Chapter 7- The Seed

“You could have called, Blossom! I sent letters! Telephoned!” Anne’s father, John Hibbert was bedridden and winded but still he persisted over his profuse coughing. --“Stop calling me Blossom. You didn’t call or write, your staff did.” Anne huffed back, unphased by his infirmities. --“What’s the difference?” He asked indignantly. --“Whether or not you want me to come. Besides, it’s just a cold and your asthma makes you feel worse. You do this every time you’re sick! It will pass, just like it always has!” She handed him his nebulizer and he inhaled in between coughs. “And shame on you for sicking poor James on me! I only came so his efforts weren’t in vain, you know.” Anne wandered about her father’s bedroom. Her eye caught a beautiful flower blooming in a pot beside a large window. ---His cough now subsiding, her father watched Annes eyes, “Do you remember our trip to South Africa?” --“I was sixteen! Of course, I do! Anyway, it’s a nice flower.” ---“Flower? Come now child! Since the garden, Adam was charged with the proper naming of things…say it with me now, you remember!” ---“Not this again!” Anne rolled her eyes. ---John raised his hands as if conducting an orchestra. Anne recited with her father reluctantly “A-Asclepias, B- Berberis, C-Cotoneaster, D-Dendranthema.” The side of her mouth curled in-spite of herself. “There now.” Her father’s eyes shining brightly back at hers. “Banksia speciosa if you please!” They smiled together in silence. “This is her first flowering year. There were two. See there…” Pointing to a large pod behind the flower. It was smaller than a pinecone but similarly formed, large seeds were bursting from it. ---“You men and your pursuit for ephemeral beauty!” She shook her head. "Eight years seems a long time to wait for a flower” She scoffed. ---He rose from his bed and teetered over to the windowsill, winded. “Some flowers take time my love.” He looked at her face tenderly and cupped her chin. “You can take it home if you like. Give it a try yourself” He took a pair of clippers next to the pot and sniped off the seed pod. There was an ornate wooden box on the desk nearby, he placed the pod inside and closes the box, offering it to her. ---Anne gave him an insolent laugh, “No thank you! I have better things to do!” ---He returned her impertinence. “It’s probably better, it’s not an easy one to sow. Not all seeds are water and soil my dear. I never taught you to sow the seed of a Chaparral…” ---“I never asked!” Exasperated by his persistence. “I think I know what you’re doing…and it’s not going to work.” ---“Come back to the Conservatory my dear! You were very promising as a botanist, and you loved it!” He sat in the window seat next to the Banksia. ---“Yes well, I have my own life now! No more following you around the world, chasing your dream! Africa, China the Netherlands for God’s sake! I should have been at playgrounds, schoolyards, and dances! If there is any fault to the way that I am I can assure you it’s because of the eccentric way you raised me!” She slumped into the window seat next to him, thinking about the way she persuaded the other girls to the protest in their bathing suits and got them arrested. The way she was quick to fight and adamant to get her way on things. The way that she pushed James away in his affection for her. And worst, the way she wanted her father to apologize so that she could refuse him forgiveness. ---Her father put his arm around her. “The way you are? You are lovely my dear. You are as bright, and beautiful as a daisy.” ---“I am not! I’m prickly, and dry and plain.” Anne hung her at the thought of herself. Her father looked at the Banksia. “Ah, Blossom.” Anne leaned into him tearfully. “We don’t come into this world knowing. We are roots and branches and flower all the same and growing takes time.” ---The warm sun shone on them. Finally, Anne said, “I imagine you called mere to make things right, to apologize.” ---He hugged her close for a moment. “I know you expect that of me. But I can’t bring myself to apologize for something I am not sorry for.” ---Anne’s head rears back out of his arms. “NOT SORRY?” ---He reached for her as she pulled away, “I know you don’t understand, I don’t expect you to. I am a disappointment for what I did to you…” ---“For what you did to Mother!” Anne hissed. ---Her father abruptly “I’m dying, my dear. I can feel it…something isn’t right.” ---Anne stood folding her arms as she looked down on him, “How very opportunistic. Now I’m supposed to forget what you did. Do you know how it tormented me? The least you could do is to admit you were wrong instead of holding your infirmities over me, relying on my sympathies to win the day. You Cad!” ---He persisted and rose, looking her in the eyes sincerely, “I’m leaving you everything; the house, the estate…” ---“…are you trying to buy me off?” Anne was apauled. ---Still her father continued, “… stocks, bank account, The collection.” ---The mention of the word sent Anne over the edge, “The collection? I don’t want it!” ---“I won’t break apart the estate. You take it in its entirety or nothing at all! You know what it means to me.” He was adamant. ---“Haven’t I lived under your madness long enough?” How could he do this? She thought. ---“Sell it off after I’ve gone, give it away! Burn it for all I care! But please, help an old man come to the end of his life and feel as if he has amounted to something? Please Anne…” He stood up as straight as he could, trying to catch a breath. Coughing uncontrollably, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief. She brought him his nebulizer again. He inhaled. ---She continued “You’re not dying, stop trying to enlist me as a foot soldier, I’m not your little seed!” ---“But my dear that’s exactly what you are…” He touched her face gently, she pulled away and turned on her heels from him. “Where are you going?” He stood up to follow her. ---“Home! This is nothing more than an eccentric attempt to usher me back into your ranks as a minion because no one else will…” She walked over to the door putting distance between them. ---Still, he implored her, “No one else understands what they mean to us” ---“What they mean to you! Now leave me alone!” Anne slams the door as she walks out. ---John sighs in frustration, on the verge of tears. He looks at the flowers longingly. He pulls the handkerchief from his pocket, there is blood on it.