When The Four O'clocks Bloom

By D. Thomas Cook

Kathleen returns to her hometown for the funeral of her father. As a child she was fascinated with four o'clocks. The mysterious flowers that her father warned "you can't never get rid of". As an adult she was envious of them. Tired of moving from place to place with her husband, she longed to take root and stay in one place. Most of all, she wanted to say "I'll be here next year".

• Language: English
• Publisher: D. Thomas Cook
• Release date: Mar 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476399928

Book preview

When The Four O’clocks Bloom

by D. Thomas Cook

Smashwords Edition

9-21-99

When the four o’clocks bloom

They’ll say I was here

Though I have moved on

Part of me remains near.

When the four o’clocks bloom

A part of me stays

And puts down her roots

Though I’ve gone away.

When the four o’clocks bloom

They’ll all sing the song

Of how I was here

Long after I’m gone

Each year that goes by

In my heart I leave room

For the joy that I’ll feel

When the four o’clocks bloom

This book is dedicated to the memory of Elaine Wozniak,

You taught me never to give up on a dream.

I miss you Pard.

Chapter 1

She looked down at the little silver paper clip held between her thumb and index finger. Just a little thing. She felt so tired …..tired of it all. She wasn’t sure just when it started. Had it always been there or was it something that grew a little more each day. As she sat on the edge of the bed, going through the pockets of his pants, she was feeling it again.

You know, he’d said, if the pants are hung to the left of my old suit jacket Kathleen, he’d said, then they’re ready to be washed, he’d said smiling. If they’re hanging there that means that I’ve already gone through all the pockets, Kathleen, he’d said. But she also knew the few times she’d trusted that little monologue were the times that one militant Kleenex left shreds of tissue shrapnel all over the entire load of dark clothes and she really didn’t feel like looking for the lint brush right at this moment.

She just sat there looking at the paper clip. Just a little thing. A little thing that would have gotten hooked into one of her favorite sweaters or blouses, snagging and tearing it to bits. Yeah, just a little thing, but isn’t it the little things that have a way of building. Like someone gently poking you in the arm. The first few times you hardly feel it. But if it’s kept up, over and over, it begins to get really sore.

God, she was so worn out. She recognized that feeling. That was the same defeated feeling she had last night when she’d rinsed and dried all the dishes, washed the countertop and stove, dried her hands, and just as she was walking out of the kitchen, she remembered that greasy, dried up roasting pan that was still in the oven.--Poke. Just a little thing. Why is it always the little things that do you in? She and Mark had gone through so many big things. Things that would have torn the best of couples apart. But they endured. They seemed to grow stronger and closer. Now she sat there, ready to end her marriage over a paper clip. But it was more than that and she knew it. Maybe it was her midlife crisis kicking in. Or maybe it was just the fact that a person could only take so much until their tolerance limit was filled. A person can always brace themselves against the big things. But little things have this habit of sneaking up on you and piling up. They stack up, higher and higher, hovering over you, teetering back and forth before crashing down on you when you’re not looking. They chip away at you bit by bit, and before you realize it, there’s nothing left. After all, what did she have to show for her life? What happened to her dreams? They were all stuffed into a box marked MISC, somewhere, somewhere among all these dozens of other boxes. She looked at the corrugated cardboard fortress in the bedroom and wondered how long they’d live here this time. What would be missing? What would be broken? What would be found only when packing for the next move? (Oh there it is) On top of one stack was a box marked K’s MISC CRAP. It had remained unpacked for the last three moves. She opened the box. There, right on top, was her latest journal. Her journals were the only items she’d ever bothered to take out of the box. The cover read The Customer’s Always Right. It was one of her many feeble attempts at the Great American Novel. A story about a divorced woman named Daphne who’s lived in the same town all her life. Who works in a grocery store and all the funny characters she meets on the job. Information she’d gathered in her numerous jobs in food stores.

Someday, she sighed. There was another journal just reserved for her poetry. The cover of this one said. My Treasured Trusted Friend And below that she had written Broken Dreams. She couldn’t decide which poem would be the title of this collection so she left them both. Journals and journals of all the scribbles, doodles, poems and story ideas that had kept her sane all these years. Her security blanket in a box... her therapist. Picking up the poetry book she opened it and fanned the pages. Here it was. Her life. Her feelings. Her demons. All the deep dark emotions she’d kept hidden between book covers. She began paging through them and stopped when she got to the last entry. It was written right before this move. It was dated 7-6-99. She read the one titled "Broken Dreams:

Broken Dreams.

I’ve never been able to dream without fear

Of losing my hope whenever it’s near.

Broken dreams, like a curtain all tattered and gray.

Too afraid of tomorrow to welcome today.

So many fears are clouding my view.

Some they are old, but others are new.

So why don’t I dream? Well how long will it be

Before it is reached and then taken from me?

So no longer dreaming is how I’ll remain.

For you can’t ever lose what you never obtain.

Well that was depressing, she thought. She slammed the cover the journal and listened to the all too familiar echo of an almost empty room. It seemed to mirror the emptiness inside her.

Stuffed into one corner of the box she spotted a bunched up old towel. That towel was from the first house she and Mark had lived in. They had been ‘just the right towels’. That seemed like a lifetime ago. It was the last one that was left from the set she bought for the bathroom. How she’d hated that bathroom when she moved in, with its cotton candy colored, striped wallpaper and wood cabinets covered in so much paint you could barely make out the beautiful carvings on the doors. She’d thought it looked ‘too cutesy’. It had taken her almost two months, stripping layer upon layer of wallpaper and paint. She was grateful the plaster walls were still in good condition as was the wood. She painted the walls a deep wine color. She then varnished the wood. She hung wicker everywhere. The wicker was all the same rich cream color, almost beige. Baskets on the walls, the towel rod and towel ring. She even found a toilet paper holder that matched. A three-tiered basket strung together with wicker chains. With the wastebasket, all of them pulled together to create the look. She then made cream colored curtains with little flowers in the same shade of wine as the walls. She put in self-stick tiles of cream with flecks of wine on the floor. All that was left was to find towels, just the right towels. She spotted them in K Mart of all places. They were perfect. She didn’t even have to take out her samples of material and paint. She knew. She bought two of everything. Hand towels, bath towels and wash cloths. They were deep cream with a wicker pattern in a deeper shade of tan and with a bouquet of wine colored flowers in the center. When she’d hung the towels and looked at the room, she stood back and admired her work. Beautiful, she thought, it’s beautiful. It had so much personality now. It was so dramatic,... so elegant looking, ...so...her.

That was the last time she would buy ‘just the right towels.’ That was the last time she’d turn a room into such a private reflection of herself. The following years had been a blur of houses or apartments that were never lived in long enough to make her own. Filled with a collection of safe furniture and accessories that would go with anything, in an array of safe generic colors.

Suddenly remembering the pants, she gathered them up and walked out the door and headed to the laundry room down the hall. She could already hear the washer filling up. Someone had beaten her to it...Poke. She went back into her apartment and threw the pants across the room and onto the bed, and watched as they rolled onto the floor. She slid down the doorframe and sat on the floor and cried. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried like that. Not the little trickling kind of crying but the long soul cleansing sobs. She was never allowed to cry when she was growing up.

She remembered overhearing her dad talking to one of their relatives who just had a baby. He was telling her dad about the baby waking up and crying at night. Lissin, he said, when he starts cryin’, all ya gotta do is just give ‘im a little smack on his bottom and turn ‘im over. After a couple of times, that’ll learn ‘im. That’s what we done with Leenie. Can’t spoil ‘em or they’ll end up runnin’ yer life. Gotta let ‘em know who’s boss right from the start. So she learned at an early age to hold it in until bedtime. Then after a while, she held it in so well; she no longer needed to cry herself to sleep.

Whoa, where had this come from, she thought. Just because someone gets to the washer before you do is no reason to go nuts. After all what would the neighbors think if they could see me? That last thought brought a bit of a smile to her face. But she knew it was more than the washer.

She got herself back to a somewhat normal frame of mind and looked back at the towel. She picked up the balled up piece of cloth and heard a familiar rattle from inside. Oh, so that’s where you’ve been hiding, she said. Unwrapping the towel revealed what it had been protecting. A little baby food jar, and inside the jar, her four o’clock seeds. She opened the jar and shook out the wrinkled black seeds into her hand. She shut her eyes and closed her fingers around them.

Whatta ya got there Leenie? The voice made her jump.

I gots flower seeds, Daddy. See? She said opening her chubby little hand. She was five years old. She had occupied herself for a full twenty minutes, gently plucking the seeds that looked like hard little raisins, from deep within the red flowers.

Where’d ya get them things from? He asked.

Over there, said Kathleen pointing to the flowers.

Don’tcha know what them things are? They’re four o‘clock seeds, he said, making it sound like she was holding live hand grenades.

They’re my seeds, and I’m gonna pla...

Gimme them seeds, he said, and grabbed them off of her and threw them back into the bushes where she’d gotten them.

Daddy! No., she cried.

Ya don’t want them things, he said.

Yes I do. I’m gonna plant ‘em by that big stone in our back yard. Just like the stone they’re growing by now so they’ll feel right at home, she said and stomped her little foot to show just how serious she was.

You ain’t gonna plant none of ‘em nowheres. Ya hear me? He said.

But why Daddy? I picked ‘em all day long. They’re mine! she added.

’Cause ya can’t never get rid of ‘em. That’s why!

But I don’t wanna get rid of ‘em Daddy. They’re beautiful, she said making the first syllable of that last word about three seconds long.

Well, lemme tell ya, Elmer, he couldn’t never get rid of ‘em, he said pointing to the house next to her grandmothers where she’d gotten them. Why, he tried everything. In fact them flowers is what prob’ly killed ‘im. He’d pull ‘em out,...but they come back. He dug ‘em up,... but they come back. And then in a voice reserved only for the most horrid of tales, "Why, he even poured kerosene on ‘em... and lit ‘em... and they come back.

Kathleen looked at the side of the house where the boards had been replaced and sang, "But the cat came back, the very next day...

oh... the cat came back, he wouldn’t stay awaaaaay"

Ya listenin to me Leenie?

Yeah Daddy...Who’s Elmer? She said, kicking the slag around in the driveway. `He’s the fella who useta own that there house before Mrs. Bellows, he said.

How old was he when he died? She asked.

Eighty-two, he answered.

Kathleen always thought that house had been built around Mrs. Bellows.

Now, I wantcha to listen to me, he continued. You ain’t gonna pick no more of them seeds. Are ya?

No Daddy, she said, looking down at her feet.

And ya ain’t plantin none neither. Are ya. he said.

Kathleen looked up at her father with that little pout that sometimes worked.

What’s a matter, ya deef? D’ya hear me?

Yeah Daddy, she said.

That’s a good girl. Now go on in the house and get yerself cleaned up.

Okay Daddy, she said, as she watched her father limp over to Aunt Mildred's house. Kathleen thought, I am a good girl. Lying was very, very bad, and she had been quite careful not to. She wouldn’t have to pick any more seeds. She still had a whole pocket full. And she never said she wouldn’t plant them. And she really did hear him. I’m a good girl, she said to herself as she skipped up the walk to her grandmother house.

Oh Lord, just lookit you, said her grandmother. Com’ere and lemme see if I kin find ya under all that filth. She was already bringing the edge of her apron up to her mouth.