There’s a place I know that doesn’t look the way it did before. On the day we moved in it was already old, already lived-in and cold, brisk like the touch of bed sheets long since dissolved of body heat. I don’t remember it ever feeling another way.

It creaked when you walked and smelled damp. How could a thing sound so brittle and be wet? It was a yellow place inside and out. A movie theater butter yellow, like dehydrated piss. This haze filled the still, uncirculated air, and it was quiet. Even with the four of us.

The place belonged to my mom even though it shouldn’t. After Dad left, she worked her way into an old man’s life, just before the door slammed shut on his coffin. She was young, and young when she had us, me and my two sisters. Mom had something the old man wanted, our family was just the catch, and I didn’t judge them for doing it. He was nice to me, but he wasn’t my dad, and too low on time to become one.

Mom, “Mama” back then, didn’t work. She didn’t have to after the old man—I don’t even recall his name—passed. She stayed home and took care of us and her garden.

She liked it when things grew. We were some of those things, and she liked us. We’d help her in that garden, and it was easy. She had some blackberries among others. A Bradford Pear tree sprout which I was convinced was an actual pear tree.

Mom stayed quiet most days. She read to us but that wasn’t the same. In the garden though, when the heat of the day beat you down and the cool soil soothed tired hands, she opened up to us. She bloomed. We asked her things as curious children do.

“Mama,” I said. “Why do you keep pulling up these flowers?”

“They’re not flowers.”

“They look like flowers.”

“They’re dandelions.”

“I thought dandelions were white.”

“They change white, but they’re not. They get that way just before they die.” She plucked one of them up and tossed it behind her. It landed next to Carmen, the youngest who played in the dirt. Her white outside shirt reached past her knees.

“We do this every year.” I said. “They always come back.”

“That’s how weeds are, they’ll grow anywhere,” she said. She stood up and rubbed her hands together. Dirt drifted away like rain in the distance. “There’s not much we can do about it. We could spray, but that’s not helping anyone.” She handed me a pair of gloves.

“Pull them up by the root. If you don’t get all of it, it’ll keep coming back.”

“I don’t want to pull them up. They look just like the other flowers,” I said.

“They’re not,” Mom said.

“Says who?” I asked. LWho decides which one’s a flower and which one is a weed?”

“Mama does,” my older sister Angie said.

“Kiss ass,” I said. I winced on reflex, sure that I’d get a smack for that from Mom. But no, she just walked over to Carmen and picked her up. Carmen held a dandelion, she blew spittle into the white cluster of seeds.

“People choose flowers,” Mom said. “They get weeds.” She carried Carmen inside and left us in the garden.

“Asshole,” Angie said.

“Eat my shit Angie.” I said, keeping my eyes on her. She was bigger than me, taller too. Angie was overweight for a 12 year old girl. It hadn’t helped her self esteem but her right jab was mean. “I didn’t mean anything by what I said I was just asking.”

“You’re always questioning her.”

“You don’t question anyone.”

“I don’t need to be in trouble all the time Jordan.” Angie’s voice cracked and her eyes watered. They were doing that more often. She dropped to her knees and kept weeding. Her face burned red like her hair, like Mom and Carmen’s. She cussed under her breath. Sweat ran down her nose and made the hair stick to her face. She brushed it to the side and streaked dirt across her cheek. Angie wiped it off and looked up at me; her face glittered like quartz.

“You gonna help me finish this?” she asked.

“Nope,” I said.

“No?”

“No.”

“You piss me off sometimes. You know, she’s been upset about Dad lately. And you act just like him.”

“You even look like her Angie.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Mama,” I said. “You look like her, fuss like her too.” She stared at me. Angie was getting up. I kept going.

“Why do you wanna be her so bad? You’re trying awful hard. Clinging to her like she’s a doughnut. You’d like a doughnut wouldn’t you Angie?” Too far. I wanted to stop. She made me so mad. Everything did. “If mama loved you then why’d she leave you here with the weeds—“

Angie hit me in the mouth so hard I bit the skin off her fingers. I stumbled back and tripped over a tree root. My head bounced on the ground when I landed. I just laid there until Angie came and stood over me.

“You don’t talk to me like that Jordan. You—“

“Take your brother inside Angie.” I heard Mom but couldn’t see her. Angie looked in her direction. Her blank face tried to keep a trembling lip unnoticed. Then the tears streamed. She gave me a hand, but never looked at me.

——

We had days like that. Days when our emotions got the best of us, the primal ones that kept you alive when all hell came for you. Angie hated me right then, but later she wouldn’t. And later, I’d apologize. Eventually.

That night it was colder than usual. Fall had arrived a week prior and the days’ temperatures danced erratic and defiantly downward. The girls all wore extra clothes and lounged in the living room under blankets, even Mom. I walked the hall barefooted, in shorts and a t-shirt, with an ice pack held over my busted lip. The tv played a cop drama they all three liked and when I came in the living room, no one looked at me. Angie did glance at the bag, stifling a slight grin. The screen held Carmen’s gaze and she saw nothing else. I didn’t care at all about their damn show.

“Angie,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

She held up her bandaged fist without looking. “It’ll heal.” Mom looked at her hand, noticing the wrap.

“Anything you want to say to me Angie?” I asked.

“No,” she said. I gritted my teeth and my jaw tensed and spasmed under my cheek.

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“Should she?” Mom asked. She had this look that said, try me. We both looked like blank dry erase boards staring at her. “Well?”

“I guess not,” I said.

“You shouldn’t be sorry either,” Mom said. She looked at Angie.

“Well no Mama I said too much, I went too-“ I stopped. She looked at me like I’d just sworn against her and everything she loved.

“You two should build a time machine. That would fix things, wouldn’t it?” She cut the tv off. Carmen was on a three second lag usually, only realizing now that the tv was off. “These sorries you two halfass out don’t help anybody.”

“Angie didn’t even apologize.”

“Then maybe she gets it Jordan.” Mom threw the blanket off and went into the adjoining kitchen. She opened the gas valve on the stove top burner and turned on the sink faucet next. An air pocket shook the tap and it vibrated before gushing over a pile of dishes. She only did this when she was upset, most of the time we ate out and those dishes sat there, awaiting their obscure, therapeutic purpose. One after another she cleaned them all and placed them in the cabinet where they sat waiting to become filthy again.

I stood there in the awkward silence and I waited, powerless at her mercy, emotions building like barometric pressures conjuring a tempest, barely becoming a squall. Mom dried her hands and walked back into the living room. Carmen reached for her and just as Mom bent down to scoop Carmen up, Angie spoke.

“I miss Dad.”

Angie shook. She hadn’t spoken of him since he’d left. “Everyday, and if he ever came back I’d be okay with that. I’d forget the whole thing. I just want my daddy.”

Mom said nothing at first. She bit her lip and looked off into that invisible place all our minds find when we have no words. She found them.

“Angie your daddy doesn’t want you,” Mom said. Angie couldn’t take it. She convulsed under the blanket.

“Well he should have left right if he was gonna leave.”

“How would he have done that.”

“He could have said goodbye. He could have said where he was going. He didn’t do it right.”

“It wouldn’t have helped things baby,” Mom said. “He never wanted you, any of you.” Angie sobbed and moaned. Mom held Angie’s face in her hands. “Your daddy didn’t want kids. But I did. And now you’re here, in this world, with me. Your daddy came into my life for a time, and there were a lot of men I got before him. I didn’t want any of them. But I want you three. And I want you to have your daddy, some daddy, so bad. Reality though, it’s that we’re all we—“ I walked out of the room and went to my own. I slammed and locked the door.

——

I laid in bed that night and I didn’t think of anything until I fell asleep. I dreamed of flowers and weeds, gardens I’d never seen filled with both and they fought one another for the daylight and water in the earth. Eventually the water ran out and they burned. They all burned together and screamed in the flames.

The truth was that an asshole and a whore got together and made us three. He was off making more most likely, and none of it mattered. A thousand more families shared a similar story. A dad left and didn’t come back.

A long time later, I found him. Showed him my scars from the burns. He wanted to talk to Mom, Angie, and Carmen, but they died that night. Mom left the gas on the stovetop on, lit a cigarette and killed all three of them.

There’s a place I know. It looks different now. Just ashes mixed in the soil of someone else’s garden.