Chapter 26
All summer I’d refused to pull up weeds, and all summer my mom had let me refuse because she didn’t want to pull them up either.
As a child, I’d found the task of weeding to be a source of deep confusion. About every plant, I’d ask my mother, “What about this one? Is this a weed?”
Years into my assisting her in the garden, she identified my misunderstanding. “A weed isn’t a specific plant or group of plants. A weed is whatever you didn’t plant in the garden on purpose.”
I pointed to a tiny purple flower growing between two bricks in the pathway.
“It’s not a weed if you don’t want to remove it,” she said.
The dense border of nodding thistle that always showed up along the edge of our backyard required no clarification, however.
The plants were between four and five feet tall.
Their roots extended an arm’s length into the earth, and their pink heads drooped with the weight of several thousand seeds.
They had to be yanked up annually lest they overtake the yard.
“I wouldn’t mind,” I said.
“You’d mind,” my mom said.
On one of the last days of summer, we went out there with shovels, clippers, leather-palmed gloves, and protective shirts that made us sweat.
For each plant, I first cut off its flowering head.
The head had to be immediately dropped into an orange plastic bucket, not laid on the grass to scatter its seeds.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I removed one glove to check it. In our private thread, Eleanor had texted me a picture of her and Margaret sitting side by side next to her pool.
hurry up & cum over, she said. we’re having fun without u.
be patient, I texted back.
Margaret had apologized to Eleanor several days prior. Eleanor accepted and acted like the apology wasn’t necessary. From this, Margaret understood that it was. Then Eleanor gave Margaret her own account of what had happened between us on her bedroom floor.
“Unfortunately, I didn’t transcribe her customer testimonial,” Margaret said, having called me on her walk home from Eleanor’s house. “But I can report that you received a favorable review.”
The idea of the two of them having this conversation did inflame my brain.
I knew if I asked Margaret for further details, she’d give them to me, so I couldn’t ask.
Eleanor had to be able to tell Margaret about hooking up with me without worrying Margaret would immediately go tell me what she said, and I had to be able to talk to Margaret about hooking up with Eleanor without worrying she would immediately go tell Eleanor what I said.
We needed new rules to protect us from ourselves.
I heard Margaret pause for questions, and I imagined her disappointment when they didn’t come.
“You’ll have to keep both our secrets,” I told her instead, with a sly lift in my voice. An honored role, I implied. The keeper of the keys. “You’ll have to decide what you can tell me.”
I knew I had her there. Margaret loved doling out the truth on her schedule and according to her judgment.
“If I must,” she said, titillated.
Next I had to tell Eleanor the service I’d performed for Margaret. I explained in person, so I wouldn’t be tortured by the length of time between her text messages.
“She wanted me to look at her—” I gestured. “I’m telling you because I want you to know that it had nothing to do with the way we are together.”
El considered what I’d said. “Alright.” She nodded, took a breath. “You don’t have to like report to me about Margaret. I know that’s how you guys are.”
I held her hand. “Do you think we can have the same best friend?”
“She was always your best friend first.”
“But she’s yours too.”
“Then yes,” Eleanor said.
The August sun beamed down on my face in the backyard.
I’d crossed over from uncomfortably hot into a clarifying sweat.
Liquid dripped down my neck and chest, soaked my bra, tried to stick my protective shirt to my skin.
I put the tip of my shovel into the dirt and stomped on its rim, driving the spade down into the earth.
I repeated the process until a circle of indentation formed around the thistle.
Then I got down on my knees, wrapped my arms around the base of the bristling plant, and yanked it from the ground in a painful embrace.
The mass of spindly roots always resisted removal, clinging to the earth like a head of white hair.
I had to sever the roots with clippers, careful to cut the central thread two inches below the crown, before tossing the body of the plant onto the lawn for later retrieval.
I removed one thistle and then another. The weeds tussled against my neck and shoulders, biting my exposed skin.
I looked over at my mother, standing in a ring of cleared plants.
She’d slowed down her pace. She had to stop after every thistle, put her hands on her hips, breathe deeply, and then start again.
I saw her gathering up her will for the next weed.
“Go inside and sit,” I said. She looked at the remaining weeds and considered whether or not she was willing to give up on them. “No,” I said. “I mean—you rest, I’ll finish.” And when I did, I went inside and told her I had a girlfriend.