The Flower of Youth

Petunia asked me once if I thought her name was stupid. I answered, honestly, that it was the most fitting name she could have been given. She laughed and said, "I ain't no flower, though." We all bring light into this world, Petunia, I told her. We sat on the curb, watching people walk by and I wondered if she ever got the urge to get up and walk away from here. "No, I guess I'll die here." It wasn't that she had given up or even resigned herself to the misery she lived in, but that she'd been brought up to believe a clear division existed that separated her from the rest of us. "Your different than me, you were made for brighter corners than this one." I told her that I thought that was bullshit and she laughed at me like I was a child asking about Santa Claus or if the moon really was made of cheese. "You're a nice boy, but you don't know shit about the world." "I wasn't born yesterday, Petunia.", I said. I gave her a hug and slipped twenty dollars into her pocket for her to find later and told her I'd see her again, soon. "I'll keep your seat for you.", and I left her there with that heavy overcoat wrapped tightly around her thin shoulders, despite the heat, and her feet splayed out into the road. I walked home and after dinner I pulled down the family photo album and flipped through it until I found the one that showed her, with her arms wrapped around my mother's shoulders and her head back, erupting in a laugh the size of happiness and I wondered when she had discovered that she was sitting on the wrong corner and got up to find her own.