by Laurel Dewey
“What?” She turned to him, irritated and appalled. “Who in the hell raised you?”
“She did.” He pointed to Peggy. “My mother – her sister – wasn’t really invested in my emotional, physical or spiritual development.”
Betty colored with embarrassment. “Sorry. I didn’t know you were Peggy’s nephew.”
Peyton visibly pondered that statement. “So, it would make a difference if what I just told you wasn’t so?”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, are you sorry because there’s suddenly a family connection here and I’m not just some ass-wipe hangin’ out, or are you sorry because you think that’s the ‘proper’ thing to say?”
She turned to Peyton, unable to fathom how the exchange degenerated to this level. “I can’t have this conversation with you right now.”
“Oh, dude, hang on! I know who you are! Yeah, my aunt talks about you a lot. You had that whoopty-whoop choco- late store that went belly up, right? And you got the big, fancy garden with all the prize winning shit in it.”
“All the prize winning shit? They’re called flowers, dear.”
“Dude, I didn’t mean any offense. ‘Shit’ is just an all-encompassing word that means a group of stuff. It’s like the word, dude. You can be a dude. I can be a dude. The dog can be a dude. It’s just a word.”
“Thank you for the clarification.”
Peyton leaned a little closer to Betty. “Hey, you wanna know something? I’m a gardener too, just like you.”
Betty smoothed the fabric on her dress and checked to see that the hem on the sleeve of her sweater was still turned under. “Oh, I seriously doubt that.”
“That I’m a gardener or that I’m as good as you?”
“Yes.”
He waited, watching Betty observe his aunt who was still fighting to get comfortable. “So, are you gonna go sit
with her or just stare at her from this doorjamb?” Peyton waited but Betty remained reticent. He regarded her with more intensity. “Hey, I’m sorry. This is really hard for you, isn’t it? I can see that.”
“Oh, please, don’t be ridiculous. I just don’t want to… she looks preoccupied. I’d hoped the chocolates would lift her spirits.”
“As much as she loves your chocolates, she won’t eat them. She can’t hold anything down. Fuckin’ chemo.” Betty turned to him with admonishment. “Hey, it is fuckin’ chemo. It’s fuckin’ poison, too. You know, you don’t die of the cancer anymore. You die of their ‘cure.’ She can’t even connect to anybody. All she can do is just lay there and moan until it’s time for another happy dose of morphine. And then she’s out until she wakes up and the nightmare starts all over again.” He traced the lines in the carpet with his foot, obviously distressed. “It’s tough, you know? All I want to do is to be able to look into her eyes and have her recognize me, even for just a second, before she dies.”
Betty softened. “I understand. Truly I do.” She called up a phrase she’d used many times in the past few years. “Re- member, Peyton, this too shall pass.”
He shook his head. “God, I hate that saying. Want to know why? I hear that from a lot of people who play the victim game. And when they whine, ‘this too shall pass,’ what I really hear is ‘this too shall pass so the next miserable event can move in to take its place.”
Betty felt indignation worm closer. “I didn’t mean it that way. I simply meant that this will pass.”
“And so will my Aunt Peggy. Sooner rather than later. I can handle her death, but I can’t handle her suffering. Hell, I offered to bring a vaporizer over here but Nurse Ratched isn’t cool with it.”
“A vaporizer? To help her breathe?”
“No. A vaporizer. To inhale some medical grade cannabis. It’s a million times cleaner than smoking a blunt.”
Betty’s soft stance and gentility ceased. She stiffened, moving a few inches away from Peyton. “Get away from me.”
“Huh?”
“This conversation is over.” Her tone was succinct and unforgiving.
Plant Power
Plant Power is your one-stop guide to effectively growing and using thirty great medicinal herbs. Offering first-hand knowledge and years of herbal experience, author Laurel Dewey (aka “The Humorous Herbalist”) leads readers on a step-by-step journey that takes you from your own backyard and into the wild green yonder. Learn when to plant seeds, what time of year is best for harvesting, which parts of the plant are the most medicinally potent, and how to preserve herbs for later use. Discover timesaving secrets on ways to avoid common herb garden mistakes and how to get the most out of your medicinal bounty. As an added bonus, you will learn which herbs can be sliced, diced, and pounded into “wild food” recipes that contain vitamins, minerals, and energy-sustaining protein.
Everything you need to become “herbally” self-sufficient is here:
Why would you want to purposely sting yourself with a stinging nettle?
What can alfalfa and red clover do to improve poor garden soil?
When does usnea, a common tree fungus, turn into an incredible anti-viral agent?
Would you believe that pine sap could prevent infections in a wound?
How can “weeds” such as burdock, chickweed, and yellow dock keep you healthy and full of energy?
The answers to these and other herbal questions are at your fingertips. So, grab a shovel, get some seeds, and start that medicinal garden.
