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The blooms of spring had a dry glow, reminiscent of city burning lights. Lizabeth had come back from the white folks area, her once ragged clothing flowing in refined silk. The beads are not of crummy outdoor finds, now bleam with similarity to jade. Lizabeth walked through her once familiar home. The home that was the start of her growth to adulthood. The ground underneath her polished heels was coarse, moaning out arrogance from every faint step. Lizabeth was now 25, a full-grown woman. She held no luggage other than the clothes on her back.
The area that she once called home was no better than a poverty-stricken dump. The smell of marigolds that she once growled at no longer scented itself. The town only crept of hardwood and dust. Perhaps it was foolish, but Lizabeth followed the desire that was these past hates. The rocky path faced her hurdles, creaking on the forest floor. The idea of nature and its trickery, but not with its changes. As if a life lesson, she walked into the path of Miss Lottie's small, quaint house, a shack. No longer were it marigolds that marred the scenery; instead, it was her.
Lizabeth half expected Miss Lottie to still garden her marigolds, treating them as tenderly as glass; that thought was nonsensical. She was no longer fourteen; she was an adult. A grown woman with compassion and scars upon her long forgotten security.
Breath held, she watched the door of uncertainty. Knocking twice, she waited. No longer youthful, full of ravenous excitement. Her silk was not beautiful; it was an offhanded gift from the dull-minded white folk who catch pears as a hobby. A second too late, a small, old lady was revealed. Her hair was in shambles, and dirt in her nails from poor care.
"Miss Lottie. May we have a talk?" Lizabeth held her dress, too white, too clean for this area of dust. Crinkles swalloped my hands. Miss Lottie's misty eyes took a look, and then she pursed her parted lips. "Who are ya to go storming my front door?" She spoke in that scraggly fish tone, too real to be a dream.
"Let's go and sit outside, shall we..." Maybe it was the desperate tone, or her deteriorating mind, that she let me sit with her. Miss Lottie was now only skin'n bones. The broken lady in my memories was as true as pigs flying; she was never broken. She was betrayed by nothing but the selfish children near her. Goodness, I was already sentimental. The porch accompanied a creaky, aged rocking chair; it held itself by cheap glue. The chair that Miss Lottie's old son used to spend his worthless life on.
"He died in his sleep, hoo-he already left his old woman behind." She clicked her tongue, a small croak in our still silence.
"My condolences, Miss...Lottie. Say, do you remember me?" As if timber struck, Miss Lottie's eyes sparkled with life. Her saggy skin drooped harder examining my figure lazily.
"Course I do, why do you think I brought up my son when there's a chance you wouldn't know who he was? You think I'm already senile child?" She scoffed. Her strong voice was so foreign to the person I once knew. The marigolds of my memories had bloomed then again. Unknowingly, I smiled.
"Miss Lottie, I want to tell you that I am sorry. I was a young fool, a person angered by the beauty you'd made back in those days. I've had so many regrets from that day. Truly." I, now a lady, had finally looked at the haggard woman of my adolescence. She was still strong. Still a marigold in the end, she'd been through the deep and dark times. The good and the bad. Now, I had to face them as well.
My tears welled up, a boiling siege in silent grasslands. "I-I just don't want to go without saying that you didn't deserve my hatred. I'm so sorry, god, I'm sorry..." I had thought before this that I would apologize, maturely and quickly. But in the end, I was just a child in front of a witch. A witch that never cast spells, instead roused regret from Lizabeth. Deadly, her mother would've said.
"You live with the white folk, don't you? Away from this town, so why hold you pity at face? Stupid, I'll say." Miss Lottie rocked on that shaky chair. The creaks were as trill as birds and mice. She continued, looking away from my eyes. "Don't be like your weak father girl. Hah-Y'know, I told him what happened with you the day after, and y'know what he said? 'Don't blame her, she's just a child.' Psh, he's just too forgiving." She held contact with my shaky vision.
"Don't hold these old mistakes around you, even if you work for the white folk now, don't believe that's what makes you and your father the same. It's the will to your past deeds good. Rotting around sorrows will only make more."
Now, as the seasons change, and Miss Lottie has moved out of her life, she still plants marigolds. To show that her good and bad may come with them. The same as the day she learned compassion.