and Sarah would walk, hand in hand, up the small hill to worship.
Mt. Zion was a small church – about 200 congregants – but they were truly the salt of the earth; elderly women who smelled of hand lotion, grumbling old men who ushered visitors in with a grim smile, about ten young couples with children who always ran loose like wild zoo animals, and everyone in between. The church was led by the Revered Hein, a Red Sox fanatic with a boisterous voice and a love of all people great and small. Elly and her mother were among the few white people in the church, but they had been going since Elly was small, and she had never really noticed that they stuck out. They would always sit in the second pew, on the right side, and as soon as the organ started playing, all the women in the church would begin fanning themselves rapidly, their white fans fluttering like butterflies in the damp air.
Elly remembered watching her mother in church. She would close her eyes, lean forward and mutter to herself, repeating whatever the pastor said. She would clutch Elly’s hand fiercely as the pastor yelled out about redemption, and she would hold her close when he talked about sin and death. Sarah Jordan also sang in the choir – a gift that had not been passed down to her daughter – and Elly loved watching her mother, clapping and swaying, alive in the spirit in every way. As the music barreled down from behind the pulpit, Elly’s eyes would sit fixated on her mother. Her hands raised to heavens, with her strawberry blond hair sweaty across her forehead, Elly would think how her mother looked like an angel. Elly would try to sway to the music, which once prompted an elderly black woman to call her “poor white child” and take her hand in hers.
After church, Elly and Sarah would have warm morning buns – cinnamon and sugar, toasted and rolled up inside pecan bread with a cold glass of milk. After Sarah’s second shower of the day – church was an aerobic activity in Georgia – Elly would grab her tin bucket, her pink polka dot garden boots and together they would head out for their day of gardening as her mother hummed hymns to the roses.
Sarah Jordan’s garden was the talk of Peachtree City. Her mother’s garden wrapped around the backyard and exploded out from both sides of the house. It lined the stone path to the door, and trickled up the porch. Cotton candy pink laurel, pale yellow and tangerine azalea and white camellia blooms, hanging like tiny lanterns, shaded the rich quilt of flower beds. As Elly ran around with her butterfly net, stopping occasionally to sip sweet tea from the porch, Sarah would be perpetually bent over, her round behind peeking out from a Cherokee rose bush, with dirt furiously flying out from around her. All day, sometimes to Elly’s annoyance, her mother would tend, love and worship the garden. Orange tea-olive plants, pale winter wood berries – these were the things that were discussed around the dinner table, with grilled cheese sandwiches, a heart carved lovingly on the top.