kiwords

Last week a box of plants was delivered to me. Tomato and pepper plants, sent by a catalogue company that I keep ordering from despite the fact that they persist in sending my plants two weeks later than they should, thereby trimming Colorado’s already short growing season. I’m looking at YOU, Burpee. Just because you have all those cool varieties of tomatoes and the best jalapeños on the planet, and those cool “Blushing Beauty” peppers does NOT mean I will allow myself to be subject to this sort of…

Oh fine. You know you’ve got me by the peppers, don’t you?

Anyhow.

I took the plants out of the box and put them in a pan. I watered them and set them outside in the sun, to start acclimating to the real world. It was early evening, so the sun was slanty and soft, and I didn’t worry about them getting scorched. I left them and took Max to his baseball practice.

When we got there, an amazing wind kicked up. The air was filled with dust and debris, and Raphael huddled on my lap and hid his face in my arm. My hair whipped against my face so hard it stung. More than one wee baseball player cried at the intensity of it all. Practice was called after a half hour of torture, and we set our shoulders and fought the wind back to our cars and went home.

I’d been home for a half hour before I remembered the plants in the back yard. I raced out there and collected from where they’d been scattered. I gathered them carefully and brought them inside for a gentle watering and a mournful fret.

They looked…crumpled. Wilted and weak. Tre, on his way to bed, paused to poke at them and say,

“Hey, Mom, I think your plants died.”

I was heartsick. I may have pushed my face against Clay’s chest and leaked tears into his t-shirt. I was sure my plants were lost, and I knew we couldn’t afford to replace them right now.

Clearly, this was bad.

Today, the first day of summer vacation for us, was spent running around like maniacs. There were errands to be run, playdates to be managed (on opposite ends of town), groceries to be bought, and just an irrational number of places to go and things to do.

This would have been fun enough as it was, but Raphael was in a mood. He smacked Max on the head with his book. He kicked his shoe across the van to get my attention. He screamed with fury when I didn’t hear his request for water the first time. He was moody and angry and mean and loud. By the end of the day my head was ringing with the sound of his voice, protesting. We were on our way home when he started complaining loudly about the way Max was turning the pages of his book. When Max didn’t respond to his protest, he started screaming.

“Raphael,” I said with careful (fake) patience, “please stop yelling.”

“WHAAAAAAAAA!” he hollered at the top of his lungs.

“Raphael-“

“WHAAAAAAAAAAA!”

“STOP THAT!”

I yelled loud enough that all activity in the van stilled for a moment. I took a breath and moderated my voice. Between clenched teeth I said,

“Raphael, when we get home, you will lie down on your bed. For a half an hour. When you get up, you will be NICE TO THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU or you will go back to your bed.”

“But Mom!”

“No. Right now we will have a QUIET RIDE. THANK YOU.”

He cried quietly in the back seat the rest of the way home, but I actually didn’t feel too bad about that. He’d been crying over things like the color of his shoes all day, so this didn’t seem all that terrible.

Plus, I was done.

I was done comforting, I was done encouraging, I was done. Apparently he was going to be an ill-tempered wee jerk of a kid, and he could just go do that in his room while I put groceries away.

That’s just what he did. He shuffled off to his room, weeping quietly, and flopped down on his sleeping bag. I grimly shoved groceries in cupboards and refrigerator. Tre and Max wandered off to their own interests. After a while I peeked in the boys’ room to see how the little tyrant was doing.

He was laying face down, one empty water bottle in each hand (he loves and collects water bottles. Don’t ask me why). His head was damp with a thin sheen of sweat, and his eyes were closed. He breathed soft and deep.

He was asleep. Sound asleep.

I sat down next to him and stroked the warm curve of his back. He didn’t move, but slept on. I looked at the sun glinting on the summer stubble on his head, sparkles of brown hair, and I thought about my plants, my battered tomato and pepper plants. In an act of faith I planted them, poked their wan and dusty selves into the dirt. I’d watered them and left them, still shaking my head at their prospects.

The next morning they were upright, deep green and glossy. They stretched up toward the sun and showed as much promise as one could ask of any plant.

“Just like you, sweet child,” I whispered to my youngest, “they just needed restoration.” He stirred and I pulled him onto my lap. His eyes opened, squinted against the light.
”Hi, Mom,” he croaked. “Will you just hold me for a while?”

And I did.