Home / Seventeen Pots of Hydrangeas / Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

All Chapters of Seventeen Pots of Hydrangeas: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

10 Chapters

Chapter 1

I stood on the balcony, staring at the muddy streaks left on the tile.They twisted across the floor like hydrangea roots after someone had ripped them out by force."What are you staring at? Noah's awake. Are you deaf?"My mother's voice cracked across the living room.Noah was crying in his crib, his face red.I reached for him.Mom knocked my arm aside."Your hands are shaking like that. What if you drop him?"She picked him up with practiced ease and started soothing him.Without looking back, she asked, "Did you warm the bottle?"I went into the kitchen and switched on the bottle warmer.The bottle slipped from my fingers, struck the edge of the counter, and rolled across the floor.Mom came in barefoot, snatched it up, and ran it under hot water."What exactly can you do?"You can't feed him properly. You can't take care of him. But somehow you had plenty of energy for flowers."You're upset because I threw them out? The balcony was covered in dirt and mosquitoes.

Chapter 2

Mark booked a hall for Noah's sip-and-see and invited close to forty people.Mom had been getting ready since early morning.She put on a new burgundy coat and had Mark drive her out to get her hair done.When she came back, she stood in front of the mirror admiring herself from every angle."You look great today, Carol," Mark said.She beamed."Of course I do. It's my grandson's sip-and-see. His grandmother has to look presentable."Then she saw me in the mirror.Her smile faded."You should fix yourself up too. Put on something decent. Don't go looking like you just finished crying."I opened my closet.The last sweater without formula stains had a stretched-out neckline."That's what you're wearing?"Mom looked me over and turned away."Whatever. Wear what you want. It's not as if anyone's looking at you."The hall was full of relatives and friends.Mom carried Noah from group to group."Look at our little boy. Doesn't he look just like his dad?""He's so healthy.

Chapter 3

After the sip-and-see, Mom stopped yelling at me.The silence was worse.Every morning she made breakfast for Mark and a bottle for Noah.She skipped me with perfect precision.I started making my own.She leaned against the kitchen doorway with her arms folded."Oh. So now you know how to do something yourself."On the third day, Mark came home and didn't even check on Noah first.He locked the front door.Then stood in the entryway looking at me."My mother called me today."I blinked."Susan?""Your mom's been calling her every day, crying. Saying you hit her. That you scream at her. That you smash things around the house.""When did I ever —""Let me finish."His voice was calm.That frightened me more than shouting."Everybody on my side knows what happened at the sip-and-see. Now they're saying I married someone unstable."He paused."My manager pulled me aside at work today. Someone passed the story along. He told me to keep my home life stable and make sure

Chapter 4

Mark came home that night.He set down his bag and turned on the television.Everything looked normal.As if the apartment weren't missing a crib.As if our son hadn't disappeared out of it."Are you hungry?"I stood in the kitchen doorway."I can make you something."He looked at me."Your mother leaves and suddenly you're normal?"I didn't answer.I made two plates.He ate on one side of the table.I sat across from him.Between us was the empty high chair."I want to see Noah."His fork stopped."Your mother said you can see him when you're more stable.""I only want to see him once.""Nina."He set the fork down."Can you give it two days? You've worn your mother out. Now you're starting on me. What exactly do you want?"He reached into his bag and put a document beside his plate.I looked down.Divorce papers."What is this?""Read it."I opened it.He wanted sole custody.I would waive any claim to marital assets.His signature was already on the las

Chapter 5

I thought dying would be quiet.It wasn't.The instant the wind poured into my ears it was deafening.Then a dull sound.Not from outside me. From inside — the sound of bone breaking.Did it hurt?I couldn't say.It was like being dropped into ice water. I couldn't feel anything and I could feel all of it at once.I think I heard someone shouting.Far away — far enough to be through an entire building.Then there was nothing.No wind, no sound, no pain.Nothing at all.I don't know how long it lasted.Then something started ticking near my ear. Once, then again, regular, like something counting a heartbeat.The smell of disinfectant got into my nose and stung until I wanted to sneeze, but I couldn't make my body do it."Nina? Nina! Can you hear me?"That voice was close.Too close. It went through my temples.I tried to open my eyes.The light was too bright, and I shut them again.When I managed it a second time, I saw a white ceiling.Then Mom's face leaned into

Chapter 6

After five days in the ICU, I was moved to a regular room.Multiple fractures, a ruptured spleen that had to be operated on, bleeding inside my skull.The doctors said waking up at all was a miracle.It didn't feel like one.It just hurt.The second day after the transfer, Beth came.The one who'd asked me at the sip-and-see whether I was all right.She came in gripping her phone.Her eyes were red, like she'd been crying on and off for days."Nina."She sat down beside the bed.Her voice shook."That message you sent me. I saw it."I looked at her.I barely remembered. I'd messaged so many people that night that all of it had blurred."You wrote, 'Beth, I never hit anyone. Mom is lying.'"She turned the phone toward me.Underneath it, one small gray word.Read.No reply."I saw it," she said quietly."I sat there for a minute and then I told myself not to get in the middle of somebody else's family."Her tears started."I'm sorry."I didn't say anything.It wa

Chapter 7

Three days after the video went up, local reporters started coming.I didn't want to see them.Beth kept them away.But some things couldn't be kept out.Rachel Lane came.She was the nurse practitioner from the clinic who'd done our postpartum home visit.She didn't hover in the doorway the way everyone else did.She walked straight to the bed and sat down."Nina, I'm Rachel Lane. I came out to your apartment for a postpartum visit. Do you remember me?"I did.That day she'd asked how I was feeling, and before I could answer, my mother had taken the question off me."I didn't manage to help you then," she said.Her voice was steady, but her eyes were red."I'm not going to let that happen twice."She opened a notebook."Will you talk to me?"I held on to the edge of the blanket for a long time before I could say anything.Then, almost too quietly to hear: "I planted seventeen hydrangeas."I used to picture it. Taking his hand, walking him out onto the balcony, crouch

Chapter 8

Eighteen days in, I was still in casts, but I was taking my medication on schedule.Rachel came every afternoon.Sometimes we talked for half an hour. Sometimes an hour.I was talking more.Not the old way, where every sentence came out carefully and I was always ready to swallow it back down.Actually talking.About being afraid. About being angry. About things I'd never said to anyone."I think it started while I was pregnant."One night I just couldn't make myself move. I lay there and didn't want to go anywhere."I told Mark. He said, 'You don't do much all day. What have you got to be tired from?'"So I stopped saying it."Rachel wrote all of it down.She never interrupted me once.That afternoon, Mark came.He hesitated at the door, then took a document out of his bag.The same divorce agreement."My attorney says going through the courts would be cleaner for everyone."I looked at him.He'd lost weight.The circles under his eyes were dark.The mess online ha

Chapter 9

The day I was discharged was gray and overcast.Rachel pushed my wheelchair.Beth carried my things.Nobody else came.Mom had gone back home.Before she left, she asked a nurse to give me a note."Nina, I've been hard all my life. Don't hate me for it."I read it for a long time.Then folded it and put it in my pocket.I didn't throw it away.I didn't answer it either.Some things don't get settled by a note.I stayed at Beth's for two months.Healing on one side. Fighting the custody case on the other.Rachel put together detailed diagnostic and treatment records.Beth helped me find an attorney.I went to court in the wheelchair, one leg still in a cast.Mark sat across the aisle in a suit and tie, his attorney beside him."Ms. Whitfield has a documented history of severe postpartum depression and a serious suicide attempt," his lawyer said."Given her present condition, she is not in a position to assume primary responsibility for a child under two."Mr. Parker

Chapter 10

I rented a small place in the city.A one-bedroom.Not much space.But it had a balcony.The day I moved in, Beth helped me hang the curtains and then went home.I sat alone in the empty living room.Four white walls. Almost no furniture.Quiet enough to hear myself breathing.The next day I drove out to a garden center.A woman working the outdoor aisles asked what I was after."Hydrangeas.""How many?""Seventeen."She blinked."You opening a shop?"I smiled and didn't explain.I picked out seventeen young plants.Pink. Blue. White. Every shade they had.While she was loading them into the car she said, "Hydrangeas are easy enough. Give them water and give them light and they'll bloom on their own."I knelt on the balcony and planted them one at a time.Fresh soil, soft under my fingers. Dig the hole. Set the roots in. Press it gently closed.I'd just finished the ninth pot when I heard babbling behind me.I turned around.Noah was in his walker, slapping the t

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