Chapter 21

The problem, I think, was that Phil was basically a good guy. If he'd been a little more concerned with saving his own skin, he would have run when I yelled, or maybe even broken the door down and fled. I don't know for sure.

But because he was a good guy, he hesitated, and then he came forward into the living room, saying, "Mrs. M? Sam? Are you all…"

He stopped. His eyes traveled over Gran Mae and I don't know if he understood what he was seeing, but clearly he knew that something very strange was going on. He looked down at me and he couldn't have missed the bloody tablecloth, or the way that Mom was cowering in the kitchen.

"Aren't you going to introduce me to your gentleman friend, dear?" asked Gran Mae.

"I… I…"

"What is going on?" he asked. "Sam? What's happened to your hand?"

"Samantha," said Gran Mae warningly, and the rose whip tightened.

"Phil," I gasped, as agony shot through my wrist. "Phil, this is my g-grandmother. Gran Mae. Gran Mae, this is… this is Phil. Pressley."

"Oh, yes," said Gran Mae. She climbed to her feet and extended a rose-petal hand. "I believe I know your grandfather."

Social courtesies were deeply ingrained in Phil. He started to extend his hand automatically, then caught himself, but by then it was too late.

Rose whips lashed out from under the table, coiling around his legs and yanking him forward. Phil yelped. I reached for him involuntarily, trying to catch him, and the stem around my wrist slammed my arm against the table.

"We were waiting for you," said Gran Mae pleasantly, as Phil collapsed into the chair at the head of the table. "How is that ham coming, Edith?"

"It's still cooking, Mother."

"So," said Gran Mae, as the rose stems lashed Phil's ankles to the chair legs. "What do you do for a living?"

"I… I…" His chest heaved. He tried to grab for the stems at his ankles and pulled his fingers back bloody. Gran Mae clicked her tongue disapprovingly. Phil stared at her. Perhaps he was finally working out what kind of monster was sitting at the table with him. "What are you?"

"It's not polite to comment on a lady's appearance, young man."

"Are those roses? What—how—"

"Roses, yes," said Gran Mae. "Aren't they clever?" She patted her petal hair. "Of course, I wouldn't get dressed up like this normally, but Sunday dinner should be special, don't you think?"

My feet were still free. I found Phil's foot and pressed down on it hard, trying to avoid the stems. His eyes shot to me and I shook my head infinitesimally. Don't make her angry, I wanted to say. I know it's a tall order and the number of things that make Gran Mae angry are measured in the thousands, but if we can just get through this, surely she'll go away…

Impossible to convey all that with a look and a foot tap. I did my best.

"Young people these days have no idea how to make conversation. What do you do for a living, Mr. Pressley?"

Maybe some of what I had tried to express got through. He swallowed. "I… uh… I'm a master gardener, ma'am."

"A gardener!" The rose puppet turned in her chair, pressing her hands together. "How lovely! Do you like roses?"

I suspected that Phil currently hated roses with an undying passion, but he tried to hide it. "Uh, well… as I'm sure you know… growing roses in the South can be a real challenge…"

"You don't have to tell me twice, young man. I lost the most beautiful red rose to black spot the year I moved here."

"Yes, uh… there's… um… a lot of breeding for… um… disease resistance… some new varieties that we're all… err… watching closely…"

"Are there any in orange? It's so hard to get a really lovely orange." She smiled almost coquettishly. "I know they're not particularly classy, but I just can't resist."

"Err…"

"Gran Mae," I interjected, "may I go and help Mom with the cooking?"

She waved her hand negligently. "Yes, go do that, Samantha. You may be excused." The rose shackle around my wrist relaxed. I pushed my chair back, trying not to make any moves that might attract attention, and scurried to the kitchen.

Mom had dumped cans of beans and collards into dishes, and was now pressed against the cupboards, as far away from the roses as she could get. "Sam," she whispered. Tears tracked down her face. "Sam, are you okay?"

"Fine," I lied. I wrapped a dish towel around my wrist and looked around for anything I could use as a weapon. There was water simmering on the stove for the instant mashed potatoes. Would a pot of boiling water be enough?

In the dining room, Phil was stammering something about coral roses and recent Knock Out varieties, and Gran Mae was making well-practiced sounds of interest. I opened the drawers, looking for a knife.

"Edith! It's time to bring out the ham."

Mom took a deep breath. "Yes, Mother." She turned off the stove and pulled out the ham, still frozen. I found the big carving knife and pulled it out. Could I hack through the stems with this?

I didn't get the chance. As soon as Mom set the frozen ham on the table, Gran Mae snapped her fingers, pointed to me, and said, "Give that to Mister Pressley, so that he can carve the ham, Samantha."

I lifted the knife and Gran Mae's rosebud eyes locked on mine. Green stems slithered along the floor.

"You know what happens to children who don't respect their elders, Samantha."

I passed Phil the knife.

"Now let's say grace," said Gran Mae, and bowed her head. "Heavenly Father, thank you for the blessings we are about to receive…"

It was like being ten all over again, and looking at Brad, except this time it was Phil. He mouthed, What the fuck? at me. I shook my head helplessly. Mom clutched the back of her chair with white-knuckled fingers. Phil took the knife and leaned down, sawing at the stems holding him prisoner. Would Gran Mae feel it?

She didn't seem to. The prayer droned on. I wondered if the knife was having any effect on the stems at all.

"Amen," finished Gran Mae. She looked up and smiled sweetly. Phil snapped upright, knife in hand. "Now where are the collards, Edith?"

Mom grabbed the bowl of green glop and set it on the table. Gran Mae looked at it, lip curling, and poked it with her fork. "These are cold," she said.

"I'm sorry, Mother."

"And this ham." She set her fork down with a click. "Edith, this ham is frozen. And you put it in front of a guest."

"You told me to—"

"Don't talk back to me, young lady!"

"I am fifty-nine," said Mom. "And I have been cooking for years and—and—I don't care if you are my mother, you can't make a ham cook in five minutes!"

I was torn between the desire to cheer and the desire to jump in front of her and fend off Gran Mae's wrath.

Gran Mae put her hands flat on the table and rose to her feet. "I'm sorry that you had to see this, Phil."

"It's fine," mumbled Phil. He made as if to scratch an itch, continuing to saw the knife against the stems. I worried again if Gran Mae would feel it. Taking a knife to her precious roses would be high on the list of things to make her angry. But plants don't have nerves like people, so maybe she didn't.

"Edith. You are overwrought. Go to your room."

"I am not a child," said Mom. "You are being unreasonable, and you know it, but you can't admit that you're wrong." She swallowed hard. "You never could."

Gran Mae's eyes narrowed. Leaves began to whip against the window. "Is that so?"

Hectic spots of color had risen on Mom's cheeks. "I don't know what you're playing at, Mother, with this ridiculous dinner party—"

"I am trying to fix things!" shouted Gran Mae. Her voice was just as cutting as I remembered. "Because none of you could ever do it for yourselves! A perfectly good gentleman caller and none of you even invited him for dinner? Do you want Samantha to end up like you?"

I was terrified and miserable and in pain, and it turned out that I could still be embarrassed. How nice.

"All I ever wanted was for my family to be nice and normal," raged Gran Mae. "We could all be so happy, but you just couldn't do it, could you? Always fighting me, always sulking, never happy, no matter what I did!"

Mom had an arm up as if she were fighting against a strong wind. She shook her head but her breathing was short and ragged. "I don't—it wasn't like that—"

"Ungrateful. After everything I did for you, even taking you and your brats in when your man got himself killed, after all that I've done, you're still not happy! It's never enough for you, is it?"

I don't know much in life, and the last few days, it had turned out that half of what I thought I knew was wrong. But the one thing I did know was that nobody talked to my mother like that while I was around.

I took a deep breath and yelled, "Shut the fuck up!" at the top of my lungs.

Gran Mae whipped around, her rosebud eyes going wide. I shoved Mom behind me as if we were in a fistfight, which maybe we were.

"You!" said Gran Mae. Was I imagining things or did she sound a trifle uncertain? "How dare you talk to me that way?"

"How dare you talk to my mom like that?" I shouted back.

"Would you rather I talked about you?"

Bring it,I thought, bracing myself and keeping my eye out for vine whips. I hoped like hell that Phil was making some progress sawing himself free, but I didn't dare look over at him.

"How about we talk about you instead?" I asked. "With your creepy fifties décor and your creepy fifties racism and all your creepy fifties shit? Trying to mold everybody into an episode of Leave It to Beaver and throwing a tantrum every time they stepped out of line."

The rose figure whistled like a teakettle. I could see vine whips thrashing outside the sliding glass door.

"You think you're so smart," hissed Gran Mae. "Always did, didn't you? Tit for tat, every time. Nobody could tell you anything, could they? And yet look how you turned out. No husband, no kids, nothing but bones and bugs."

The problem with family is that they know where all the levers are that make you move. They're usually the ones who installed the levers in the first place. But Gran Mae had only known me for a few years as a child, with my mother running interference. Whatever levers were in my head, she hadn't put most of them in. "Don't want kids," I said cheerfully. "Not even sure I want a husband, for that matter."

Gran Mae snorted. "You'd never get one anyway. You're…" She paused dramatically, apparently about to unleash her ultimate cruelty. "… fat."

"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock." I started laughing. I couldn't help it. It was all so ridiculous. Gran Mae thought she could get me about my weight? I'd come out of academia. If she wanted to tear me apart, she should have commented on my doctoral thesis.

Still, she tried. "Look at you," hissed Gran Mae. "You're disgusting. When was the last time a man even looked twice at you?"

"Three months ago," I said. "I dumped him after two weeks because he was super clingy and cried every time we fucked."

(This was true, incidentally, although it may have been more like a year and three months ago, but Gran Mae didn't need to know that.)

I had, momentarily, rendered her speechless.

"You unladylike little… little…" The rose doll struggled to find a word harsh enough. "You don't use language like that in this house!"

"I'll use any fucking language I please!"

A rose whip reared up like a snake and slapped at my mouth. I fended it off with my arm, feeling thorns catch on my shirtsleeve.

"That's enough of that," said Gail from the doorway.