-Hello daughter. How was the school?
"Good ma '." How was everything at the flower shop?
-Good. She was silent for a few seconds, warning me that what she would say next would be important. - I think I'm going to need to hire more staff, you spend most of the day in the garden or studying and, since your brother went to the capital for university, I need a couple more hands.
I stopped chewing the tasty fruit to look seriously at my mother, I did not agree with her idea.
- Mom, you know that you should not make such unnecessary expenses. I'll help you, I just have to finish a couple of projects. When will you need to make the next delivery?
"It's for a marriage, I have to deliver it in two weeks." They are bouquets of five violets with a white rose in the center. I have to make forty for the tables and aside from that make a bouquet of wildflowers for the bride.
My mother was the owner of a small flower shop that she had set up when I was 6 years old, the same year that my father left us. In the beginning it was not one of the kind of flower shops that are known worldwide, it was not even known throughout the country. It was a small flower shop that my mother had set up in our garage and where only she, my older brother, Klaus, and I worked. But, as my mother used to say, since my brother had gone to Santiago to enter university and I had begun to worry about my own garden and my studies, my mother was more and more alone running the flower shop which, in addition, had began to expand and, for this reason, they called her more and more often, ordering large orders for her good quality and the personalized character that she gave to each branch. I couldn't blame her for wanting a little extra help, but it seemed weird for strangers to get into this very personal business.
"I'll help you today, if you want." I was going to meet Lia in the afternoon, but I will explain and understand. Maybe even come help, you know how much she likes to feel useful.
My mother looked at me with her gray eyes full of love. She was only 37 years old, but she looked older. She was a beautiful woman, with long brown hair that she always wore in a sloppy braid, a small, fine nose, expressive eyebrows, and a well-defined but slim mouth. Her skin was pale when she was young, but the hours of hard work in the sun had tanned her body, plus most of the time her face was smeared with dirt somewhere, everyone said we were identical, the only difference was that I He had red hair like my father, the only thing I had left of him. However, I had always had the suspicion that I looked more like my father than my mother, anyway I could not check if my suspicions were true because I only had a vague memory of my father and there were no photos at home to refresh my memory and Klaus, who had more memories of him, never spoke on that subject and had never contradicted those relatives who claimed my resemblance to Mom.
"I don't want you to stay, Lydia." You must not always help me. Hang out with your friends like a normal teenager. Also, you should know that we are not bankrupt and that we can make some investments for the flower shop.
Buffet.
When my mother started talking about how she should be like "a normal teenager" she preferred to give up the fight. I didn't know why she had gotten into her head that I was special. My mother seemed to be the only one who was eagerly waiting for her teenage daughter to commit some disrespect or to go to parties and arrive drunk, instead I was always willing to help her and enjoyed studying, and I preferred to be in my garden taking care of my plants to walk outside doing stupid things that I would regret the next day. My mother wanted a daughter like Lia, so rebellious without a cause that she becomes stupid, so insolent that she becomes hateful, and so lazy that she becomes irritating. An excessively normal teenager.
"Okay, do what you want." I'm going to the orchard.
My mother made the gesture to ask me to stay but I hurried out of the kitchen and walked away towards the small orchard that was between two large old oak trees, one of them still had the old tree house that Klaus had shared and me when we were only 7 and 5 years old, respectively.
I sat on one of the protruding roots of the log and began to read a play by William Shakespeare for my literature class.
I loved the peace that I could feel in my home. I looked around and enjoyed every different shade of green that could be seen to the horizon. My house was located on a large territory that had been my grandfather's old farm on the outskirts of the city. I had an abandoned barn where I used to pretend to be a princess, although it was now furnished to be the large central house for my mother's flower shop. The garage had returned to being a garage and the rest of the log house was painted in different colors, from earth green to phosphorescent yellow giving it a resemblance to a clown's house. My mother had decided to paint her that way because she said that every time we see her we would be happy, and that was the great idea she had to pass the time when my father left. We were so exhausted painting that we hardly noticed its absence, although of course, you could not paint forever.
I went into my garden and started to walk among the flowers, weed my tomatoes and verified that the rabbits had not tried to eat my carrots again. Everything was in order. I stayed a few more minutes breathing in the aroma of fruits and watching a little bird scratch the ground to look for food.
I went back to my house and went up to my room. This was at one end of the house and looked like a castle keep, though weaker and less graceful. It had no corners and that is why it had been designated as my room, since as a child I was terribly afraid of corner spiders and believed that, if my room was circular, there could not be that kind of spiders. Big mistake.
My room wasn't very big, but I loved it. It was full of windows so the sun illuminated it throughout the day. It was also painted with a pale pink color that made everything even more illuminated. If I wanted space I could go to any other part of the house, after all it was a Victorian style house where only my mother and I lived. My grandfather had decided to build a house of this type because my grandmother came from Ireland and in her childhood she had lived in such a house. My grandfather, to please her and not make her feel so foreign in this new country, built a house totally atypical to the rest of Chiloé, but just as beautiful as all the other ones on the island.
I walked over to Lazy, my little hare that lived in the room, and started petting her. She was a light gray color, just like my eyes, and she never moved from my bed, where she sunbathed all day, and at night she snuggled close to me to keep warm.
Lazy had come to me by chance. A little over a year ago I was looking for a place to put my garden and when I found the oak tree with the old tree house I decided to go up. Another big mistake. As soon as I got to the base, the old wood, mostly rotten, began to creak and, when I felt my weight - which, I must say, is not little - many of the sticks that had been part of the floor and the walls began to fall. . I almost fell, but my brother, who was passing by looking for some strange frogs, managed to help me -I must also say that it was not easy, since his physical condition was as precarious as mine-. As I stepped onto dry land, I realized to my horror that one of the timbers had fallen on one of the hares that were jumping there. My brother, who at that time had already been accepted as a student at the University of Chile to be a veterinarian, ran over to the animal and provided all the necessary help. For her rehabilitation, Lazy - which we called her because she was lazy - stayed in my room, where I tried to help her by giving her massages and feeding her. By the time the hare was cured it had already become one of the family and when we went to free it into the forest she just sniffed the air, jumped a few times and then turned around to go home with us, specifically, to lie down in my bed.
I lay down next to her and finished doing my English homework. I went to one of the windows and watered one of the indoor plants that were in my room, then I went to the small balcony and watered the vine that was beginning to grow, one of my dreams was that it managed to grow until it enveloped the entire blue tower marine like in the books of the stories of "Rapunzel".
This was how I spent my day to day, it was not the most entertaining life, but for me it was perfect.
After dinner and talking to my mother about unimportant things, she decided that she would hire five more people and that I should start dating more. I had completely forgotten that I had arranged to meet Lia, I dialed her number desperately to apologize but my call could not get through due to the lack of signal, perched on a chair that was in turn supported on a flimsy table I managed to hear the cell phone dial giving To understand that the call had reached Natalia's cell phone, he gave five rings and sounded busy. I tried again about ten times but Natalia refused to take my calls, finally my mother forced me to come down from my makeshift tower so that I wouldn't break my neck if I fell ... or didn't break the table.
Defeated, I lay down next to Lazy and fell asleep staring at my ceiling that was lit by the moonlight. Tomorrow I would have to kneel to ask Natalia to forgive me.
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