Saguaro Flower

A short story about love, loss, dreams and a big cactus. It even comes with it's own playlist

He came back to her a swollen mess. She found him lying on his back on her front porch, his hands and knees caked in dust and blood. Crawled back. His stomach heavily rising and falling, almost popping open the pearl snap buttons of his denim shirt. Dried blood, so dark it was almost black, had crusted in his left nostril. It looked like it had been there for a while. Longer than his freshly blackened eye and split lip. He always upset someone whenever he came back to town, he could never control that big mouth and those big hands of his. You could blame the whiskey, blame the cocaine, blame the fame for his behaviours all you want, but it was always his tongue that got him into trouble.

          She walked back into the house they once shared in search of her sharpest and heaviest boots and then to the kitchen to fill up a jug of water, before returning to her wanderin’ fool of a husband. She looked down at his sorry state, amazed that the coyotes didn’t get to him first. As big as he now was, he wouldn’t have been a good meal. She bet they could smell the years of drugs, alcohol, and greasy food from a mile off. She sighed as she looked at his once handsome face, now bloated and blemished with a deep dark circle below his good eye. Who was she kidding, he was still as handsome as he ever was, and the poor baby, when did he last have a good night’s sleep? No, she shook her head, he always did this to her, she’d feel sorry for him, welcome him home, and then he’d leave again. He’d promise her he wouldn’t, but he always did. At least he was consistent with that. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and gave him one almighty kick.

          Nothing. Not even a grunt of discomfort. She looked at the amber coloured jug and dumped its contents onto his face. His eyes burst open before his mouth let out one hell of a scream. He lay there motionless, his mind and eyes processing the what’s and the where’s. His side hurt, his face hurt, his hands hurt, his knees hurt, and his face was all wet. The sky was a soft blue with painted on white fluffy clouds and it was dead quiet. If it wasn’t for the familiar smell of a patchouli perfume that the breeze wafted over him, he would’ve thought he crossed over to the other side. He rolled his head to his right and saw his wife in a white cotton babydoll night dress and her heaviest and sharpest red boots.

          “Good mornin’ pretty darlin’,” he grinned with bloodied teeth. “Ain’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

          “Get up,” she gave him another kick. This time he winced. “I’ll fix you some eggs.”

          The sun gently gave their brown and yellow kitchen a warm glow of love and happy newlywed days. The days of dancing as they cooked breakfast together, unable to keep their hands off each other, and making out on every surface, with the smell of burning toast reminding them to focus on the task at hand. She aggressively cracked the eggs into the marital skillet to break the sun’s illusion and bring her back to the real world. The sun always did this whenever he came back. Bask them in a light of hope and beauty. The sun was a wily bastard.

          There was a tall saguaro cactus outside her kitchen window that she liked to admire whenever she mindlessly stirred eggs. It stood there proud with its flower crown, she loved the flowering seasons, it meant her saguaro was happy and healthy. If she was born a plant, she hoped she was born a cactus. She wondered if she could have one of the flowers to wear in her hair. Would taking one hurt the saguaro? Would that be a polite thing to do? Perhaps it’d be kind enough to drop one for her. She always stared out at the cactus whenever he was here.

          “You always stare out at the cactus whenever I’m here.”

          “I didn’t notice the flowers yesterday,” she lied. She served up a plate, hiding her disgust that he sat there with her steak, her dinner that night, over his black eye. “I’ll get you some ice for that lip and that eye.”

          “Steak is better,” he said while awkwardly trying to balance the steak and eat. “You got any sweet tea?”

          She stuck her head in the refrigerator and bit her lip. She learned to do this as a kid to hide her rage whenever anyone annoyed the shit out of her. It became a coping mechanism in the early days of their marriage. Thank the Lord the success hit and took him away, otherwise she’d be standing with her head in the refrigerator with no bottom lip left to bite down on. Without any grace, she dropped a pitcher of sweet tea onto a crochet doily on the table and went in search of the matching glasses. The set was a wedding present from his sister, and had cute daisies painted on, but these had almost-all faded. Turned out to be a very cheap set, but she liked it nonetheless, the daisies went well with the kitchen. It was a shame they faded.

          “Is it fresh?” he asked taking the glass she had thrusted in his face.

          “It was fresh yesterday,” she said, wrapping some ice in a towel for his lip.

          “Got any ice?” She dropped a couple of ice cubes out before pushing the towel onto his busted lip.

          “I miss you,” he smiled with eyes that were tender and loving yet had an emptiness to them. He looked tired, she thought. Tired from trying to reach the end of his personality, something she knew he could never do. He drank too much, did too many drugs, didn’t eat the right foods, and slept in a different bed every night. Or so she read. Friends would reassure her saying these were just rumours, but there’s often some truth hiding somewhere in the gossip columns. He had a big personality to feed, he always needed the laughs, attention, and gratification. She knew the girls with their long blonde hair and miniskirts and lustful eyes and acid would satisfy this hunger. Though only temporarily, she knew it was all temporary. She wondered if the girls ever knew he was married, but deep down she knew they probably did. That was part of the thrill. She also wondered if he ever thought about her the morning after if he ever regretted it after waking up to their blonde hair and not her brunette. Waking up to no offer of a real breakfast, them not knowing how to cook his eggs the way he likes them. Fuck. This is what she has been reduced to. The good wife who knows how to cook his eggs.

          No matter how much she wanted to be angry with him, hate him even, she could never truly feel it, no matter what he did and no matter how hard she tried. Good Lord did she try. There’d be flashes of hate here and there, whenever his song, the one she wrote, came on the radio, or if she thought about all the blonde girls waiting for him at the backstage door, or when she was alone at night and could hear the wail of a coyote, and yet she would still answer his calls at three in the morning. Loneliness was one son of a bitch.

          Only Roy Orbison could understand the loneliness she lived with. His haunting voice often carried through the corridors of the house, dancing with the burning incense. She liked singing along to Roy, attempting his vocal range, it was a way to keep herself company and laugh at how ridiculously sad and isolated she had been feeling. She wasn’t prepared for the loneliness that came with marriage. She was, perhaps naively, surprised that when he left all their friends followed. Her own friends, her before she met him friends, remained but there weren’t many. Most days it was just her, the house, and the saguaro. Life seemed to be passing her by, never thinking to extend her an invitation.

          Poor baby, what had he done to himself. The face once full of laughter and light was now puffy and sad. The high cheekbones and laughter lines were filled with desperate overindulgence. The only thing still there was the old twinkle in his eyes, but even that struggled to fight through his sorry state. She hated to see him like this, she knew something wasn’t right, but she couldn’t help him. Well, she could, but for the sake of herself, she couldn’t put herself through it again. She mustn’t put herself through it. He’ll leave. He’ll always leave. She must not do it to herself again.

          “I miss you too,” she whispered with her head in her right hand. She tapped the fading daisies glass with the brass band of her large turquoise wedding ring, which she now wore on her forefinger. The colour of the rectangular chunk of the stone matched his eyes. On his left ring finger, he wore a smaller silver ring with a round tigers’ eye to match hers.

          “How comes you wear your wedding ring on the wrong finger?” he asked while spooning in a mouthful of egg.

          “It fits better on this one.”

          “I’ve missed you.”

          “I’ve missed you too.”

          “I already said that didn’t I?” She raised her eyebrow as a nod. “And I mean it. I want you to come to California with me. You’ll like it there, you’ll fit right in with your bare feet and long dresses.” She couldn’t help but smile at his astute observations of her. Bare feet and long dresses and a wedding ring on the wrong finger. That was how he saw her.

          “I want you to come and sing on the album. We need a woman’s voice and I almost forgot how nice your voice is, until I heard you last night. Well as much as I heard before getting in that fight.”

          How nice her voice is. He had almost forgotten how nice her voice is. That son of a bitch. She swirled the sweet tea in her mouth just to hold her tongue down, to give her a few seconds so as not to bite. So, he’s forgotten all those nights of the two of them at this very table, writing and singing songs until the sunrose. Those Goddamn drugs. The acid had finally melted his brain. He was looking at her in the way that made her insides melt, those turquoise eyes full of dreams and promises. Look at the daisies, she thought, don’t look him in the eye.

          “You used to sing all the time. I always loved hearing you sing. What happened? Why did you stop?”

          She looked out the window back to the flowers of the saguaro where a bee buzzed in and out with erratic intent. She thought about last night. The hum of the neon cowboy hanging off the old honky-tonk, the smell of stale beer-stained floorboards, the heat of the cheap stage lights that slightly burned her forehead and made the audience disappear, and the sound of the crowd dropping into silence just as she began to sing. She thought about how free her soul felt singing last night. A release of the bad energies and thoughts and welcoming the good. Cathartic. She thought about how nice she looked in the Gunne Sax-style dress she spent months making and how her hair looked like Jessi Colter’s. New dress, bare feet, guitar on her lap and a spotlight. That was how she liked to be seen. She thought about the ruckus he made when he barged into the bar, high or drunk or both. The clattering of chairs, knocked over glasses and a loud and proud voice shouting, “That’s my wife!” She thought about the deep drawl of a man warning him to “shut the hell up,” and his smart-ass troublemaking reply, “make me.” A thud was heard, and another, and then shouting and screaming, while she carried on with a John Prine song, trying her hardest not to cry.

          She had only just started to sing again, rebuild what confidence remained when he burst back into town, fighting and causing a scene, taking all the attention from her as he always did. She had dreams too. Maybe not ones of the great success that he has, but she had dreams. Still has dreams. She did not seek fortune or fame, or the life of excess. She wanted to make an honest living of singing the songs she wrote and playing the guitar left to her by her Uncle Jim. Be a regular at the local bars, maybe even see the country by way of a honky-tonk tour. It would have been nice to have done it with him, a road trip companion and brilliant harmoniser. They always used to sing together, no matter where they were. She was even in the band for some time, until they were advised against it by the record company. They said it didn’t make sense to have her and they’d be more popular if girls didn’t know he was married. And he went along with it. No matter how magical it felt and sounded when they sang together, she knew then that her dream was hers and for her only. And yet he still managed to hold her back. She focused on the flowers of the saguaro, wanting to cry, but her eyes were as dry as that desert outside. All cried out. He had even taken her tears.

          She looked back at him, and he was smiling at her with a loving eye. The way how he smiled at her on their first date, the way how he smiled at her on the first time he said I love you, the way how he smiled at her in bed on a sunny morning, the way how he smiled at her as she walked down the aisle. She looked at the steak he held across his blackeye.

          “Do you want me to cook that for you?” Of course, he said yes, and she smiled as she took the steak away from him. He rambled on about something as she cooked, but she wasn’t listening. She used to enjoy his rambles, they only really made sense to him, but they were always funny. But this time she just hummed along to the radio, joining in with the harmonies and drowning out the incessant background talking. She looked out to the saguaro, full of life and resilience. As much as she would like to move out of this house and town, move away from memories and move away from his impromptu returns, she could never do it because it would mean moving away from this saguaro. She didn’t really know why she loved this cactus in particular, there were others she could love. Perhaps it was the way this cactus kept her thoughts anchored, took them away from the heart that was breaking in her chest, and away from the tears caused by the pain in the pit of her stomach. The huge size of the saguaro represented the years of harsh conditions it has endured, and the flower crown was the happiness created in spite of everything. She couldn’t leave the one thing that had always been there for her.

          “Hey baby girl, is that my steak burning?”

          “Shit, shit, shit.”

          “What was you doing? Were you even listening to me?” While she stood there, hunched over, holding onto the kitchen countertop, and choking on the steak-scented smoke that billowed across the kitchen, all he could think about was himself and his story. A glass of water, a pat on the back and the opening of the window would’ve been nice. Through gasping breaths and watered eyes, she watched him just sitting there at the breakfast table, struggling to light a cigarette.

          “Got any matches?” He dared ask.   

          “What the hell is wrong with you?” she stood over him with the cast iron skillet and steak in her hand, her chest furiously rising and falling as she still struggled for breath. He flinched at the skillet, as if she was about to smack him with it, a reaction she found pathetic. This pathetic-ness infuriated her, and so with the skillet and steak she stormed out of the kitchen. Through the wood-panelled hallway, full of photographs and trinkets of their life together, she knocked over their wedding picture, not giving a damn about the glass she heard crack against the wooden floorboards and kicked open the front door.

          The smoke had become too much for him and he had to get up and open the kitchen window. Through said window he saw his wife, in her cute little white babydoll and red boots throw his steak, followed by the cast iron skillet at the saguaro she so dearly loved. Unsure with what to do or why he couldn’t tear his eyes away, he watched her scream a hearty cry of pain, frustration, and love before falling onto the dusty orange-hued desert floor.