“Why?”
“Smell!” Lolly said, holding out a peony for her granddaughter.
“I know! It smells like heaven!” she said.
“Exactly!”
Lolly stopped on a slight embankment, under the shade of a pine. Gravestones were artfully arranged in perfect symmetry on the hillside below. The flags and flowers adorning the grass were beautiful. Lolly held the peony up to her own nose, and the memories came flooding back.
“These peonies started in Ireland, where Mary was born,” Lolly said. “Since Mary couldn’t return home, her parents sent her starts of their peonies, so that a piece of home would forever link the family. Those long rows of peonies on the backside of the cabin? Mary started those, rotating bushes of white and pink, babying them until they grew big and strong, until the flowers grew so heavy that they simply exhausted the stems that valiantly tried to support them. And, oh! The smell!”
Lolly held a peony in front of her face.
“Before my mom died, we would decorate graves on Memorial Day, and she told me Mary’s stories. This place,” Lolly said, nodding at the cemetery, “is where I learned so much about my family and friends, those who passed before me, or those I barely knew.
“My mom told me that Mary planted two types of peonies, early and late blooming. Mary planted the early bloomers for just one reason: So that she could decorate the graves of her family and friends on Memorial Day with not just real flowers, but with flowers that came from her family’s garden, flowers she considered to be the most beautiful in the world.”
Lolly halted, but couldn’t stop a tear from trailing down her cheek. “You know, the earth is what grounds us in life for a very short time. The starts from Mary’s family remain forever in my garden. They represent a way to keep the memory of those we love alive, no matter where we live, or how much time has passed.”
“Like your charms,” Lauren said.
“Exactly, my dear.”
Lolly turned with a purpose, pulling Arden and Lauren alongside, and meandered until she found her husband’s gravestone, images of the lake and two loons etched into the stone.
“My Les,” she whispered, planting a peony.
The trio of visitors continued their rounds, stopping at Lolly’s mother’s grave next, and then continuing on as if they were greeting guests at a party, Lolly telling stories about people her granddaughter and daughter never knew.
Finally, Lolly said, “I think we’re done with our visits.”
Arden hesitated. “I think there’s one more, Mom.”
The three meandered around the small cemetery until, perched under a sassafras, they found the stone: Clem Watkins.
Arden took a flag from her daughter and a peony from her mother, knelt on her first love’s grave, planted a flag, and then said a prayer.
You were the first man to love me. I’m so glad you found your happiness. I pray you help me find mine. And I pray that someone takes the time, like my mother has done today, to share my story, to visit me on occasion, to plant a seed of hope, to pass along my legacy.
And then Arden dug through the new grass, mud, sand, and clay, and she planted some peonies.
part eleven
The Tiara Charm
To a Life in Which You Get to Feel Like a Queen, Even for a Day
Forty-three
The Scoop hit the stoop with a bang.
The noise startled Arden, who was in the midst of checking in with her office. She jumped, coffee sloshing over the edge of her mug and onto her stomach.
“Owww!”
She looked up in time to see the local paper take a big hop and fly end over end across the lawn, as if it were a piece of shale that the paperboy had skimmed across the lake.
Arden set down her coffee and hit SEND on a message to her editor that read, “Van, c’mon … it’s a holiday! I’ll be back WHEN MY VACATION IS OVER.”
Before she had even set down her phone, Van replied: “Simóne’s still doing a GREAT job filling in for you.”
Arden’s heart raced as she retrieved the paper. She thought about responding but instead took a deep breath and rolled the rubber band off the paper. Arden opened the paper and laughed sarcastically at the front page:
Happy Memorial Day, Scoops!
75th Annual Tulip Queen Celebration Today!
“The universe must be telling me something today.” Arden chuckled, reading the lead story. “Wow. This hasn’t changed at all. The Scoop ain’t the Trib. Or even Paparazzi.”
“This isn’t Chicago, my dear,” Lolly replied, walking onto the porch with her own cup of coffee. “And we’re not celebrities, thank goodness.”
“That Tulip Queen thing sounds fun!” Lauren said, following her grandmother. She took a seat on the glider, crossing her legs and balancing a bowl of cereal in her lap. “How come we’ve never gone?”
Silence engulfed the porch.