The Darling Dahlias and the Eleven O'Clock Lady

Home was a tiny yellow-painted frame bungalow on Jefferson Davis Street, a block off Franklin and two blocks from Mr. Moseley’s office, close enough to walk back and forth to work. The house, which Lizzy had owned for three years or so, was just big enough for one person—a doll’s house, really. But as if to make up for its small size, it was surrounded with a large and very pretty yard. In the front, there were azaleas, hibiscus, and a dogwood tree that was lovely in the spring. In the back, there was a grassy lawn, and a perennial border where eleven o’clock ladies sprang up among the lilies and irises in April and May; pink roses covered the trellis in June; and sunflowers bloomed along the fence in July and August. A small kitchen garden, fenced with a low white picket fence against hungry bunnies, provided fresh vegetables and herbs all summer long. The yard was perfect for a gardener, and gardening was Lizzy’s favorite hobby—next to writing, of course.

In fact, as far as Lizzy was concerned, this absolutely perfect house and its perfect garden had only one drawback. It was right across the street from her mother’s house, which meant that it was close enough for Mrs. Lacy—a quarrelsome, bossy woman who wanted nothing more than to manage her only daughter’s life—to run over once or twice a day to “visit.”

Lizzy, a dutiful daughter, felt a half-guilty, half-loving obligation to her mother, which was why she continued to live within shouting distance. After all, her mother was a widow and otherwise alone in the world. She was an only child and a daughter, and it was well understood that Darling daughters (only daughters, in particular) had a special responsibility to their mothers. When Lizzy was a girl, her mother had been fond of remarking that so-and-so had never married, in order to stay at home and help her mother. (She had a large catalog of so-and-sos, updated every few months.) And that Great-aunt Polly had refused all beaus and took care of her invalid mother to her dying day. To Great-aunt Polly’s dying day, that is: she took such good care of her mother that the irascible old woman outlived her acquiescent daughter by six years.

But while Lizzy felt she was duty-bound to look after her mother, she had no intention of following Great-aunt Polly’s example to the grave. So, feeling strong and almost rebellious, she had bought her own house and steadfastly refused to give her mother a key. (After all, a grown person needed some privacy!) And without a key, Mrs. Lacy couldn’t drop in just any old time, which she would have done, since the plain truth was that she was not only bossy and argumentative, but also a snoop. Lacking a key, she had to wait by the parlor window until she saw her daughter come home—and then she came over.

Just now, Lizzy was praying that her mother would stay away long enough for her to read her letter and have her cry in private. And that privacy—her solitude—was Lizzy’s deepest joy. If she wanted company, she had plenty of books, including the one she was writing. And if she wanted to hear a human voice, why, she could listen to her own. She could talk to her orange tabby cat, Daffodil, who never ever talked back.

Lizzy went up the steps to the front porch, where Daffy was waiting on the porch swing, keeping cool in the breeze that filtered through the honeysuckle at the end of the porch. He jumped down and wound himself around her ankles, purring a loud welcome. She unlocked the front door and stepped into the small entry hall. On the left, a flight of polished wooden stairs led up to two small bedrooms. On the right, a wide doorway opened into a parlor that was just large enough for a fireplace and built-in bookcases, a Mission-style leather sofa, a dark brown corduroy-covered chair, and a Tiffany-style lamp with a stained glass shade that had cost Lizzy the enormous sum of seven dollars and fifty cents. It was much too much to pay for a lamp, but she loved its soft amber-colored light, which gleamed richly against the refinished pine floors.